Federation Commander

Hello, all. I've recently discovered FC and become an addict. I've already got both Borders and most Attack (and Attack-like) products. I didn't like having to print off smaller copies of freighters for a scenario so I want to order some of the single ship cards. I can't afford to spend $400+ on all the booster packs, so I hoped y'all could help me for now. Which ships do you end up using multiple copies of? Which ones (like the freighters) will be needed for scenarios?

Thanks for taking the time!

It's usually going to be the smaller ships. You will likely only have one CC, BCH, or DN, but you can easily have multiple CWs, DDs, or FFs.

And before getting just individual cards, check out the Booster Packs. They were intended to provide you multiples of those ships most likely to be used that way.

Agree with Mike (The FC answer man).

The boosters were made to match the counters provided in the major box and folio products and were pretty carefully tailored to yield most of what you would want/need. But, not everybody needs every empire - go over the lists of contents and prioritize the ones that give you extras for empires you use (no sense getting a bunch of extra Lyran ships, if you're just not that interested in them).

Like Mike said, it's the small ships that tend to need duplicates, but there are also fun scenarios where multiple cruisers come out to play (certainly, if you want to recreate the computer-controlled ship goes crazy fleet battle from TV).

One thing to be aware of is that with a small investment, you only need to print off copies of ship cards from PDFs once. You can get document laminator machines and pouches for them from places like Walmart. If you're OK with spending a little time making them yourself, they hold up well. I've made over a dozen that way (despite being a completionist for the official published cards).

Thank you for the suggestions. I think I'll need to resist the urge to own all the "bonus" ships, and take things slower. Maybe I'll start with a few of the boosters, plus a couple extra freighters.

We do sell PDFs of lots of cards. Not all of them, but many.

I like to get into games with squadrons / task forces, wherein as in real life you build a force around a flagship (such as a dreadnought or carrier).

Thus, the multiple ships, as other users have affirmed, will likely be the destroyers, frigates, escorts. It simply reflects realistic economics: how many dreadnoughts will a given power have, and how many destroyers etc.?

@ jhfurnish, I am not suggesting you buy another game system.

Just thought you might like to see how fleets in the Star Fleet Universe are organized.

http://www.starfleetgames.com/ACTASFFle ... ules.shtml

SFB and F&E have the same rules for that. Every ship has a command rating (the number of other ships it can control). Your fleet picks ONE flagship and uses that rating, selecting ships as you see fit (within the rules).

For F&E you can do anything like a fleet of eleven dreadnoughts (since you will pay the price of not having DNs in ten other fleets). SFB has limits on how many ships of each level you can have. Both games have "required escort" rules meaning if you have a carrier you either bring along the required escorts or leave those command slots unused.