Shadows in the Void

Shadows in the Void is a unique spacefighter combat miniature wargame based on highly modified core rules of Hind Commander (mainly simplified and streamlined) and inspired by classic ancient Chinese military treatise The Art of War. Unlike most games within the genre, Shadows in the Void focuses on stealth, electronic warfare, and the interactions between spacecraft in your squadron. It certainly is not a “Red Baron in space” ruleset – you won’t see many dogfights during the battles. Why would advanced war machines of the far future use tactics which became obsolete in mid-20th century? Of course, they look very appealing on screen, but not necessarily on the gaming table.

Instead, combat in Shadows in the Void takes place over extremely long distances and at huge speeds. Often, detecting the targets and locking your weapons on them is the most important aspect of the game – exactly like in Hind Commander. The average 100 x 100 cm game table covers about 2,400,000,000 square kilometres of deep space. Furthermore, the rules model a 3d environment by adopting the best practices of aerial wargames. In this case, the distances are a little shorter, because we consider that atmosphere and gravity significantly affect top speeds and weapon ranges. The ruleset covers missions both in deep space and above planetary surface.

Although the games core rules are based on Hind Commander, we put a lot of effort to avoid making Shadows in the Void “helicopters in space”. Numerous rules were redesigned or written from scratch to better fit the theme of the game, as we wanted to make it more dynamic and engaging.