"5th Frontier War - Playable, and useful for Campaigns?" Topic

I'd like to know people's opinions of the Traveller boardgame, 5th Frontier War, by GDW.

Is it playable, or simply too large a behemoth, due to all of the counters included in the game?

Are most of the counters used in the game, at one time, or are a much smaller number of the 720 counters available used?

Are there scenarios for limited wars/conflicts, or only the full on campaign battle?

Have any of you used this game, in conjunction with Full Thrust, or other rules, for setting up and playing linked battles on the tabletop, with miniatures?

If so, do you think it worked well, or are there better options available instead?

Any info you are willing to share will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Rob

Rob,

5FW is a brilliantly concieved game, but requires patience adn most especially planning.. its not the kin of game you can sit down with unless both players are committed to a hard slog. (me, ive started 3 and finished 2)

as for running it in teams.. nice idea but there just are not the people around and the time to do it.

Celesticon ran a 5FW room for players to pre-arrange games and plan *before* arriving last year or the year before..

a a boardgame its playable, just. add FT to it and eventually you'll both be wearing bandanas and re-enacting a scene from the deerhunter with S&W.

Playing FT with "pocket empires".. there lies madness dont even think it.

scale down. eliminate paperwork joyously, like sally fowler and rod blaine took a torch to king peters gift. detail an complexity are a campaigns enemy.

to be a success a tabletop combat reslution system HAS to have a matching abstract system to resolve combats where you dont have time or the players are distant (and these days odds are you and I will both only find campaign players over the net, tastes have changed and 5FW players like us are cardboard grognards)

luckily before Dom mooney did Power projection:fleet, Dom did a set of rues called "Fifth Milennium" (DMFM) that did just this, incorporated bits of 5FW, TCS, imperium and at one stage a waddington game called 4000AD..
I've got the PDF of it if you want it.
its a clear precursor to PP:F but benefits from a abstract resolution system which PP:F doesnt have. i

t DOES have economics in "imperium" detail.

the NZ Stellar conquest campaign solves the TCS detail problem by converting resource points to FT points.

you can get DMFM or imperium going with FT by taking the same approach

there' some FT/campaigny options.. but my advice would be to look at the power projection campaign system, the imperium and dark nebula boardgame or Trillion Credit Squadron(which PP:F has effectively superseded)
see also
link

PP:F requires High guard book 5 or other traveller design systems to get a design and then use conversion rules in PP:F to getan "FT" design.

theres also a good effort on an NZ site using stellar conquest. it tookplotting rules and worked well, it has the mark of a good campaign,; it LASTED.

Scale down. keep your maps small and constrained.

5FW's scale is too big for a FT game, although that doesnt mean we cant use stuff from it,

always happy to help and even join in if someone gets something going.. myself I think Dom mooney nailed the campaign system in PP:F.. orbits and the best of the 5FW mechanics and the best of FT,

Did I mention Scale down. keep your maps small and constrained.
Good :)

add a abstract resolution system to PP:F, by blending it with DMFM, or the 5FW/imperium combat systems and you'll get close to something working.
if you do, call me; I want to play.

Warp war is worth looking at: if you want to play a warp war campaign, call me too, I'll play! it has the kind of siple systems suitable to FT campaigning and using WW as a "abstract" resolution system.

the keys are:
constrained maps,
stupid simple economics if you have to have them at all,
set OBs/limited construction by campaign/scenario
political constraints (great powers sue for peace, not fight to the last rivet.. see the glory point scale)

look to imperium/dark nebula for the answers here; there's a reason imperium is a classic

A good rule of thumb is: if you even THINK of using a spreadsheet,the campaign/scenario design needs refactoring.

although the tigress has a bloody ridiculously massive SSD in PP:F, save time and just end the game when it turns up on table!

havent run one of the PP:F camapigns yet, love to get in on one.

What BobBlanchett says.

Back in the day when it came out early '80's, a friend and I played it round the clock and then some – a 34 hour marathon which ended up with, after much back and forth in terms of territory gains and losses, little change in the original borders. Both sides (players) agreed to end the war due to exhaustion.

I was younger then.

Yep, same experiences for me. I loved the game when I was in my early 20s, but could not handle it in my old age. I don't recall a game where someone actually won. We played it in conjunction with the rpg.

I played it from the outset and enjoyed it immensely. That was in college when I had far more time. The best way to do it, in my experience is multiple-blind pbm with a referee.

You may want to use Imperium from the same company for a Full Thrust campaign. It was a bit more manageable from my memory.

You could also look at the redo of Imperium by Avalanche Press.

@MRC
no offense
I'd rather HAVE a Martian Root Canal than play Avalanche 3I.

so would the guys at avalanche, I think :)
it was borken out of the box.. nice componentry though,

I still prefer "GDWed" counters meself.

stick to imperium, maybe add in the camino mods for ground combat or the variant ships.. maaaybe add tech advances (yes folks imperium had lots of variant rules, even in Dragon magazine :)

but design the ships for FT up front before the campaign starts.

