Star Fleet squadron boxes

[Nerroth]

In Federation Commander, the "Constitution without aft phasers" is included among the range of Middle Years ships published in Briefing #2 and Booster #91; that era is considered a separate setting in FC to the Main Era (General War) ships seemingly being used as the basis for those in ACTA:SF.

Which, I guess, could in theory make it easier for Mongoose to consider doing a Middle Years book (perhaps incorporating the "Franz Joseph" designs?) at some later date... but I suspect that won't be in the table for quite some time to come, if ever.


But one thing I should probably say is that regardless of era, this is still the Star Fleet Universe; one way or antoher, there is always going to be something which makes it that bit different from the Paramount/CBS Franchise material. It would be a shame to lose out on all of the great things it is by getting tied up by what it, by its very nature, cannot be.

 

[Da Boss]

Giving each major class of ship in the fleet section the option of established variants also helps players making fleet lists - ie using up all of them, rather than being stuck with points left over - as can happen with NA fleets at present.

So the present blog describes the Constitution Class as having a Command Variant as an extra 25pts. It would be fairly easy to have a earlier variants - say lacking the rear phasers - at a reduced cost.

Might have been a good S+P article if it was still going but likely some clever SFU player can run of a short document with suggested points values for many of the published variants?

 

[Ben2]

The squadron boxes aren't bad.

You get five ships.

You get a dreadnought, which you can use as a fleet flagship.

You get two heavy hitters (a cruiser and a battlecruiser).

You get 2 lighter ships (a light cruiser and a frigate).

For a five ship battle it's an ok mix. For a fleet battle it isn't, because you'd have a full squadron of heavy cruisers/battle cruisers, one or more squadrons of frigates, maybe a squadron of light cruisers and/or destroyers, a dreadnought with a couple of escorts, because a fleet battle would feature a fleet and the squadron box only has a squadron.

You can play plenty with the squadron box, but it isn't a fleet in a box, that is what fleet boxes are for and they will apparently feature multiples of ships.

If people have objections to the selection and want to play small battles without being tied to the contents of the squadron box (though in a decent sized fleet you'd probably use everything in there) then I'd wait for the book, find out what players are picking for the squadron battle size (likely 750-1000 points) and pick exactly what you want from blisters, or people swapping things from squadron boxes or additional purchases they've got.

One example would be if you only want the old Romulan ships (Eagles, Hawks and Snipes) instead of the modular ships. You'd work out the level of game you wanted to play and get some blisters because the squadron box doesn't suit your needs.

 

[Rick]

I can see Spence's point actually - in most fleet-level modern naval games and sci-fi ship games, there is a mixture of different ship types - 1 or 2 'big ships', several escorts which have specialist functions to support them and so on. Unfortunately, the ships in the SFU work in a different way - they are more like an 'Age of Sail' fleet - almost all of the ships in the fleet have the same weapons, but the bigger ships have more of them. This means that the SFU does act more like a Napoleonic fleet than anything else - with a 'Line of Battle' of the bigger ships and the smaller ships relegated to the role of light raiding or scouting.

 

[Spence]

"Squadron/Fleet Box" (or whatever you want to name it)

A point here: There will be two different products (or series of products) called "squadron boxes" and "fleet boxes".

A "squadron box" is the same as the squadron boxes that Spence had issues with. They will be called things like "Squadron Box #1." The squadron boxes are designed to match up with the ship cards and boosters from Federation Commander.

A "Fleet Box" is a different animal. It will have 16 ships from one empire, and a fast-play rulebook for A Call To Arms: Star Fleet. Priced at US$99.95. There will be a Federation Fleet Box, a Klingon Fleet Box, et cetera. I think Matthew Sprange posted a tentative list of what would be in it a while back but I can't find the post. It seemed to have a good force of cruisers rounded out by a few bigger and smaller ships. That really looks like it's intended to be playable straight from the box.

So if you want a straight-from-the-box playable force, it's the fleet box you want.

Awesome, thanks for the info. Fleet box it is. 16 ships from one race will easily contain a usable force. And $100 for 16 is not a bad price at all for mini's in 2011.

