by: Michael Barnes

Last year I discovered Victory Point Games, a small company out of Irvine, California that is doing some pretty great things in terms of publishing unique, interesting games on a shoestring budget. They are definitely not the right games for you if you’re looking for expensive components and best-in-show production quality, but if you’re in the market for interesting games with cool themes and sometimes great gameplay, some of their better titles might surprise you with how much fun there is to be had with desktop publishing-quality materials packed in a Ziplock bag. They’re always cranking out new stuff on the VPG printer, so I thought it’d be a good idea to catch up with some of their newest releases.

Astra Titanus

It’s pretty well documented here that I’m a huge fan of the classic Steve Jackson game Ogre. I love the one big unit versus lots of little units scenario, and the hopeless man versus machine theme is great. VPG’s top designer Chris Taylor set out to willfully remake Ogre as a space combat game with the giant tank replaced by a giant spaceship and the infantry and armor traded out for fighters and capital ships. It would be easy to fault Mr. Taylor for simply repurposing the original design in Astra Titanus, but I think he’s not only brought his own touch to it—he’s also improved on it in some ways.

Astra Titanus is a scenario-based solitaire game pitting one (or more) of these giant, unfeeling, death-dealing spaceships against meager human forces. Its movements and actions are entirely dictated by cards that profile its movement for the turn as well as how it triages targets with each of its weapons systems. The player must attempt to halt its advance toward its objectives by attacking its weapons and propulsion systems. The humans have a number of different types of ships available including fighters, battlecruisers, and missile-firing destroyers.

Movement is the game is very cool. Ships “warp” out, remain in hyperspace for a few phases, and then pop out at a space within their movement allowance. This allows for some neat maneuvers, flanking actions, and out-foxing the Titan. Taking a cue from more detailed space combat games, missiles fired at the Titan have individual counters and move of their own accord or get shot down by point defense systems. One of the chief strategies of the game is to marshal your forces to attack together, adding die roll modifiers, to try to knock down the sliders gauging the integrity of the Titan’s systems. Or you can make riskier rolls individually. There are plenty of tough choices to make. The scenarios are varied and interesting and each offers replay in terms of setup and difficulty adjustments along with the ability to field different classes of Titans.

Astra Titanus was an instant win for me because it pays homage to Ogre while also adjusting the idea enough that it emerges as its own game. The atmosphere of despair and impending doom is just as thick, and I love the transposition to the space combat genre. It’s a small game much in the spirit of the original Ogre as well with just a few chits and a little paper map. Highly recommended.