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Operation: Star Fleet Command - Update version 1.3

March 5, 2015, 1:47 pm
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After a number of plays and feedback from players I have made a few changes to Operation: Star Fleet Command (OSFC). 

The first is to the Federation Order of Appearance. It seems that last one made the Federation too weak at the beginning. So there is a slight increase in forces, but not as much as earlier versions.

There has been a clarification to the Orion Pirates. Only one pirate force may be placed in any one sector. They aren't to be a fleet in themselves.

The biggest change has been to restrict the movement of the Klingon and Romulan forces at the beginning of the game. As the rules were they could invade the Federation on the first turn at full strength and win the game in one or two turns. This didn't really give the feel of tension I wanted the game to have in the first few rounds. In the Star Trek universe the presence of the Organian kept the Klingon and Federation from going to war. It was risky to cross the neutral zone. In OSFC, the premise is that the Organian are gone (used in a number of Star Trek based games, book, and shows to allow a war to happen). The Klingons must test this before committing their forces, so they may only send raiding parties across the boarder at first.  

While the Romulans are not bound by the Organian Peace Treaty their nature is usually depicted as sneaky, thus the cloaking device. As is shown in The Balance of Terror, the Romulans are first testing the cloaking device with a limited attack on Federation space before committing to all out war. So now the Romulan player must first make a successful raid before launching patrols into the Federation.
So far these change seem to make the game more playable; making attacks on Tholian, Gorn, and border territories for economic gain early in the game more inviting. Giving the Federation time to move force to the front. 

Gives these a try and let me know what you think.

I am considering looking into making a page on Board Game Geek for this game. I'll keep you posted.


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Higher Resolution Game Boards

April 10, 2015, 5:33 am
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I have had a number of request for higher resolution files of my Victory In the Pacific and Operation:Starfleet Command game boards. So here they are. Be aware that these are large files and will take a while to download. Also, Operation: Starfleet Command is still a work in progress, which means that I don't recommend investing a lot of money into having it printed since the board is likely to change again. I have just printed it in sections on my printer and taped the parts together.


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Victory In the Pacific Redo Update

August 14, 2015, 6:23 pm
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One of the goals I set for myself this year was not to buy any new games (that doesn't count expansions to any of the games that I already own), and to finish working on many of my current game projects. So far I've managed to keep to that promise. Of course not being able to attend Origins or GenCon this year really helped.



Finally finishing my deluxe version of Victory In the Pacific was one of my projects. Yes, I had the counters, Order of Battle cards, and the map mostly to the point that I was happy with them, but not quite. After playing it many times I felt that my deluxe map needed tweaking. The fleet sections just weren't being used enough to justify the space; and while the battle board was a nice idea it took up too much space on the table and the location of the ports and bases was awkward for play. So I removed the fleet spaces from the main board, and replaced them with areas for the ports and bases. The battle board I replaced with a felt covered MDF board with stenciling - works great for play and dice rolling. 

I had the final board printed in one sheet and laminated, got a larger storage box for all the counters, and made a custom box. 


I think it look great.

So one game project finished. 

The redone game board is here.



You can find the files for the counters, information cards, and the original board and battle board here:
Original Board
Counters & Extras

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Liftoff! Deluxe Update

August 26, 2015, 6:18 am
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For those of you who have been following this blog, you know that I made my deluxe version of Fritz Bronner's Liftoff! game sometime ago. Actually, I never really had the game to the point that I was completely happy with it. The look and feel of it was great, but there where still a few things I wanted to add to it; the biggest improvement was to add another player. So finishing it was one of my goals this year.

My first step was to add a fourth player. A big help with this was addition of female characters to the Kerbal Space Program. Now I felt that I could make the Kermans the additional player. I split the science fiction space program off from the Kerbal program (the SF astronauts from the Kerbal equipment). Now the Kerbal equipment has Kebalnauts, and the SF astronauts have pieces of equipment from different television shows and movies. I had the new card sets printed on linen stock as my earlier cards sets were.

You can find the complete set of cards here: 

The game board also needed tweaking - I had found a few mistakes, and I also wanted the year spaces to have both a first and second half since that is usually how we play it. I then had the board professionally printed and laminated.



