Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy

This review is a tough one, because I wanted to like this game - a lot. The concept is a really nifty thing: Deliver tactical-pause mechanics to the same genre occupied by, say, "Homeworld." In a trailer it looks VERY cool. Guide the trajectories of fighters, use 3D space to your advantage, set up some killer pincer movements, and just generally have some real control. That's the promise. The reality is slow, clunky, and - strategically - just like everything else. Mass your firepower, and just hammer the problem until it goes away. The 3D nature of the game IS important. You should organize your fleet such that your ships are unlikely to bump into each other. Past that, though, maneuvering for the optimal shot is a giant pain, and a waste of time. WIth any decently mobile enemy, chasing them down and specifying them as a designated target is an exercise in near futility. You'll end up just going around in circles or "S" curves, all the while being chewed up by whatever is not the designated target. The "turn-rhythm" of the game is such that it tends to produce stalemate, with designated enemies in and out of firing arcs long before your ships decide to actually shoot at anything. You're far better off just allowing your fleet to fire at anything they think they can hit, while keeping your ships able to support each other. This means that all the fancy maneuver mechanics can be reduced to a few variations: Everybody turns in a clockwise circle, everybody turns in a counterclockwise circle, or some ships turn one way and the other ships go the opposite way. (The "movement limits" represenation was actually done really well, by the way, even if it could be hard to click on the ship you actually wanted if a big crowd had formed.) A major contributor to the "clunk" factor is that all non-movement commands go through the HUD interface, with basically zero provision for "context." For instance, designating an enemy to chase down and fire upon should be a matter of right-clicking the enemy and selecting something from a short menu. Instead, it's a chore involving finding the enemy you want, finding the designated fire button, clicking on it, and not really getting much helpful feedback as to what's going on. Shortcut keys do help a bit, but the whole thing realy ought to have been more direct. Missile fire is even worse, with a target designation system which zooms into an enemy (completely breaking your contextual sene of the battle). While you can click directly on a foe to designate them, the "enemy to shoot at picker" is designed around two buttons: Previous and Next. That's fine when there are a few enemies on the map...and horrific when there are tens of them. And, of course, the auto zoom from the target picker often means that finding the target you want becomes a ponderous, multi-step process instead of a snappy one. Another thing that drove me pretty crazy was that every mission required the manual rebalancing of energy systems for each ship. Since shields don't regenerate by default, avoiding the loss of a fleet member pretty much demands that you rebalance your power use towards shields. Doing that for each ship, over and over again, was a bit of tedium that could have been done without. The metagame also has problems. "Star Hammer" doesn't allow saves during a mission, which creates an all-or-nothing type of scenario that punishes mistakes, bad luck, and the sometimes vague win-conditions far too harshly. It also makes glitches very, very frustrating, especially when a long mission has been going on. More than once, I ran into a situation where the game never fully exited the realtime portion of a turn, and my only option was to restart. What finally soured me completely on the experience was almost finishing a long, difficult engagement...only to have my fleet suddenly refuse to fire at anything. "Star Hammer" actually does a decent job with its setting, with your bridge being inhabited by real, identifiable characters who converse through text boxes. The humanization of the game is good in that sense, but the wider context tends to get lost. The "world" is actually a spiderweb of various organizations and people - and that's a cool idea - but the way it all comes across is as a confusing mash of names that don't end up meaning much. I feel like "Star Hammer" might contain the seed of something that's really first-rate. It didn't clear the bar of recommendation for me, but doing so doesn't seem like it would be out of reach for the developers. The way the experience works as a whole needs quite a bit of polishing-up, though, before I would want to try it again.

Greetings fellow spaceship warfare enthusiast! Starhammer: TVP as i will shorthand it, is a well designed space naval combat game. I say naval because you do fight on a 2D plane with 3 "layers" pretending at "height" and "depth". Your ships can move up and down but it does matter very little in th end as far as combat tactics go, its more useful to avoid colissions (oh yes, you can ram and be rammed). A clever tactician might abuse this by flying low or high all the time and using the dorsal or ventral shielding arcs as cheap shield batteries,. but you do not have that nugget from me, no sir you do not. Combat itself plays out turn based, insofar you give your ships movement and firing orders and rebaance power levels to match the game situation then hit "play" and the "turn" will proceed in quite adorably cinematic manner, you can watch the shooting and enjoy, you will not be faced with twitch reaction requirements. The combat does move in rahter similar routes once you have eased into "your" set of combat maneuvers and got comfortable with your tactics, and som consider it stale. I consider it the mark of a good tactician if the fight goes "uneventful" XD. The story features likable characters (i will not spoil this for you) and a good, branching campaign that offers replayability. Its got humor, action, spaceships and a good plot. Graphics: The graphics are good looking and will not crush a low end pc. Effects are well done and the sound design is very good: a big spaceship laser or gun SOUNDS as impressive as you would want to have it. No pling pling here, no sir. The game gets 4 stars out of 5, its a fun romp that does nothing wrong. While one might argue they could have done "more", it would be good to remembr that this game is well rounded and "works" as opposed to ambitioned projects that just turn into roadkill.

