Federation Commander

I've been poring over some of the empire-specific articles in my copy of the PDF edition.

By and large, I find that the best of these offer a somewhat broad remit. Ones that help to introduce the faction's preferred "historical" fleet doctrine, what kind of weapons and support systems help define them, a sense of how their ships scale from one size class to another, who their most common opponents would be, and (if necessary) point out any key distinctions between how they fly here relative to SFB. In my view, this offers the best balance between wanting to introduce that faction to a new-to-FC player, while shining a spotlight on what more experienced players may or may not have already figured out about what makes that faction tick.

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Based on those criteria, I find the overview for the Inter-Stellar Concordium to be among the top of the class. (That might sound biased given how enthusiastic I am about the ISC in general, but still.)

The ISC writeup provides a great sense of how the Echelon formation works (complete with handy illustrations), how the PPD functions in FC as opposed to SFB (but still provides the same key anchor to a given Echelon), how their different classes of ship compare to those of their rivals (and how each has its own role to play when operated in tandem), which "barbarian" fleets to watch out for and why, and how crucial it is to balance the fleet's PPD and Plasma-S firepower in order to try and knock some sense into the insane empires.

(And to think of how those humble gunline ships get to grow up into true "war" classes once the Invasion kicks off, over in SFB at least. Hopefully the ISC will get to do the same here in FC in the not too distant future. Indeed, once FC gets around to doing up some rules for first-generation X-ships, the Echelon of Judgement will be quite a force to behold...)

Actually, I feel that the larger in scope an SFU-based tactical game goes, the better the Echelon might function in it, if only due to how stacking becomes less and less of an option. The three-ship stacking limit provides more room for the formation to breathe in FC; just imagine how the no-stacking rules will benefit the Concordium in Starmada and A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. But those are discussions for other times and places.

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However, while some of the other faction profiles do well also, I find that a few of them are a little bit too caught up in details specific to one type of play (such as in tournaments), or offer more about how individual ship systems work as opposed to showing cases of how they fit together.


I feel that the Romulan writeup is perhaps a tad guilty of the former. It provides a poor sense of their "historical" operations, and lacks a good overview of how the different generations of starship design (Eagle, Kestrel, and Hawk) are intended to work. Or how their might expect to fare in campaigns, or in historical matchups against their Gorn, ISC, or Federation neighbours (or those pesky Andromedans). It may be one thing to present one optimal tournament ship selection and then ask for a Point Value discount on top of that, but I feel that the broader scope of the Romulan Star Empire seems to have been left by the wayside.

That said, the plasma issue for anyone who isn't the ISC is a prominent factor in the Gorn writeup also, which otherwise makes for a more balanced entry. Although it may be that plasma simply does what it does for the Concordium a lot better in FC than what it is supposed to do for its "barbarian" neighbours. (Of course, a loyal ISC commander may see this as only fitting; all the better to convince the rascals not to fight in the first place.)


As for the latter issue, I feel that the Andromedan article could have benefited from an overview of their most common Mothership and satellite ship classes, and the different synergies which you get from using one set of configurations over another.

To be fair, up to this point in time, there are far fewer available Mothership variants in FC relative to SFB, and sadly no Devastators to bludgeon enemy battleships with (nor Devourers to carve the roast). And given the space constraints involved (only three pages available for the Andros to be covered in), and the sheer volume of unique systems that need to be explained for them (PA panels, Andro batteries, TR beams, DisDevs, etc.), something would have had to give.

But a sense of how Andromedan tactics might vary against disruptor/drone opponents (with those inconvenient "disruptive" effects) relative to plasma-chuckers, or how Star Fleet might offer a different challenge to the ISC, might have been welcome also.

Indeed, there seems to be a relative lack of anti-Andro tactics in other faction articles, with the ISC the only one to specifically account for them. But then, that might be due to Concordium players being exposed to the Andros since both factions were published together in War and Peace, and the relative lack of opportunity online players have to try Andromedan ships for themselves due to their not being incorporated into FCOL just yet (so far as I'm aware).

