Star Fleet Battles

Star Fleet Battles
Wargame published by Task Force Games, Amarillo Design Bureau
No. of Players	2-6
Session Time	1 hour to weeks (~ # of ships)
First Publication	1979

Still in publication after 40 goddamn years, Star Fleet Battles is based on the original Star Trek teevee series, and includes the Kzinti from the animated series (because they had the rights to it because Larry Niven recycled one of his stories in TAS). It's regarded as the most detailed simulation of ship-to-ship interplanetary combat, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. The five-inch thick starter book has rules for damn near everything, but it reads like the lovechild of your car's owners manual and VCR instructions. For those grognards that love Advanced Squad Leader, this is awesome, but for those who think of Axis & Allies as a serious wargame, these rules are impenetrable. (You won't need 90% of those rules for an average game, though.) For some bizarre reason, nobody's ever tried to make a vidya of SFB, despite the fact that the rulebook already reads like a computer program.

Actually there WAS a video game series created based on SFB, Starfleet Command

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The game is played on a hex-map, no terrain other than the odd planet you might be flying around, or asteroid counters for hiding behind, but there are rules for fighting near a black hole that keeps pulling all the tokens, or nebula clouds that give automatic ECM defense.

Among the win you can find in this game are:

• Impulse-based turns instead of the I-go-then-You-go typical of tabletop wargames
• Transporter bombs and fake transporter bombs
• Using ship's laboratories to out-science monsters
• Using your Tractor Beams to push another ship into a asteroid/plant/black hole
• loading up one of your shuttle craft with anti-matter and ramming it into other ships
• Wild Weasels ... where a shuttle gives off sensor data that fools electronics into thinking it's another full-sized vessel (this is the "Picard maneuver" that actually WORKS instead of just looking cool)
• High energy warp turns with a dash of break downs and tumbling uncontrollably thru space
• Boarding parties for Capturing or dishonourable Hit and Run attacks
• Surprise buttsecks in the form of Scatterpack shuttles and cloaked nuclear space mines
• Rules for fighters, torpedoes, mines, drones, probes, and the bestest weapon ever; the Mauler. Seriously if someone has thought of something there IS a rule for it already.
• Effects of having legendary officers like having Scotty as your ship's engineer or Sulu as your helmsman
• What happens when the slaves on a Klingon ship stage a mutiny during a ship battle.
• Q-ships ...for those who aren't navy nuts, that's what looks like a civilian cargo ship, but when pirates show up it blows off the camouflage and all the cargo is missile-racks and phasers.
• C'mon, who doesn't want Federation versus Klingons, Romulan cloaking devices and attacking starbases?
• Gorn AND Tholians! And Hydrans and Lyrans and Kzinti and Andromedians and... well you get the idea
• Cocaine fuelled pirates. Seriously. And it's exactly as awesome as it you think it is, until it kills you.

Playstles - oh yah this games got you covered fam!

How will you play? Which race best suits your style and attitude towards combat?

• Will you play the noble Federation? The great overloaded photon torpedo salvo to the face at range zero? Turn your opponents into dust via the application of diplomacy thru superior firepower!
• Will you be a noble and skilled Klingon captain who must fight every turn with his fast firing but weaker weapons? Where one mistake can mean death but the victory is ever much sweeter. Honor goes to the victor remember and dying shows no honor.
• Are you a sly and crafty Romulan who chucks self-guiding plasma torpedoes at your opponent from long range and retreats into your cloak every time your opponent so much as looks in your direction? (until he get so annoyed he either makes a mistake and dies to end the game or physically picks you up and throws your ballet using ass out onto the street where it belongs)
• Will you be a furry Kzinti? Throwing nuclear tipped missiles at your opponent until you overwhelm his defences and he dies in a massive explosion or you run out of missiles and bravely run away?
• Are you a stalwart defender of the Hydran Kingdom? Who's brave but not so bright fighter pilots will die gloriously in your opponents ships explosion after they empty their fusion beam cannons into him at point blank range because how much damage can some silly little fighters cause right?
• Will you be a massive, sessile Gorn? Who tanks everything to the face until you get your opponent is locked in your tractor beams at zero range where you will beat him to death as he futilely tries to escape? You may be slow but you've got the endurance to last. And he who laughs last, laughs best.
• Will you play a Tholian? Who are scattered refugees from another galaxy desperately fighting to keep your race alive? Your Webs will help you control the battlefield and dictate where and when you fight. Plus you know the frequency of the webs so your weapons are unaffected when firing on those trapped inside...your opponents? Well not so much. Sucks to be them.
• Are you a cocaine fuelled pirate? Who, for 4 turns, can out run, out fight and out maneuver any ship in the galaxy! But only for 4 turns as each time you double your engine output they get more and more damaged until your left with ashes and some very angry escort ships heading your way. Just remember there is no profit in dying and your green skinned Orion waifu wants her cut of the booty when you get home.
• Will you play as the mysterious and unknown invaders called Andromedians? Whose bizarre and outlandish technology is beyond anything the galactic powers know. Shields? What are shields? Use the incoming fire to power your ship and move like lighting! Warp speed? Whats Warp Speed? Teleport around like a spastic epileptic on crack and never give your enemy a clear shot! Just make sure to use that power up faster then it comes in or you'll be the next champagne supernova in the sky. The locals may be primitive but they know war and your a long way from home bub.
• Are you a champion of the Greater Good? Play as a ISC captain trying to bring sanity to a galaxy consumed by insanity. Fight in formation with your fellow brother captains as you try to bring peace to a galaxy forever at war. You have the best of all weapons due to sitting on the sidelines and watching your neighbours go at each other like rabid dogs for decades but now your outnumbered and your enemies will put aside their differences (temporarily!) to make sure you never see your home cluster again. Fight smart and fight together or you'll be nothing but a footnote in history.

Example of Play

There was a full 3d motion version based on the Squadron Strike engine in the works, but was apparently dropped.

See Also

• Amarillo Design Bureau, current publishers of the game, plenty of free *.pdf files for download.
• The Star Fleet Battles Open Community, Open and uncensored discussion about Star Fleet Battles.