I hadn’t realized that this fun space combat game from my youth set in the Star Trek universe, is still out there. In fact, you can still buy a new set and start battling right now.
I remember huge complicated rules sets with ford out maps and counters, where we had printouts of ship charts. These charts were disposable, and you would use them to keep track of the damage done to your ship each game. For example, there are a number of little boxes surrounding the ship representing the shields. When the ship would take damage, you would check of some of the boxes off. After all the boxes were checked, those shields were down and the ship itself would start to take damage.
It is true that there are a lot of rules. Tons of rules. That’s cool, I can understand that. You don’t need to know all of the rules to play and have fun. After learning the basics, you can add more if you want. After all, you are wargaming in a universe that doesn’t as yet exist. It’s not like a Napoleonic battle, where everything is based upon real troop capabilities and real weapons. We’ve never participated in real starship combat, none of these weapons exist yet. Everything is based upon physics, but it is Star Trek physics. Future physics. So it takes a lot of rules to explain a whole universe. Luckily,you don’t need to understand an entire universe in order to blow each other up.
There are multiple races in the Star Fleet Battles basic game including the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholians, and Orion. Each race has their own unique weapons and ships, ready to do battle in a future filled with peace.
In addition to this, there are multipe modules, rolepaying rules, and they are even still publishing the Captain’s Log magazine.
It’s time to go back to the future! I’m ready to give Star Fleet Battles another go!
The game is published by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. (No longer published by Task Force Games). You can see their full line of Star Trek universe products at www.starfleetgames.com
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2 Comments
Ah yes, good old Star Fleet Battles! That brings back the memories. I remember playing as the Gorn for some strange reason. I don’t know why they appealed to me seeing that they were only in one episode of Classic Trek for crying out loud. Yet they had some pretty cool ships in SFB.
Funny thing is I could have sworn it was a zip lock bagged game from Task Force Games when we first picked it up in around 1982 or so. Yet in a recent email I received from Stephen Cole, at Amarillo, he pointed out that SFB was a boxed game as of 1979 so our memories must be kind of screwy.
Elliott or James (or anyone stopping by) might be able to either confirm or deny this but weren’t the expansions zip locked? Or were they just little free standing books? I thought they were bagged because they came with new ship counters and such.
One thing I certainly do remember is that we had a blast playing SFB (Elliott was ALWAYS the Federation!) and we had just about everything Task Force released for the game; even when it was just more and more rules! We used to put the ship data sheets in page protectors and use wax pencils to mark off damage and such – this was back in the day where you couldn’t just make copies at home and you had to go to the library or local drug store to get those nickel copies.
I’d love to get our hands on the new version of the game (along with Federation and Empire) and see how they’ve stood the test of time. Pretty well is my guess but I’d still really like to take a look.
Jeff,
SFB started as one of Task Force’s ziploc pocket games. It expanded into a boxed edition (the same thing happened to Armor at Kursk, Operation Pegasus, and I think Starfire). The expansions were in ziploc bags, also.
Around 1984 or so, they ditched the expansions for the Captain’s rulebooks, which came in 3-hole pages (for a binder). You could remove the pages, put them in a binder, and if new editions came out, you could slide them into the rulebook, so you no longer had to remember if the rule was in Expansion 1, 2, or 3 (or the original rule book). They made 3 volumes of Captains Rulebooks and put them out as SFB Volume I, II, and III (each adding more ships, rules, weapons, and races).
In the late 80s, they ditched that system for a new one. I think it is the one that they still use, but I am not sure, as I didn’t upgrade to the new system. I think it is modular in nature, allowing for numerous small expansions, such as X-Ships, Space Marines, etc.
In the meantime, they created an awesome upgrade called Federation Commander. They still publish SFB for those who like extreme complexity. Fed Commander is streamlined, far less complex, and on-the-go. At the beginning of the turn, you declare your speed (8, 16, 24, or 32 are your base speeds). You have to spend points to arm multi-turn weapons (Plasmas, Photons), but otherwise, that is it. When you move and you see an opportunity to fire, you spend a point and fire the phaser. You spend 2 points and fire a disruptor. If I do 10 points of damage to your Shield #1, if you have the energy, you can allocate 10 points of shield reinforcement on that shiled. Everything is done on the fly – no pre-planning. Any energy you don’t use recharges your batteries.
You can download the rules and a simple Fed CA vs Klingon D-7 from their website and give it a test drive. It really is remarkable because it’s easy to learn and turns those 2 hour marathons into 45 minute games.