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Made in gb
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

So I have a 3D printer now, and I've managed to find really nice models to print of all the cool TOS-era ships I like(Constitution, natch; TOS-era Miranda; the Archer class from ST:Vanguard; the new ships from STO). Then I went looking for games to play with them and...yeah. Seems like the choices are STAW, which is a (very rich)poor man's X-Wing, and mechanically clunky ancient systems based on the wonky FASA pseudoTrek license.

Are there any other Trek fleet command games I'm missing? Or failing that, are there any good generic fleet command games that work well with 6-12 ships of varying class on either side, and which have flexible enough ship/list building mechanics to approximate Trek ships?

I need to acquire plastic Skavenslaves, can you help?
I have a blog now, evidently. Featuring the Alternative Mordheim Model Megalist.

"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal 
   
Made in gb
Legendary Dogfighter




england

Star Fleet Battles was probably the best I ever played.
It's more a counter system...but miniatures are just counters anyway.
Very heavy on rules but well laid out. I never had any issues with them.
Attack wing was massive fun. A great bear and pretzel game. But people started taking it too seriously. Like x wing
   
Made in us
Leutnant





Louisville, KY, USA

ADB also partnered with Mongoose to produce a version of Starfleet Battles based on the A Call To Arms system.
http://www.starfleetgames.com/Call-To-Arms.shtml
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran





ValentineGames wrote:
Star Fleet Battles was probably the best I ever played.
It's more a counter system...but miniatures are just counters anyway.
Very heavy on rules but well laid out. I never had any issues with them.
Attack wing was massive fun. A great bear and pretzel game. But people started taking it too seriously. Like x wing


I second Starfleet Battles. Very good game.

There's even a shorter version if you feel the rules are too complicated: Federation Commander.
   
Made in gb
Yu Jing Martial Arts Ninja




North Wales

Star Fleet Battles used to be my go to ruleset - yeah, it's superheavy on the rules and suited to a couple of ships per side, but it's great if you want the Wrath of Khan type battle rather than Wolf 359 re-enactments.

You don't need to go into the full rules either (they give me a headache just thinking about them!), the free intro rules are fine. There are an incredible number of ship designs for it, if you know where to look.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

SFB is definitely one of my faves. They do have hexless rules for use with miniatures, (Section W if I recall correctly). And yeah, while the rulebook is massive, the majority of that really covers a lot of very special situations (e.g. what happens when you're tractoring another vessel within a certain distance of a black hole) that you won't really use a lot of the time.
   
Made in us
Cowboy Wannabe




Sacramento

Oh, TOS gaming is what I have been doing/thinking about doing for the last year, so here is some information:

First, miniatures are widely available, both from 3d printing services (Shapeways) legitimate sources (ADB and Wizkids) and various other garage manufactures, so keep that in mind when you are printing your own... may be easier/better to just buy from someone else. (or if you wanted to get ships in metal/resin instead of printed materials) Popular scales are 1/3125, 1/3788-3900, 1/7000, and if you want to get bigger, there are tons of models in the 1/2500 scale. Some people also play with effectively 3d counter sets, which if you want to do absolutely massive battles is probably the way to go.

Second, there are several official games out there. Official TV/Movie Trek is supported in a loose way by ST:AW, as you mentioned. The tangential StarFleet Battles Universe is supported by FOUR games: StarFleet Battles, Federation Commander, Starmada, and the Call to Arms adaption.

There are also a TON of home brew games (and adaptations of rules) out there, and one of them might tickle your fancy, so take a look at those too.

Third, think about what you really want to do with the miniatures... are they going to meet up in massive huge battles, or are you doing to want to do intimate duels with them? Sets what you want to do with scale. Do you want hexes or hexless? Do you care about sub systems and energy allocation?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/10 00:28:58


   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Battle Barge Buffet Line

 Yodhrin wrote:
So I have a 3D printer now, and I've managed to find really nice models to print of all the cool TOS-era ships I like(Constitution, natch; TOS-era Miranda; the Archer class from ST:Vanguard; the new ships from STO). Then I went looking for games to play with them and...yeah. Seems like the choices are STAW, which is a (very rich)poor man's X-Wing, and mechanically clunky ancient systems based on the wonky FASA pseudoTrek license.

