Silent Death

Silent Death is a miniatures space combat game created by Iron Crown Enterprises, developed from the Star Strike sourcebook originally written for the Spacemaster science fiction role-playing game but built around a far simpler set of rules for fast, tabletop starfighter battles. Players either fly a scenario supplied with the game or build their own fleets under a points system that lets forces of any size face off, with ships defined by traits such as drive speed, armor-like damage reduction and a defensive value that governs how hard a ship is to hit. Combat is resolved with a mix of four, six, eight and ten sided dice covering an assortment of weapons, including lasers, ion weapons, blasters, plasma weapons, missiles and torpedoes, with damage tracked until a ship suffers critical effects that degrade or destroy it, producing lethal, fast-moving engagements rather than long attritional battles. The original release covered only small fighter craft, and later expansions added larger gunboats and escort-class vessels, culminating in Silent Death: The Next Millennium, which consolidated the ruleset and moved production from lead to plastic miniatures. After Iron Crown Enterprises entered bankruptcy the rights passed to a new owner, who produced a short-lived online version discontinued in 2001, and the tabletop game later continued through the Metal Express label.