Silent Death

[dijit]

Inspired by this thread:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=14058.0
I started to see if I could track down Crimson Skies, but couldn't seem to find anything. Instead I found 'Silent Death' http://shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1 and got the rulebook and ordered the plastic minis from EM4 and getting ready to mark up a space hex cloth ready for play. So the question have any of you guys tried it? What's your verdict?

[Modhail]

Gee, it must have been close to a decade since I last played Silent Death...
The rules are a bit more involved than Crimson Skies.
It's really a "jetfighter in space" type game, a fun little dogfighter. Faster planes had an undeniable advantage though. Some of our later games became more like air races, with everyone trying to get the most speedy crafts. This is mainly because the game uses movement points to regulate movement and turning, but without restrictions on turning due to speed. So ships with lots of movement points had a lot of liberty, and could almost always find a way to line up a shot. The slower ships' armour and heavier guns didn't quite compensate for this advantage.
Maybe larger games, where you had enough planes to fly formations can compensate for this? We mainly flew small unit furballs.
I always felt the ship datasheets were a bit cluttered and hard to read quickly, a bit too much symbols and tables to reference to my taste.
It played reasonably quickly once you had a group that knew the rules and had a number of games of practise.

I'd say it's a nice game, but it definately shows it's 1990's heritage in terms of involvement of the rules and need to reference keys and tables while playing.

[Michi]

Inspired by this thread:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=14058.0
I started to see if I could track down Crimson Skies, but couldn't seem to find anything.

I can offer some new in box pewter planes for Crimson Skies, if you are interested...

[fairoaks024]

It's a great game,

still play it occassionally, best space fighter game ever in my opinion,

i think you'll enjoy playing,

regards

jim

[dijit]

Thanks for the offer Michi, but unfortunately I can't seem to find the rules for a reasonable price, so I think I'll have to pass. After having spent the past few days reading through the Silent Death rulebook, I'm all pysched ready for it.
I've had a failed experiment to make my own hex mat, using a 5mm piece of hardboard over fabric and then painting white paint over it - got a good star effect but far too few of the holes allowed paint through. So now I'm going to try with a piece of plasticard and see how that works. I'll post any solutions here.

[Modhail]

For a star effect, why not just get some paint on a larger (about 1") brush and just flick it from a distance?
It what I did for my star mat, here. I made several passes, in white, blue and red, to add some "depth" to the starfield. The galaxy and nebula were just drybrushed on the stretched fabric with the same brush I used for flicking.
For the hexes, litko has templates for sale, or you could easily make your own, using the hex-generator* on this site.


*:Sounds like some sort of automated system for laying curses, doesn't it? 

[dijit]

I've used a similar idea to that with the hex generator (I think Cyber-Potter would be perfect here), and hopefully going to give that a try soon, and see how it works.