"Ruleset Suggestions" Topic

Hello all,

I am interested in getting into a spaceship miniatures game, and I'm looking for suggestions on rulesets. I've done my best to search the Web, but I can't always find reviews on various systems.

Features I would like are:
* A somewhat realistic/Newtonian/vector movement system

* Support for a hex map would be good, but it's not a dealbreaker as I can always tweak the movement rules for me and my friends

* I would like some amount of depth or customization on the ships – I like Lightning Strike's mechanism of damaging ship components, for example

* My friends are board gamers, not wargamers, so I need a battle between decent-sized forces (1-2 capitals with an appropriate amount of supporting ships/fighters) to top out around 3 hours

As far as the right kind of movement system goes, I am aware of Voidstriker, 5150 Star Navy, Attack Vector: Tactical and Squadron Strike, but I am leary of the last two because of the angling/rotating blocks. I think they might be too complex and not look good (or work?) with miniatures. I also have not been able to find any/many real reviews of those systems.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Have you looked at Full Thrust?

Full Thrust or Starmada. Both are good systems though Full Thrust has stood the test of time more so than Starmada.

You may want to join Starship Combat News. The folks over there can tell you a lot about different games. I belong and they are a good bunch.

Disclosure: I'm one of the co-authors of 5150: Star Navy.

The Star Navy rules are designed for battles of two dozen ships per side lasting around two hours. You could finish a game with six to ten ships per side in well under that time limit, or a much larger battle could be fought in the duration you specified.

You can customize the ships as well, and while Star Navy's meant for an unmarked playing surface, I know some gamers have adopted it to a hex grid.

I think Starmada Admiralty Edition fits your wants extremely well. Full Thrust is also good, but I strongly prefer Starmada.

Doug

Full Thrust. Easily converted to hex movement.

I'm a big fan of Wormhole. Emotionally invested after WAY too much playtesting. It really only fills your last requirement, but give it a look:

link

Realistic movement is the whole reason I designed my own game. ( Starships, available here: link )

It's the game's primary focus, and I streamlined everything else. It's the trade-off I made to make the game move.

Battle reports are here: link

Realistic movement, ammo and heat/power allocation and no trig? Try Attack Vector: Tactical.

If you want something that's on the easier side than AT:T or Harpoon but still keep full Newtonian physics and all the trig hidden by clever graphs, Squadron Strike may be where you want to go. I know how often do you hear "Easier than Harpoon" as a sales pitch?

Hex-based? Gonna have to say Colonial Battle Fleet then :)

Thanks for so many responses overnight! I've looked at the rules for Full Thrust, and while it has the concept of momentum, as far as I see the movement is all still based on the facing of the ship – no Starfuries or Vipers wheeling in place and firing backwards.

I forgot to list it in my original post, but I do have the Starmada demo PDF downloaded to read through, good to see several plugs for it.

Allen – thanks, I'll check them out :)

DesertScrb – that's good to know! I would certainly prefer to be able to field larger fleets, and it can be hard to find time estimates for these games

punkrabbit – I'll check out the free rules, but damn those papercraft ships are beautiful!

Meiczyslaw – thanks, I'll check it out

Martin – How do you think AT:T and Squadron Strike play, timewise? Can they play well with normal miniatures instead of the colored blocks?

Walrus – Sounds like Battlestar Galactica to me :D How does it fit timewise?

I actually don't mind 'the blocks', but I've met a lot of folks who've tried AV:T, and damn few that liked it. And I'm including Saganami and SS, though that seems to be the most accessible.

If you can see a real explanation of how CBF works, point me to it; what little I can glimmer left me cold.

I'm a huge Full Thrust fanboy, but never much interested in the hex conversions I've seen. I really do find the hexless rules that elegant.

I suspect a version of Starmada (the fanboy arguments about which one make my head hurt) is closest to what you seek. However, just for contrariness, there's a free demo of Federation Commander, the simplified Star Fleet Battle (Steve Cole can bite me) on the StarFleetGames website.
PDF link

Actually, you can spend a lifetime looking at the free demos, and in many cases, full rulesets. Full Thrust is a free download, for instance. ;->=

Doug

Edit: Whoops, must have forgot to refresh from previous view

Thanks for so many responses overnight! I've looked at the rules for Full Thrust, and while it has the concept of momentum, as far as I see the movement is all still based on the facing of the ship – no Starfuries or Vipers wheeling in place and firing backwards.

Fighters don't use the same movement; so, no movie star fighter pilots. I will say the 'vector' version of FT introduced in Fleet Book 1 allows you that movement for ships. I never felt the itch.

