Category Archives: Welcome to the Moon Campaign

Take a rocket ride…

game night, Roll/Flip and Write, Welcome to the Moon Campaign

This is the first in a series of posts that will cover my first time playing through the campaign side of the flip and write Welcome to the Moon.

Although I’m sure if I play through the campaign on subsequent occasions I’ll blog about them also.

I’m going to try and theme the blog post titles with an appropriate inspired book/movie/song title/lyric that reflects the overall theme of that campaign game just played. Which may or not be harder than I think.

At the end of the campaign I’ll have a final post ranking the adventure sheets. Which is something I’ve seen one or two YouTube content creators do, so why shouldn’t I?

None of my coverage of this campaign will involve the Astra Solo mode that Welcome to the Moon has. As long suffering readers of this blog well know I don’t play solo. All the games will be two or more players.

Naturally these posts will all start the same with the all too familiar and totally necessary warning for those that have not played the campaign and want to remain pleasantly surprised as they play the campaign themselves. After all I don’t want to ruin anyones enjoyment of the game.

So here we go for the first time in these posts…

The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.

Before playing Welcome to the Moon I’d never played any of the previous Welcome to… games. That’s despite claiming to be a roll/flip and write fan. So you could argue that there is a gap in my roll/flip and write education.

To aid playing the game I created a couple of player aids. One based on the faq for the game, and another based on pages 5 and 6 of the rulebook that summarises a game turn and actions that can be taken. I thought it’d be handy to have the later with multiple players. These were both laminated.

I also printed out a copy of the last page of the campaign book which is the dashboard used to record scores during the campaign. I’m going to do this for each campaign and keep them as some sort of record!

This was a four player play through of the campaign. The group was made up of a varied range of experience to roll/flip and writes, and the Welcome to… games. This range from never played a roll/flip and write, to some experience, to experienced fans of the genre. Only one of us (Charlene) had played a Welcome to… game before.

Now with that bit of business out of the way.

Welcome to my first play through of the Welcome to the Moon campaign. Starting with…

ADVENTURE #1: THE LAUNCH

Captain: Me

I’m old enough to have fond memories of watching “classic” sci-fi movies from the 50’s and 60’s such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and When Worlds Collide as a kid at every chance I had when they appeared on the tv schedule during the 70’s and 80’s.

The later of those “classics” seems very apt for the theme of Welcome to the Moon. Imminent disaster awaiting the earth, mankind looking to the stars for its survival.

The art, and aesthetic of the game gives off that retro sci-fi vibe of those movies. I love it.

Before we even start playing we had to make a decision. Did we want to play the introductory campaign and it’s gentle introduction to the eight adventures and the story, or jump right in with the second campaign and a recap of the story so far? It should be noted the introductory campaign adds no special rules or additional content. Changes to the game based on choices made only start to happen from the second campaign onwards.

We decided to jump right in to the deep end and start off with the second campaign.

The drawback of doing this is a bit of exposition covering the events that would have taken place if we had played through the introductory campaign.

It was interesting plot wise that time travel was introduced to take us back to the start as if nothing had happened. The story did briefly touch on that time travel paradox of changing the future. But it was dismissed in a sentence.

However I did feel this was a lot to read out aloud. But that’s the drawback of story based campaigns.

I liked this introductory adventure, where the aim was to launch your rocket.

Our choices added an extra two floors to the rocket.

This was the perfect adventure for players new to the genre and the Welcome to… games to start with.

Mechanically this adventure was fairly simple. It did have a limited bit of player interaction when sabotage effects were activated forcing system errors onto the other players. There is a little combo action that can take place. But not to the level of Three Sisters.

Otherwise this adventure gets players used to the flow of a Welcome to… game. The action symbols govern where you write the numbers on your rocket, and have no other effect.

Charlene triggered the end of the game by launching her rocket.

Chapter path taken: 109, 147,12,7,62,148

Missions:

  • Number the 3 Astronaut & Water floors completely.
  • Number the Energy floor completely.
  • Have 5 System Error boxes circled and not crossed off.

Winner: Charlene

ADVENTURE #2: THE JOURNEY

Captain: Charlene

The second adventure sees us having narrowly escaped Earth, flying our rocket ships to the moon.

The first adventure was very deceptive and lulled you into a false sense of security.

It did feel like a big jump in complexity. I think our noob to the genre felt that they were suddenly in the deep end of the pool and out of their depth.

All of a sudden being first to complete something on the board mattered (excluding missions). It gave you a better bonus or multiplier than the others.

This adventure saw an event card shuffled into one of the three starship decks. When drawn the event would trigger.

