For me SFB was a great game but one I never got too deeply involved in. sure the average duel between a Klingon D-7 and a federation heavy cruiser could be fun, but with power allocation and massive phases not to mention all the other rules (ECM, ECCM, wild weasles, Suicide shuttles, marine incursions etc..) this game could get bogged down in a hurry. Especially when I could play B-5 a call to arms, with several ships on either side and still have the rest of the day to do something with. With federation commander the goal was to make a simpler game while still retaining much of the crunch of the old rules. This is not as simple as call to arms for example and still very much feels like old SFB.
The box itself is reminiscent of older RPG boxes, only all white with no designs but wrapped in a full color sleeve. The components for the most part are indeed an improvement over Starfleet battles. Starting with full color and laminated ship displays and reference cards. Also included is a dry erase marker, 2 tiny dice, 2 sets of tokens (for the big hex and small hex maps. Hard card map sections (printed with different sized hexes on either side) and a baggie of paper clips. Also included is a 60 page rulebook, which looks like the book of essays I had to by at Kinkos for my euro film class at college. Or like the old SFB rulebook. A pink construction paper cover with a so so photocopied image of the cover art, and a revision number on the front? For a $60 game touting euro production values the rulebook is a bit of a letdown. I can see the advantage that they can change rulebooks and update the pack relatively quickly but the other side of that coin is that the early adopter spent $60, for an out of dated rulebook, while Johnny come later now has the final word on the rules. So unless the rules are downloadable or available separately for rather cheap, this isn’t much of a reason to skimp on the core book. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of good stuff in this book, but I’d almost prefer that they go to a soft cover book in lines with the Prime Directive RPG, with copyable ship displays and charts and let me get my own map, markes and paperclips.
But enough of my groaning about the quality of the rulebook, it’s the contents of that rulebook that make or break a product. For the most part they do not disappoint. For those of you unfamiliar with Starfleet battles, the game is one of movement and damage allocation. Each ship has shields and systems represented by boxes that are marked as they are damaged. Once a ship loses a shield on one side you may begin taking those hits to the vital ship systems which are where the crippling effects of starship combat are really felt. Of course keeping a downed shield in the firing arc of your foe is a foolish tactic (or at least a desperate tactic) making maneuvering a big part of the game as you can see. Each ship has a limited amount of energy which is spent to operate ships systems (such as move or fire) in the old days of SFB these were spent on an accounting like sheet at the start of every turn, in Federation commander they are spent as tokens when the need arises. And replenished at the beginning of your next turn (assuming your engines and batteries are still intact) this spending on the fly tactic feels a bit more like heat in battletech but makes the game go a heck of a lot faster. also speeding up the game is the 4 speed system. Rather than choosing a speed between 0 and 32, players choose on of 4 baseline speeds pay the points and move so far every round. This eliminates the massive speed phase chart that also tended to bring big battles to a crawl. Another odd but cool inclusion is the notion of scaled ships. To speed the game along you may use fleet scale version of the ships rather than squadron scale. Fleet scale essentially cuts the amount of points a vessel has in half and while you can mix scales (not accurately but for tactical fun) the main thought here is that massive fleet games would use the smaller fleet scale. So that players don’t have to sacrifice an entire weekend to run that raid on a starbase or all out attack on a federation colony world.
The game is calked Federation Commander Klingon Border also due to the lack of some species. (Romulans most notably) one of the other changes from old SFB is that there are 2 games in the series (Klingon border and Romulan Border) each includes the federation and a handful of races available in SFB. Klingon Border includes the Klingons Kzinti (cat people), Orions (The guys with the green animal women) and the Tholians (chrystaline beings with little or no patience!) this is one of those 50/50 decisions on one hand it’s nice that you don’t get overwhelmed with new races and rules from the start, but it also makes the game cost prohibitive for players who will have to shell out for if not multiple games, the booster packs which carry more laminated ship displays, and supplements to bring the game from a slice of SFB to the full collection of empires. It’s kind of like what happened to Car Wars when they went to the $5 rulebook format but a bit better thought out.
I would recommend this to people who liked SFB but never had the patience for the inherent complexities of the game. It is a big improvement in that area. It’s also a great game for those who wanted to try SFB but were intimidated by the horror stories of 4 hour game sessions just to fight it out between 2 medium vessels. I can’t say this game is a bargain, but it’s a smaller company thus they can’t offer the WOTC/Days of Wonder level of quality for as cheaply. Also it’s important to understand this is not Star Trek, and that there is no next generation variations. (no Borg, or Farengi here). But if you want a solid game like Starfleet battles with less clutter I would state that Federation Commander would fit the bill.