As far as Colonial Battlefleet goes, I found these two reviews while searching:
link
link

I really like the support they offer with the shipbuilding Excel sheet and card-printing utility, but I am leary of the initiative system. I can see choosing to move and fire second being an important tactical decision at the start of the game, but once the fleets have gotten closer it seems whoever wins initiative would always choose to go first and preemptively wipe out their opponent's ships.

At the moment, it looks like I'm going to read through the rules for Starmada and Star Navy (I wish there was a demo of those rules!). I welcome any other input!

You can still get PDF copies of Jovian Chronicles, and that's all hexbased.

I forget which book the design rules are in, I think it's in the mechanical handbook. Designing your ships takes a bit of time (I recommend programming a spreadsheet to do the number-crunching for you), but it's quite slick in play. The dice mechanic is a bit unusual, but that's mostly a matter of practice. As for minis, scrounge them from wherever. Ironwind Metals has a good range that more-or-less match the JC minis line for details.

Lion – thanks, I'll check that out. That's a different game by the people who do Lightning Strike, and I know LS has rules for the movement style I'm looking for.

Doug – thank you for the Full Thrust Fleet Book reference – that is exactly the kind of movement I'm looking for! And their conversion rules are done simply enough that I could apply it pretty easily to any system.

I looked into Starmada and Star Navy, and they both use the sort of water-based movement that Full Thrust's basic rules do. With those Full Thrust rules, though, I'll see what sort of differentiating mechanisms any of these other games offer…or just stick with Full Thrust ;)

At the moment, it looks like I'm going to read through the rules for Starmada and Star Navy (I wish there was a demo of those rules!). I welcome any other input!

ATTTuran, you can find a links to reviews and AARs at this link to the category Star Navy on my blog: link

Starmada is easy to mod for vector movement. I use the engine rating, 1 point for forward thrust and 2 points for reverse or to rotate. Then use counters to mark where the ship is going like in this example. silent-fury.com/?p=185

If you want to keep the rotation going you just need to add an arrow to your counters.

Hi ATTTuran!

I'm the author of Colonial Battlefleet. So while I'm a little bit biased, here's what CBF offers that some of the other systems don't.

Tactical depth:
Unfortunately, a lot of starship games devolve to die rolling exercises. CBF will keep you on your toes mentally. . . even though the rules are very easy to learn and use. You're thinking hard about WHAT you want to do. . . not how to do it using the rules.

That initiative system you mentioned. . . a lot of people like it, and actually as you get closer, the decision gets harder because movement becomes more critical. But if you try it and its not to your taste, a couple variant systems are included (we are big on options at SDG).

Unbreakable Construction System:
If you pick any other system, you'll have to make some "gentleman's agreements" about what is and is not allowed as a viable ship design. . . if you want to have battles that are any fun. Only Colonial Battlefleet offers a ship design system that ensures everything is a trade-off. There are no "overpowered" designs". Add to that, the ship design system is very simple and easy to use, and I'm just going to come out and say we're the #1 game for this. Some people complain that we don't have an "anything goes" approach to ship design. But that approach is what produces un-fun games. A structured system is not only more realistic, but also more fun.

Replayability:
You'll learn the basic rules for CBF easily. It's designed to be played at conventions, so it's super easy to pick up. But becoming a GOOD Colonial Battlefleet player takes practice, and is what will keep you and you friends coming back for more.

There's a lot more detail on our website if you're interested. Just go to steeldreadnoughtgames.com then click on Colonial Battlefleet, then click on "I want crunchy details!"

As a side note, we just published a new supplement today! Colonial Battlefleet is also one of the few games out there with current official support.

Starmada AE mostly fits your requests – but the base "vectored" movement assumes you are moving in the direction you are facing. However if you buy "overthrusters" for your ship, it lets you rotate, shoot and then rotate back.

Full Thrust and CBF definitely have you moving in the direction you are pointing – at least the version of FT I have – not sure if there isn't a mod out there for true vectored.

I believe Voidstriker does most of what you are thinking. The game definitely has a more detailed damage system than FT/Starmada or CBF.

Squadron Strike absolutely lets you do all this, but it is complex. I love it, but my group here (who easily grasped the above games) struggled with SS and won't play it anymore. Its a great system – I've designed lots of ships with it and you can do full vectored – but I have may hands full controlling 3 ships. Most people just want to control 1 ship. Oh its full 3d.

BTW, AVT is cool too, but I don't think you can design your own ships for it – and the complexity of that game makes SS look like child's play.

If you want to know more about the design limitations of many of these games, check out this series of articles:

link

-Tim

Dreadnaught pretty much hit it :)

FT works in fine detail on fighters, so you can have a group firing in all directions, and there is a fairly straightforward Vector Movement system. But CBF does sound more like what you want :)

STARMADA Admiralty edition is a good choice if you 2ant a hexmap.

