"How often do you game with spaceships?" Topic

With what frequency do you play miniature games involving spaceships fighting one another?

I never have

Never.

Tom

Not in 20 years.

I haven't for about 6 months. I plan on doing so within the next 6 months.

Used to be a lot more when I was into X-Wing. Lately, I haven't played these types of games. Perhaps in the future, but I find myself more drawn to the Historical and Fantasy games at this point in my life.

I missed the 'do you still play FT?' poll, which I would have answered 'yes', though it's actually been awhile.

Whenever I do get ships on the table at the store, there's a regular stream of folk saying 'oh, yeah, Full Thrust. Gotta play it one of these days…'

Breath-holding is contra-indicated. *sigh*

Doug

Edit: Mind,if I ever took up X-Wing, I'd find plenty of gaming. Just not my cuppa…

my mate and I have a Colonial Battlefleet campaign that has been running on alternate weeks for a year now.

Robert

A couple of times per year. Our group has a wide variety of interests.

It's been a few months. But normally half a dozen or so games a year.

Maybe once every 4- 5 years.

Could be once every 5 years or so.

Never have, maybe, under the right circumstances

A few times a year.

About once a year

Maybe once a year or every other year. There was a time when it was just about monthly.

Funny you should ask. After about 5 years of gathering dust, I got my Babylon 5 collection out a couple of months ago and had a tip top Centauri versus Minbari bash with a couple of mates. I had forgotten how much fun A Call to Arms was.

Never, no interest

Once, twice a year.

Just dug out Battlefleet Gothic.

Was alot of fun.

Not for the last 40 years …

I play Attack Wing at least once a month.

Never

I have done it once or twice, but not any time recently

Not nearly often enough.

Just recently purchased a set of 144 toy space ship models off of Amazon. I'm 3/4 of the way to finishing their painting. Need them for a demo of a gaming table, at Austi-Con, May 3-5, in a couple of weeks.

Bought them to demo the table, but after seeing them, and painting them up, I really want to game with them. I played the three little black book RPG, Traveller, back in the early 1980's. We had a few space ship battles. Had a co-worker who played Star Fleet Battles, in the mid-80's. I always was intrigued with that. I played Full Thrust, once, around 2000. Always had the bug to do it, now I have some ship models to do it with! Need to find a set of rules, first, though. Cheers!

Did a variant of Aerodrome 1.1 with BSG craft,classic and later series Vipers vs. Cylons at GenCon .

At least once a month. I just got my C&C Red Alert KS package so that's hitting the table this weekend (or sooner!)

Now often enough. Gotta do something about that. I have enough parts…

Probably once in the last 30 years. I played occasionally in the late 70s and early 80s.

Once in the last 35 years.

Once in the early 1980s. Since then no.

Not as much as I would like!

Used to play X-Wing a lot, and I wrote GOBS, and a "Ogre in space" "one page wonder" I call Starcrusher, as well as (much longer ago) a hex-based near future interplanetary spacecraft combat game I originally called High Frontier, till someone else took the name. And I have Triplanetary, Battleship Galaxies, Planet Busters, and more on the shelf.

But I haven't played any of these in over a year! THIS MUST BE ADDRESSED!

I get to play X-Wing a couple of times a year, due to lack of opponents at our club. Never mind.

Silent Death a couple of times last yhear. Zero so far this year.

Not for about 18 months.

A few times a year. Would prefer more often.

NEVER

Not in a long time … However with 6mm Sci-fi we can call-in Orbital Support from spaceships, Orbital Weapons Platforms, etc. Kind of like calling-in Naval Fire Support.

we can call-in Orbital Support from spaceships

For a long time, I've wanted to make an acetate table with an annulus grid on it that stands 18-24" above the tabletop to play orbital asset battles that correlate with ground actions.

Never

Three or four times a week, but that does include playtesting new rules or scenarios for Stars & Lasers.

For a long time, I've wanted to make an acetate table with an annulus grid on it that stands 18-24" above the tabletop to play orbital asset battles that correlate with ground actions.

Of course like I said it's a paradigm similar to naval fire support, or distance batteries way off-board. Just like in the real world …

Not for about 4 years, though I did dig out my Federation Commander stuff today. Will probably run a few solo games in the next few weeks to get the hang of some of the systems I haven't used for a while (or ever).

similar to naval fire support,

With traditional, ballistic, NGFS you pretty much have to have maritime dominance for the platform since you are running a very controlled gunline. Any harassment pretty much nerfs your ability for the precision targeting required.

With a modern guided OTH munition you have a larger tolerance for launch point than a gunline and … theoretically … could be engaged with enemies while firing. Not that this has been done as far as I know. But we do practice for it.

So what I am envisioning is that type of two disjunct battles, connected by the call for fire and barrages.

The same could be said about CAS. But both Naval and Air dominance are two different battles. Than what is going on, on the ground.

Basically all Off-board support, CAS, Naval, distant batteries and Orbital can be handled in the same way. For ground based games.

Based on our experience with war gaming, etc. We choose a set of rules that generally allows @ 25% of your basic force level total, i.e. how many points you have for your force/for that game. To choose units, based the size of the game, on the scenario, etc. You can take/buy a max of25% of your force level for off-board support fires. Sometimes can include certain type(s) of missiles, or generally just HE or both.

E.g. 1000 pt. force level = 250 pts for Off-board Support fires. So say 100 points for some sort of "special" missile, rocket or bombs. Then 150 for some sort of just basic HE. Regardless of from where any of it comes from. Assets on the ground, i.e. lnog range off-board artillery. In the air as CAS/air strike. At sea or off-board riverine. Or since we do sci-fi – Orbital. From platforms and/or spacecraft.

Okay, this is making me imagine a twotable game, where one table represents a ground battle, while the other table represents a space battle high above. The ground forces could call in support from the space forces on the other table, while that same support is hindered or prevented based on the action in the space battle. For a twist, the ground forces might be able to impact the space battle through assets on the ground. Could be an interesting idea. I know I'm not the first to come up with this idea (in fact, the Risk: Star Wars game of the Battle of Endor is largely built around this concept, though on a much simpler scale). And certainly I suspect that some real world amphibious assaults might have elements of this (with the naval battle being the equivalent of my imagined space battle). Has anyone here attempted such a thing on the grand scale I'm imagining?

We ran a three table battle at the HMGS cons. A 15mm strategic battle, a 25mm/28mm skirmish, and a space battle.

What happened on one board affected the other two. The random orbital bombardments were a hoot. We did not try to keep the turns in sequence between the three tables.

We used Ravnestar's BSG ships for the space piece with full thrust for the rules.

Might have to run it at Fall In this year. It's been a while.

As often as possible. These days, it is dependant on whether my mate can make a Thursday evening mostly, and it's not the three-to-four week period before a convention.

So maybe an average of about once a month at the moment (but we've not managed more than one or two since Christmas this year, unfortunately); while I was working on Accelerate & Attack, other mates of mine were around more and I was playing nearly every week.

Once a every few months, but that has more to do with availability than enthusiasm.

My game room is 50% spaceships – I've probably got 50+ fleets of various universes.

Between that, my own game design, and my 3d printer, I'll have enough toys to play with until I die. :D

Not as often as I used to. I haven't done much wargaming this year, starships or otherwise. That may change in the near future, as I have been looking at my Starmada books (Compendium and Nova), as well as my Cold Navy miniatures.