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Hey guys

I'm looking to get into a new tabletop space combat game. I only have Battlefleet Gothic and Star Wars Battlefleet as reference, but I'm ideally looking for something with good, fun, concise rules, various game size and also miniatures that can be painted and converted.

Any suggestions?

Firestorm Armada?

X-Wing. Some great scope for conversion, up-detailing and painting (they paint really, really well!). My friend is up-detailing a YT-2400 and it'll be mind-blowing when it's done.

And it's pre-painted so you can play straight away and only redo what you want, when you want.

And it's probably the most fun game I've started up in a long, long time.

I agree with the x-wing suggestion if your preference is for starfighter scale combat. They're coming out with a starship scale game but I haven't played it yet and frankly don't plan to personally.

Another benefit to x-wing is that it simply is very popular. If you're not really keen on creating a local scene for a game yourself from scratch, x-wing is the best choice. It's obviously based on Star Wars so the minis are easily recognizable to almost anyone who walks by the table, they're painted very nicely for prepaint standards so they're pretty much pop out and play, and it is by ICV2 ratings the second or third most popular minis game in the US at least so you most likely to find existing players.

+1 on Warboss's comments- it's a good game with a lot of visibility.

Another game to look into is Full Thrust. Its an older game, but is a ton of fun. Its a little more compliacted than X-Wing, so it just depends on what kind of game you're looking for.

or if you're ok hunting down and playing older games I really enjoy

Renegade Legion: Interceptor

(http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2520/renegade-legion-interceptor)

I'd recommend Starmada from MJ12 games. It's a generic rules set with no specific miniatures, but conversions have been made for lots of spaceship miniature lines. The ruleset is detailed enough to allow for pretty accurate conversions while remaining fast playing.

Silent Death is by far my favorite fighter scale game that does have the option to also use small capital ships. Clean rules, lots of different weapons, and a cool dice pool/one roll to hit and damage mechanic. Very cinematic and deadly. A cool bakground for each house doesn't hurt either (my favorite being the ASP Technocracy - they have a unique take on weapons.)

I'd recommend Firestorm Armada if you want large scale capital ship engagements. Definitely worth a look especially since Spartan Games just made the rules free to download.

Good thought about Silent Death, I like that too,

you can pick up the plastic ship for that from EM4 really cheap, and they can be used as substitutes in a nbunch of other similar games

http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Science_Fiction.html

I've heard a lot of good things about X-Wing too, although never played it.

Another possibly good game I've never played is the upcoming space combat game from Hawk Wargames, tentatively named "Dropfleet Commander". Look for a starter set next Christmas.

I picked up a game called Quantum Expanse on KS a while back:

http://www.star-ranger.com/QuantumExpanse.htm

http://www.forgecraftgames.com/quantum-expanse/

Though I haven't played it yet (lack of time) it seems pretty cool. A decent stealth mechanism and the ships are very nicely cast. Rules look fun and detailed enough without being overly complicated.

Coming next year Star wars Armada
As a Battle Fleet Gothic player i am very interested in this
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=270

I will double up with another and also say Firestorm Armada. I used to play BFG - but ever since that dropped I have been searching for a somewhat enjoyable capitol ship combat game. I dare say firestorm has achieved that. Its version 2 rules are much better than the version 1 rules, and they are deceptively hard to master (your fighter wings are their own damn mini game ) and shooting someones engines out is always fun.

Some other list things:

1) The models are absolutely gorgeous - I went for a Dindrenzi fleet myself but each race has a unique different style - even the mercenary races

2) Balance - the game developers spent some time thinking into balance and I think they did a damn fine job. Want to take a list with a hell of a lot of fighters.... ok thats fine, you won't do anything and I can easily begin picking them off at range - the game values balance over repeating the same ship over.

3) cost - relatively cheap to start. $100 gets you the starter set with two races, the rulebook, the terrain, the blah blah blah.... Add one more $70 starter set to whichever race you want and bam you got yourself a nice list.

