Space Cadets: Away Missions

Stronghold Games has entered into the realm of the game companies doing Kickstarters. This is a topic that does generate some controversy. The argument is one that an established comapny should not use Kickstarter. I'm not a supporter of that argument. I'd be happy to share a pint with you an discuss but not here...I would be interested to know what the anti-KS for an established Company think about a Company venturing into a whole new business model. THAT is what Stronghold is doing here...

Space Cadets: Away Missions is a miniatures game.: $99.00 gets you 100 figures, rules, a book, markers and playing boards. Quite a haul if you are willing to pre-order. And if you just want the figures, the price is $60.00.

Take a look. Watch the game play. 

I think it looks good...kind of reminds me of a lighter, faster version of some of the games I played with Battle Stations! which was a good RPG-Boardgame hybrid but hard to find players for, harder still to find the time...it was sold.

I will be supporting this one. I'm supporting Stronghold in their growth. I like the compnay and their products. I'm also filling a hole in my gaming catalog since I sold Battle Stations! If I can find the time, I will knock up something with my figures to play the game using Hydra Miniatures and Dwarven Forge until the game arrives and play it with squares instead of hexes...

But, if Pulp Space Adventures is your thing and you don't have the time, money or energy to cobble together something, give this one a look.  It's a heck of lot easier and cheaper and probably faster as I suspect Stronghold will bend the time space continuum to meet deadline on his first Kickstarter.

I've lifted some of the images from the Space Cadets: Away Missions Kickstarter. And there's only a three days left before it ends...Space Cadets: Away Missions.

Oh, and here's the list of the contents:

100 PLASTIC MINIATURES (various sizes: ~28mm “Heroic” scale)

• 6 Rocketeers (plus snap-in colored bases for each Rocketeer)

• 94 Aliens

• - 5 Brains-In-A-Jar  [NOTE: With REAL JARS for the brains!]

• - 8 Leaders

• - 30 Saucermen [Note: FOUR different sculpts! See below.]

• - 12 Leeches

• - 12 Thralls

• - 7 Sentinels

• - 20 Bugs

PAPER: 

• 1 Rulebook (~32 pages)

• 1 Scenario book with 20 scenarios (~48 pages)

CARDBOARD: 

• 33 Standard Map Tiles (3" Hexes, side to side)

• 10 Scenario Map Tiles  (3" Hexes, side to side)

• 15 Scenario Tile Markers (.875" x .875")

• 11 Hatch Markers (2.25" x .5") 

• 34 Alien Tokens (.75" x .75")

• 26 Discovery Tokens (.75" x .75")

• 12 Alert Tokens (.75" x .75")

• 28  Rocketeer Action Point Markers  (.625” x .625”)

• 6 Rocketeer Order/Scan Markers  (.625” x .625”)

• 10 Wire/Alien Blood Markers  (.75" x .75")

• 33 Rocketeer Item Markers  (.625” x .625”)

CARD-STOCK:

• 1 Rocketeer/Alien Reference Sheet (2-sided, 8.5" x 11") 

• 1 Overkill Reference Sheet (1-sided, currently 8.5" x 11")

• 6 Rocketeer Character Sheets  (6.89” x 6.89”)

92 CARDS - full-sized (poker-sized) (2.5" x 3.5"), linen-finished:

• 33 Rocketeer Gear Cards 

• 16 Alien Discovery Cards 

• 6 Alien Schematic Cards 

• 8 Alien quick-reference Cards 

• 5 Dominated Brain-in-a-Jar Cards 

• 10 Rescued Thrall Cards

DICE:

• 8 10-sided dice (four matched colored pairs)

94 PLASTIC TRANSPARENT CUBES:

• 36 Red cubes (8mm)

• 22 Blue cubes  (8mm)

• 36 Green cubes  (8mm)

BOX INSERT:

• Cardboard insert

NOTE: ALL STRETCH GOALS UNLOCKED! Stronghold unlocked everyhting when the gaming distributors signed on for enough copies to drop production costs.

Just think how crazy this Kickstarter would have gotten if it was Star Trek: Away Missions! I guarantee there will be some games where I swap out figures and use Victory Force:

Perhaps I need to do a look at the genre...in the meantime, Dwarven Forge can you make hexagonal corridors to add to my collection?

In the meantime, take a look at Space Cadets: Away Missions.

Space Crusade

Two days ago, The Black Android posted an AAR on The Miniatures Page about a game of Space Crusade. The game was a combined effort between Milton Bradley and Games Workshop dating back to 1991. It even had TV commercials. The Black Android also posted a link to photos on his Flickr account. The game lasted thirteen turns and it reminded me how much fun that game is to play.

Later the same day, he posted another AAR and Flickr link of the second scenario.

I'd like to dig this one out. I have all the bad guys painted. The marines could use some work. I think the figures would do well with magnetized weapons. Here's a photo from a now defunct website (it's now a video game site)...I tried to find the home for this picture to steer you to the site...beautiful Ultra Marine contingent:

If you know where the site has gone, or recognize the work, I'd love to give credit where it's due...

The next step is to figure out how to use the SciFi corridors from Dwarven Forge. The squares of the board can directly translate but then the walls create issues with the figures. The other option is to "blow-up" the maps so that each square on the tiles is one of the larger four-squares. The blow-up looks great but requires a large quantity of tiles and changes some siting issues with the doors.

Not too long ago, we slapped some piant on the Project Pandora by Mantic Games figures and played out some trial games on the Dwarven Forge tiles. Here's a shot of the game:

And a few of one of the table...but please excuse the three color bad paint jobs...it was a rush to get them to the table for some quick games on nice terrain...

When I finish the figures, I'll repost more games.

WOW! I thought I had a lot...