The board is here: Deluxe Liftoff! Board.







With the addition of the fourth player and the updating of the board, I also needed new markers. These were printed on sticker paper and mounted on wooden tiles.

Liftoff! R&D Markers.





For ease of play I designed play mats. These have spaces for each launch facility, purchased components, and a player's current astronaut corp. These I also had printed and laminated.

Liftoff! Player Mat

Then there where all the little things: a new plastic storage box for all the markers and Lego pieces, dice for each player in matching colors, storage for cards and money, and a custom game box. I already had the money printed, Event and US/USSR card sets, Mission Event book (Failure Tables), and Lego parts.

Other Components

For those of you who have a copy of Liftoff!, feel free to add any and all of these components to tweak your game. One of the reasons that I don't include the files for the Mission Event Book (Failure Tables), is that these are a key component of the game along with the rule book; and since Liftoff! is still available from Mr. Bronner, those of you who want to play the game will need to purchase a copy from him first. A good way to contact him is through Boardgamegeek.
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I'm Back! + New Board For Operation: Starfleet Command

November 9, 2016, 3:21 pm
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Sorry to all of you who have been looking for this blog over the past year. I know a lot of you have been trying to contact me through various means including Boardgamegeek. Due to family difficulties which are of no importance or concern to anyone - certainly not on a blog - I took the blog down. But now it is back up, so the various gaming files are once again available. 

For those of you who have been asking about my Operation: Starfleet Command game; yes it is still a work in progress. Hereis the link to my latest version of the board. I have combined the construction area of the Battleboard with the main game board by moving the space docks to it. I am working on a new Battleboard which will be smaller than the original. I'll post it as soon as I have it ready.

Thanks for your patience. 

For those new to the game, you can find the rules, counters, and extras under the label Operation Star Fleet Command.
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Deluxe Avalon Hill's Midway

December 17, 2016, 12:53 pm
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While I may not have been doing a lot of gaming this past year, I was keeping busy. I had a number of game related projects to keep me busy during last winter through early spring. One was to reduce my huge collection of games to a more manageable size; between giving games to family and friends, donating and selling, I am down to about a quarter of what it was last January. Another goal was to refrain from purchasing any new games with the exception of expansions to games I really enjoy and already own (not an easy goal, but one I was able accomplish in-spite of attending Origins.) Finally I looked at the games I really love and chose ones I thought needed a make-over like I had previously done with Victory In the Pacific, and Liftoff!.

One of the games that fell into this category was Avalon Hill's classic Midway. When I start redoing a game I try to keep the enlarged board to the same size as my other redone games. That way they fit on my game table and I can use the Plexiglas sheets I already have. So the battle board is 24" X 48". The spaces on the board were made so that I could use Topside Minis wonderful full color wooden ship counters.The only problem is that two of the ships for the Japanese force weren't part of their ship collection, but after contacting them about the project Topside quickly produced them for me.

The search boards are 11" X 17" and laminated. The spaces are 1/2" inch squares - much like the original game. Rather than have counters the same size as the originals with the difficulty of reading them and picking them up on the board, I went with 1/2" cubes for tasks forces. So now instead of placing a stack on ships on a square of the search board, they are grouped by task forces - only one counter is moved. Shielding each search board is a task force board. 

The tasks force boards are metal sheeting covered with laminated artwork. A number of task force boxes and handy game tables are on them. Wooden counter with magnets on the back represent each ship in the game. The metal sheets are mounted on wood with removable legs for storage.

For the aircraft I made cards for each aircraft carrier (again laminated). The aircraft markers are 1" wooden squares. Easy to move around the ship cards to show their ready conditions, and then placed on the battle board for combat.

In addition I made a pad of record sheets, a storage box for counters, reprinted the rules, and made a custom game box.



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Battle of Britain and Civil Air Patrol

February 14, 2018, 12:16 pm
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I see that it has been over a year since I last made a new post to this blog. While I had such good intentions of working last winter on catching up on my backlog of post that I wanted to share on my gaming life once again got in the way.

