Space and Warships - a match made in Heaven?

Space, the final frontier where no-one can hear you scream about the force being with you....

Now this is a varied point of view (and according to Obi-Wan Kenobi 'You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view'.) but one that I am certainly not alone in thinking. I am a great fan of space battle type games - be it giant starships blasting away at each other or even single seat fighters dogfighting - and had heard many good things about these rules so when an opportunity to invest in a set at my local (fantasy) games shop arose I took the plunge and purchased a copy. I should point out that previously to this I had played a lot of space combat games using Ground Zero Games Full Thrust and then Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic as well as the Star Wars Starship Miniatures game. These are lots of fun to play and as a Science Fiction fan a great way of gaming the exploits of Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker and many others.

The rules are produced by Spartan Games and there is a huge range of models available to replicate the fleets mentioned within the rules background. These are really nice but are a little overdone for my taste although the painted examples in the rule book are certainly very impressive to look at. My only thought with this set of rules would be to use them for my own ideas - thereby not being tied to any specific 'official' background.

Leaving the question of spaceship models aside, the point of view I was obliquely referring to is the well known fact that most space ship rules are in fact naval rules by any other name. In this particular instance the comparison is very apt as I believe the system employed would in fact make a very good set of 20th century naval rules. The rules are in fact very similar to Axis and Allies: War at Sea only with a lot more detail. In many ways they could be used as a template for a more wargame rather than game set of  naval rules. 

This is an intriguing notion and no mistake but my current thought of using Paul Hague's rules currently still holds sway but as for the future - who knows?

In the meantime though I need to think about some space ship models at a modest level, nothing Jutland-like, just a small smattering of varied types, enough for a game or three.