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None of this is intended to diminish the book as a whole; far from it. It's a fine piece of work, and a very useful resource for FC players to sink their teeth into.

Hopefully, as new ships, empires, technologies, settings, and time periods are formally published for the game system, the time will come when enough new material, and new ways to look at what we have in print already, leads to the "Advanced Tactics Manual" hinted in the FCTM as a future possibility.

Thanks for that. Some interesting points about the Andro section... I think that in that instance, Pat had asked for input from, well as many people who were willing to contribute.

Now at the time I made my contribution, iirc, the 'War and Peace' module hadn't been out all that long. So for myself, my comments were mainly about the impressions I'd got when playing with Andro ships (either for or against).

For me, then, my disruptor/drone tactics, both in attack and defence, had not been worked out fully during play at that time, so I didn't feel qualified to comment in that capacity.

Having said that, I did write a couple of later Command Notes about Andros, a compilation of which which are, as you know, included in the Tactics Manual. At least one of those had disruptor vs. Andro tactics in there.... perhaps that might be useful?

Hello! I literally just registered with the express purpose of also voicing my love for the tactics manual! I've only played a handful of games so far, as I am just starting out, but the tactics manual has made me a lot more confident of what I am doing, and given me a good base to build on.

It's also helped games go a lot faster as I have a "plan" in mind now rather than staring blankly at a lot of hexes! I also thought the ISC section was great, as they are the fleet I am starting with and really had no clue at the beginning, but now I have a decent handle on the echelon strategy.

Welcome aboard, Concord. Before you know it, you'll be developing counter-tactics for the tactics in the Manual, so hopefully you might even be contributing to the next Tactics Manual!

And welcome to the game. You're gonna have a blast!

The Andro section was, mm, interesting. I couldn't help but have a very significant case of deja-vu as I read it despite not having sent anything to Patrick. Then I got to the end and there was my name. A good chunk of that section was taken from a post I made a few years back, and to be fair I still stand by what I said, even with much more experience of them since then. But that was a post about general aspects of Andros and not tactics vs different empires, and I had no idea it was being used until I read it yesterday.

Nerroth:

I'm not really sure what you would expect from a game tactics manual. I see where you are coming from with what you say, but a lot of what you seem to be suggesting is less about game tactics and more about fluff and fictional history. That feels like a different book to me (and one I'd be interested in). In many ways I considered the ISC section weaker than the Romulan or Gorn one. Fed Com is a tactical combat game, and fictional strategic aspects like a preference to attack bases, or having billions of people to replace gunline crews seems a waste of space in a tactics manual. It makes for an interesting read, but felt out of place.

As for the diagram on how to deploy the echelon - if I saw that across from me I'd be planning my victory celebration, fortunately the text does say that you could (should! surely) stack each line together. Otherwise you will just be picked off piece meal. Just as in SFB (probably even more so if it still has no stacking rules) the fictional idea of the echelon does not map with how the game plays.

That is not to say I like the Romulan or Gorn write ups per se, for the same reason you state - it is a bit tourney centric for me. But Patrick was clear about that in the articles and that focus was what I expected of this sort of book throughout. How much space and time can you devote to each empire covering all situations? Most empires play very different on larger maps, with terrain, or odd ship mixes etc. The plasma empires (and klingons) in particular on a large map are nothing like the same as on a tourney map. I've got to rather like the Gorns, I wouldn't expect them to do well on the tourney map, but they are quite tough to beat on a large map (ignoring the extra points you pay for a cruiser).

[edit] I'd also add that the plasma section (separate to the Romulan/Gorn section) seemed fairly generic, and less tourney specific.


On the whole I'm enjoying reading it. I haven't finished yet, and whilst there isn't much new in it I still find it interesting to read what others think. Especially where I disagree

I wish I'd maybe sent in some contributions now that I'm reading it But I didn't know what had been contributed, so wouldn't have been sure whether I was merely spending time writing what others had already added, or adding something new etc. Plus as I was expecting a more tourney focused content I felt a bit less qualified than with a more general/casual/campaign style of play.

