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Since GW hates what people like and got rid of Battlefleet gothic I need another spaceship based tabletop game to love.
Can anyone recommend me a good system with interesting ship models and easy to get in the UK?

Thanks in advance

Some similar threads that may help...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/671346.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/663532.page

My advice is first investigate what if anything folks around you are playing. Jumping in on an existing scene is much easier than creating one from scratch for a game. Also, how much abstraction versus detailed rules do you want? Knowing what flavor of game you like might help a bit in suggestions. Fantasy Flight's Star Wars Armada is the "big" name game with in my experience across the pond the most people playing along with Star Trek Attack Wing. Both are prepaints with very abstracted easy to learn rules. For a more traditional tabletop experience, Spartan's Firestorm Armada is a very established game but it doesn't seem to have made much headway over the years since release. Spartan also just released Halo Fleet Battles that I picked up but it seems to have (in my area) landed with a dull thud. Then there are the oldies but goodies like Starfleet Battles and Full Thrust. Coming out next year on the heels of a just finished and very successful kickstarter is Dropfleet Commander that will land who knows how well. The buzz is good but it was as well for Halo and that didn't really amount to much. Hopefully the initial $$$ investment will change that for DFC.

Full Thrust. The rules are free from Ground Zero Games, and since it's designed to handle any miniatures you like (with a full system to design your own ships), you can use all those Battlefleet Gothic miniatures you already own.

It's worth a look; even if you don't like it, the only outlay has been an afternoon of your time.

There are other games in a similar vein; Starmada is one that seems to get good reviews, but I've never played it.

Dropfleet Commander. The kickstarter just ended and you may be able to get in on the after-action.

I play DZC and they're going to be integrated in the upcoming campaign system/

There's a spaceship game for whichever your tastes nowadays.

I did try 'Full Thrust' myself, didn't enjoy it much at all, to be honest. Way, way too fiddly. - Very much on the 'sim' end of the scale than 'game' end.

There's Dropfleet Commander, which I've gone in for (I'm loving Dropzone Commander). - That has a pretty awesome niche in that it isn't directly a 'deep space' fleet game, but more taking place in the upper atmospheres of a planet. A little like the opening of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

Which, funnily enough, brings me to the big whopping triangle shaped elephant in the room.



And it's little cousin.



These are probably the most accessible space games out there, especially in the UK, being found everywhere from Gaming Stores, to Comic Stores to... Waterstones, Argos and WH Smiths.


One piece of personal advice, avoid Star Trek: Attack Wing. It uses the same rules system as 'X-Wing' but, as it's by another company, doesn't give 2 figs about game balance, model quality, fairness in general. Then add in the factor of 'blind boosters' for very powerful ships, only if you attend, or win, tournaments and extra super bonus abilities, that, again, are only available if you attend tournaments.

I like Full Thrust well enough. We at the club us the "Cross Dimensions" version for a game or two every year. If your group wants a low-commitment spaceship game to play now and then it's a good option.

However if you want to dive into a game, then Warboss has the right of it. Aside from X-wing -which seems to be everywhere- there's likely only 1 other spaceship game being played in your area. It's hard enough to find players for such games, so I strongly advise you to play whatever it is that is being played locally.

Sure, Full Thrust isn't to everyone's taste, but the cost to try it out is £0, as opposed to £25 for X-Wing or £70 for Armada.

Or you could keep on playing BFG if there's an existing group of you.

Thanks for the imput guys im going to try out X wing and Armada

I think the two big spaceship combat games right now are Star Wars: Armada and Star Wars: X-Wing both from Fantasy Flight. Gameplay in the two games revolves around captial ships and fighters respectivly. The rules are pretty easy to pick up, the miniatures are nice, and there's an active fanbase for both games. The only (potential) downside it that its tied to the Star Wars universe, so if you are not interested in that or wanted to try something else, you are stuck.

A few people mentioned Dropfleet Commander by Hawk Wargames, which I bought into and looks really good, although it probably won't be available until the middle of next year at the eariest. Obviously availability isn't known yet, but the maker does have distributors in the UK and Europe.

I've heard some good things about the Halo miniatues game by Spartan Games. The ships certainly look cool but I can't comment on the rules. There are also only two factions AFAILK. Spartan is UK based so availabilty should not be a problem.

Full Thrust is a classic, but IMO rather dated. Still, its simple enough to check out to see if it suits you.

Majestic 12 pubishes a generic rules set called Starmada which has its own ship construction rules, plus its been adapted to at least two universes, the Star Fleet Battles universe (see below) and Brigade Games line of starship miniatures.

There are a couple of Star Trek games available. Star Trek: Attack Wing is produced by Wizkids. I've heard mixed reviews of both the rules and the miniatures, though. Amarillo Design Buareau makes severl varients of their Star Trek game (Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander, Star Trek Armada and A Call to Arms, Star Fleet, in order of decreasing complexity). Their licence goes back to before the first of the Star Trek movies, though, so their games only contain ships and races from the original series and their own original creations. The big problen with them is that I've heard they don't have a UK distributor, so you would need to order directly from the US which might be cost prohibitives.

