I just finished playing Space Station Assault for the first time at LAG 8.0 (www.l-a-g.com) this weekend, and I think I have found a perfect in-between game, by in-between game I mean a game that does not take much time or setup, something that can be thrown down in-between whatever else you may be waiting on at the moment. Yet at the same time it can provide plenty of strategy to keep you coming back time and again.

The Product

Space Station Assault is a game of spaceship battles. The box sums up a short story describing a colony breaking away from Earth and the battle portrayed in the game as being the final conflict for control of the system. The game itself consists of 110 cards and a rules pamphlet. The cards make up two 51-card decks and 8 blank cards that can be used to create your own ships or replace any cards that may get damaged. The cards are a good quality cardstock, easily shuffled and quite resistant to wear considering the number of games the one demo deck at the event endured. The backs of the cards are clearly color coded to avoid any mixing of cards. The card faces to have a drastic color difference to avoid any confusion. The art by Lon Chaney and Steve Wilson depicts the classic hard science space opera feel nicely with dark gritty ships overlaying a variety of space backdrops.

The Game

Initially looking through the cards and pamphlet for Space Station Assault, I was not expecting much depth. The rules were a short read and the cards were all ships, for someone who has played Magic: The Gathering as long as I have I thought this would take no effort and offer only the simplest of strategy. Shortly into the first game I am staring at a board of about 10 enemy ships with not one of my own on the table, at this point I realized that my initial view of the game was wrong.

Each ship has four stats: Victory, Speed, Shields, and Firepower. Victory is the number of points you earn from destroying a ship; the goal of the game is to reach 60 victory points. Ships range in Victory from 1 to 4 points while the space station has 60 points. This makes the Space Station an obvious, but not easily attainable goal. The Speed stat determines at what point of a wave a ship can act in with 1 being the quickest and 6 being the space station that acts at the end of the round. Shields functions as the health of a ship has which is tracked with counters as the ship takes damage. Firepower is the amount of damage a ship does to and opposing ship. The game plays out in waves of 10 card hands. After randomly determining who goes first you go back and forth playing or moving ships based on their speed. The initial table setup has both space stations 3 cards in space apart. Cards can only be played adjacent to one another so from the first play you begin deciding on an offensive or defensive play. Once the wave plays out both players again draw 10 cards and the next wave begins. Any ships that are still on the table can, according to speed, move to any unoccupied location and attack in addition to playing cards from your hand. The game continues in waves until the 60 victory points are reached.

My Thoughts

While the space station seems to be the best method of victory a victory through ships can occur reasonable with a well-played defense. Only when your stations is near destruction can things get aggravating. At this point you are forced to play almost solely defense and hope a ship victory is possible. All of the games I have played have ended on wave 3, so wave 2 is really the most tactical. Most games ran about 20 – 30 minutes and were well balanced until wave 3. All of the ships have shields low enough that the game is not determined by a large hand of high powered ships.

The placement of the cards in this game is reminiscent of GO, by trying to clear spaces to get in there and do the damage needed. In the tradition of games like chess and go; space station assault is easy to learn how to play but supplies many options of tactical decision making.