Star Hammer, Oh what a ride you gave me. Some major points people bring up about this game is how clunky the game is to control and how weak the storyline and writing is. While I agree that the game is fairly clunky to start out with until you get familiar with the control scheme, the writing is anything but weak. Let me explain. This game have a couple ways of playing it. Defensive, Neutral and Aggressive. The genius of the writing is that you get out what you put into this game. A lot of games out there boast about how choices actually matter, but in this game that is truly the case. One of the rare games where it's true. To explain why people find the game to be bland and boring, I have to first explain the Defensive/Aggressive system the game works under. You can pick missions, they're either defensive, neutral or aggressive. The way you play inside the missions also dictate how much points to either direction you get, once you are swinging a bit too much to one side, the other side becomes unplayable. A huge majority of players, probably +90% played the game on the defensive scale and the reason for that is because playing the game like a sane person, protecting your ships, managing shields, using counter-measures to take out missiles, taking your time, protecting escort ships all give defensive score. Stuff like RAMMING SPEED, putting all power to weapons when you're under heavy fire, rushing out of formation, lowering shields and not repairing your ships gives you aggressive score. The better you are the more likely you are to get defensive score. And here is where the mixed genius and problem of that comes in. The story you get when you play the defensive path is as basic as it gets. You follow orders, you do things by the book, you stay in the trenches with the others. And the story reflects that, you're not a hero. You're nothing but another soldier defending your home world from an alien invasion. I played the game on the hardest difficulty and on the aggressive scale, I didn't care for the story either... Until a certain point when i realised that the game was reacting to the way i played and the fact that I didn't care at all for the story. I noticed how the high command started getting frustrated with my actions, how I disobeyed orders and put not just my own fleet but the entire armada at risk. I also noticed how the further into the war I got and the more suicide missions I took, my crew got increasingly more frustrated, scared and worried. They started questioning my command, have emotional outbursts in combat, started fights between each other and towards the end, they even found strength and hope because they had survived this hell together. Real bonds were made, once they had to earn that you truly start to care for. You're fighting an endless swarm of aliens, victory is impossible and you're deep behind enemy lines and yet the enemy has learned to fear your name. The story changes based on how you play the game. If you play it safe and defensive, you get told to defend star bases, escort civilian ships out of harms way. If you play the aggressive, you take the fight to an unstoppable force and do the impossible. To be a hero, you have to act like a hero. This game blew me away with how it reacted to my actions, the writers clearly had a story they wanted to tell but they allowed me to completely ignore it and pursue my own goals, and it let me. If you can get past the clunky controls then this game can take you on a ride you won't soon forget, but you have to struggle for the game to recognise you and reward your efforts. So to end my review of Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy This is a game that doesn't hold your hand. It will mould itself around the way you play and gives you a unique experience based on that. I recommend this game with all my heart.

Hate the campaign. Fell in love with the skirmish mode. Took a ginormous fleet into battle, limped away an hour later with a single smoking frigate and a huge grin. Disappointed in the complete lack of customization options. Really Slitherine, I would have loved to tinker with the ship designs, or at least the weapon loadouts.

Lacking in depth. There are only 8 ships and you cannot customize your characters or ship loadouts. You will never command more than 8 ships at a time, so if you are looking for large scale fleet command, this isn't for you. Combat is challenging and demands tactical foresight as there is no "rock paper scissors" system. Superior formation of your strike force (I wouldn't call it a fleet) and overall positioning is what gets you the win, so in that regard, the game has done a fantastic job fundamentally as a strategy game. Enemy ship types do not vary too much so once you learn their abilities and targeting preferences you will quickly become bored if you dislike the idea of dfficulty stemming from larger enemy engagements and special situations like escorting a freighter or becoming surrounded within the first few turns of combat, rather than new enemy types. I'd recommend it if you got it for $7.50 or less but full price does not deliver what your typical GOOD indie game does for the same price tag.

I wanted to like this game, but there's certain things missing from it which I can't forgive in a game like this. All the weapons fire look the same, just with different colours. It can't be difficult to design a different shape salvo for different weapons. As it stands most battles look like a few ships with a rainbow crying in the middle of them. There's a crap load of salvage missions, mostly escorting some frigate to a wreck through a series of waypoints that are entirely irrelevant because everything on the map moves to attack you from the very start, and when they're all dead the mission is complete, making them waypointless. However, you don't actually hear about anything that's been salvaged. You get no equipment or new tech or anything from it. There's a variety of different hardpoints on ships with different weapons on them. Good. However, there's no upgrades or chance of anything new or different. What's on them is what's on them until the end. Providing variety for this is an obvious way to increase the tactical challenge (and fun) of the game. Big capital ships have the same range as a half decent staple gun (basically the same as everything else). The ships are not what I would call well designed. There's nothing distinctive about them. Stick a couple of engines on a rhombus and you'd have a better looking ship than half the fleet. The story is too fragmented for most people to follow. I mean, you have to *really try* to immerse yourself in it; it doesn't entrap you in the world. Homeworld pulled you in within three missions; you watched your home be destroyed, and from that point you were onboard for wherever it'd take you. In this, a guy, who it's been made clear doesn't like you that much, dies, and you get to salvage his ship (well, sort of, see above). Oh and your father is someone high ranking. Not exactly mind blowing.

Do you like Battlefleet Gothic? How about any of the other tactical table top fleet games? Then you'll love this game. I've been waiting SO LONG for a tactical fleet game. There are a ton of 4x games (and they are cool) but I wish their combat was like Star Hammer. Thank you so much Slitherine for making this game, I will be putting many hours into.

It's the Star Wars Armada Miniatures game on the PC and it's great. I've played the first 3 missions and found it really interesting. You can rebalance your shields, use special abilities (missiles so far), aimed fire or auto fire for your normal guns and there's firing arcs that you need to position the enemy in while trying to position yourself outside the enemies firing arcs as much as possible. Turn based combat where the decisions are made and then the results are played out for a set period of real time. accidental collisions must be monitored and avoided and you can use the vertical axis to dodge as well. With so many well implemented components this is a game to take your time learning and then enjoy playing AI skirmish matches afterwards. Only thing it seems to be missing is Multiplayer. If it had that it would be an absolute must buy game. As it is I still recommend it as a great implementation of strategic space ship combat.

