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Author Topic: Federation Commander  (Read 16596 times)

Bison

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on: March 02, 2019, 09:58:23 PM
Anyone play Armidillo Design Bureau’s Fedration Commander?  I have been debating whether or not to pick up either Klingon Border or Romulan Border. I like the Star Trek theme and even the 80s design of the counters. I just wonder if GMT’s Talon isn’t a better tactical,space battle game.



Barthheart

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Reply #1 on: March 03, 2019, 06:45:28 AM
Hey Bison!

I don't have it but have heard good things about it as a faster playing replacement for Star Fleet Battles.

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Silent Disapproval Robot

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Reply #2 on: March 03, 2019, 08:03:10 AM
Yup.  I play it quite a bit.  It is a streamlined version of Star Fleet Battles but it's still quite involved.  It still has a lot of the ideas that were common to games designed in the early/mid 80s.  There's a lot of book keeping involved and you'll be spending a lot of time filling in/out energy allocation points for your ships and crossing off damage boxes on ship diagrams.  If you have played things like Battletech or Car Wars, you'll get the idea.

I prefer to play the game with miniatures but use the hex system instead of rulers (there are rules for both) but it works just fine with the counters.  If you're just looking to get one set, I'd start with the Klingon Border and see if you like the game system.  The rules governing the Federation and Klingon ships and weapons systems are fairly straightforward and you'll be able to pick up and play in a short time.  The Romulans are a lot tougher to play and are far more unforgiving of mistakes.  The rules governing them are more complex (cloaking and plasma torpedoes add a fair degree of complexity) and you'll need to be quite familiar with the timing of all the sub-phases in the game in order to play them effectively.  They excel at ambush tactics but are very frail and just can't go toe to toe with Federation ships.

There are a lot of free supplements in the form of new ship cards, scenarios, campaigns, and special rules available for free from the Commander's Circle.

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/Commanders%20Circle/resources.shtml

The licence that ADB has is a bit weird.  From what I understand, their licence is based on a ship technical manual that was put out in the 70s so they can use stuff from the original series and the animated series, but that's it.  You've got the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, the Gorn, the Tholians, and the Orions and the rest of the races are stuff they made themselves (except the Kizinti which are from another sci-fi series).

The game is a lot of fun IMO but the engine is showing its age and the rules do have some odd omissions.  If you do get deep into it, I highly recommend getting the consolidated rulebook.  Makes looking things up much easier than constantly flipping through several smaller rules supplements that you get with each expansion pack.

I'd avoid picking up the Tholians.  The rules for Tholian webs are game killers.  Slow the game down to a crawl and add way too much micro-management.

If you go the minis route, I recommend picking up some Heroclix ship minis.  They can be had for $3-5 each and are regularly on sale from Cool Stuff Inc and Noble Knight.

Here are some of the ones I use:





Just a few of the charts and tables you'll need to familiarize yourself with.




Some shots from a scenario I ran at a con last year.







« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 07:31:11 AM by Silent Disapproval Robot »



bbmike

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Reply #3 on: March 03, 2019, 08:30:32 AM
^Pretty much what SDR said. I would only add one thing- don't be afraid to house rule whatever you don't about it.
Well, one more thing. If you do start with Klingon Border (which I also recommend) and want to add Romulan Space, I would recommend getting Romulan Border instead. It's about $20 more than Romulan Border but you get duplicate stuff if get it. I'm actually about to do that myself.

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Bison

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Reply #4 on: March 03, 2019, 10:53:11 AM
Thanks for the great break down SDR. Really gives me some thing to consider. If I do decide to pick up Federation Commander, I’ll have to order direct from the company because Klingon Border is hard to find elsewhere online. 



Silent Disapproval Robot

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Reply #5 on: March 03, 2019, 11:03:40 AM
There’s a guy on eBay with a store called Historymakinggames who sells Federation Commander stuff.  I got most of mine through him.  He’s got it in stock.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FC-Klingon-Border-New/123532638545?hash=item1cc31e7951:g:Rk0AAOSwnjZcQMv3



bbmike

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Reply #6 on: March 03, 2019, 11:49:29 AM
^Wow, lots of good stuff there! Thanks for the link.  :bigthumb:

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Martok

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Reply #7 on: March 03, 2019, 02:15:20 PM
Damn.  That game looks/sounds pretty fun. 

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bbmike

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Reply #8 on: March 03, 2019, 05:55:03 PM
Damn.  That game looks/sounds pretty fun.

 :o YOU'VE never played Star Fleet Battles?  :o

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Silent Disapproval Robot

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Reply #9 on: March 03, 2019, 06:07:19 PM
A guy on BGG put up a really nice little animated power point presentation showing how a typical turn plays out with a 1 v 1 fight between a Klingon and a Gorn.  It should give you some idea if the game is for you or not. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/116322/blaecblaeds-first-turn-warp-through-v100




bbmike

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Reply #10 on: March 03, 2019, 06:12:24 PM
marcowargamer also has a pretty good video example of Federation Commander game play on his Youtube channel.


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BanzaiCat

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Reply #11 on: March 04, 2019, 07:04:58 AM
The core rule book is only $18 US on Amazon. Hmm...  :nerd:

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mirth

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Reply #12 on: March 04, 2019, 07:31:57 AM
Think I'm going to dig out my FASA starship combat rules. That was a pretty decent system and I have a bunch of nice looking ship counters for it.

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Bison

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Reply #13 on: March 04, 2019, 08:07:44 AM
I vaguely remember trying the FASA rules back in the 80s...



mirth

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Reply #14 on: March 04, 2019, 09:16:47 AM
They aren't bad rules. Basically a streamlined version of SFB. Still have power allocation,etc.  We did a cool thing were we would layer it in to our RPGs. When it came time for ship combat, we'd break out the hex mat and counters. Each player would get a chart for their "station". The Captain would issue orders and it was up to the rest of the crew to execute them as best possible while also reporting back to the Captain. The GM would usually run the OpFor. Sometimes we would have extra players for it so we could have two "crews" fighting it out.  Was a fun way of combining the RPG with the ship combat.

Being able to Google shit better than your clients is a legit career skill.