COMMUNIQUE #15 STARDATE 2007.03 NEW IN THIS ISSUE FEDERATION We have included several ship cards in this issue. COMMANDER New ship: ISC Destroyer. Revised ship: ISC Star (Heavy) Cruiser (including the re- vised fleet scale ship showing the changed torpedo armament). Organized League Play Ship for Intruder Scenario: ISC Star (Heavy) Cruiser. Larger ship: Federation Heavy Battlecruiser. The on-line forms for registering your store as a site for We also include a new scenario: Cruise Drones! Organized League Play are live in the Commander’s Circle. Also available is the form to register your completed games, SCHEDULE UPDATE and you can even use the same form to register future games Already Released: Klingon Border, Klingon Attack, Romu- as a means of inviting people to attend and join the fun. lan Border, Romulan Attack, Tholian Attack, Boosters #0-#12, You will find a link to the Commander’s Circle on: Squadron Boxes #0-#12 and #14-#15, Border Boxes #1-#4, www.FederationCommander.com Captain’s Log #32-#34. along with everything else for this game system. (Look for the We expect to ship Booster Packs #13-#15 in March, fol- new “site map” button which makes this easier to reach.) lowed by Squadron Box #13 and Border Box #5 in April. Many stores have already signed up, and the first round of We will release Captain’s Log #35 in May. prizes (a series of “bonus cards” used to give ships a special We will release Federation Commander: Battleships at ability) are being mailed out to those stores. Origins along with Squadron Boxes #16-#18 (with dreadnought The scenarios of the months for 2007 are as follows. All of miniatures) and (in July) Border Box #6 (which will have the these are from Romulan Attack. battleship and starbase miniatures). January: (8RA1) Surprise Reversed We might release Federation Commander: Distant King- February: (8RA2) And to the Republic doms along with Squadron Boxes #18-#21 in September, 2007; March: (8RA3) The Art of Duty followed by Booster Packs #18-#21 in October, and Border Box April: (8RA4) Encounter at Denebola #7 in November along with Captain’s Log #36. On the other May: (8RA5) Yefimov’s Anabasis hand, that’s a lot for the market to absorb and we don’t want to June: (8RA6) The Magnificent Panzers send products out so quickly that one of them robs sales from a July: (8RA7) Morkedian Death March previous one. August: (8RA8) Shield of the Federation September: (8RA9) Practice, Practice, and Then What? REVISION-4 RULEBOOK AVAILABLE October-Nov-Dec: New scenarios to be published later. Romulan Border and shipments of Klingon Border since In 2006, the Federation barely stopped the Klingons one July have included Revision-4 rulebooks. (These are marked hex from Earth. Can the Romulans do better in 2007? 2506, but are Revision-4. The Romulan Border rulebook is the “first printing” of that product but the fourth revision of the rules.) COMMANDER NEWS Consult Communique #11 for how to obtain this updated book. PUBLISHER’S INFORMATION THE BBS: KEYS TO COMMUNICATION FEDERATION COMMANDER: COMMUNIQUE #15 is pub- The BBS (www.starfleetgames.com/discus) can be con- lished and copyright © 2007 by Amarillo Design Bureau, fusing at first sight, as it has hundreds of topics, used daily by a www.starfleetgames.com, PO Box 8759, Amarillo TX 79114. thousand players. Registration is free, but we do require all par- Elements of the Star Fleet Universe are the property of Para- ticipants to use their real names. (This not only improves the mount Pictures Corporation and are used with their permission. overall tone of civility, but makes sure you get credit for any suggestions you make.) When you register, you will see topics TACTICS WANTED! for each of our product lines. Feel free to venture into the broader universe as you get more comfortable with the system. With the goal of providing 20 pages for Federation Com- There is also a forum (much easier for new players) on the mander in Captain’s Log #35, we plan to fill several pages with www.FederationCommander.Com web site. It allows screen tactics written by players. Write up your favorite tactic (or dirty names and avatars but isn’t used for submissions of new stuff. trick) and send it to us. A panel of expert players will judge New on www.FederationCommander.Com is a “site these tactics for legality, creativity, and utility in combat, and we map” button, which takes you to a list of every link on the will print the ones with the highest scores. site, including new ones and some you may have missed. Copyright © 2007 Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. what ships do you