Federation Commander

A game that evokes Star Fleet Battles while being way simpler. [Link]

On the whole, I am rather impressed with theFederation Commander rules. It actually took me years to get the hang of Star Fleet Battles. (I would read the rules and make notes on everything. I’d have pages and pages of notes, and when I did finally play, my cheat sheets were always several pages long.) The one overriding principle of Federation Commander’s design is to maintain the overall thrust of Star Fleet Battles while eliminating anything related to record keeping or plotting. I think they succeeded admirably.
They realized during development that they could not improve the game by reducing the number of impulses in a turn. Car Wars, for instance went from having 10 phase turns to 5 phases and on down to 3 phases in the last edition. Three phase movement sacrificed a great way too much granularity it’s clear that the designers could not accept that here. On the other hand, iterating through the byzantine impulse sequence 32 times in a turn is downright unworkable in game designed for today’s market. Their solution was to reduce the number of fire opportunities down to a quarter of that. Each “impulse” now has four sub-pulses that consist of just movement. The sub-pulses play out quickly; the overall tempo and feel of the combats are maintained while a lot of extraneous decision making is quietly let go. It works.
It’s the little things that clinch the deal, though. Like not having to strain my eyes finding the ship’s turn mode given a current speed. (With the ship limited to three different “gears”, it’s a lot easier to reference your turn mode on the fly.) Stupid stuff like the Kauffman Retrograde are not possible in this system due to backwards movement being changed to cost twice as much. Mid-turn speed changes (which were a huge headache in Star Fleet Battles and were essential to mastering tournament style play) are now so drop-dead simple to implement that you’ll be teaching the rule for it in your first game. (All you do is pay a point of energy on any impulse to temporarily speed up or slow down.) Anything I had to look up often in the old game is either eliminated or simplified– for instance, if a direct fire weapon cuts directly across a shield boundary, the defender chooses which one is hit.
Some aspects of the classic simulation are gone. You don’t energize phasers anymore. The various weapons status levels seem to be gone. The difference between warp and impulse power is gone. The plethora of refits available on each hull are gone. (Okay, I do miss those… but I will not miss explaining them to new players. The first games of Star Fleet Battles almost always have something go wrong because reviewing which shaded boxes are in play inevitably lead to confusion.) Even the old “impulse of decision” and “impulse of truth” bits are gone.
I admit, I still have this dream to someday play epic games of Star Fleet Battles with scads of fighters, seeking weapons, and PF’s on the board. I actually want to try it as the fleet game it is so obviously intended to be. (The ISC ship designs only really make sense in the context of fleet battles, after all.) Nevertheless, I am gobsmacked when I peruse the Federation Commander rules and see that stuff like Stingers, Cloaks, and ESG’s only take a page or two to explain. Star Fleet Battles still defines the setting for me, but this newer variant is far more likely to see actual play at the table top. It almost makes me sad….