Are there any other Trek fleet command games I'm missing? Or failing that, are there any good generic fleet command games that work well with 6-12 ships of varying class on either side, and which have flexible enough ship/list building mechanics to approximate Trek ships?


FASA wasn't pseudoTrek... it was Trek officially licensed and approved by the IP owners during the 80's during a time when each in universe faction consisted of only 1 or 2 official ships. As for wonky and clunky, at least you got that right. Star Fleet Battles is the other big contender in TOS gaming but if you think FASA is clunky then you'll probably dislike SFB even more as it is even more complicated even in its pared down version. Attack Wing is the beer and pretzels game for the universe but you've excluded that one too. There aren't any other official ones that I can recall other than the Mongoose one already mentioned but I have no experience with that so can't comment. The current RPG license (Star Trek Adventures) has ship combat rules but they're abstracted and geared towards players' contributions on the bridge of one ship rather than multiship combat.

Your best bet would be to go with some sort of universal system that allows you to build custom ships. My personal goto for that typically is Full Thrust but the mechanics don't exactly fit the traditional trek space combat style from the first 50 years of tv and movies. I suppose you could ignore the point defense and fighter aspects of the rules and it would work though.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/09 17:16:27


We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Star Fleet Battles all the way here, while the rulebook is something you can kill people with its also something that once you play the game a few times you very seldom need, the core concepts are pretty basic and most of the info you need is printed on the ship data sheets and the reference sheets.

people get hung up on it takes ages to play but at college it was a regular feature to have half hour games over lunch, ship on ship duels are pretty fast, especially with basic cruisers
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

leopard wrote:

people get hung up on it takes ages to play but at college it was a regular feature to have half hour games over lunch, ship on ship duels are pretty fast, especially with basic cruisers
Agreed. Once you have the core rules down, it's not hard to get a game in under an hour with single-ship duels (especially if you're using nothing bigger than a cruiser).

When I introduce people, I usually use the tournament ships. They're pretty damn well balanced, and with the "Tournament Pack" you're not using some of the wonkier, rarer rules anyway, so it's a little less steep of a learning curve, but still has plenty of options and things available. If folks really get into it then yeah you can go nuts with some of the rarer, more special ships (minelayers/sweepers, Q-Ships, scouts, etc.).
   
Made in gb
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

Aye, but I'm not really fussed about ship-on-ship duels, and as I say I don't really see the FASA license as "real" Trek. It might have been licensed at one point, but Trek moved on and FASA remained trapped in its own wee bubble with loads of wonky cut & shut designs and a concept of Trek combat that's a bit too "IRL navy" in style for my taste.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm going to start by looking into "Full Trek" the fan conversion of Full Thrust, and maybe try playing around with the SWArmada rules a bit myself to see if those can be bodged into shape.

I need to acquire plastic Skavenslaves, can you help?
I have a blog now, evidently. Featuring the Alternative Mordheim Model Megalist.

"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Yodhrin wrote:
Aye, but I'm not really fussed about ship-on-ship duels, and as I say I don't really see the FASA license as "real" Trek. It might have been licensed at one point, but Trek moved on and FASA remained trapped in its own wee bubble with loads of wonky cut & shut designs and a concept of Trek combat that's a bit too "IRL navy" in style for my taste.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm going to start by looking into "Full Trek" the fan conversion of Full Thrust, and maybe try playing around with the SWArmada rules a bit myself to see if those can be bodged into shape.


For what its worth SFB does work with fleets, in deed, fleets with carrier support, gunboats, minefields, base assaults, heck ground assaults and boarding actions - it can slow down a bit though.