I pre-ordered the rule book today and will most likely order the Fed and Klingon fleet boxes in a week or so as pre-pay is my one rule and I have already used my mad money for this period

I plan on demoing the game as soon as I can get a base paint job on the ships. I think I still have an old K-2 Space Station mini somewhere I can use as an anchor for an intro scenario.

ahhhh...the possibilities 8)

 

[Spence]

I can see Spence's point actually - in most fleet-level modern naval games and sci-fi ship games, there is a mixture of different ship types - 1 or 2 'big ships', several escorts which have specialist functions to support them and so on. Unfortunately, the ships in the SFU work in a different way - they are more like an 'Age of Sail' fleet - almost all of the ships in the fleet have the same weapons, but the bigger ships have more of them. This means that the SFU does act more like a Napoleonic fleet than anything else - with a 'Line of Battle' of the bigger ships and the smaller ships relegated to the role of light raiding or scouting.

My old SFB days make me think of them as more pre-dreadnought/WW1. Which influenced my squadron composition a lot. 1 to 2 relative heavies plus several smaller escorts. Though to be truthful, when I played Klingons I liked to run them in three's. Running three K's in close support was a real force multiplier for me and I was usually able to take on and beat twice my weight normally.

Well way back then, and in SFB. These days I am older, slower and don't have a clue on how the ACTA mechanics will flavor the game and tactics.

 

[Rick]

I can see Spence's point actually - in most fleet-level modern naval games and sci-fi ship games, there is a mixture of different ship types - 1 or 2 'big ships', several escorts which have specialist functions to support them and so on. Unfortunately, the ships in the SFU work in a different way - they are more like an 'Age of Sail' fleet - almost all of the ships in the fleet have the same weapons, but the bigger ships have more of them. This means that the SFU does act more like a Napoleonic fleet than anything else - with a 'Line of Battle' of the bigger ships and the smaller ships relegated to the role of light raiding or scouting.

My old SFB days make me think of them as more pre-dreadnought/WW1. Which influenced my squadron composition a lot. 1 to 2 relative heavies plus several smaller escorts. Though to be truthful, when I played Klingons I liked to run them in three's. Running three K's in close support was a real force multiplier for me and I was usually able to take on and beat twice my weight normally.

Well way back then, and in SFB. These days I am older, slower and don't have a clue on how the ACTA mechanics will flavor the game and tactics.

When I used to play SFB - I favoured a lot of heavy ships with only 1 or 2 escorts (somewhat the opposite approach, lol!). What is very interesting about the ACTA games is that they are different in every iteration; ACTA:B5 was more of a 'modern-ish' fleet mix (carrier or battleship battle groups seemed to work quite well) and ACTA:NA seemed to work well with the WW1/dreadnought approach. It will be very interesting to see how ACTA:SFB works - I'm going to get the rulebook first before I plan any fleets (I may borrow tactics from the Honor Harrington books, lol!). :twisted:

 

[Spence]

My old SFB days make me think of them as more pre-dreadnought/WW1. Which influenced my squadron composition a lot. 1 to 2 relative heavies plus several smaller escorts. Though to be truthful, when I played Klingons I liked to run them in three's. Running three K's in close support was a real force multiplier for me and I was usually able to take on and beat twice my weight normally.

Well way back then, and in SFB. These days I am older, slower and don't have a clue on how the ACTA mechanics will flavor the game and tactics.

When I used to play SFB - I favoured a lot of heavy ships with only 1 or 2 escorts (somewhat the opposite approach, lol!). What is very interesting about the ACTA games is that they are different in every iteration; ACTA:B5 was more of a 'modern-ish' fleet mix (carrier or battleship battle groups seemed to work quite well) and ACTA:NA seemed to work well with the WW1/dreadnought approach. It will be very interesting to see how ACTA:SFB works - I'm going to get the rulebook first before I plan any fleets (I may borrow tactics from the Honor Harrington books, lol!). :twisted:

LOL, that is what I like about a good mini game. Two people can build a working strategy with opposite thinking and still carry the day. I will have to admit that we mostly played earlier era games before there was a lot of technology sharing and certainly before the appearance of fighters as a significant force. A clash between Fed ships limited to phasers and photons versus Klingons armed with phasers and disruptors has a very different feel and tactics than the same opponents with all the gizmo's and gadgets. Early Roms too.

