Federation Commander

Burning Chrome wrote:Well I picked this up tonight and...I'm sorry to say I'm disappointed.

Ship cards are amazing as are the rules and scenarios.

But since there are no ship counters (or the T7 and Fed tug cards) this supplement will be returned.

For the $30.00+ I would expect at least ship counters...this particular sup feels incomplete to me.

Even after I had read the explanation in the rules. Still not cool as I have to rely on other products (core rules aside) to fully utilize Transports Attacked.

I had incorrectly assumed the notes on the back regarding boosters may have referred to some escorts/freighters/other ships for some of the scenarios and that maybe the ommission of the how many ship counters the product included was because it was no longer needed.

I'm not interested in Hydrans Attack nor do I want to pay extra for spare parts counters.

Not a good experience overall, which is my first for an ADB product.

Cover art is awesome.

You may yet have a chance to get the counters in a product you want. Steve has said that Reinforcements Attack will include the "missing" counters in 1/2 inch, and I'm sure you could persuade him to put the other counters in there as well, as there are 140 slot that need to be filled.

Well, the counters were in Hydran Attack, and no point in putting them in two different products, now is there?

You could always buy the countersheet from Hydran Attack as a spare part....
[edit] - ah, I see you have already said you don't want to pay extra for the spare parts - fair enough, but I will leave this post up in case anyone else didn't know that this is possible.

Steve Cole wrote:Well, the counters were in Hydran Attack, and no point in putting them in two different products, now is there?

That's why I don't like skipping modules in building my collection.

Steve Cole wrote:Well, the counters were in Hydran Attack, and no point in putting them in two different products, now is there?

I see your point.

Steve Cole wrote:Well, the counters were in Hydran Attack, and no point in putting them in two different products, now is there?

I disagree.

Especially as that fact is not stated anywhere on the packaging of TA.

Am I correct in assuming all the other FC products had counters included?

Including TA ship counters in TA makes more sense to me more than not including them because they were already included in another product that players may not have, nor want, let alone are unaware of that particular fact.

That way it is "playable" as soon as the shrink wrap is removed.

Ship counters are always needed and appreciated, even if they are potential "extras".

Not trying to nitpick this to death. The whole experience was a huge let down after waiting for it to arrive at the "local" gaming store, the 75 minute round trip, getting ready to play only to discover we do not have all the parts for an "accurate" game. (we do not like proxies/substitutions).

Despite my previous comment about getting the parts as spares (which comment I still hold to), I personally think that - ideally - each module of Fed Commander needs to be complete in and of itself, subject of course to the buyer having a copy of one of the Core modules and of course any 'prequels' for that race. For example, in order to use Hydran Attack, you need to have Distant Kingdoms along with either Romulan Border or Klingon Border.

And I naturally understand that unless a buyer has, say, Distant Kingdoms, he will not be able to use the Hydran ships in any new module to best effect unless he has the Reference Rulebook.....

In order to use Transports Attacked with the 'correct' counters, then, you need to have Hydran Attack, which we have been told was not a good seller, so as a corollary I wonder how many players have Transports Attacked but without the counters?

Now, I am a Fed Commander geek. I have all the modules; all I am missing is the miniatures, and that's because I don't collect them. So I am all fixed up just fine, with all the correct counters. And I always praise the designer when he comes up with a great product* - and most of the products fall into this category ++.

But I sympathise with buyers who, for whatever reason, do not own a 'complete' Fed Commander collection, and are therefore missing parts they needed for Transports Attacked to be 'complete'.

In mitigation, I would say please remember that some of the counters in Hydran Attack were intended to be for Booster packs that have been marketed in a different way from that originally intended when Hydran Attack was published. The extra freighters, for example, were originally going to be in their own Booster pack and Steve was simply trying to provide counters for his players so that the extra freighters in that proposed Booster pack would not be counter-less. And the ship cards in the 'Franz Josef' Booster were successfully provided with their counters in just that manner.

However because the Freighter and Transports Booster packs were eventually marketed as Transports Attacked, the counters had already been published. This is why the counters are not present in Transports Attacked. But as I said I can understand your frustration.

*Please note that this is not 'sucking up' to SVC, I just believe in giving praise where praise is due, sadly a custom which is all too often lacking in modern society!
++ Orion Attack and War and Peace were simply awesome products

No worries about "sucking up to Steve" Kang.

Totally agree there is not enough appreciation nor gratitude in the world today.

Your line of reasoning is very similar to mine, especially the points regarding Distant Kingdom and Hydran Attack.

All understood and make perfect sense..

However, my reasoning regarding TA assumed since most races/empires (if not all except the Orions?) have Tugs/Transports and therefor TA would have been a "complete" supplement with everything you need to play as long as you hade the core rules. The extra freighter cards are a big plus as well. Ship counters vs another map board might have been better.

Anyways...all moot at this point.

This minor bummer in over 20+ years of amazing stuff has in no way turned me off to the SFU...looking forward to the next CL and the new minis!

Oh yeah...and BoM.

All cool with me Nicely put.

Well, when HA was done, there wasn't going to be a TrA, there was going to be booster 94 and 95. Except that 92 didn't sell worth beans, and we scrapped plans for 93 and 94 and 95. Then we figured out that we could do TrA because the counters for it were already out there in your hands.

Had we planned from the start to do TrA instead of 94/95, we would not have done it the way we did, but once we knew what we did not know (that the 90s were not going to sell) we had to figure out how to get it done from where we were, not from where we should have started.

You go to war with the Army that you have, not the one you wished you had.