I'm currently trying to work out Patrick's stats on directed targeting in the Romulan section. Nothing I do with my simulator gets me those figures.

Over in SFB, there is a separate module focused squarely on tournament play. They even have a series of ahistorical tournament cruisers designed solely for that level of play. (As it happens, the Romulans have three sanctioned tournament cruisers, one from each generation of hull design.) But that in and of itself helps distinguish tactics discussions about tournament play, relative to the various options one has with historical (and conjectural) unit types in the "regular" game.

Now, the line may be a bit fuzzier in FC, since there are no dedicated tournament Ship Cards, and the focus of the current iteration of the tournament itelf is somewhat different. But since the odds on there being a dedicated "Module T" equivalent in FC is somewhat low, I would expect a tactics volume to have a more generalist view - taking in a wider range of play styles and environments.

And while most battles in FC may be fought in the near-vacuum of "open" space, the game itself does not exist in one. There may be players who prefer to stick with pick-up or one-off battles (tourney-based or otherwise), yet others may choose to structure their battles as part of a broader player campaign.

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Hopefully, once Federation Admiral is ready to go, the operational scale of play will really start coming into its own - not least if it provides a fresh impetus towards finding a good home for those unit types which, once upon a time, may have been earmarked for Briefing #3.

Perhaps that release could go so far as to open the door for further Andromedan-themed discussions in a future Advanced Tactics Manual, if we were in a position to get Federation Admiral first. As an Andro player, you have a certain range of Motherships and satellite ships to choose from - but given the deployment advantages and restrictions you operate under relative to players flying other empires, how best do you set up the ambushes, convoy attacks, base assaults, or colony raids you would then play out using FC as a part of your ongoing campaign? And so on and so forth.

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But on the point of the Echelon, it is true that SFB makes it harder to use it "properly", since there are no stacking limits in that game system (though there are ship explosions to worry about). But just as there is a sliding scale of granularity and focus between the four different tactical combat game systems, I feel that the larger in scope the game in question might be (and more specifically, the less tolerant it is regarding unit stacking), the better an opportunity an ISC player would have to actually use the Echelon the way it was intended to be. (Hopefully once version 1.2 of A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is up and running, this could be put to the test in a future expansion volume.)

On a personal level, despite how large each hex is supposed to be from an "in-universe" perspective, I can't help but feel it to be "wrong" from a game standpoint to have two (super)stacks of opposing ships try to fly around one another. Yes, FC is less guilty of that than SFB, but I would view the no-stacking rules in Starmada and ACtA:SF as plus marks in their respective favour. (Indeed, since the latter game includes its own explosion rules, even keeping one's ships in base contact can be counter-productive - though just how much so will have to wait and see until the 1.2 rulebook is published.)

Well I quite enjoyed reading that. I still haven't finished truly, some bits I just skimmed over and may come back to. It did prompt me to post some stuff in the Tactics section.

Nerroth:

Maybe you need to do a similar sort of book on the fluff/fictional history side of things. I know you have done some stuff for captains log, but I don't get that. I'd probably quite enjoy such a book if it was all in one place rather than spread across magazine issues.

The problem with any campaign is that they are unlikely to be the same for any group, Even FA as I understand is not a set in stone type of campaign game, but more a set of bits you may or may not use. So you'd struggle to write some sort of 'operation manual' that would apply to everyone, it would really be a 'fluff' guide. Each campaign we played was very different with different aspects that didn't apply from one to the other.

I agree with you about stacking to some extent, Though given the range of the weapons I struggle to see that the distance apart that ships would be should be that significant, though they do make for more interesting games for the most part when you are forced to think in terms of such things, even if it does start to feel a bit WW1. Though many of our games were larger games (6-12 ships) and they often seemed to degenerate into a much more spread out battles for various reasons.