Author Topic: First games of Fleet Commander  (Read 3023 times)

Landlubber

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First games of Fleet Commander
« on: December 03, 2017, 10:47:24 pm »
Forum member BrdingPrty1 and I have met up a couple times in the past few weeks to try out his copy of Fleet Commander, by Capsicum Games.



This won't be a full review, as we only were able to play a couple of games, but I wanted to put down my initial impressions of the game and share a few pictures while it's still fresh in my mind.

Fleet Commander is played on a "board" made up of tiles (with a minimum playing field of 5x5 tiles, I think) that represent space; the tiles are double-sided, maybe 4 inches on a side, with one side being empty space and the other containing some sort of stellar anomaly (asteroid field, gas cloud, debris field, gravitational wave, etc). The ships are hard plastic and come pre-painted in simple but serviceable paint schemes. BrdingPrty's copy of the game (he has Fleet Commander: Genesis, from the Kickstarter) had four classes of ships for each of the two factions: frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships. (The two factions are the League of Phoebe and the Hegemony of Amycles. I haven't looked closely enough to know the backstory behind each faction, so I won't go into that here.)

Actions in the game are determined by custom six-sided dice, which come in three colors: red (for offensive actions), green (for defensive actions), and blue (for movement actions). At the start of the turn, you roll three dice in any combination of colors, and these will determine the actions you can take with your ships. The dice have custom symbols that represent shooting, defense, or movement in one of three ways: orthogonal (forward/backward/left/right), diagonal (forward/backward), or omnidirectional. For the most part, all shooting and movement only reaches one tile away from your current tile. For example, a red orthogonal die allows you to shoot at targets in the immediate forward, behind, left, or right tiles from the current tile; a green diagonal die allows you to negate one attack coming into your tile from a diagonal direction; an omnidirectional blue die allows you to move one tile in any direction (diagonal or orthogonal).

In the Genesis copy of the game, each ship type for each faction is a mirror of the other--all stats are the same for destroyers, cruisers, etc. There is variation in the battleships, which can be equipped with one of nine different special weapons. In order to use the special weapon, you must have two "banked" dice on your command board with the special "wheel" symbol.



For example: in the image above, my battleship (the light gray ship at the top of the picture) fired it's special weapon at BrdingPrty's battleship. The weapon I had equipped on that ship was the Tractor Beam, which allows me to grab a friendly or an enemy ship up to two squares away and move it one square in any direction. I chose to grab his battleship and sling it into the asteroid field, causing him to have to roll for damage (it did take some damage) and putting it out of the fight until he spent a movement die to get it out of the asteroids.



As another example, in the image above, BrdingPrty's battleship (in the background) was equipped with Drones, which basically hound the target ship, causing two points of damage at the start of each turn and following the target around until it is either destroyed, the parent battleship is destroyed, or the target spends an omni-directional attack die to run the little buggers off. Some pretty cool options with the battleships!

Detail on the ships isn't stunning--certainly not as detailed as most of the naval miniatures games currently on the market, but they are more detailed than most boardgaming pieces I've seen. Stats are on the ship's base, similar to Star Wars Armada and Dropfleet Commander--Class (represented by a number--sort of like a point cost or build rating), Firepower (also represented by a number--denotes the amount of damage a ship will do when it attacks), Special Ability (denoted by a symbol), and Hull Points (again represented by a number--on a dial under the base).

Here's a League of Phoebe battleship:



And a Hegemony of Amycles battleship (with a Hegemony frigate behind it):



Overall, this is a fun game! There's a little more depth to it than first meets the eye, and there are some neat options for hidden deployment, unmapped battlefields, etc. There are even rules for jump gates that run between combat zones, giving players the opportunity to play across a few different battlefields in one single game.

I'll see about doing a more detailed review on the MBS podcast in the next few months. Here are a few more pics:









Many thanks to BrdingPrty for breaking the game out and playing. BrdingPrty, if you have any thoughts to add to what I've written above, please chime in.

Thanks for reading!


« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 10:52:21 pm by Landlubber »
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama

Wanjajoral

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2017, 08:01:49 am »
Fleet Commander is a really neat game - more an abstract strategy game than a miniature war game, but it somehow scratches a similar itch. List building can be fun and the amount of stuff available (with the expansions) increases the replayability greatly.
As I have too much stuff to paint already I have not yet considered putting some paint on these minis, but the scults are nice enough so that this could be a fun project.
And on boardgamegeek someone said that a Kickstarter for a third faction could be in the works, which would be great.

Ruckdog

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2017, 12:40:50 pm »
Great write-up! I *almost* backed this on KS, but IIRC it was running at about the same time as the Dropfleet kickstarter, so I backed that one instead. We’ll definitely have to cover this on the podcast!

Do you mind if I re-post this to the MBS blog?

Fracas

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2017, 03:31:37 pm »
Thanks for the post and report!
Firestorm: Aquan, Directorate, Retholza, Hawker (FsA)/ Terran (FsPf), RSN (FsA)/ Dindrenzi (FsPf)
DW: EotBS, FSA, PLC.
Warmaster: Kislev, Khemri, Dwarves,
BFG: Pacification Fleet (IN), Tau Expeditionary (SG), Battlefleet (Chaos), Kher-Ys Corsairs, Crusade Fleet (IN),
LotR: Khand, Gondor, Mordor

Landlubber

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2017, 10:23:57 pm »
@Wanjajoral yeah, I can see that. I almost felt like I was playing a strategic fleet-level game, where each ship represented a different fleet (battleships being more powerful fleets than cruisers, for instance), that were moving long distances--maybe with combat taking place over an entire solar system. A third faction would be nice, but I'd also like to see a little variation in the ship capabilities. And yeah, I've seen some pics of repainted ships--they look pretty cool. I think the League of Phoebe ships might make good civilian ships in Firestorm Armada or other fleet-based miniatures games (the battleships would make good freighters I think).

@Ruckdog no problem, go ahead and repost on the blog!

@Fracas yep, good stuff. Recommend you give it a shot if you get a chance.
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama

Ruckdog

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Fracas

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2017, 11:52:45 pm »
Looks interesting!
Firestorm: Aquan, Directorate, Retholza, Hawker (FsA)/ Terran (FsPf), RSN (FsA)/ Dindrenzi (FsPf)
DW: EotBS, FSA, PLC.
Warmaster: Kislev, Khemri, Dwarves,
BFG: Pacification Fleet (IN), Tau Expeditionary (SG), Battlefleet (Chaos), Kher-Ys Corsairs, Crusade Fleet (IN),
LotR: Khand, Gondor, Mordor

Wanjajoral

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #7 on: December 08, 2017, 02:11:16 pm »
A third faction would be nice, but I'd also like to see a little variation in the ship capabilities.

Have you looked into the expansions? The dreadnoughts/carrier (from the Avatar expansion?) and the Tech ships (from the Forge expansion?) bring new ship models with new abilities to the table and at least one of the other expansions comes with new profiles for some of the existing models. All in all there is a lot of variety if you include the expansion material.

Fracas

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2017, 02:41:01 pm »
How does the 3-4 players game work?
Firestorm: Aquan, Directorate, Retholza, Hawker (FsA)/ Terran (FsPf), RSN (FsA)/ Dindrenzi (FsPf)
DW: EotBS, FSA, PLC.
Warmaster: Kislev, Khemri, Dwarves,
BFG: Pacification Fleet (IN), Tau Expeditionary (SG), Battlefleet (Chaos), Kher-Ys Corsairs, Crusade Fleet (IN),
LotR: Khand, Gondor, Mordor

Landlubber

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #9 on: December 09, 2017, 01:02:54 am »
I've read about the expansions, yes, but BrdingPrty doesn't have them. I'd like to see how they work, especially the Tech ships.