Last January I became the Aerospace Education Officer (AEO) for the local Civil Air Patrol squadron. From high school through my college years I was a member of CAP both as a cadet (for those of you who know about CAP I received both the Mitchell and Earhart awards), and then a senior member. For I number of years now I have been an Aerospace Education Member, but when the local squadron changed their meeting nights I was able to attend. I found that they needed an AEO, and with my background in CAP, science and education they were excited to have me. So instead of spending 2017 gaming I worked on lesson plans, building science equipment, and teaching classes on rocketry, hydraulics, astronomy, and aviation. It's been a lot of fun; I have a large group (31 cadets currently), of very intelligent, well behaved cadets who are interested in learning what I am teaching. Certainly different than teaching in the public schools - more like homeschooling my daughter, Maggie Reitz-Wells.

Of course I have had the chance to use games in the program. This past summer I built a simulation of the Battle of Britain. I started with Avalon Hill's classic London Burning. While this is primarily a solo game, I have found that solo games are easier to adapt to large groups than a game designed for multiple players. By the time I was done the game was able to accommodate 28 players. 

The game is composed of two parts, a strategic board of southern Britain (based on the original AH board), with 2-inch hexes, and a tactical air combat board with 4-inch hexes.  The boards are of felt with features painted on, and defensive installations (Chain Home stations, AA emplacements and barrage balloons), made of paper for a 3D effect.  The aircraft are also paper models of Spitfires, Hurricanes, ME 109's, and HE 111's. 

Each side was commanded by an air marshal. The German air marshal's task was to pick the bombing targets and assign aircraft for each mission - a mix of bombers and fighters. He then handed the target selection over to his navigation officer who plotted the course, being careful to avoid AA batteries and keep the flight as short as possible. The British air marshal decided which of his squadrons would be on patrol or standby and at which airbase. The British defense minister controlled the placement of defensive installations and handle the budget for repairs of civilian targets and aircraft.

The British defenses where composed of six squadrons. Each squadron was commanded by a cadet who's job was to intercept the attacking German aircraft. One released by their air marshal they needed to plot their intercept course, decide if they would wait for support, and then whether they would attack bombers or fighters. 

The German pilots represented both bombers and fighters. The cadets controlling the bombers needed to decide their formation to best defend each other, while the fighter pilots needed to decide if they would intercept fighters or defend bombers. 

I began the evening with a brief overview of the Battle of Britain, but used situations during the simulation to point out actual historical events. It made the lesson much more fun. As it so happened this class occurred on the night before the release of Dunkirk; a nice tie-in.



 

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Advanced Civilization

February 21, 2018, 11:28 am
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One of my long time gaming goals has been to make a deluxe version of Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization similar to my treatment of Victory in the Pacific and LiftOff!. I received the original Civilization as a Christmas present back in the early 1980's, and then got the western expansion board and commodity cards through the General.

Civilization has always been one of my favorite games, though I rarely get to play it due to time constraints. Over the years I have often been tempted to sign up for it at Origins, but the thought of a nine hour game until early in the morning lost its appeal years ago. Usually when we play it now it is over several weeks of game nights. (It helps to have a dedicated game room so the game can be left up.)

I knew I wanted a larger board in something other than day glow 1980's colors, and larger cards in better quality than the cheap punch-out paper civilization cards of the original game and the small commodity cards. I also wanted the board to be one piece rather than a original mounted board with the paper western expansion add-on.

As I began to start the design process I discovered a thread of posts on Board Game Geek by Evan Derrick on his redesigned Civilization project. Not only was he almost finished with it, but he is an actual artist/graphic designer. So rather than reinvent the wheel, so to speak, I made use of his excellent work. (You can find them on Board Game Geek in the Advanced Civilization files.) The only changes I made were to resize the Civilization cards to tarot-size rather than poker-size, and to enlarge his board to match the size of my other updated games.

My game group has really enjoyed playing Civilization; many of my game group's younger players for the first time. This past years we've had it out a number of times - more than we've played it over the past 20 years.





