I have been having a clearout lately. Some things have been on the to “do something about or sell” list for a while and with my gaming malaise lately and the photo studio taking priority I have been emboldened to actually get something happening.
A bunch of RPG’s went to the local games shop to find a better home.
Old School Tactical went to a friend in Hobart, the same one who took my Lock N Load collection.
Through him I have a couple of contacts for my huge Warmachine/Hordes collection and something Star Trek.
Funny thing.
As I get these out to take some (bad) photos of them, I have re-awakened a passion for the more unlikley candidates.
When the prospective buyer of either my Federation Commander/Star Fleet Battles/Starmada/Starmada Fleet/A Call To Arms Star Fleet (yup, all those are the same, but different), or my Atttack Wing collections, I was genuinely torn as to which I would rather sell.
I gave him a good price for AW, probably 25% of what I paid. I went even better on FC & co.
AW has the ease of play, more recognisable cultural support and its similarity to X Wing. Games play easily, get you into the “Trek” vibe with characters and ships from all of the series and movies including the latest ones. I personally hate mixing ships and upgrades illogically across time and even scale boundaries, but each to their own.
Play is simple, but flavourful, sitting somewhere in between the X Wing and Armada scales.
My collection is comprehensive and balanced for all periods and themes. Want to do Voyager? I have it. DS9, maybe with a little Voyager added? I have all but the actual station (available as a deep cut). Maybe a full scale Fedration vs allied enemies or everyone vs the Borg? All good. The first Enterprise appeal? Again all but the “Weapon Zero” expansion which I missed several times. Any AW “period” is sorted, even the hard to get medium sized Borg Tactical Cube.
Excuse the shocking image. All of these are compatible with the counters or minis of the same system. This collection took some building. I had to make up the components of the Klingon and Romulan “Attack” boxes separately due to their scarcity and most of the other “Attack” and “Border” boxes were cherry picked from so I had a balanced representation of about 14 factions with 10-20 differnet ships each and logical duplicates. ACTA and some of the Starmada (in Admiralty edition) were equally hard to track down. ACTA goes to the core factions which cover the original TV series and early cartoon series (all their license covers), Starmada is comprehensive like FC going into the whole Star Fleet universe. There is a lot more to get and it is ongoing after decades, but not by me. I have tons.
FC and it’s spin-offs have a certain old school, deep immersion vibe and the different games, all playable with the same components, make it a system of systems for all tastes.
If you want lots of ships (or 1” counters) on the table, Starmada Fleet Ops lets you play with 20+ a side. Something less abstract? Starmada normal scale can handle a decent squadron quickly. More detail again is the realm of FC fleet scale or ACTASF and FC smallest scale can handle scenario driven 1-3 ship actions in detail. If maximum realism and crunch are your flavour, then dip your toes into the original Star Fleet Battles or even the RPG’s. The basic-intro “Cadet” rules for SFB are denser than the full FC rules which are comprehensive enough for most tastes. As far as I know, their RPG can link in with any of these.
If I had to choose right now, I would hang onto FC and co. Ask me tomorrow and I might flip, but right now, right this minute, it’s FC in all its old school glory. Funny thing is, I find FC, ACTA and Starmada all flawed one way or the other*, but the systems all seem easy to hack to taste.
*
*I have changed the semi random FC damage system to a more chain-reaction based one, ACTA is an odd beast based on the WW2 ship rules I like, but on each read I get a feeling I am missing something and it is a bit clunky (stream lined easily). Most use either counters or minis on a hex map, but ACTA uses an open table top (there are conversion hacks for any to either). Starmada actually changes how the ships act, to fit with it’s system mechanics, but variety is the spice…..