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November 2022
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Star Fleet Universe News THE BIG NEWS: SPECIAL DOUBLE ISSUE!
We combined the October and November issues into one newsletter. That's why you get four Play Value Extras this month: Romulan Turkey for SFB, Romulan Turkey for FC, Scenario for SFB, All Hallows Squash Destroyer for FC. Plus, as a bonus, the whole family of Turkey variants for F&E!
In other big news, we have released F&E Advanced Operations 2022 (AO22) to the PDF stores. Send your reports, and we will do the definitive hard copy next year.
Tenneshington Decals continues to add new decals to their various product lines in different scales. WEBSITE:
Our website, www.StarFleetGames.com, continues to grow and improve. You are welcome to send us your requests, comments, and suggestions. Simone Dale, our graphics director, continues to update the website, do covers for the new products, shut down pirate websites, help out around the company, and learn more about the game business.
TWITTER: VIDEOS: Star Fleet Marines Part 1 DOING VIDEOS OF THE SFU
A customer asked about posting "tutorial videos" for our games. We like it when people do that (and even give commendation medals) but you need to have us check the videos to make sure you aren't violating something somehow (or that you didn't make a rules error). Doing such videos to make money is not cool. Please drop us an email before you post the videos.
STARBLOG: STAR FLEET'S LEGIONS EXPAND: This month we feature Battle Group Hampton Roads, headquartered in Hampton, Virginia. CO William Phillips reports they play Star Fleet Battles and Federation & Empire. They also enjoy attending gaming conventions. Read more here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/battlegroup/battlegroup_HamptonRoads.shtml
Do you have a battle group? Be sure to report your activities here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/battlegroup/report.shtml
Do you want to see if there's a battle group near you? Check out the map here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/battlegroup/gather.shtml#US
Facebook Fan Pages
So join us on Facebook and get a fix of your favorite game there, too! As announced in Captain's Log #54, Jean Sexton Beddow's husband, Al Beddow has been appointed to take over the day-to-day of running the SFU Ranger demo team. He comes with a bit of experience both teaching various types of games as well as having been in quite a few demo teams (and ran/helped run a few). He is most familiar with GURPS Prime Directive but early on played ACTASF and spent Gencon 2012 demoing it in the Mongoose Publishing booth there. So, we are asking each of you to email Al at the address below with the following: - Name Al will add you to the Ranger group on the forum once he has this info, which will let you access our area there. He is looking forward to working with all of you to spread the news of the Star Fleet Universe! Current stats: We have heard from 22 of our Rangers and have three new ones! We are excited to see the Rangers becoming active as playing in person and cons once again start up. Jean Sexton Beddow Al Beddow Ranger Email: adbrangerhq@gmail.com FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/517647465103651/ ADB Forums: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/index.php ADB BBS: http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/
JAGDPANTHER
Custom Decals for Starline ships
Tenneshington Decals continues to produce decal sets made to fit Federation starships in ADB's Shapeways 3788, 3125, 7000 "Elite", and 2500 "Prestige" scales. A wide selection of ships are available, with sets for the CVo operational ("flatbed") carrier, CVA heavy fleet carrier, CF fast cruiser, and DDF fast destroyer recently added. The 3788 scale decals are also great to use on ADB's metal Starline 2400 ships and the 3125 scale decals can be used on ADB's metal Starline 2500 ships. Tenneshington will also continue to offer their legacy decals for Starline 2500 ships as special orders, for customers wishing to match their existing minis. As with all of their products, the names on the ships are up to the customer and all sheets are custom-printed to order. Additional decal sets are available for shuttlecraft and to sets to detail any ship with additional window blocks, sensors, hatches, and even phaser scars. For more information or to download the order sheet, check them out at www.tenneshington.com. Or if you prefer, email Will McCammon at: will@tenneshington.com or Tony L. Thomas at: scoutdad@tenneshington.com .
ONLINE TOURNAMENTS Update to Sapphire Star IX: With Sapphire Star tournaments IX and X finished, XI is now running. The second Sapphire Crown tournament will kick off on 1 June with the four most recent winners.
DEMOS AND CONS WITH SFU GAMES Due to the COVID-19 virus, many conventions have been cancelled. We encourage you to check out Star Fleet Battles Online where there is a free demo version. It is a good way to hang out with others who play Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander. Check it out here: https://www.sfbonline.com/index.jsp Star Fleet Battles games are played regularly in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday afternoons at the Soldiery. Lee Hanna is the contact person. Download Transmissions HAILING FREQUENCIES: This is our newsletter and will let you know all the news for all our games. You can subscribe here. Have you missed an earlier newsletter? Click here to get caught up! COMMUNIQUE: This monthly magazine repeated much of the same information that Hailing Frequencies does. December 2019 was the last month it was published. Old issues can be downloaded from the Commander's Circle. Mini of the Month This is the 3788 Scale Lyran Java Tiger Heavy Command Cruiser (CCH) painted by Nick Samaras.