Man, its one of those things you just WANT to work… a star spanning war, economic, social and military controls… grand strategy and tactical combats! Oh how we love war, just a bit too much.

I hope you get a chance to convince others and get this rolling. I would love to hear about the end results.

I can't speak from experience on these games for sure but it reminds me a lot of the monster SFB Federation&Empire games we played.
They where "weekend" events as well. From the first Klingon ships rolling over that first row of Kzinti Battlestations to the last Gorn attack on the Romulan capital and those pesky hydrans that reminded you of the spanish during the napoleonic wars constantly bleeding the coalition. And the B-10's, what is it with klingon players and their obsession with battleships, must be a sexual thing:)
Very fun but very long. But atleast those games did have a winner and loser. A few games the Fed capital fell to combined lyran, klingon attacks, other times the Romulans and Klingons got their butts handed to them.

Travis

Imperium from Avalanche Press, while having beautiful counters and map, pales in comparison to the old version in terms of rules/play. The old Imperium is ideal for campaigns as you can have each ship built represented in Full Thrust or any other set of miniatures rules.

If you want to get into the political/social/taxation type of space campaign the old game by Metagaming/Task Force called Godsfire would fit the bill. It's hard fighting enemies, putting down revolts on different continents on planets, and managing economies all at the same time!

another vote for the old GDW version of Imperium (yes I too have the avalanche version but it remains a pretty but unused game whereas my imperium served as a solo campaign for me after college and as the basis for a FT campaign (once I get to it ---you know the drill! LOL)

Other games lend themselves to a campaign level above Full Thrust, depending on what type of overall setting you want.

A few that come to mind are Starfire's campaign system, and the old Metagaming titles "Warpwar", "Godsfire" (or "Holy War"), and "Stellar Conquest".

Back when I was in college, we would meet at a friend's home once a week and play 5FW for three or four hours for three or four weeks.

In between games we would place a glass pane on the game to preserve it.

The Zhodani once came within one half of one point for an automatic victory – that was exciting.

Keith F.

Ahhh…5FW. Played it twice and never finished the bloody thing.

Imperium is definitely the way to go. I've got two copies of the old GDW game. Perfect balance of detail and playability.

Thanks for all of the info gents.

I really appreciate it.

I have Imperium safely tucked away somewhere, and just recently acquired a copy of Dark Nebula, so will have to give those a try.

My only concern with Imperium is that the campaign will be pretty much a frontal attack type affair, with little maneuvering, and/or room for strikes on home worlds from a different direction than through the front door, if I recall correctly.

Perhaps I am mistaken on that, but I seem to recall a limited number of attack routes for the vessels to use.

I may try using either Imperium, and/or DN, and making up my own sector maps, with multiple attack routes, andwith varying victory points for planets. That might work reasonably well.

Bob, thanks for the very detailed reply. I really appreciate it, and have sent you a PM about 5th Millennium.
I'd love a copy of your PDF for that.

I'm also interested in hearing more about Pocket Empires, and Power Projection Fleet, if anyone cares to provide more info about those systems. I have never heard of either one before.

Of special interest are rules and game systems for star-system/planetary assaults and defenses.

Best regards,

Rob

My buddy and I managed to get through the inital counter set-up twice. That was as far as we ever got with 5FW :(

Rob,

Imperium's map is a case of military geograpgy dictating the obvious in a campaign. (the map is half parsec/hex the routes are J1 or J2 its VERY small by traveller scales you may be used to; 5FW is huge in comparison)

Space campaigns are ALL about choke points and thats why 5FW required such planning.

Dark Nebula has parts of its map without routes and variable modular map placement..its geomorphic/tessalatable

They need to be discovered – a feature of most roll your own warp war campaigns.

I added to my post above a bit after initially submitting it… PP:F you can get from BITS.. at powerprojection.net or I think from Ad Astra, too

Pocket Empires was a T4 supplement and suffers what I call "Traveller supplement porn"… you read it going.. "waaagh itd be great to get this baby going" but you know it just aint gonna happen. it was FULL of tables and subtables for tables; kind of a "Blood Royale" for Traveller meets Asimov's Foundation.

it violates my "spreadsheet rule" egregiously.
you may find a downloadable copy at farfuture.net, read it but dont be seduced into thinking its playable..

keep it simple, has nothing to do with pocket empires.
GDW made some paradoxical games; the ones that were runaway sucecesses abstracted in proportion to the scale they represented.
A house divided, imperium were killers as a result

Europa. wasn't (Operation Torch with company sized uit counters IIRC :)

for planetary assaults you have two sensible choices use something like 5FW/imperium bang you're dead systems or Robert Camino's mini planet maps system for imperium which appeared in both Dragon magazine and an early JTAS.

simple dice vauban style attritional systems are what you need unless you want to reinvent GDW invasion:Earth, which you can now get from farfuture.net

Go buy power projection fleet, then ask yourself if you really need more detal than that i any sensible space campaign.

