Overview
Most boys enjoy anything having to do with outer space and epic conflicts. "Space Battle" combines these themes in the form of a strategy game. "Space Battle" not only teaches the elements of tactics, like chess, but also addition and subtraction. It is also easy to come up with new scenarios that will keep this game fresh and interesting.
Difficulty: 2nd grade and up.
Number of players: 2.
Duration: 20-45 minutes.
Game Materials
At least one set of dragon dice
One poster-board
Two sets of spaceship figures, one for each player
Two unit overview sheets, one for each player
Two damage report sheets, one for each player
A pen or pencil for each player
Making the Game
THE BOARD
I wanted to experiment with making a hexagonal ("hex") game board. These are used in my strategy board games, "Heroscape" and "Settlers of Catan," so I thought I'd have a go at creating my own. After some attempts to draw my own hex board with pencil and ruler, but quickly gave up on that idea. I then download a hex grid from the web, and photocopied it several times. After cutting off the borders, I then taped several sheets onto a whole piece of dark blue poster board. The whole thing looks like this:
I enjoyed making this board, but it was a lot of work. If you don't want to spend a couple of hours making a hex board, I would recommend just using rectangular spaces. In that case, just draw a 15 X 20 rectangle, with each square being 1" X 1". (If you want to read about the history of hex maps, their advantages over traditional boards, and their uses in various games, Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject.)
THE FIGURES
I made two sets of figures out of red and blue construction paper. Since I'm using a hex map, I cut each figure into a hexagonal shape also. If you want a simple game, you might try playing with two types of units, like fighters and battleships. I decided to include four types of units: scouts, fighters, bombers, and destroyers. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and the is finding the right mixture of units for a particular mission.
I then labeled each unit using greek letters and numbers. For example, the scout ships are alpha squadron (1-5), the fighters are beta squadron, and so on. If you want to get fancy, you can also draw appropriate images on the pieces of construction paper that each represent one ship.
THE UNIT OVERVIEW SHEETS
Each player will need a sheet that summarizes the different stats for each type of unit. For example, my overview sheets look like this:
UNIT OVERVIEW
Move
Fire
Shield Pts
Scouts
4
d4
8
Fighters
3
d6
10
Bombers
1
d10
12
Destroyers
2
d8
25
For example, scouts can move 4 spaces, attack with d4, and have 8 shield points. (More about attacking and shield points below.)
THE DAMAGE REPORT SHEETS
Each player will also need a "damage report" sheet, on which the amount of remaining shield points is listed. As the game progresses and units take damage, their shield points are lowered. My damage report sheets look like this:
DAMAGE REPORT
Scout Squadron
Fighter Squadron
Bomber Squadron
Destroyer Squadron
alpha 1 - 8
beta 1 - 10
gamma 1 - 12
delta 1 - 25
alpha 2 - 8
beta 2 - 10
gamma 2 - 12
delta 2 - 25
alpha 3 - 8
beta 3 - 10
gamma 3 - 12
delta 3 - 25
alpha 4 - 8
beta 4 - 10
gamma 4 - 12
delta 4 - 25
alpha 5 - 8
beta 5 - 10
gamma 5 - 12
delta 5 - 25
Scenario
For decades, the fleets of the Arcturan Alliance and the Vegan Empire have been battling for supremacy in the omega quadrant. Desperate to win, each side has assembled an armada to settle the conflict once and for all ...
Set-Up
First you must decide what types and how many of units will be in play and what the victory conditions are. You can assign different types of units, and different victory conditions, to each player, but at the beginning it's best to start with two identical fleets, one of which must exterminate the other.
Place the fleets on opposite sides of the board. Players can decide where to put each ship, but they can only use the two rows closest to their side for the initial placement.
Each player needs to place the unit overview and damage report carts in front of him.
Rules
On his turn, each player can do one or more of the following actions in the following order: 1. ship movement - all ships can be moved by their allotted number of spaces (scouts 5, fighters 3, and so forth); once all movements have been carried out, the player 2. declares all attacks - the player must announce which ship will fire upon which target (targets must be adjacent to the attacking ships); and 3. attacks are executed.
To carry out an attack, the player rolls the appropriate die. For example, let's say that a fighter (beta 3) is attacking a bomber (gamma 2). Fighters roll d6 for their attack; if this comes up as a 4, the defending player then deducts four shield points from the unit that is being fired upon. Bombers start with 12 shield points, so Gamma 2 would have eight shield points left. The defending player marks out the "12" under "Gamma 2," and writes "8" in the space to the right. Any unit with less than 1 shield point is considered destroyed and must be removed from the board.
The game ends when one side has no ships left.
Adjusting the Difficulty
There are two components to "Space Battle": strategy and math.
To alter the strategic difficulty, you can change the number and types of units. For example, you could start with four scouts, three fighters, two bombers, and one destroyer. If this seems too difficult, try just three fighters and one destroyer. If you want more of a challenge, you might design additional units with different stats (like battleships) or ones with special capabilities (such as self-destruct, which destroys all adjacent ships ... including your own, of course!). You can also introduce other characteristics, like range, which indicates how many spaces away a target can be from the ship, or cost (for example, each player starts with 1,000 points and has to decide what kind of strike force to assemble: scout ships cost 75 each, fighters 100, bombers 125, and destroyers 175). Generally, the older the child, the more variables you can introduce.
To change the difficulty of the math involved, you can increase or decrease the number of shield points and the number and type of attack dice. For example, a destroyer might have 50 shield points and have an attack of 2d12 (when attacking, you would roll the d12 twice, adding the two numbers).
Other Adjustments
Rather than having each fleet attempt to destroy the other side, you could have variable victory conditions. For example, player 1 is trying to smuggle an item through space controlled by player 2. Player 1 wins if he can move a ship onto the last row of player 2's side of the board. Player 2 starts with a larger and more powerful fleet, but has no scouts. Thus, player 1 has to evade rather than throw all of his forces into a frontal assault.
"Space Battle" allows for endless inventions and new scenarios. Sky, or rather space, is the limit!