This game at first reminded me of chess in space, star wolves and space ranger with a bit of homeworld, but now after i have played it for a while it's more like X-COM except with star ships. You need to put a lot of thought into your moves or you can screw yourself. You have to watch your play style and not be too agressive imo or you can screw yourself later on when the reinforcements and reload on ammo aint coming. Very polished game with excellent sound and music. Easy Tutorial takes you right into it giving you what you need to know with out over complicating things. Easy Med Hard play settings. The Story so is pretty good, your play style in combat change the way the story finishes so i believe. There are muliple story path depending what kind of captain you are. You find crew members that lvl up skill paths you choose. They also build bonds between each other that gives bonus to your fleet if your crew is getting along. Another thing that i find interesting is that the story changes depending how you fight your battles! If you are agressive and reckless in battles instead of defensive and tactical, it will change the way you are treated and rewarded. There is a Gauge that keeps track of this stat starts in the middle and slides left and right as you win battles to show how agressive or defensive you have been fighting. This game is not just about the combat it's about managing the fleet, crew relations,X-COM combat feel using naval space fleet system. 8/10

I bought this game together with Battlefleet Gothic during the autumn sale last month. I figured it could wet my appetite for Battlefleet gothic since I'm a huge fan of Warhammer 40.000. Boy was I wrong! SH:VP is a magnificent game. Graphics are good with lots of details. Controls are incredibly simple for its genre, yet the tactical, forward-thinking required to win the game (without too many ship-losses) is still very much present. At first this game seemed a bit low budget to me. 2D portraits to advance the story, A simple crew management sheet where you can switch out crewmembers for your flagship, and a point-click map with waypoints to chose a mission to advance to. However what makes this game great is just that everything works. The developers clearly put a lot of effort in both the gameplay as the campaign and the main characters and interactions are very well portrayed and don't seem as cliché as one might expect from a game at this price. In short, This game is great for it's price. With a solid story, interesting characters, simple controls and gripping gameplay I would recommend this game to anyone who loves sci-fi and strategy games.

Read danny_maland's review (most helpful) to contrast with this. Similar points, he barely gave a thumbs down, I barely give a thumbs up. TL;DR: Spacy. Combines elements for a story above its price. Gameplay gets more challenging and more complex as the game progresses. About 20 total ship types in game between two factions. Many bugs. No voiceovers. If they had more time or budget, this could have rivalled Homeworld. Longer version, but I'll try to keep points short. Story guy did his/her job (too lazy to look up credits). People have personalities. The world has politics. Everybody has a motive for their actions. Story in a game is important to me; this one shows a world. Graphics did their job. Limited number of ships, but they look nice. Weapons are visible and are indicated when changing firing behavior. Worked well with story team: one station looks like a giant ship, fleet admiralty intended it that way. Combat designers did their job. We-go/turned based system that plays out in real-time where you can review the previous turn with no loading delays. Movement indicators similar to recent XCOM games, they look nice. Turret firing arc indicators optional. Most turrets have the same range; damage and accuracy determine target priorities. Multi-mission chapters (can repair ships between missions, can only rearm ammo between chapters) is a sweet-sweet idea implemented well. Ships have a limited veterancy system, which benefits keeping ships alive. Requested reinforcements can show up mid-battle if they're small ships, which is nice to see happen. Qualms: can't target sentient mines (bigger than the smallest ship and very slow); no ship has overlapping turret arcs; targeted firing mode causes all turrets to hold fire unless firing on the target (contrast: autofire ships can hit as many targets as the ship has guns); sprayer acid clouds are numerous enough to blanket large amounts of the battlefield in late game missions; some missions give an escort objective, then order you to kill everything anyway (making it easier to ignore escort objectives); war score might be based mostly on ship energy distribution, making defensive scores a chore to obtain; enemies can sit still, while player ships cannot; nautalid(enemy) corpses can be so numerous that maneuver becomes unnecessarily difficult toward the end-game. Small points, but numerous. Would have preferred a few missions fighting alongside allies. That's personal preference though. Interface is a bit clunky/complex for some; I found it okay. QA did not do their job. There are many bugs that are the make-or-break issues for many players. Final mission attempt 2 of 3: enemy monarch corpse drifted out of battlefield, enemies rallied at the corpse and made the fight very long, then 2 enemies left, killed one, the turn never ended, I had to restart. Clicking on crew skills button while a mission briefing is open will cause mission selection icons to disappear (solution: exit to main menu and resume, no loading time so it's superfast). Achievements are bugged; gone through the game twice and haven't gotten basic achievements for getting crew members. Ships will (as best I can tell) spontaneously hold fire, meaning they won't fire on enemies until you notice and change their fire orders. Acid spray area of effect may be much larger than the graphic; noticed ships with substantial space between them and the nearest stream still suffered ill effects. The game's design allows for a lot of meta-game. You can dismiss corvettes with empty missile racks and request another corvette as reinforcement, and the corvette will show up mid-battle with full ammo. Reinforcements can also be used to go over the ship limit; dismiss the reinforcements before the next battle and request new ones to go over the limit in the next fight. Well-timed countermeasure launches can destroy up to 4 missiles, instead of just 1 (though this might be intentional); if well-placed, the countermeasures can also cause missile AOE to damage enemies. While a challenge, sprayer streams (temporarily degrade shields) and missiles can be baited and tricked with good raider maneuvers. Allied missiles can unfortunately hit allies; enemy missiles can be tricked into enemies. There are probably a lot of options I'm missing. Personal idea: would have been nice for some mercenary work. Corporations pay for responding to distress beacons, personal rewards for securing a certain number of transports, recovering a certain amount of information, holding off an enemy for a certain amount of time, or destroying a certain number of enemies. Use that money to purchase a capital ship and pay for upgrades: armor, power core, engine and weapon tuning, more missile space, more powerful missiles, etc. The in-game greed factor would have helped longevity. Unfortunately, the game's kind of dead. Steamspy says there is an average of 1 player at any given time. The last forum post was 6 weeks ago. Doubt there'd be any improvement, since there'd be almost no money to be made. [Edit: two weeks later and 0 ratings on the review. Sad because it's a game that at least deserves the attention.] Despite the issues, the gameplay and story get the game a thumbs up.