There is also its strategic companion Federation And Empire if you want to take the whole Federation to war.

SFB actually I think works very nicely with 3-4 ship squadrons, not to mention the vast library of missions that revolve around something other than a pure kill outcome.

The tournament scenario for playing space hockey is a fun one too
   
Made in us
Stubborn Prosecutor





USA

I say STAW all the way . It's an easy game to pic up the mechanics and you can have a lot of fun with custom scenarios. OP games are ok but the game really shines when you get beyond to 300+ points. There are fun ways to have, beaming, away teams, power distribution, and shuttle hops. STAW also includes more fractions than any other Trek system. It's a blast.



I may be a little biased since I'm all in on STAW. This is from last year so add about another 60ish ships to this photo .


It's time to go full Skeletor  
   
Made in us
Fickle Fury of Chaos



San Lorenzo, CA

We play Federation Commander. Some call it SFB lite, and it is to a point. You can play a 4 to 6 ship game in an hour or two. For larger scale games there's Starmada Nova Editon - Klingon Armada. Starmada Klingon Armada is the first book, Nova edition is the current one. Its set in the SFB universe and covers most of the ships you'd want.

-K

Lurking & Posting since 1997.

 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Battle Barge Buffet Line

Does anyone use the Eaglemoss ships for gaming? The scale is obviously all over the place but the same is true of STAW and folks don't seem to mine much. The largest I've used were fleets of titanium BSG ships with full thrust. I've played mega scale games at gencon but that's not exactly practical for everyday gaming.

We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
 
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

I'll chime in and advocate for Star Fleet Battles as well. It's such a fun game, and I say this as someone who hasn't been able to get very many games in. I started getting into it when I was just 14 years old, and I played it with my dad and younger brother. I haven't had a game in years, though, so I'm probably seriously rusty now. To get back on topic, there are indeed rules and even large hex maps available that are suitable for playing with miniatures. The ones ADB produce (Starline 2400/2500) are decent quality, and you can get just about any class of ship you want for the main factions in the game. The whole game universe has almost 50 unique playable races, but most of those don't have miniatures.

I've never played Federation Commander, so I can't comment on how that one plays, although I've heard that it is much easier to learn than regular SFB. I don't mind the complexity of SFB, though. It's supposed to be a simulation of starship combat, and it really does cover everything by time you add in all the myriad optional rules. In addition, the rules are heavily cross-indexed, and there is a rules clause for just about every conceivable situation that might come up in a game, so disagreements and ambiguities can be resolved fairly quickly without having to "dice off" for it much (if at all).

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~15000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: ~1900 | Imperial Knights: ~2000 | Sisters of Battle: ~3500 | Leagues of Votann: ~1200 | Tyranids: ~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 7 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
 Mr_Rose wrote:
Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'll chime in and advocate for Star Fleet Battles as well. It's such a fun game, and I say this as someone who hasn't been able to get very many games in. I started getting into it when I was just 14 years old, and I played it with my dad and younger brother. I haven't had a game in years, though, so I'm probably seriously rusty now. To get back on topic, there are indeed rules and even large hex maps available that are suitable for playing with miniatures. The ones ADB produce (Starline 2400/2500) are decent quality, and you can get just about any class of ship you want for the main factions in the game. The whole game universe has almost 50 unique playable races, but most of those don't have miniatures.

I've never played Federation Commander, so I can't comment on how that one plays, although I've heard that it is much easier to learn than regular SFB. I don't mind the complexity of SFB, though. It's supposed to be a simulation of starship combat, and it really does cover everything by time you add in all the myriad optional rules. In addition, the rules are heavily cross-indexed, and there is a rules clause for just about every conceivable situation that might come up in a game, so disagreements and ambiguities can be resolved fairly quickly without having to "dice off" for it much (if at all).


and when all else fails you solve issues by seeing who can throw the rulebook the furthest, or failing that who can actually lift it.

beauty being most of the rules make some sort of logical sense so not too hard to remember.

have seen Commander played, for me it looked like if you are going to bother may as well play the full game.

