Review- Echidna Games' Alien Worlds

I've done quite a lot of stuff in the past months that I've neglected to record here. Today, my daughter and I played a simple skirmish game using Echidna Games' ruleset 'Alien Worlds', which is billed as 'fast paced miniatures rules you can enjoy with your children'. I'm happy to report we both enjoyed them as advertised!

I set out a simple scenario. A raiding party of dwarfs have heard a rumour that the fabled jewel- the Dragon's Eye- had been hidden at a crofter's cottage and they attempt to retrieve it, only to run into a band of soldiers who have anticipated their attack. My daughter took the Humans and I took the Dwarfs.

Her humans consisted of 4 archers (one of whom was absent for this picture!), a warrior and the leader.

To keep things simple, my Dwarfs functioned identically, but I had two fewer shooters and two extra warriors.

We played a slightly modified version of the super-simple introductory game.  Each player chooses two figures which move up to 'short' (10cm) and either fight if in base contact with an enemy or shoot if within 'long' (20cm) of a target. Shooting is a single D6, with some extremely simple modifiers, and a success is a kill- this game is quick and bloody! If the leader of either band is killed, I decided, the other models in his band should immediately roll a D6 and flee on a 1.

I tweaked combat to make it a basic opposed roll but with more heavily armoured warriors always rolling two dice and picking the higher.

These rules gave us a very decisive result within about 20 minutes. My opponent won, saving the Dragon's Eye from the greedy dwarfs, and she is keen to play again soon. I'm already thinking about ways the two sides can be differentiated and made more interesting. Alien Worlds is a simple and solid set of rules which does what it sets out to do and can be built on and expanded easily- heartily recommended if you want a game you can play with young children, or if you just like very simple rules.