After binging The Expanse, loving Battlestar Galactica, etc... the wife and I were thinking of finding a game of that sort. Other than Battlefleet Gothic, are there any supported games that aren't entirely unwieldy or overly complex while still having the whole capital ships, escorts, etc... kind of feel?

We don't love Star Wars Armada, and Firestorm is a dead system, correct? Anything else out there? I feel like Firestorm is close to what we wanted, as it had ideas like boarding parties, etc... but I think when it died it was considered a grossly imbalanced system?

While I haven't played it, I heard good things about Full Thrust:

https://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/full-thrust-starships.html

If you don't mind a more pulpy look, War Rocket is very fun:

http://shop.hydraminiatures.com/index.php?cPath=40&osCsid=8642abac0230c9febfd471e4b9e7eab2

Firestorm Armada is only kind of dead - it was bought by Warcradle / Wayland, but I don't know if they're going to do anything with it. I like Dropfleet Commander, but I'm not sure how popular it is in the States.

Dropfleet Commander is pretty good. You don’t need to use alllll the rules for planetary combat if you want a good space battle. The miniatures are the best plastic spaceship kits in tabletop gaming today, and TTCombat is supporting the game with new minis every few months.

Firestorm Armada is semi-dead, it will be rebooted, eventually, but with new minis and updated rules.

Dropfleet is a spiritual heir to Battlefleet Gothic, the same guy wrote the rules, many of the core mechanics are similar or identical, and the core 4 factions in each game have somewhat similar playstyles to one another. Dropfleet has been heavily streamlined and modernized however and is much less clunky and unwieldy as a result. The major difference is that Dropfleet is a much harder scifi setting from 40k, so there are certain fluff assumptions made which impact the way the game plays. The first is that they assume the vast majority of space combat occurs in gravity wells rather than deep space or the interplanetary void, as such the rules are designed around 3 "altitude" levels that the ships move through with the goal of delivering dropships to planet surface or orbiting stations, etc. rather than simply being in the middle of a solar system, etc. This is easy enough to mod out if you want to just fight a more traditional "void navy" battle in deep space though i feel the gsme loses a but of its rock/paper/scissors type inteeraction as a result, but there are certain ships in each faction that are essentially atmospheric and can only operate at the lowest altitude level, youll need to decide how to handle these. The other big difference is that in space weapon ranges are effectively unlimited so what matters is not your ability to reach a target but rather your ability to see it - as such your weapon range is basically variable dependant on your targets "signature" which is itself variable depending on what actions your opponent takes - things like firing weapons, or revving up your engines will raise your signature while other actions you take might decrease it. As such theres a bit of a cat and mouse dynamic to the gameplay as sound maneuvering and signature management is needed in order to minimize the risk to yourself while you position yourself for maximum striking potential.

That sounds really cool, I really like the idea of the signature mechanic.

As was mentioned in the other thread, you can also check out the "Call to Arms" series of space fleet games: there was Babylon 5, Star Fleet (Star Trek), and Noble Armada (generic). I've only played the last two, and they were both fun, with slightly different mechanics than Gothic, and more ship durability as well. I couldn't tell you how available the rules are via ebay or other sources, though.

Second A Call to Arms as a good fun fleet combat system.

I have experience with the Babylon 5 variant of A Call to Arms. It was great, though it had some bad balance issues with certain factions, but at this point its a dead game system that has been officially out of print for over a decade. You can still find the minis online though they aren't necessarily cheap, but finding an opponent may be a challenge.

While we're on the topic of dead game systems, you can try doing some research into Halo Fleet Battles. I dont know much about the game other than the fact that the company behind it (Spartan Games, same as Firestorm) collapsed a few months after launch, so they didn't release much for it and what they did release commands a big price tag from collectors. There is an active facebook community trying to keep the game alive through community created rules and minis that can be purchased from shapeways and whatnot if you're interested, but again its not cheap and finding opponents may be an issue. Of all the games discussed, this is the only one that I would consider to actually be "fleet scale" - a typically fleet is several dozen ships, whereas all the other games discussed typically feature 10-20 ships tops, sometimes less. The way HFB keeps such a large number of vessels manageable is by having multiple ships on a single base - typically this would be a cruiser (or whatever they refer to it as) with 2-3 escort frigates/destroyers, etc, although in some cases you have a pair of cruisers or a trio of escorts or what-have-you as a base instead. Depending on the number and type of ships involved, the stats for that base would vary (referred to as a "formation", IIRC there were "reinforced", "supported", "paired", etc.) to represent their linked firepower and the role each ship filled in the formation. Larger ships like battleships/dreadnoughts are typically just a single model.

+1 for Full Thrust

the game itself is fun to play and works well up to fleet level

its biggest advantage is that there are not only lists (and models) for the FT universe but also good rules to develop your own ships

therefore you will find ship lists for Battlestar Galactica (made to be used with larger Scale Models) , Star Trek and Babylon 5

Well that's a tough one. since you want simple. other than BFG the only one that comes to mind is mongooses Babylon 5 system "a call to arms" . it is basically the same system they use for their WWII victory at sea system as well.

Unfortunately unlike B5 wars, which is the best Newtonian based scific space skirmish system IMHO(but also very complex by comparison), that has been converted into star trek, star wars, battlestar galactica, wing commander, stargate, macros/robotech, battlefleet gothic etc..

the "a call to arms" system is only for Babylon 5.

You can get the control sheet and such for it here

http://www.ibisfightclub.tk/

the B5 wars stuff can be found here if you want to look into it.

http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/

*reposted from the duplicate thread

"Supported" and "simple" is a tough one. Lot's of games out there for capital ship combat, but it's a real niche compared to other table top miniature games.

Battle Fleet Gothic: No longer supported by GW, but the rules are available online for free, there are several 3D printing places still making ships, and there is an online following.

Drop Fleet Commander: Spiritual successor to BFG, written by Andy Chambers, same guy that did BFG. Fleets play in gravity wells (around planets; the planet is the "table" and you fight above it with the ships). Can't recommend this game as what goes on with the ships has almost nothing to do with winning the game. You win the game by landing troops on planets/stations and fighting this abhorrent "dice war" sub-game with completely different game mechanics from the space battles. It's like a completely different game meant to simulate the other game this company produces (Drop Zone Commander). You could wipe out the entire opponents fleet in orbit, but if they have more troops on the ground, you lose. Consequently, there are all these fantastic ships, but you end up taking 80% troop carriers so you can win. Also, the company was bought out two years ago by TTCombat that has done... not much to promote the game. They came out with a new faction, and they keep releasing bigger and bigger ships (Dreadnoughts, and now Monitors, ships that are so big (list restricted) and expensive (points and $$), that you don't see them in regular play. The game was also broken very badly with Corvettes- small escort style ships that are stupid cheap and can... I could go on and on with how much this game needs a second edition, but I think you get the picture.

Firestorm Armada was a good fleet based game until Spartan Games abruptly folded. Now owned by Warcradle Studios, the game has languished. Warcradle is more of a game distribution company than game company. Right now, they are pushing Wild West Exodus way more than anything else, with a new version of Dystopian Wars on the way sometime this year. You can usually find the models on the second hand market or once again, Shapeways.

Starfleet Battles (SFB) An oldie (from the 1970's!), but a goodie. Still being printed by the Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB). Set in the Star Trek universe, it can be a complicated game, but you can choose what rules or "tech levels" to use in you games. This was the game system B5 A Call to Arms is based on.

B5 A Call to Arms was created by a couple of the SFB creative team that left ADB and formed Mongoose Publishing. Game has very similar mechanics to SFB. Mongoose no longer prints or supports the game (think they lost the license for B5 back in the early 00's). Has a large online following with several community mods for playing just about any sci-fi universe.

Full Thrust I can't say much about this game; I haven't played it. Came out in 1992 I believe. Still being made and supported by Ground Zero Games out of England. Has background and fluff, but that is entirely optional as the system is designed to be modular and playable with just about any models you have. You'll just have to be a bit... "creative".

Saganami Island Tactical Simulator by Ad Astra Games. If you are a Honor Harrington fan, this is the game for you. Came out in 2005. Warning: Probably one of the most complex, and realistic space battle games on the market. Good luck with the math/trigonometry as the game is a fully realized 3D game that requires you to compute vectors (bonus if you are good at Linear Algebra/Calculus for vectors). They try to simplify it as much as possible, but when you talk about relativistic physics and trying to hit a ship from 50 million KM's away on a parabolic course traveling at .67c with an arc of 21° below the plane of the Ecliptic and 65° off axis of the firing ship... sounds incredible, and the rules do a good job of translating that into dice rolls.

