Analyzing PNP's

For our second print and play game, Andy and I played “Space Assault” where two fleets of spaceships attack each other in an asteroid field. The goal of the game, simple enough, is to completely vanquish the opposing team or payer’s fleet of 3 fighters and one battleship.

The Core mechanic of how this game is played is done by one player, turn by turn, choosing how they wish to spend their two moves or action points and how they literally flick their ships through the asteroid field.

The game can be played on any flat, smooth surface, as the pieces require one to be able to slide or flick their pieces across the battlefield, with asteroids pieces littering the area from one side to the other. The players on these opposite sides then begin to battler their fighters against one another.

Objects of the game include asteroid pieces, battleships with several firing ports and one small weak point, fighters with one firing port and a large weak spot and homing missile and quasar cannon pieces. There are two basic states of the game being your turn where you may chose how to enact your two moves amongst your fleet and the opposing players turn where you cannot move pieces.

Operative Actions: During a player’s turn, he or she has two moves and depending on the type of ship, one or two action points. Battleships have one action point, meaning they can fire, rotate or be moved across the board. Fighters however, have two action points per move as they can do any two of the previously described actions. When a player fires their attack whether it is a cannon or a homing missile, a token is used to symbolize the attack. Cannons are one-shot tricks and can only be fired from the cannon port. Homing missiles can only be shot from the missile port, but are able to move each turn so long as they are still active.

Resultant actions: When a ship is moved, it cannot hit another ship or asteroid otherwise it is destroyed and flipped over, becoming lethal debris. If a ship flys off the board, it then becomes lost in space and is considered dead. When Missiles and cannons are fired, they are only effective if they hit an enemy where their blue shield is not located. The shield wraps around one side or most sides of the ships. Only missiles have the ability to destroy asteroids if they collide, and if they do, the missiles then too, has become inactive.

Players are likely to launch their homing missile as a kind of deterrent for other ships entering their side of the field. 

Advisory Rules: Players should probably try to sap a one to two ship lead and then attempt to crash their remaining ships as it is much easier to do then hit the shield-less point of an opponent.

Skills Learned: Basic movement strategy and the power of keeping forces together allows for a most effective and intimidating army when using these ships. Opposing players are less likely to attack if the one’s force is well backed up.