What I did like was the various mini campaigns and there are a good few solo missions which are excellent for teaching yourself, and teaching others to play (run the various automatic mosnters and th rules yourself why they focus on flying.

There are however a good few ways to play it in a seriously stripped down form:

- take an Aux Carrier each, set the board up as an asteroid belt and have at it with fighters, minimal energy allocation stuff to worry about
- as above but with the PF (gunboat) tenders, combat woth glass hammers, small ships lower numbers of systems to manage
- get the tournament pack, and forget about balance issues as the tournament cruisers are pretty good at being balanced.
- get the "Early Years" expansion, the ships are smaller, the systems are a bit more basic and a lot of the more advanced equipment isn't around
- use a dreadsock on anyone who suggests assaulting a starbase with a minefield around it
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

leopard wrote:

- use a dreadsock on anyone who suggests assaulting a starbase with a minefield around it
Oh man. We did that once. While interesting, it was a really, really long, drawn out thing, and wasn't one of the more "exciting" scenarios. But kinda neat that you can do it.
   
Made in us
Cowboy Wannabe




Sacramento

Korthu wrote:
We play Federation Commander. Some call it SFB lite, and it is to a point. You can play a 4 to 6 ship game in an hour or two. For larger scale games there's Starmada Nova Editon - Klingon Armada. Starmada Klingon Armada is the first book, Nova edition is the current one. Its set in the SFB universe and covers most of the ships you'd want.

-K


Actually Starmada is up to Unity edition now, which incorporates some Nova ideas in with mostly Admiralty rules.

That is what I am currently planning to Trek with.

   
Made in gb
Yu Jing Martial Arts Ninja




North Wales

I've just been looking at the hexless rules for SFB - has anyone ever tried them?

They seem pretty cool; tapemeasure for range and turning arc templates for movement. At 1" to the hex, I'd get to use my X-Wing mat. That would be pretty cool, maybe get some micro ships from Shapeways.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

 Chillreaper wrote:
I've just been looking at the hexless rules for SFB - has anyone ever tried them?

They seem pretty cool; tapemeasure for range and turning arc templates for movement. At 1" to the hex, I'd get to use my X-Wing mat. That would be pretty cool, maybe get some micro ships from Shapeways.

I've read through them, but haven't had the chance to try them yet. I really, really want to, and maybe after my current push on getting my stuff for Adepticon finished up, I'll try to rope a couple locals into it who've expressed interest in SFB in general.

If you're going as small as a 3x3 X-Wing mat, though, you'll want some super small scale for your ships. The "normal" line of ships from ADB available (and on Shapeways through them if you still want official models), is 1/3125 scale, so to get a normal-ish size map in comparison to the hex map used for the counters, you'll want no less than a 4x6 (though even that is actually smaller, but it's more workable). Given ships move at a good clip (speed 17 is often considered the "minimum viable combat speed" by regulars), you'll be cruising at 17" per turn on average, sometimes more. So you'd want to reduce the "1 inch = 1 hex" quite a bit if you go that small.
   
Made in gb
Yu Jing Martial Arts Ninja




North Wales

 Valander wrote:
 Chillreaper wrote:
I've just been looking at the hexless rules for SFB - has anyone ever tried them?

They seem pretty cool; tapemeasure for range and turning arc templates for movement. At 1" to the hex, I'd get to use my X-Wing mat. That would be pretty cool, maybe get some micro ships from Shapeways.

I've read through them, but haven't had the chance to try them yet. I really, really want to, and maybe after my current push on getting my stuff for Adepticon finished up, I'll try to rope a couple locals into it who've expressed interest in SFB in general.