Overall I've enjoyed what I've played of the game. The more I've played it the more its grown on me. At this point I'd give it an 8/10. I doesn't come across as anything revolutionary but its a pretty solid game. It mixes neat elements like ships only being able to fire in a limited number of directions with turn based gameplay. So its kind of like naval combat in some of the Total War games (and probably other games) I guess in that sense. Combat also reminds me of the combat in Space Rangers 2 mixed in with the graphics and feel of Star Wolves 3. I've only played the first five missions but so far story wise they seemed alright. Just alright though. I'm hoping at this point it evolves into something a bit more substancial because its coming across as being pretty generic. Ultimately, its a turn based game. So if you aren't into that kind of thing you probably shouldn't buy it. Most of the negatives I have about the game are more nitpicking on my part on ways it could be improved. I'd still overall recommend the game. Positives: - Combat is reasonably smooth and the game is pretty enjoyable as far as I'm concerned. - I experienced no major bugs - The background art between missions looks really nice. Obviously the game graphics themselves are not 2015 level graphics, but they are reasonable I think given the price. - Seems like the game has a lot of potential. Negatives/suggestions - It would be nice if there was a waypoint option. Something like Space Rangers 2 where if you've selected a location on the map to travel to (that is outside of your ability to travel to in one turn) you don't have to manually say to go to the next turn in cases where you aren't being fired at. - The commander/captain of any vessel probably could be shown in a larger text size. - The first mission dumps a lot of info on you before you probably really need it. Info about the UI could probably be spread out more. - Some kind of indicator that projects an enemies movement limitations. Particularly if I'm supposed to be (according to the story) familiar with a ship design. - It would be good if you had an option to turn off automatic dialogue. Sometimes the pacing of the dialogue is a bit off and it takes forever for your wingman to say what they were going to say. - Very limited ship customization options from what I've seen so far. - To me it doesn't make much sense that given the 3D nature of space that a ship would only exclusively be able to fire forward or behind it (or exclusively to the sides). Outside of smaller craft like fighters ships should have some ability to shoot targets on their weaker sides, even if that ability is considerably weaker than their ability to shoot on their stronger sides. The only exception to that might be a ship that is exclusively designed to fire a big gun in one direction (like an Ion Frigate in the Homeworld series). - More significance for the Z axis. If this has some significance then that isn't made clear. It doesn't seem like it has any combat significance. - The movement of ships can be pretty finicky. You'll click on a ship's shadow and it won't register that you clicked on it. This could be improved I think.

Excellent strategy game. Now that i have completed the game, i understand why this team was chosen to do a game on Battlestar Galactica, look forward to play that game as well. In this game, you manage you fleets and follow a non linear campaign. There's a small management of you crew as well. While tricky, it'a really relaxing game as it's turn-based. The campaign is not too long (about 10 hours). The story itself is too much focused on texts. Overall, a very nice game if you want to be Adama or the like.

OK, the game is ok. It's not fantastic, its not rubbish, its just ok. Needs more variety, needs more ability to modify ships, loadout, crew. I know its an old game, but its new to me.

This game is playable and I would love to be able to recommend it, but it really has no "soul" or direction to it. You just keep your fleet moving through a series of uninteresting battles with no real advancement or progression. What little story there is appears to be told through communication transcript blurbs, but the writing was bad enough that I lost interest in that pretty quickly. I was expecting the branching choices for the missions to matter, but it never seemed to have any bearing on anything. The missions were all the same. This might change later on, but the game isn't compelling enough to make me want to continue soldiering forward. I don't see any carrot on the end of this stick. All I see is the stick. Which is really a shame, because the art assets are all good, and while the UI is clunky it is serviceable. It doesn't help that the enemy forces are incredibly cliche space monster squid aliens which don't make for compelling antagonists.

This game wants to be good, it really does. Unfortunately, it misses the mark. Battles are repetitive click fests and some what boring. Character development is rather lacking. Story is rudimentary at best. Ultimately this is an adequate space/naval game at best, amusing enough for a while but not really worth much time or investment.

Great game, totally enjoy it. Pros: 1. Deep and interesting tactics, full of options. 2. Easy to learn. 3. Funny crew conversations. Cons: 1. No voice acting. 2. No animation on characters. Nice price for good game play.