After this, you really get into the "Beer and Pretzels" games. Star Trek Attack Wing (Wizkids), Star Wars Armada (Fantasy Flight Games), Battlestar Galactica (Ares Games)... these games typically have prepainted models, require little set up time, and can be played very quickly (within an hour). There are also more than a few "fleet style" board games that are worth looking into as well.

Head over to Board Game Geek and use the search function and you will find more space fleet games then you can shake a stick at, along with reviews and commentary on each one.

It really is amazing that so many space fleet games get released and never catch on, sorta like mech games. The corner stone of a lot of sci-fi, and yet, not very popular with gamers.

Another important question to ask is whether you want hex-based movement or free-measuring.

The Call to Arms system (which is still published for Star Fleet: A Call to Arms, now by ADB after they bought back the license they sold to Mongoose who wanted to use the setting for their system that was Noble Armada) is pretty good for fleet based, free-form movement but is fairly specific to the Star Fleet Universe (based on Star Trek), with no rules for ship construction.

Firestorm Armada was decent, but like others have mentioned is in a limbo spot; Warcradle now owns the IP and has plans to re-release, but that's at least a couple years out.

Full Thrust is pretty solid and you can do whatever you want, but it is a hex-based system (though there might be non-hex rules, not 100% sure). Starmada is kinda in the same vein as Full Thrust with some slight differences.

Squadron Strike, Saganami, and Assault Vector: Tactical by Ad Astra are based on the same engine, and very complex since they try to simulate full 3d. Also hex based.

One of the granddaddies is Star Fleet Battles, which has been in continuous publication since like 1978. Extremely detailed, but not quite as bad as it seems. Not really good for fleet actions unless you have more than one player per side, as the energy allocation for each ship is detailed enough that it is taxing to control more than 3 ships. Hex based for the most part but there is a rule section for free-form. This is my starship game of choice, honestly, and has been since the late 80s when I got first introduced to it. Bonus points here, though, is that if you buy models for this, you can use them for SFB, Federation Commander (also from ADB; a little more streamlined version of the game), A Call to Arms: Starfleet, and even Starmada "officially." I've seen plenty of folks use the models for Full Thrust, too.

Mike Hutchison, designer of Gaslands, has a starship game scheduled for mid 2020: A Billion Suns. As an Osprey book it will be model agnostic, and since Gaslands was a load of fun I'll definitely be picking this one up when it comes out.

The number of in-production free-form starship miniatures games currently is pretty low, sadly. (Armada/X-Wing are free form and probably the biggest right now; yes, movement templates are still free-form since there's no hex/square grid.)

Just checking out the free rules for Full Thrust v2, the game is open table, inch-related free measuring. No hexes. Unfortunately either the mechanics are too much for me to get other people interested, or it's a problem with the rules' verbage. Because at first read, it looks pretty complicated to a person who is more used to games like Battlefleet Gothic, which is more of a mid-level complexity.

But it has the benefit of being miniatures agnostic, and has tons of free material, including the rules.

As a fan of the show, I would say the best way to simulate The Expanse space combat is with Full Thrust, because the rules are totally free and the first of the two also-free "Fleet Books" on Ground Zero Games introduces a vector-based movement system as an optional rule. Then not only is the only investment if you want to have ship miniatures, you can make anything you want as a ship, and it has 2D Vector movement without needing to be a math genius like with 3D.

For hex based games, Red Alert Fleet Combat just came out, and it seems pretty streamlined to me: there are only four kinds of ships, but you get huge fleets of them in the box. From my read of the rules it seems to be about as complex as Horizon Wars, and potentially mini agnostic if you and your opponent can agree on which stat line works with which ship. The ships included in the box are one-piece plastic, but have a great Babylon 5ish/Stargateish human faction look to them.

I would definitely like to see another fleet-scale space battle game hit the market, because other than Battlefleet Gothic, Firestorm: Armada and maybe(?) Dropfleet, there's not a lot out there that isn't actually a mis-named "strikeforce-level" spaceship game. Most of the games available really bog down after each player starts fielding more than a half dozen or so miniatures (not counting fighters that are usually counters). It's been a long time since I saw a good game Like Battlefleet Gothic or Firestorm Armada, where each player could field a Battleship, 4-8 cruisers, and several frigate squadrons and have that be merely a medium- to large-sized fleet.

Games like Star Wars: Armada (which I really like), and Full Thrust (especially once you start using vector movement) and even Age of Sail games like Black Sails or Galleys and Galleons (because most sailing ship games and 2D spaceship games function very similarly unless they are like X-Wing) are really just skirmish games with ship models instead of foot troopers.

But that probably works best for a realistic setting like the Expanse, where each fleet might have a couple of ships circling each other with cool vector-based countermoves.

 Tamwulf wrote:

Drop Fleet Commander: Spiritual successor to BFG, written by Andy Chambers, same guy that did BFG. Fleets play in gravity wells (around planets; the planet is the "table" and you fight above it with the ships). Can't recommend this game as what goes on with the ships has almost nothing to do with winning the game. You win the game by landing troops on planets/stations and fighting this abhorrent "dice war" sub-game with completely different game mechanics from the space battles. It's like a completely different game meant to simulate the other game this company produces (Drop Zone Commander). You could wipe out the entire opponents fleet in orbit, but if they have more troops on the ground, you lose. Consequently, there are all these fantastic ships, but you end up taking 80% troop carriers so you can win. Also, the company was bought out two years ago by TTCombat that has done... not much to promote the game. They came out with a new faction, and they keep releasing bigger and bigger ships (Dreadnoughts, and now Monitors, ships that are so big (list restricted) and expensive (points and $$), that you don't see them in regular play. The game was also broken very badly with Corvettes- small escort style ships that are stupid cheap and can... I could go on and on with how much this game needs a second edition, but I think you get the picture.

For the record I disagree with everything here (and most of it is simply factually wrong - Monitors for example are a smaller ships, roughly destroyer sized, you get 3 of them for 20 GBP which is the same price as 2 cruisers - sounds like someone played the game once when it very first released years ago with someone who had no idea what they were doing and carried forward some false impressions of gameplay).

Starfleet Battles (SFB) An oldie (from the 1970's!), but a goodie. Still being printed by the Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB). Set in the Star Trek universe, it can be a complicated game, but you can choose what rules or "tech levels" to use in you games. This was the game system B5 A Call to Arms is based on.

I may be confusing this with another Star Trek game, but if its the one Im thinking of it is not a fleet scale game, trying to manage more than 2-3 ships per side will cause a single game to run in excess of a day due to game complexity - it has more in common with B5 Fleet Action or B5 Wars (whatever the other B5 space combat game is) than it does with A Call to Arms.


A good resource is Star Ranger - http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm

The site hasn't been updated really in about 5 years I think, but there really hasn't been much published in this area since then (at least nothing that we haven't already discussed here), so while it may not be up to date or current its a good research tool to get you started.
Anyway, another couple games to look into are Starmada and Iron Stars. Never played either and I know nothing about them other than that they exist. A quick look suggests the forums are still active though, so maybe you'll find something there.

Check out Starmada:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/51529/Starmada-The-Admiralty-Edition-Core-Rulebook?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_0_40014_0&manufacturers_id=489

Fleet rules: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/90288/Starmada-Fleet-Ops?src=also_purchased&filters=0_0_40014_0&manufacturers_id=489

BGG Pages:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33259/starmada-admiralty-edition

BGG Fleet rules: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/96816/starmada-fleet-ops

I may be confusing this with another Star Trek game, but if its the one Im thinking of it is not a fleet scale game, trying to manage more than 2-3 ships per side will cause a single game to run in excess of a day due to game complexity - it has more in common with B5 Fleet Action or B5 Wars (whatever the other B5 space combat game is) than it does with A Call to Arms.

B5 wars is nowhere near as complex as star fleet battles, it is complex and is a skirmish game (although using the star trek rules it goes quite a bit faster since the ships themselves are less complex via rules like gravitic drives (negating the concern fro thruster facings) but you can play a small fleet engagement in a 3-4 hours. the key is remembering you don't need to "win" to win. sometimes you score a victory condition or do enough damage then withdraw.


We had an old republic setting game for the star wars mod where the main guns on the separatist side a banking clan cruiser blew out his shield generator by overloading it trying to recharge it faster. so he withdrew instead of facing down a damaged but combat capable venator that would have killed him. thus ending the game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
For hex based games, Red Alert Fleet Combat just came out, and it seems pretty streamlined to me: there are only four kinds of ships, but you get huge fleets of them in the box. From my read of the rules it seems to be about as complex as Horizon Wars, and potentially mini agnostic if you and your opponent can agree on which stat line works with which ship. The ships included in the box are one-piece plastic, but have a great Babylon 5ish/Stargateish human faction look to them.

