Well, first time I've actually reviewed a game on RPGNet.. so here goes.

I'm a small press publisher in my own right so I have a particular awareness of how valuable reviews are to me and my ilk. Having said that it's pretty rare that I play a game which I think really merits the effort of reviewing, and Alpha Strike is one of those rare gems.

Contents

I believe the game is available as a pdf downloand from RPGNow, but I'm going to review the physical version which I bought from Leisure Games in the UK.

The game is pretty spartan, with 60 playing cards, a single sheet of rules, 4 ship cards, a single d10 and a small bag of green counters... all put into a box which is basically a VHS case with a nice colour cover.

The d10 did raise some laughs at the gaming table as it turned out that the only use for it was determining turn order at the start of the game.

Playing the Game

The game can handle up to four players, though if you had multiple decks I can't see any reason why you couldn't have any number of players. Play starts with each player taking a ship panel card of their choice. At this point it's worth mentioning the artwork. The quality of the art is good, but my gaming group did have fun noting the fairly obvious “inspirations” for a lot of the pieces. I was informed by other gamers that the Fighter pictures look virtually identical to Eldar Vyper tank things from WH40K and things like “pulse cannons” and “battle lasers” had a definite Babylon 5 feel to them.

Anyway, back to the game. Each panel has four tracks, with ten circles each. The top three tracks start at zero on the left, with nine on the right and represent the ships Shield, Weapon and Engine energy. The bottom most track starts at ten and works down to one, and is the ships Hull Integrity track. The next step is to place the small green counters on the left side of all four tracks.

Next, the deck is shuffled and each player dealt five cards, which they keep secret. The d10 is rolled, with the highest player getting the first turn and working clockwise round the table from there. On your turn the first thing you do is move one of your power markers (Shields, Weapons or Engines) one step rightwards along the track, representing allocating energy to that system. Next you can discard one card from your hand. We very quickly decided to allow multiple discards, just because it made things a little more chaotic and interesting.

Now the player draws back up to five cards. If the deck runs out just reshuffle the discards and start again.

Finally the meat of the game happens, card playing. The player can play one card, either an Action card, Craft card or Attack card. A lot of the cards have a cost in Weapon and/or Engine points, so when you play that card reduce the appropriate tracks. If you don't have enough points on that track you can't use that card, simple really. Action cards let you do things like add points to certain tracks, redistribute points and repair damage. Craft cards are played and then stay on the table face-up, representing fighter squadrons, decoys and the really irritating Shield Leech pod. These craft can then be used later on, being discarded in the process. Attack cards include things like pulse cannons, battle lasers, missiles, torpedoes and fighter attacks. We found the energy weapons to be a little underpowered (requiring a lot of weapon power for relatively little damage) compared to ballistic weapons and fighters, but I suspect that the balance is that there are less defense cards which work against them.

Most damage reduces the Shield track, then knocks points off Hull Integrity once the shields are down. Fighters are particularly nasty as they ignore shields, going straight for Hull Integrity.

It's not all bad though, you also have Defense cards in your hand which can be played to negate attacks when the attack is made. Each type of defense is good against one or two types of attacks (for example, the point defense card is good against Ballistic, Fighter or Pod attacks).

Once combat has been resolved the next player takes their turn. This just continues going round the table until everyone is destroyed (having their Hull Integrity reduced to zero).

Impressions

Okay, enough of the quantitative stuff.. now for the qualitative stuff.

The Good

The artwork is of uniformly good quality. The game system is sweet, really simple, fast playing and very enjoyable. It meets my own “five minute” criteria.. being a game that you can pick up the rules and play within five minutes without any trouble at all. The biggest endorsement is the sheer amount of fun we had playing it. There are definitely some tactics, particularly in the later stages of the game when everyone's Hull Integrity is low and choice of cards really does become an issue. Do you try and repair, or do you just keep attacking..

• Nice artwork

• Sweet game system

• Fast playing

• Easy rules

• Just damn good fun!

The Bad

The cards are a little on the flimsy side, though quite usable. Think Magic:the Gathering cards but a little thinner. The major bad is the price. The UK copy was £17.99! As a small press game I'd expect to pay a premium because of the low production runs but it still seems like an awful lot of money. By comparison, Atlas Games “Once Upon a Time” retails at £14.99 and has 168 cards in it.

• Too pricey...

• Cards are a little flimsy (but not enough to really complain about)

The Silly

The d10.... nuff said.

Alternatives

Try starting with full energy in all tracks. This means that cards like Alpha Strike and Spinal Laser become far more useful. Starting at zero on each track means that we found that these cards tended to languish unused in hands as it was hard to assemble enough power to use them. Another variation might be to put caps on ships tracks to simulate other ship types (the ships in the game look like Battleships). Another idea is to allow Hull Integrity points to be used as Energy points of any type, representing overloading reactors in an emergency situation.

Wish List

Licenses.. probably a bit much too ask but this is a really good basic tactical space combat card system and it would be fantastic to see this basic system attached to licences such as Star Trek, B5 or BSG.

Style and Substance

Definitely a five for style but I've only given a three for substance. If the price was more reasonable (say under £10) I'd have awarded a four for Substance, but that price pulls it down to only a three.

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