Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I know a goodly number of people around here have at least heard of Armadillo Design Bureau's games. How many of you play/have played them? I'm interested as to what miniatures wargaming hobbyists make of this kind of thing.

(I admit, I have been watching episodes of TOS lately . . .)

While we're at it, has anyone played either of Federation and Empire or Prime Directive (original, GURPS, or d20)? With the right crowd, you could combine these games into a pretty epic campaign.

I've played a couple of 'intro' style games with a friend who has a couple of old sets. It's really detailed, but really good fun at the same time. We only used one ship each as there is a fair amount of paper keeping, though once the basics have been learnt the game turns can be completed fairly quickly.

I would play more, but time and distance prevent fun

Hope this brief speil helps.

Are you talking about Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander. The later is supposed to be a "faster play" variant of the former and I wonder how fast "faster play" really is. The only experience I have of it was from the first Star Fleet Command computer game.

Given that I'm a huge Trekkie, I have always been intrigued by these games. However, SFB at least has a huge reputation as being a PITA to play. This has prevented me from picking it up myself, and I've yet to see it played or run into a player that is actively playing it to try and get a demo game.

Like I mentioned, Ruckdog, Federation Commander is a pared down version. There are free demo rules available.

Fed Commander is a MUCH faster version of SFB. My first encounter with SFB was the "Captain's Edition" that had every rule ever printed in it. Now I have a background with 80's Avalon Hill games were things were broken into sections, sub sections, sub sub sections, etc. I also have a degree in Physics so I'm not one of the slower children. I gave up trying to figure out the game when I couldn't figure out how to move the freakin' ship. Had I taken the 4 or 5 hours to pick out the basic rules from the advanced, uber advanced and "things only the designers understand" rules I might have been able to play.

With Fed Commander I had the quick start rules downloaded and read within an hour and was confident with the system (confident enough to drop the cash on a starter set.) Tracking of, well, everything is much better and done on the fly so there's a lot more tactical flexibility when it comes to operating the ship. It's still not going to be a fast game if there are more than 3 or 4 ships a side but there is actually an option to do "fleet scale" battles where ships die much faster so you can do larger battles. You can even mix the fleet scale ships against the "normal" scale ships allowing for say a swarm of Klingon Birds of Prey to encounter a Federation Dreadnaught and still be fought in just a few hours.

As another option for you if you hit up Ebay you could pick up FASA's old Star Trek game. Simple, brutal, lots of fluff if you're a Trekkie (or Trekker if you prefer - I'm told there is a difference). Faster than Fed Commander with less options (no drones or fighters) but still more than enough substance to give you a good simulation of ship combat in the Trek universe.

Ah, thanks for the breakdown. I will have to look into those demo rules sometime.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm hoping the Wizkids Star Trek ship combat game turns out to be good...I think it could have a chance at making Trek gaming a little more commonplace.

Time for some links, I think:

Federation Commander

FC Demo Rules

ADB's Star Fleet Universe Games

BGG's Star Trek: Fleet Captain (from WizKid's) Page

About Star Trek: Fleet Captain (GenCon report)

The ships will use the familiar Wizkids click bases, but this game isn't just HeroClix with starships. Each ship's click dial has three sections based on Star Trek alert levels - yellow, orange and red. You can move your ship's dial to any position within your current alert level to take advantage of different capabilities, much like diverting power to the shields or the sensors, as the situation demands. Damage eventually moves you to the next alert level, and the higher alert levels have fewer dial slots to choose from. So as you take damage, your options become fewer. This particular mechanic is a nice simulation of captaining your own starship, and it also shows how the new Wizkids is using their primary gaming innovation (click bases) in even more innovative ways.

Read entire article here.

I can't say that I'm excited about the Fleet Captain game. (No doubt, those miniature prototypes are pretty neat.) I actually prefer the Star Fleet Universe's alternative timeline, from what little I know of it.

I went ahead and bit the bullet after sarcastro01's post and ordered a copy of Klingon Border from CCG Armory at a decent discount. I'll post an in depth review here when I get the chance to play it.

I've googled up the boxes and it was Star Fleet battles that we played. We found it easy(ish) because we have played quite a few games that also involve a fair amount of book keeping, plus he is something of a vet at the game and able to answer any questions I had quickly.

I hope you get as much from the game as I did, we were only using the card tokens but I can see that the game could be a lot better with the miniatures for visual effect.

Yeah, I'm not sold on the minis anyway so it's chits for me.

That's fair enough, I never did get how the federation hulls went trangular... I hope you manage to get some good games in!

Haha, isn't that always the rub with these niche games?

I love FC. It is so much faster than SFB. The rules are easier and very little book keeping. It is only as difficult as one makes it. Some of the best game times I have had playing the game.

I played SFB back in the day and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Fed Commander is a great game. Very tactical movement, streamlined power-managment. Brutal damage, lots of fun. We play it often and its always a good game. One of my favorite missions is Klingon raiders trying to destroy a supply convoy. It uses a floating map that makes it a bit of a chase. One recomendation I'd make is don't use the rules for targeting specific parts of the ships. We found that you just always roll on the line with the most weapons on it and nuter most attack ships. I had some damn freighters striping the weapons off of destroyers. It lead to a not fun game, and it was too easy to pull off. We don't use it. And when you have extra damage, just keep moving up the damage track untill you hit something that can be damaged. It makes combat a little nastier, but it keeps damage allocation from draging out. You'll see what I mean when you play a few games.

-K

I played star fleet battles with some friends a while back. He played about a dozen times or so in that campaign. The games take forever. The pace is very slow. Otherwise, I enjoyed the experience and put together a few ships myself.

I have a ton of SFB stuff, but i;ve never managed tog et a game together. now that I have a regular gaming group, I might have to try enticing some folks into playing.