This is a good option. It’s a genuine fleet battle game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/250467/red-alert-space-fleet-warfare

Well, sort of. There's no movement as such when taken in relation to "Starship Combat" games. It's really just a retheme of all the other Command and color games. Every review pretty much sums it up as if you've played Battlelore, or Battlecry, or one of the other Ancient Battle games, it's pretty much that with some tweaks.

Starship combat games, as they are usually thought of, really need a sense of outmaneuvering other ships with movement and facing, taking fire arcs into account, etc. BUT, the ships from Red Alert look like they would be great for use in other games.

Yes things you can do in a 3d space environment need to be represented but it is difficult on a 2d playing surface. when you add in things like rolls, flips, slides, combat pivots and all the other things that Newtonian physics require you start getting into a bit more complexity like the B5 wars system which is why it is a skirmish system and not a large fleet system.

Things like a call to arms and victory at sea have that simplicity but you have to modify them in house if you want to use them in other universes, or just pick ships that resemble what you want close enough. I remember when firestorm came out, a few people were playing it but it never really took off at my FLGS. at least with that system the ship templates were generic enough since they were not tied to a specific popular franchise.

One thing I really liked in Firestorm was that even though most of the combat was 2D, you could roll a ship over to protect a damaged side from an enemy. That was a cool little nod to space physics that I haven't really seen in other games (edit: I see you can do this with Full Thrust, too).

Incidentally, have any fan communities tried to "fix" Firestorm Armada during its Warcradle lull? I think I would really enjoy giving that one a go, if someone who had experience with the system went in and fixed its most troublesome imbalances.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
One thing I really liked in Firestorm was that even though most of the combat was 2D, you could roll a ship over to protect a damaged side from an enemy. That was a cool little nod to space physics that I haven't really seen in other games (edit: I see you can do this with Full Thrust, too).

BattleSpace you could do it as well - its a cool thing.

Incidentally, have any fan communities tried to "fix" Firestorm Armada during its Warcradle lull? I think I would really enjoy giving that one a go, if someone who had experience with the system went in and fixed its most troublesome imbalances.

Be interesting to know - one of things I did not like about it was the way they handled fighters - ACTA: B5 does it well. Dropfleet also handles them really badly.

If anyone wants the ACTA: B5 rules (and/or my fan made packs) - let me know...

I'd also caution against relying on games to be "supported". That's a somewhat bizarre thing that is only tied to the "release a model every month or two" kind of sales gimmick run by larger companies, like Games Workshop and FFG.

If you simply mean "supported" with regard to appropriate miniatures being available, that's a different story. Luckily 3D printing can cover most out-of-print games if that becomes an issue.

A quality set of rules doesn't need support, particularly if it's generic and you can use whatever miniatures you want. There's nothing at all stopping you from gaming a space fleet game written in the 1980's if you want...as long as you can find appropriate contents and miniatures. A lot of people get far too hung up on "support" meaning the company is pumping out products or info every couple of weeks. That's not something that is necessary for a good game.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
One thing I really liked in Firestorm was that even though most of the combat was 2D, you could roll a ship over to protect a damaged side from an enemy. That was a cool little nod to space physics that I haven't really seen in other games (edit: I see you can do this with Full Thrust, too).

This is basically the only thing I actually liked about Firestorm Armada and probably the only real mechanical innovation in the game. The truth is, unless you're leaning hard into Newtonian/vector physics (and even then) the 3rd dimension in space games is largely unnecessary as there is no such thing as a "high ground" or an altitude/height advantage (unlike in atmospheric or wet naval combat) since space extends infinitely in all directions, and for the most part you would expect that any engagement between 2 forces would become relatively planar anyway (unless, again, you lean hard into Newtonian/Vector physics and have fleets maneuvering based on gravity and orbital dynamics, in which case they have limited means to reorient in a manner that could be abstracted as planar).

The only thing that the 2d abstraction misses in the potential for a ship to be upside-down relative to an opponent (something which could theoretically occur even in a planar engagement). In that sense, Firestorm was successful in distilling something complex down into something very simple with a relatively simple rule.

Starfleet Battles has a shorter version/younger sibling in Federation Commander. Far simpler rules, though I will say the impulse system is a bit clunky. Even has two scales depending on whether you want a small number of ships or a larger number.

I absolutely love Babylon 5 Wars and it's inertial movement system. I also like how distinct faction plays. Whereas Starfleet Battles and by extension Federation Commander have each factions ships mirror each other, just with their faction's weapons and turn rates, almost every ship for every faction in B5 Wars is distinct. One faction's escort may be designed to hang close to intercept incoming fire, another's may focus down enemy fighters, and still another's may be a gunboat with capital ship grade weapons.

Arcanis161 wrote:
Starfleet Battles has a shorter version/younger sibling in Federation Commander. Far simpler rules, though I will say the impulse system is a bit clunky. Even has two scales depending on whether you want a small number of ships or a larger number.

I absolutely love Babylon 5 Wars and it's inertial movement system. I also like how distinct faction plays. Whereas Starfleet Battles and by extension Federation Commander have each factions ships mirror each other, just with their faction's weapons and turn rates, almost every ship for every faction in B5 Wars is distinct. One faction's escort may be designed to hang close to intercept incoming fire, another's may focus down enemy fighters, and still another's may be a gunboat with capital ship grade weapons.

Not managed to pick up B5 Wars - usually miss it on ebay or its too expensive....... Given that ACTA:B5 too alot of stuff from B Wars the fleets do remain quite different.

I also recall having some great games of Battlefleet Gothic using B5 and Star Trek ships with ststas we made up, same with Full Thrust.

I was quite sad that Dropfleet did not work that well as was hoping for a new starship game.

 Elbows wrote:
I'd also caution against relying on games to be "supported". That's a somewhat bizarre thing that is only tied to the "release a model every month or two" kind of sales gimmick run by larger companies, like Games Workshop and FFG.

If you simply mean "supported" with regard to appropriate miniatures being available, that's a different story. Luckily 3D printing can cover most out-of-print games if that becomes an issue.

A quality set of rules doesn't need support, particularly if it's generic and you can use whatever miniatures you want. There's nothing at all stopping you from gaming a space fleet game written in the 1980's if you want...as long as you can find appropriate contents and miniatures. A lot of people get far too hung up on "support" meaning the company is pumping out products or info every couple of weeks. That's not something that is necessary for a good game.

By supported my intention was simply to mean "by anyone". Fans often keep games healthy and clean up rules better than the IP holder, so if anyone is keeping a game vaguely up to date, I consider it supported.

Sure, I guess my take is always: if the rules are well written...a game doesn't need support.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
Starfleet Battles has a shorter version/younger sibling in Federation Commander. Far simpler rules, though I will say the impulse system is a bit clunky. Even has two scales depending on whether you want a small number of ships or a larger number.

I absolutely love Babylon 5 Wars and it's inertial movement system. I also like how distinct faction plays. Whereas Starfleet Battles and by extension Federation Commander have each factions ships mirror each other, just with their faction's weapons and turn rates, almost every ship for every faction in B5 Wars is distinct. One faction's escort may be designed to hang close to intercept incoming fire, another's may focus down enemy fighters, and still another's may be a gunboat with capital ship grade weapons.

Not managed to pick up B5 Wars - usually miss it on ebay or its too expensive....... Given that ACTA:B5 too alot of stuff from B Wars the fleets do remain quite different.

I also recall having some great games of Battlefleet Gothic using B5 and Star Trek ships with ststas we made up, same with Full Thrust.

I was quite sad that Dropfleet did not work that well as was hoping for a new starship game.

So here you go-
Now you can pick up B5 wars for free including ship control sheets, full rules and all it's conversions into STAR WARS(great for use with armada and the old collectable game for minis) STAR TREK(using attack wing minis), BATTLSTAR GALACTICA (ironwind metals still sells some of the minis as does this dedicated company http://starfightershipyards.com/battlestar-galactica-miniatures/battlestar-galactica-cylon-miniatures/ ), WING COMMANDER, BFG, MACROSS/ROBOTECH(models are still available from japan), STARGATE and more

all here-
http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/

Welcome to the fleet

Full thrust is a very nice system, but horrible for "fleet" combat. It's very early-90s, almost battle-techy in it's attention to detail and if you bring a battleship, four cruisers and say, 3-5 escorts, you will be at it for a long time. It works best as a skirmish game imo.

Dropfleet is a great core ruleset that sadly got saddled with the horrible "drop" part of the game- the ships are pretty much just window dressing to the land-objective tank and infantry chits that capture victory points and whose part of the rules is both confusingly complex and undercooked at the same time. IF you ignore that and just use the actual space combat part, it's quite fun though.

