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Federation Commander, anyone?

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16 Feb 2008 06:04 - 16 Feb 2008 06:08 #2876 by Lagduf
Ok, one question:

During the Offensive Fire Phase of an Impulse can I fire more than one weapon?

I know individual weapons like Phasers and Disruptors (and others that don't need to load) can only be fired once per turn, but is anything stopping me from firing multiple weapons in one impulse?

I think i'm correct, based on what the rules state, and some stuff i've read on the FedCom BBS.

Plus this really seems to be the only way to do a volley of Damage over 10, unless you fire some overloaded photon torps at a close range for 16 damage.

I guess i'm a little dense, but i like when rulebooks spell things out for me.

EDIT: I've only done some solo stuff (training scenario + solo battle between two fleet scale ships) but I like what I see so far. Looks fun. Energy budgeting seems crucial once you start taking damage, have to reinforce shields, but want to overload some torps or disruptors, etc. Good stuff.
Last edit: 16 Feb 2008 06:08 by Lagduf.

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16 Feb 2008 06:14 #2878 by Count Orlok
Lagduf wrote:

Ok, one question:

During the Offensive Fire Phase of an Impulse can I fire more than one weapon?

I know individual weapons like Phasers and Disruptors (and others that don't need to load) can only be fired once per turn, but is anything stopping me from firing multiple weapons in one impulse?

I think i'm correct, based on what the rules state, and some stuff i've read on the FedCom BBS.

Plus this really seems to be the only way to do a volley of Damage over 10, unless you fire some overloaded photon torps at a close range for 16 damage.

I guess i'm a little dense, but i like when rulebooks spell things out for me.

EDIT: I've only done some solo stuff (training scenario + solo battle between two fleet scale ships) but I like what I see so far. Looks fun. Energy budgeting seems crucial once you start taking damage, have to reinforce shields, but want to overload some torps or disruptors, etc. Good stuff.


During the offensive fire phase, you can dump every weapon you have at an opponent. You are still limited for drones, I can't remember the specifics of that, but I believe each rack can fire a single drone per turn. Offensive fire phase is only limited by which weapons have been fired this turn.

Most FedCom games seem to be a lot of maneuvering and long distance shots, weakening a shield here and then one swift crippling blow. Once one ship has lost enough weapons or power systems, they can't run or fight to save themselves and are easy prey. Although it takes a long time for ships to actually blow up in the squadron scale, they usually can get away from a larger battle to be repaired for another day.

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13 Mar 2008 10:23 #4106 by Kriz
Played your first game yet?

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13 Mar 2008 14:58 #4111 by Lagduf
Just solo stuff. Should get my first game in next Week. Got a friend coming up who is pretty excited about this.

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14 Mar 2008 10:04 - 14 Mar 2008 10:05 #4129 by jpat
Lagduf wrote:

Ok, So I have Federation Commander: Klingon Border.

I see that I have multiple counters for certain ship types, yet I only have ONE of each Ship reference card.

If I buy Boosters #1, #2, and #3 will I then have enough ship reference cards to actually play with all of the coutners for each ship that are included in Klingon Border?

This is what i've concluded by poking around the FedCom website.

I just want a couple more Federation Heavy Cruisers and Klingon D6s.

The pics on BGG of FedCom don't do the components justice. The counters are actually pretty nice (well the 1" ones anyway), and the art on the maps is pretty nice (if generic).

Now to read the rules.


You're correct about the boosters. I have an FC list on BGG that tries to connect some of the dots in the product line. ADB, to its credit, has done a better job of that of late in their online catalog/shop.
Last edit: 14 Mar 2008 10:05 by jpat.

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20 Mar 2008 02:10 #4288 by Lagduf
Finally got that FedCom game in!

What a sweet game.

Our first game featured the USS Tom Paine, a federation heavy cruiser, vs the RIS Jolantru (Hello and Goodbye - in Romulan) a Romulan KR Heavy Cruiser.

