Those of you who’ve been reading Purple Pawn for a while may remember when I first broke the story in August 2009 about a new Battleship game. At that time, however, I knew little more that the game would have a science fiction theme and include 3D spaceship models. Well, at Toy Fair I finally got a chance to look at Battleship Galaxies and I’m even more excited than I was before!

Battleship Galaxies is a space combat game that has very little to do with its namesake. The two sides in this struggle, the human Intergalactic Space Navy and the alien Wretcheridians, are represented by fleets of detailed plastic spaceships. Among the fleets are several different ship types, each with its own movement, shield rating, hull strength, and weapons, all explained on individual reference cards. Combat takes place on a board with hexagon-shaped spaces. Each turn, a player can spend a certain number of energy points to move, fire weapons, and do other things. The goal of the game, as well as the location on the board of obstacles, energy sources, wormholes, and shield generators, are set by scenario, a number of which are provided in a scenario booklet that comes with the game.

The one interesting connection to the original Battleship game is the method of determining hits. The attacking player rolls two dice—one (ten-sided) has letters and one (eight-sided) has numbers—and calls out the resulting combination, as in “G-5.” The player who’s ship was targeted looks up the result on a matrix on the target ship’s reference card. An overlay of the ship’s profile will indicate whether the die roll is a hit or miss. Hit’s first affect a ship’s shield rating, recorded with blue pegs, and then when shield’s are exhausted are recorded with red pegs in the figure’s base.

Battleship Galaxies is due in stores this coming June with a retail price of $65. There will also be a graphic novel from IDW with more on the game’s background story.