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New Releases EXTRAS FOR THE MONTH: You can look at Hailing Frequencies Extras here.
Click here to see our previous issues of Hailing Frequencies.
Recently Released
SHAPEWAYS:
We’re now offering some of our miniatures and some new designs on Shapeways. You can check out the store here: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/amarillo-design-bureau-inc?sort=newest
PDF and EBOOK SALES:
RECENTLY RELEASED ON Warehouse 23
Ask Admiral Vanaxilth SHUTTLES
Mike Kenyon asks: Rule (J1.635) says that enemy shuttle launches are part of the same rate as friendly launches (not landings) on a ship. If I have an enemy shuttle aboard and both of us want to launch on Impulse #4, who does? Does the host ship or the enemy get right of way out of the bay?
ANSWER: I sent this to Kommodore Ketrick who replied: This is one of those obscure questions that hardly ever comes up (so it does not seem to have a previous answer), but apparently it now has come up. There are other considerations. Yes, rule (J1.634) is pretty specific that enemy shuttles landing aboard a ship do so at their own rate and irrespective of the rate of the ship they are landing on. Thus Andy Vancil could launch or land a shuttle from his ship on the very same impulse that you are landing aboard it. Your shuttles are, of course, then governed by (J1.52), i.e., they cannot take off for at least eight impulses (same, of course for Andy's shuttle). So the crux does become that at least eight impulses previously you landed a shuttle in Andy's bay. Now both your shuttle and one of Andy's shuttles are trying to leave the bay, and under (J1.635) the "normal rules" apply, so only one shuttle can take off. We are assuming a normal bay, no Catastrophic Damage Impending Destruction, no minelaying, etc.
Toss a coin. Or roll a die, odds you get to launch, even he gets to launch. Josh Driscol asks: On Impulse #1 of Turn #3 a voided wild weasel is recovered by tractor. Is the first opportunity to begin charging the shuttle as wild weasel again with reserve power Impulse #2 of Turn #4? ANSWER: You have to service the shuttle (one deck crew action) before you can begin preparing it for another mission. It has been previously ruled (Captain's Log #32) that you cannot apply power to start arming it until it has been serviced, even though it is going to be used for the same mission. However, if both your informal deck crews are available, you could put them both to work on the shuttle (starting on Impulse #2 of Turn #3), and have it ready to start charging (with reserve power) on Impulse #18 of Turn #3. You could then launch the wild weasel as early as Impulse #18 of Turn #4. Follow-up Question: If the ship were Hydran and it used two deck crew actions on the shuttle after recovering it, could it be started with reserve power on Impulse #17 of Turn #3? ANSWER: As noted above, anyone could do this, but since you cannot start servicing the shuttle on the impulse it lands (J4.8172), you would have to wait until Impulse #18 of Turn #3. Follow-up Question: In Module T-2000 it says that deck crews can repair fighters but not administrative shuttles. Can they even be used to service admin shuttles in a tournament game? Obviously deck crew repair of fighters and reloading fighter weapons rules are used, but the rules in (J1.865) - (J1.869) use deck crew actions for servicing admin shuttles also. Without deck crews how do the other empires' tournament ships get their admins serviced? ANSWER: The restriction is on repairing, not servicing. Deck crews (formal or informal) can service shuttles, including unloading a scatter-pack, reactivating the weapons on an inert or aborted suicide shuttle, etc. F&E Q&A
STASIS FIELD GENERATORS Q: If I want to use directed damage on a carrier group, how does that interact with SFGs freezing some of the ships in the group (312.271)?
A: Only the smallest escort can be frozen, and, if it is placed in stasis, it is not considered part of the group anymore. The rest of the group could then be targeted by your one directed damage attack if you choose to not used directed damage on the frozen ships. Q: You are only allowed to target the outermost escort with an SFG (312.271), so are you generally hoping for random choices to get the rest? A: Correct. Only the ships selected for the random roll can be frozen. Only the smallest ship in a group can be selected by the attacker, and then the defender chooses his ships by selecting any unselected ships including but not limited to the next smallest ships in the group that were not selected. Q: New sector bases were added to the game, but not to the SFG rules charts. What table would a sector base with a single SFG (452.11) use? (The rule limits sector bases to one SFG.) A: A sector base with the one allowed SFG would use the SBA (starbase) tables. It would use SBA-1, -2, or -3 depending on the number of targets but cannot use SBA-4 because no unit with only one SFG can use that. Cool Stuff on the Website In this section we will provide links to various web pages and items that we think you will find "cool". We have also uploaded new Xander wallpapers to our Wallpapers section on the website: Wallpapers STAR FLEET ALERTS These are the press releases we send to the wholesalers, retailers, and media. You can get on the mailing list for them by asking Marketing@StarFleetGames.com to add you to the list. (Obviously, they are free.) They are uploaded to the Star Fleet Alert page FC Tactic of the MonthIN PRAISE OF DRONES The greatest strength of drones is their power-to-damage ratio. For zero power, you get twelve points of warhead. No other weapon can hope to match that. While it may be discouraging that those twelve points are by no means guaranteed (particularly when you consider that phasers will always do damage up close), drones have much, much longer ranges.
