Federation Commander

[domingojs23]

Dear SVC and Friends,

I am very much looking forward to the release of Starfleet Assault, and hope that this will be a truly major thrust/product line of the SFU. I took the liberty of making this a new thread, as I'd like to help drum up as much buzz on this as possible.

Some questions and thoughts:

1. What will be the final name of this game: Starfleet: Assault OR Starfleet Marines: Assault ? I'd love to have the latter (having a Marine background myself) !
2. Will it have walkers / mechs, and "supertanks" ala Ogre, Bolo, etc. ? I feel that we should be open to such options, as SFB / FC have an extremely broad range of vessels, SFMA should have a wide range of vehicles. Maybe we could even still have some sort of tie-up with SJ's Ogre.
3. In the vehicle descriptions in the current SFA draft, the vehicles are indicated as having hover/grav, track and wheeled capabilities combined. Perhaps we could have more clarity on this, and even have options for lower-tech vehicles, ie tracked / wheeled only.
4. On the rules, perhaps the combat table could be streamlined into a more conventional "Combat Results / Factors Table" (CRT) that we see in most board wargames.
5. As there has clearly been a renaissance in tabletop miniatures land warfare gaming (ie WH40K, AT-43, Battlefront WWII, etc), there is a significant potential market. SFMA could have its own line of miniatures, army guides/codices, etc.
6. SFMA should be an independent game, but of course closely integrated with SFB, FC and PD - and even the forthcoming SFU Battlestations.
7. SFMA could even be integrated with the LARP envisioned for PD, as discussed in another thread. Ergo, a PD/SFMA LARP would be more military in flavor than the usual Sci-Fi LARP, (as the SFU is vis-a-vis Sci-Fi/Trek in general), and would emphasize ground and boarding actions, to be played with "Laser Tag" / Paintball / Airsoft.
8. Another potential audience for SFMA is the significant "Starfleet Marines" faction of the Trekkie/Trekker fanbase.

Oooo-RAH !!!

Gary

[terryoc]

These answers are in no way official, just my understanding from obsessively reading the boards.

1. Original title IIRC was Star Fleet Assault and it was going to be a single product. Unexpectedly, interest in this was so high that it will now be a line of products. So it will be named in the same format as other lines, i.e. [name of line]:[specific product]. So now it's going to be Star Fleet Marines: Assault.

2. I don't think the SFU has walkers, 'mechs, supertanks, or Starship Troopers-esque power armour. At least, not in the Alpha Octant where the Federation, Klingons etc all are.

3, 4: No comments to make on this.

5. In the SFU, a squad is a squad is a squad, pretty much. Everything from a Federation Star Fleet Marine Squad, to a Klingon Khad, to an Andromedan robot boarding party, has pretty much the same firepower and functions identically. The Marines probably carry phaser rifles, and the Klingons have disruptor rifles, and the Andromedan heavy weapons trooper is not two guys lugging a rocket-mortar but a purpose built robot armed with a small tractor repulsor beam. However, at the level of a Star Fleet Marines game, it's all the same. So no need for codices. General TO&Es for battalion sized units have already been published in Captain's Log, in the "buying troops as defined units" rules.

As for miniatures, from what I have read, the main barrier to production of miniatures for Prime Directive and other non-ship miniatures is a lack of sculptors. I've seen posts asking about PD miniatures, and the demand is definitely there, it's just a lack of people with the talent, interest and commitment for doing the sculpts.

6. Star Fleet Marines was originally designed as an alternative way of resolving ground combat for SFB/FC. Since ground combat is resolved once every turn for SFB/FC, you should be able to play a turn of SFB/FC, then a turn of SFM, and so on. Prime Directive and Battlestations are at a lower level of abstraction than SFM, so I don't think they'd integrate that well, but I'm sure the data would be of interest to PD GMs and players.

7. See 6 - rather beyond SFM's scope as I understand it.
_________________
"Captain" Terry O'Carroll, fourteen papers published including six best of issue
"Man, Terry, you are like a loophole seeking missle!" - Mike West

[domingojs23]

Thanks Terry !

Here's hoping the release will be coming sooner than later.

Gary

[ThorSilver]

Add me to the list of people who are super hyped about this release! We've got the ability to play out F&E engagements on a more detailed level with SFB for a long while, and now finally we can play out ground battles in detail too. I can only imagine the epic campaigns that will result.

SO glad to hear too that the game has a lot of interest, and will now officially be a line of products. I'll be looking forward to all the releases; the day I can play out ground battles for every empire in the SFU will be a happy day indeed

Do we have preview pics of the cover or the counters yet?

[Steve Cole]

1. What will be the final name of this game: Starfleet: Assault OR Starfleet Marines: Assault ? I'd love to have the latter (having a Marine background myself) !

Well, I'm Army, but I won't hold Marine service against you.

The product line is Star Fleet Marines. First module will be Star Fleet Marines: Assault. I don't know the names of the second and third modules yet.

2. Will it have walkers / mechs, and "supertanks" ala Ogre, Bolo, etc. ? I feel that we should be open to such options, as SFB / FC have an extremely broad range of vessels, SFMA should have a wide range of vehicles. Maybe we could even still have some sort of tie-up with SJ's Ogre.

SFU has no such units. Given the way the SFM:A game system works, it would not be hard to add them.

3. In the vehicle descriptions in the current SFA draft, the vehicles are indicated as having hover/grav, track and wheeled capabilities combined. Perhaps we could have more clarity on this, and even have options for lower-tech vehicles, ie tracked / wheeled only.

The wheels vs tracks vs hover thing is reflected in how many movement points the unit gets and what it pays for different kinds of terrain.

4. On the rules, perhaps the combat table could be streamlined into a more conventional "Combat Results / Factors Table" (CRT) that we see in most board wargames.

