I picked up a copy of Brilliant Lances today. It was $30.00 as advertised
but there was no miniture included :( It was a little overwhelming.
First, all ships are played from an 8 1/2 * 11 "Control Panel" that makes
NO SENSE until you read the rules. Second, the counters are BIG, BRIGHT
and COLORFUL. There are three HUGE map sheets and two rule books. There
is also a page of Errata. The rule book is 32 pages. What I have read so
far is pretty clear and straitforward GDW takes you through their new
rules a little bit at a time. The Technical Booklet with construction
rules and actual Ships is 48 pages. It also seemed pretty clear. Most of
the standard ships are there plus some Aslan, Vargar, Zhodani and a couple
of cobbled togater Rube Goldberg Death-Traps. The artwork was pretty
good. I didn't like the 1 inch square blocks of graphics in each corner
on each page. It made each page a little too busy and made reading the rules
very hard my first time. On the positive side once I read the rules I was
very impressed. This is the best Space Combat game the folks at GDW have
ever put out. Believe me, I own them all. :-)
Steve Gott
Seattle, Wa