I heard of Lunar earlier last year. It bubbled up on a friend's FB feed so I looked into it - and choked on the postage costs from the US to the UK. No UK distributor is a real issue. However I stayed interested and finally decided to take the risk.
And I'm so glad I did.
This is one of those boutique games that really work. The premise is that the race to the Moon was won by the Soviets by a matter of a few weeks - if you've watched "For All Mankind" on TV you get the idea.The Cold War in the 1970s but on the Moon. The battles are fought out between small crews of Astronauts and Cosmonauts trying to do their best in low G conditions and with limited resources. A spanner or mineral hammer is probably the best you will start with. The battlefield is usually a 2x2ft square. The games mostly revolve around trying to recover items or mine resources. Usually there's a tight time limit and often the real enemy is the environment.
We've had a couple of games and now started a campaign - the rules have a nice compact campaign system in there ready to run. Having played a couple of campaign turns I have to say I'm having a blast.
I think the clever part of this game is the restrictions it places on the player. Sure you can (if you have the $$$$) kit out your Astro as a combat specialist, with a real gun, some reinforced plates in your suit and a ranging system. Problem is you will be so over encumbered that you cant move, and your gun may jam or break due to the operating environment, and by the way the spare parts and ammo is 238,800 miles away. You probably need that hammer as well, just in case. I have a Cosmonaut mining specialist, with a genuine mining drill. He's the dog's bollocks at mining and the drill is actually quite a scary weapon in an emergency, but weighs a ton (ok not a real ton, but it's heavy). So heavy in fact that he needs a mate to carry anything he actually mines. Maybe that mining hammer is not a bad idea, even if it is far less efficient?
Crews are usually only three or four members to start, with one Commander and one Specialist. Choice of your Specialist is quite critical. OK, it's a wargame so a Combat specialist seems a good idea, but as the missions are almost all about recovering resources, an Engineer or maybe even a Medic is a better idea. A Medic because, in the immortal words of Heinlein, the moon is indeed a harsh mistress. It's not so much the risk posed by real weapons - they're few and far between anyway, and most combat degenerates into some clumsy wrestling where one or both participants can end up on their arse, but even a hammer or a bit of well swung or thrown scrap pipe can knock you over, or bounce you into a rock, or worse case, tear your suit. Similarly just tripping over can risk a tear. Suit tears are very bad news.
In addition to "real" weapons such as guns, there are a few improvised weapons available too - a laser pistol sounds dangerous until you realise it's really just a glorified flashlight or laser pointer. Ok it can dazzle a target, but that's it. Similarly the glue gun is hilarious when you manage to hit an opponent and get him entangled in sticky gunk for a turn. The NASA player can also buy a flag to mark his landing zone, or beat a Commie over the head with (yes I almost lost a Cosmonaut when a NASA guy hit him with the bloody flag and tore his suit). Throwing stuff in low G is a valid tactic - particularly if you do it from outside the victim's line of sight, but does involve you throwing a bit of kit that is probably worth something, and then you need to get it back, or worse the bloody Yanks can pick it up and take it home for use next time.
There is so much to say about Lunar, and it is all good. I don't think it will ever be a "main" game because it will never really scale up beyond a half dozen crew, but damn, it's fun.
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| It's not junk, it's resources thought Astronaut Nicholson |
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