Seastrike and Scenario Design

Following on from my previous naval related ramble, my good friend and naval gamer of long standing, Chris Hardman, came up with a suggestion relating to mission objectives. Basically he suggested using a system not unlike that used in the old modern naval game – Seastrike. I do not have a copy of this but apparently the opposing forces had missions that were secret from each side, thereby maintaining the fog of war. Taking this idea a little further there are also mission cards in the game of Risk so this is a well tried technique. Each player would draw a mission card and would fight the action with this in mind – the winner being the first player to achieve their objective. I would not tie the use of mission cards to the force selection as this will give the player an extra challenge along the lines of ‘….she’s the only ship in the quadrant (Star Trek speak – from the Wrath of Khan!)’ or, to put it another way, making do with the ships available rather than what would be most suitable for the task in hand. The challenge with this approach would be to devise a number of missions that would be both achievable and challenging. As a club night system this has much to commend it as it is in effect an instant scenario generator, albeit on a ‘blind’ basis. At the very least it will make for some very interesting after action reports!

Certainly something to think about and so this will go on my projected holiday contemplation list!