Space Knights is a modified Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) game, heavily inspired by the Warhammer 40k universe. Its author is Gabriel Ciprés, and the game is available in English and Spanish. Each player controls one of the ten Companies of the titular Order of the Space Knights, fighting the enemies of the Domain of Humankind.

The relations between the various Companies do not always have to be good, and each of Companies can get corrupted and become an enemy of the Order. However, in this case, the player loses control of it and takes over another Company, so open PvP is unlikely.

Despite some inspiration from Warhammer 40k wargames, this is definitely a narrative system, not a simulation one. It has a very low entry threshold – if the Game Master (or rather the Space Master) knows how to improvise, and the players feel the atmosphere, you can start the game on the go, after a cursory reading of the rules.

The game is minimalistic yet meaty: it’s a PDF of only 10 pages (just 2.5 megabytes), and yet has quite extensive rules, potentially allowing you to play out long and epic campaigns. We find here:

1. Rules of creating the Order and Companies. I like that each Company has individual traits, not just different stats. Companies are quite fragile, but when one of them is annihilated, the player can quickly create and take control of another (keeping in mind the Order’s 10 Companies limit). The manual also includes three ready-made Orders with companies, which allows you to start the game even faster. I especially like the Ice Claws – their colours are like Polish Air Force roundel, which taken together with their lack of home reminds me of No. 303 Squadron RAF.
2. Test rules and the Space Master’s agenda – solutions quite similar to most PbtA games, although tags may result in re-rolls.
3. Company Moves – there are only 8 of them in total, not counting the three special ones (about one of them below).
4. Rules of the Company’s advancement and corruption.
5. Examples of missions: invasion, protection of the territory, exploration of unknown space, fight with the internal enemy, rescue mission. It shows the game diversity!
6. Generators (of names of Order, missions, planets) and a template for creating the Domain of Humankind, which can span from one solar system to most of the galaxy. I giggled at “Independent thinking” as one of the options for “the worst possible crime in the Domain” (but don’t worry, if you don’t want to create totalitarianism, you can choose “treason” or “witchcraft” instead).
7. A special move that ends the campaign with the appropriately proud name “From here to Eternity” and the trigger “When you get bored of playing and don´t want to continue with the game, check the following and roll 2d6 + Answers”. Depending on the course of the campaign so far and the result of this final roll, our Order may become a model for all future Orders of the Domain of Humankind, or be forgotten in the darkness of history.

I have just a few reservations/doubts:

1. The way of editing the content on page 3 is not optimal – first, we have information about the attributes (given only with abbreviations) of individual Companies, and only then is an explanation of what these abbreviations actually mean.
2. It’s a pity there are no rules for space battles, magic/psionics or super weapons. That would spice up things a bit!
3. There can only be one Elite Company in the Order, and the player controlling it has a clearly stronger position than the others (he is in charge and rolls on the “Mission Move”). Not all teams will like it.

The rules of the game seem so flexible that they could probably be easily adapted to playing, for example, with a legion of stormtroopers from Star Wars or some imperial regiment in the world of Warhammer Fantasy.

Such hacks are favored by the fact that the game is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which means that it can be freely modified, provided that it is used non-commercial and the original author is identified.

I would also consider “Zooming in” (using the terminology from Legacy) and playing individual soldiers of our Company using the Stay Frosty mechanics – both games, although they differ in terms of rules and scale, have very similar overall climate.

"Space Knights packs a lot into its ten pages, from interesting mechanics to idea fodder, covering everything you'll need to play a one-shot or campaign from the set-up all the way to the epilogue. With interesting tweaks to the mechanics and a low bar for entry (there are even three example Orders and a quartet of missions if you want to jump right into things), even if you're not a 40k fan there's a lot of fun to be had here." - Seamus Conneely

Read the full CHG review here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/338151/Space-Knights?affiliate_id=1256684

The game is just great, complete, fast, simple, creative and engaging. Without a doubt a great work from an author who has been behind for many hours. Congratulations.

Okay, to be honest I'm more of an old school player, set in my old ways and fond of the most classic games. But maybe that's why I found "Space Knights" so new and refreshing (although probably that's just me, because there's quite an extensive list of systems the author claims he used as inspiration, so this might be a discovery to me, but not so much to you). In any case, I had a lot of fun playing this.

The universe is not set, there are some common guidelines, but ultimately both the world and the adventure is being created by a collaborative effort of players and DM as you go, which makes it easier to get into things because you've been part of them from the very beginning. Another remarkable thing is the fact that you don't play a character but a whole company of space knights (mixing medieval fantasy with sci-fi, mmm... yummy) and if all your men die you can quickly switch to another company into the same order, so the dynamics can be slightly different, although not by much. I still think it's a fascinanting concept, though.

The game includes the manual in both English and Spanish, plus the character sheets (well, "company" sheets). All the tables needed are included in the manual, so you just need your dice and quite a bit of imagination and you're ready to play. And maybe that's the only con I could find to the game, that it sort of requires a DM who is good at improvising and conducting stories without much preparation because the adventure has to be built on the go. Well, that and slightly confusing terminology regarding the actions, but that's probably because I'm an old dinosaur.

All in all, I recommend this game. Lots of fun playing with the right people.