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Golden Age Air Racing & Civil Air Patrol

March 2, 2018, 8:38 am
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Last evening my Civil Air Patrol squadron had its weekly meeting. As the aerospace education officer it was my night to have the program. The plan had been to work on astronomy and celestial navigation, but it being Northeast Ohio the weather didn't cooperate, as usual. Luckily I had a back up lesson - air racing.

Air racing played an important roll in the development of the air plane, and since we are close to Cleveland, air racing is a part of our local history too. Naturally I thought a game would be a good addition to the lecture. Luckily I have a copy of Golden Age Air Racing by Dave Schueler from from the Air-Pirates Yahoo group. I had an idea that I would be using the game for a class in the future, but two weeks ago having realized that it would be a full moon and March, I had better have a fall back lesson ready.

So I raced to JoAnn Fabrics for a piece of green canvas for a play mat, slapped some paint on for background and used my 4" hex template for spaces. I found some paper pylon patterns and a Bendix tower at Fiddler's Green. The bleachers I modified from a paper model for slot car racing (I thought more era appropriate advertiser signs would look better). The stands for the planes are 2" hex tiles from Lowe's turned upside down for texture and painted with acrylics. The planes I designed from various 1930's air racer schematics I found and made them into approximately 1/144 scale 2.5D paper models. I also designed record sheets that would allow my cadets to learn the game quicker.

A big help and inspiration was from Kevin Smyth's Air Racing at Enfilade article on his A Gamer's Tale blog. He was also very helpful in answering my questions I had about his game.

It was a success. With the wind and snow pelting the hanger it was a fun evening of racing planes and learning about the history of air racing (I like to teach as the game is progressing.) I even had airplane trophies I had found at Oriental Trading Company that I relabeled for the winners. 




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Deluxe QED's Blue VS Gray

March 8, 2018, 11:50 am
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Back in the late 1990's (I think it was 1999), I had the pleasure of meeting Evan Jones (the designer of Blue vs. Gray), and his partner from QED Games at Origins. They were there to demo and release Blue vs. Gray, and as the owner of an educational game store I was very intrigued. Blue vs. Gray was the perfect game to add to our Civil War games line-up with its wealth of history on every card and its focus on personalities, events, and grand strategy rather than combat. Over then next few years we sold many copies to schools and educators, as well as gamers. I also had the satisfaction of winning Blue vs. Gray Origins' tournament the following year; the final game being against a Civil War history professor from a college in Virginia. With the closing of our store the game sat on my shelf for a number of years until I started playing it with a fellow fan at the local game club. I realized it would benefit from a deluxe treatment.


So last year I pimped Blue vs. Gray out. It didn't really take as much work as some of my other games since it really is only two decks of cards. What it needed was a larger board rather than the one made out of cards. So I scanned the map cards and enlarged them to 10" X 13 1/2", mounted them on chip board, and lamented them. Now when a map card is drawn, a large card is placed down. I also made a version of the play mat from the GMT deluxe version of the game, and made new control makers on 1" wooden disks. It also needed a larger box. While the large cards are not quite as colorful as the original cards, the big map is very satisfying to play on.


You can get copies of the cards in a PDF file. Just have them printed on 11" X 17" stock. Map Cards.

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3D Aces of Valor Board For WW1 Aerial Combat Games

August 15, 2018, 12:50 pm
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For those of you who have followed my blog you know how I love to pimp my games, and use games in an educational setting. During the centennial of WW1 I have been looking for a game to use with my Civil Air Patrol cadets' aerospace education classes. While there are many excellent games covering dog fighting (Canvas Eagles, Blue Max, Richtofen's War, Dawn Patrol for example), I wanted something more than just a combat game. As with my adaptation of London's Burning, I was looking for a game that would cover more history, allow the cadets to use leadership and teamwork skills, and engage the entire squadron. Luckily I discovered Berserker Games and Erik von Rossing's excellent Aces of Valor.  

As I have said in the past solo games are often easier to adapt to classroom use than many games designed for multi-players. I knew that Aces of Valor would serve the job perfectly; plus it is also lot of fun solo (I've been enjoying it for the past several months.) As a Print and Play game the price is also right. 

