OK... Who else has heard of Star Fleet Battles???

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Space Battles
21

Ever try Federation and Empire? I remember our gaming group using the strategic level F&E to generate our next
set of battles for SFB. I really enjoyed the strategic flavor of F&E. We had some interesting “General” Wars of
our own. Kzinti’s being caved in to almost nothing by the Klingons and Lyrans. Federation trying to open another
front against the Klingons. And most fun of all, the Gorns slashed down into the Romulan Empire, making it all
the way to and trashing the capital. Took months to play and we left it set up on the dining room table -
but it was a lot of fun.

My favorite SFB battles though were when we did a “Bounty Hunter”. We had a huge map set up on an oversized pool
table and 12 of us were around it each with a single ship. Everyone put their names in a hat and drew their “target”.
You could only fire at your target or if fired upon. If you drew your own name, you were a bounty hunter and could
shoot anyone. Talk about the mind games of manuvering close to someone without shooting, making him nervous,
and then shooting over his shoulder at the guy on the other side!!

We had a good group and fortunately didn’t get bogged down by some of the rules lawyers you mentioned. That’s why i
stayed away from the formal tournaments. I play to enjoy and relax, not get spun up and angry.

22

Gods, SFB takes me back. It’s main problem was that it was waaaay too complex for what it was. If I wanted to play space combat with trekkies or non-grognards it was either the FASA’s Trek for ships or Aerotech for the fighter fanboys. More serious wargamers played minitures rules of one kind or another.

GSB reminds me more of Full Thrust, a minitures rule-set for space combat which had hard points, modules and engines. About the only thing missing are the ‘primary beams’ which ignored shields and armour but did miniscule damage excepting the chance of a ‘critical hit’.