want? Universe News Here is your chance to get what you want. Whether Federation Commander is only one of the games in you are a veteran player of Star Fleet Battles and famil- the Star Fleet Universe. All of our games use a common iar with the thousands of starships in that game system, historical background and technological database. or a new player of Federation Commander and just have There are three kinds of Federation Commander a vague feeling that some ship of some kind is missing players: New players who have never played Star Fleet from your fleet, tell us what you want and we’ll consider Battles, Veterans of SFB who haven’t played in years adding it viaCommunique or in a future expansion. but are now playing FC, and active SFB players who We have done new fleet scale versions of the playtest have decided to also play FC. Members of any group plasma ships (showing the “half as many” approach) in could have played our other games. This part of Com- Communique. The King Eagle was in issue #6, the fleet munique will have news on our other games. Our new scale K7R was in #9, (squadron scale K7R was in #12), opt-in email newsletter goes to fans of all our games, and the fleet scale ISC CA is in #15. each issue including links to information for each game. Captain’s Log #33 includes fleet scale war cruisers Federation & Empire is moving toward its next ex- for the Hydrans, Lyrans, WYNs, & ISC published in pansion: ISC WAR. Booster Zero. Captain’s Log #34 (now in stores) included Star Fleet Battles will get two or more expansions the Lyran DN, CC, DD, and FF; and the Hydran Lord during the next year; titles will be selected in May 2007. Bishop, Paladin, Lancer, and Hunter. The ISC destroyer Those being considered include: Omega Warships, is in this issue of Communique. Omega Gunboats, Omega First Great War, C3A Androm- Some recently requested ships include Q-ships, the edan Threat File, R11 Support Ships, X1R More X-Ships, auxiliary ships, and the OK6. We’ll see about getting Y2 More Early Years Ships, and Star Fleet Assault. those done in future issues. Prime Directive Federation is in final development. Prime Directive Tholians is also in development. FED COMMANDER: 2007 Note that FC: Tholian Attack was delayed two weeks We are reviewing the product line, player requests, because the miniatures could not be ready in time (the and what we think would make good products, and have stores want the minis on the same day) and a third week scheduled the following modules for 2007: because the maps could not be done in time. Well, the THOLIAN ATTACK has been released, including two maps might have been done on time if we had worked “web” map panels, 16 ships (including Tholians, Neo- on them all night and were willing to do a sloppy job with Tholians, and Seltorians), and several new weapons: a bunch of mistakes. We were willing to work late (and Web, Web Caster, Web Fist, Particle Cannon, Shield did) but were not willing to stick the customers with a Cracker, and Web Breaker. You can order it through your shoddy product. store or our shopping cart. The stock # is 4103. BATTLESHIPS has been reformatted. The original ALERT: WEB SITE UPDATEs! idea was 8 battleships, 16 dreadnoughts, and no maps. On player request, we moved the 16 dreadnoughts into www.FederationCommander.com boosters #16-#17-#18 and put two maps into this prod- uct, keeping the price at $29.95. We considered adding We have just updated our new website to make it two more battleships and raising the price but, after talk- easier to use. A new “site map” gives faster access to ing to wholesalers, left the price unchanged. There will everything on the site, including some new features we be the usual three squadron boxes and a border box. are adding that aren’t linked on the front page. This will release at Origins under Stock #4104. The new web site includes “empire pages” with in- For a third module, we hope to print DISTANT KING- formation on each empire, and “product information DOMS (Hydrans, Lyrans, and WYNs, a $34.95 pack- pages” with detailed information on the products. age, stock # 4105) and its booster packs and squadron/ This site also includes a new forum with php soft- border boxes in Sept-Oct-Nov but it may have to wait for ware (for those who don’t understand “discus” software), next year as we have many non-FC products to print. avatars, screen names, and so forth. Future products (2008 and later) will incude the Orion We are updating this site with more empire pages Pirates module and possibly a second Kingdoms mod- (Tholians), product pages (Tholian Attack), and other ule.