No Stars in Sight is aimed at the sub-company level game, with players taking a platoon or two of infantry, with perhaps a vehicle or two in support. However, larger games are easily playable with these rules. Although the rules are intended for a near future hard sci-fi game setting, the rules also include full options for sc-fant & space opera games. As well as these optional rules NSiS also includes rules covering several types of alien races ... The Swarm, Warriors, The Many to name but a few. The basic rules are very simple and quick to grasp, but once more options and variant troop types become involved NSiS becomes a much more in-depth game, although care must be taken to make sure you know how your soldiers will 'work' in the rules - playing a few games will soon result in you knowing what (and how) to 'work' with them!

The infantry combat rules take a little getting used to if you're used to the idea that your little lead soldiers will do what you want each & every turn, no questions asked - in NSiS they'll quickly begin to lose effectiveness as a fight progresses; this means that each game can become increasingly tense as your soldiers get pinned own just short of their objectives, or as that horde of melee focussed bug warriors appears over the hill crest. Teamwork & proper use of all available cover is absolutely vital - trying an uncordinated mad dash across open ground, or the traditional line 'em up & march 'em forwards across that field approach, will quickly result in a hail of reaction fire and casualties galore that will stop your troops (dead) in their tracks ... As befits a smaller level game focussed on platoons & squads what happens to your wounded troopers matters (unless you're playing a swarm of uncaring alien beasties, that is).

The inluded vehicle rules are neat and tidy and work well within the rules without the (normal) problem inherent to smaller level games, that being the vehicles used in small scale games overpowering & dominating the infantry action - NSiS is very much an infantry platoons & squads game.

The rules themselves are clearly & neatly written & presented, with the occasional piece of artwork not detracting from or overwhelming the presentation - printed in greyscale & spiral bound with a laminated cover, it makes a nice little rulebook for a very reasonable price.

No Stars in Sight is a very impressive ruleset, a worthy compatriot to SG II, and way superior to Gruntz in almost all respects. Nuff sed ...

I’m very pleased with this purchase. No Stars in Sight (NSIS) offers tactical, fun squad-to-platoon level gameplay that isn’t likely to fry your brain (with some simple tweaks it could work for somewhat abstract company level engagements too). These comments are based on my experiences after buying the .pdf, skimming the rules for a few days, and playing one test game with my kids. The game was great fun, tactical, and interesting, but not brain-frying.

Much has been made of the “bank robbery shootout” scene in the movie Heist, a scene that features outnumbered gunmen using brute force, automatic fire, judicious use of cover, and coordinated movement to great effect. Honestly, compared to most of the skirmish/squad-level rulesets I’ve played before, NSIS offers gameplay that feels a bit like that movie scene! Cover is really important; reaction fire and suppression matter a lot but are handled in a very elegant, easy way by the rules; coordination between squads, or at least between members of the same squad, is really critical for making headway across the battlefield. Casualties tend to accumulate more slowly than many war gamers will be accustomed to - yet something interesting is always happening. Go back and watch that Heat shootout scene again, or others like it; note the enormous amounts of lead tossed around in between every actual casualty. In the same way, NSIS portrays sci-fi gunfights where huge amounts of fire are being tossed back and forth, but usually this leads to suppression, pinning, or delayed movement. Yet the game doesn’t feel static.

I’m currently using this with 40k sci-fi minis for our gaming. I found that the simple, minimal-fuss rules worked really well. In our test-battle, a squad of elite security troopers (Imperial Guard, but running as ‘Professionals’ in NSIS terms) were supported by two small fire-teams of Space Marines (also professionals, but we further gave them an automatic cover save in addition to their assault armor even when they weren’t in cover). They faced off against 3 squads of Trained criminals and cultists blocking their exit from a raided compound. The engagement developed into separate firefights for control of key alleyways; eventually, coordination of supporting fire between units, and some calculated risks that got key troops around corners into flanking positions, allowed the 'good guys' to pin the bad guys and then clean their clocks in short-range assaults. Random dice rolls mattered, of course, but it really felt like common-sense squad tactics, use of cover, and leveraging troop quality over multiple turns really paid off. In the end, the bad guys got pushed back into a crossfire and then outflanked, and that was it. I was really pleased with how the fight went. Professionals really felt like better troops than Trained adversaries; and our proxy marines felt quite powerful, but still just vulnerable enough that they couldn’t take enemy action too lightly. Long-term, I intend to use fairly simple rules for Space Marines, and reserve the game’s Powered Armor advanced rules for Terminators and Dreadnoughts. Just the simple core rules already feel pretty effective for my “vanilla 40k” tastes.

I do have two critiques to offer, but they are pretty minor. First, the core rules are very simple and easy to ‘get.’ But the many special rules and exceptions for more advanced unit types will probably stack up quickly in a large game or a game with quite diverse troop-types. The rules recognize this and encourage players to start small and simple, which is quite reasonable advice. I’m pleased to say that our test battle didn’t involve particularly diverse elements, but it still felt challenging and interesting. The rules summary ‘cheat sheet’ at the back of the back is quite helpful, but I also found it useful to print off my own ‘cheat-sheet’ showing each squad’s basic information (including Firepower level) and any special rules that applied to them. Second, I found the morale rules to be the most complex part of the game. Mind you, they aren’t actually terribly complex, this is just to say that I found them more complex than other parts of the game. Most of the game involves hardly any math (one of the reasons I reached for NSIS over the Squad Hammer rules, which appear to rely more on adding up to-hit bonuses). But when a squad takes enemy fire, you are supposed to count up quickly how many pins they received, how many casualties are also weighing down the squad too, and then roll under the combined total or fall back a certain distance away from the enemy fire. Not that complicated, to be sure, but you have to do this so often (when a squad takes fire) that the very small amount of math involved does translate into small-but-frequent math. As time goes on, I think I might tweak this very simply into a more streamlined way to test and apply morale/fall-back procedures, but I don’t think doing so is likely to change the feel of the game very much. At any rate, with more experience under my belt, even the morale rules as written might feel more comfortable.

All in all I highly recommend NSIS if you are looking for a sci-fi squad to platoon-level game that emphasizes real-life tactics over clunky rules. I hear one can also use the same mechanics for a slightly larger (small company) level engagement by making each “figure” a fire team or squad in a platoon. If the ruleset sounds appealing but you aren’t looking for sci-fi, then look at No End in Sight, the historical version. Finally, if you do get this ruleset, also pick up the 2015 Nordic Weasel Grab-Bag .pdf (Pay What You Want, I believe) which has a few extra special rules options and ideas (I may try using some of those rules to further test out Space Marine options). Two thumbs up!

No Stars in Sight is a pretty much perfect gritty, small-unit sci-fi game.

You get tons of choice in unit design, optional rules to fine tune how you play, and make lots of decisions every phase of the game. Where do I put this plasma rifleman? Do I fire my last buzzbomb at that infantry concentration or save it for that power armor dude who I know is lurking around the corner? Should I push 1st Squad as hard as I can and risk exhausting them for the rest of the game?

It handles bug vs human and low tech humans vs high tech humans very well. Numerous games I've played have felt very much like the ambush scene in Aliens or in the final battle in District 9---intense, fast moving, and violent.

What the game does best is what the historical version, NEIS, does best as well: it keeps weapon lethality under control. Most of the damage you'll inflict is morale: pinning, stress, push backs, etc. Except in bug games, when you'll kill SO MANY bugs (unless they get in close, when they'll kill you).

Good stuff indeed.