Space Cadets: Duel of the Dice

Guest post by Josh 

 Space Cadets: Dice Duel captures the hectic feel of a spaceship battle straight out of a Star Trek episode. Two teams face off on a grid map, complete with obstacles, wormholes, and power up crystals. The teams, composed of anywhere from 2 to five players (although 4 is probably the sweet spot) must fly their ship around the board, and attempt to shoot down their enemy. Sound simple? Not quite.

Space Cadet's method of madness is dice. Each ship is composed of stations, manned by the members of the team. And each station has its own set of dice, rolled as many times as necessary to obtain the results necessary. Still sound simple? All of this is happening at the same time. There are no turns in Space Cadets, simply pandemonium as each team rolls its six sets of dice trying to blow each other out of the sky. 

A captain shouts out the order "load torpedoes and turn around!". The engineer must roll certain numbers to allocate "power" to different stations. Once he has rolled the requisite numbers, the respective stations are allowed to roll their own dice to attain the necessary results. A torpedo is loaded. Helm has rolled the dice signifying an about turn. The ship is moved, and now the enemy is directly in the sites. 

"Fire torpedo!" yells the captain. And now action stops to determine if the torpedo is a hit. There are numerous factors to be sorted. Enough sensor dice must be rolled to overcome the enemies sensor jam. Shields assigned to the corresponding angle of the torpedo might block it. 

It's decided. The torpedo was a hit. The enemy loses one energy die (used by the engineer). And immediately, chaos resumes. 

The quality of the game components are good. As far as group games go, this one can get particularly raucous, so if that's not your cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot, you may want to skip it. But if you enjoy shouting out orders (or getting orders shouted to you), and if you like a good tactical game, check out Space Cadets: Dice Duel.

# Players . . . 4- 10 (but up to 12 if you have a dedicated captain)
Ages 12 and up
Game time . . . . . . . . 30 minutes

Set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 minutes

Luck . . . . . . . . .7 . . Strategy

*Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Visual Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Component Quality . .. . . . . 8

 *Replayability . . . . . . . . . . . 7

*See "How we Rate" for a definition.