Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps for Aliens (GF9) from Gale Force Nine, 2020 - Board game base set review

image © Gale Force Nine

Article updated: 2023.04.12

Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a cooperative board game base set for the Aliens board game from Gale Force Nine, set in the universe of Alien & Predator (the setting of the Alien, Predator and Prometheus movies). The Aliens cooperative board game was first produced in 2020.12.

A new edition of the game, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps Ed2, is being produced in 2023.

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Details - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

Board game set: Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, Set type: Board game base set (Game base set)

Product name: Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, Product code: GF9-ALIENS01, System: Aliens (Gale Force Nine) system, Setting: Alien & Predator universe, Miniatures range: Aliens (Gale Force Nine) range (Futuristic), Company: Gale Force Nine company, Production: 2020.12.05-2021- (out of production: -2021.04.13?)

Designer: Andrew Haught
Board game features: Multi-player, Cooperative, Miniatures, Modular board
Language: English

Number of players: 1-6

Recommended age of players: 14+

Playing time: 60-120 minutes

Theme: futuristic

Mechanics: ?

Package size: ?

"Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps is a co-operative board game where you and your team of specialist Colonial Marines will gear up with serious firepower and head in to Hadley’s Hope to find survivors and answers. But you’re not alone. To survive, you’ll need to work together, keep your cool, and stay frosty to fight off relentless Xenomorph ambushes and get out of there alive. Contains 4 Double-Sided Game Boards, 23 Plastic Miniatures, Rules, Tokens, Dice and Cards.

• Play iconic characters
• Recreate awesome scenes from the movie
• Quick and easy rules
• Dynamic co-op gameplay
• And all the Aliens you can kill!"

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Contents - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

image © Gale Force Nine

Contents - Miniatures

16x Aliens (multi-pose hard plastic)

4x GF9 Aliens - Alien Warriors sprue (black plastic)

One sprue contains an Alien Warriors kit:

4x Alien Warrior body and legs (1x body A, 1x body B, 1x body C, 1x body D): comes in two pieces, one for the right side and one for the left side

8x Alien Warrior head (two variants for each body #1: closed mouth, B #2: open mouth, A #2, C #2, D #2: inner jaw is visible)

4x Alien Warrior tails (2x tail #1: long, 2x tail #2: S-shaped)

4x Alien Warrior right arm

4x Alien Warrior left arm

4x 25mm round plastic scenic base

7x Humans (hard plastic)

1x GF9 Aliens - Marines 1 sprue

The sprue contains:

5x 1 USCM Marine

1x Frost with flamethrower

1x Gorman with pistol

1x Hicks with shotgun

1x Hudson with pulse rifle and motion tracker

1x Vasquez with smartgun

1x Newt saluting (exclusive to first print run?)

1x Ripley with pulse rifle

7x 25mm round plastic scenic base (green)

image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine
Alien A build #2	Alien B build #1
image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine
Alien C build #1	Alien C build #2
image © Gale Force Nine
Alien D build #2

image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine
Gorman with pistol	Newt saluting	Ripley with pulse rifle

image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine
Frost with flamethrower	Hicks with shotgun

image © Gale Force Nine	image © Gale Force Nine
Hudson with pulse rifle and motion tracker	Vasquez with smartgun

Contents - Accessories

Rules:

1x Rulebook (Online rulebook (PDF))

Dice:

1x d6 dice

2x d10 dice

Cards:

7x Character Cards

9x Mission Cards

45x Motion Tracker Cards

60x Endurance Cards

Board game Tiles

4x Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps game tiles: Double-Sided game boards, 10"x10", 1" grid

1x Board #1:

• Side A: Hadley's Hope: Operations
• Side B: Atmospheric Processor Alien Hive with APC

1x Board #2:

• Side A: Hadley's Hope: corridors #1
• Side B: Atmospheric Processor Alien Hive

1x Board #3:

• Side A: Hadley's Hope: corridors #2
• Side B: Atmospheric Processor Alien Hive

1x Board #4:

