Seven of us again this week so the first four to arrive sat down to Alien Frontiers, a new dice-rolling game that's been getting some really good buzz. The idea of the game is to establish colonies in various sectors of a new planet and you allocate your spaceships (dice) to various locations on the board to move you along in that goal. However, each location requires a certain combination of dice and the spots available are limited so, even though you might have rolled what you needed, there may not be space for you to visit that location. Alien Tech cards can be acquired that give the holder an ongoing benefit or a better one-off benefit if subsequently discarded; and control of a planet sector also gives a benefit for as long as you retain control. Once a player establishes their final (sixth) colony, points are awarded for colonies, sector control and certain cards, highest toal being declared the winner.

The game plays pretty well and we all enjoyed it but it wasn't quite as good as the hype suggested. Although your dice can always be used for something, you can still be hindered by a run of poor rolls or by being blocked out of certain critical locations. As it was a dice game, Mark G was odds-on favourite and he didn't disappoint, being the first to get all his colonies down and score some bonuses for the win. I mostly ignored the Alien Tech cards but am keen to try again to see how greater use of them might alter things.