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Looks like a cool game to intro my son into mini gaming with. I'm in.

http://www.purplepawn.com/2011/02/first-look-at-battleship-galaxies/

This looks very good. Usually, I'm not into space or naval combat but this looks like something I would want to play. It's certainly a great step for Hasbro, mabe some expansions will come later that require light assembly and painting.

I hope it plays faster than Star Trek Battle Fleet or whatever it was called. 2 hours to complete 3 turns is BS.

This looks a lot like battlefleet gothic, especially with that $65 penalty. What happened to the $20 board games fun for your whole family? Anyway, if people start getting into Im in as I was about to start battlefleet gothic the year GW banned the game from their stores.

Remember that Hasbro did produce Star Wars Miniatures.

Absolutionis wrote:Remember that Hasbro did produce Star Wars Miniatures.

Heroscape too.. and anything that WOTC does...

The one interesting connection to the original Battleship game is the method of determining hits. The attacking player rolls two dice—one (ten-sided) has letters and one (eight-sided) has numbers—and calls out the resulting combination, as in “G-5.” The player who’s ship was targeted looks up the result on a matrix on the target ship’s reference card. An overlay of the ship’s profile will indicate whether the die roll is a hit or miss. Hit’s first affect a ship’s shield rating, recorded with blue pegs, and then when shield’s are exhausted are recorded with red pegs in the figure’s base.

They have taken a great game and added bells and whistles to it.

'You sunk my battleship.....after I confirmed the dice you rolled were not cocked or other wise tampered with then checked the matrix but its okay because you only damaged my shields and I have plenty of blue pegs left with which to defend myself. My battleship isn't as sunk as I or you first thought but It could be after you roll the dice to randomly determine where your next shot goes as opposed to thinking and playing strategically as we did with the original game...my turn then?, what? you want to play something else?'.

I'll probably give it a go if it gets released this side of the pond.

The box art screams Battlefleet Gothic to me.

Defeatmyarmy wrote:This looks a lot like battlefleet gothic, especially with that $65 penalty. What happened to the $20 board games fun for your whole family?

Those are long gone. Board games are getting pretty complex. Look at the games made by FFG. They come with a huge amount of playing pieces. Sure they arent the quality of things like 40k, but they have come a long way.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14277.html

I would not worry too much about what Hasbro does to this sector of the market. Their meat and potatoes are the classic board games.

If you look at the recent past you will find that they have taken good IP's (such as D&D) and squeezed the profit margin to a point where the product has lost its luster.

This product will go by the wayside after the peanut counters decide that they can not wring out anymore short term profits.

I was excited to hear the details, but then I got to this:

The one interesting connection to the original Battleship game is the method of determining hits. The attacking player rolls two dice—one (ten-sided) has letters and one (eight-sided) has numbers—and calls out the resulting combination, as in “G-5.” The player who’s ship was targeted looks up the result on a matrix on the target ship’s reference card. An overlay of the ship’s profile will indicate whether the die roll is a hit or miss. Hit’s first affect a ship’s shield rating, recorded with blue pegs, and then when shield’s are exhausted are recorded with red pegs in the figure’s base.

The mutant offspring of the vehicle to-hit template and 'Roll to see which column you hit, then apply damage', rebranded as an homage.

I kinda imagine GW sueing them over it somehow... in some why.

Interesting looking though.

juraigamer wrote:I kinda imagine GW sueing them over it somehow... in some why.

Interesting looking though.

Not going to happen, GW dosen't sue a company that can hold them in court until there broke.

That two-dice-and-table-lookup thing is, I think, a fairly sure sign that this one is way overcomplicated, and has been designed by a toy firm's marketing department rather than by game designers.

It's certainly enough to put me off playing. Ooh, added complexity with no added fun -- sign me up.

It does make you wonder if they got the idea from BFG, looks like it could have been a carbon copy then changed alittle..sort of like Blizard
If it makes it to the UK I'd give it a good look over.

Deadshane1 wrote:Looks like a cool game to intro my son into mini gaming with. I'm in.

http://www.purplepawn.com/2011/02/first-look-at-battleship-galaxies/

Looks pretty good, I didn't see any mention of expansion sets, but I'm almost positive that they have some in the works. Not sure I'd pay full price for it, but I'll look for it at Amazon or the inevitalble clearance that probably won't be too far off.

kronk wrote:I hope it plays faster than Star Trek Battle Fleet or whatever it was called. 2 hours to complete 3 turns is BS.

I think you mean "2 hours to complete 3 turns is BT" (Battletech).

Looks like the sort of thing my family would love to play. Whenever there's a reunion we end up with a board game night, and the boardgames like Risk 2210 A.D. that have miniatures that don't need to be painted are proving consistently popular.

Most of us like strategy games that can be completed in a couple hours and most of us like having 3D things on the map, but I'm the only one who likes painting minis.

I hope this game has an option though to play with more than two sides. Promising neutrality to one player and then stabbing them in the back the moment they're focused on a 3rd player is a family tradition almost as old as turkey at Christmas!

