What do the following items have in common?

Wrath of Khan
Babylon 5
Honor Harrington
Every Star Wars film
Battlestar Galactica

Yep, they all feature exciting ship-to-ship space combat, and incidentally, what caused me (a long-time rpg player) to take up spaceship wargaming. About a year ago, I began my quest, looking for miniatures to inspire, and a game to play.

To my surprise, trips to my FLGS turned up no games, no minis, nothing. So I visited other stores, including ones that catered SPECIFICALLY to the minis crowd—same result.

OK…you can find anything at a con's dealer's room, right? So next I went to Egyptian Campaign and DieCon, small and medium-sized game cons. Here's what I found: one box of out-of-print Star Frontiers minis, and no rules or games for sale at all! Most disturbing, out of literally DOZENS of tables of miniatures games (WWII games, fantasy games, mecha games, naval games…) there was only ONE game session devoted to starships(FASA's Star Trek.)

Now, I know tastes change, genres wax and wane. Maybe this is just a down cycle. Or maybe it's time to step it up. I'd like to challenge veterans to get out there, be visible, and actively try to recruit new players.

I'd also like to challenge game designers to do the same, and to work towards games that work at all levels, and attract all tastes.

If big space battles can sell movie tickets, they ought to be able to sell a few games.