A Call to Arms: Star Fleet

Earlier this year Amarillo Design Bureau and Mongoose Publishing announced a partnership to produce a new game set in ADB's Star Fleet Universe and based upon Mongoose's popular A Call to Arms starship combat rules set.

The result is A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. It's due this November and it just be my most anticipated game of the year.

Seriously.

I love Star Trek, and have since it first aired back in the 60s. I wanted to love Star Fleet Battles, the venerable star ship combat game set in the Star Fleet Universe...but it just was for me. Too much minutia to manage for my tastes. It's a good game, but just not my style.

Federation Commander was released back in 2005 and it presented a simpler (but not simple!) set of rules, and brought in an entire new fanbase. I played one basic game of Fed Comm a few years back at my store, and have been meaning to get back to it but just never did.

But then, this year, two big announcements were made that piqued my interest. ADB and Mongoose announced A Call to Arms: Star Fleet and Wizkids announced Star Trek: Fleet Captains. Both were exciting, but I didn't really need two ship combat games...especially ones that were basically in the same setting ('though with significant differences). But, as details about each became clearer...and, especially after playing Star Trek: Fleet Captains at Gen Con...I learned that they were two entirely different games.

A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is a pure star ship miniatures combat game, whereas the Wizkids game is more of a exploration/combat boardgame. Entirely different.

I never played a game of A Call to Arms, but got a review copy of the main rule book that I still need to review and post soon. However, from a cursory reading I like what I see. I'm really excited about the possibilities of A Call to Arms: Star Fleet as well as the all-new CAD designed resin minis that Mongoose is producing to go along with the new game. They're slightly larger that ADB's Starline 2400 series of minis, and producing them in resin is a nice move, in my opinion.

A Call to Arms: Star Fleet should be in stores in November, with the first miniatures arriving shortly thereafter in December.

Check out www.mongoosepublishing.com for more information