• Side A: Hadley's Hope: Med Lab
• Side B: Atmospheric Processor Alien Hive

2D tokens:

• 4x Tunnel (1x1)
• 2x Computer (1x1)
• 8x Crate (1x1)
• 2x Sentry Gun (1x)
• 12x Barricade
• 2x Facehugger

image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon	image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon
Aliens Board #1: Side A	Aliens Board #1: Side B
image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon	image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon
Aliens Board #2: Side A	Aliens Board #2: Side B
image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon	image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon
Aliens Board #3: Side A	Aliens Board #3: Side B
image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon	image © Gale Force Nine modified by Kadmon
Aliens Board #4: Side A	Aliens Board #4: Side B

Accessories

1x Card Dock

8x Dials

84x Tokens

21 blip tokens

6x 1
6x 2
5x 3
3x 4
1x 5

x Door Pieces

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Review - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

As far as I've seen the Aliens board game from GF9, I have to admit I quite like it. It is like a cross between the old Aliens game from Leading Edge Games, Space Crusade, and Zombicide.

It has miniatures, although I don't know yet whether they are just tokens for the characters, or do they represent more of the characters (for example facing).

Reading the rules

Immersion: I prefer immersive games, and in this regard, this game is not clear. It's great the you only control your own character, and it's good that you give orders to grunts, instead of just controlling them. But the fiddling with the Endurance deck completely takes the immersion out of the game. I'd really love to see a variant with no meta-gaming elements.

Acid blood: I miss any references to the acid blood of the Xenomorph creatures. I can understand the designer didn't want to burden the game with rules about the acidic blood, but it would have been enough to mention that the damage caused by the attacks of the aliens can be caused by their claws, tails, or even from their blood splashing on the unfortunate characters. (Update: Rules for the acid blood is included in Aliens: Get Away From Her, You B***h! as an Alien-player ability on a card.)

Alien swarms: I liked the idea that you put tokens under the Alien model to indicate the group of Aliens coming together. This way you don't need to squeeze multiple models in a single space, yet you can simulate Aliens coming on the floor, on the ceiling, on the walls at the same time.

Alien speed: The marines can run 8 spaces, while the Aliens can only run 6, or d6 spaces if they are still unrevealed blips. It looks to me that the Aliens are somewhat slower compared to their movie counterparts.

Game difficulty: The number of Aliens spawning each turn depends on the number of heroes. For 1 hero, you get 2 spawn cards per turn. For 2, you get 4. For 3, you get 3. For 4, you get 4. So, using the rules, the most difficult game will be with 2 heroes. The designer recommended to house rule this if it bothers the players. Another player recommended for 2 players to draw 1 card each, and another card alternating each turn. Or they could decide who draws the additional card. Or if you'd like to make a 3 hero game harder, draw an extra card the same way.

The overall strength of the marine group increases with each hero. I'd say you can double the power of heroes compared to the grunts if you'd like to count a power level. However, depending on the chosen hero, you can only activate 1-3 grunts per turn, I use this to determine Usable power. I divided the Alien cards by the Usable power to determine the difficulty.

The miniatures

The Aliens board game miniatures are similar in scale and proportion to the Doctor Who (GF9) miniatures and Firefly miniatures, referenced as 30mm scale. (source: Gale Force Nine)

The Alien side has black miniatures that come in 4 identical sprues (GF9 Aliens - Alien Warriors sprue). The Human side has green miniatures, that come on 1 sprue (GF9 Aliens - Marines 1 sprue). Every miniature is multi-part, requiring assembly.

There is some flash on the models, but nothing serious.

The bases included in the game are 25mm round bases. They are scenic bases, depicting the floor of the Hadley's Hope station. The names of the characters are included on the bases. There's a hole on them to insert the peg on the leg of the miniature. This way you can easily put the models on their bases, but you are free to rebase them in any way. As I prefer to base my models on transparent bases, especially for board games, I welcome this approach.

