Download - Mega Miniatures

a very small compny. On top of that, the fact they have all been
seperated from the casting sprue and sorted for you is a huge
plus in my book just from a standpoint of being able to get right
into the game without having to do hours of labor just to get to
play.
The hexes that make up the game board are sturdy enough for
many plays and while they are not as thick or as large as the
tiles in Twilight Imperium 3, they are colorful and well done.
The size of the board depends on the number of players in the
game and a 2-player board ends up being less than 18" x 18"
and can fit on pretty much any table. I could even play a 2-
player game on one of the end tables in my living room.
I was least impressed with the player aid sheets though. They
are in black & white on thin cardstock and while they are perfectly
functional they would have been better if they had been
done in color and on the same thick cardstock as the map tiles.
If the publisher had to choose a place to cut back a bit then they
made the right choice because the miniatures and map tiles are
really nice and the player aid sheets are really the least important
of the three.
The rulebook was easy to follow and you can get to playing
pretty quickly. At the start of each game you'll create the map
first. This consists of building the perimeter pieces that will
hold all of the other tiles in place. The rest of the tiles are then
mixed up and put into place on the map upside-down. Each
player will uncover their three adjacent starting tiles and will
have to explore the rest of the map to reveal what's there. I was
a bit concerned about the hexes being too tightly packed together
and that flipping them over would be problematic, but it
was not because there's s bit of space between each tile and the
whole board ends up having a bit of flexibility to it while still
remaining contained within the outer tiles. You'll have a capital
and one infantry unit by the end of the first turn and then get to
exploring and putting the boots, or eventually cannons, to the
other players.
Units, the number and type, are tied directly to how many
towns and cities that you have and what kind of hex (planis,
grasslands, mountains, or forests) where they are built. For
example, each town (regardless of its location) will give you
one infantry while a City on a mountain will get you an infantry
and a cannon. How you use your military units is certainly
important but deciding on where to build your cities is also vital
because that will dictate the units that you get to use. Movement
is very straightforward with the expenditure of movement
points to move across terrain, some of which slow your progress.
Combat favors groups of varried units (infantry, cavalry,
and artillery) because this will get you more dice to throw during
the engagement. As an example, if player A has moved
into a hex containing troops from player B's army a battle will
ensue. If player A had 2 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 cannon he
would attack with 4 dice (1 for the infantry, 2 more for the cavalry
and 1 more for the artiller, he'll also get a pre-battle artillery
barrage). Let's say that player B has 6 infantry in the hex
and 2 cannons. He gets just two dice to defend with. Player B
might have some staying power and be able to soak up more
casualties than player A, but since player A is throwing more
dice out there, at least until his units start being depleted, he'll
have a better chance of success. There are modifiers to combat
like cavlary only getting one defensive die contrasted with two
attacking dice, terrain bonuses, and naval support but nothing to
make it the process cumbersome. Your dead troops are tossed
back into your reserve and you'll be able to deploy them in a
city on your next turn unless enemy units are camped out in the
hex adjacent to where you want to deploy the units. In that case
they just sit in your deployment box waiting to join the fight but
since there's an enemy right outside the city it's likely to fall and
thereby reducing the number and type of units that you get.
Losing units in battles is not what directly leads to you losing
the game because they can be recycled on your next turn and as
long as your cities are intact you'll have the same units available
as last turn. Losing units leads to the enemy moving into your
territory and that leads to losing cities and losing cities leads to
a depletion of units which means that you can attack and defend
less and then you lose more cities and you see where I'm going
with this. You need to expand your empire, build new cities,
which gets you more military units, so you can continue to expand
and continue that cycle.
If you're a fan of military conquest games like Risk and Axis &
Allies then I think you'll like Viktory II very much. The random
map setup for each game and the fog of war add a lot of
re-playability. That along with a reasonable playing time definitely
gives you a lot of things to like.
Review by Mark Theurer
Title: Battlestations
Designer: Jeff & Jason Siadek
Type: Board / Tile / Sci-Fi / RPG
Manufacturer: Gorilla Games
MSRP: $59.95
From turn two on each player will follow a sequence of play
that has you building new towns or upgrading an existing one to
a city and then moving and fighting with your military units and
then finally bringing reserves onto the board.
29
Battlestations is a cooperative multi-player game where one
player, the referee, sets up a scenario for the other players to
play through. If it sounds a lot like a role-playing game to you
it did to me to when I picked it up. I saw the game when I was