Star Eagles Play Test - Flash Gordon Style

Having recently backed Star Eagles the latest offering from Ganesha Games I was pleased to receive a copy of the beta rules to run through while the real deal arrives in September.

Star Eagles is a science fiction action game of futuristic space fighter combat. The rules are designed for players to control a squadron of 4-12 ships. Great because that is my entire Flash Gordon collection.

These have been in cold storage for several years.

The rule are mechanics are very comfortable for those of you familar with the Songs of Blades and Heroes rule stable. Each ship has a minimum move, with succesful rolls allowing you to carry out special moves or firing. Too many special moves and you find yourself quickly running out of actions as the nippy fighters wizz round the back of you....

In our first game I drew up some basic stats for Flash, 3 Frigian Fighters - fast and lightly armoured and some slower but heavier armed Arborian Medium Fighters vs Ming's fighters and medium attack craft.

Mings Medium attack craft had a longer range then the rest but were slower. However even long range laser fire can inflict damage and the Arborians took a hit on round one - A sign of things to come.

You have the option to use sustained fire but it does leave you vunerable as it takes an action to recharge.

Flash and his rebel forces rush to engage Mings fighters, players have the option of  "evading" which can help with your defence rolls.

Ming plays a blinder moving up fast and switching to evade mode which results in many of the opening rebel salvo missing. The formations start to break up as fighters look to get in on the tail of the enemy as this gives you a substantial bonus. 

Flash gets into real trouble with enemy craft to his front and rear, but able to take 4 hits and a good quality pilot he manages to hold off a number of laser blasts.

Hits start to mount up, one of the great things about the rules is that fighters stick around without them going straight back in the box. they are fast and we had a number of instances where they would sweep in fire a blast and be out of arc before the larger ships could react.... Just what I wanted for a rule set.

 

Two hours in and it was all over 2 of Mings ships were lost to 5 of the rebels, Mongo would have to be liberated another day.

Flash limps home....

A great addition to the SBH family, simple mechanics and within the first turn we had the rules largely committed to memory... Given this was our first outing the rules handled over 20 ships and we acheived a conclusion in two hours.

There is plenty of scope to make the pilots and ships your own with separate traits and characteristics.

A great new rule set - but watch your six...