Sadly when the event did occur I mucked it up. Focussing on achieving a mission objective whilst screwing myself over and forcing a system error on my next turn.

System errors bought the game to an end, and Charlene won again.

Chapter path taken: 177,34,92

Missions:

  • Circle a multiplier bonus for 3 different space stations with the robots.
  • Using the energy, create on your trajectory 2 zones of 6 numbered spaces.
  • Circle 6 water tanks.

Winner: Charlene

ADVENTURE #3: THE COLONY

Captain: Charlene

In this adventure we were building the first lunar colony on the moon.

Once again a decision added a modification to the player board. This time the lower quadrant of the board was replaced and the first person completing it getting a choice of ten victory points or an additional star.

There was definitely a soduku feel to the mechanisms of this adventure. Our noob player found this adventure much easier than the previous one.

In addition to the system errors giving you negative points at the end, using a planning action would also do the same.

I did feel playing this adventure I hadn’t done enough to get the resources to make effective use of the multipliers I had unlocked.

Once again a system error bought the game to a halt. However this time I was able to win the game, and get an extra star for having completed the quadrant first.

Chapter path taken: 111,15

Missions:

  • Number all the buildings in 3 vertical columns.
  • Using the robots, connect the tunnel network to the observatory in the top right corner of your sheet.
  • Circle all the water tanks in 2 quarters.

Winner: Me

ADVENTURE #4: THE MINE

Captain: Me

The fourth adventure has our colony on the moon mining it for resources.

We found the rules for this adventure a little confusing initially. Which I think added a little to the feeling of it being more complex than the previous adventure.

Once again an event card was added to one of the three starship decks. But this one added an interesting twist.

When it triggered it cut down the number of starship decks from three to two. Still the same number of cards, just less choices each turn. You’d be surprised how big a difference that makes.

Like the previous two adventures system errors triggered the end game.

Like the previous adventure I won.

Chapter path taken: 139,80,82

Missions:

  • In the mine, complete 5 extraction columns.
  • Upgrade or activate a total of 6 factories, either main or secondary.
  • Circle 5 waters in the mine, whether they are extracted or not.

Winner: Me

Final dashboard at end of session and half way point in campaign

Some final thoughts…

My earlier expectations were we might get the first couple of adventures played, and then play something else.

It was a pleasant surprise that we played the first four adventures of the campaign.

I like that the campaign cards are a mix of dry erase cards, and cards you mix into the starship deck. The dry erase cards modify the player boards. Which adds a cool bit of variety.

However with four adventures left it feels like we have hardly scratched the surface of the cards used with the starship deck. I think we have used three cards so far!

I like how event cards trigger complications during an adventure.

It’s very cool each adventure can be explained in a couple of pages. However on at least one occasion I think there could have been a bit more clarity if more space had been used.

Although each adventure uses the same core mechanic, it’s amazing how they all feel different with just a couple of rule changes.

I’m looking forward to playing the remaining four adventures of the campaign.

Current State of Roll/Flip and Writes in my Collection

Roll/Flip and Write, Welcome to the Moon Campaign

We all know how I feel about roll/flip and writes.

But when I look at my collection and the games I have in that genre. It just amazes me how that genre has grown over the years since I first played Qwixx.

The level of complexity that the genre covers is pretty broad. My early forays into the genre after Qwixx the most complicated it got was Rolling America. Then things got a bit more complicated and combo like with That’s Pretty Clever.

Since then that complexity has jumped considerably with the addition of board game like elements such as rondels, and modular boards. Which when added to players also using multiple player sheets the complexity of some can be very daunting when first seen (I’m looking at you Three Sisters and Twilight Inscription).

We even see very limited player interaction with one or two of them.

The latest addition Welcome to the Moon has an eight game campaign! The current plan I have for the game is to play a taster game of the first adventure with other fans of the genre at Fenland Gamers. Then see if there is any interest in playing the campaign.

Some of my additions in the last year or so have fast become my favourite games in the genre (starred games). Each offers something unique from the others. I can’t wait to play any of them again as they are such fun.

There are still three games I need to get to the table (question mark) and one that I’ll pass on (red X) as it really didn’t gel with me.

There is one more to add to the collection, the follow up to Three Sisters, and third game in a trilogy (first being Fleet the Dice Game), Motor City.

This won’t be arriving until late December if I’m lucky, but more likely January. There was a printing issue with one of the dice that meant a delay as it was reprinted.

When Motor City arrives Three Sisters grows by a third pad! As part of the Kickstarter they added a rock garden pad. It’s going to be interesting to see if it’s a step too far, or if it takes the game to an even higher level.