For the alien warriors, there are 4 different body types (A-D), that come in two pieces. Each body type has 2 head options (#1: with jaw closed, #2: with jaw open, for A, C, D body, the inner jaw is visible). The heads come with part of their spine. Every tail and every arm is interchangable among the bodies. It looks like there are 2 tail variants (#1: longer, #2: S-shaped), and you get two pieces of each. The arms look either identical or very similar to each other. The arms do not have any connectors. When you build your models on a sprue, you'll still have 4 extra heads with spines you can use as trophies.

The game boards

The game boards of the Aliens board game are sturdy, but somewhat shiny. There are no integrated connectors to connect the board tiles.

Gameplay

The characters are distinct, and their abilities reflect their roles in the Aliens movie.

The randomness of the tests is an interesting approach, although I'm unsure how will I like it in the end.

Although it was not entirely apparent from the game rules, the game is not immersive, due to the many meta-elements of the gameplay.

As the game is played against the spawn cards and event cards, after a while you'll learn how to be efficient against it. I had similar problems with Zombicide. When you learn the rules of every card, you will be able to build on that knowledge, losing the seemingly random aspect from your first games. For example, for the first time, you'll be surprised when an Alien advances 4 spaces after an unlucky spawning, but after a while you'll take this into consideration, and prepare accordingly.

According to reviews, with some scenarios the game starts to become unwinnable after 4 hero characters, as you draw an Alien reinforcement card for every hero every turn. With 6 heroes in the game, the aliens just swarm the board, killing everybody.

Some reviewers complained that the game is very random. With some good rolls and draws, you can win the scenario easily, while at other times, the aliens will just crush the same team. I don't mind this, as I'm okay with randomness, but it would have been nice to see some balancing mechanism for those who prefer that.

Reviewers reported that you can run out of blip tokens and alien miniatures, especially in stand-alone missions.

Scenarios

Playing time varies for the missions. I collected the average time reported by players. The time really depends on the number of heroes used in the game.

Mission 1 - Newt: 1 hour.

Mission 2: 1.5 hour.

APC Escape: 0.5 hour.

Mission 3: 2 hours.

Protection

Blip tokens: 26mm round coin protectors can be used.

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The rules - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

The system

The Aliens cooperative board game is fully cooperative.

The Human side always has every character on the board. At the start of the game, every player chooses a hero. The rest of the characters, those that were not chosen, will be grunts. The characters have better statistics in hero mode than in grunt mode. When the hero of a player gets out of the game (dies, or gets captured), the player can choose one of the grunts, flip it on the hero side, and continue play. This way, it's more likely that the players will be able to stay in the game for a longer time.

Up to 6 players can play the game cooperatively. I'm not sure whether the game is scaled for the number of players, otherwise (due to the better hero abilities) it seems to me that it would be easier to play it through as the number of players rises.

Characters have the following abilities:

• Speed: How many spaces can they move in one action.
• Defense
• Melee
• Tech
• Aim: You have to roll lower or equal than this number on a d10. Every time you shoot in one turn, the number goes down by one. Some weapons don't use the character's Aim statistic, those can be useful when the Aim dial is low.

A character can carry one weapon, one backup weapon, and two pieces of equipment. Some of them has to be discarded to be used (grenade, arc welder). There's no limit in what equipment can you give to your characters, but due to their abilities, some character can use specific weapons better than others.

The characters get two actions every turn. Actions: move, shoot, barricade doors, interact, rest. Some actions cost Endurance cards.

Movement is based on small zones.

When an Alien makes a casualty out of a character, there's a possibility that they get captured. In a campaign game, the players can decide to go on a rescue mission into the Alien hive to get those characters back.

You can weld doors and alien spawn points, these are called Barricades. These have 50% chance to stop the movement of the Alien.

Endurance deck: Some actions require the player to discard cards from the Endurance deck. The Endurance deck allows you otherwise to draw cards for special bonuses. When you run out of your Endurance deck, you start to use up the discarded cards, and when you discard those, you lose them altogether, and you don't put them into the Endurance deck in further campaign missions. When there are no more cards in both the Endurance deck and the discard pile, you lose the game.