What Aces of Valor gives me is an excellent campaign setting for a WW1 squadron to fly a number of missions in. It does have a very good combat system for solo play, but what I want for my cadet is a way to manage a squadron, setting the stage for aerial battles using a Canvas Eagles type game.

Basically the plan is for the cadet squadron commander to choose the mission (from the Aces of Valor mission cards), and assign the pilots. The flight leader for the mission will move the squadron marker across the board, again using the Aces of Valor rules, and encountering events. Weather, flak, and damaged aircraft are handles very well with the Aces of Valor rules; but when the squadron encounters enemy aircraft or ground targets play will move to a large scale board. There each cadet who is part of the mission will handle their own aircraft using Canvas Eagle/Blue Max based rules. The system of play and rules has not been finalized yet, but it is getting close. The beauty of using Aces of Valor is that any air combat game can be used to handle the dog fighting phase: Wings of Glory could easily work.

While the games comes with perfectly usable components (in fact the graphics have recently undergone an upgrade), I wanted something more. So for the past few months I have been building a roughly 1/1000 scale version of the print & play board. 

The base is 1/4" MDF board with felt backing; with Cellfoam 88 glued on for hills and no-mans land. The entire surface was covered with glue and fine sand, then painted with craft paints followed with a little dry brushing (at that scale simple is best.) For most of the structures I used Brigade Models Small Scale Scenery line, (the ruins are Oddzial Osmy terrain - slightly larger scale, but still works). The railroads from Brigade Games are excellent. The oil depots are scratch built, and the hangers are really, really reduced paper miniatures from Fiddlers Green. The aircraft at the airfields are from Brigade Games Aeronef line, while the observation balloons came from Classic Airships at Shapeways. The AA batteries are made by Tumbling Dice; again 1/600 scale, but close enough. I finished the boards off by gluing Woodland Scenic's shrubs for forests. 


To mark the squadron's base and the mission targets I used Litko objective and HQ markers. The squadron marker to move over the board is a Litko Fleet Movement Stand with 6" legs. I painted 1/600 scale aircraft (Tumbling dice and PicoArmor) to match the 1/72 scale plane that will be used for the dog fights. 

Hopefully I will be able to take these boards to conventions in the future and link up with some air combat games so they get used more than a few times a year. 
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Apollo 11: The 50th Anniversary of Man's Moon Landing - My display at our local library

July 10, 2019, 1:08 pm
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Several months ago I approached my local library to see if any of the departments would like to borrow some of my space history items for the upcoming anniversary of Apollo 11. Rather than borrow a few things they offered me the entire art exhibit hall for the month of July. While I have a large number of space related materials I do not have enough to fill 50 feet of display cases; so I agreed to use one of the small and medium spaces.

I spent the month of June finishing a few items that I have been postponing for a number of years and working on layout design and signage. Luckily over the years my daughter has given me some good ideas about museum displays, and the Smithsonian Institute has wonderful resources on the best way to do signage and labels for display cabinets.


My wife and I took most of the morning of July 1, transporting the the items and setting up the displays. Luckily it was a sunny day so I didn't need to worry about rain damaging the paper models. I think it turned out well and the library is so pleased with it they have asked me to keep it out through August.

Hopefully they will spark some interest in Apollo and the future of space travel among the people that view it; especially the kids that are attending the summer reading events in the rooms beside the displays. If I am lucky these will also result in opportunities this fall to speak to local schools, and scout groups; and possibly bring in some new cadets to the local Civil Air Patrol squadron.





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Deluxe AH Midway Files

July 11, 2019, 12:44 pm
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Space Race / Apollo Themed Game Collection

July 23, 2019, 7:40 am
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With all the excitement and celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of the moon landing I thought that I would share my collection of games related to the event. It is certainly not the largest or most comprehensive collection of games on this subject, but it is one I have been building since 1970. 

The newest game that I've added is Tranquility Base and its expansion Soviet Moon which arrived yesterday. This is a reprinting/update of Moonshot. The oldest game is Moon Flight which I received as a Christmas present in 1970. It was published by Avon, and the shampoo bottle became the die launcher.

