WorldKiller Review
Review by David Lent
About 10 years ago, I bought a large collection of miniatures from a guy on the East coast. To sweeten the deal, he threw in around 10 old board games. The most notable were World Killer from the old Ares Magazine #1, Tyrannosaurus Wrecks and Jacksonville The Beaches of Doom. I chose World Killer for this review, because it has some unusual elements for a space ship combat game. Playing ordinary games all the time can get mundane, so I like to spice things up by occasionally trying strange and unusual games.
World Killer is a space ship combat game between humans and an alien race known as the E’kenn. The E’Kenn are known for destroying entire planets, so the humans have stationed a large fleet and 4 space stations to protect a planet known as Greendream. It’s the alien’s mission to destroy the planet and survive with at least one ship. Anything else is a human victory.
The components included in the magazine edition of this game are the map, rules and counters. Players have to provide a single D6 dice to play.
I found the map to be the craziest looking map I have ever seen in my life. It looks like a black board from an applied linear algebra class. Instead of hexes, it has squares, which have places to place your ships representing the z-axis from -3 to +3. Sometimes game designers fixate on one aspect of a game design and in this case it was having a map that represents all three dimensions. Later, I’ll reveal whether or not this added any value to the game. The map also has the planet and 4 space stations printed on it. Four of the squares surrounding the planet and the planet square itself are marked with stars, signifying that the aliens cannot enter those squares. The planet has to be attacked from a distance.
The counters represent ships, space stations and missiles. They are marked with attack strength, weapon range, defense and jump value. In addition, there are a bunch of counters with just a number on them that are used to mark the current number of damage points a ship or space station has taken. 1980’s games are known for extremely simple counter artwork and this game is no exception. I complained about the counter artwork in the game Artifact last week, but these look even simpler. They are functional though. I guess I’m spoiled by the excellent artwork on modern counters.
Setup for this game is very simple and straightforward. First, the human player sets up his ships anywhere on the map except the 2 columns of squares on the left side of the board known as the intruder set-up zone. His forces are four space stations, 5 frigates, 4 cruisers and 2 light cruisers. In addition, he gives the planet three shields that have a defense of 5 each. The alien player then sets up his ships in the intruder set-up zone. They are 5 Worldkiller ships and 4 Dominator ships. The Dominator ships have a longer weapon range than all of the human ships. Later on, we will discuss how this breaks the game.
The game turns are played by the alien player performing one action with one of his ships and then turning the ship upside down. The human player then does the same with one of his ships and this alternates back and forth until all ships have activated or both players have passed consecutively. The actions available are jump, attack, pop, stretch and repair.
Jumping is the form of movement used in this game. A ship jumps into hyperspace and nothing can block or get in the way of a jump. Since this game has a 3 dimensional map, the player uses a true distance table to figure out the actual distance between two points on the map. This is an unusual system where you figure out the difference in the X, Y and Z coordinates and plug the values into the true distance table to get the actual distance. This method of computing distances didn’t hurt the game, but it didn’t add any value either. My opponent and I felt the 3 dimensional map didn’t cause the players to use different strategies than they would with a 2 dimensional map so it was pointless.
The attack action is done by subtracting your ships attack strength from the target ships final defense strength and then subtracting this number from your die roll. The resulting number is the number of damage points inflicted on the enemy ship. The final defense strength of a ship is equal to the printed defense minus half the current damage points it has and it also gets +1 for each of up to 2 adjacent ships. If a ship has damage points equal or greater than its strength points it may no longer attack. When a ship has damage points that are double its defense value it is destroyed. I really like the attacking mechanic for this game. You only need one die roll to determine if a ship is hit and how much damage it takes without even having to consult a table. I love efficiency!
Pop is an action where your ship moves and attacks on the same turn. The downside is your ship immediately suffers two damage points due to strain.
Stretching is where a ship increases the range of its jump by performing no actions for several turns. If the ship stretches for 2 turns, it may jump a distance of 6 on the third turn. It can also jump to any location on the board if it stretches for 3 turns.
Repair is an action where you can remove 2 damage points from a ship. It comes in handy when your ship has taken so much damage it may no longer attack.
There are some optional rules that can be used to improve re-playability. They are the reinforcement scenario and optional ship types.
In the reinforcement scenario the human player rolls for reinforcements beginning on turn 13. If he doesn’t get them, he keeps rolling each turn until he does. The alien player gets reinforcements on the following turn.
The optional ship types are missile cruisers for the alien player and scout ships for the humans. Missile cruisers have 6 missiles that may be launched one per turn. Each missile is self guiding and chases its target until it slams into it or it’s shot down. The human scout ships are stored 1 per space station. They may use the pop action without taking damage points. In addition they can fly into enemy ships and explode.
The game play for this game is a lot of fun. The alien player’s ships are more powerful than the human ships and have a greater range so they are very good at causing destruction from a distance. Human ships are more numerous, so they do best when they gang up on individual alien ships. The best units the human has are his space stations. They have a longer weapon range than all the alien ships, except the Dominators.
Worldkiller at first seems like a balanced game until the alien player discovers its fatal flaw. The aliens can win EVERY game if they do the following. First, the alien player leaves one Dominator on one of the far corners of the intruder zone and has it stretch every turn. Second, the alien player stays away from the planet and space stations and destroys every human ship from a distance. If any human ship gets within range of the hiding Dominator ship, it uses its stretch jump to jump far away from it. When all the human ships are destroyed, the Dominator ship may then use it’s superior weapon range to destroy the space stations from a distance where they cannot fire back. After that, it destroys the planet at its leisure.
I liked this game even though the 3-D map doesn’t add any value and the aliens can always win. The way attacks and defense are done is simple and brilliant. I’m going to make some house modifications to allow this game to be played on a 2-D hex map. In addition, I’m going to increase the weapon range of the space stations to be equal to the Dominator ships. This will prevent them from being able to destroy the space stations at a distance.
Buy your own copy here.