Here is the brief description of the Galactic War Battlegame book:

Battlegame Book 3: Galactic War, Andrew McNeil, London: Usborne Publishing, 1975. This is a 9" by 12 BC" hardbound book, running 39 pages. I'm not sure of the price, but there's a price tag reading $6.00 on the back of the book. The 18 pages are basic astronomy information (what the solar system is, early astronomers, space exploration as well as a few pages of speculation about interstellar spacecraft and alien life), profusely illustrated and written on a gradeschool/junior high level.

The book contains four "battlegames". The boards for the games are four 2-page "spreads" within the book; that is, to play a game, one turns to the appropriate page and lays the book flat to form the board. The pieces for the game are printed in black on several pages of heavy blue paper in the center of the book. The pieces, decorated with artwork reminiscent of DC sci-fi comics, must be cut out with scissors and assembled; suggestions for coming up with more durable pieces are provided and are probably a good idea, as these paper components may not hold up well.

The four games included are quite simplistic; the rules for each are contained on a single page per game. In "Space Pirates" 2, 3, or 4 players compete in going to asteroids and picking up loads of four minerals which must be delivered to the Earth, which orbits around the center of the board. Movement of spaceships is semi-Newtonian and there is a rudimentary combat system.

The second game is "Deadly Planet", in which 2 to 4 players compete to move their four astronauts from their landing zone in the center of the board through concentric rings of squares to the outside. Creature pieces move through the rings and can bump the astronauts back to the landing zone or, with luck, ridden for extra movement. Seems to be a bit like Sorry! The last two games are two player contests. In "Invasion Earth" the Ganoid player attempts to establish a colony in the Pacific by landing beacon ships in the ocean and followed by spawning craft; if they can establish a pattern of spawning craft, they win. The Earth player counters with several military units (sub fleets, hydrofoils, air fleet and several satellites). Interestingly, there are no random elements in the game, either in movement or combat, making the game more about positioning pieces correctly.

The last game is "Galactic War" a two player game of strategic combat. Each player starts with an identical fleet of 20 ships and competes over a hex grid with numerous planets on it, each with a technology rating of from 1 to 5. As the players occupy these planets they add their tech level to a running total. This, along with the number of ships attacking and a die roll, is used to determine combat. As a wild card, three of each players' ships are "annihilators" which can be destroyed, taking out any ships, friend or foe, in adjacent hexes.

While the topic of the games are some sort of conflict situation, it's a stretch to call them wargames in the sense that most in this newsgroup would use the term. A gamer who got one of these games in a Metagaming microgame box would probably feel ripped off (though appreciative of the full color map). Instead they are more like the sort of simple board games one might expect from a Milton Bradley game of the same era, and since they are quite clearly aimed at young players, probably very suitable for introducing them to the hobby.