Got my copy of Fleet Captains - first impressions

[WakandaMan]

I was pleased to get Fleet Captains on the release day yesterday. I played a game with the wife last night and I'm going to try the four player version tonight.

The ships and cards all look very nice. Yes, it would've been nice if the ships were painted, but I will have fun painting them (looks like it will be very easy to do, just some dry-brushing and some highlights). There are a really are a lot of 'bits' in the game, including action tokens, control tokens, cloak tokens, installations, etc. And lots of decks of cards as well.

Gameplay is really cool. It's a little complex at first as there are a lot of things you can do, but most of them are not done very often so the 'basics' of it are easy enough to handle. The clix mechanic is cool, but quite different from standard clix so it will take some getting used to. What really makes the game great are the location and encounter cards. They add heaps of 'Star Trek' flavour to the game.

For example:
- In my first turn Voyager got caught in a black hole and had to put full power to it's engines to escape it.
- One of my ships got taken over by the Borg and I had to send another ship to free it from the collective.
- My opponent get meddled with by Q, and also encounted the Nexus from Generations.

Really fun stuff. We only played a 6 point game (lowest point total possible) and had fun despite both being quite tired and a bit brain-dead.

I'm going to try a 4-player match out tonight so I'll let you know how it goes.

[bluesummers]

Nice! I had a lot of fun watching people play this at Gencon. I'm considering picking up a copy. Looking forward to your multi-player report!

[incredible]

Picking it up after next weekend.
Funds are for Supes and Epicon this week.
The 100 dollar price tag is a bit much.

[Arkadese]

I picked up my copy yesterday as well, though I have not had a chance to play the game.

Ships are very nice.

Cards are nice. I would have preferred a bit higher quality (stock), but that would have raised the (imo) already high price for the game.

The box acts as a storage box for the game which is very, very nice. Everything has its place and there is a page showing where each ship is to be placed in the box. Again, very nice. Though I would not recommend shaking or tossing the box about as the cards can easily be displaced.

[DS-00-0, FSD]

The box acts as a storage box for the game which is very, very nice. Everything has its place and there is a page showing where each ship is to be placed in the box.

And I cannot tell you how helpful that little piece of paper is. Believe me, after tearing down two copies of the game every night at GenCon, it was a god-send!!

[IceHot]

Mine is due to arrive on Friday. I am pretty amped myself.

[WakandaMan]

And I cannot tell you how helpful that little piece of paper is. Believe me, after tearing down two copies of the game every night at GenCon, it was a god-send!!

Yeah I agree! Once I've played it quite a bit I'll probably remember where they go, but for now it's invaluable.

[WakandaMan]

Here's my report of the 4 player game from last night. :)

Played my first 4-player game last night, partly because there were a lot of people wanting to try out the game. It was my third time playing it, and I feel like I'm starting to get a good grasp of the rules now, but haven't seen many Encounter cards yet. We decided on a 12-point game, which is smaller than recommended, but it was plenty big enough as we are all still learning the game.

The Fleet Captains: I took the Federation along with teammate William who hadn't played before. On the Klingon side was Josh, who'd just played once and Popey who was also new to the game. All of us are experienced gamers and Trek fans. I started closer to Josh so the two new players were close to each other.

Rallying the Fleet: We drafted the Sutherland (4pts), Voyager (3pts), the Excelsior (3pts), the Yosemite (1pt) and the Equinox (1pt). William took Voyager and the Excelsior while I took the other three.

The Klingons had the Bortas (5pts), Klothos (3pts), the Ch'Tang (2pts) and the Korinar (2pts). Josh took the very scary Bortas and the Ch'Tang, while Popey took the other two, so I was facing a dangerous opponent indeed.

This fine crew: I've resorted my decks into 4 decks of 25 for each race. Since William had Voyager he took the Janeway themed deck and I took the Picard themed deck. Josh took the Worf themed klingon deck, while Popey took the Duras family.

Our continuing mission...:
My initial missions were to Explore 9 adjacent space sectors (Influence) to 'Contact the Resistance' which means I had to scan the closest habitable planet to my opponents home sector that they control, and 'No Losses' which means if I get within 2 points of victory without losing any ships I get 2 more points (therefore auto winning). I had no losses in my first game as well and it's a great one, but this being a much bigger game I didn't expect I'd be able to achieve it. Still, I decided not to cycle it for now and see how it goes. I decided to focus on the exploration mission as that should be easy to achieve, while waiting for the Klingons to control a habitable planet for me to scan later.

So I sent my three ships out in different directions exploring. I got Captain Picard immediately and assigned him to the Yosemite (which was a big mistake as the Yosemite is rubbish in combat) and Tasha Yar who I assigned to the Sutherland. The Equinox immediately encountered an Alternate Dimension, which meant I had to swap it for another ship from my reinforcements that was closest in point value. Since there were no 1pt ships left I was able to chose a 2pt one instead, so I took the Enterprise A! The Sutherland encountered an abandoned Outpost and then an abandoned Space Station (those Cardassians really don't care about their stations do they?). The Yosemite caught a Cascading Virus and had to return to base to repair it. Then I found a couple of Encounters that gave me some easy early victory points which was nice.

