Comments on: Ask TGN: Spacecraft combat games

By: stormwolf

stormwolf — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:14:11 +0000

“Huge BFG fan here, for the simple fact that my favorite part was the exchange fire of torpedoes and fighters/bombers…what game has that part of play in it? Seriously there was nothing cooler that that moment when you could see the battle forming in the first visible salvos…”

Full Thrust & Starmada will cover all of these things with little fuss!

By: Proclivity

Proclivity — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:22:09 +0000

Huge BFG fan here, for the simple fact that my favorite part was the exchange fire of torpedoes and fighters/bombers…what game has that part of play in it? Seriously there was nothing cooler that that moment when you could see the battle forming in the first visible salvos…

By: stonehorse

stonehorse — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:23:33 +0000

I’m a big fan of a game system called Space Dreadnought 3000. It is a hex based game, with some very nice models that are quite cheap for their quality.

The game is more about fleet actions in a solar system. The game is D10 based, the game mechanics are easy to learn, but hard to master.

http://www.kallistra.co.uk/SD3K%20Rules.html

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:32:55 +0000

I’m putting on a Star Trek Full Thrust game this weekend at a local store. I got SSD from Star Ranger’s page and have converted the game to hexes by halving ranges, reducing thrust by half and having ships turn half the number of hex faces (rounded up) as their thrust number. Works great with all of the necessary rules on half an 8.5×11″ page.

Bob

By: artbraune

artbraune — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:38:24 +0000

Full Thrust and Starmada both fill the reader questions well.

Full Thrust might be a better match for B5 as a Full Thrust B5 game has already been done - Babylon Project: Earth Force Supplement.

By: briguy

briguy — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:04:32 +0000

Personally, I played BFG for a little while, but I found even that amount of book keeping was more than I was interested in. And it didn’t allow me to fight BIG battles, which I wanted, so the game disappeared for me. I have no idea how much book keeping these other games have, but I found trying to remember which of my 8 ships had already lost their engines, or shields, or whatever, to be more work than I wanted.

By: Ogma

Ogma — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:50:38 +0000

I’m an enormous fan of ‘Federation Commander’ myself. I grew up ogling ‘Star Fleet Battles’ but its complexity was always a bit of a turn-off. When ‘Federation Commander’ was released, I grabbed it up and quickly discovered that it was absolutely perfect for me. There is still some bookkeeping (as a previous poster has said), but it’s all handled on full-color, laminated ’ship cards’ where you’re just marking off damage and energy boxes, etc.

It’s a terrific game, especially if you have any interest at all in classic ‘Star Trek’ (eventhough it isn’t REALLY ‘Star Trek’…) ;-)

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:13:38 +0000

You can grab Full Thrust from the GZG Downloads page.

By: Osbad

Osbad — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:08:09 +0000

Full Thrust gets my vote. The rules are downloadable for free so you can’t lose really. If you use the Fleet books you get some pre-statted up ships, but the basic rules are customisable for any type of ship you want. I recall a game I played with Star Trek ships using Full Thrust which had been statted up appropriately - it went well. If you wanted to use the 40k universe it is easy enough to generate stats for BFG ships.

I’ve got a BFG Chaos Fleet which takes to the ether every now and again, but as has been said, anything other than Chaos vs. Imperial is a rather more “fluffy” than truly balanced experience. Although having said that, scenarios work well.

Comparing the models available, as I say FT can use any ships you like, but GZG also produce some very nice metal ships at very reasonable cost, certainly compared to what GW charge.

If you want a budget game, you could do worse than pick up some plastic Star Wars ships and use Full Thrust free rules, as long as you are prepared to put in a couple of hours statting them up.

And regarding the OP point about being “wary” of a discontinued game. Obviously it makes sense that if you reckon some models are going OOP then unless you want to haunt eBay for the rest of your life you should buy up what you need right away. But if you have the rules and have a fleet or two, what’s the problem? Why does it matter if the rules and models go OOP after that point? You’ve got your stuff, what more “support” do you need?

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:55:17 +0000

I second Star Ranger’s as a place to get news and info about space combat games.

I have limited experience in this genre but…

I like ACTA and wish there were more stats for other systems. The mini line from Mongoose is officially dead which is sad for some but no big loss for me as I never really liked the size of the figs.

BFG is a decent enough game but is so grossly unbalanced unless you play Imperial and Chaos that it isn’t a good system

Federation Commander is a nice simplified version of the Starfleet Battles rules. We reviewed it here

http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/?p=500

It can be a bit more complex than many people want and it is a better board game, IMO, than a miniatures game.

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:49:47 +0000

As well the Mongoose Mods Yahoo Group also has stats for using the Wizards Star Wars spacecraft with ACTA

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mongoose_mods/

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:05:00 +0000

The Star Wars game is a good introductory game for kids but it can be easily expanded if you need to.

I wrote some quick add-on rules for the game and they are available on my blog

http://minigamer.bitterwise.com/?p=455

By: CPBelt

CPBelt — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:25:51 +0000

“simpler, hex-based ruleset?”

You could try Wizards Star Wars game. Pretty simple game. Everyone loves SW. The game is collectible, but the starter is a good deal. Buy it discounted at coolstuffinc.com I deal with them all the time. Plus you can get cheap single models of common ships. Base set is $25.

If not, try the Starmada demo rules for free. Pretty basic. I think FT would be too much for an 8 year old. BTW that is the age my son got into gaming.

By: PMMJ

PMMJ — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:34:51 +0000

You can’t go wrong with Full Thrust. Simple, flexible, and elegant.

By: cotedelachevre

cotedelachevre — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Slightly on topic

My eight-year-old son seems to like spacecraft games.

What do you recommend for a simpler, hex-based ruleset?