Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: YPU on February 24, 2021, 03:38:38 PM
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I've been stung by the billion suns bug badly, its not your average ship game and I love it. During playtest I figured it would be a lot more pleasant to play with small ships, so I've started printing ships at "microfleet" scale. Here are my first colour tests of the first fleet, now to copy the scheme a dozen time for each class.
I present the drab and dour liveried fleet of
LAWSON and PURGATORY
LEGAL INC.
(https://i.imgur.com/9MuWPxV.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/4qEHgSR.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/wGAx93r.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WTB0OCr.jpg)
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Those look great. The colours might be drab, but that’s how I like my sci-fi spaceships!
I haven’t picked up Billion Suns yet, what sets it apart for you?
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Nicely done :)
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Really nice, I'd also like to hear your thoughts on the ruleset.
I've always been attracted to Space fleet games but never dipped into it so if there is a solid ruleset to use as a base for fleet creation that'd be swell.
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Really nice, I'd also like to hear your thoughts on the ruleset.
I haven’t picked up Billion Suns yet, what sets it apart for you?
I've given this spiel on various social media already so let's see if I can be concise.
You play as megacorporations, there are no victory points everything is about money, if you have the most, and are making a profit at the end of the game you win.
At the start of the game you randomly select 3 scenarios from 12, which set up objectives to score revenue. Hunt space kraken, evacuate civilians, spy on com sats you name it. Many objectives also add extra tables to the game. This can just mean over that 3 part board apart a bit or put some painters tape trough the middle to split the board. You can have one or more jump points on each board, which function a lot like jumping off points in chain of command, its where your units spawn from. You can also "jump skip" from one point to the next or to the other tables.
You don't build an army list, instead, you can jump in any number of ships you want each turn, you just need to pay their cost. (you start of diving into negatives at the start of the game)
Most objectives are multi-step, some start by paying of high and go lower, some begin low and go higher and some are random meaning you have priorities. Many objectives require Utility ships to score, either to transport specific cargo, deliver stuff or perform specific actions.
Many of the objectives will self destruct or resolve themselves by the end of turn 3. (lifeboats run out of air for example) and if 2 or more objectives can't be scored anymore the game ends. So there is a huge wild scramble to score while you can, using as few as possible ships to do so.
The way these contracts are set up you can also be incredibly cutthroat. it might be worthwhile to blow up a lifeboat and incur a 5$ penalty if it stops your opponent from scoring a 9$ objective.
Now actual ship wise there are 13 types you can jump in, 3 types of light craft (fighter bomber and recon) 2 utility ships and 8 military ships each with their own distinct stats and uses. (it's definitely not a case of ever-increasing numbers as the ships get bigger)
There is a campaign system where you need to unlock the ship classes and have a tech tree to unlock further benefits, but its the weaker part of the game IMHO. Besides this there is no fiddling with model stats or equipment load-outs. it's those 10 types of units you and everyone else has.
The combat system is very simple but fast and has some super creative ideas. To hit a target you need to roll under its silhouette rating. (larger ships easier to hit) Then every die that hit can be saved by rolling under the ships shield value. The clever bit is that weapons can have a d6 to a d12 for these rolls. So some weapons are good at hitting small targets but bad at shield penetration, and some the other way round.
You have a very simple command board with command tokens that limit how many times you can jump in something per turn, how likely you are to get initiative and boost units (double move, re-roll attacks, better saves etc) Deciding at the start of your turn how many jump-ins you will need is a very stressful tactical decision.
Added to this there is an always on overwatch system. Ships will always use their secondary weapons to target any enemy that move into range, before that unit gets a chance to do anything else, giving a real "zone of control" feel that many ship games lack.
So in short, The pros:
it's an extremely cutthroat capitalism simulator where the objective rules take up more space than the ship types. You don't have army lists instead build on the go. Its the most tactically satisfying and challenging game I have played the past 5+ years without a doubt.
Actually interesting and central objectives instead of 2 fleets flying at each other with a half-hearted attempt at manoeuvring.
