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 frankelee wrote:
On the con example video I saw the Defiant did have its name written on the ship model in the standard style, with the registry numbers too. For the first second I thought that was kind of limiting, but really they just want to sell people expensive models of the ships, and people mostly will want to buy expensive models of the ships. People will want to buy an Enterprise D, so why mess that up. Only saw the Defiant in the video though for anyone wondering about confirmation.

I believe ChaosXomega has the right of it since that's how Armada did it with both named and unnamed version cards in sets like the Chimera and Home One.

mithril2098 wrote:
so the spikybits article states that the presenter described the Enterprise D figure as being 6 inch long.
https://spikeybits.com/2023/09/star-trek-into-the-unknown-starter-set-game-details-revealed.html?expand_article=1

which with the galaxy class being 641 meters long, puts the scale for it around 1:4200

this is close enough to the Star Fleet Battles Starline 2400 scale of 1:3788, and the FASA STCS miniatures scale of 1:3900 that you could probably mix and match and not look too odd. especially if they are using a sliding scale to some degree.

That’s great! I’m always looking for opportunities to expand my Starfleet.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I've seen nobody mention it, but the Enterprise D is a strange choice for a Dominion War game, considering it was destroyed before the war really started. It would make more sense for that galaxy class to be the Venture. If they wanted to add an Enterprise, the E would have been the better choice, as it was around at the time.

I suspect they're going the nostalgia angle there to push sales, as the generation of trekkies who grew up with TNG are going to be the biggest potential customer pool here, and a lot of them for some inexplicable reason love the Enterprise D.

 insaniak wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I've seen nobody mention it, but the Enterprise D is a strange choice for a Dominion War game, considering it was destroyed before the war really started. It would make more sense for that galaxy class to be the Venture. If they wanted to add an Enterprise, the E would have been the better choice, as it was around at the time.

I suspect they're going the nostalgia angle there to push sales, as the generation of trekkies who grew up with TNG are going to be the biggest potential customer pool here, and a lot of them for some inexplicable reason love the Enterprise D.

I mean, I love the D too, but that's why I'm like: Nah, she never met the Jem'Hadar, what's this all about?

Just squint and pretend it's the USS Odyssey instead. And don't roll all 1's like Captain Keogh.

 warboss wrote:
Just squint and pretend it's the USS Odyssey instead. And don't roll all 1's like Captain Keogh.

Or any of the other Galaxy Class that participated in taking back the station.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just squint and pretend it's the USS Odyssey instead. And don't roll all 1's like Captain Keogh.

Or any of the other Galaxy Class that participated in taking back the station.

i counted at least 4 in the fleet in Operation Return. possibly more were present but given the class was never one one built in large numbers, i doubt he had much more.

The rulebook is out there now:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w8nb0ow28rE9SWPCp10wOGZWmGoTetYQ/view?fbclid=IwAR2Qt_XtMFKYY0qTJq7JJfjtuG4_XwWGp0yQGngZJNFJ8JXoHuTCRFurWu4&pli=1

chaos0xomega wrote:
The rulebook is out there now:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w8nb0ow28rE9SWPCp10wOGZWmGoTetYQ/view?fbclid=IwAR2Qt_XtMFKYY0qTJq7JJfjtuG4_XwWGp0yQGngZJNFJ8JXoHuTCRFurWu4&pli=1

It seems just as bafflingly complicated as the demo videos implied.

I thought it was just me being on 3 hours of sleep lol

Wow, that looks terrible, ticks nearly every box of things I do not like in wargaming whilst also being massively (needlessly?) complicated. Amazed this was written by Max Brooke and Alex Davey, normally a huge fan of their work.

Oh my. Just looking at the Defiant ship display, I feel like a boomer trying to read a sugar obsessed tween's overly emoji'ed text message trying to communicate something urgent. I think I may have more luck deciphering actual Klingon UI's from the shows.

Yeah I'm not as jazzed up as I thought I'd be. Overwhelmed actually, but that might still be the whole not enough sleep issue

Star Wars Armada will draw obvious comparisons, but while that game's rules seem weird at a glance, they quickly seem pretty clear... This? This book feels impenetrable.

Yea that looks a little insane. I recently played Snapship Tactics and I suspect this has some similar logic with different parts of the ship giving access to different actions but the level of micromanagement is ridiculous and the layout is kinda illegible because they're trying to cram a whole small board game's worth of mechanics onto each card. I'm guessing this is an engine builder game in disguise where really specific combinations of characters and stations wombo combo into insane payouts but for anyone who hasn't studied their build for hours it's just going to be Analysis Paralysis Simulator 2400

Good grief that rule set looks complicated.

There are markers on the table showing the boundaries of the system... But also markers on the ships showing whether they are in the system. Can you not tell that by just looking at whether or not the ship is in the system?

I tried reading the rest, and have up. Too many symbols instead of words, and waaay too much RPG detail for a ship battle.

I keep looking at this and the Acheron Falls game for Infonity and thinking both designers were attempting to achieve the same thing, but with varying levels of success.

I hate to keep bringing it up, but for my group, SW Armada really is the complexity ceiling. There are already so many places to customize and upgrade a ship that it can become overwhelming to new players, but eventually becomes a Goldilocks-esque "Just right".

Adding entire layers of further complexity just sounds like a tedious chore.

