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    Ad Astra Games announce Squadron Strike

    Squadron StrikeAd Astra Games have announced that they are taking pre-orders for their new Squadron Strike space combat game.

    From their announcement:
    Never let your opponents say of you, “Brilliant, but his attack patterns show two dimensional thinking…” Move your space combat gaming to new heights with Squadron Strike!

    Building off of the streamlined 3-D movement engine of Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, 2nd Edition, Squadron Strike lets you build any ship, from any setting, in full 3-D glory—and then pit them against each other, in titanic battles for the fate of galaxies.

    Squadron Strike takes between 5 and 10 minutes per turn with 6 ships per side, and combines fast play with more tactical depth and scalable detail than any other “construction ready” space combat game. It’s suitable for ages 12 and up.

    In Squadron Strike, ships move in one of three movement modes, named for the number of Newton’s Laws being obeyed; with these options you’re not stuck with whatever movement mode the game designer liked - you can pick the one that works best for the setting you’re trying to run in. You even have optional fuel rules (for both interstellar and tactical movement) to simulate the setting or TV series to whatever degree you like. You decide what reality level is appropriate for your level of fun.

    You can design nearly everything in the game, from missiles, to beams, to fighters, to torpedoes. An original setting includes pre-built ships and weapons for people who don’t want to get deeply into the customization process, but if you want it, you have complete control.

    Automated tools do complete SSD generation for you, in Excel format, or with higher end features via web applications.

    Squadron Strike comes with a complete, integrated campaign system, including web apps that automatically generate campaign maps, victory decks, and system maps. Just enter the campaign turn in the web app and the positions of the planets on the system map update automatically!

    The boxed game will have two map sheets, a bag of tilt blocks, two bags of stacking tiles, box miniature sheets, a rulebook, an SSD book and a setting book. The ship design tools are available as a free download in Excel; the web applications (including a nicer ship design tool set, and campaign support) are behind a subscriber login.

    Your serial number gives you a 90-day trial subscription to the subscriber areas; after that, the subscription area costs $20 per calendar quarter, or $60 for an entire year.

    Preorder Target: 105 Copies

    $54.95 Boxed Game

    Try out our all-new Pre-Order page

    3 Responses to “Ad Astra Games announce Squadron Strike”


    bdevlin says:

    I don’t pay subscriptions for video games, and I will not pay subscriptions for board/miniature games. This games looks interesting, but this subscription trend is disturbing.

    While I can understand paying people for ongoing development efforts, the game should then come at a slightly higher price with free/unlimited/non-expiring access to online resources.


    Zac says:

    The game isn’t a subscription system, the online tools are. So the game and the core Excel files are a single purchase and if you want to use the online tools then you get a subscription for that.


    Ken Burnside says:

    bdevlin:

    The game is perfectly playable without a subscription. You can play it right out of the box with the ships provided, and you can design functional ship sheets with the free Excel workbook.

    The subscriber area has a web app that manages a lot of what you’ll want for a campaign game, including map generation, victory deck generation and a spiffier ship design tool that produces prettier SSDs, and a tool that lets you upload art and make your own box miniatures.

    It’s a value added service that costs us money to provide (in bandwidth costs) and costs us development time to make happen - and provides utility to players.

    But the tactical game is fully functional without it, there’s a free Excel workbook that produces a printable ship sheet, and you can use any campaign system you like.


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