I'm sure I've missed a lot but that gives a starting place.


EDIT: Opps! I just saw that the OP has already decided on Star Trek Armada and X-Wing.

X-Wing is pretty good and popular. I'm very happy with the game's quality and FFG's efforts to keep things balanced.

I'd warn against Star Trek Attack Wing. I've played that game a lot and gotten increasingly frustrated by the balance issues and poor writing. I wish I had spent that time and effort on more X-Wing.

 mdauben wrote:

Spoiler:

I think the two big spaceship combat games right now are Star Wars: Armada and Star Wars: X-Wing both from Fantasy Flight. Gameplay in the two games revolves around captial ships and fighters respectivly. The rules are pretty easy to pick up, the miniatures are nice, and there's an active fanbase for both games. The only (potential) downside it that its tied to the Star Wars universe, so if you are not interested in that or wanted to try something else, you are stuck.

A few people mentioned Dropfleet Commander by Hawk Wargames, which I bought into and looks really good, although it probably won't be available until the middle of next year at the eariest. Obviously availability isn't known yet, but the maker does have distributors in the UK and Europe.

I've heard some good things about the Halo miniatues game by Spartan Games. The ships certainly look cool but I can't comment on the rules. There are also only two factions AFAILK. Spartan is UK based so availabilty should not be a problem.

Full Thrust is a classic, but IMO rather dated. Still, its simple enough to check out to see if it suits you.

Majestic 12 pubishes a generic rules set called Starmada which has its own ship construction rules, plus its been adapted to at least two universes, the Star Fleet Battles universe (see below) and Brigade Games line of starship miniatures.

There are a couple of Star Trek games available. Star Trek: Attack Wing is produced by Wizkids. I've heard mixed reviews of both the rules and the miniatures, though. Amarillo Design Buareau makes severl varients of their Star Trek game (Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander, Star Trek Armada and A Call to Arms, Star Fleet, in order of decreasing complexity). Their licence goes back to before the first of the Star Trek movies, though, so their games only contain ships and races from the original series and their own original creations. The big problen with them is that I've heard they don't have a UK distributor, so you would need to order directly from the US which might be cost prohibitives.

I'm sure I've missed a lot but that gives a starting place.


EDIT: Opps! I just saw that the OP has already decided on Star Trek Armada and X-Wing.

I appreciate the input I tend to try quite a few different games at a time so I'm glad for any advice.

 TheWaspinator wrote:

I'd warn against Star Trek Attack Wing. I've played that game a lot and gotten increasingly frustrated by the balance issues and poor writing. I wish I had spent that time and effort on more X-Wing.

Thats a shame i was quite interested in attack wing after getting to grips with the x wing game first.

There tend to be three main types of space game, the dog-fighter game ;like X-Wing, the carrier battles game like Armada, and the WW1 style big ship big fleet game. This last type often overlaps with carrier battles.

X-Wing and Armada are both good choices. Accessible, immediate (no painting) and surprisingly tactical rules.

If you want to look any further, consider the various ranges of space navy ships on the market. These are often surprisingly cheap and can be used with nearly any ruleset. For example, the Halo starter box gets you two substantial fleets for a very good price even if you ignore the rules themselves. Plus, you can usually mix and match different ranges as they are all about the same size.

It is a pity that FASA's Leviathan never went anywhere.

It was a brilliant concept, poorly executed.

I have friends who would like to resurrect it, but using projectile weapons, rather than Lasers (Space Combat turns out to be such that Lasers were never make a viable weapon, and ranges will likely be in the scope of several to a several dozen miles).

The TV show Battlestar Galactica basically got it correct, and the miniseries on SyFy, The Expanse, also trends in this direction (with Mass Drivers and Missiles as the primary weapons, and ranges between 3 and 24 miles for the Mass Drivers, and up to 1000 miles for the missiles - depending... And that range most ships would be able to out maneuver the missiles. The Book details how they are used at those ranges though).

The Expanse does get some things wrong though, in that terrestrial "Stealth" technologies would not work in space. You would have completely different stealth technologies that used inflatable aerogel bubbles or walls to hide ships, and superconductors trailing to heat-sinks to remove the heat signature of a ship.

All that aside... I hear the Halo game is pretty good (and the ships nice looking), even if it errs conceptually.

MB

You will want to look into X Wing. It is incredibly popular, fun and affordable to play. Plus you don't have to paint the miniatures.

About $50 for the Core Set and three more ships and your golden.

If you get on Facebook and search for a local X Wing club you will be all set.

Two Hour Wargames has their Star Navy line. http://www.twohourwargames.com/51stnasfspco.html

Even works solo.

Mirroring several others in the thread: I am a huge fan of X-Wing and Armada and also bought into Dropfleet Commander.

Fleet Commander currently on KS: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/338597945/fleet-commander-genesis

I have the first edition (Ignition). It is interesting, more abstract than some like, but fun. The KS is blowing through stretch goals at a decent pace.

GW may be doing a new Battlefleet Gothic as a part of its new Specialist Games Studio...

T