Firestorm Armada was by far the most "classic" of the easily available systems, but it's kinda super-dead right now. You could track down the books I suppose, and just use whatever models you want to play it.

 aphyon wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
Starfleet Battles has a shorter version/younger sibling in Federation Commander. Far simpler rules, though I will say the impulse system is a bit clunky. Even has two scales depending on whether you want a small number of ships or a larger number.

I absolutely love Babylon 5 Wars and it's inertial movement system. I also like how distinct faction plays. Whereas Starfleet Battles and by extension Federation Commander have each factions ships mirror each other, just with their faction's weapons and turn rates, almost every ship for every faction in B5 Wars is distinct. One faction's escort may be designed to hang close to intercept incoming fire, another's may focus down enemy fighters, and still another's may be a gunboat with capital ship grade weapons.

Not managed to pick up B5 Wars - usually miss it on ebay or its too expensive....... Given that ACTA:B5 too alot of stuff from B Wars the fleets do remain quite different.

I also recall having some great games of Battlefleet Gothic using B5 and Star Trek ships with ststas we made up, same with Full Thrust.

I was quite sad that Dropfleet did not work that well as was hoping for a new starship game.

So here you go-
Now you can pick up B5 wars for free including ship control sheets, full rules and all it's conversions into STAR WARS(great for use with armada and the old collectable game for minis) STAR TREK(using attack wing minis), BATTLSTAR GALACTICA (ironwind metals still sells some of the minis as does this dedicated company http://starfightershipyards.com/battlestar-galactica-miniatures/battlestar-galactica-cylon-miniatures/ ), WING COMMANDER, BFG, MACROSS/ROBOTECH(models are still available from japan), STARGATE and more

all here-
http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/

Welcome to the fleet

Wow thats awesome - will read and digest and add to my lore library! Thanks so much

I feel a little silly because I totally forgot about this one.

brigade miniatures the awesome makers of 3/6/10/15mm terrain of all types also have their own in house space game-starmada X brigade

granted I know nothing about it but it looks to be a fleet scale space combat game given the number of ships in the fleet packs.

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Spaceships/index.html

here are the basic rules it looks to be exactly the simple system you are after. it looks very similar to "a call to arms"

http://www.mj12games.com/starmada/mjg0140demo.pdf

Cronch wrote:
Dropfleet is a great core ruleset that sadly got saddled with the horrible "drop" part of the game- the ships are pretty much just window dressing to the land-objective tank and infantry chits that capture victory points and whose part of the rules is both confusingly complex and undercooked at the same time. IF you ignore that and just use the actual space combat part, it's quite fun though.

Exactly. It was like they squished two different games into one, where what happened in one game had no bearing at all on what happens on the other game, except you win or lose the game by the "Drop" portion. So if you want to win, you would take as many troop carriers as possible. The space combat part was actually pretty cool, except it was a bit busted (cough cough Bombers and Corvettes cough).

 Tamwulf wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Dropfleet is a great core ruleset that sadly got saddled with the horrible "drop" part of the game- the ships are pretty much just window dressing to the land-objective tank and infantry chits that capture victory points and whose part of the rules is both confusingly complex and undercooked at the same time. IF you ignore that and just use the actual space combat part, it's quite fun though.

Exactly. It was like they squished two different games into one, where what happened in one game had no bearing at all on what happens on the other game, except you win or lose the game by the "Drop" portion. So if you want to win, you would take as many troop carriers as possible. The space combat part was actually pretty cool, except it was a bit busted (cough cough Bombers and Corvettes cough).

Oddly enough, when I brought up the idea of running the game in pure space, I got massive backlash against the idea from players. They felt they NEEDED to have those drop zones in order to make it a good game.

Firestorm avoided that need with their Planefall line of scenarios and ships allowing for ships with the "Planetfall" rule to contribute to victory without ever dropping anything. After all, it is better to kill transports before they get close to their targets, right? There were rules for drops, but they were less focused on supporting the drops like Dropfleet was.

Speaking of Firestorm, there was some statements made by a Warcradle rep on their forums that they would be looking at running beta rules in 2020 after they launched Dystopian Wars. Considering how slow things are going on that front, I'm wondering if they will have it out before Christmas.

 Tamwulf wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Dropfleet is a great core ruleset that sadly got saddled with the horrible "drop" part of the game- the ships are pretty much just window dressing to the land-objective tank and infantry chits that capture victory points and whose part of the rules is both confusingly complex and undercooked at the same time. IF you ignore that and just use the actual space combat part, it's quite fun though.

Exactly. It was like they squished two different games into one, where what happened in one game had no bearing at all on what happens on the other game, except you win or lose the game by the "Drop" portion. So if you want to win, you would take as many troop carriers as possible. The space combat part was actually pretty cool, except it was a bit busted (cough cough Bombers and Corvettes cough).

Pretty much agreed, it looked nice and I thought had some really good ideas.

The whole signature/target thing was interesting but yeah the actual drop part being all important and not well done as well.
Fighters not being able to guard your ships against enemy bombers also annoyed me.
Shaltari being incredabbly good at everything was also not great.
Having a mainly broadside based fleet in a game when you need to advance was also not great
We played it a few times but it took so long most were put off by that and some of the above rules.

 aphyon wrote:
I feel a little silly because I totally forgot about this one.

brigade miniatures the awesome makers of 3/6/10/15mm terrain of all types also have their own in house space game-starmada X brigade

granted I know nothing about it but it looks to be a fleet scale space combat game given the number of ships in the fleet packs.

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Spaceships/index.html

here are the basic rules it looks to be exactly the simple system you are after. it looks very similar to "a call to arms"

http://www.mj12games.com/starmada/mjg0140demo.pdf

I posted the Starmada rules up above. They are a decent set but it has been years since I've played them.

Re: Dropfleet:

-PHR are the only broadside based faction (although Resistance now has broadside weaponry). UCM are turret based, Scourge and Shaltari are turret based but tend to have limited side arcs. Not really sure why youre calling it a broadside game when 3 out of the 4 core factions are more effective shooting forwards than they are sideways.

As far as "take nothing but troop ships to win the game" - no. The rule of thumb is 1 troopship per 500-750 pts depending on faction, more than that and youre going to lose because you wont be able to actually fight your opponent, less than that and you will lose because you cant capture objectives.

The drop portion of the game is quick and straightforward and serves the purpose of capturing objectives. Complaining about it is like complaining about 40k because you win based on capturing objectives instead of destroying your opponents units.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Re: Dropfleet:

-PHR are the only broadside based faction (although Resistance now has broadside weaponry). UCM are turret based, Scourge and Shaltari are turret based but tend to have limited side arcs. Not really sure why youre calling it a broadside game when 3 out of the 4 core factions are more effective shooting forwards than they are sideways.

As far as "take nothing but troop ships to win the game" - no. The rule of thumb is 1 troopship per 500-750 pts depending on faction, more than that and youre going to lose because you wont be able to actually fight your opponent, less than that and you will lose because you cant capture objectives.

The drop portion of the game is quick and straightforward and serves the purpose of capturing objectives. Complaining about it is like complaining about 40k because you win based on capturing objectives instead of destroying your opponents units.

I said one fleet was broadside based which hugely penalised them.

No the drop portion was not quick, easy or straightfoward. its nothing like 40k objectives - there is a whole massively overly complicated subgame - for us at least it was anyway.

*What is a dead system? What does it need for you to be "living"?*

I feel, as long as you still get models to play something, and you can get somebody else interested in it... that is enough, isn't it? If all your questions about the rules can be answered of course....
Plus... the blessing of Space Fleet games is that it can be quite "generic" so it is not that important to get "exact" models.

*And what does a game need for you to be "balanced"? *

I take it with a bit of sceptism if someone writes a system is badly balanced.
If you just want something to play with your wife then I think you do not need a hardcode-tuned tournament system? I daresay that the mentioned systems will all be somewhat balanced (because they have or had companies behind them that have experience or just due to their sheer size)
Likewise, if you just play with friends in a club/FLGS and are not in a hard-core tournament scene, then think thoroughly how much "balance" you really require?


*That being said...*

I think the most important thing everybody needs to ask in this genre is: what is it you are really looking for?

Should it be fast and fun or crunchy?
You want cool lore? Coming out regularily?
Does that need to look good?
What dimension are you looking for? Is it ok if the system only handles 3-7 ships per side?
Does it need to be easily accessible for new players?
Do the rules need to be free? (you will anyway have trouble finding players to play with you might want to give this a thought too)
How "professional" does the company need to be?

following are my 2 cents about many of the mentioned systems and one (and a half) that has not yet been mentioned before.

*Stars & Lasers*

I start with one that has not yet been mentioned: Stars & Lasers.

I have not played it myself, but this game is "living". And "balanced" (according to the creator).
You can check it out here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/210571/Stars--Lasers

I am curious if somebody takes the plunge what you think of it.

*Full Thrust*

Yes, it is an old system (1992) but still "living":
For ages now the creator supposedly works on the 3rd edition.... but who knows if it ever comes out. Until then the v2 is official and living and you can buy models from that "official" creator of GZG and others.
Maybe not the cheapest ones or the best looking ones for todays standards... but I think they still look cool and they are readily available.
Ruleswise it will probably stand-and-fall if you are ok to write down movement and if you are ok with only "a few" ships per side.
Is the game easily graspable? Well, the problem is that for v2 there are some different manuals out there (Full Thrust, More Thrust, ...), so it is clumsy to collect everything together and look it up.
BUUUT: there *is* at least one edition out there collecting most together that will cover nearly everything you want.
AND is at least one TRIMMED DOWN edition about the the rules too: Full Thrust Light!

If you want to have a GOOD "Get Started" set and info look here

http://shop.mechworld.de/
and here for general info
https://mechworld.de/

If you get the mechworld starter box (which has a decent price i think), then the rules are NOT too compicated, but I do not know how long that starter box/rules will stay fun. I again think it depends on what you look for and how cruncy it shall become...

Is it balanced? I think it depends.... you will find in the internet that the system can fall apart with the fighters/bombers.
But I guess it depends what you do, this is NOT a tournament game.
Great thing about Full Thrust: You can design/create your own space ships, but of course this can lead to min-maxing and would also not suit hardcore competitive players.

*Firestorm Armada*

When I read the v2 Rulebook of this, I thought: wow, this is Full Thrust but made slimmer so you can play it WITHOUT all the book-keeping!
"Full Thrust" that can be used with big fleets!
People still complain about complexity but I think its easier than Full Thrust! If it is still too much, you can switch.

Is it balanced?
The internet seems to complain about the balance (less than about the complexity) but Spartan DID create a 2nd edition rulebook, so you would ASSUME it is more balanced than v1 and one would assume they learned from their mistakes?
Plus, Spartan Games had many game systems so they should know something about balance. If you do not want to play tournaments, then I think this is fine.

One plus I think is: I can easily see spaceships with Firestorm stands being used for Full Thrust.

Is it "living"?
Well no, but Warcradle who hold the IP at least SAID they want to re-visit it in the future! So... who knows?! Anyway, the rules feel "complete" and so does the universe and the ship-selection!
And with 3d printing services... getting models will not be a problem. Heck, you can also use Full Thrust or Dropfleet Commander ships if you switch the stands.

Another plus: The rules are FREE
https://blog.warcradle.com/spartan-games-archive#firestorm-armada

Or you grab the books from ebay. I found the v2 rulebook I have is quite decent looking and enjoyable to read!

*Firestorm Taskforce*

Spartan Games released it just a bit before going bankrupt and they tried to react to people complaining the rules were too complicated/games took too long.
So you can take a look at those too, because Warcrade was so kind to also put THOSE online for free:

https://blog.warcradle.com/spartan-games-archive#firestorm-armada


*Dropfleet Commander*

Well, this game is "living"...
Kudos to ttcombat who continue the game after hawk closed down. They even have at least one guy from the original crew who continues to work on it.
It looks like they have a hard time, but they try to expand it. PLUS I think the price point is really ok!
They right now have problems providing all the models (the master molds got "lost" during the takeover), but they seem to be fixing it slowly. They write about it in their blog regularily, so things are DONE for the system.
They also put out rules updates (Battle for Earth) and as far as I remember they also officially just embraced some changes the community suggested.

Is it balanced?
I have no hardcore experience about DFC against Firestorm, but I would feel that DFC will be more balanced than Firestorm because it feels like it was more created with tournament players in mind.
The price point for the starter box is also a bargain... a bit cheaper than the Full Thrust starter box from mechworld.

The DFC "feel" is definetely different from the other ones because its all about landing your troops and not about taking out the enemy out there in the grand void of space!
I would daresay this has the easiest "movement system" in comparison to full thrust or firestorm but then again you will have to "deal" with the 3 height layers.

chaos0xomega wrote:


The drop portion of the game is quick and straightforward and serves the purpose of capturing objectives

and that's why one of the first faq/errata files had a WIP "competitive" set of objective rules that simplified it. It was and is a mess, and not helped by the fact that the game is decided by chits, while all the lovely ship models are at that point relegated to window dressing save a few with bombardment (another messy subsection of rules thanks to the underlying problem of "sectors" and "clusters" for what should be simple objective grab).

you would ASSUME it is more balanced than v1 and one would assume they learned from their mistakes

As long as you don't play Aquans or Directorate the game is mostly balanced. Those two had the most love shown and it shows.

For DFC, we just play “destroy all units” and ignore the drop stuff. If we get bored, we’ll look at space station drop stuff, since winning a space station lets you use their space guns on space ships.

As for PHR, they have the Bellerophon, which shoots forwards and bombers everything, and the Orpheus (? The heavy cruiser troop carrier that is considered cheese). You don’t need to use broadsides it’s you don’t want to.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, sort of. There's no movement as such when taken in relation to "Starship Combat" games. It's really just a retheme of all the other Command and color games. Every review pretty much sums it up as if you've played Battlelore, or Battlecry, or one of the other Ancient Battle games, it's pretty much that with some tweaks.

Starship combat games, as they are usually thought of, really need a sense of outmaneuvering other ships with movement and facing, taking fire arcs into account, etc. BUT, the ships from Red Alert look like they would be great for use in other games.

That kind of outmaneuvering and worrying about fire arcs, that’s skirmish level ship combat. When you are talking about moving fleets and squadrons of ships, tactical details are up to the lower level commanders.

Yes, it is the Commands and Colors system, which is fun to play!

The games being discussed here are about individual ships and their capabilities, from less detailed ACTA/Gothic type games to more involved SFB/B5Wars. I’ve been playing these since the early 90s. I adored SFB and was a playtester for B5 Wars. I played Gothic when it was first released and ACTA afterwards. I have been a fan of SW Armada since wave 2.

None if these are “fleet” combat, just skirmish games of differing detail/complexity.
Fleet combat is about moving squadrons of ships and how those units interact, it doesn’t care about individual ships except, perhaps, when they are flagships or super carriers.

See, I always considered Battlefleet Gothic to be a Fleet-Scale game, because our mid-level games were always on the scale of 1 or more Battleships/Grand Cruisers, 4-6 cruisers/battlecruisers (either as solos or squadrons) and 2-3 squadrons of Frigates (each with about 3 ships in a squadron). Add in the amount of torpedo and bomber/fighter squadrons covering the battlefield at any given turn, that's fleet-scale in my book. I know a bit about Firestorm Armada and less about Dropfleet, but those are about the same scale.

Star Wars Armada always ends up a bit smaller than that in my games (usually between 2-5 capitol ships and a smattering of squadrons). Sometimes I will equate it in size to the games above, if you are able to envision little ships like CR90 Corvettes, Neb-B's or Imperial Raiders being equivalent to Light Cruisers, and each squadron base as a single frigate from one of those games (though the squadrons can take more than one point of damage unlike those games' frigates), though you are still not seeing the torpedo flights and fighter squadrons-as token density.

Then below that are games like Full Thrust and X-Wing where you are going to (usually) see half a dozen models per player on the board, with even more detail and attention towards movement and damage on each ship (some games get as detailed as Battletech when it comes to filling out damage boxes).

 Charistoph wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:

Cronch wrote:
Dropfleet is a great core ruleset that sadly got saddled with the horrible "drop" part of the game- the ships are pretty much just window dressing to the land-objective tank and infantry chits that capture victory points and whose part of the rules is both confusingly complex and undercooked at the same time. IF you ignore that and just use the actual space combat part, it's quite fun though.

Exactly. It was like they squished two different games into one, where what happened in one game had no bearing at all on what happens on the other game, except you win or lose the game by the "Drop" portion. So if you want to win, you would take as many troop carriers as possible. The space combat part was actually pretty cool, except it was a bit busted (cough cough Bombers and Corvettes cough).

Oddly enough, when I brought up the idea of running the game in pure space, I got massive backlash against the idea from players. They felt they NEEDED to have those drop zones in order to make it a good game.