It feels like they were trying to create so many layers and subgames and content and then got bogged down with each being deep and full of meaningful mechanics that when you slam it all together its just a huge bundle of mechanics to work with.

The kind of game that honestly would likely work better as a computer game with the computer able to calculate and do the "mechanical" thinking of how to run the game for the players

Yeah, as someone who has spent probably about 20 years now attempting to design a really comprehensive and deep naval wargame... this strikes me as something that was probably in need of an editor. It looks like what would happen if one of my draft designs was published without first trimming out some of the unnecessary extras. I'm sure theres an engaging, deep, fun, easy to learn difficult to master game in there somewhere, I'm just not sure if its the game they are releasing.

Im also not sure what this game is trying to be. It seems very much like its trying to be narratively focused and make you play out a situation like what you might see in an episode of the show, instead of just being a spaceship battler, and I think thats probably where the game gets complex because its including a lot of rules involving what are basically used for the PVE/scenario aspects of the game that wouldnt need to be there otherwise if it just stayed focused on space combat.

I'd like to give the game a chance, maybe it will prove me wrong, but the starter doesn't appeal to me. I think my commitment is going to depend on what the follow-on expansions end up looking like. Give me a romulan starter with a D'deridex supprted by a couple warbirds of birds of prey and ill jump in and give it a whirl. Same if they release a Klingon starter with some birds of prey in it.

I may get this for the models alone, but my God, this is information overload.

I was hoping for a version that was on about the level of Armada, but this is too much to take in, even after watching the demo game.

Another brand game with intentionnally bloated proprietary game material (so that you're forced to buy their products to play and can't simply use 3D printed miniatures from elsewhere), that thinks its complicated rules will appeal to the competitive crowd and which support will drop without warning way too soon.

Invest in it in full knowledge of that, but don't expect something that will be treated like a standard wargame on long term.

Miniatures would be great without these bases that will look awful on any space battlefield, IMHO.

Gotta milk that license!

To anyone wanting to play Trek I wholeheartedly recommend Fleet Captains, also by Wizkids, which is a brilliantly slick trek episode generator in a board game box.

Attack Wing is also still great and gets support every now and then. And if you're into the Dominion War Alliance is a really good STAW campaign, I only played it Solo and it's still a blast.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Attack Wing is also still great and gets support every now and then. And if you're into the Dominion War Alliance is a really good STAW campaign, I only played it Solo and it's still a blast.

Can one even still get into this game? I've always heard the majority of its product has been out of print for literally years now.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Attack Wing is also still great and gets support every now and then. And if you're into the Dominion War Alliance is a really good STAW campaign, I only played it Solo and it's still a blast.

Can one even still get into this game? I've always heard the majority of its product has been out of print for literally years now.

I want to say most things since 2nd edition are more or less easily available. Alliance is standalone and supported, parts 2 and 3 just arrived in europe and should be easy to get in the US.

Edit: overall wizkids has a quite terrible practice of doing print runs and when something is sold out it might get a reprint or it just doesn't.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Attack Wing is also still great and gets support every now and then. And if you're into the Dominion War Alliance is a really good STAW campaign, I only played it Solo and it's still a blast.

Can one even still get into this game? I've always heard the majority of its product has been out of print for literally years now.

I want to say most things since 2nd edition are more or less easily available. Alliance is standalone and supported, parts 2 and 3 just arrived in europe and should be easy to get in the US.

Edit: overall wizkids has a quite terrible practice of doing print runs and when something is sold out it might get a reprint or it just doesn't.

Yeah, attack wing 2.0 is available and covers almost all the original models, and even the older stuff isn't too bad pricewise. As stated above though, WK doesn't tend to hang on any one property (other than Heroclix) for too long, and with them not having released any *new* models, just reprinting the existing ones - I don't think it's going to be an evergreen product for them.

The Alliance game lock, stock & barrel uses the same AI system that an individual created for Star Wars X-Wing. It would be very easy to make/modify new AI for other vessels so you could create a vs. Klingon campaign or vs. Romulan, Borg or any other opponent you wanted really. The big advantage is the prebuilt missions and AI cards for Alliance - but again, with a little experience under you belt it wouldn't be difficult at all to start coming up with your own challenges and whatnot.

Back on Into The Unknown, I'm hoping we will shortly see some Picard era ships being added in. If it's just the classic TNG era, I might just pass on this and go push around my Eaglemoss ships in some homebrew I cook up that's less complicated than what they're trying to push.

I'm sure it probably makes a little bit more sense if you have the components in front of you rather than just reading a bunch of abstract concepts, but my God does this feel overly complicated. Even just the rules for turning a ship seem to go out of their way to be impenetrable. I like the idea of having more narrative elements involved in the scenarios but everything seems to be so mechanics-heavy it rapidly becomes a word salad that leaves me more confused with each new concept that's introduced. I think it really needs to decided what it wants to be, because trying to cram all of the major elements of an episode of ST into one game looks like it's a recipe for disaster.

You can tell it's far too complex just be looking at the ship cards. Ignoring the stupid number of different "dials" and stat blocks placed seemingly at random for a moment, there are some lines that lead from an officer's station to an ability not next to that station because there just isn't enough room to fit it in that location. I feel like two cards per ship would have been better - one with the various stats and another showing the actions next to the appropriate officer.

It's like someone looked at the old SFB rules and said to themselves "How can I turn half of these words into symbols and tokens?".