Initially I wanted to recommend this game, but it's just not even remotly worth the asking price and there is no long-term factor that makes the game any fun. The premise is that your federation or whatever is attacked by aliens. So far so standard. You're sent into battle with a few of your starting ships. In the upper left corner someone is talking (writing, since there is no VO in the game. At all. Not even in combat.), but you really couldn't care any less. The characters lack depth, the story is as standard and full of holes as it gets. I rarely even checked which one of my crew mates suddenly had something to say. But let's not focus on the story, since this game is about gameplay. Sadly it's lacking in this department as well. You're playing this game mission by mission, but you can choose several routes at times. I have no idea what these are doing though. Perhaps you get more story exposition and XP to follow "optional" routes. In any case, combat, the meat of the game: Before combat starts you can "arrange" your ships in a "tactical position". Why the quotes? Because it really doesn't matter. You don't even know where on the map you will spawn. After that it's simply giving move commands to your individual ships and letting them fire upon the enemy. You can focus fire on some enemies, but that doesn't always work that well and is clunky (you have to select each ship manually, then change the fire mode to targeted fire and then find the target you want to attack, since the game switches to an exclusive targeting mode in which you have to tab through enemy ships, unless the ship is visible on the screen...then you can even click it). Enemy and friendly ships all have different shield bars, but for some reason a ship taking damage on it's right side somehow lost shields for its left side...yeah). After each turn you can redistribute shield power to certain sides (though I have no idea how top and bottom could even be effectively attacked, since you CAN switch planes). You will also periodically have to redistribute system power between weapons, shields and engines to either regen shields quicker, have a higher movement allowance or do more damage). You can also change engagement ranges for each weapon subsystem, though no idea why you would bother with that. Technically it's not a bad idea, just the execution is mediocre at best. You don't know where enemy ships will go of course and more often then not they're just trying to ram you. Using special abilities apart from rockets is also not very clear. Firing lines are a nice idea but every battle pretty much plays out the same with you trying to keep your fleet together while not crashing. I've lost ships with full health to something I don't even know. That was a destroyer even. After battle you get XP and some sort of "morale" stuff that determines if you've been aggressive or defensive. No idea how that works, since I always get aggressive. I mean, we're fighting after all...I guess it's the crew members you can equip that offer various agg and def bonuses that can be toggled. Apparently they also form some sort of relationship with one another. It's even an achievement...hm, speaking of which, many of them just don't seem to trigger. Ive' definitely killed more than 25 "squids" and I've also recruited a few people that should have given an achieve...oh well. In any case, levelling them and your ships up doesn't really DO anything. Your crew mates get passive % bonuses. Yay. And your ships get automatically stronger the more enemies they have destroyed, which means your strongest ships will level up quicker since they often get the kill shot due to superior weaponry. And that's the problem: It gets boring after only a few hours. I'm currently sitting at 1 battle cruiser, 2 destroyers and 1 frigate (there is a ship points limit), but there are no upgrades, no customization, no layout changes, no variants. A destroyer will always just do what a destroyer does, can't change weaponry, focus on shields or engines. There are also no carriers as far as I can tell. And there is apparently only 1 more ship class (your flag ship gets upgraded automatically). Also, if you want to repurpose a ship or replace one you have to do that in an actual mission, which takes quite a long time, so you're starting a mission weaker then necessary. Graphics and sound are not terrible, but also nothing great, especially sounds are boring. Overall it's not a terrible game, mediocre maybe, but definitely overpriced and it lacks longevity. After 16 missions I just can't bring myself to play any more of it, since every mission is essentially the same: kill all enemies. The UI isn't really PC optimized either. Maybe a 6/10 for effort. Might benefit from a MP mode. I think you need to add a) an interesting and well voiced plot b) a clear progression system c) more user friendly controls d) more customization options e) better sound and visual design

I really like this game but it doesnt work on windows 10. Even if you run it in windows 8 compatible mode. From what I found out on their website the steam version of the game doesnt work on windows 10 but if you get it from distributers website and run it without steam it will work. I dont know why it wont work with steam but is doesnt. If your running windows 8 and below then you shouldnt have a promblem. Im recomending this game because its a really good game but im warning those who run win 10 buy it on the distributors website not steam. First of all Snork I do know a good deal about compters. Im not saying im perfect but i do know a bit about them. The reason I put this up is because the game worked in windows 8 and didnt (For me) in windows 10. I didnt just say this without any proof. I looked through the forums on non steam site a lot of people had promblems playing on win 10. I made this post for those that didnt want to risk it and if they did and the game doesnt work well steam offers refunds under certain circumstances. http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=381&t=65418&p=555123&hilit=windows+10#p555123 This is the post I found most useful after hrs of research. I tried everything from changing resolution to running it on VM mechine. I changed location from D: drive to C:Drive. Ran it in win 8 compatibility and ran both steam and the game as admin.Nothing worked. I downloaded a non steam version from http://www.slitherine.com/products/product.asp?gid=568 (comes with steam key as well) and now it works. I wrote this awhile ago they may have patched the game or fixed it since. I havnt tried steam version in awhile. for those that it works for great. This is for those that it doesnt work for.

I remember I played this game back in the day and I really enjoy it. I bought it when I saw it in steam to support the devs. Yes, its limited in various points, already mentioned in other comments. The thing I didn't like the most was the lack of customization between ships and the limited things you can set up with your battle-group pre deployment...almost nothing actually. But never the less, I had tons of fun, this game is unique in its kind along side with Battlestar Galactica. Its a shame there should be more; more complex, deep and clearly with more budget.

Yep... I really like it: It's turnbased and it's really looking good. Got some kind of real Space Battle Feel. Sure there are some MINOR Issues but not game breakers or something but more in overall game design and looks. This game has such an enourmos, unbelivable, awesome potential in it that the gap what this game actual is and what it could be nearly made me cry. I found myself daydreaming about the best 4x Space Game ever. Take the best Ideas of Master of Orion, GalCiv, Sword of the Stars, StarDrive, etc. and mix it with THIS turnbased Combat Engine: That would be, at least for me, the best 4x Space Game ever created... there could be nothing above. But fair is fair... so let's stick to this game: I'm starting with the Cons: * I find the the Campaign really uninteresting. The StoryTelling is somewhat cofusing. X-Names of X-Events that I can't remember or care about. * No customizing of ships ! * No Voice Actors. (It would be REAL cool to get some Voice Feedback of things that happen on the screen... Panic, Damage Reports, Order Confirmations, etc-etc.) * No real working Tactics. You can try e.g. Pincer Moves but that does not have a real effect, so the enemy ships do have weak points on different locations. It simply comes to: Hitting with everything what's availabe... BIg Stick and brutal Force. No Finesse required. Pros: * Turn based Space Combat !!! * Executing Orders in Real Time. Watch the Action and learn to regret your mistakes from the Order Phase ;) * True 3D. The Heights of the ships do matter. You really trying hard sometimes to avoid collisions * Technically stable (sad that nowadays this is a feature that has to be mentioned) * Some Kind of real basic Roleplaying. e.g. You have a Bridge Crew to care for on your Flagg-Ship and NPC-Captains on the other Ships that level up with combat experience. All in all a good game. I strongly recommend this game for everyone who loves turn based strategy and Micro managing. But be warned: This game is ALL about micromanaging. From adjusting and relocating your shields manually to dividing the Power output in Drives, Shields or Weapons th have the perfect amount of each for the next action Phase. You permantly wondering ans calculating what do you need for each ship... FirePower or Speed or Defense. There is no good Default. Mistakes could be fatal. If you love this, like i do, this game is for you... if not stay away. After all you winnig a space battle not with the best tactic but in managing your ship systems perfectly. Greetings from Switzerland Robert

Tactics is space, along the lines of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Although graphics (especially on higher zoom levels) and story wise it could use some improvement; the tactical part, which is the core of the game, is very well done. I have played about 2.5 hrs so far and there is likely much more to comment upon, but from what I can see so far it is worth a buy, especially for the price. If you are a turn based tactics fan, this is something you will very likely enjoy.