Josh sent his two ships in different directions, the big scary Bortas coming straight for me. Once I finised my Exploration mission I drew a Combat mission instead- which was to destroy a higher point ship in single ship combat. That meant my Sutherland had to take out the Bortas. I started assigning crew to it in preparation, first Wesley Crusher (Wheeeeaton!) and then his mother.

However Josh's other ship, the Ch'Tang found a Black Hole and was unable to escape it. Just as the Bortas was getting close to my Sutherland it hit an encounter that sent it back home, so he then instead sent it to help the Ch'Tang before it was fully destroyed by the Black Hole. Seeing an opportunity to take out the badly damaged Ch'Tang as well as hopefully the Bortas, I put full power to engines and sent both the Enterprise and the Sutherland in that direction.

Meanwhile on the other side of the map, Popey was having fun. He'd assigned the Duras Sisters, Lursa and Be'Tor one to each of his ships, and the Klothos was flying around cloaked with a Sensor Echo. My ally was dealing with a Civil War on a planet near his base, so the Klothos came after him and attacked. They went backwards and forwards for quite some time attacking each other. The Excelsior is pretty tough with solid sheilds all the way down to it's Red Alert level. Popeys other ship was placing control markers around to complete an Influence mission, and finally placed one on a habitable planet which meant I could finally do my Science mission...I just had to get all the way across the map to do it.

Josh used a tractor beam with the Bortas to free the Ch'Tang, but then I sweeped in with the Sutherland and destroyed the Ch'Tang. Guess that's what you get when you put Tasha Yar in charge of a ship. The Bortas then hit an unstable Wormhole and immediately went across the map next to my poor weak little Yosemite. Even with Picard and now Data on board, the Yosemite would have no chance against the Bortas. So Picard put all power the the engines and got out of dodge, heading towards the planet that I needed to scan. The Enterprise, now with Will Riker in command, met up with the Yosemite and escorted it there, while the Sutherland and the Bortas started moving towards one another yet again for their showdown.

Mission Complete: The Yosemite easily completed it's scanning mission, which put us 2pts from victory. Since we'd had no losses, we scored the extra 2 points for that and claimed victory over the Klingons!

Great fun was had by all. Popey had a tendency to talk like a Klingon all game, which resulted in many laughs had by all. Somehow I managed to score a lot of points really fast, so the Klingons were only on 6 by game end, however they revealed that they were quite close to completing a few other missions, so in one more turn they could've potentially scored 6 points very quickly. It was much closer than it seemed.

[IceHot]

FedEx Tracking reveals my set is one town over at the moment. I do pray it arrives tonight. I have literally grown a Riker Beard waiting for this game.

[Alcoholmist]

how do you feel about the thin tiles? I feel like they skimped out by not giving us cardboard tiles for this game. also, I've been working overtime with my bottle of super glue repairing various ships. one of the birds of prey came in the box detached from it's flight post which was a ##### to glue back down properly. also, the rulebook seems disorganized. the rules aren't bad, it's just that the book seems like it was assembled in a blender. combat rules are pretty far away from starship destruction rules, it says that the star base gives "improved repair" but doesn't say what that means until 5 pages later, that sort of thing.

[WakandaMan]

how do you feel about the thin tiles? I feel like they skimped out by not giving us cardboard tiles for this game. also, I've been working overtime with my bottle of super glue repairing various ships. one of the birds of prey came in the box detached from it's flight post which was a ##### to glue back down properly. also, the rulebook seems disorganized. the rules aren't bad, it's just that the book seems like it was assembled in a blender. combat rules are pretty far away from starship destruction rules, it says that the star base gives "improved repair" but doesn't say what that means until 5 pages later, that sort of thing.

The thin tiles I haven't decided on yet. If they start to fray I might laminate them. I have had trouble with cardboard tiles warping though (especially my copy of Settlers of Catan) so I don't feel that would necessarily be better.

I have a few ships that have detached from their flight stands, but found it really easy to put a drop of superglue in the hole and put them back together. No biggie. In fact my USS Venture I still have to fix, but it sits on the stand okay anyway.

I agree that the rulebook isn't the best, but it's not the worst I've seen either. It's okay, just needs to be organized a bit better.

[traitorarmor]

So after a failed attempt at getting a 4 player game on Wed (not enought time to really get into the game, sadly) we did get a 2 player done on Saturday.

Of note;

- The Mirror Universe event card (switch hands with opponent) is awesome.........fighting the Klingons with their own mission cards is a neat twist. :classic:

- I was lucky and pulled the Prometheus (size 5, can split attack up to 3 seperate attacks)............as I'm not a Trek trivia buff by any stretch I actually remember when that ship showed up in Voyager. I also pulled the Sutherland (size 4) and the Yosemite (Size 1).

