"The Phaser Problem" Topic

Guys, I do not criticize--at least not in this sort of format--how anyone else does miniature wargaming. But I have to ask: what do you DO with Star Trek--or Farscape, The Orville or B5--figures? Great shows, some of them. Some interesting ship to ship combat sometimes. And sometimes nice sculpts. But when I look at them from a skirmish gaming standpoint, I keep seeing half a dozen identical hand weapons and a tricorder or maybe a psychic. For contrast, look at Blake's 7 or Firefly, where it's not too hard to check the usual boxes--ranged weapon, hand to hand specialist, gunfighter, sneak and so forth.

Is this all RPG stuff, requiring a table full of gamers, a bag of nachos and a six-pack, or is there a pure miniature gaming aspect I'm missing?

Tell me how to make a decent skirmish game out of them, and I'll put the Classic Trek away team on my shopping list.

Thanks.

Well, anyone in a Red Shirt will be killed right off the bat so really doesn't matter what they are armed with!

Kim

Phasers do come in sizes, including the phaser rifle.

There used to be a few Star Fleet military figures in some kind of armor.

This is why I find Star Wars and Stargate more compelling universe for wargaming. Lots more variety

Oh, I remember the sole appearance of the Phaser Rifle in the second Star Trek pilot. But never again, no matter how open the terrain. It's enough to make you think Redshirts were cheaper than ranged weapons.

But it's sideways to my point. I see boxes of TV-related figures in conventions and blister packs in the local game shop, and it's always a bridge crew or an away team--familiar faces, but about five phasers and one tricorder or equivalents. Sometimes no armament at all. If someone has a way to do a good skirmish game with that, and not just an RPG--for which I don't have the gamers--I'd love to know what it is.

The problem with relative social isolation as a wargamer is that I worry about missing something "everyone knows."

There are RPG Lite games out there (I'm a fan of Two Hour Wargames). The games are usually quick to play (15-30 minutes), quick to setup with a handful of minis, light on record keeping, and are basically linked scenarios to play out a story. And the best part is that it's designed for solo play.

You come up with a mission, deploy your away team, meet/greet the locals and roll up their reactions. You might gather clues, get ambushed/mugged, or run into some other adventure.

As a fan of the original Star Trek, I have looked at the figures and likewise concluded that I didn't know what I would do with them.

Pulp Alley is perfect for Away Team mission games.

"about five phasers and one tricorder or equivalents. Sometimes no armament at all. If someone has a way to do a good skirmish game with that, "

Well, games don't have to be "KILL EVERYTHING!" to be fun.

Set it up so each figure has to achieve an objective*. If successful, the player gains a playing card. (Each player's objective is to collect 5 cards, making a poker hand (collecting more cards allows you to change out less useful cards), best poker hand of all the players wins…)

* examples:
– Reach a certain place on playfield
– Make a peaceful contact with an opposing figure
– Collect a sample for the science lab
& etc.

"There used to be a few Star Fleet military figures in some kind of armor."

I've got some of those. Haven't painted them yet (for lack of a decent paint guide…)

I combine my space games.
Star Fleet is the Coast Guard. Exploration, law enforcement, border patrol, anti-smuggling.
Starship Troopers is heavy ground combat, add in vehicles, pure infantry is silly.
Star Wars is part of the greater universe of many different kinds of aliens, some good, some bad, some in between.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century TV, Earth based system defense and "coast guard" type missions, limited Earth ground combat.
The Time Tunnel for time travel, makes it very limited.
Lost in Space, first season, for colonists.
UFO / Space 1999 for planetary defense and Moon operations.
I don't use any non-technology, magic, the force or any psyonic stuff. Not even Vulcan mind melding.
When you combine these universes and knock out the spooky stuff, you create a very rich universe with lots of combat potential. Most of the minis are out there and can be repainted and added to. Don't limit yourself to something a screen writer did 50 years go to make money by selling a script.
Have fun, it's your universe.
Bunkermeister

Zephyr1, you're quite right, and back in my AD&D days, I did some of that. But I had a group. Doesn't work so well when you're the GM and both sides. If people wanted me to play RPGs, they shouldn't have died or moved.

Bunkermeister, we think along similar but not identical lines. I've been modifying pre-Mariner Mars AKA Barsoom, to find places for whatever SF figures caught my fancy. It's mostly a Burroughs/Brackett foundation, but Squat bikers and land trains cross the Drylands, and Ewoks and Wookiees lurk in the Great Toonolian Marshes. But again given the absence of an RPG group, the castings have to be tactically interesting. It's a diminished world in which a ratling with a good sniper rifle is more use to me than Yeoman Rand's charming--personality?--but it's the world I've got.

Star Trek original series weapons:
-Ship phasers as orbital artillery (photon torpedos never used for that)
-Hand phasers that can kill, stun, or disintegrate a target, or be converted into hand grenades
-Concealable hand phasers that can do exactly the same as a regular hand phaser
-Phaser rifle that is apparently more powerful than a phaser pistol but is only available once in 79 missions
-Disruptor pistols. Klingons don't need rifles, either, I guess.

I've never actually thought about how to run interesting ground combat miniatures games with that.

Some of it is kind of ridiculous: why would you design a handgun that can be set to overload and explode? Just issue grenades. Can ship phasers be set to overload? Maybe that's what the self-destruct sequence does.

Maybe boarding actions?

So, I've used Fistful of Lead/Galactic Heroes to do Trek skirmish with a Landing Party/Away Team.
Here's an AAR – link

Also, used Xenos Rampant for bigger battles – link

Lastly, I've used Insurgent Earth and based it during the Dominion War.

So, Trek is very doable.

During Covid, I created a set of solo exploration rules – link

Maybe an away team shows up in Core Space? 5-6 figure solo rules.

There was a set of skirmish rules in White Dwarf 18 that tied in with the Motion Picture figures Games Workshop produced under licence. These were a good fit to the Star Trek way of skirmishing (short range weapons often in buildings – or star ships – and with punching still being important).

Space Patrol put Away Teams into a campaign like setting….

link

Y'all are forgetting clubs (conveniently disguised as control levers in the engineering room), knives, killer frisbees, swords, Colt revolvers, stilettos, Tommy guns, 45 caliber Army 1911 pistols, rapiers, some staff with a weighted club head on one end and a curved "fan" slicing blade on the other, muzzle-loading dueling pistols, scalpels, hyposprays, a net, Roman gladiator swords, a makeshift bamboo cannon with diamond bullets, etc., etc..
Maybe not what you'd call standard issue, but all of them popped up on the show…

Yes, we know and have not forgotten Parzival. But in this case, "not standard issue" is pretty much the point. I'm talking skirmish wargaming, not RPG.

Star Trek phasers can disintegrate matter. Armour is somewhat redundant at that point. Maybe for close combat with Klingons or JemHadar with hand weapons but if the shows are anything to go by the Klingon armour doesn't protect much anyway :)

Fistful of Lead has specific rules for using a phaser. Essentially, you have to pick either Stun or Kill settings. Stun (as the name suggests) applies Shock markers to the victim. The Kill setting on a 10+ causes an automatic out of action result.