The game is alright, but not that fun. It's very repetitive with very few variations of enemies or victory conditions. The interface is bad, you have to micro-manage every aspect of your ships, which is especially annoying when the "balanced" setting doesn't even allow shield regen. The AI is dumb as bricks and is balanced by outnumbering you quite a lot, on top of the micro-management if you ever want to target something it's super cumbersome. The graphics are meh as are the sound, the story is uninteresting and the dialogue tropey. Worse of all are the missile and mine spams from the ennemies, whereas you have to carefully manage your ammo from mission to mission until there is an unpredictable refill. If you lose a ship you may be able to get a new one, but if you buy the smaller ones they get insta gibbed by the unescapable mines (unless you sacrifice the few anti-missile ammo). The game is easy, but I just stopped at the missile spam mission, with respawning healers... Not fun and not interesting. Overall it was worth the 5$ I paid for it, but not more

I own my fair share of Slitherine games, and I always approach them with a bit of caution - I'm still feeling a bit burned by Sovereignty, for example. Pike & Shot has scratched my historical wargaming itch, but it doesn't feel particularly polished. But like every other Slitherine game I've purchased, Star Hammer drew me in with it's concept. While their games are sometimes a bit rough (Sovereignty, I'm looking at you), Slitherine tackles concepts and mechanics very few other companies will - so I took the plunge. It was worth it. I'm only a few hours into the game so far, but I'm enjoying it. The controls are intuitive, The game is gorgeous, with ships moving in appropriately ship-like ways, shootng beams and railguns and missiles (oh, such satisfying missiles!) and dying in interesting ways - full on explosions, drifting hulks rocked by secondaries, the works. The campaign has been fun too - if you've read any Honor Harrington or Jack Geary you're not going to be _too_ surprised by anything you run into in the plot, but it's presented serviceably and the characters are likeable. There's a neat mechanic where you build bridge crews to give your ships passive buffs and the relationships between officers matter - pair folks up who hate each other and that buff suddenly doesn't look so great. Notably, the game presents pretty much all of the story in text and (wonder of wonders) that text is virtually typo free and decently written - and even a bit clever in places. The missions so far haven't had a ton of variety - mostly they've boiled down to "kill all the baddies" sometimes with "and make sure this one thing doesn't die, either". Refreshingly, failing the second objective (protecting salvage crews, etc) doesn't always cause mission failures - though I presume there will be reprecussions later in the campaign. Combat feels right for the genre - closing with an enemy fleet is a fencing match of outgoing missiles and countermeasures before broadsides and spinal mounts start blazing. So it's totally worth a buy if you want to reenact some David Weber novels or if you're having a hankering for some turn-based strategy goodness - but what are the downsides? >The music is pretty generic. I turned it off within the first few minutes and put on something else. It's not bad, just bland. >The character portraits are a bit "old school" in their design - they remind me of Wing Commander in a good way. However, when they're displayed in-mission they're blurred or low resolution or something, which doesn't look the best. >Mopping up the last elements of an enemy fleet - particularly it's smaller/faster ships - can be a real pain in the ass. It boils down to a lot of circle strafing and predicting where that last enemy corvette is steering. >The game is relatively unforgiving. Crews gain XP from missions, but if they die, they're gone forever. The game rewards patience and planning - be careless in moving your ships and they'll collide, inflicting massive damage to one another and stunning them. While you can save freely between missions, I didn't notice an option to save in-mission, which may lead to frustration. I've noticed no glitches, freezes, or other hiccups. If none of the above turns you off, the game is absolutely worth a shot - you'll probably have a lot of fun.

Decent graphics, interesting mechanics, story didn't really pull me in but the gameplay was unique and fun.

I don't normally write reviews, but this game is so much fun that I thought I'd do a quick one… I've only played a few missions but I can already see the great game play and fun story… The graphics look nice which isn't the most important thing but it's worth mentioning - the sound works well and the music seems appropriate for the games style etc. What I really like is the combat which is good because the game is a combat simulation - It reminds me of some of star fleet games in that you balance shields and engine power and work out which is more important each round. I usually play in a defensive style so I keep my shield above 40% to keep up shield regeneration most rounds. But I sometimes throw 80% power into engines to maneuver into the right firing angle (solution?) only to put lots of energy into the shields and little into the engines as I move and fire at my targets… I'm playing on Normal and it’s a fun challenge without being too easy to annoyingly hard.. I haven't gotten into the upgrades on the captain and crew very much but it seems like they are interesting special abilities that help define the way you like to play. I'd recommend this game to anyone who likes turn based space combat and science fiction stories… On the whole it's not a AAA game with all the bells and whistles but it is a really solid and enjoyable game at a reasonable price…

A nice little tactical space combat game -- reminds me a little of Starfleet Battles from my tabletop gaming youth!

After about 4.5 hours in this game I feel sad. That game might became really good, but waste its potential. Story was plausible. Language actually pretty good - it feels like developers consults with navy officers. Dialogues feels real. Units pretty balanced and have logical roles. Aggressive and defensive warfare style could affect campaign plot... slightly. Soundtrack too epic for my taste but its fits. Too bad that game was abandoned by developers. Achievements didn't work correctly - I finish couple of story mission, recruit few officers and no related achievements. But I got tactic and enemy related achievements. I found similar complain on game developers forum dated 2016-2017. No solution. They make only one update, add one ship and it's all! No more updates, no more fixes, no more DLC. I can't recommend anybody to buy partially broken and unsupported game, regardless all potential that game have.

