At some point John and I finally got around to playing a session of GDW's Double Star. Unfortunately it took four years to get around to writing it up, so memory is fuzzy.

The scenario we chose was the Raid scenario, where the goal is to destroy one of the other player's three large industry complexes. Both sides have some time to build and preposition units for an unlimited number of turns (usually not many as production runs out), and then from the moment one side's ships leave their own star system, the scenario runs for 12 turns. The initial aand later production capabilities are slightly asymmetric, the Chin get more points initially, the An-Nurs can trickle out a bit more production over the time of the game.

A key part of the setup is that you also get to "design" your planets, i.e., choose where on your big planets (which have 7 hexes, some of which may be water and so can't be built on) or small planets (one space) your population, industry, and defences are placed.

Twelve turns, as it turns out, is not that much given that some movement is necessary to cover the distance between the two systems.

The two cutout pictures show the initial Chin and An'Nur setup in bigger size (but not more detail, being cut out). You can see population centers ('100' markers are the largest available), gun positions, and the black industry sites. No big impact, but one can see that the Chinese put their planetary defence emplacements into the center hexes while the Islamic side put them on the margin.

The Chinese tended to put their fortifications on the big planets and the An-Nurs on the moons.

White on green/yellow units are fleet command ships standing in for a whole fleet of ships. The An-Nurs have a small fleet around Al-Akhir on the margins of the system and their main fleet at Al-Mughni closer in. The Chinese have one fleet at Chien/I, and one standing at K'An further out. One of the things this game shows nicely is that there is actually little sense in seeing outer planets as "defense bastions" (as is happily done in many SF shows) since the may simply be on the wrong side of the system when the enemy comes calling.

White dot planet markers are small moons/planetoids that are susceptible to being moved.

Turn 2: more ships have rolled off the production pipelines, so the fleets are filling up.



Turn 4: The game has begun in earnest, as the An-Nur Fleet #2 has left the orbit of Al-Akhir, in fact that orbit is now empty, as drives attached to Al-Akhir itself have accelerated the planetoid towards the Chin system. (It is visible under the Fleet HQ ship. The ships in both sides' fleet boxes are inverted for fog of war purposes, but note that the An-Nur fleet boxes have inverted chits placed next to them, those are not ships but the trained combat tactics.



Turn 7: Fleet #2 with Al-Akhir has entered the Chin system. A fleet is moving out from K'An to engage it.

Turn 8: I actually don't remember what happened. Was the Chin fleet defeated or did it choose not to engage? It may have been too weak, originally sent off as a scout towards An-Nur.



Turn 9: Al-Akhir is getting close to K'An (presumably due to a course correction - I know it carried rocket packs since at least one is needed for final course corrections before impact).



Turn 10: Al-Akhir has reached the position of K'An. A battle is imminent.

Turn 12 (presumably - the turn marker is not visible): In the battle of K'An, the An-Nur attackers wiped out the Chin defenders, Al-Akhir survived the defensive fire and destroyed the industry complex on K'An. (On the left one can still see the tactics markers placed on parts of the An-Nur fleet: Cone and Wedge. Unfortunately I do not remember the tactics used in detail, but I do remember that in the end, we concluded that mass is important. I also seem to remember that time to set up proper use of a tactic can be of importance.

The An-Nurs are sending ships in penny packets as they are produced, to reinforce Fleet #2.

The Chin have decided to send out their Fleet #2 to the An-Nur system in the hope of doing some reciprocal damage there.



Turn 15: The game is almost over. The An-Nur reinforcements have turned around, realising that they are not needed in the Chin system. However, they likely will not stand up to the strength of Chin Fleet #2 even when reunited with their own Fleet #1 back in the home system.

Turn 16-18: An-Nur Fleet #1 and Chin Fleet #2 met, the two photos show the composition. Both fleets had a small core of capital ships (a BB, BC and CA for the chin), the Chin could only use Cyclinder tactics, while the An-Nur could use Globe and Cylinder.





I don't actually know whether the battle took place, anyway, the last picture shows the Chin fleet returning home, defeated in the sense that they realised they could not change the outcome of the game.



Need to try this again so I know what I'm doing... this is the classic case of a game that is actually not complex, the rules are less than six pages. But there are so many unusual concepts in the game that until you have tried things out, you are constantly rechecking to see what you're supposed to be doing. So much alienness in such short rules for an SF game fills me with awe.

Nice write up!  I've had this one for years, and I swear I'll get it on the table one of these days.

Was the Chinese bowl chit cup chosen for it's appropriateness to the game, or just a happy coincidence? :smile:

Just coincidence I think. :-)

Although John provided the cup, he might have had ulterior considerations. :-)

I *always* have ulterior considerations - which mostly go awry :)

Managed to score a copy of this. More anon.