Aliens spawn every turn on the numbered spawn points. You put a blip token on the spawn point. When the Humans have line of sight to a blip token, it is revealed. Otherwise, it moves as a token. One underside of the token is numbered, so it will be revealed how many Alien models will get on the board. If it is more than one, the Alien will receive the extra numbers in tokens under the model. The group of Aliens will act like one, but it will receive bonuses on its attack. When it would die, you only remove one of the tokens under the model.

Aliens move 6 spaces towards the Humans every turn. Then they attacks if they can. When a Human gets attacked, they get a chance to shoot at the Alien.

The system: Campaign game

The basic campaign of the Aliens cooperative board game has 3 missions. You have to complete all three missions to win the game. (Ultimate Badasses: After a completed mission, every character gets an experience card.)

In a campaign, you can start with any equipment or weapons you'd like to give to your team. However, the more equipment you give to them, the less cards will remain in the Endurance deck, making your work a little bit harder.

If a character is killed during a campaign mission, you won't be able to use them in following missions. If a character is captured, you can play the Rescue Mission to get them out of the Alien hive.

If you use up your Endurance deck during a mission, so cards from it get out of the game, you won't be able to use them in succeeding missions.

To succeed in a campaign mission, you need to reach the objective of the scenario.

The system: Stand-alone missions

The stand-alone missions are called Bug Hunts, and there are four of them in the base set. In a stand-alone mission, you can only give basic equipment to the team, and they have to gather resources to get better things.

To succeed in a stand-alone mission, you have to kill all the aliens.

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Frequently asked questions - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

Q: What's the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps release date?

It has been released in 2020.12.05.

Q: When will we see preview of the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps production models and gameplay?

The Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game has been previewed at 2020.10.16-18 on AwSHUX 2020. You can see the video here.

Q: Is the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps a co-operative board game?

Yes, the Aliens board game from GF9 is going to be a co-operative game, according to the advertisements.

Q: Is the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps be a miniatures game?

The Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a regular board game with miniatures depicting the characters of the movie and the alien Xenomorphs. If you mean "wargame" by "miniatures game", it's definitely not a wargame, although you might be able to use the boards and the miniatures for an Aliens wargame.

Q: Are there Xenomorphs in Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps?

Yes, there are 16 Xenomorph models in the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps box.

Q: Is the new Aliens board game from Gale Force Nine a re-release of the 1989 Aliens board game from Leading Edge Games?

No, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is a separate game from the Aliens of Leading Edge Games. There are many similarities though (cooperative nature, Aliens controlled by the rules, campaign missions), probably due to the source material.

Q: What is the size or scale of the miniatures in the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game from Gale Force Nine?

The Aliens board game miniatures are similar in scale and proportion to the Doctor Who (GF9) miniatures and Firefly miniatures, referenced as 30mm scale. [source: Gale Force Nine]

Q: What material are the GF9 Aliens miniatures made from?

I've contacted GF9, and according to them, the miniatures in the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps set are made of High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS), often called "hard plastic", that is the same material most miniature games use, for example the Warhammer range from Games Workshop company.

Q: What is the best 3D APC model if I want to use an actual APC instead of the 2D APC?

The 2D APC from the Aliens: Get Away From Her, You B***h! expansion has a footprint of 17,5x7,5 cm. The actual APC on the card is slightly narrower, ca. 17x6,5 cm. The M577 Armoured Personnel Carrier from Prodos Games is an almost perfect fit at 17,3x6,3 cm, but it's expensive. The Lanard Toys APC is a bit longer, about 22x6 cm, so it would make it 2 spaces longer. However, at 15 USD (in 2020), it's probably more affordable, and you can houserule the APC size.

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Similar games - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

Aliens from Leading Edge Games: AI controlled (stupid) enemies, cooperative, futuristic setting (Aliens). The gameplay is similar. There's a lot of fan-made addition to the base Aliens game.

