Don't Let A Dralasite Lick It...

Art by Vincent Di Fate

The admonition above is good advice generally.  Specifically, it relates to the stamp on a self-addressed envelope one should send to TSR regarding “comments and questions about the Knight Hawks Game.”  Said admonition appears on the inside front cover of the “16-page board game rules book” included in the Knight Hawks boxed set.  As the back of the box states, Knight Hawks is “Playable as an expansion to the STAR FRONTIERS™ ALPHA DAWN role playing game or as a separate boardgame.”  The board game rules are actually the starship combat rules for Star Frontiers.  These rules can be presented as a board game since they are largely distinct from the role-playing rules of Star Frontiers.  (The 64-page Knight Hawks Campaign Book includes approximately two pages of Special Combat Rules that supplement the 'board game' rules.)

The title page of the board games rules book reads, appropriately enough, “Basic and Advanced Boardgame Rules.”  However, the unillustrated cover reads UPF Tactical Operations Manual.  “UPF” means United Planetary Federation (which is completely different from the United Federation of Planets).  The military arm of the UPF is called Spacefleet (which is absolutely not Starfleet – Why would you even think that?).  The board game rules include four scenarios, two for the basic game and two for the advanced.  All of these scenarios represent incidents in the Second Sathar War.  (Given that Sathar are evil, worm-like aliens, it is to be expected that their ships have names like Carrion, Faminewind, Doomfist, and Venomous.)  Of course, “Players can make up an endless variety of scenarios on their own.”  Additionally, “Other conflicts (involving pirates, rebels, dictators or other interstellar ruffians) certainly are possible, and players are encouraged to experiment with new forces and situations.”

Included in the boxed set are 285 counters.  These are used to play out starship combat on a 22½” × 35” map sheet with a tessellation of hexes.  However, the inside back cover states, “Players interested in expanding their Knight Hawks games can use miniature metal spaceships instead of the cardboard counters included with the game.”  As one might expect, there's a plug for “TSR's STAR FRONTIERS Spaceship Miniatures, available where Knight Hawks is sold.”  With miniatures, players can forgo using a map.  If so,

Planets and moons can be cut out of cardboard and colored however the players like.  These planets can be cut to reflect their real size, unlike the counters in the game.  For example, the Earth would be 1.3 inches in diameter.  The moon would be .3 inches in diameter, 38 inches away from the Earth.

Of course, the Earth and moon are not part of the Star Frontiers setting and no comparable information for the planetary systems actually in the setting.  Regardless if a map is used, “space” is treated as if it is a flat plane, succumbing to the Khan Fallacy.  To be fair, according to the box cover, Knight Hawks is intended for “beginning to intermediate players, ages 10 and up” and a three-dimensional starship combat system would likely be too complex for the target demographic.

The basic game offers seven types of spaceships and also describes space stations.  Weapons systems are limited to lasers, rockets, and torpedoes (or “torpedos” as the rules sometimes spell it).  The described defensive systems are reflective hull (“mirror-like paint that...will often cause a laser beam to bounce off the ship...”), masking screen (“created when a ship releases a cloud of water vapor into space...”), and interceptor missiles (“small missiles that can be fired at incoming torpedoes, assault rockets and rocket battery barrages”).  Weapon type is indexed against defense type on a Combat Table to find the percentage chance of causing damage.  When a target vessel has more than one defensive system, “an attack's chance to hit is calculated against the most effective defense.”  If an attack is successful, damage dice are rolled and the result is subtracted from the target's hull points.  We are informed, “When all of the ship's hull points are gone, the ship is destroyed and the player removes it from the map.”

The advanced game introduces minelayers, light cruisers, and civilian craft.  Offensive capabilities include mines, proton beam batteries, electron beam batteries, disruptor beam cannon, and seeker missiles.  Screens are available as defensive systems in the advanced game.  A proton screen “is a field of charged particles which surrounds a ship,” an electron screen “is the opposite of a proton screen,” and a stasis screen is evidently some sort of field with an “electrical pulse.”  Each screen type happens to attract certain attack types.  A proton screen attracts electron beams, an electron screen attracts proton beams, and “a stasis screen allows missiles and rockets to home in with increased accuracy.”  When a ship with a given screen is attacked by that screen's 'nemesis' attack, the screen is used as the defense instead of the most effective defense the target may otherwise have.

Damage effects are more detailed in the advanced game.  In addition to the hull hits a weapon inflicts, the Damage Table is also consulted.  Some example results from the table include 'weapon hit' (a particular weapon system is destroyed), 'hull hit' (“double normal damage”), and 'navigation hit' (“loose maneuvering control”).  In the advanced game, crews can attempt repairs during combat.  (A combat turn lasts ten minutes and repairs may be attempted after every third turn.)  Each ship has a Damage Control Rating which can range from 30 to 200.  When attempting repairs, the Damage Control Rating is divided among damaged systems.  The amount allocated to a given system is the percentage chance that the system will be repaired.  Hull repairs can restore 1d10 hull points.

There is a section of the Knight Hawks Campaign Book titled The Second Sathar War.  This section offers “rules for a strategic level boardgame about the second Sathar attack on the Frontier.”  These rules employ the Frontier Deployment Map, an “abstract representation of the Frontier” (depicted below).

The rectangles are “transit boxes.”  For the most part, the number of transit boxes between star systems equals light years of distance as shown on Frontier map from the Expanded Rules.  However, Athor is eight light years from Araks even though there are only seven transit boxes between them on the Deployment Map.  Also, K'Tsa-Karis is five light years distant from K'aken-Kar, but only four transit boxes are shown on the Deployment Map.  Normally, ships can travel one transit box per day; however, by “risk-jumping,” they can travel up to three per day.  When a ship risk-jumps, there is a percentage chance it “will be lost for the duration of the war.”

When opposing forces are in the same system at the end of a day, there may be a battle.  Depending on the number of ships involved in a battle, different rules are suggested.  If there are more than fourteen ships, the basic rules are recommended.  When there are five to fourteen ships, the advanced rules with “no skill modifiers” are recommended.  With fewer than five ships, it is suggested that the advanced rules with “average NPC skills” be used.  Among the spaceship skills introduced in Knight Hawks, there are 'gunnery' skills that can improve chances for attack success.  Essentially, each level in a skill increases the chance for success by five percent.  However, when skills are applied to starship combat, the base chance for success is usually reduced between five and fifteen percent.  For example, against an electron screen, the base chance of success for an assault rocket is 60%; when gunnery skills are in play, the chance is 50%.

The strategic game includes rules for supply lines and enhanced repair.  There are optional rules for replacements (“available at the end of every 20 days”) and shatter drones (“A shatter drone is essentially a ship that has been turned into a huge bomb”).