@Fracas, I haven't tried 3-4 players yet. There are only two factions, but you can reverse the dials for different colored fleets. One has green and blue dials, the other has orange and red. No difference, but it is a way to tell the ships apart in a multiplayer game.
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama

Wanjajoral

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #10 on: December 10, 2017, 04:13:35 pm »
About the expansions - I just copy the publisher blurb for each of them here (copied from BGG), as a first idea about what is going on in each of them:

"Fleet Commander: Forge

With the Forge mini-expansion, you will be able to add to your fleet some of the most powerful and sophisticated warships ever seen in the galaxy. Using the hulls of standard warships, the "Forge" managed to develop a new mix of capacities according to the requirements of their customers. As a Commander of the Hegemony of Amycles, you can now add the dangerous class 2 Assault-ship and class 3 Gun-ship to your fleet. As a Phoeban Commander, count on the fast Strategic Cruiser and the sturdy Turtle Ship to master the battle zone. Finally, intelligence agencies intercepted transmissions about "specific special weapons" inbound to system PA-FF-104. Has the "Forge of Fendrix" already equipped Battleships with such unique devices, or are they still only plans? The answer is in the battle to come."


"Fleet Commander: Avatar

As the conflict between the "League of Phoebe" and the "Hegemony of Amycles" intensified, great leaders emerged to impose their views of warfare. Some of them earned their leadership by their zeal, their determination, or their ingenuity -- while others simply took power from their defeated opponents. However, one thing nobody dares to contest, is that each of them has their own distinct advantage to lead these huge fleets to victory.

Avatar is an expansion for ''Fleet Commander: Genesis'' that will allow players to add to their fleet the heavy battleships and commanders which give bonuses during any battle. It also contains new terrain tiles and special weapons."



"Fleet Commander: Salvation

After decades of fighting, the factions at war realized that it was of the utmost importance to be able to provide support directly in the battle zone. Furthermore, 'Electronic Warfare' slowly took more importance, but the systems installed on the warships were revealed to be not effective enough, except on the battleships -- but at the cost of not choosing a destructive special weapon. At that stage, specialized ships started to appear in the battles: the Tech Ships.

Salvation is an expansion for ''Fleet Commander: Genesis'' that introduces technical support ships, new terrain tiles, scenarios, and a campaign builder."



"Fleet Commander: Pirates

"Among the thousands of stars colonized by humanity, some of them are not under the empire's domination. Coalitions of “free worlds” try to defend their independence while systems away from dense clusters of civilization may be the secret home of groups living by violence and plundering. Call them pirates, rebels, or insurgents depending on your current alignment. Sometimes, one among them, a charismatic leader, manages to raise a fleet under his banner and runs the gauntlet of the established powers. Are you one of these leaders?"

Their fleets are composed of an eclectic variety of warships, captured from their enemies and sometimes customized to fit the condition of a guerrilla warfare. However, experienced Fleet Commanders have learned not to underestimate their capacities.

With the Pirates mini-expansion, choose one of these charismatic commanders, build your fleet according to specific rules, explore new capacities like “stealth” and challenge the domination of the "Hegemony of Amycles" and the "League of Phoebe"."


I haven't seen the rulebooks online yet (but I also have not checked the Capsicum website), but there are two files available on BGG that might contain all the infos about the expansion rules and new ship abilities:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/150310/consolidated-knowledge-database

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/150305/fleet-commander-cheat-sheet



Landlubber

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #11 on: December 16, 2017, 12:08:43 am »
Yeah I've done a little reading on those. I like the idea of the actual command personalities (I'd call them fleet commanders, but, ya know, that's the title of the game  :P ) and the tech ships.
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama

Fracas

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Firestorm: Aquan, Directorate, Retholza, Hawker (FsA)/ Terran (FsPf), RSN (FsA)/ Dindrenzi (FsPf)
DW: EotBS, FSA, PLC.
Warmaster: Kislev, Khemri, Dwarves,
BFG: Pacification Fleet (IN), Tau Expeditionary (SG), Battlefleet (Chaos), Kher-Ys Corsairs, Crusade Fleet (IN),
LotR: Khand, Gondor, Mordor

Landlubber

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Re: First games of Fleet Commander
« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2017, 01:55:48 am »
Thanks!
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama