A Hobby GAMES 100 Recipient!

Plan! Explore! Conquer! Destroy! Liberate!
Phil Pritchard's Lensman is a game of interstellar conflict! Explore and colonize space on the beautiful strategic map. Transfer play to the tactical map to chase your opponent through one of the many detailed star systems. Close in on a heavily industrialized planet complete with orbital fortresses. But plan wisely, or it will be your planets under attack! And remember that exploration and economic expansion are essential to victory.

One thing to explain: the game does not have the scope of the Lensman books. The area of combat is a sector of space, not two entire galaxies, there are not mega-weapons and there are no superhuman characters. The original designer wanted to make a game that represented what space warfare would be like if the Lensman books were a history rather than fiction.

About game mechanics: Mostly you move your ships and fleets around a hexagon grid. When you encounter the enemy you fight. You can take over planets, build industry, have the industry produce ships and send those ships out to fight.

Combat: Although the Ultra Game has additional things, all the versions use the same beam versus screen system. A ship has a quota of power points and a maximum number of screens. The players secretly assign their power points to screens. That can be anything from 0 to the maximum for a ship. Anything left is used for beams. Scouts have 1 power point and 1 maximum screen. Cruisers 3 and 3, dreadnaughts 7 and 4, maulers 12 and 6, forts 24 and 12, bases 40 and 18. You can shoot at just about any combination of enemy ships in range. In the Introductory Game and Standard Game everything is on the strategic map and the range is one hex. In the Ultra Game combat occurs on the tactical map and beam range is four hexes. Of course, in the Ultra Game there are mines, torpedoes ... I forgot the tractor beams, and the engineers and the troops ...

Really, there's lots going on.