Tags
As usual a new ruleset comes out and whoosh we are off down a new rabbit hole…
A Billion Suns has been brewing for a while now as the Osprey release schedule is often well publicised and we get plenty of time to become hyped up for the next ‘new thing’ (or two, or three…)
Now, a new rule book, well priced at about £10, sounds like an easy buy in for anyone with a varied figure collection, and usually it is. I do not have any fleet scale spaceships at all though. None. Nada. Nowt.
Not until Ground Zero Games completed their delivery to me that was. One Fleet pack of New Swabian League ships and a couple of other deftly selected ships from that range and others, and I feel like the Admiral of an armada already.
A Billion Suns lets you take your whole collection along to any game, as you don’t start with an army list as such. When missions come up, you just pay to open jump points and buy ships to deploy on any of three tabletops all currently being played at the same time. You just have to be careful not to spend too much on buying ships as you have to make a profit from each mission attempted.
If the mission has a possible payout of 3 galactic credits you only want to spend 1-2 on ships to complete it. If your opponent is after those credits too you both may come out with less than you started. Good job there are three missions on offer in each game you play. Don’t forget as well, the larger the game size the more profit they could potentially produce.
In a starter game (scale 3) you might only field a fighter wing and a couple of tiny gunships in order to get that profit. If larger games are played (scale 8-10) your battlegroups of frigates or even a battleship or two may show up to guarantee that your opponent cannot steal those much needed credits.
I have never painted tiny spaceships, Epic scale tanks are about as close as I have got to this sort of stuff. With a base coat in light grey, a black ink wash and a few panels picked out in contrasting colours, they are looking like the liveried warships I had hoped for.
My smallest sized ships are a Bomber wing. The next up in size are the gunships, corvettes and monitors. The heaviest of this first batch are a battlegroup of Frigates. Included are also a light and medium utility ship that allow some extra options when the missions rely on transporting things like ore back home…
I can see this leading to further purchases as my small fleet grows into a real armada.
Steinberg Shed Space 
Those ships are really nice! 🙂 GZG’s NSL ships are amongst my favourites. The rules sound interesting, so will be good to read a game report sometime (i.e. like when we’re finally allowed to play games)! Brigade Models do some nice ships as well if you haven’t seen them!
LikeLike
Finally found time to send a few replies :-).
I will try to get a quick synopsis up and give you all a heads up on the rules. It is, as you say, a very interesting and different little ruleset… very different from a kill the enemy game. Almost more like a resource gathering game. If you spend too much on warships you are actually more likely to lose!
LikeLike
I played a bit of Full Thrust a good few years back and liked it, so this is interesting to me. I’m keen to get little forces for a few of the Osprey games built up once I’m finished my two current “bitten off more than I can chew” Warhammer projects.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Do you really think you will ever finish a ‘Warhammer’ force? I have about 3 and none ever get ‘finished’
Other armies, for other systems, get completed but I don’t think I will ever stop adding ‘just one more’ tank/ unit/ hero to my marines, deathward or necrons……….
LikeLike
Well, the Necrons started as “hey, this Indomitus set looks cool” and is now heading towards 5,000 points.
The Gloomspite started off with “Ok, let’s get some Trolls and some Squigs” and then I somehow found Spiders in there, too.
You may be on to something…
LikeLike
Love the look of miniature star ships! I always wanted to do a game like this, but sadly never could find anyone else as interested. Still, I could see building an Armada just to have on a shelf (once a regular paycheck is a thing again!) Looking forward to see how this game plays out!
LikeLike
I thought it would be a cheap little game with a cheap little army but then I started thinking about all the ‘other’ token ships, space stations and space squid I might need… Best wait for a regular (and large) pay check 🙂
LikeLike
Those look great. Played a few startship games in my time but not loads. Will see if any of my other gaming group get into a Billion Suns before I jump into it I think.
Cheers,
Pete.
LikeLike
At less than the cost of most every other rulebook, I find the books to be well worth their price for just the read through. Even if we don’t get the game played regularly, the exploration of differing game concepts is often worth the cost…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: 5 on Friday 09/04/21 – No Rerolls
Pingback: Exploring Osprey’s Wargames – No Rerolls
Sapce combat. Tiny warships. Always tempting. I scratch the itch mostly with Star Wars games, X-Wing and Armada to be exact. I have drooled over the GZG ships for years. I have FT, DS and SG rules in a box somewhere. Your ships look great and Billion Suns seems a refreshing new entry in space combat.
LikeLike
It feels less combat and more resource management in play style. A refreshing game change as you say.
LikeLiked by 1 person