Engage: Spaceship Combat

Engage: SpaceShip Combat is a strategic miniatures game that pits players against each other in exciting fleet vs. fleet battles set in the far future.

With a new, quick and easy, take on the innovative systems of 'power allocation', Engage allows players to divert energy into specific systems of a ship such as shields or weapons in order to boost their effectiveness. The game resolution system takes into account both the objectives achieved and the toll inflicted on the enemy fleet. You will also find a comprehensive 'Space Dock' to allow you to build your own fleets, plus fleet lists for 5 races. Will you defend the galaxy or see it burn?

Some more detail on the mechanics and what you can find in the rulebook

Engage: Spaceship Combat is designed as a miniatures game for space battles that can be played with any scale of spaceship

In this 92 page rulebook you will find;

-          All the necessary rules to allow you to play Engage

-          Fleet lists and army specific rules for 5 different races

-          An extensive ‘space dock’ to enable you to build your own ships and fleets

-          6 separate missions

-          Photocopy sheets of the necessary place cards and quick reference pages

Some info on the core mechanic

Engage is an alternating actions game that uses a ‘there and then’ movement system as opposed to the pre-planned movement found in many other spaceship games.

Each ship’s details (weapons, sensors, shields etc) are found on a small ‘ship card’ which is also used to track changes and any damage that the ship suffers. The ship card is also vital for keeping track of the ‘power transfer’ system used in Engage.

Ships, in Engage, have an amount of ‘auxiliary’ power tokens depending on its size and build; these can be moved around in game to add power to various other ship systems such as shields or weapons. In the first instance power can be moved around freely, but as the ships suffers damage, moving power around becomes more hazardous and could result in that power being lost and that system going offline, so players are always having to calculate risks!

The main method of combat is via shooting. Though weapon dependant, range has a massive impact on the likely hood of striking a hit against an enemy. Certain weapons excel at different ranges, so players must assess which ship and which weapon is best suited to the task at any one time.

Shooting is carried out by adding up a few variables, the active player must then roll equal to or greater than that score on 2D6 + sensor power. If successful, the attacker rolls for damage. Weapon type has a big impact here too, as the number of dice and modifiers you have to try and beat the opponents shield is dependent on the weapons stats and type

Successful rolls against the opponents ship can result in shields going down, damage to the hull and even other systems taking damage and going offline. One good hit really can cause a damaging chain reaction!

Also found within Engage are Advanced Actions, these are specialist actions that enable your ship to do more than just move and shoot, they enable you to perform actions such as Boarding, splitting fire and create holographic ship doubles. There are also more Cinematic sytle Actions, with rules such as ‘All she’s got!’ and the ‘P’Kard Manouvre’ which enables you to enter warp, drop out near an enemy and fire a weapon straight away.

Game resolution comes with a balanced system that balances achievement of objectives as well as damage done to the enemy ship to find the final winner.

Within this book you will find rules for

-          7 types of beam and solid round weaponry

-          6 types of missile/torpedo weaponry

-          Nearly 25 different ‘Advanced Actions’

-          12 different auxiliary systems such as Stealth Systems, Armour Types and Point Defence

-          8 different terrain items