"Stars & Lasers!! questions." Topic

I recently got into to spaceship wargaming with Colonial Battle Fleet and have been loving it. But I am always trying new rule sets and I am curious about Stars & Lasers!!.

A few quick questions to anyone who knows. Can you build your own ships from scratch or is it limited to the ship stats in the game? Also does anyone have any links to any reviews of the game? (or if anyone wants to write up a quick review here that would be great)

Thanks in advance!

I play it, IMO one of its strengths is you can use any spaceship models you like. The (rough) ship size and base size defines what sort of ship it is. The ship types and characteristics are defined (Frigate, Cruiser etc) however, though there are quite a variety of ships to choose and some extras are purchasable.

It was invented by a guy at South London Warlords, in concept its sort of WW2 era for spaceships – so some small "air"craft, but they do not dominate – plus aliens, pirates etc and has a relatively simple rules mechanism so the game is quick to pick up and can handle decent size fleets. The skill is in the manouevre (which assumes speceships have a forward velocity that is non-trivial to alter) and game strategy.

The author is active here on TMP (Lonely Gamer). I've never played the rules, but I recall there was at least one, possibly two articles on it in Miniature Wargames magazine (not sure which issues) over the last year or so. You should be able to find them online if you don't have access to the print versions.

@The Angry Piper, you are correct there has been two articles / free scenarios in Miniature Wargames magazine issues 417 and 432

@freecloud, We will have to have another game again soon.

@Zookie, I am also always trying new rules sets, some I love, and others just don't do it for me, but none have been just right for me, so after years of looking for the rule set to give me the game that I wanted, I decided to sit down and write the rules for the games I like to play.

You ask for a review and well hopefully someone will put something here for you, but for now I can give you some info on Stars & Lasers.

The rules I am afraid do not allow you to build your own ships… but, so far across the rules and all the expansions there are about 70+ fighting ships, not including the two fleets for the two unique alien races, the Bio ships and the Reformers ( and I am working on a third ) all of the ships in Stars & Lasers have very simple datasheets which have everything you need to run the ship, weapons, speed, shields, hull points etc.

The rules also include freighters and tenders and half a dozen space stations, and I am now working on more ships, mainly from ideas and suggestions by people that play the game.

There are well over thirty scenarios to play as well as the simple meeting engagement with a few twists, lots of the scenarios are tough and will be hard to win playing as either the Attacker or the Defender, I don't like scenarios that are completely even.

I also have several scenarios at the playtesting stage at the moment, plus some really interesting linked scenarios which were originally written by some one that plays Stars & Lasers and has given his permission for me to convert them over to my rules.

The basic game itself is very easy to play, most people get the rules by the end of turn one! But good tactics are needed if your ships are to survive the battle.

The rules in play give ( as intended ) a very cinematic feel to the battles, like a battle from Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica with ships flying around each other with lasers blasting and missiles exploding, and fighters having dogfights around the big ships or flying as protection for those ships against fighter bombers or missiles.

There's some free stuff on my site -

littlewargamingworlds.com

And on Wargames Vault to download which should give you an idea of what the rules are like ( if nothing else you may be able to use the scenarios for your preferred rule set ) and my site has lots of battle reports to show something of how the game plays.

If you do decide to have a try of Stars & Lasers, I hope you have fun.

Mac