SITS - out of the box

The Saganami Island Tactical Simulator. Even the name is a mouthful. And now I've had a good look at it. I picked it up for David for his birthday. I will say this, the box passes the critical weight vs. cost test. It's a big, heavy box. The box is a bit low on bits. Real bits that is. Most of the bits are laminated card and uninteresting plastic. Models are a separate purchase.

SITS is now, in my mind, the reigning champion of the "Most Complicated Game Ever". It make Star Fleet Battles seem like primary school maths in comparison. Newtonian physics has that effect on paper games.

The game looks cool, I think. I suspect it rewards the correct aspects of play, but so far all we were able to do was work through the tutorials about movement and aiming. That took about six hours. We still don't get some of the details about missile defense. 3d movement though. Pretty cool.

Inside the box is a mixed review. Some of it is pretty high end. The really nice laminated play cards, though on the small side, are very nicely made. The cardboard used for counters is at the other end of the scale. It's too thin to be useful. I think you would be better making some square dowel pieces and pasting the ship images on. Or scanning and printing on sticker sheet. The hex maps are big, but on regular paper stock. That means it doesn't lay flat out of the box, which is annoying but not a show stopper. If you are going to play lots, investing in a roll mat might not be a bad move. Check out this one at Paizo. Actually, a roll mat is probably a great investment no matter what, but then I might get an Oyster (beige I would have said) coloured one, which you could write on (water soluble pens only!). Good for all kinds of fig based games.

We plan on trying a second session where we may actually shoot things at each other. David thinks we may be best to play in the horizontal plane exclusively first. I think that makes a fair amount of sense. Hopefully this time I won't be looking for the Marine recruiter afterwords. I figure people who want to be on star ships, but can't handle astrogation, join the Royal Marines. They just want you to carry a gun. No thinking required.