Saganami Island Tactical Simulator is a tactical wargame based on David Weber's Honor Harrington novels. The first edition of SITS was a modification of the engine created for Ad Astra's Attack Vector: Tactical game, using Newtonian physics and 3-d movement. It captured the details of the books and represented real space movement (accepting the setting's accelerations, of course) very well, but it had two major problems. 1) It recreated the books too well, to the point where the Manticoran ships were so much better than the Havenite ships that they needed a 3:1 advantage for an even fight; and 2) it was based on a more complex game, and thus had a more complex system than it really needed.

SITS 2nd ed. addresses both those problems. Movement is streamlined, damage reworked to feel more like shooting at something and less like accounting, and the ships have been rebalanced to make a better game. This does mean the game is not as true to the novels as SITS 1 - but it's not a lot of fun watching yet another "historically accurate" PRH cruiser vanish in a puff of smoke.

A turn goes pretty much like this: Markers are placed to show end-of-turn and mid-point hexes of each ship, based on their accumulated vectors. Then each player plots on their movement card this turn's changes in attitude and thrust. Ships can rotate about their x, y, and z axis, and attitude is tracked in 30-degree increments. Then missile fire is plotted. At close range, there is missile fire before ships move, halfway through, and a the end. As the range increases the earlier opportunities go away. Any "Early" fire is resolved, and ships move to their mid-point. This is half their movement across the board this turn, and also half their pivots or rolls for this turn. "Middle" missile fire occurs, and if ships are close enough, beam fire. Then ships move to their end-of-turn points, "Late" missile fire and 2nd Beams occurs. Finally, the effects of Thrust are applied to the ship's vectors, Damage Control attempts are made, the AVID (a depiction of the ship's attitude) is updated, and the turn is over.

For those who've never seen AV:T or SITS 1, this might sound pretty complicated. The genius of Ad Astra, though, is in finding a way to sweep almost all the math under the rug. A couple of simple play aids make it easy to keep track of where your nose is pointed, what direction you're actually moving, what directions you can thrust in, and all the other details. Your ship is represented on the map with a "box mini" - essentially a box around 1" x 1/2" x 1/2" with the appropriate sillhoute for top, bow, bottom, aft, port, starboard of your ship on the appropriate side, plastic "tilt blocks" and "stacking tiles" let you see, quickly & easily, the pitch, roll and altitude. Between the mini and the AVID, keeping track of your ship quickly becomes intuitive.

For those who tried SITS 1, this is much simpler. You think about movement once a turn, and fire 2 or 3 times, compared to 8 per turn for SITS 1. Damage allocation is simplified, faster, and gives much the same feel as before. There are a lot less missiles flying around than there are in the books, but one or two missiles getting through will actually do something now. Most importantly, a Star Knight no longer eats a Mars-B for breakfast, so a cruiser duel is an even game.

The new rulebook is very well laid out. Headings are cleaner, the text is slightly larger, and there is plenty of white space. Reading the old rulebook would give me a headache. The new one I found easy to read, and searching for a rule was straightforward. (I should mention here that I haven't seen the actual printed rulebook. I have paid for SITS 2, but my copy was rushed to me via e-mail so I could do this review. So all comments regarding the rulebook are based off the .pdf that Ad Astra is sending to the printer.)

The new SSDs are an even bigger improvement over SITS 1 than the rulebook. Simply put, now they have style. The nation & fleet emblem of the ship is on here, the various parts are clearly labled and separated with outlines; they even have a silohuette of the ship that I'm pretty sure is Charles Oines fabulous work. I love the new SSDs.

So, to recap. SITS 1 was a good idea, a great way to depict battles for a setting that used real(ish) physics, but too complex and unbalanced. SITS 2 streamlines things and balances forces without loosing the feel of the novels, and makes it a lot more fun. Want to command a starship that doesn't handle like an airplane? This is the way to do it.