Lightning Strike 1st edition
Jovian Chronicles, on which this stand-alone tabletop game is based, is one of my favorite roleplaying games. It is a near-future science fiction setting, covering only our own Solar system. The Chronicles' strengths are realistic tech and Japanese anime-inspired mecha (Gundam-inspired, especially). Intriguing politics and a definitively gray world are plusses, too. The only major drawback is a lack of world infromation - but that doesn't hamper Lightning Strike.
It's not the same thing as the Chronicles
There's one thing very wrong with Lightning Strike: Jovian Chronicles players are likely to think that it's the space combat rules from JC published separately. It's not - it's a far more streamlined, large-scale system. Nowhere on Lightning Strike marketing or presentation is it mentioned that it's different from JC's Silhouette system. I wouldn't cosider this such a flaw if JC's big brother, the same compnay's Heavy Gear, didn't have a tactical game also available separately. Heavy Gear Tactical, as the product is called, is simply HG's combat system sold separately. I was expecting the same from JC and Lightning Strike.
The second edition
The version currently on sale is Lightning Strike, second edition. I bought the last copy of the first edition from my local shop because the second edition doesn't have the counters from the first edition. In other words, the second edition is a miniatures game. While JC/LS miniatures, available from Dream Pod 9, are very nice, I'm not going to blow a fortune on them to play the game. The differences between the two editions are minor. I don't know for sure, but I understand that the second edition includes the optional rules previously published in Behind the Veil (about Venusian troops) and Call to Arms (more Jovian and Earth forces, plus Martian troops).
What you get
The shrink-wrapped game includes the rules in a very attractive, 64-page booklet, a quickstart booklet with 16 pages (including 8 pages of troop specs) and 6 sheets of colorful counters. If I had paid the full price, I'd have grumbled a bit about overpricing, but Dream Pod 9 does maintain a consistently high quality for the price you pay. But since I got the game for 50% off, I consider this a bargain.
The art is great. This is no news if you've seen any Pod products - they always look very nice. However, all of their products since the core books for Heavy Gear could've used some more art. It's quality makes up for the small numbers, but still… I do understand that producing art for as many lines as the Pod maintains is a chore and it costs. Do note that the books don't really suffer from the lack of art: what's there is absolutely top of the line. This is mostly a gripe I hope someone at the Pod takes to heart.
There are twelve units for the two armies presented in these basic rules, including exo-suits (powered armor in space), exo-armors (large mecha), interceptors (space fighters) and even infantry (they can enter ships to cause mayhem). Some of the designs are variants; for instance, you get Wyvern, Wyvern Command and Wyvern Bomber. Ships are detailed separately and include four designs for both sides, plus one general transport (the Ebiiru).
I feel the troop spread is pretty nice. You can learn your ropes with the basic units, then add a few support units and a few very powerful units. Some of the designs are not familiar to me from the roleplaying game (the CEGA Kobalt, Fury and Dragonstriker, for example), so you get far more troops than with the Heavy Gear Tactical set, which only featured the basic units from the rulebook (5 5 and infantry, if I recall correctly).
The background
Lightning Strike takes place apparently maybe half a decade into the Jovian Chronicles timeline. It's hard to tell, really, but the Jovians have sparked an interstellar conflict called the Edicts War. Edicts are a set of legal guidelines which ban really high tech, such as advanced biotechnology. The isolated people of Jupiter, the Jovian Confederation, have decided that they'll do whatever they damn well please with the tech and don't need the approval of the Solar nations.
You can play either the Jovian Confederation (JC) or the Central Earth Government and Administration (CEGA). Supplements have also presented forces for the Venusians and the unallied Mercurians.
The gameplay
Lightning Strike is described as fleet-scale cinematic action. That should mean you're pretty removed from the action, bypassing a lot of detail and moving swiftly. Lightning Strike does all this, and well.
The scale is pretty large: a centimeter is 500 meters of space. Exo-armors, interceptors and ships are represented as single units. Exo-suits and infantry are gathered in squads of five. The counters are somewhat scaled - ships are bigger than exo-armors. However, they are supposed to be what a fleet commander would see on a tactical holodisplay: large symbols to clearly represent who goes where, with no regard for simulationism. With this explanation, the solution works really well.
By the by, the exo-armor, exo-suit and interceptor counters are designed to stand upright, while ships lay flat. For the exo-armors this is just fine, but the interceptors look quite goofy standing on their tails; they're depicted from the side.
The action takes place on any flat surface, representing space. There can be obstacles, but that's rare: rocks, dust clouds, orbital factories, colonies and the like. There is no grid or hex layout. Movement is measured with a ruler, and in the case of ships, a turning diagram (180 degrees). Exos, infantry and interceptors don't worry about facing when moving, but they have a front and rear. Ships are more or less sluggish to turn, and their facing is kept track of also during movement.
