So I obviously failed to manage a weekly column, but only true failures give up. Last time I promised to talk about Federation Commander and I have to say that the game has been a pleasant surprise. I started playing Star Fleet Battles years ago and was convinced that I was enjoying myself. I think that I was very sure that I wanted to enjoy the game but to be honest it was way to complicated for me to have more than a small amount of fun. Now before some Star Fleet Battles player tries to burn me at the stake in the comments section, I think it is a good game but it doesn’t appeal to everyone. In fact the reason I stopped playing was that none of my friends would go near the game. Just recently I encountered Federation Commander and I was told the game was like Star Fleet Battles lite. Now I had my doubts about anything closely related to S.F.B. being easy to play but I once again wanted to like playing the game. So I decided to try it out and picked up the Klingon Border starter box.
After getting home and opening the starter box I knew that this game had some possibilities. The rule book was a svelte 74 pages which seemed unbelievably short. The thing that really made my eyes light up were the ship cards. These beauties take the place of the SSD from Star Fleet Battles and they do it well. Amarillo Design Bureau really hit these things out of the park. The ship cards come laminated so that they can be marked on with dry erase markers which is awesome. No more making tons of photocopies of SSDs for this gamer. Heck, they even give you a dry erase marker in the box. As I read the rules I could tell that the essence of Star Fleet Battles was there but with the capability for faster more flowing play. I couldn’t wait to give this a play.
I manage to find an unsuspecting friend willing to give the game a try with me. So I went about explaining to him how to play and we chose sides and got to it. Compared to S.F.B. this game fairly flew along and I really loved playing. My friend I had used as a guinea pig had a blast despite having his Federation Heavy Cruiser massively damaged by my victorious Klingon D7. I finally could play and actually have fun. We actually played a second game immediately after the first. Once again the Klingons were the victors but most importantly we had a blast. Well, he certainly did as his ship had blown up. I heartily recommend this game and look forward to playing again and again. I’ll say goodbye with a couple of pictures showing the aftermath of our first two battles. Next time I will be discussing a couple of new board games I have played. Until next time keep gaming and enjoy the pictures.
The second time we used smaller ships.
