Goto [ Index ]

For all its glitz and glamour, the Star Wars saga in gaming has always been weak on one thing, Starship combat. Oh sure the video game industry has done some awesome space combat games, from Atari’s arcade game in the early 1980s to the X-wing series, but for those who want the thrill of starship combat without monitors, and consoles are pretty well out of luck. First was West End games’ Star Warriors game. And while for every thing else I have always given West End high marks in the Star Wars field (the RPG is still way better than any iteration of d20 imho) I just can’t say enough that I despised Star Warriors. Clunky and lame this game was a dog that thankfully I can’t remember enough about to relive in this review. Then the only decent version a free pdf and magazine adaptation of Silent Death using Star Wars ships which appeared in Star Wars gamer and was free online for a time. I love SD and while the rules work they are an adaptation of a system with a few differences (no switching shields to double front and the like). So now Wizard’s most popular Star Wars game has gotten in on the action, Star Wars Miniatures Starship battles. So how well does it hold up?

First a few good things the minis are beautiful. Unlike about any starship game in this series of reviews, they are the most durable (owing to being soft plastic rather than metal on a hard plastic flying base!) It’s nice to know that one gregarious move from a clumsy gamer will not mean 10 hours of reassembly, affixing new bases and repainting chipped metal. This also makes storage a breeze. I have a tackle bin with no padding carrying a fleet of Rebel and Imperial ships with no worry that they may be damaged in transport. I wish more minis companies dealing with starships would take this to heart.

Now for a bit of the bad firstly this is a collectable game and with that comes all of the negative issues involved. To make matters worse rather than splitting up into 2 sets like their warband based ground combat game, they have one set with both clone wars and civil war era ships meaning your chance of building a kick ass imperial fleet is now going to be doused with a ton of droid fighters and separatist vessels that could have been in their own set. And the 2 closest things I have gotten to a star destroyer from the boosters are the republic gunships that look like older Star Destroyers but by the rules are for the Light side army only. For simplicity the game has only 2 factions light side and dark side. Which means that if you ignore era or don’t want to start buying boosters by the case you’re gonna end up with some wacky armies.

The starter set comes in a semi window box showing the 2 biggest ships in the game (Executioner and the mon calamari Viscount.) and holding back from view the other 8 minis, which is the same amount in the $20 booster pack. Also inside the big box is a rulebook map, counters and 1 20-sided die. Quick start guide and checklist. And 2 fleet command sheets (1 per side). The game itself is easily the easiest starship combat game I have seen lately. Too easy almost, I really get the feeling that they were aiming more for the Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh crowd that to anyone who played any tactical minis games. The ships are placed on opposite ends of the map and move based on class. (Biggest ships are class 1 and move 1 space per turn fighters are as small as class 4 and move 4 spaces per turn.) In short ship class= speed. Class 2s move 2 spaces and class 3 a whopping 3. Other than class 4 ships (which are fighters) all ships can fire at any range at any target with no issue over crossfire. Fighters have a range of 1 space, and cannot be targeted beyond 1 space.

Arc of fire rarely matters and in fact almost all weapons are 360 degrees unless the weapon’s special ability say otherwise. The only place firing arc does matter is on defense. Each ship has a defense rating for fore, port, aft and starboard. And if a ship fires in diagonally the attacker chooses the arc he is hitting (which again players will always choose the smaller defense number because damage does not worry about arc either.) Damage is figured in points fighters again can take 1 point or so, and bigger ships take more. Like A call to arms ships have thresholds but it’s pretty much meant to be after 50%+ damage flip the stat card over and use the disabled version of the ship. As a gauge for how damage runs a rebel transport can take 3 points before disabled and 3 more before being destroyed. The Executioner can take a whopping 20 points (10 before crippled) before finally removing it from play. Fighters must also be launched from ships. No problem there except that you start with a fighter pool that is all your fighters and they can come out of any ship with fighter capability. In short during play a player might have a carrier throw out 1 fighter while a destroyer (which has fighter capability) could throw out the bulk of the fleet just because it suits the player. Taking resource management out of the game and replacing it with how fast can I bludgeon you tactics. In fact

I rarely see the need to even move my class 1,2,or 3 ships considering they have range that covers the board and I can select targets at will. Other than a few weapons systems that may state need to be fired from specific arcs. The concept of command points and commander options liven this game up a bit but it’s barely enough to make the game more than pound on the opponent and hope your dice are hot.

This game is a textbook example of how lack of limits can turn a tactical game into little more than a gussied up dice-rolling contest. It’s too bad because the minis are really nice and the Star Wars universe is a great backdrop for starship battles, but the game engine holds all of the excitement of Hayden Chirstensen’s acting.