The introduction of carriers and heavy drone ships completely change both the feel and the play of the game. My old gaming group found that the introduction of those two items pretty much rendered the heavy warship obsolete. A pretty close to real world evolution, where you see the battleship is relegated to history and relatively lightly armed carriers dominate from hundreds of miles away from the actual battle. By lightly armed I mean that carriers tend to not have a lot of direct action weapons, instead their air-wing is their primary weapon and the escorts take care of anything that might get closer.

Not that carrier actions are not fun to some people, but we preferred to play prefighter. Battlewagons slugging it out versus landing platforms desperately fleeing as shoals of go-fasts shred them.

All a matter of personal taste of course.

Looking at the proposed (but not final) list of contents in the Fleet Box, I can say they are not my personal choice for content. Way to many cross over ships in each fleet. Feds with Plasma or Drones for instance. But nothing to really matter too much since most Fed hulls look very close to each other and except for name and paint job there is very little difference outwardly between a ship with secondary batteries as photons or drones. That is unless the sculpts are going out of their way to make visible differences this time, which I hope is NOT the case. But I was kind of disappointing to see the boxes leaning more later era than early. No DD's in the mix, just the upstart whippersnapper DW's :wink:

And drat on you....I was going to steal..errrrr...borrow from Honor Harrington.... :mrgreen:

 

[Rambler]

Spence - As has been pointed out in a cople of threads. The Franz Joseph Design Ships (Including the DD and Tug) all would have yet another royalty to be paid out. The may very well be translated over into the 2500 series eventually but when they do I am sure that all 5 ships will be in one Squadron Box identical to the Fed Com Sqd Box #91.

Also with the way Fighters work in ACTA I got a feeling that we may be seeing carriers alot soon than people thing.

 

[Spence]

Spence - As has been pointed out in a cople of threads. The Franz Joseph Design Ships (Including the DD and Tug) all would have yet another royalty to be paid out. The may very well be translated over into the 2500 series eventually but when they do I am sure that all 5 ships will be in one Squadron Box identical to the Fed Com Sqd Box #91.

I've been out of the loop for a while, just returned on hearing about ACTA:SF. Good to know, if a bit disappointing.

Also with the way Fighters work in ACTA I got a feeling that we may be seeing carriers alot soon than people thing.

You are most likely correct, even if I'm not happy about it.

Of course I may not be the center of the universe I'd like to be, so I'm guessing the cold dark universe doesn't really care :mrgreen:

I am glad to see the SFU come back out strong, especially in a hexless mini version...

 

[katadder]

yeah matt loves carriers.
noble armada isnt supposed to have much in the way of fighters/carriers but it does so SFU will get them sooner i think

 

[Myrm]

Born Hydran here - so the sooner I get my Stingers the better....

 

[MongooseMatt]

yeah matt loves carriers.
noble armada isnt supposed to have much in the way of fighters/carriers but it does

Not quite true - the only fighter or carrier we created ourselves in the core book was the Osprey. All the others were in Holistic's own notes.

As for CTA:SF, there will be no hurry for fighters or carriers - it could be years before they appear.

 

[Finlos]

Just did a points cost for the various squadron boxes (1,2, and 9) and I'll list them here in terms of SFB combat points. Basic ships only, no refits or possible drone speed upgrades have been taken into consideration:

Squadron box #1 -- Federation DNG, BCG, CA, oCL, FF: 718 BPV
Squadron box #2 -- Klingon C8, C7, D7, D6, F5: 696 BPV
Squadron box #9 -- Romulan Condor, KR, War Eagle, Skyhawk, Battlehawk: 636 BPV

So the boxes aren't initially as close as I might like but substituting one or two ships for different ships that use the same hull anyways (War Eagle -> King Eagle for example) will bring the points closer together and I doubt this will be a problem for most people. You could also not use the Fed FF to be closer to the Romulan total.