If you don't care about graphical quality and are looking for a small fun space fleet combat game, then you will have a great time with this game. While feeling graphically incomplete and unpolished there is a solid core game that is fun to play through multiple times. Pros: * This space combat portion of the game is great. * The combat controls give you a sense of the characteristics of each ship, and the ships don't all feel the same. * The methods used to control your ship are straightforward and easy to use. * There are some solid RPG elements such as building your fleet over time, and mission decision making over the course of the campaign. * The player's playstyle assessment assisting in the mission type availability is something I found rewarding and made me want to play through again but play the missions differently. Cons: * Graphically the game feels very prototype and unpolished even for the price point. * The UI is definitely the most unpolished portion of the game. * UI Layout for the ship is scattered all over the place. * Menus overlap everywhere and the iconography is horrible, all the buttons are hard to read. * The story dialog is very poorly written. Even though the storytelling format is solid. * The campaign menu is poorly implemented graphically.

I would only get this game on discount. I like the idea well enough and the ships are fun but there are too many bugs. I had a tough fight to escort these shuttles to the evac navpoint. All the enemies are dead and my ships are circling the nav point but the scenario doesn't end. Go play something with fewer bugs. The storyline is weak at best.

Six levels in, and all the battles seem pretty much the same. If I could givee a 50/50 rating I would. It seems that this is the criticism also being leveled by, some folks, at the battlestar galatictica deadlock game produced by the same group. So I am hesitant to purchase that game.

This game reminds me of old school 1990s tactical space combat games (Star Fleet Battles, Babylon 5 Wars and the like). It has the production values of an indie game, but since it is in fact an indie game, I have no complaints. Others have commented on the lack of voice acting, but that stuff is expensive (or done poorly, if cheap)...so again, no complaints here. The tactical map is well designed. There is complexity to a 3-D map that this game manages to thread surprisingly well. The music is somewhat repetitive, but it's exciting and fits the tone of the game, so if it gets too grating I just turn it down. But mostly I don't. The graphics are good for what they are. There's not much whiz-bang you need in a game of this sort, since the landscape is just space. The ships are interesting to look at and scale fairly well at different zoom levels.

I really enjoyed this game. I'm a sucker for WEGO games like this, Phantom Brigade, Darkwind, etc. This game really felt like it had the right balance of management vs pew pew. It is less complex than Battlestar Galactica Deadlock (also made by this company), but I like the UI and command system better. It just makes more sense and is easier to see where ships are. The lack of ship customization is not a big loss for me. It didn't take away any enjoyment of the game for me anyway. Probably since the player can accumulate points to buy new ships and change the armada's ship composition. Anyway, this is one of those games that I had been looking at for a long time and wish I would have just bought it sooner.

This is a tough one, It has a good concept but can't execute like Battlestar Galactica Deadlock did. It does admirably for what it does have but my main issue with the game is the targeting. The Hulks of dead ships remain in space and make it impossible for the enemy to be targeted or finished off, if the hulk floats out into the distance and an AI enemy gets pinned on them. This made it impossible for me to finish the last mission on stream. It happened every single time, i played the last mission to three enemies left.

Finally. Someone got strategic and tactical space combat right. The sim requires the player to think ahead and plan for what he beleives his opponents will do. This requires that you manage each ship. The optional tiers one can place their fleet on help make management of several ships much less difficult. Even though the Vanguard universe is awesome, I kept thinking about the Honor Harrinton book series, and yes, even Battlestar Galactica as I played. The game immerses you into the sim near flawlessly. Really, the only issue I have is adjusting the font size of the units displayed on screen. If this is my only gripe, I really don't have one. The folks who write this game did an excellent job. Thanks for the great game play!

Ship combat is OK but given the small fleet sizes, lack of customization for ships and repetitive feeling maps the game can get stale quickly. Pick it up if your into space combat but only on a good sale.

4 hours in to the game right now and I have to say I like this game. Graphics are decent, sounds is good, music is pretty much the same thing over and over. My favorite part would have to be how you give commands. You give several seconds or orders to your fleet and then watch it play out. Tactical, but feels quick. The only thing I'm finding that I'm not a fan of would be a lack of ship customizing. Ships do improve with experience, but weapon and equipment loadouts are set and unchangeable. With everything else this game does right, that seems like an option they would have added. 9 / 10

A very enjoyable turn based space fleet command game, easy to play and understand the different classes of ship and how best to use them. You will need to plan each move carefully to maximise your ships position and firepower to defeat the enemy. Stand off and fire with the larger ships and get close to fire with smaller ones, also important to manage your energy between weapons, shields and engines and target missiles effectively as you have a limited supply of these.

I got this yesterday and it is well worth the price. A wego space ship game, and it good so far. Its like combat mission but on a smaller scale. This is something that was needed because so many games seem to just be bigger better copies of each other these days.

This game just misses the marks it shoots for: enemy ships have weak points that the game is clearly driving you into using tactics to strike at.... but with most enemy ships being about 3x faster than yours and the limited fast ships you do have not being able to make 2 turns (you have a start position and an end positionand will smootly curve between them) you just can't maneouver into useful positions. In the end I just set up a defensive fleet, kept everything moving at minimum speeds with regenerating shields and just blasted my way through each mission.... mildly fun but not for long. Add in buggy achievements and you've got a game that's more annoying then good, but worth a quick playthrough if you can get it on sale.

After waiting 5 minutes for the bloody tutorial dialogue to finish so I could actually begin moving my ship, I closed the game. No voice acting choice kills it, sat round doing nothing while I wait for the text to be updated isn't fun at all. Dont waste your time or money. Unfortunately for me I hadn't bought this off Steam so cannot refund.