Johira, have you tried Small World? That's pretty much my favourite backstabbing game these days -- great replay value, too, as every game has different options showing up. No minis, sadly:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world

This looks like sort of a fun game. I'd certainly consider buying it.

Eilif wrote:

kronk wrote:I hope it plays faster than Star Trek Battle Fleet or whatever it was called. 2 hours to complete 3 turns is BS.

I think you mean "2 hours to complete 3 turns is BT" (Battletech).

Having played both, BT is much faster playing than SFB. For a demonstration, a BT model has only one page to track status, while many SFB ships are 2-3 pages with power allocation, shield status, damage tracks for various systems, etc.

Admittedly, most SFB scenarios are built around single ship conflicts (or perhaps a single Enterprise-class vessel against a couple of the smaller alien ships) whereas BT tended to be at least three mechs per side.

I don't see how this is in any way close enough to BFG to be actionable, really. GW can't copyright the concept of space combat.

I'd certainly consider picking it up. It seems fun enough, and my group of friends loves A&A....maybe they'll consider this.

Noir wrote:

juraigamer wrote:I kinda imagine GW sueing them over it somehow... in some why.

Interesting looking though.

Not going to happen, GW dosen't sue a company that can hold them in court until there broke.

What a pair of reasoned post they are.


Doesn;t look like this will be taking any of the miniature pie, anyone looking for longevity out of something like this, outside of the initial starter just has to look at all the other miniature themed stuff they've canned this past 12 months

Not to be a Hasbro downer, but through their WOTC subsidiary and other outlets (Star Wars), they have had a difficult time gaining a solid foothold into the miniatures market.

They have had Dungeons and Dragons plastic miniatures since 2003, and Star Wars for a decent time too along with a shorter run A&A miniatures game, and the summation of their efforts has been meh.

DnD was going strong (relative to their other game systems) as a competitive miniatures game until 4th edition came out and they pulled the plug on the whole war game community, essentially handing the keys to the game system to the consumers and focusing their sales pitch on the miniatures for their board game rather than as separate entity.

Balance wrote:

I don't see how this is in any way close enough to BFG to be actionable, really. GW can't copyright the concept of space combat.

I dont think its as much a case of it being anything like a GW game, as it is a case of most people on Dakka are so caught up in GW that they must compare everything that is released to a GW product.

Mad4Minis wrote:

Defeatmyarmy wrote:This looks a lot like battlefleet gothic, especially with that $65 penalty. What happened to the $20 board games fun for your whole family?

Those are long gone. Board games are getting pretty complex. Look at the games made by FFG. They come with a huge amount of playing pieces. Sure they arent the quality of things like 40k, but they have come a long way.

While the pieces aren't as finely crafted, FFG makes game with sensible rules, where players have fun. GW does not come close with the former, and has trouble with the latter.



This Battleship incarnation looks interesting. I'm not sure it is $65 interesting, but I may play it at the FLGS.

Sounds like StarTrek tactical Battles in the why they describe it.

Hope it plays like it as that was one of the best games i can remember playing when i first started wargamming

Mad4Minis wrote:

Defeatmyarmy wrote:This looks a lot like battlefleet gothic, especially with that $65 penalty. What happened to the $20 board games fun for your whole family?

Those are long gone. Board games are getting pretty complex. Look at the games made by FFG. They come with a huge amount of playing pieces. Sure they arent the quality of things like 40k, but they have come a long way.

Define quality. Other than the minis which are out of scale to one another, in what way is GW quality?

Awesome wonder how it plays..

I hope that Hasbro took the time and learned from the debacle that WOTC (their subsidiary) had with Star Wars Starfleet battles which is by far the worst game ever for space combat. (I know a guy who converted the A&A War at Sea rules for it and nows its a very playable game.) And the skirmish style Star Wars Miniatures was a great product from WOTC until they purposefully tanked it because they simply didn't want to do it anymore.

But for Hasbro this game could work, similar to Heroscape or as a standalone game. But the thought of 20 dollar games is gone because kids aren't interested if their isn't something totally mind blowing look at. (Or so the marketers say). Most young kids would prefer to play video games than board games and table top games so to attract that attention back they must up the ante and in turn the cost goes up.

OK this is maybe getting a little off-topic, but here's my 2 cents.

Mad4Minis wrote:I dont think its as much a case of it being anything like a GW game, as it is a case of most people on Dakka are so caught up in GW that they must compare everything that is released to a GW product.

While that is partially true without question, that perception is not without some base in reality. Games Workshop has positioned themselves as a company that aggressively defends their IP (not as bad as Monster cable, but certainly in the same vein), and BFG is a relatively old IP. While I'm sure you can find prior art without much problem, in the US frequently the law is less about who is in the right, and more about who has the right lawyers. If there is a game that competes with them that is perhaps only marginally profitable, especially if they are a small shop or indy, strategically it would make sense to sue them knowing they are likely to fold rather then defend their claim in court, which would make the venture unprofitable even if they're right.

My opinion? GWS doesn't participate in that sort of strategic litigation. In the few cases they've actually sued over they have legitimate complaints, and generally speaking in the C&D's they've sent they do too. We should probably start a new thread to get into specifics of prior incidents, though, as opposed to this current one.