Federation Commander


ACTA Star FleetADB and Mongoose Publishing have partnered on a new sci-fi spaceship combat game, A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. The new game is based on the A Call to Arms rule system, of ACTA: Babylon 5 fame, and set in the Star Trek universe of the ADB license (essentially the original series). In addition to the new rule set, ADB’s Starline 2400 minis have all been redone in a new 2500 line and are now resin instead of pewter and are slightly larger.

We are still annoyed over the death of ACTA: Babylon 5 but ACTA: Star Fleet is probably worth a look at least. ADB has a good track record with partnerships and owns its Star Trek license. The miniatures are certainly a big question. Neither ADB nor Mongoose have been known for high quality minis but Mongoose has certainly gotten better recently. The initial previews have looked good and the one picture of the unfinished resin looks pretty good as well (but not as good as Spartan). But how this translates to production pieces remains to be seen. It appears that perhaps they have beefed up and slightly shortened the Federation nacelle towers and they are going to be in resin not metal.

This month is the release of Call to Arms: Star Fleet and the first of the 2500-series miniatures near the end of this month.

Starline 2500 and A Call to Arms: Star Fleet are approaching!
The joint venture between Mongoose Publishing and ADB, Inc. is moving along quite well. ACTASF should be available in stores before Christmas. This will be a beautiful hardbound rulebook with spectacular color photos of many ships.

The Starline 2500 ships are designed for use with SFB, FC, Starmada, and ACTASF, so the ship types that appear in the Squadron boxes won’t change from the 2400 line (and the price for 2500s will actually go down to $29.95). What will change is that the 2500-series ships will be cast in hard resin, not pewter, and they will be about 20% larger so that all the details that you asked us to add will be there!

Our European customers will have the option of ordering from Mongoose-UK so their shipping will be perhaps more “local.” Both ADB, Inc. and Mongoose-US will stock the minis as will many game stores, so you should have easy access to these new, highly detailed ships.

New 2500-series Border Boxes priced at $124.95 will contain 24 ships.
New 2500-Series Fleet Boxes will be priced at $99.95 and will contain 16 ships and a quick start rulebook.

The 2400-series border boxes will also be available (at least by mail order) in 2500-series for a somewhat higher price. The 2400s are pewter; the new 2500s will be resin.

Remember that all of the current Starline 2400 blister packs, squadron boxes, fleet boxes, and border boxes will remain on sale at their current prices indefinitely.

[Updated: 15NOV11]

Federation Commander Reference Rulebook

Federation Commander Reference Rulebook

Amarillo Design Bureau released a new rulebook for Federation Commander. The book is their standard 8 1/2″ x 11″,  black and white, softback format and is 94-pages long. The Reference Rulebook combines all of the rules from the various Federation Commander products released so far along with some playtest draft (i.e. beta) rules for upcoming products. The rules include all those from: Klingon Border, Klingon Attack, Romulan Border, Romulan Attack, Tholian Attack, Battleships Attack, Distant Kingdoms, Orion Attack, Booster Zero, Captain’s Log and Communique. (more…)

Briefing #2

Briefing #2

Amarillo Design Bureau’s latest expansion for Federation Commander, Briefing #2, is very well timed considering the recent release of the new Star Trek movie. Briefing #2 takes Federation Commander back to the ‘Middle Years’. In the world of FC (and SFB) the Middle Years are the closest thing to the period of the original Star Trek series. (more…)

fedcom-distant-kingdoms-cover2Federation Commander: Distant Kingdoms is a new expansion for Amarillo Design Bureau’s Federation Commander tactical sci-fi board wargame. Similar to their previous expansions Distant Kingdoms comes in an 8 1/2″ x 11″ format with a color cardstock wrapper. Inside are two mounted map boards featuring small (5 hex) and large (7 hex) gas giants, 40 1″ and 108 1/2″ full-color counters, sixteen laminated ship cards (including two large battleship cards), and finally a sixteen page rulebook. (more…)

Amarillo Design Bureau now has the Federation Commander Reference Rulebook Draft 3 available in its online store. It is a new Federation Commander rulebook that incorporates all of the errata. The Draft 3 version,

contains all of the rules from all of the products, laid out end to end in rule number order. It does not contain ship descriptions or scenarios. All published rules updates/changes (errata, addenda, whatever) are included, but these items (marked with a star) are the end of the sub-rule they apply to. The original rules text remains as it was, with the rules update added to the end rather than being “written through” the text.

A proper new, integrated, version will be available in stores in March 2009. It will be titled, Federation Commander Reference Rulebook (5th Edition).

FedCom Briefing #1Federation Commander: Briefing #1 is Amarillo Design Bureau’s latest expansion to their Federation Commander starship combat games. Briefing #1 is basically a scenario set with some miscellaneous material thrown in. It is a 64-page black and white book with color card stock cover. The layout is typical FedCom. (more…)

Amarillo Design Bureau just released Line of Battle a new expansion for Federation Commander. It is a follow-up to their Battleships Attack product and contains nine extra 8 1/2″ x 11″ battleship cards for all the races, an additional map panel (open space), three new scenarios that feature battleships, and lastly, a short bit on tactics. The included cards are for the: Federation Battleship, Klingon B10 Battleship, Romulan King Condor Battleship, Kzinti Battleship, Gorn ‘Godzilla’ Battleship, Neo-Tholian Battleship, Seltorian Battlewagon, Hydran Monarch Battleship, and the Lyran Cave Lion Battleship.

This is a nice expansion for anyone interested in using battleships in Federation Commander. The scenarios are also interesting but we wish they had come up with something a bit more novel to include than just another map panel.

A related product is their Border Box #6 that contains nine battleship miniatures and one starbase miniature. Of course the miniatures are all available individually as well.

FedCom Battleships AttackFederation Commander: Battleships Attack is ADB’s latest expansion for Federation Commander. Similar to the previous expansions, it includes a couple of new map panels, asteroids in this case, some new ship cards and counters, and a handful of new rules and scenarios. What makes Battleships Attack unique is that ship cards are included for all of the races, including ones not seen in FC yet (such as the Lyrans and Hydrans). Moreover, the cards are also full 8 1/2″ x 11″ in size. Considering table clutter, normally bigger would not necessarily be better, but with the huge number of weapons, systems, and shields on the various battleships it is a very welcome change. (more…)

Federation Commander Klingon BorderThe Game
Federation Commander (FC) is a tactical space combat board and miniatures game by Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB). The game has been out a couple of years now but we have only recently played it. FC is essentially a lighter version of the venerable Star Fleet Battles (SFB) game that has been around, in various incarnations, since the late 1980s. While we played a lot of SFB in the old days it got far too complicated over time and we stopped playing. We obviously were not the only ones and thus ADB designed Federation Commander. (more…)

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