My favorites are LiftOff! (my deluxe edition), and Leaving Earth.

There are others on my wish list that I hope to acquire when they are published or can track them down.
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Gaming With Civil Air Patrol

February 28, 2020, 8:54 am
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As my local Civil Air Patrol squadron Aerospace Education officer it is my job to make aviation studies interesting and exciting. After all the cadets are forced to spend five days a week in uncomfortable desks listening to boring lectures; when they choose to attend an activity I feel I owe it to them that not only should it be educational, but fun.

One of the first activities I had the cadets do when I joined my new squadron six months ago was to fill out an interest survey. What they overwhelmingly told me was that they wanted hands-on activities and one session classes so we could cover lots of interest areas. During these past few months we've had classes on air combat, acrobatics, orbital mechanics, unmanned aerial vehicles, astronomy, naval aviation, rocketry, and even the history of Beeman's gum.

While the classes have had a high STEM component I have also needed to cover aviation history since it's also a big component of the CAP aerospace course. Naturally games have been part of these lessons.

To accent the lesson on air combat/acrobatics we finished with a game of WW I aerial combat based on Canvas Eagles/Blue Max/Biplane Barmy systems just to name a few. While a flight simulator would certainly have been closer to the real thing, it would have been difficult to find one that could handle 16 cadets at once. So while even a simplified 3D air combat board game is somewhat slow and complex it does allow plenty of time to discuss aviation history, maneuvers, energy management, and position among other
subjects.

Later in the fall while the newer cadets where working on their Goddard rockets for their Rocketry Badges I had the opportunity to cover the subject of orbital mechanics and rendezvous with the cadet officers. Rather than begin with a lecture I had them play a game of ASAT by Paper Forge Games. I modified it somewhat with a larger board, LEGO spacecraft, and Blue Gemini spacecraft. The object was to rendezvous with as many target satellites and return to earth with their limited fuel. I only gave the cadets the most basic of instructions and let them figure out the rules of orbital mechanics for themselves. As with McDivitt and White on Gemini 4, the game allowed me the opportunity to recreate the confusion and frustration of the early NASA docking attempts. The cadet who plays Kerbal Space Program caught on the fastest. ASAT has excellent potential for future classes. After the game I had a lecture on orbital mechanics, which having has hands-on experience was better understood by the cadets.

My newest game was run just a few weeks ago. The squadron had asked for a lesson on Naval aviation. For the lecture portion my cadet/AEO (who is working on his pilot's license) gave a brief class on carrier flight patterns and landing lights; a senior member who served in the Navy as a carrier flight deck crewman talked about the different crew positions on a carrier, and I gave a lecture on the history of carrier aviation before moving on to the game.

The game was designed to allow for team building, problem solving and a general overview of the problems of carrier flight operations. The flight operation portion was based on SPI's The Fast Carriers, while the combat segment generally came from Avalon Hills'Midway.

The two teams were composed of four carriers of 14 aircraft (eight bombers and six fighters), commanded by the red and blue admirals (the two most senior cadets). The admirals' job was to move the ships and authorize strikes.

Copy of a carrier chart
Each carrier was commanded by two cadets who's job was to manage carrier operations and move the air strikes. The most difficult portions of the game was carrier operation with moving the aircraft between the hanger to arming & fueling, to the flight deck and launching them to CAP, search teams, and strike teams. They also needed to make sure the deck was kept clear for returning aircraft since the game was based on WW2 carriers which generally could only launch or land aircraft.Because of the time period effective radar and satellites were not available so effective air searches where very important.

The game was run double-blind with the senior members serving as judges, and recording each fleet's movement and search request on a master board. If a search was effective (and many weren't), the judge reported the ships' location, but not always the correct number of carriers present. This reflected the inaccuracies of WW2 spotting which lead to confusion among the teams when they spotted more ships than were in the game.

Combat was held on a central battle board with the attackers and defenders bringing their forces to the table, and being surprised at what was actually there. A simple CRT was used with extra damage to carriers that had aircraft on the flight deck and/or being armed and refueled. I had warned them about that, but they didn't listen. After his second carrier took extra damage from planes on the flight deck the Red Admiral was a little upset with his captains.

