Comments on: Star Trek’s Star Fleet Battles – Published in 1979 by Task Force Games. Purchased by me for a buck at a library

By: buy aion kinah

buy aion kinah — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:58:47 +0000

Ben, this sounds like a great jumping point. I’ve considered doing something like this but never put it into action. I’d love to see this expanded upon. Given the demographic shifts you have a huge potential to not just have the obvious zombie conflict but also a potential civil war between the orcs and other “higher” races. Then if you continue down a long storyline you could potentially have the rumored wizard collage come into play and rise up against the now standing cleric hierarchy.

By: David Dodge

David Dodge — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:24:17 +0000

The rules in the captains edition of the game published from 1999 onwards by Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) have eliminated many many loopholes, errata and unbalanced rules from the commanders.

However the commanders SSD’s for the most part (say 75% not all) are correct/unchanged (many have been corrected/deleted/changed etc and are snazzier/more detailed). You can download some examples of the updated captains SSD’s I think still from the adb website. Check out the tournament ship ones which are free i think.

The updated captains master rulebook can be ordered as well for $50 – it has 95%+ of the rules from basic, advanced missions and most of the expansions (except for r series of ship expansions and ssds). Id probably recommend that since it is the cleanest up-to-date complete ruleset if you get into it. (i have it and just about everything through expansion R11).

If you play with an existing SFB group, the updated rulebook is probably all that you will need assuming you have access to other players with the updated SSD’s etc. Your counters etc will still be the same as well as the basic map. You can probably copy the race SSD’s you will be using from theirs (assuming they can provide you with copies of the SSD’s you will be using).

Also check out SFB online – if you subscribe to that you will be set as most of the “captains edition” ships are all in the game i think. (not sure if All ssd info is included) Its been a while since i subscribed.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:38:06 +0000

@Xander I came across the Federation Commander game when I was online researching SFB. It looks like a lot of fun as well.

@VIruete Thanks! I was completely, jaw hanging down surprised to find this sitting in front of me.

By: Xander

Xander — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:31:16 +0000

As noted above – looks like you have the “Commander’s Edition” of the game (roughly 3rd edition, sort of). The designers re-released it again under their own company name recently (IE., not through Task Force Games), and the “Captain’s Edition” is still in print – cleaned up a lot from that, and with updated graphics.

ALSO – since you mention lack of time, you may be interested to know that the designers have made another game based on the same license. Kind of like an ‘SFB lite’ – full-color ship sheets on laminated cardstock (with top-down drawing of ship silhouettes as background for them), simplified rules, faster play. Check it out – “Federation Commander: Klingon Border” was the first one in this new series. Very cool game, IMHO.

By: VIruete

VIruete — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:30:44 +0000

WOW! Great story. That’s the biggest bargain ever! And what a cool bonus items you got. I can imagine the excitement :h) Sometimes I buy hometaped TV VHS with no label just to have some fun looking what was taped.

Congratulations for the find… It seems that the propietary was a Star Trek Fan, but probably found the game too complicated.
I don’t know if I would punch it. It survived that way for 30 years! Who am I (or you) to put an end to that?

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:44:59 +0000

Hey Lee,

Thanks for the info! Much appreciated as I like to know what it is I have. :)

By: Lee Hanna

Lee Hanna — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:45:16 +0000

I’m a long-time SFB’er, and I have seen one and all of those components.
That Master Ship Chart should have been native to the game, not homemade. It looks like you have an early-mid-80’s box there. The Commander’s Edition rulebook is the third(?) edition of the rules, the tractor-fed ship chart came with it.