Federation Commander

Recently, I spent a pleasant afternoon introducing some new players to Fedcom. In this case there were two players who were new to the game. I keep running into pairs of new players, and once again I fell back on the Doomsday Machine, which is an introductory scenario that seems to work awfully well for teaching pairs of new players. I can take the Planet Killer, and it's winnable for the newbies, although if they approach rashly, they may find their shop looking a bit like the USS Constellation. A good time was had by all, and they left vowing to get copies for themselves.

What are some people's favorite introductory scenarios for teaching new players the game?

You might try doing a Search here for keywords such as Training and/or Scenarios. There have been a few discussion threads devoted to that topic.

I have had luck with the scenario from Klingon Border that involves rescuing colonists from a planet. I always take the rescuing ship, and give the new player the other ship.

Unless the new player is dead set on playing the Federation I give them the Klingons so they do not have to worry about pre-loading or dealing with defending against drones.

The advantage to this scenario is that their goal is simple (destroy me), I have a different goal that shows some of the rules (such as transporters and shuttles). This scenario is a bit more exciting than a straight duel, and it plays quicker as well.