4) speaking of the rulebook - it is free. F R E E... yup. They just released it yesterday on their website. Also - every army you play has its free rules online... soo... yeah you get a theme here (http://www.spartangames.co.uk/resources/downloads - under the firestorm armada tab)

5) problems - one is the community - there really is not a community Me and a friend just started playing the starter set in the store as a funsies thing to do (with the F.A.T. Space mat from frontline gaming) and we thought it was fun.

The funny thing is now within 3 weeks we went from us two playing to now about 8 people playing in the store and more... mostly because of what I listed above....

Now X-wing is a good game too, do not get me wrong I love that game. But if you want capitol ships lobbing nuclear warheads at each other or broadsiding the hell out of another ship... well....Firestorm Armada


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here are some pics of me and my friend playing (sorry for the bad paint scheme on the yellow ships... those are mine. I tried to go for a construction yellow fleet but meh....)

Aerotech (Battletech)

 CptJake wrote:
I picked up a game called Quantum Expanse on KS a while back:

http://www.star-ranger.com/QuantumExpanse.htm

http://www.forgecraftgames.com/quantum-expanse/

Though I haven't played it yet (lack of time) it seems pretty cool. A decent stealth mechanism and the ships are very nicely cast. Rules look fun and detailed enough without being overly complicated.

I backed this one as well at a time when I pretty much supported everything under the sun. I haven't had a chance to play either, but I went back a few weeks ago, re-read the rules and organized the miniatures. It's a shame this one never took off as the stealth mechanism is pretty good and the rules aren't overly complicated. I think if the miniatures had been a bit more 3 dimensional and exciting, this one could have taken off.

Our plays Full Thrust from time to time and we really enjoy it. It's a ruleset from GZG. The best version is a fan collated version called "Full Thrust Cross Dimensions"
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/ftxd11-us.pdf

Record sheets and fleet books with ship profiles available free here:
http://www.shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=130
GZG has a HUGE range of ships from many different factions, or the rules are provided to stat your own from whatever range you prefer.

http://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk

There's actually a fair amount of background for the universe which also covers the games Dirtside and Stargrunt if you choose to use their fluff.
http://www.stargrunt.ca/settings_hist/gzgverse_background/gzgverse_background.htm

As for your desire for converting miniatures you're not going to find many starship minis designed for that, but the angular nature of many ships means that you're free to cut and reassemble at will.

Or you can scratchbuild. I have a force of ships made from chopped up Mechwarrior mins.

 CptJake wrote:
I picked up a game called Quantum Expanse on KS a while back:

http://www.star-ranger.com/QuantumExpanse.htm

http://www.forgecraftgames.com/quantum-expanse/

Though I haven't played it yet (lack of time) it seems pretty cool. A decent stealth mechanism and the ships are very nicely cast. Rules look fun and detailed enough without being overly complicated.

Hahaha! I bought into that one too. The ship minis are really neat looking, although they are a bit generic. Good and bad I guess, as you can easily use them for just about any game. I've got some pics on my blog here:

http://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2013/03/17/quantum-expanse-unboxing/

Really, if you are looking for a full-throttle space ship miniatures game (i.e., not fighters, not pre-paints) I would recommend Firestorm Armada....UNLESS you are a part of a group that has another ruleset it prefers, FA is *probably* the most popular and well-support space miniatures game out there (note that I'm not including Attack Wing & X-wing in this category...they are definitely more popular in FA in terms of player base size, organized play, etc). The Star Wars Armada game that folks have pointed out looks interesting as well, though it will probably take about a year to fully materialize. Plus, it is probably going to have the same issue X-Wing has; there are only so many cannon ships, and there are really only 2 main factions. Granted the Star Wars factor helps to largely counterbalance that .

My favourite SF fighter combat game is Silent Death.
Its best to go for an early set before it got bogged down with extra rules and mess. The original game was simple and elegant.

For capital ships Battlefleet Gothic, no question.

Both are hard to find.

Metal Express sells a PDF rule set for Silent Death for $9 and a frame of 12 fighters for $5 (one of each basic fighter that came in the box set). Effectively $30 for a base game (which had 4 of each fighter and a rulebook.) I'm sure a quick search online would also provide you a free space map with hexes as well.

 Orlanth wrote:
My favourite SF fighter combat game is Silent Death.
Its best to go for an early set before it got bogged down with extra rules and mess. The original game was simple and elegant.