Dungeon & Dragons board games: Cooperative, campaign system, play area made out of board tiles, similar miniature scale. The setting is fantasy. The system is similarly complicated as Aliens.

Nemesis: Futuristic setting (Aliens-themed), similar miniature scale.

The Walking Dead: All Out War from Mantic Games: AI controlled (stupid) enemies, similar miniature scale. The setting is contemporary. The system is a wargame, so it's not cooperative, but it's similarly complicated as Aliens.

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City from Games Workshop: AI controlled enemies, campaign system, play area made out of board tiles, similar miniature scale. The setting is fantasy. The system is probably slighty less complicated than the Aliens board game.

Zombicide Season 1 from CoolMiniOrNot & Guillotine Games: cooperative, AI controlled (stupid) enemies, play area made out of board tiles, similar miniature scale. The setting is contemporary. The system is similarly complicated.

Zombicide: Invader from CoolMiniOrNot & Guillotine Games: AI controlled (stupid) enemies, cooperative, futuristic setting (Aliens-themed), play area made out of board tiles, similar miniature scale. The system is similarly complicated.

Zombies!!! series from Twilight Creations: AI controlled (stupid) enemies, play area made out of board tiles. The setting is contemporary. The system of Zombies!!! is easier, and gameplay is a very different experience.

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Resources - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

Rules overview

Shut Up & Sit Down: Cooperative Games - AwSHUX Previews#Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps: Compensated rules overview video about the Aliens cooperative board game.

the same video on GF9's channel

Steve Tassie (for The Board Game Guy): The Board Game Guy's Aliens Tutorial

• Steve Tassie (for The Board Game Guy): The Board Game Guy's Aliens Tutorial Part I Components & setup: Rules overview video. Łđ
• Steve Tassie (for The Board Game Guy): The Board Game Guy's Aliens Tutorial Part II game play: Rules overview video. Łđ

Gameplay

Guerrilla Miniature Games: Let's Play! - ALIENS: Another Glorious Day in the Corps by Gale Force Nine:
Gameplay video with painted models. Includes a brief rules overview. Scenario: Mission 1: Newt.Łđ

OnTableTop: Let’s Play – Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps: Gameplay video with unpainted models. Scenario: Mission 1: Newt.

same video on YouTube§

Miniatures

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: First look at some of the models for our upcoming Aliens boardgame: Preview photos of the GF9 Aliens board game miniatures. Models: Aliens (that look very different from the final looks), Ripley, Hicks variant (shotgun and motion tracker), Apone, Dietrich, Wierzbowski, Drake, Crowe, 2 marines with pulse rifle. All of the models are at least slightly different from their current versions.

Gale Force 9 Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Frost.

the same image on Facebook, Instagram, Instagram, Twitter, Twitter

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Gorman.

the same image on Facebook, Instagram, Instagram, Twitter, Twitter

Gale Force 9 Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Hicks.

the same image on Facebook, Instagram, Instagram, Twitter, Twitter

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Hudson.

the same image on Instagram, Twitter

Gale Force 9 Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Newt.

the same image on Facebook, Instagram, Instagram, Twitter, Twitter

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Ripley.

the same image on Instagram, Twitter

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: Image: Preview image about Vasquez.

the same image on Instagram, Twitter

Gale Force 9 Facebook page: Preview images about Hadley's Hope gaming board: image1, image2, image3

the images on Instagram: image1, image2, image3

the images on Twitter: image1, image2, image3

Gale Force Nine Facebook page: Preview images about Alien hive gaming board: image1, image2, image3, image4

the images on Instagram: image1, image2, image3, image4

the images on Twitter: image1, image2, image3, image4

Miniatures: Showcase

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Buying the product - Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine

Price

Where can you buy it?

Gale Force Nine online store: Aliens: Official webstore of the Aliens cooperative board game.

Buy Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps from Gale Force Nine from Amazon

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Do you have the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game base set for Aliens (Gale Force Nine) from Gale Force Nine? How do you like the Aliens cooperative board game? Would you recommend it to others? Tell your opinion in the comments!