Sunday, March 31, 2013

5150 Star Navy

Bruce dropped by to try out 5150: Star Navy by Two Hour Wargames. This game is based upon the "rep" engine common to the THW rules and was designed to fight fleet-level battles.


These gave Bruce's dusty old collection of space ships a nice evening out. The mechanics handle fighters very nicely. The fleet-level ships flew much less tactically than in Full Thrust (which makes sense given the scale) but some of the dice mechanics were not as tight as Full Thrust (although they work fine and make sense in context). This would work well for Star Wars and Battestar Galactica but would not be so suited for Star Trek.


Up next: I'm pushing the final 15mm WW2 guys through basing tonight, then back to some 1/72 ancients. And the club is Tuesday night.

4 comments:

Desert Scribe said...

Thanks, Bob. As one of the co-authors, I'm glad you liked the game (especially the fighter mechanics; I'm particularly proud of that), and I'm always happy to see pics of other gamers' Starfleet Wars spaceships. I recognized those Aquarian carriers, but what make are the other starships in those photos?

Oh, and while your mileage may vary, I think 5150: Star Navy could be suitable for gaming Star Trek; see this batrep as an example.

Bob Barnetson said...

Thanks for your note; we had a fun a time and the fighter rules create a very simple system that is far superior to Full Thrust.

The reason I suggested Star Wars and BSG is that they are fighter dense (something FT has trouble with) and I want to command a fleet in those universes--5150 does this really well.

In Star Trek, I want to command a small squadron or a single ship and the tactical feel of FT seems better for me. But certainly it will work for FT. Anyhow, a good time.

No idea where the ships are from--Bruce has had some f the for a long time. I wondered about Monday Knight Productions as the source of a couple of them.

Desert Scribe said...

I see your point regarding Trek--if it's just a ship or two, you want something with a lot more detail to make it worth setting up. That's where games like Full Thrust or even Starfleet Battles come in, and those rules are great for that kind of one-on-one ship duel.

The two carriers are definitely Monday Knight ships (or their Superior Models predecessors). The others look like possibly starfighter minis originally used with Silent Death. Maybe you could ask Bruce?

Bob Barnetson said...

Yes, the two smaller ships are old silent death minis. Unpictured is also a Grenadier ship from the 1990s.