If you're going as small as a 3x3 X-Wing mat, though, you'll want some super small scale for your ships. The "normal" line of ships from ADB available (and on Shapeways through them if you still want official models), is 1/3125 scale, so to get a normal-ish size map in comparison to the hex map used for the counters, you'll want no less than a 4x6 (though even that is actually smaller, but it's more workable). Given ships move at a good clip (speed 17 is often considered the "minimum viable combat speed" by regulars), you'll be cruising at 17" per turn on average, sometimes more. So you'd want to reduce the "1 inch = 1 hex" quite a bit if you go that small.


My glance through the rules picked up that the standard SFB map works out at 32"x38" if going for the 1" to the hex scale - that's as near as dammit to a 3'x3' board to me.


Only problem with that scale is that the nice minis will be a bit silly (which is a shame, because I'd love to buy a pretty, pretty Excelsior). National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways do microfleets, where the ships look like they're 10-15mm. long. Obviously, detail would be atrocious with minis this size, but I could get behind the game looking that way.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

The standard map doesn't use 1" hexes, though, more like 1/2" (when using the chits). So if you want the same size, roughly, you'd need 64" x 76".

That said, nothing stopping you, of course, just be aware that you'll start at a significantly closer range than normal.

Edit: Ah, I take that back. The standard map at 1/2" squares is not that big (I misread what you were saying, and dug up my Module W). Yeah, does look like 1" is about 3x3 ish, or close enough. Either way, I'm definitely curious to hear reports of using the hexless rules for SFB, and hope to finally do them myself at some point.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/12/02 20:45:16


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Valander wrote:
leopard wrote:

- use a dreadsock on anyone who suggests assaulting a starbase with a minefield around it
Oh man. We did that once. While interesting, it was a really, really long, drawn out thing, and wasn't one of the more "exciting" scenarios. But kinda neat that you can do it.


if you want the quick version, make it a Tholian Starbase

I don't care what you attack that with, you're not winning
   
Made in us
Fickle Fury of Chaos



San Lorenzo, CA

 Chillreaper wrote:
I've just been looking at the hexless rules for SFB - has anyone ever tried them?

They seem pretty cool; tapemeasure for range and turning arc templates for movement. At 1" to the hex, I'd get to use my X-Wing mat. That would be pretty cool, maybe get some micro ships from Shapeways.


We've played Federation Commander with the hex-less rules and they work very well. Same concept. I actually prefer it hex-less. The drones are the only pain as the move so much and have a very tight turn radius.

-K

Lurking & Posting since 1997.

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






 Yodhrin wrote:
So I have a 3D printer now, and I've managed to find really nice models to print of all the cool TOS-era ships I like(Constitution, natch; TOS-era Miranda; the Archer class from ST:Vanguard; the new ships from STO). Then I went looking for games to play with them and...yeah. Seems like the choices are STAW, which is a (very rich)poor man's X-Wing, and mechanically clunky ancient systems based on the wonky FASA pseudoTrek license.

Are there any other Trek fleet command games I'm missing? Or failing that, are there any good generic fleet command games that work well with 6-12 ships of varying class on either side, and which have flexible enough ship/list building mechanics to approximate Trek ships?


YMMV, but the Starship Combat News website has some rules to use Star Trek ships in Full Thrust. Full Thrust is a generic set of rules, so it might not be sufficiently "Trekky" for your taste, but the rules are free. There's also been new weapons and system rules added semi-officially since the SCN rules were done, so some of those might fit Trek better.
http://www.star-ranger.com/SRStuff.htm

There's also the A Call To Arms version of Star Fleet Battles done in conjunction with Mongoose Publishing:
http://www.starfleetgames.com/Call-To-Arms.shtml


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Star Fleet Battles is even less of a proper Star Trek setting than FASA's game, BTW. SFB basically takes the ships from TOS ( and the animated series) and then goes its own way. They got the licence before the films were concived, and they're not allowed to use any material from them. FASA had a "proper" licence from Paramount, and their game covered ships up until ST IV, I think (and I've got fan material that expands that out to TNG and adds the Borg, Cardassians and Ferengi). Just ignore the bad cut-and-paste ships.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/12/18 12:48:58


 
   
 
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