The NZ stellar conquest campaign is here
link

it may have the maneuver freedom you're after, but beware young jedi, removing jump routes and the choke points they generate will make for a lot of fruitless movement, keep a campaign alive and players and umpires interested means you need a battle generator, let the map work for you.

by the way see my blog z9m9z.lurgi.org for the ships of imperium done up in Full thrust form, a rules integration packet plus some counter/FT conversion rules..

I've done some internet archaeology and rediscovered/rehosted others work along these lines from long ago.

I'll send you the PDF of Dom's 5th Millennium but do him a favour and yourself and go buy his PP:F as well!

I've played Invasion:Earth as well. Drove the Imperials into aborting the invasion with a simple rule – the minute the Imps land a depot, throw everything on that continent at it.

Also, I second Bob's endorsement of Power Projection:Fleet!

Best regards,
Keith F.

um ta Keef :) keep on rocking :)

erm..
Im not sure I explained PP:F well enough..

its traveller ship combat done in Full Thrust.
with a Campaign system taking the best bits of 5FW and Adventure 5 trillion Credit Squadron or "TCS" which is a campaign system for Traveller Book 5, "High Guard".

Ships are designed in traveller/HG 2ed (other trav ship designs systems work too but HG is what most published ships have been done in.

you then run Trav designs through a conversion process to arrive at a PP:F full thrusty SSD!

Mooney Magick!

Guys, all the talk of grand empire space wars did get me wondering. How important is it of a "Cool Factor" that the counters represent/show ships instead of just factors? Is it really important you see an individual type of ship your building or is it good enough that your building up the strength of a certain class of ship?

Travis

I much prefer counters with ship images on them.

Invasion Earth is a great option and at a much more manageable scale.

A review of PP:F that I wrote a few years back.

link

I played Invasion: Earth back in the day. Isn't the combat system basically 5FW (with a planetary map)?

IE is a great game but scaling it to multiple sieges in a campaign just wouldnt work.

IE has system staging boxes for various positions in system and relief/reinforcements elsewhere.

PP:Fs approach to planetary interface is on the money in a fleet oriented campaign. its doable also to use imperium/DN systems possibly with camino maps, but then you need to keep the number of systems in the campaign to something manageable.

There is also FASA's 'Prefect' which is planetary invasion in the Renegade Legion universe.

Hi Rob,

I'm the Kiwi Stellar Conquest/Full Thrust GM. Thanks to Bob for mentioning my game :). Got about halfway through the campaign before it tanked – unfortunately the keenest player moved to the UK and the two local players dropped out for various reasons.

If you, or anyone else, would like a copy of the rules we used, or just want to ask questions, you can contact me either through the website link Bob provided or at davebillATclearDOTnetDOTnz.

I've played a fair way through 5th Frontier War a couple of times, and I think it would make quite a good campaign engine as it covers planetary assaults and SDBs in more detail than Stellar Conquest. It's just a very BIG game and requires time to play.

I suppose if you wanted to incorporate ground action into the game, you could run a series of say 3 or 5 campaign battles on any ground assaulted world and the outcome overall would be a + or – mod on the abstracted planetary assault – this would work in a club situation where some guys want to play toy soldiers and some want to play space ships. Could be a lot of fun – wish I had a local club with sufficient interest!

I hear ya dave;.. as it is I think a pbemmy thingo of motivated space grognards such as ourselves might be the best bet… any interested parties?

there WAS a PBEM attempt on the traveller CoTI boards a few years ago but alas it didnt last

by the way there are openings for Stellar conquest games at "the western front" and "boris the spider" zines.
I've put links to both zines on the Stellar conquest BGG entry

im a borrow rather than build guy as far as campaign rules go; while I like designing id much rather PLAY in a campaign.

I'd be keen for a 5FW PBEM. Have the game. Would prefer to be Outworld Coalition.

@collins355..
save a bandanna for me if you do! me, i'm up for something a little, littler

Bob,

The current location of David's PBEM Full Thrust Campaign is currently located at: link

- Chris

All, Litesmth's link came up for me with a period on the end. You may need to delete that before you see that AWESOME site.

There are FT SSD's for the Imperium game, but last time I found them I had to use the Wayback.

I ended up being thanked for creating them. NOT SO. ;->=

Doug

Just wondered, has anyone tried just using a subsection of the main map? It's about the equivalent of Imperium, with 'off map' rules added.

Or did 5th have such as well?

I know, I know: You've got a copy or two, go look it up yourself! ;->=

Doug