Star Viking is a two player board game published in 1981 by Heritage Models, drawing its setting from H. Beam Piper's science fiction novel Space Viking and its wider fictional universe of interstellar raiders and collapsing star empires. One player commands the Federate forces defending a cluster of star systems, while the opposing player controls the Star Vikings, a raiding faction seeking to plunder outlying provinces before Federate defenses can respond. Play unfolds across a map of star systems connected by travel routes, with counters representing fleets and defensive forces contesting control of individual systems through a mix of movement and combat resolution. Contemporary reviewers noted that the game's components, including its maps and unit counters, offered substantial value for the game's scope. As with many small press wargames of the early 1980s, Star Viking translated a specific literary science fiction setting into a structured strategic contest between an established power and an aggressive outside force.
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Game Type (category) Sources
1. Star Viking (Wikipedia)
Lead paragraph, game type
is a 1981 board game published by Heritage Models.
Lead paragraph, category
is a 1981 board game published by Heritage Models.
Gameplay section, player count
one player controls the Federate force tasked with protecting a cluster of star systems, while the other player is the Star Vikings looking to raid the provinces
lead paragraph, origin-year
Star Viking is a 1981 board game published by Heritage Models.
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