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Federation Commander - Starship Combat Star Trek Style
Back in the early days of gaming there was a starship combat game based on Star Trek called Starfleet Battles. It turns out that it still exists but under a new name - Federation Commander.
This game has been around as long as I've been a gamer. Seriously. 1979 was when it first appeared.
I had, for the most part, forgotten about the game. Back in the day is was really big. Unfortunately, like many games back then, it sort of grew out of control until the only people playing it were those who had been playing it for years because they were the only ones who still understood all of the rules.. or had them for that matter. It also turned into a game you could play with your friends in an evening to one that you would play with your friends over a weekend... or over a series of weekends.
Well, a recently discussion of Federation Commander in another forum had me taking a closer look at where the game was today and it looks like a few years back somebody decided that it was time to make the game accessible to normal humans again. Not ony that, the new game has gotten some great ratings on Boardgame Geek.
If you've had a hankering for some starship combat and may have an interest in the old Trek universe (this is based on the original series, not the later stuff) then have a look at this demo version of the game.
We're probably going to be playing this game tomorrow in the store if anybody is interesed in checking it out. Probably from about 11am to 2pm or so.
And by "tomorrow" I meant today... Thursday.
I just thought that I would post some thoughts about Federation Commander based on my impressions for the past two days.
Federation Commander does a really fantastic job of simulating the feel of a Star Trek starship combat.
Each turn you are making decisions about how to allocate power to your various systems (propulsion, weapons, shields). As you start out you should have no problems getting power to everything you want to do but as you take damage you both have more things you need the power for and potentially have less energy to allocate (because you've taken damage to various systems). So, at its core the game is about making these decisions on a turn by turn basis in addition to moving your ship and firing its weapons in order to achieve victory.
The rules presentation are done in an old-school wargame style with each section and subsection of rules numbered. This style tends to put me off initially (because of my memories of impenetrable wargame rules of the past) but the few times I dove into the rules to look up some specific question I never really had a problem finding what I was looking for - so in this case the presentation really works.
Which is not to say that the rules are perfect. The game has its idiosyncrasies. For example, there's no true initiative system. Everything is essentially simultaneous, but there are times when it really matters who says what's happening first. The way the rules handle this is that you can tell your opponent that you aren't going to do something - and still change your mind after he says what he's doing (or not doing). BUT if you state that you are going to take a particular action you are held to that. To reiterate - you can only change your mind about what you're doing as long as you say you aren't doing anything. Oh, but if BOTH players say that they aren't doing anything then they are locked in at that point. And still, there's no method for determining who has to announce their actions first.
What this really says to me is that the game (as written anyway) is meant for a friendly gaming atmosphere and not so much for tournament-style competitive play (which is not to say that people don't play this in that way - because they do) but it would take some house-ruling in cases like this to make sure that these kinds of rules weren't abused.
The Border sets (Klingon and Romulan) come with the rules as well as map boards and counters and some really nice laminated color sheets for each of the ships in the set. The displays are many to be marked up during play to mark off damage to systems (as you might do in Warmachine or Hordes). There are also counters for power so that you can easily see your remaining power without having to keep a scratch pad around to calculate it all of the time. Although the game defaults to a hex-based system with cardboard counters, there are rules for playing it freeform on the tabletop and a line of miniatures to go with it (which can be played on hexes or off). It's also worth noting that each of the ships is presented in two formats - Squadron and Fleet. Fleet simplifies everything so that you can scale the game up and put larger numbers of ships on the table without significantly increasing the time required to play the game.
If you're looking for some good Star Trek gaming I highly recommend picking up a copy of Federation Commander. You'll find it over in the board game section of the store.
A look at some minis:
http://www.geocities.com/scoutdad13/
This guy has apparently been working on his fleet(s) for a long time.
I like this shot best:
http://www.geocities.com/scoutdad13/scoutdad_fed.jpg
- Jay Adan - Greenfield Games Owner Dude