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I'm looking for a fun but detailed ship combat game. Years ago I remember playing B5 wars (and startrek wars) and having a LOT of fun but I don''t see a lot of people playing the game anymore. I'd like to get back into something like that because I just tire of playing 40k but still want a tactical game I can play with my close friends. I see the rules are easy to download for these games for free. So I must ask - should I just start looking into playing b5 wars or is there a better newer game out there that will play similar?

It's not easy to find something in the style of B5 Wars. I preferred Fleet Action myself as I thought there were too many charts to roll on sequentially to determine the actual effect of a shot but that's just a personal preference obviously. The trend over the last decade is to abstract things more and more and to move away from the more "crunchy" games of the 1990's like B5 Wars. I never played ACTA except for a single demo years ago so I can't really comment about those rules (and frankly don't remember how crunchy it was). There has been a relative explosion of space ship combat games recently though. The recent big names would be Firestorm Armada, Xwing Armada, Halo Fleet Battles, and Dropfleet Commander.

Drop Fleet Commander isn't out yet but there are some gameplay videos on Beasts of War youtube channel if you want to check them out. If you're looking for something with the complexity and detail of B5 wars though you won't find it in that game. Halo Fleet Battles has demo videos on Beasts of War as well but is also fairly abstracted (no detailed damage systems but rather generic "vulnerable" and "damage" markers that apply gamewide penalties). Xwing Armada seems from demo videos on youtube even more abstracted. If anything, I'd say Firestorm Armada from my one demo game last year is probably the closest to the level of detail but honestly the details from that demo are a bit fuzzy. Frankly I prefer moderately abstracted rulesets and that one was too crunchy for me (in the same way that B5 wars was but Fleet Action wasn't) so it may be what you're looking for. There's also the perennial Full Thrust that is somewhat crunchy and has fleet construction rules as well for you to bring over B5 stuff without any issue (which is a problem with all the other ones I mentioned as they do NOT have generic construction rules).

Thank you for the detailed response warboss. I've started doing research into firestorm and full thrust. I like the models in those the most - If I find I don't ike the rules I can just proxy those ships and use B5 rules because B5 ships are pretty hard to find.

I don't know if you know about this site but it might help.

http://aog.hostedbywebstore.com/

I found it when I was looking for Fleet Action scale fighters recently for use in Halo Fleet Battles (I'm working on two fleets to try out that game myself). I didn't find any takers locally yet for Halo so I've held off on ordering myself so far as I have enough fighters at least for demos. Let me know if you order and how good the casts are.

I've bought a ton of the Agents of Gaming ships, mostly B5 Wars scale, and have been pretty happy with them. They are metal, and tend to be a bit bendy, but they hold detail well and are mostly accurate to the show (with the Shadow battle crab being a little off). The Centauri Vorchan is a dynamite mini in B5 Wars scale, but a bit chunky in the other scale. Most of the Fleet Action scale minis are either slightly chunky (shadows) or fiddly (Vorlon Planet Killer). FA Omegas are about the size of BFG escorts and very nice, although the forward hull is a bit oversized, while the Warlock is perfect. If they still have the First Ones collection in stock for B5W, I recommend it. Love those ships.

Is there a specific mini or fleet you would like to hear about? I've given some away, but if I still have the minis I can try to post a picture.

Starship Combat News is a good source of info on all space games.

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

The owner unfortunately stopped making updates a year ago, due to other things, but even so there is a vast trove of knowledge and not much has happened in a year anyway.

Starmada has detailed fleet construction rules that let you recreate almost any SF naval force.

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