Federation Commander

FC is not SFB lite

Federation Commander (FC) is a great game in its own right. In many ways Star Fleet Battles (SFB) is also great, but they seem to excel in different areas. FC gives more of a "you are the Captain" feel, while SFB is very much a simulator where you are the captain, science officer, doctor and engineer all at once. FC plays quickly enough to get an entire game done in about three or four hours. The game has two "scales" and they are "squadron scale" and "fleet scale". Squadron scale is intended for smaller engagements (1-on-1 up to about six ships), and fleet scale is anything larger. Either one can be used depending on time/space/player experience considerations. Fleet scale ships have half the "items" or "boxes" on them. The weapons still do full damage so ships get crippled very quickly. This works because in a large fleet action, a ship that starts to lose systems would withdraw before it becomes a big ball of fire. Also the ships really can only deliver half the damage in any given turn anyway. In squadron scale the ships can fight down to the bitter end, but probably shouldn't.

The rule set is solid and easy to follow. The best part is the pay-as-you go energy allocation. This is the one thing that makes the game different from SFB. The tactics and strategies change over the course of the turn and open up the players to making the mistake of overspending the energy and being unable to perform some action late in the game. For example it is easy enough to charge an opponent and perform some shield reinforcement and use extra energy to get to the right position at the right time, but have not enough energy left for the big alpha strike you planned. However the system gives greater flexibility in actually switching energy away from a planned use and moved to something else.

The turn sequence is divided into a beginning energy allocation stage, eight impulses then a final turn ending stage. The eight impulses are further divided into an acceleration stage, four movement sub-pulses, defensive fire, offensive fire, then the seeking weapon and shuttle launching stage. Faster objects move more often than slower ones. All movement is one hex per opportunity. Faster objects move after slower ones. A typical impulse might go wait, move, wait, move, shoot down drones, fire at enemy, launch a plasma torpedo.

Beginning energy allocation consists of mainly setting a base speed for the turn (24, 16, 8, 0) and loading multi-turn arming weapons like photon and plasma torpedoes. The base speed is the basic number of hexes the ship can move in the turn (3, 2, 1, 0 per impulse). The base speed also determines how often a ship can turn by requiring either an larger or smaller number of straight movements between turning.

Movement is straight, turn one hex side left or right, or "side slip" left or right. The turns spin the ship then move it ahead while the side slip moves to the front left or right without spinning the ship. Each impulse a ship can purchase an extra hex of movement by spending energy and traveling at 24+1, 16+1, 8+1 or 0+1 for the impulse. Ships can also cancel a hex of movement by paying "braking energy" and staying in place.

Direct fire combat is taken care of by, counting range, rolling a d6 per weapon and consulting a chart to cross index range and damage. The damage is totaled up into a "volley". Then the target can instantaneously reinforce the target shield to reduce damage, up to the number of available battery boxes. Then damage is applied to the shield, the shield gets reduced by the total. If the shield is reduced to zero then the rest of the damage goes to the ship itself. All shields "leak" damage as well. If the volley is 10 or more points, and the shield would stop it, the ship takes one point for every full 10 points in the volley. Once the internal damage is calculated, it is applied by rolling a single d6 and consulting the damage allocation chart. Each roll can resolve up to 10 points of internal damage. Damaged shield boxes and system boxes are crossed out on the ship card and can not be used until repaired. Fire is simultaneous, so ships can mutually destroy each other. Seeking weapons are launched and track the target until they impact or run out of fuel. Seeking weapons hit and do damage before direct fire weapons. The total number of points to a single shield in one impulse from seeking weapons is one volley.

At the end of the turn, there is a repair phase where each ship can repair systems on the ship. Sometimes this can take several turns and will depend on the ship and the system being worked on. Also at the end of the turn energy left over is compared to the batteries and the lower of the two numbers is stored for use on the next turn, when ships generate new power from the undamaged power systems (warp, impulse, reactor) and the total is used for the turn.

Game play itself

The game play is very good. Turns are not too quick, but the eight impulses go by fast and there is lots of stuff to do. The end of turn and beginning of turn parts of the game go by in a blink. This hits the mark. ADB wanted to do a fast playing space combat came and they got it right. There is little opportunity for over thinking except for the offensive fire phase where players must try to predict if they will have a better shot after four more movement impulses. The actual determination of damage and allocating of the points is quick, but does have enough detail to get away from the abstract feel of "points" and such. Overall I think it is a better game than SFB and welcome it to my collection. It will see much more play than many of my games. I think the real clincher is that my older (9 yrs old) son likes the game and wants to play.

Recommendation

The gamers who would enjoy this game are those that like the war game aspect and the Star Fleet Universe theme. If you are a gamer that wants a simple game that has low levels of direct conflict then this is not your game. However if you are looking for something easier than some of the real deep military simulations then this will be a good match. Anyone who is looking for a good solid game with more depth than most should give it a try. Especially if you are looking to get into a war game but are intimidated by the thick rule books and micro-management required by many of them.

Wakemen.com

Federation Commander

FC is not SFB lite

Game play itself

Recommendation

Links

Menu

News