Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes (2018)

Rocket engines blaze to life. Lasers light up the formless void. Galactic Empires clash. A lone hero rises up to fight for the resistance. Welcome to the world of Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes!

In Galactic Heroes, or GH for short, you’ll take on the role of a Hero or Villain, leading a scruffy pirate crew looking for adventure, or maybe a troop of faceless soldiers of the Empire in search of bringing order to the galaxy. It’s really up to you!

Galactic Heroes allows you to play a small-scale wargame in the far-flung future, a galaxy, far, far away, a grim, dark future 40,000 years from now, or a certain Red Planet where swords and ray guns reign supreme. Whatever YOU think Sci-Fi looks like, from your favorite Space Opera to gritty Pulp epic.

Like all the Fistful of Lead games, you’ll only need 5 or 6 miniatures per player. You can play 1-on-1 games or larger skirmishes with up to 6 or 8 players. Galactic Heroes can be played with whatever miniatures you already have in your lead pile.

These rules contain all the information you need to play a game, including rules for building your forces and how to set up the table for different scenarios. Most players will pick up the game mechanics quickly, even people who haven’t played a wargame before. The rules can be learned in a couple of turns, and the fast-paced game play keeps everyone engaged. If you’ve played Fistful of Lead before, a lot of this will be familiar.

What separates Galactic Heroes from most tabletop miniature games on the market, is the unique card driven turn mechanism. This leads to snap decisions and tense moments where all the players are involved. The play is fast and furious, with a Hollywood flair, while record keeping is kept to a minimum.

The original Fistful of Lead has been around for a decade with a small, but loyal fan base. Galactic Heroes expands the line of western gunfight rules into outer space, because what else is a good sci-fi movie other than a western set in space?