Good stuff, at the end of the game the Tom Paine was ready to deliver the final crippling blow, however, the wise captain of the Jolantru (my opponent) made the decision to exit the map.

It was our learning game, and I was admittedly a little weak on knowledge of exactly how Cloaking and Plasma Torpedoes worked which sucked since my friend wanted to play Romulans (ironically using a Klingon Ship).

Attacking a cloaked ship sucked, though during a fade/in out impulse isn't too bad since the damaged isn't reduced.

I think the key to my victory came from my use of photon torpedoes. I launched a volley of three torpedoes (+4, +8, +8) early on that hurt my opponent pretty badly, and late in the game i fired another volley of 2 (+8). The torpedoes combined with the Phaser 1s were pretty devastating.

I was almost entirely destroyed by Plasma Torpedoes on one turn, however, i reduced a lot of their damage while essentially firing all of my available phasers at them to lower their damage. I was in a pretty sorry spot after this turn, but while my opponent waited to reload his Plasma torps after this I was able to get some good hits in.

I think the KR Heavy Cruiser is sort of outclassed by the Federation Heavy CA, but I think had my friend maneuvered a little more wisely and made better use of those plasma torpedoes he could have crippled my ship. The Phaser 2's on that KR sort of suck - the Phaser 3s on the Heavy CA are arguably better since they have a 360 degrees firing arc (decent anti drone defense at least).

About the only thing we didn't do in this game was marine combat and stuff like evasive maneuvers.

My friend hasn't really played any more traditional wargames like this before, but he really enjoyed it. I just wish he would play Combat Commander with me, but he doesn't like CDGs.

I can't wait to play again. I think I might buy either Romulan Attack or Tholian Attack for my Bday.

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20 Mar 2008 10:53 #4298 by Kriz
Cool, glad you had fun. How long did your game take?

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20 Mar 2008 13:12 - 20 Mar 2008 13:12 #4305 by Lagduf
Kriz wrote:

Cool, glad you had fun. How long did your game take?


It's hard to say actually. During our game another one of our friends came over and sort of slowed the gameplay a bit. He had come over to discuss our upcoming Descent: Road to Legend campaign with my opponent (they are playing heroes, i am playing Overlord). So we took several long breaks where they discussed characters, what skill combinations they'd like to get, etc. I think they even decided to pull their skills and purchase starting equipment.

So that slowed our game a lot, plus we had frequent rules look ups.

We were playing in Squadron Scale too.

The actual game probably didn't take over 2 hours but I think we had it on the table closer to 4.

I think we're playing again today, we'll see how that goes. We might do Fleet scale with two ships per side.
Last edit: 20 Mar 2008 13:12 by Lagduf.

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20 Mar 2008 13:26 #4308 by Gary Sax
Wow, sounds awesome, nice AAR.

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21 Mar 2008 04:00 - 21 Mar 2008 04:09 #4332 by Lagduf
Played another game yesterday with my friend - after our last skirmish on the Federation/Romulan neutral zone we felt up to using 2 ships per side (and our next game will be 3-4 ships per side in Fleet Scale).

On my side (Federation) were the USS Sam Adams, a War Destroyer, and the USS Macedonia, a Light Cruiser.

On my opponents side (Romulan) were the RIS Gal'gathong, a War Eagle, and the RIS Remus, a Battlehawk.

We used 4 maps in a fixed arrangement so that ships could disengage back to their territory and avoid destruction. We both started out in opposite corners.

The first turn mostly saw our ships moving to engaging distance. I launched two drones early on and targeted the Remus (Battlehawk) - I think during the first turn my opponent made the decision to cloak both of his ships - not a big deal I thought, as my Drones were already targeted on him and they would still do damage (though not as much as I would have liked). During the first turn I also overloaded all the Torpedoes I had (we started with optional arming rules for Romulan Plasma and Fed torps).

I basically made the decisions early on to try and take out the battlehawk first.

So at some point early in the second turn as my drones got nearer to the battlehawk my opponent made the decision to decloak. His rationale was that he would be able to shoot the drones down (since you can't tractor or fire while cloaked). The two drones would have hit him for only 12 damage, which IIRC would have taken the shield they hit down.

