Here is a first look at the Section Dice AND the unique icons for each of the three colors. This video and article looks more at how the game interconnects the dice with the crewmembers with the Crew Boards! I likely will do another video and article looking at the dice themselves a bit more!

First … here is the video … and under it is my article about it:

Note: I did not receive any payment or products from Awaken Realms. I bought the game like everyone else (mine cost $514).

Today we are looking at the ICONS on the Section Dice and mostly at the 3 unique icons for each of the three colors (Red, Green, Blue).

There are FIVE different types of Section Dice. Awaken Realms refers to one of the types as Specialized Dice (page 37 of the rulebook):

What’s interesting is that each of those three unique icons seen in each of the three Section dice colors are also available via the Ability of each Crewmember.  Each crewmember can CONVERT a “basic” icon of a specific color into one specific icon … and that icon can actually be an icon that is a unique icon for a DIFFERENT color Section die!

First … here is what Awaken Realms calls a “basic” icon on the Section Dice:

Each crewmember can convert a “basic” icon in your roll pool into one of the 9 icons from the Specialized Dice (and if you have the Personnel Files expansion, a veteran crewmember has TWO convert abilities).

Look at the top left corner of a crewmember card… for example, Isabel (her nickname is “Izzy” in the stories I wrote):

She can convert a BLUE Basic icon into a COMPASS (which is also found on GREEN Section Dice):

This is interesting. It means that using Isabel’s ability you can make up for not having a green specialized dice with the compass icon!

The next piece to this is the Crew Boards. Awaken Realms did a wonderful job interconnecting the Crew Boards with the Section Dice, just as they did with each Crewmember and the unique dice icons. The four Crew Boards (one for each Section) are not identical in their “allocation” of the allowed Section Dice colors. Let’s look at the dice allocation side by side (and then one after another):

Now, one by one … first Engineering (Yellow):

Next Security (Blue):

Then, Recon (Rose):

And finally, Science (Purple):

Final Thoughts

Awaken Realms did an excellent job interweaving the Section Dice with the Crew Cards and Crew Boards. When assigning a crewmember to a Section, one of the things to consider is their Convert Ability. A crewmember who can convert a GREEN Basic into an icon normally found only on BLUE dice might be handy to have assigned to as Section that FAVORS Green and LEAST favors Blue (ie, the Recon Section). There are NINE crewmembers who have a special ability to turn a GREEN Basic into what is typically a BLUE icon. An example is Theo:

Theo has the ability (shown in the top left) to convert a GREEN Basic die roll into an ATOM icon (normally found only on the BLUE Section Dice)