Multi-player Space Battle ?

The title pretty much says it all. We were bullshitting after our last game night and a few people said that it would be awesome if we would play some huge space battle games. I was curious what everyone thought would be the best way to go -- the group basically likes everything AT and we usually play about 3 hours a night.

Whatever you do, don't fall in to the Star Wars Starship Minis trap, unless you happen to find a decent set of rules to go with them. The minis are cool but the rules suck ass.....although they aren't bad for a slug fest....

Battlefleet Gothic, maybe?

How about Attack Vector: Tactical (2-8 players) or Starmada (2-12 players) ?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Starmada also does World War I!

Star Fleet Battles is an obvious choice although it's not known for being fast.

I've picked up the latest rules set in Federation Commander: Klingon Border but haven't learned it yet. Supposedly these new rules are slimmed down and game play is more manageable. Hopefully they accomodate multiplayer scenarios in a 3 hour timeframe -- if not, write it down for the next session.

Stellar Conquest is an old AH bookshelf game that fits the bill. I haven't played it yet -- it sits on my shelf unloved.

Silent Death fits this too. I've been trying to pick up a copy of the base game on the cheap. The minis are discounted on the website but the original rules are out of print and go for about $40 on ebay (with minis and some other fluff in the box).

Sag.

Just don't expect what you want out of Galactic Emperor. It seems like it'd fit your requirements, but it fell really flat for me.

This site might help...It is a large list of Starship Combat games. Mainly miniature based.

http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm

One that I've heard good things about is Full Thrust from Ground Zero Games. The rules are free online via their site and from what I recall there is ship building much like in BattleTech and you can custom build ships out of whatever you have floating around the house or any ship models from other lines.

http://www.groundzerogames.net/

LvT

How huge of battles?

I designed a quick and easy starship battles game where I could run a four player game with three new players and allow them to construct ships (point based) and have time for two games in 2-3 hours tops. It might not scale to huge numbers of ships but we had some fun with it.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Stellar Conquest is an old AH bookshelf game that fits the bill.

(And a Metagaming classic before that).

I'm not sure, though. If this is more of "blow shit up" sort of desire, I'd look elsewhere. I mean, you can blow some d00dz up in Stellar Conquest, but it's more of an exploration thing.

Now, for some classic "navy in space" action, you can't go wrong with Starfire.

Looking for the mini and the macro? How about Battlestations? Doesn't handle LARGE fleets well, but man it's pretty crackerjack at smaller engagements. The duality of the system is very cool.

I can't believe no one has mentioned TI3. It's one of the highest rated games in the "Recommendations" section of this site. Huge space battles and epic in scale. Of course it takes a good while to play, but it's worth the effort.

Spanish Inquisition wrote:

I can't believe no one has mentioned TI3. It's one of the highest rated games in the "Recommendations" section of this site. Huge space battles and epic in scale. Of course it takes a good while to play, but it's worth the effort.

I was assuming he was looking for something more on a tactical rather than strategic level.

How about Attack Vector: Tactical (2-8 players)


HA HA! Oh...mercy...

Yeah. That might be an option if you've got 2-8 MIT grad students fired up to calculate missle propulsion, inertia, and trajectories in a zero-G environment.

If you want "fast and dumb", sit tight until Branham gets BATTLE BEYOND SPACE to shelves. It's not really dumb, it's actually a little thinky but it's immediate, plays in about 30 minutes, and I think it's pretty awesome. It's like the end of THE LAST STARFIGHTER or something.

FEDCOM is a good option, but bear in mind you've got to have everybody on board with the rules. It _is_ easier than SFB by miles. But it's still demanding and complex.

What was that PNP one everyone was hoo-hawing about a while back? Is it WORMHOLE? It looked cool, I just can't be bothered to make it.

I've wanted to try HARD VACUUM, but never got a chance.

Not to add another Game Z into the mix, but I play tested this pretty sweet space battle/area control game a few months ago with Zev. I dunno if he's actually going to publish it or not but it was fun and might fit the bill.

Soooooo if you see Z-Man popping out a space battle game, it might be of interest... totally helpful advice.