This was a mistake he quickly realized because both of my ships were in a close enough range to unleash incredible volleys that would ultimately do more damage then had I attacked him with the drones and all my other weapons while he was cloacked. I was poised to destroy the battlehawk in one deadly volley but fate is a cruel mistress. I failed two of three to hit rolls for my torpedoes. They had to get a 1-5 to hit and i rolled a 6 twice in a roll on two +8 overloaded torps. That was 32 damage on the same shield facing down the drain...Luckily my other +8 torpedo hit and I did quite a bit of damage on the Battlehawk basically crippling her...though she would later be able to limp away. Had those torpedoes hit the Battlehawk I am fairly certain I would have destroyed her.

So after this murderous volley that should have been a death blow I was feeling pretty good. Until I got hit by a few phaser 1s and then had three Plasma torpedoes launched at me.

Those Plasma torpedoes basically ended any chance of victory I had, as both of my ships were pretty banged up, while my opponent had one completely crippled ship, and one ship that was basically in good shape.

We maneuvered for several more turns as I was determined to destroy the Battlehawk and then disengage with both of my ships, and call it a draw. At one point I had devised a plan where I was trying to get my opponents War Eagle to chase my most crippled ship (the Light Cruiser) as my ship attempted to disengage. This left my War Destroyer to chase after the Battlehawk as it moved towards the middle of the map. I literally only needed one good Phaser 1 shot to completely destroy the Battlehawk. She had no #2 or #3 shields! I was planning on destroying the Battlehawk and then possibly initiating the self destruct sequence on the War Destroyer so my opponent wouldn't destroy her or capture her (as he would most likely try to do since his War Eagle was in good shape).

But I just couldn't get the one damn shot I needed on that Battlehawk.

So I basically narrowly escaped with my Light Cruiser and my War Destroyer gave up it's pursuit of the Battlehawk, mostly due to the fact that the War Destroyer only had 1 functioning phaser left.

At least the USS Sam Adams and USS Macedonia lived on to fight another day and at least caused significant damage to one Romulan ship...So it wasn't a total loss.

At least i've learned a bit more about fighting those damned Romulans.

Next time I am going to play as the Klingons and my friend has the Federation.

I really like this game a lot.
Last edit: 21 Mar 2008 04:09 by Lagduf.

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22 Mar 2008 02:34 - 22 Mar 2008 02:36 #4349 by Lagduf
Played another game today.

Me as Federation vs two opponents, Romulans teamed up with Klingons.

I got spanked :D

I had a Heavy CA and New Heavy CA vs a War Eagle and mayve a D7 or heavier Klingon Ship.

Oh well, I learned a lot and this time I didn't get destroyed by Plasma Torpedoes, but I had to give my all to outrun one though.

Two of my Photon Torpedoes which would have rocked the Klingon ship failed to hit AGAIN as I rolled 6s twice in a row (needed a 1-5)...16 Damage down the drain that all would have gone through the shields...oh well.

I think I need to work harder on maneuvering my ships, trying to get in to areas with poor phaser coverage, and taking shots from further away then I normally do (usually i've been closing in pretty close).

It seems most of our games have found ships moving close to each other, and basically just crippling each other (in Fleet Scale).

I'm thinking maybe trying some hit and run tactics cruising at 16+1.

The guy playing Klingons was new to the game, he enjoyed it, and my one friend is loving this game, which I'm glad as I knew he would.

I used transporters today though, as my Heavy CA was pretty much dead in the water (no weapons, only half it's engine power left) so i did an emergency evacuation, transported her crew to my New Heavy CA and then initiated the self destruct.

It would be a cold day in Hell before we allowed the Romulans or Klingons to capture a Federation Heavy Cruiser!

Then my Heavy New CA ran away (heh) - she was in good shape really, but...It was going to take clever maneuvering by me, to win so I just conceded defeat and left.
Last edit: 22 Mar 2008 02:36 by Lagduf.

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