Finally the tactical space fleet game I´ve been looking for. It feels a little like a tabletop game, but with height variation (which, contrary to some reviews I´ve seen, IS important in the battles) and rts graphical execution. Also, I´m a sucker for "we go" systems. If you like tactical games and space combat, the game is a must. If the campaign and RPG elements were deeper, I´d give it a 10/10. As is, a 9/10.

This is a great game, the graphics etc are top notch and the interface is very user friendly. I really enjoyed the way this game approaches the issue of 3D movement and battle while still being turned based for those who aren't into full on, non-stop action til you die.

addictive combat once you get comfortable with the interface. outside of combat the game is very basic. If you pick it up on the cheap it's worth a play through

JUST WHAT I NEEED!!!! This game is GREAT, 3-D turn- based tactical fleet combat in space.....anyone else getting a chubby? A few small typographical errors, but otherwise no real game killing issues. Graphics get a 3.5/5 could be better but good enough to not make the game unplayable. Reminds me of Star Trek Starfleet Command, but more refined (gameplay-wise) and a much bigger scale. Pro Tip: ALWAYS CHECK YOUR LANES OF FIRE AND MAINTAIN SITUATIONAL AWARENESS OF WHERE YOUR SHIPS ARE AND WHERE THEY ARE GOING. Nothing worse then some Blue-on-Blue action.

Greetings Again! Today I will be reviewing Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy a unique spaceship combat simulator that reminds me a great deal of a miniature game I play called X-Wing. The game happens to be one of the old games I bought on a whim but never really had time to play and now am ‘forced’ to play in hopes of reviewing all my games. So, was this a nightmare or an enjoyment? Do a barrel roll: This game looks like an indie game and for all intents and purposes it is, it won’t earn any awards for the sound, music, or graphics nor for the story but it does get the job done. The core of the game is a turn based strategy where you assign orders to your ships and allow them to follow said orders over the course of a few seconds real time. This is a very unique style game that has me looking back at the afore mentioned X-Wing from Fantasy Flight Games, which is a great thing as it is one of my fondest. Everything is queued and once you start the sequence there is nothing to do but watch the result. This can create intense moments when you are hoping for a gambit to pull off because even if you made the wrong call there is no going back or changing your order, you have to let your decision play out. This is true in all things as you can manage your power systems (shields, engines, and weapons), your heading, altitude and even how your weapons target. Now this is pod-racing: Let me get this out of the way, the game has a campaign, which is primarily what I played, but the story is poorly written and boring to be honest. I followed it best I could but it is easily forgettable and the campaign system can be somewhat annoying with some of the choices they made for the sake of replay-ability or consequence. You slowly amass a fleet which feels simultaneously too big and too small, as I ended up flying a capital ship fleet that felt too small but sometimes was overwhelmed a bit with options. This is actually a good problem to have but I would have liked to see some more options. The story also has no voice-overs which slightly annoy me because I feel there is a lot of cheap / free talent out there who would have loved to be a part of this. This doesn’t really detract from the gameplay but does bring up some issues throughout the game. Frag’em: Let’s start with the game explanation; the game does a decent job at giving you the basics of how to play, but that is about it. The game doesn’t really explain a lot of components and you have to dig deep to infer what you can, this is a minor annoyance but nothing that couldn’t have been solved via a database or wiki…which there is one…sort of. The wiki itself is bare and really doesn’t go into much and left with me with a lot of unanswered questions, some searching on the forums helped a bit but I really felt that this game could have been something deep and special but was being held back by the lack of information provided. A prime example of this is the crew system, which is a good addition but the complexities had to be figured out through trial and error and ultimately I had to shrug and just keep playing as I love the core gameplay. I feel even more the same way about the warscale system, something that which should provide some replay opportunities left me slightly annoyed and wondering if the designers of the system really knew what it meant to be ‘aggressive’ or ‘defensive’. The only other annoyance was the issue with the missions, doing some prevent others but you have no idea which are which and over 6 chapters and 30+ missions that all seem to blur it is hard to determine that. Some kind of warning should have been provided, narrative is important but this is still a game. Ultimately, it sounds like I pushed this game down pretty hard, but I’d still ultimately recommend it for anyone who enjoys spaceship combat games. I will admit it missed the mark here and there and would have liked to have seen more depth the game itself was still a lot of fun. If nothing else it makes me want to invest in the Battlestar game they released recently under the same style. I’d recommend grabbing this ultimately, enjoy!

I can't put exactly into words why I like and dislike this game. The space battle system is both well-done and engaging but repetitive in the campaign, which by the way is lackluster. The tactical mechanics are, in my opinion, balanced and the ship-types are also unique and engaging. My personal favorite ship is the Destroyer. Aside from that, I said this game is a good stepping stone into other turn based startegy games, especially with the limited resources (ships and ammunitions) you have at your disposal making it important to manage them. I give it a 7/10.

Very good. With some effort to learn, it can be well worth the time.

This game has some signifigant problems and issues. It's a bit buggy at times, the UI REALLY needs work in a lot of places and the writing for the campaign is... let's be polite and call it unintentionally amusing but servicable. I'm not sure I should be giving it a thumbs up for its regular and regular price. But... at the end of the day it has some nice ideas and interesting things to do. I got it at the Christmas sales and I can't really complain about what I'm getting for what I spent. I would tentatively say I'd be interested in a sequel because this isn't something I see done often and it really should pop up more often. In it's own twisted, flawed way this might one of the best space fleet combat simulators out there.

Good tactical space combat game - A bit text heavy for me, but I felt this game really started coming together by the fourth mission in, once the Frigate is added to your fleet. The game's mechanics are great and top notch, visuals and audio strong. Worthy title and you'll enjoy it if you've ever played Battlefleet gothic or Star Trek Attack Wing table top games.