While the Silhouette system from Jovian Chronicles sports excellent, hex-based, true vector movement, Lightning Strike simplifies it away. Units smaller than ships don't use vectors at all: they're supposed to move at a controllable speed at all times. After all, a fleet commander doesn't bother with vectors - he just tells the pilots he wants them here or there and lets the soldiers do their stuff. The units can overthrust to cover more ground, thus representing the act of applying ever more thrust to gain more velocity.
When ships use their full thrust, they gain a vector counter, which represents their next turn's manadtory movement. The vectors are no hassle to keep track of, because they are simplified to only give the flavor of vector-based combat. Those in dire thirst of hardcore vector fighting are directed to copy the system from Jovian Chronicles.
The basic resolution is familiar from the Silhouette system. You roll two to four D6, counting only the highest die. Additional sixes add one to the result. A bonus (one to three) may be added. There are modifiers, of course, but they are kept to a respectably small amount. The players are likely to know all the modifiers by heart after a game or two.
Damage resolution and other details have been taken out. All standard units (non-ships) are either okay, stunned, crippled or destroyed. Stun can be removed and it represents general anxiety and minor damage. Crippled means actual damage and cannot be removed during gameplay. Quite simply, crippled units halve their effective statistics. Ships use a more detailed system of damage recording, but it's still streamlined from the basic Silhouette system. Ammunition is not kept track of, but ships can run out of kinetic kill and missile ammunition in a campaign, though not in a single game. Reaction mass is not an issue. All of this streamlining is very appropriate. The units are still varied enough and, well, tasty to play and drool over.
Standard units move in combat groups. While previously combat groups in Silhouette have been merely tools to keep initiative order manageable, now you can combine the attacks (and tagging efforts) of units in the same combat group to much more devastating onslaughts. The whole unit doesn't have to participate in the combination attack.
I was disappointed with the electronic warfare rules. For me, space combat has always been much like submarine combat, probably because I grew up on the somewhat legendary hard science fiction of the 2300AD roleplaying game and it's space warfare application, Star Cruiser. In Lightning Strike, successful electronic counter measures (ECM) block the opposition's use of Command Points, which allow you to take additional actions and react to surprise situations. ECM range isn't accounted for: a successful use of ECM applies to the whole playing area. While this can be useful, I would've wanted something more. The stealth rules are supposedly in Behind the Veil, a supplement. I'm not sure if they're included in the second edition rulebook.
In addition to the straight combat, there is a campaign system to wage war at a strategic level. A campaign is described as the maneuvers of one fleet against another, not whole armies. This is explained as a result of the impracticalities of space logistics - it's much easier to send out one self-sufficient fleet than a whole army.
The campaign rules state that they're only the beginning, leaving out things like salvage and prisoners. These are promised to be detailed later on, my guess is that they're to be found in the Lightning Strike Companion, which isn't yet released, as of spring 2001. There are three basic campaign frames: Recovery (grab a datanode from a contested area), Vendetta (destroy their flagship) and Important Station (grab a repair station). Recommended fleet size is 500 threat value (TV) in ships; at about 50 TV a pop, you have roughly ten ships in each fleet.
Each strategic turn includes one tabletop battle. Before that, both fleets attempt to gain an advantage. Both admirals (=fleet commanders) choose a strategy from the seven possible: raid, hunt, stalk, fortify: vendetta, fortify: other, hide, withdraw. The first three are offensive tsrategies and the rest are defensive strategies. The selected strategies are compared and a fleet maneuver roll is made. The fleet's ships determine how nimble the fleet is, which is why it's a bad idea to keep your slow transports with your main force. After these operations the players can look up which scenario of the eleven possible they'll play next. There is enough variation in the actual battle scenarios to keep the game from stagnating for a lot of gaming to come.
After the battle, the fleets attempt repairs and resupply. These are kept simple, as befits the game's swift approach. All in all, the campaign play seems lots of fun without all the hassle of a smaller-scale campaign (say, Heavy Gear).
The verdict
Lightning Strike is a very nice game of quick space combat. The scale keeps things personal, but removes unnecessary details. There is enough realism to satisfy most folks, and enough action to satisfy anyone. While it's not directly convertible to Jovian Chronicles, it makes a worthwhile addition to the collection of any JC enthusiast. Indeed, RPG combat could very well be played out in Lightning Strike, with script immunity applied to PCs to keep them alive. Using the basic Silhouette system from Jovian Chronicles, a large battle with ships would take at least a whole session, more likely a whole weekend.
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