Dreadnought – thanks for providing some more detail on your game's features. It definitely gave some info I didn't find in reviews. You talk about playing at conventions – will you be at Gen Con?

Tim – that link is awesome! I read both series of articles, the overview comparison and then the design comparisons. I really like some of the possibilities in design in Squadron Strike. Do you have any opinions on whether most of the complexity in the rules is due to 3D maneuvering, and is it less complex to learn if one only uses 2D?

Glad I could help.

I have run Colonial Battlfleet at GenCon in past years. This year, I am not running any events. If I go it will probably be as a day-trip or something.

Might run something again next year though.

@ATTTuran

I'd say MOST of the complexity in SS goes away if you drop the 3rd dimension. There are still lots and lots of rules for weapons/defenses/power allocation – but you can actually design your ships to have minimal complexity and then it runs fine. Of course, some of the most amazing novel things you can do in SS is because it is 3d. The way I look at it is to play 3d every now and then, but just take 1 or 2 ships and really focus on being careful with movement and such – in those cases we use the box minis.

If you play in 2d you can absolutely use miniatures, and you'll be able to manage more ships because doing things like determining which window is facing each target is dead fast.

When producing your ship sheets, you can specify if you want them to be 2d or 3d. Making them 2d automatically takes the spherical fire arcs and squishes them down into a ring. It also adds all the relevant bits from the movement plotting cards onto the SSD so you don't need to have a separate movement card for each ship (which could be a space on the table issue!).

If I were you I'd check out FT, CBF, Starmada and SS. I like all of them – SS the most – but I have less friends interested in playing SS then some of the others. Also our group broke Starmada AE – a shame, it was a fun system – but we will never agree on how to limit ourselves or fix the system because the exploiters fell in love with their exploits!

I am currently eyeballing CBF, Starmada:AE (not Full Thrust because Starmada seems essentially that but newer) and Squadron Strike (for 2D play). My biggest annoyance is that Squadron Strike doesn't seem have a PDF rulebook unless you buy their whole starter box thing.

Sadly, Ad Astra won't be at Gen Con either, so I have to debate whether I want to spend the money on some of these rulebooks without having tried the games.

Well an advantage in CBF's favor is that it doesn't require a large financial commitment on your part. The core rules for CBF are only $16.95 USD, as this is a labor of love for me. . . not how I pay my bills.

However, that price is a few years old. . . so if you're interested in checking out CBF, I'd save yourself a few dollars and buy soon.

The supplements are $14.95 USD and won't be increasing anytime soon. But once you have the core rules, you'll be hooked and want everything. ;)

@ATTTuran

This is true. I first just bought the rulebook only for SS before taking the plunge on the deluxe box. It would be nice to have a PDF available. Ken Burnside says that you really do need all the bits and pieces to play the game – but having said that I noticed AVT is now sold as a PDF… so maybe there is hope that SS will be a PDF sooner than later.

The other issue is that when Adastra sells you the game it comes with a registration code – you use this code to register your product on their website and then get access to the ship builder etc. I'm sure something equivalent could be done with a PDF copy, but Ken would have to figure it out.

If you pick up Starmada AE you'll want to also get the Rules Annex – it has all the new ship design stuff and extra rules from the supplements. Just a word of caution though – try not to overtweak your designs to make them more and more powerful – the game is breakable. Starmada Nova is less so, but also less crunchy IMHO.

As Dreadnought has said, you don't have to hold yourself back with CBF. Its also probably the easiest of the systems to design with… and doing ship roles is just fun. I know I can't wait for ALL of the ship design goodies to be rolled into one design sheet for CBF so its even more fun!

-Tim

I think I'm going to pick up the Cyborg Onslaught for CBF to try out something now, and see if anyone runs any games of SS at Gen Con.

Tim – Ken Burnside says you need all the bits in the box to play, but what do you say? If I don't plan on using the tilt boxes for 3D, is anything else in there particularly vital to merit the cost? I can't find anyplace that actually lists the contents.

ATTTuran, Since it looks like you are going to GenCon, take a look at some of the Full Thrust games being put on there. I used to run FT games at GenCon with those guys and you can get a good feel of the game there. FT does things at a similar level as Starmada but it does them differently so it is worth a look.

@ATTTuran,

I think you could manage without if you are just doing 2d. You will need to get access to the design sheets, SSPDF (the post processor of the design sheet) and of course have a hex map and minis.

For your first few times playing, you'd ideally have some pregenerated 2d ships. The box set comes with a campaign setting with SSDs of 3d ships. You could probably get Ken to send you some 2d ships though.

-Tim