Hi guys,
Wow, lots of interest. That was a picture I took and well I have to say I lucked out with the lighting. It was just on my dining room table and we have one of these ugly 5 light bulb ceiling mounted light fixtures (previous owners) – but hey the photo turned out great.
BFG Space marine ships were painted by me (Black Templar)
GZG NSL painted by my friend Trent.
Enhanced Deep space mat by Eric Hotz.
As written the rules do use lots of different tokens, but blast markers aren't one of them. I just used the blast markers to indicate that a ship was destroyed that turn (photos taken at the end of turns 1 and 2).
I was playing a very basic game just to test simple things like a proposed changed to the turning rules, weapons, shields etc. The larger dice show how many hull points/crew points were left on each ship and the d6's (or d8 on the battle barge) show how many shields are left. You'll notice there is no terrain, but believe me there are some fantastic terrain rules in the game – so in future games I'll be using at least asteroids for sure.
I have to say I REALLY like the game, and I've been exposed to a lot of different rules. Pax Stellarum is a nice blend of ACTA, Gothic, Colonial Battlfleet, Full Thrust and Starmada – and well of course has its own unique things as well. Combat and movement both feel very intuitive and are scaled for easy of play – any math that is required could be done by a 2nd grader – but there are lots of decision points in the game – so while the mechanics are easy how to beat your opponent with them is another thing!
Being a generic system there is a full design system that not only lets you design ships, but also weapons, troops and fighters. However there are design constraints to keep things balanced.
I'm not going to spill anymore info right now (probably spilled too much already). Soonish the Beta release rules will be posted and you'll have a chance to check it out yourself.
-Tim
