Talon

Talon is a game of tactical spaceship battles. It is a game for two players. One plays Earth and the other plays an invading alien civilisation. You each control a fleet of spaceships. Your goal is to destroy all of your opponent’s spaceships. 

The battlefield is abstracted to a 2D hexagonal map. You fly your spaceships around and shoot at your opponent’s spaceships. There are different classes of spaceships and they have different abilities. The spaceships of the two factions are also a little different. There are differences in fire power, shields and manoeuvrability. Yes, these spaceships have shields. There are shields on all four sides, and you need to completely destroy a shield before you can hit the spaceship itself. If your shield is depleted, you can recharge it somewhat.

Guns have different facings and you can only shoot in specific directions. They also have different ranges. Naturally, the closer you are to an enemy, the more lethal your hit will be. One thing you can do in the game is to adjust the power core of your spaceship. This affects the manoeuvrability and also other characteristics of the ship.

One round of play is divided into many small steps. Each of these steps specify which spaceship classes may act. Spaceship classes go from 1 to 6. This is one of the ways how the game handles the different abilities of different ship classes. 

When playing the game, I feel like I am playing a game of warships during the age of sail. I don’t mean it in a negative way. I think it is partly because the map is 2D. You have to manoeuvre your ship well and position yourself to shoot at the best possible moment. Every time you shoot, you need to recharge your weapons before you can shoot again. So this is not a game where you just keep pressing the fire button. You need to be smart about when the best moment to shoot is. This is not a fast and furious type of game. You have to be deliberate and careful. 

So far I have only played one introductory level game where the two sides only have two ships each. I have not yet experienced the complexity of larger scale battles. I find the game serious and strategic. It reminds me of Star Wars X-Wing, not because of how similar they are, but because of how different they are. Similar setting, but very different gameplay experience. Star Wars X-Wing is the kind of game where you go pew pew pew. Talon feels more like a serious war game.