As with the other games I have used with the cadets these provided lots of learning opportunities and a chance for the cadets to work together; and lots of fun. There is plenty of potential for many of the classic war games to be used in a teaching environment. The number of players doesn't matter, in fact many solo games are easier to adapt for a classroom than multi-player games. In fact one of the games I am currently working on is Avalon Hills B-17.

Other games with Civil Air Patrol: Battle of Britain, Golden Age Air Racing
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Crimson Skies RPG Using Warbirds

March 15, 2020, 4:19 pm
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Image result for crimson skies logoCrimson Skies has long been one of my favorite game settings, as you can see by looking over many of my posts. The pulp aviation theme has always intrigued me, and while it has a slight role playing element it is not a true RPG. Recently I cam across Warbirds RPG by Outrider Studios. While the setting does not interest me the mechanics look like they have real potential for a Crimson Skies RPG. 

For the last 12 years I have been using Savage Worlds, and while both my players and I really love the system I think it might be time for a change. So I have been working on a conversion for Crimson Skies to Warbirds. The Warbirds' game mechanics don't look like they will need changed, but I really want to use the Crimson Skies aircraft. To keep the feel of that universe I have developed a set of conversion rules; these produce really different aircraft than the ones found in the Warbirds rules - hopefully they will work.

What I have so far seem to work in the limited solo tests that I have run. Over the next several months I will probably need to tweak  them, but the new campaign doesn't start until September so I should have time.

Here are the basic conversions, the core set of aircraft stats, and tow of the aircraft record sheets.
Crimson Skies to Warbirds Conversion.

Crimson Skies Aircraft Stats

Raven Record sheet

Fury Record sheet
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The Last Starfighter Combat Game Rules

March 31, 2020, 8:13 am
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While organizing my game collection recently I unearthed some old favorites. While the Last Starfighter Combat game is not one of the best space combat games it is fun. Looking over the various internet game sites I realized that the rules for this 1984 game are not available and that they are still being requested by gamers of my generation. You will need the hex counters or miniatures, a playing field and two dice; but not hard to find. The Last Starfighter page on boardgamegeek has images of the counters that can easily be printed and mounted on cardstock or use the miniatures from Studio Bergstrom.

Here are the rules: Last Starfighter Combat Game

Have fun!
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Prep for Origins 2010

February 22, 2010, 3:24 pm
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I just submitted my events for Origins 2010. I've been a bit concerned about Origins this year since their website has been undergoing redesign since November with no end in site. I just hope the wait doesn't hurt attendance too much. Origins is a great convention, especially for game playing. It is a bit sad to see the constant fight between so many GenCon VS Origins attendees. These are both great conventions, each with it's own flavor. As gamers we need to support them both, not bad mouth one or the other, since they both help keep our hobby alive. The more game conventions the better. But enough preaching.

Once again I will be taking my 3D WizWar. I'm planning on running it twice this year instead of just once. It's always popular and the board just attracts an audience. A few repairs on the traveling damage from last year and it's ready to go.








Crimson Eagles will be back again, though this time I'm going to try a Friday time slot to see if attendance is better. It's also ready to go.

I've decided to run Star Fleet Battle Manual after a break of many years. I used to demo this for Lou Zocchi and his Gamescience company. Even though this is a 30 year old game there are still old gamers out there who have fond memories of it and love to playing it. For those of you who don't know what Star Fleet Battle Manual is, it is the original Star Trek miniature game. Many gamers confuse it with the far more popular Star Fleet Battles. The Star Fleet Battle Manual is played without a board using a ruler to move the ships. Combat is done by figuring the angle and distance to the target by the eyeball method and then stretching out a string to see if you hit the target. While the game is simple compared to most other starship combat games it has a clean elegance that has much more of the Star Trek feel than the other games - no attack shuttles, missiles, fighters, and weapons systems galore. Just phasers, photon torpedoes, disruptors and plasma bolts. The game truly captures the feel of the original series combat.
I'm updating Lou's original design with a combat board system rather than the old paper records. Not only will this be more colorful (always a crowd pleaser at a gaming con), but will make record keeping quicker and teaching the game to newbies should be easier. There will still be a need for record keeping for navigation, but I am updating the record sheets for that part too. There have been a lot of changes in gaming since 1973, especially in the area of home computers and self-publishing which were not available to Lou (plus he hates to use computers). The Star Fleet Battle Manual was done on a typewriter with hand drawn graphics.