Drones are such a good deal that the enemy cannot afford to let them hit. He must stop them, which means using weapons against the drone and not your ship. Drones are also exceptional at controlling space and, more importantly, power. Outside of dedicated defenses (ADDs, phaser-3s, and counter-drones), each drone will require one point of power to stop. That is a two-point power gap: the point you did not spend, and the one your opponent did. In addition, there may be another point to tractor it when the phaser misses, and another point for a second phaser shot later.
The Wing Cruiser, one of the four ships armed with particle splitter torpedoes offered for the Vari Combine in Captain's Log #23, is from the new generation of Omega Octant cruisers capable of fighting at Speed 31. While not a true "war cruiser" (like the Romulan SparrowHawk or the WYN Orca), it is a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, the light cruiser.
While the R-section for the ship mentions other variants in service, the base hull is armed with a quartet of particle splitter torpedoes, a loadout intended to take advantage of the ship's power curve (a full eight points of generated power above the light cruiser). However, even with this more generous amount of power to spend, some care must be taken in terms of which power level to arm the ship's particle splitter torpedoes at. The Vari particle splitter torpedo is a plasma-like weapon with a two-turn arming cycle. It has standard, doubled, and tripled arming levels; with one, two, or three points of power required on the first turn, and two, four, or six points of power on the second. Standard and doubled warheads can be held for one or two points of power respectively; tripled warheads cannot be held. The "splitter" aspect of the particle splitter torpedo comes into effect on the ninth impulse after launch; when the warhead splits into two, three, or four sub-warheads (depending on arming level) that must each be pre-recorded as aiming at a separate target. This makes the particle splitter torpedo a useful fleet support weapon; sub-munitions can be used to target enemy fighters or tachyon missiles at medium range, while providing the Vari with a useful short-range deterrent (where the torpedo can hit before splitting). In a duel scenario, it may be an idea to take a leaf from a common Probr playbook, and plan to alternate between the port and starboard particle splitter torpedo launchers on successive turns. If planning on using the doubled arming level (which is still effective in the short-range exchanges the Vari favor), this would allow the Vari captain to budget for a more reasonable arming expenditure (two two-point and two four-point torpedoes per turn). This would then allow for the ship to keep its options at speed. Unlike the Probr, which would wish to keep their distance when rolling down successive accentuated high energy acceptance torpedo launches, the Vari should maintain their preference for short-range "spider's embraces;" the less room the target has to run out the pre-split warheads, the better. The Wing Cruiser should save the tripled arming level for attacks on slow or immobile targets, or if providing medium-range support to fleets of older and slower Vari ships. (Its larger counterpart from Captain's Log #23, the command cruiser, is in a better position to run its pair of particle splitter torpedoes at the tripled arming level, befitting its role as a fleet flagship.) If using a Wing Cruiser to forward your cell's ambitions, order a double-double of particle splitter torpedoes each turn . . . and pour them down the throats of your would-be prey. (End of SFB Tactic of the Month)
When it comes time to bust up Alliance battle stations, consider committing one or two D6s to the battle. A force with a D6 as the leader, a F5S, and another D6 with an escort carrier group and a squadron of F5 frigates will provide the necessary combat potential to reduce an undefended battle station.
When taking damage, be sure to cripple a D6 after giving up the escort carrier group's fighters. After the battle, retrograde the crippled D6 to a starbase and use conversion during repair to convert it to one of the D6 variants. This way you get a discounted conversion plus the use of the hull in one of the smaller battles of the invasion. (End of F&E Strategy of the Month)
A Call To Arms: Star Fleet Tactic of the Month One of the things that becomes rapidly apparent in A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is that ship-vs.-ship combat is a lot more savage than it is in Star Fleet Battles. Often times in small engagements the fighting can be over in as little as two or three turns. This makes decisions on which Special Action you use crucial to your survival. Empires that have to rely on the Reload Weapons! Special Action in order to bring their heavy weapons back on line may need to take a moment to weigh the options. If you have already taken shield damage, it may be in your best interest to use the Boost Energy to Shields! Special Action over the Reload Weapons! Special Action. Both cause power drain, but the extra shield boxes you gain now can pay off in a bigger dividend than the threat of having heavy weapons ready for a next turn of combat that may not even be needed.
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