On a related note, I really don't understand the fuss which has been raised over the contents of each squadron box. It's not like you're buying (I'm going to pick on Games Workshop here, mostly because I'm familiar with them) a box of Eldar Striking Scorpions which must be used as a single squad for the entire game. Rather, you're buying a box containing 5 units of one ship, each of which can act independently in SFB or (I'm guessing here) ACTA.

 

[Finlos]

As for CTA:SF, there will be no hurry for fighters or carriers - it could be years before they appear.

Separate reply, separate post:

Mongoose might take a similar path to Federation Commander and have fighters as 'Hydran only', at least for the time being. Other empires use carriers and fighters to varying degrees but when almost every single Hydran ship has at least some Stinger-2s then fighters effectively are Hydran tactics.

Kinda like the Feds without photons or Roms without cloaks, really.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Finlos, the ACTA data is based on FC which takes refits into account.

Feds: 781 FC points
Klingons: 798
Roms: 670 (edited)

Subtract a CA from the Fed or Klingon force and you'd have a fair fight for the Romulans. Or add in a War Eagle to the Rom force.

 

[Myrm]

Is that a typo and meant to be 682 for the Roms? As otherwise refits reduced the cost and Im not aware of a routine SFB refit that reduced costs
(OK OK you lot you can now list the 406 refits that do just that :lol: )

 

[Iain McGhee]

I'll try to restrain myself, Myrm :wink:

Nah, Iron Domokun's figures are correct according to the latest version of FC. Like he said, just grab another War Eagle (or a KR to match the Klingon PV) and you're good. That's the price you pay when half your navy is obsolescent and/or Klingon cast-offs

@Finlos: FYI the SL2500 King Eagle has a noticeably different (and rather lovely) design to the War Eagle.

Also, the main issues (for me anyway) with the Squadron Boxes is that they don't really work as a coherent squadron and you can't just pick up, say, 2 Klingon boxes to make up a fleet (not one that makes sense anyway ). They're fine for SFB/FC since you're generally only going to be using a couple of starships a side in a game, but ACTA can easily have a dozen plus ships per side on the table and the requirement for ships and squadrons to complement each other tactically becomes more important.

There are ways around this, however. There's the reinforcement boxes which should be a more useful addition to a matching Squadron Box and the 16-ship Fleet Boxes which should be the best bet for forming a useable ACTA fleet straight out of the box. Apparently there's also going to be analogues of the existing Border Boxes available, which also give you another way of acquiring decent starting forces (roughly two and a half task force sized fleets per set, e.g. the Feds get two each of NCA/NCL/DW in the Romulan Border set).

 

[scoutdad]

OK. Using the ACTA point values...

Fed Squadron Box 1: 960 points
Klingon Squadron Box: 955 points
Romulan Squadron Box: 860 points

At first glance, the Romulans seem screwed, but if you substitute a Kign Eagle for the War Eagle (same basic mini, just missing two plasma launchers) nd Substitute the KRC for the KR (Same basic mini, just based on the Romulan conversion of a D7 rather than a D6) the total point value of the Romulan box becomes...




wait for it....



960 points!

A pretty balanced set-up among the three boxes.

 

[Poi]

IMHO the squadron boxes are nerfed by having the same contents as the SFB boxes.

I will be avoiding them like the plague. Whilst they work for SFB, where fleet engagements just don't work due to the perverse amount of book-keeping, ACTA is a fleet level game, so having one each of half a dozen hulls just doesn't work. Tactical madness, but I guess SFB and FC players will also be buying these boxes.

Fleet box of Roms for me. Why no solid news on the fleet box contents yet, or a £ price? Surely you must be boxing them up by now, if they are going on sale at the end of the month?

Small rectangle of plastic in a standard orbit, awaiting deployment. (More accurateky, the missus plastic, as she's getting me sp[aceshiops for Xmas. Woot woot!)