After looking at the miniatures for quite awhile, and borrowing the rulebook to look through, one of the Gamer's Haven employees finally ran me through an introductory game of War Rocket a few nights ago.
War Rocket is a fast-paced, retro sci-fi miniatures game from Hydra Miniatures. I don't know how well known or widespread the game is, but it has been out for a few years. There are currently five factions: the Galacteers, the Valkeeri, the Imperials, the Space Pirates, and the Zenithians. Remember all those REALLY old sci-fi shows we saw as kids, where the ships were on wires against a cardboard backdrop and had sparkler firecrackers for engines? Remember Ming the Merciless? Yeah. That's the era I'm talking about. So if you're into retro sci-fi ships, this game will look pretty cool. If you aren't, it may not appeal to you.
I played Galacteers against Ed's Valkeeri. The Galacteers are humans from Earth (I think), and the Valkeeri are some sort of Amazonian-esque warrior space women. I think. I don't have all the fluff down yet. A note on the pictures: the models we used were not painted, and we were playing against a plain black cloth, so the pictures of the ships turned out pretty stark. For pictures of painted models, check out the online store on the Hydra Miniatures website
here. Also, we were playing without flight stands. These models use a hexagon flight stand.
So here was my initial set up:
War Rocket ships are differentiated by class; Class 1 ships are the smallest, and Class 4 are the largest. There are no squadrons, and the rules are pretty loose as to how many of each ship type you can field.
Movement is executed with the slowest ships moving first (the Class 4's), and the fastest moving last (the Class 1's). This allows you, in theory, to keep your small ships out of range/arc of the bigger ships. If any ships are tied for movement, a dice-off (1D10) determines who has precedence for that turn. Movement is where the factions differentiate the most: each faction has different thrusters, so they all move differently. Generally, each class of ship has the same amount of movement points, they just get spent differently based on the faction (although my example below is an exception to that rule).
For example, the Galacteer Class 1 has 16 inches of movement available per turn. It can move two inches, spend two inches to turn one hex face (60 degrees), then move forward again--but it has to move forward two inches before it can make another turn. It can also start it's movement in a turn. The Valkeeri Class 1 has 12 inches of movement per turn. It can also start in a turn, paying two inches per hex face, and can turn as far as it has inches to spend on each hex face--but it can only turn ONCE in it's movement phase. So movement planning is key. (These requirements apply to all the ships in that particular faction.)
Once all the movement is done, the shooting starts. The mechanic takes a little getting used to, but it's pretty straightforward:
There really is no differentiation in weapons systems, either between the ship classes or the factions. Bigger ships will tend to have more guns that hit harder, but that's about the only difference. You place hit tokens for your weapons on enemy ships that are in range and arc for that weapon; most weapons only have one hit per turn, but some have two or even three hits per turn. You can pile as many hit tokens onto one target as you have weapons from your ships that can hit that target; no penalties for multiple ships firing on the same target. Once this is all done, the players roll a 1D10 against a table in the rulebook to resolve damage. Each ship has a defensive rating; you look on the table for where that defensive rating number intersects with the number of hit tokens on that ship, and you'll see the number your opponent has to roll to stun or destroy the ship.
In the picture above, Ed has piled on hit tokens from his large Class 4 ship and two of his smaller Class 1's (hit tokens are the gray discs) on my Class 4. I've piled on hit tokens on several of his ships as well.
For example, let's say 5 hit tokens are placed on a ship with a defensive rating of 3. Based on those numbers, the table says the attacker needs to roll a 6 to stun the ship, or a 7+ to kill the ship. (Stunned ships take no action thru the next turn; they still get their defensive value, but if they are stunned again, they are destroyed). That's it--no hull damage, no critical effects. Either your opponent kills you outright, stuns you, or misses completely. This means the game plays pretty quickly.
This also means that a single Class 1 ship--which usually has 1 hit per turn--has a 10% chance of killing a Class 4, which will have a defense rating of three or four. You'd have to roll a 10 to do it, but that's all you have to roll. I know in Dystopian Wars we've all seen a frigate chew through a cruiser, but you have to get a LOT of good rolls to make that happen. In War Rocket, you only need one good roll.
There are a few other phases of each turn, but the moving and shooting are the most important.
The verdict:
This game was a LOT of fun! Ed hadn't played in several months, so we had to consult the rulebook several times, but even with that the game only took about 75 minutes. I'm confident that even with larger forces on the board, it wouldn't take that much longer. The lengthiest part of the turn is movement--shooting is pretty straightforward.
I can definitely see myself getting into this game soon. You can get on the table with multiple Class 1 and 2 ships, and one each of the 3's and 4's, for about $75-$80. The rulebook is $25. My funds for the next couple months will be tied up with new Dystopian Wars and X-Wing stuff, but after that, I'll be looking to get my first War Rocket fleet together. It's relatively simple and it plays pretty fast, and there isn't a lot of book keeping. And, it's a fairly obscure game, which interests me even more for some reason.
Ed and I are supposed to play again in July; I'll see if I can get some better pictures. Thanks for reading!