No. The game system was finished over a decade ago. I'm not going to change it now.

5. As there has clearly been a renaissance in tabletop miniatures land warfare gaming (ie WH40K, AT-43, Battlefront WWII, etc), there is a significant potential market. SFMA could have its own line of miniatures, army guides/codices, etc.

In theory, although I suspect you could use any existing minis, and don't see much of a market. If I invested a lot of money in sculpting and molds, I'd be competing with a dozen companies that already make tanks and little guys.

6. SFMA should be an independent game, but of course closely integrated with SFB, FC and PD - and even the forthcoming SFU Battlestations.

I don't see much integration with battlestations or PD since SFM:A would give you about 20-40 counters to play with for your battle group and any one of the counters would be the entire crew of a battlestations game or the entire cast of an RPG.

I do plan it to be an idependent game that works seemlessly with SFB and FC.

7. SFMA could even be integrated with the LARP envisioned for PD, as discussed in another thread. Ergo, a PD/SFMA LARP would be more military in flavor than the usual Sci-Fi LARP, (as the SFU is vis-a-vis Sci-Fi/Trek in general), and would emphasize ground and boarding actions, to be played with "Laser Tag" / Paintball / Airsoft.

Uh, yeah, the smallest battle group in SFM:A would be about 50 people fighting a group of 30-100 people. Not easy to get 100 people to play a LARP together, but if you want, I guess.

8. Another potential audience for SFMA is the significant "Starfleet Marines" faction of the Trekkie/Trekker fanbase.

The trekkie bunch has spent decades turning up their nose at SFU. I'd welcome their arrival but I'd be totally surprised if they showed up.
_________________
The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Steve Cole]

Release date is october.

The talkshoe transcript on pages 6 and 7 has some info about SFM:A.

And this was in CL#41

This project of mine began fifteen years ago with the publication of a draft rules prototype in SFB Module P6: The Galactic Smorgasbord. It was known from that time, and until just recently, as Star Fleet Assault, but we have revised the title to clarify what’s going on (by adding “Marines”) and because this has turned from a small, one-time project into the first in a series of three or four game modules of a new product line.
The objective is a 24th-century ground-combat game which is fast, simple, and fun and can be played simultaneously with Star Fleet Battles or Federation Commander without slowing them down. I have fanatically fought against those in the playtest group who wanted to add just about every “special rule” ever seen in a ground-combat game. I want a game with no record keeping, and without a lot of exceptions and modifiers. For example, I refused to include a “command and control rule” since every unit has the equivalent of a satellite phone and Internet access, and nobody is ever out of contact with headquarters.
Each counter is a group of five Marines (i.e., a “Boarding Party” from SFB or a “Marine squad” from FC, facilitating interactions) or a single vehicle (tank, ground combat vehicle, shuttle, or whatever). Each hex is 100 meters. While you can stack a lot of units in one hex (more infantry than vehicles, but still a lot), only a few can fire out of that hex in each direction.
The game system is one of player turns. On your turn, each of your units can either shoot or move, not both. Shooting comes first (after which the unit is turned upside down so that you remember not to move it), then movement, then you turn all of your upside down units right side up. When you shoot at an enemy unit, you cross-index the kind of unit that is shooting with the kind of unit being shot at, adjust this for any terrain that provides protection, and roll one die. The enemy unit might be destroyed, stunned (turned upside down so it won’t be able to shoot or move on its next turn), or unharmed.
The first game module, SFM: Assault!, includes Marines, other infantry (commando, heavy weapons, engineers, Prime Teams, militia), and vehicles (tanks, trucks, engineer vehicles, command vehicles, and various light-armored troop carriers).
Units will be able to dig in, call for regular artillery or transporter artillery, do assault landings with shuttles or transporters, do close assaults, use opportunity fire to shoot during the enemy turn, and conduct air strikes with fighters or gunboats.
Expect to see SFM:A! in your store this fall.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Nerroth]

If a head of steam develops behind the Triangulum project in SFB one day, I'd really like to see some of the systems featured in Module E2 (and online) be considered for use in this game system.

Several Triangulum empires are noted as using Battle Armor, which provided added protection for boarding parties - while a sub-set of those empires (not least the humans in M33) use a more advanced system called Powered Battle Armor!

Could be interesting...
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[domingojs23]

[Dan Ibekwe]

So is a tank just a tank in SFA:M, or are there Klingon tanks with disruptors, Fed tanks with photons, different ranges, rates-of-fire, to-hit scores et.c?

Just curious, since I'm a treadhead...

Glad to see that conventional arty is included, too.

I may have missed this, but will SFM:A be integrated with SFB or FC? There are things like PFs, GASs and non-Hydran fighters to consider in SFB, and most ships can't land on planets in SFB either (at least, not in a good way).
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We are Hydrans! NO ONE LIKES US!

[Dal Downing]

[pinecone]

I'm a trekkie of sorts, not as far as cosplay and whatnot but a vivid fan. And I don't hate SFU. They're two different universes, and I'm okay with that. Perhaps an "alternate reality" of sorts but whatever. I hope that you SVC don't think that I or other trekkies/trekkers hate you. I'd be sad if you did...

Anyway, I'm much looking forward to this too. Will there be scenarios to simulate real SFU ground battles?

[Nerroth]

[Steve Cole]

Random replies:

"One last thing last I read actual starships will not be on the ground in the first Module if ever they would be bigger than the entire map."

Completely wrong. The starshp enterprize would be three or four hexes long, and there are rules for landing starships.

A tank is a tank.

Most trekkies ignore us or hold us in contempt. I'm glad for every single one of them who likes us.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[ThorSilver]

[Dan Ibekwe]