4X: Combat System

I wanted to have a combat system different from the usual dice rolling I see in similar games, and having card based research naturally brought me to card based combat. Currently thinking of a system based on Donald X. Vaccarino's Dominion. A played would start with a basic hand, Say (x2) 1 damage dealing cards (Basic Laser) (x5) 1 damage preventing cards (Basic Shield) and (x3) Misses to foul up the hand. When facing another player, each will draw 5 and compare - lasers will deal damage, unless negated by a shield. Damage will be dealt both ways, and an attacker may regret his decision. The defender may choose to continue the attack, or may choose to disengage. Through research, better cards may be added to the deck, from pure damage dealing or prevention (advanced laser, advanced shield) as well as special effects, such as a tractor beam to prevent enemy disengagement or guided missiles to target specific systems on enemy ships (something I'll expand on in a future post) Combat may also be engaged against assets belonging to other players (colonies) or to the set up of the game. These could have a set power (i.e. deal 3 damage, counter 4) and the player would need to draw a hand able to defeat it to gain control. After hands have been drawn, they will be placed in a discard pile, and a new hand drawn from the player's deck during the next phase. The discard would be shuffled back into the deck whenever the player needs to draw more to complete a hand of 5 (or more, if he has picked up a card that lets him do so from the appropriate research stack.) A player be able to rearrange his or her deck at a friendly location, replacing cards he doesn't want (such as 'miss' cards) for those he has drawn from the combat research deck. I would need some play testing, but I assume limitations could help the game, such as only replacing 2 cards per turn while in a docking station, with research improving this statistic, or allowing to do so without docking. I think I need to give some more thought on disengaging, and whether an attacker can simply reengage when it is his turn again.