- I would love to tell you all of the ships the Klingons had.......but I can't (more on that in a sec) but it was a group of 4 to start a size 4, a size 3, a size 2 and a size 1(IIRC)

- as the game started out we both discoverd stable a stable worm hole attached to our starting areas...............a bunch of teeny tiny Klingons and I had the Prometheus..................hmmm..........you're darn right I used the worm hole to pay them a visit.

- So after the Prometheus took out 2 of the 3 ships there the other one cloaked and ran away (apparently that crew did not feel it was a good day to die :cheeky: ).

- For the game 5 klingon ships got destroyed (one self destructed before I got a chance to KO it................but it did damage the Prometheus, to yellow alert, so it was a kind of a moral victory)


So we didn't get a really good feel for the klingon ships(the 8 of them we saw!) but all 3 of the my fleet did just fine.

The Prometheus was outstanding as is.....we need to find some truck nuts for it.

The Sutherland with a few crew and a shield upgrade was a really well rounded ship (as far as you can tell from 1 game) and was a good body guard for........

The Yosemite, for 1 point? Awesome. 13 sensors and roll 2 dice (take the best roll) when making a sensor check.............I didn't even need to roll most of the time.


And while it didn't show up this time, in the couple of turns we had for the 4 player game we got to see Voyager in action and it's special (roll twice for encounters) was very attractive.


We also had quite a few people look in on the game to see how it was going (we were playing at the store) and lots of people were interested.

We're looking forward to giving it another go soon.


Oh and I finally remembered to pre-order the expansion for ST:Expedition and Q:Rise of the Demons................the locals have already been warned.............when the Quarriors expansion drops I'm not bringing any clix on that Thursday. :laugh:

[stormphoenix]

sounds klike it's a solid buy there, Wak.
are there any cards that you feel are unbalanced? underwhelming?

I'm looking forward to snatching up my copy.

[WakandaMan]

sounds klike it's a solid buy there, Wak.
are there any cards that you feel are unbalanced? underwhelming?

I'm looking forward to snatching up my copy.

There's a Klingon Crew card called Klag who is ridiculously good. Really amazing. But there's a good mix in both sides of good and meh cards.

The Encounter cards add a lot of luck to the game because some give benefits and some are nasty. But at the same time, they add a lot of flavour to the game as well, so I really don't mind. It's very unusual for me to enjoy a game with such a large luck element to it, I usually prefer games with no/very little luck, but in this case I still really enjoy it.

[WakandaMan]

Oh I was a little underwhelmed by the Defiant, as it's my favourite ship (big DS9 fan). It just should be more combat heavy, but at least it does have something special about it being the only Federation ship that can cloak. And it's pretty good for a Size 3 ship.

The Prometheus (that ship that was in an episode of Voyager than breaks into 3 parts) is just amazing.

[malakim2099]

Well, we've been playing it a lot out here now. And it really does seem that the Klingons kinda get shafted a bit compared to the Feds. Maybe it's just how the drafting of ships has gone, but it really feels like the Klingons have a significant disadvantage against the Feds.

Now I just want the bloody Romulans to show up. That's my favorite faction. :)

[WakandaMan]

Well, we've been playing it a lot out here now. And it really does seem that the Klingons kinda get shafted a bit compared to the Feds. Maybe it's just how the drafting of ships has gone, but it really feels like the Klingons have a significant disadvantage against the Feds.

Now I just want the bloody Romulans to show up. That's my favorite faction. :)

Yeah I use a slightly modified board set up to make it a bit more balanced for the Klingons. There is one less hex between the Command Posts, but a few extra ones on the sides so the map is a little bigger too. You can see a pic of it here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/1118040/star-trek-fleet-captains

[vlad3theimpaler]

Well, we've been playing it a lot out here now. And it really does seem that the Klingons kinda get shafted a bit compared to the Feds. Maybe it's just how the drafting of ships has gone, but it really feels like the Klingons have a significant disadvantage against the Feds.

Now I just want the bloody Romulans to show up. That's my favorite faction. :)

Interesting. I've only played one game so far, and the Klingons won by several points. I hope to get in more games after the holidays, so we'll see how it goes.

[WakandaMan]

Actually every time I've played it the game has been closed. Played a 12 point 4 player game last night. My wife and I were the Klingons. We got to 11 points and our opponents were on 8 points. In a single turn they managed to score 5 points to tip them over, and then a realised a way we probably could have scored an extra point on the previous turn if we'd done one thing differently! Ugh!

[traitorarmor]

Echoing the sentiment of close games.

Most of the game are close for us and if the Federation manages to pull out a win it's a result of having a big scoring turn near the end.


When the Prometheus shows up the points have tended to be much closer.