Firestorm avoided that need with their Planefall line of scenarios and ships allowing for ships with the "Planetfall" rule to contribute to victory without ever dropping anything. After all, it is better to kill transports before they get close to their targets, right? There were rules for drops, but they were less focused on supporting the drops like Dropfleet was.

Speaking of Firestorm, there was some statements made by a Warcradle rep on their forums that they would be looking at running beta rules in 2020 after they launched Dystopian Wars. Considering how slow things are going on that front, I'm wondering if they will have it out before Christmas.

Most of the people playing DFC at this point completely buy into how Dave wants the game to run. The Resistance fleet idea had a lot of pushback early on from the community as well, until TTCombat got on board and then, all of the sudden, look what we got. As soon as it was announced everybody shrugged and said "that's cool."

There's also the problem of multiple ships (any non-PHR troopship, all strike carriers, bombardment ships, most corvettes) as well as a good chunk of command cards becoming completely dead weight in such a scenario , thus forcing scenario specific lists. While it could be a scenario about getting those types of ships off the other side of the board, not being able to hide some of them in atmosphere could be ugly.

That being said they have also been looking at making the ship combat portion more important (ex: more battles with critical locations, and tournament VPs being modified by kill points), and I remember hearing rumblings of an addition of a deep space battle scenario in the works, but that was a while ago.

You can have the atmospheric layers without needing the ground combat element. It does eliminate a handful of ships from being useful as you said, but it makes the game flow much better imo.

Osprey will be coming out with a space battle game soon. Something called A Billion Suns or something like that.

Cronch wrote:
You can have the atmospheric layers without needing the ground combat element. It does eliminate a handful of ships from being useful as you said, but it makes the game flow much better imo.

This is what we do. We also "counts as" ships as other ships. There's no way I'm building a $15 model as an ugly troop carrier or spending that much just to try out a different weapon system. I won't even build my Shaltari with disintegrators (the F/S weapons) because they ugly af.

 Easy E wrote:
Osprey will be coming out with a space battle game soon. Something called A Billion Suns or something like that.

Very interesting - likely add it to the pile of games books

 AegisGrimm wrote:
See, I always considered Battlefleet Gothic to be a Fleet-Scale game, because our mid-level games were always on the scale of 1 or more Battleships/Grand Cruisers, 4-6 cruisers/battlecruisers (either as solos or squadrons) and 2-3 squadrons of Frigates (each with about 3 ships in a squadron). Add in the amount of torpedo and bomber/fighter squadrons covering the battlefield at any given turn, that's fleet-scale in my book.

Thats only a "fleet" in the modern sense, most people think of "fleet scale" (in the context of wargaming) more in the context of pre-World War 2, with 50-100 ships on either side minimum. In a general historic sense, if you're only fielding a single battleship, then it isn't really a fleet, more of a task force. I don't know what events gave rise to the perception (particularly within tabletop gaming) of the battleship as being a singular vessel within the fleet that acts as a command ship leading a force of cruisers which serve as the main battle line (or for that matter why Dreadnoughts are perceived as being battleships but even bigger), but it is inacurrate. In real life, a formation of battleships actually served as the core main battleline for a fleet scale engagement, with cruisers and other vessels serving as flankers/scouts/outriders on the periphery of the battle. A proper "fleet scale" game would generally have about as many battleships (if not more) on the table as it would cruisers.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
See, I always considered Battlefleet Gothic to be a Fleet-Scale game, because our mid-level games were always on the scale of 1 or more Battleships/Grand Cruisers, 4-6 cruisers/battlecruisers (either as solos or squadrons) and 2-3 squadrons of Frigates (each with about 3 ships in a squadron). Add in the amount of torpedo and bomber/fighter squadrons covering the battlefield at any given turn, that's fleet-scale in my book.

Thats only a "fleet" in the modern sense, most people think of "fleet scale" (in the context of wargaming) more in the context of pre-World War 2, with 50-100 ships on either side minimum. In a general historic sense, if you're only fielding a single battleship, then it isn't really a fleet, more of a task force. I don't know what events gave rise to the perception (particularly within tabletop gaming) of the battleship as being a singular vessel within the fleet that acts as a command ship leading a force of cruisers which serve as the main battle line (or for that matter why Dreadnoughts are perceived as being battleships but even bigger), but it is inacurrate. In real life, a formation of battleships actually served as the core main battleline for a fleet scale engagement, with cruisers and other vessels serving as flankers/scouts/outriders on the periphery of the battle. A proper "fleet scale" game would generally have about as many battleships (if not more) on the table as it would cruisers.

Fleet size and composition changes over the ages, ancient battles could be between very large numbers of ships but as they each get bigger, more powerful and more expensive so fleets shrink till we have the modern "fleets" being built around a single powerful capital warship - usually a carrier.

Difficult to say what a Fleet is in sci-fi terms - it depends on the race, period, tech level and narrative background. So Babylon 5 rarely has more than a dozen ships on screen but the excellent Dilgar war (fan) novel has fleets of hundreds of ships. Same with 40k - the scale of the ships and rules lends it to the fleet that is described above, as does ACTA; B5 and others. There are others for larger games I believe and a number of ship on ship actions.

It's called "fleet" i suspect because it's based around all three sizes of units, not because it's remotely like any sort of real world fleet. A WWI admiral would have a fit of giggles at a single bb and a handful of escorts being a fleet. Cruisers have no business being anywhere near battleships to begin with. A "fleet" sized game that can still use normal-sized models should probably have 3 battleships, one carrier or equivalent, maybe 3-4 cruisers and a bunch of destroyers for screening.

 Mr Morden wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
See, I always considered Battlefleet Gothic to be a Fleet-Scale game, because our mid-level games were always on the scale of 1 or more Battleships/Grand Cruisers, 4-6 cruisers/battlecruisers (either as solos or squadrons) and 2-3 squadrons of Frigates (each with about 3 ships in a squadron). Add in the amount of torpedo and bomber/fighter squadrons covering the battlefield at any given turn, that's fleet-scale in my book.

Thats only a "fleet" in the modern sense, most people think of "fleet scale" (in the context of wargaming) more in the context of pre-World War 2, with 50-100 ships on either side minimum. In a general historic sense, if you're only fielding a single battleship, then it isn't really a fleet, more of a task force. I don't know what events gave rise to the perception (particularly within tabletop gaming) of the battleship as being a singular vessel within the fleet that acts as a command ship leading a force of cruisers which serve as the main battle line (or for that matter why Dreadnoughts are perceived as being battleships but even bigger), but it is inacurrate. In real life, a formation of battleships actually served as the core main battleline for a fleet scale engagement, with cruisers and other vessels serving as flankers/scouts/outriders on the periphery of the battle. A proper "fleet scale" game would generally have about as many battleships (if not more) on the table as it would cruisers.

Fleet size and composition changes over the ages, ancient battles could be between very large numbers of ships but as they each get bigger, more powerful and more expensive so fleets shrink till we have the modern "fleets" being built around a single powerful capital warship - usually a carrier.

Difficult to say what a Fleet is in sci-fi terms - it depends on the race, period, tech level and narrative background. So Babylon 5 rarely has more than a dozen ships on screen but the excellent Dilgar war (fan) novel has fleets of hundreds of ships. Same with 40k - the scale of the ships and rules lends it to the fleet that is described above, as does ACTA; B5 and others. There are others for larger games I believe and a number of ship on ship actions.

Thats all fine and well, but that doesn't matter within the context of what is being discussed, a fleet scale game is a fleet scale game regardless of time period or genre. Star Wars Armada isn't suddenly a "fleet scale" game because the average "fleet" in Star Wars films is 3-5 ships or whatever (substitute a more appropriate analogy for your game/historical period/IP of choice). The term "fleet scale" as a descriptor for a type of game becomes entirely useless if it has a variable definition, the whole point of it is to provide a standard term agnostic of IP, time period, or setting, etc. that can be used to describe a ruleset which is intended to abstract an interaction or engagement between opponents of a certain size.

Generally speaking naval wargames are usually described as being "ship scale" (usually 1-3 ships per side), "squadron" or "task force" scale (usually from about 5 ships up to about 20-25 ships per side), or "fleet scale" (anything above that), you also rarely encounter the concept of "grand fleet" or "armada" scale which is meant to represent hundreds of ships per side, but such games are few and far between.

The problem with anything below 25 or so models being "only a squadron or task force" is that things are muddied up because almost any starship miniatures game that would fit that description usually is only that large because players are fielding several elements that are themselves called (by the rulebooks) squadrons or task forces, and nearly every player calls their collections "fleets".

Not only that but usually when sub-rulesets are created within many starship games like described above, they are usually defined by calling them something-something 'Task Force', or a similar derivative term. Like Firestorm Armada: Taskforce or the fan subset of Star Wars Armada where each player only fields 150-200pts being called "Taskforce format".

But at the same time, we (myself included) should probably stop moving this thread towards circular arguments of who is wrong about what term, when most of those are semantic arguments, and instead just have it be about what Starship games are out there and the particular mechanics each one displays versus the others.

Just wanted to chime in that BFG already had rules for rolling the ship, if not in the book then in an early supplement/article.

It did? I don't remember that. Was it in one of the mini-magazines? I have some of those, but not all.

I dont remember that either, and to my knowledge I had (keyword right there, no longer have them to check) all the rules available for the game.

I recently lost all my hobby related files, so I can't look for it either, but I clearly remember it existing somewhere. It was a special order that flipped port/starboard critical damage. Might have been somewhere really obscure, like Andy Chambers's personal website.

I’m clearing out some of my stuff and found the proprietary dice for Halo Fleet Battles. Does anyone want the Halo dice? I’ll send them for the cost of shipping. If I turn up any templates or rules books, I’ll throw them in, too.

 Easy E wrote:
Osprey will be coming out with a space battle game soon. Something called A Billion Suns or something like that.

That they are. Slated for release May 26.
http://abillionsuns.space

Oh man... that description sounds VERY Expanse, especially for those reading the books.

That sounds very good, I'll definitely be picking it up, but I'm also a little apprehensive because a lot of what is being described are similar (or virtually identical) to mechanics I've been working on for ~15 years on my own game >_<

Why don't you like Star Wars Armada. Has a great system, and pretty easy to play

I've heard good things about Dropfleet Commander

DfC is more or less a modernized version of BFG. The one downside of DfC is that if you play it the way its meant to be played the game becomes less about fleet engagements and more about scoring points by delivering troops to objectives - but thats easily fixed with custom scenarios.

I would second Dropfleet. It is a good system with beautiful models and solid setting. Obviously it comes down to preference, but I would count the objective game in its favor. The fact that victory largely relies on taking points really forces a faster pace as fleets are racing to clash over objectives rather than kiting one another. There are many ways to approach the objectives and the game remains very much about ships exploding. If you ever want to try it out on tabletop simulator there are plenty of people on the discord looking for games.

As a fan of Full Thrust, let me say this:

While many people say that the game can't handle more than a dozen or so ships, it can. But don't expect a 2 hour game. I've run games at conventions that had 40+ ships and finished in 5 hours. I did simplify a few things to speed up the game, and made all fire "simultaneous" to speed things up. See some pics of an Star Trek assault on Deep Space Nine for example:



Or this assault on an shipyard:


Or for a really crazy game, the one my son and I did in our basement (he just had to use every miniature he owned and borrowed some of mine too): It took a while, to say the least.



There isn't going to be an V3 of the Full Thrust rules. So some fans, after consulting with GZG and getting his approval, put together an compilation rule set called "Full Thrust: Project Continuum", which I was involved in editing and producing. It isn't perfect, as we aren't professional writers/editors, but it gives you a large toolbox of stuff to work with. It looks intimidating, but you use what works for you and ignore the rest.

Available here:

https://emeraldcoastskunkworks.wordpress.com/category/project-continum-rules/

For a less intimidating starter version of the game, try the Full Thrust Lite rules, and then add to them when you are ready:

https://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/rules.html

Very nice thread, since I'm also on the look for a space combat game. I never played these kind of games, so I'm new. After reading here and doing some research, I came down with several options:

- Full Thrust: it's mostly recommended here. I don't know what to say about this game. It looks old, it feels old, and it is old. I understand the rules haven't been updated since 1992. None of the major sites carries products for this game. I went to the producer's site - it looks like it was designed in the 90's. It does have a lot of ships for selling, and quite cheap, but all have 1 image, B/W and very small. So my overall impression for this one is not good.

- Dropfleet Commander: Now this one looks really really cool. The ships look amazing, esp the big ones- I think they are hands down the best looking ships I ever seen.

- X-Wing/Armada: the most popular by far (so easy to get products, possible tournaments, etc). But I don't care about the universe, the models are meh, and they come prepainted. So the question is - are the rules really good? Or is just the star wars craze + prepainted models that carry this game?

- Aeronautica Imperialis: I'm surprised nobody mentioned this one. Cool looking models, interesting game, easy to get and it seems fairly cheap.


So, what I'm looking for is a game with beautiful models, that let's me play BIG spaceships (I'm looking for bigger battles), with a solid game system that's fun, deep but also good for a more casual setting.

Among Dropfleet/Star Wars games/Aeronautica = which one has the biggest models? - model size/scale. And how do they compare to each other gameplay wise (how a game feels)? Among these 3(4) options, which one you would recommend? Thank you.

Armada has the biggest models, but they aren't to-scale, game uses a sliding scale, hence you have Imperial Star Destroyers that are 8" long and Super Star Destroyers that are only 24" long.

The game is fantastic, rules are incredible, Id say its the best naval game on the market, but its not a fleet action game, the most ships you can get on one side in a standard size game is 6, usually itll be 2-3. You can play hogher points limits of course but its not commonly done.

X-wing also has great rules, or at least it did, theres been some turmoil over recent updates to the rules. That said its not a fleet combat game, its a digfighting game, completely different category.

Dropfleet Commander is ok. I like it but many don't, the rules are not spectacular and have some issues. The game is less about spacheship battles and more about maneuvering transports to capture cities from orbit.

As an aside, Full Thrust is a "generic" ruleset. You use whatever miniatures you want and stat them up based on the ship building and customization rules. Its not a game with an official miniatures range.

Full Thrust has an official Miniature Range, going with the pre-made factions in the force lists
and a 2 player starter was released in 2016 with a rules update in cooperation with Mechworld

they offer a ship builder on their website (after making an account) https://mechworld.de/ and a new fleet with 3d printed models as alternative to the metal ones from GZG (they also added list to play with the Battlestar Galactica models from Revell)

yes it is an old school game that offers pre-made lists and models but much more of a sandbox were you can do whatever you want with the shipbuilding tools offered (and people are also making their own gaming aids like X-Wing style maneuver wheels)

AFAIK those are all licensed miniatures, I didn't think any of them were produced by the same guys that did the rules?

Ground Zero Games makes the models for all their games, as well as gaming aids

you get the Starships as well as the 25mm, 15mm and 6mm models to match Full Thrust, Stargrunt and Dirtside background that comes with the rules

chaos0xomega wrote:
Armada has the biggest models, but they aren't to-scale, game uses a sliding scale, hence you have Imperial Star Destroyers that are 8" long and Super Star Destroyers that are only 24" long.

The game is fantastic, rules are incredible, Id say its the best naval game on the market, but its not a fleet action game, the most ships you can get on one side in a standard size game is 6, usually itll be 2-3. You can play hogher points limits of course but its not commonly done.

X-wing also has great rules, or at least it did, theres been some turmoil over recent updates to the rules. That said its not a fleet combat game, its a digfighting game, completely different category.

Dropfleet Commander is ok. I like it but many don't, the rules are not spectacular and have some issues. The game is less about spacheship battles and more about maneuvering transports to capture cities from orbit.

As an aside, Full Thrust is a "generic" ruleset. You use whatever miniatures you want and stat them up based on the ship building and customization rules. Its not a game with an official miniatures range.

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't like the space ships from Armada. They are indeed huge (I had to check that 24' behemoth), but...I don't know, fairly bland looking. And the fact that you can't bring many ships is also a downside to me. Dropfleet Commander seems the most atractive so far - I don't mind the idea that I have to focus on objectives instead of just wiping each other out - seems more interesting and realistic.

I have another question: how do these style of games compare with the classic naval wargames? Especially the ones with sails. For example, with Armada from Mantic. Is the gameplay different enough to warrant having both, or is just the same thing but in space instead on the sea.

Many /most (?) space fleet games tend to play alot like naval games - mostly cos 3d movement is complicated to make work. Few seem to have rolling the ship as a option - I remember BattleSpace doing so - I have it but never played it.

There are also some Steam punk Air/Sea games out or coming out which do sometimes have a height component.

TBh you could use space ships with many naval game rules and vice versa IMO.

I would say Full Thrust with the Vector Rules or X-Wing with the maneuver is different enough compared to naval games to play both

 emanuelb wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Armada has the biggest models, but they aren't to-scale, game uses a sliding scale, hence you have Imperial Star Destroyers that are 8" long and Super Star Destroyers that are only 24" long.

The game is fantastic, rules are incredible, Id say its the best naval game on the market, but its not a fleet action game, the most ships you can get on one side in a standard size game is 6, usually itll be 2-3. You can play hogher points limits of course but its not commonly done.

X-wing also has great rules, or at least it did, theres been some turmoil over recent updates to the rules. That said its not a fleet combat game, its a digfighting game, completely different category.

Dropfleet Commander is ok. I like it but many don't, the rules are not spectacular and have some issues. The game is less about spacheship battles and more about maneuvering transports to capture cities from orbit.

As an aside, Full Thrust is a "generic" ruleset. You use whatever miniatures you want and stat them up based on the ship building and customization rules. Its not a game with an official miniatures range.

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't like the space ships from Armada. They are indeed huge (I had to check that 24' behemoth), but...I don't know, fairly bland looking. And the fact that you can't bring many ships is also a downside to me. Dropfleet Commander seems the most atractive so far - I don't mind the idea that I have to focus on objectives instead of just wiping each other out - seems more interesting and realistic.

I have another question: how do these style of games compare with the classic naval wargames? Especially the ones with sails. For example, with Armada from Mantic. Is the gameplay different enough to warrant having both, or is just the same thing but in space instead on the sea.

I would say both SW Armada and DfC have a good amount of separation from wet navy games, moreso than most others in the space navy genre. SW Armada is the least like classic naval of the the ones listed. The movement system alone kind of builds in a sort of "soft" vector movement aspect of it with the way the movement tool works, which allows for ships to move in ways that they could theoretically move in space, but not in the water. The streamlining of the game mechanics also means that a lot of the traditional hallmarks of wet navy combat mechanics aren't really present as a lot of wet navy games are unnecessarily detail oriented and SW Armada... isn't. DfC has certain elements of wet navy (it is, after all, built on the bones of Battlefleet Gothic which is the greatest wet navy game to ever be set in space), but separates itself with the signature-based targeting system and the presence of three levels of "altitude" that make battles fairly distinct in terms of how they feel - in general I would say its a departure from traditional wet navy games but not so much as to be unapproachable to someone who wanted something a bit more familiar (without actually just being a wet navy game in a space setting).

For what its worth never had trouble with "fleet" games of Star Fleet Battles, if you had sensible fleets - i.e. groups of similar ships with similar movement profiles that could run together.. helped to have a few players per side and to be very used to the game in single ship and squadron level games though.

Other options, the Traveller universe games "Brilliant Lancers" and "Battle Rider" were ok (if you could stand the "new era" background stuff of course), interesting scenario system in Battle Rider which was by far the better game for a fleet thing.

however pretty much every 'space' game is either a rechrome of a naval game or a rechrome of an air combat game, some hide it well, some don't even try, good mix of both are good games though

as with anything 'space' really comes down to deciding if you want a science fantasy game or something a little bit more grounded.

for a slightly more abstract system the Traveller system in the original Trillion Credit Squadron book is not too bad but it is abstract

for the idea of the best "fleet" system you really need to define what sort of universe you want, what you mean by "fleet" (e.g. dozens of ships or a handfull, do you want fighters/gunships etc) and how you define "best"

for me if its a decent number of units you want but without too much record keeping have a whirl with Star Fleet Battles but leave the ships at home, run with fighters and heavy fighters, in an asteroid field.

and some sort of forfeit penalty for each fighter you lose

I like both Dropfleet Commander and Full Thrust Continuum.

Has anyone here seen an online source for SSD's to use Dropfleet Commander ships converted for Full Thrust? I am hoping to save some time by relying on someone else sharing the legwork they have already done.

SSD’s? Super Star Destroyers?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
SSD’s? Super Star Destroyers?

System status display… the stats of the ship so to speak.

https://emeraldcoastskunkworks.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/ssd-icons-for-full-thrust/

Well. Bought a new fleet for War Rocket and two rulebooks, one for myself and one for a buddy, I will be reporting in on our games for anybody interested in pulp sci-fi ship combat.

I haven't seen the 1930's stylings for a ship game in a while. What distinguishes the rules from the existing offerings whether modern (like DFC) or classic (like FT)?

 warboss wrote:
I haven't seen the 1930's stylings for a ship game in a while. What distinguishes the rules from the existing offerings whether modern (like DFC) or classic (like FT)?

From the last time I played it almost a decade ago, it is the movement and combat system, along with the simplicity of learning the game.

A ship only has two stats, the rest of the "stats" are the weapon firepower and their firing arcs.

Movement (while either inch or hex based) follows a similar process to X-Wing. Slow ships move first, and fast ships move later. Each faction moves differently though, with each following a theme based off of their design inspirations. The Galacteers ships move like airplanes in space, the Space Pirates move as if they are using hard fuel rockets, the ones that look like classic rounded UFO's move in big zig-zag type movements since they don't turn during moves, but can turn to face any direction after a move.

The game doesn't try to be a simulation, as much as lean into classic tropes that the factions are inspired from.

Combat takes some ideas from Battletech in that everybody assigns targets at the same time. However each ship does not make individual attacks, each ship assigns it's firepower out to targets, and you choose a single ship to make the attack roll, the assigned firepower from the other ships adds to the D10 roll.

Sounds interesting with the different movement modes. I also wasn't aware that this has been around for a decade as I figured it was a new or upcoming game when you posted it.

War Rocket has been around forever. Never seen anyone play the rules, but I've seen lots of people use the ships for other rulesets.

Imao the best-looking spaceship minis ever made for a wargame are the Drop Fleet commander ones and the Firestorm Armada ones, especially those released from the Planet Fall series till just before Spartan went bankrupt.

The Firstorm Armada mins unfortunately are difficult to find them on the second-hand market, and when you do, they use the be sold almost to a price per gram of resin equivalent to a gram of gold. They are pretty much collection items. But this also speaks to how good they were the minis and the game, imao. I like especially how paramount positioning and arc maximization were in Firestorm Armada. At least to me, the opus manga of spaceship wargames. How I miss this game...

At least to me. In the case of the Drop fleet commander I think is interesting how the signature and the spikes work, the 3D dimension between different layers and the interaction between the orbital battle and the ground assets. Imao I think is a more realistic approach to how a space battle will feel like if we ever live to see it. The semi-3D approach and the sensor/ signature thingy are visionary in regards. Other games used to feel more 2D and "sea battles in space"-like. To me is the best spaceship wargame currently in the market.

Both minis-wise and game-wise are good. But hey! everybody likes their cup of tea.

Found a remarkable BFG rewrite the other day, in the style of current retro casual heartbreakers (Space Weirdos, The Doomed, etc)

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/470062/Void-Admiral

It's blatantly a BFG clone with streamlined everything and replaces Special Orders with 8 faction specific ability dashboards ala SAGA/Warcry.

Well worth the 2 bucks.

Thanks for this, the game I wanted but didn't know existed!

Having looked through it, it looks like it does exactly what I wanted. I wanted to introduce space battles to my Grimdark Future games as a sort of additional fun part, but the BFG rules I was worried were probably a bit much for my non-wargamer opponent. This looks like it does a good job of simplifying while keeping the flavour intact. Also, you've got faction equivalents for the factions I have for GF.
Hegemon - Imperial Navy/Imperial Guard
Renegades - Chaos
Ancients - Dark Eldar (I decided to not have Craftworld Eldar, mostly for thematic reasons. I prefer the piratical Eldar of Rogue Trader)
Brutes - Orks
Cyborgs - Necrons, Space Marines
Insectoids - Tyranids
Mining Guild - Dwarf Guild (Mantic Forgefathers for me, as Demiurg)
Merchants - Tau

They also have Disciples, but I don't have any faction that really fits them.

Really exciting, I wanted to do some bigger campaign style games and having the void war aspect will make it really fun.
Also not mad at a 4'x3' play area tbh.

Just saw Ash do a review of Void Admiral on Guerilla Miniatures Gaming, and as a veteran on BFG, I am intrigued.

You can also get a physical copy from Amazon for 10 bucks US.

And I can get it here in Europe from Amazon.de...
Well, I'd already printed the rules but now I'm ordering the book as well.

Man, this made my morning! Now to get scratch building some ships!

After all the buzz that was popping up about it, I threw in the ~$3 for the Void Admiral PDF.

I am impressed. Simple, streamlined but still looks like it has a ton of flavour despite all that. It does a lot with very little and the faction-specific orders are a nice way of eking out some extra flavour without throwing in some kind of card mechanic (ala FSA).

It being mini agnostic is also pretty great as not many of my mates have BFG fleets (and my own remaining BFG collection is pretty sparse), but we have a ton of generic Full Thrust or Firestorm stuff we can throw together for it. I'll need to give this a go and see if it will go in to regular rotation.That said, wouldn't mind grabbing some of the !BFG stuff that's being produced these days to do it proper justice.