I am also running it as a tournament. According to Lou there has never been a Star Fleet Battle Manual tournament (at least not an official one, or one that he knows of.) So this will be the first, official Intergalactic Star Fleet Battle Manual Tournament.

Once again my family will be presenting our seminar on using games in education. This has been very popular the last two years, but I have had requests to move it to an afternoon slot. So we will see how that works for it.

Since the .45 Adventure based on the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Arks did so well last summer I will be running a sort of sequel - the battle at the flying wing. So my big project over the next few months will be to construct a mini of the German Flying Wing from that scene. I'll keep you up to date on its progress.
Well, that's it for now. I need to work on some minis. Hope to see many of you at Origins this year.
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1st Intergalactic Star Fleet Battle Manual Tournament

March 20, 2010, 1:41 pm
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In 1977 a group of us traveled to Cleveland (our parents actually drove us since none us could drive yet), for our first Star Trek convention. It opened up a whole new world for us - young teens from the country who had watched the reruns enough times to quote whole episodes from memory, collected the novelizations, built the models and even managed to buy a few Starlog magazine from our local newsstand in the pharmacy when we could get to town. But here we met the stars (Doohan, Takei, and Koenig), saw people in costumes, and entered our first dealers hall. While there I bought a slim, ziplock bagged game with a picture of a Federation dreadnaught on the cover.
I remember reading the instructions on the way home by the light of the streetlights until we left the city. Here was my first starship combat game, but certainly not my last. Those first few battles where played with just the cardboard cards until I could save up enough money to send away for the plastic ships. Battles were waged all over the house since the game doesn't need a board. Furniture was asteroids and stairs made for interesting movements. It was also my first try at home rules with homemade ship designs.
The game was a favorite with my friends and I, and then with my younger brothers. I even played it in college - nothing like a bunch of astrophysics majors to be Star Trek fans. I fact I never stopped playing it. Fast forward to 1997. The game has gotten a little dog-eared (I had picked up a second addition a one point), and I was now playing it with the next generation. I decided to write a letter to Lou Zocchi (the designer) on the off chance he was still at the address listed in the game. That was the beginning of my friendship with Lou. He asked me to run Star Fleet Battle Manual at Origins that year and I have almost every year since. I've played it on tables, on the floor, in the open gaming area. I even have the approved starbase design with 12-foot diameter field of fire with the super phasers - always a crowd pleaser.
This year I've decided to run a tournament for all those long time fans (and maybe some new ones). When I was talking to Lou last week about it he said that as far as he knows there has never been a Star Flee Battle Manual tournament (at least not an official one). Those this will be the First Intergalactic Star Fleet Battle Manual Tournament; open to all intelligent beings and races, though I do feel it will be heavy on the human side.
To add some newness and color to the game I've made some energy and damage allocation boards, rather than just the old record sheets. I think that they have turned out rather nicely. Colored cribbage pegs serve as energy and damage indicators. You simply plug them in.
So if you will be at Origins this year and are a fan (or want to learn) stop by. The events should be going up soon at the Origins site. The game will be run Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with the final battle on Saturday.
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Dateline Egypt 1936: This years Origins' .45 Adventure

May 6, 2010, 12:57 pm
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Here's a teaser for my .45 Adventure scenario that I am running at Origins this year. The title is Flight of the Flying Wing and it will be run in the miniature hall on Saturday, June 26th at 4:00 P.M.. For those of you who would like to sign up when the the events finally become available it is #1238.
Not as elaborate as last years Temple of the Warriors, but it should be fun.
Once again this will be the only .45 Adventure event at Origins which is a disappointment, but I still think it is a great game system. So stop by and check it out.
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