For capital ships Battlefleet Gothic, no question.

Both are hard to find.

Well, with BFG at least, the rules can still be tracked down without too much difficulty. Models, on the other hand...proxies and 3rd party sellers seem to be the way to go at the moment. What a change from the '06 timeframe when I started the game! Seems like only yesterday you could find good deals on whole fleets folks were selling on ebay

If you want capitol ship combat you can also take pretty much any sailing ship era naval warship game and use spaceship miniatures instead. It's kind of funny how the rules are written the same way for both genres.

If you don't mind a little bit [ok sometimes a lot] of bookkeeping there is always Star Fleet Battle, my truly first Table Top Game. They also have Quick Play Rules now that I really like.

The BattleTech Space Combat Rules are little clunky but it can be a blast to play.

If you want Fighters, Silent Death. It is a very Quick and Deadly Game.

I ordered a copy of Fleet Commander: Ignition

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161108/fleet-commander-1-ignition

It is supposed to have several expansions put out to add in different ship types.

It is not as extensive as a lot of games (only two factions) but it looks interesting. My copy should be delivered Saturday...

Jake

No Star Trek Attack Wing mention? It's basically like Star Wars which is basically Wings of War.

Funny with Wiz Kids, they act like GW (or is it GW acts like Wiz Kids?) so you have the newer units are more stronger in some cases and Over Powered units and lots of under powered races.

War Rockets is alot of fun and can be played to varying degrees of complexity, it is also fairly good price.

Is there support on Dakkadakka for Firestorm armada? I missed out on BFG but, I want to paint ships, y'know. Also I hear the rules are good.

Edit: Answered own question. Yes. I haz the dumbs today.

Anyway. Not to hijack thread but, is it worth it?

Davor wrote:
No Star Trek Attack Wing mention? It's basically like Star Wars which is basically Wings of War.

Funny with Wiz Kids, they act like GW (or is it GW acts like Wiz Kids?) so you have the newer units are more stronger in some cases and Over Powered units and lots of under powered races.

It's probably because if you are looking for a (space) game that uses the Flightpath system, unless the Star Trek theme makes you really want that game, then XWing has far superior models and rules. Star Trek was a definite contender for me because my wife is a bigger Trekkie than a Star Wars fan, but I have so much experience with Wizkids rules-design (dating all the way back to the original set of Mage Knight 1.0, their first game involving clix bases) that hearing just a little of people's gripes with Attack Wing made me steer clear of it because I knew there would be lots more "issues" just waiting to make me groan if I bought into it. Just the entire Borg issue alone smacks of Wizkids design flaws.

It's a shame. I have actually been eying models like the Scimitar as some sort of Fringer ship for X-Wing, as nothing about that ship really gives away it's scale as a "massive" ship. It could represent some sort of really vicious fighter- it's almost big enough to be a very small large ship.

 Stormwall wrote:
Is there support on Dakkadakka for Firestorm armada? I missed out on BFG but, I want to paint ships, y'know. Also I hear the rules are good.

Edit: Answered own question. Yes. I haz the dumbs today.

Anyway. Not to hijack thread but, is it worth it?

Most definitely! Best of all, you can get the rules for free now:

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/wp/wp/wp-content/spartanimg/Firestorm_Armada_2_Download.pdf

That is a full color PDF of the entire rule book. You can, of course, use proxies easily, as with most space mini games FA considers the stem to be the actual location of the ship. Most ships use 40mm square bases.

DakkaDakka once had a Spartan sub-forum, but it got folded into Misc Mini Games some time ago, presumably due to a lack of activity.

 Stormwall wrote:
Is there support on Dakkadakka for Firestorm armada? I missed out on BFG but, I want to paint ships, y'know. Also I hear the rules are good.

Edit: Answered own question. Yes. I haz the dumbs today.

Anyway. Not to hijack thread but, is it worth it?

FIrestrom Armada is pretty fun game, and 2.0 is a vast improvement over the original sometimes flaky rules. BFG will always be my first love for spaceship battles, but with it being gone FSA Makes a pretty good substitute, games are fun, fast and the lovely ships aren't crazy expensive.