Solid but dead simple movement and combat rules you won't need to look up every 5 minutes, leaving room for tactical options like jump hopping, using zones of control to attack enemies and defend your own ships in shared shields, and damaging enemies by jumping in close to them.
The cons:
It's not setting agnostic, it emulates a very specific universe and while you can use any figure you want, it won't simulate star wars or star trek at all. (unless you want to play a Ferengi civil war, that would be perfect)
It doesn't let you fiddle with model stats and equipment outside the campaign system, and that's not particularly deep either.
The fact that each objective will place a number of ships/bases on your table, and you can jump in any ship you want means you need a broad collection, or be willing to proxy models a lot.
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Nice, have been wondering similar:
If I made some very small ships and converted to CM could each board be played on a 30cm square? I really like Smight's microfleet stuff on thingiverse so thinking of getting some of them or making similar.
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Nice, have been wondering similar:
If I made some very small ships and converted to CM could each board be played on a 30cm square? I really like Smight's microfleet stuff on thingiverse so thinking of getting some of them or making similar.
You definitely could. I've done some playing on tabletop simulator digitally and the boards were smaller than 30 inches I thin, so converting to CM would do nicely. These ships are actually Smights work as well, just normal ones scaled down as I like the added detail. If you enjoy his work take a look at the "stars and steel" game on wargames vault, he's done a number of microfleets for that game for free or very cheap, mostly more interesting designs than the Thingiverse ones IMHO.
Incidentally stars and steel is a great game for if all you want is tons of ships on the table shooting at each other, the 2 games feel a bit like 2 sides of the same coin.
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You definitely could. I've done some playing on tabletop simulator digitally and the boards were smaller than 30 inches I thin, so converting to CM would do nicely. These ships are actually Smights work as well, just normal ones scaled down as I like the added detail. If you enjoy his work take a look at the "stars and steel" game on wargames vault, he's done a number of microfleets for that game for free or very cheap, mostly more interesting designs than the Thingiverse ones IMHO.
Incidentally stars and steel is a great game for if all you want is tons of ships on the table shooting at each other, the 2 games feel a bit like 2 sides of the same coin.
Oh I hadn't realised that yeah love Smight's stuff, it's a bit more simplisitic which I favour in small scales. I guess the challenge with small small ships is differentiating between ships within a weight class. Need to think about that one - your bases do a nice job
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Dude, thanks so much for the S&S recommendation - didn't know and now I'm printing 30 of them! I'm all in on Microfleet billion suns. I'll be roughly doing 1cm per mass to identify then I just need a way of differentiating classes
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YPU, thanks for your take on the rules. It sounds like an innovative game, it sounds a bit too tightly linked to the setting to work for me, though. These days I lean very heavily toward “toolbox” rule sets for anything that isn’t a historical period.
That said, I’ll be looking forward to seeing your fleets!
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Dude, thanks so much for the S&S recommendation - didn't know and now I'm printing 30 of them! I'm all in on Microfleet billion suns. I'll be roughly doing 1cm per mass to identify then I just need a way of differentiating classes
Glad to be of service! He does a lot of cool stuff and makes me very lazy as progress on my own designs has ground to a halt as I paint more ships. And do share pictures of your painted ships!
YPU, thanks for your take on the rules. It sounds like an innovative game, it sounds a bit too tightly linked to the setting to work for me, though. These days I lean very heavily toward “toolbox” rule sets for anything that isn’t a historical period.
I fear we will see a lot of people picking up the ruleset expecting a generic space ship game from osprey and ending up disappointed. Which is a crying shame because its the most innovative and interesting game to come out of osprey by a country mile in my opinion. Thats part of why I've been giving my thoughts about it to anyone who wants to listen, I'd rather warn people away then have the game die because a significant portion of people who pick it up are disappointed and leave.
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I will make a thread but I painted up enough ships for a little game to test the rules a bit more and I love them - I particularly like the build an army-on-the-fly approach. Got me thinking that would be a real cool 6mm mechanic to capture an RTS, command and conquer vibe. Will post my ships soon.
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Here we go, I need to paint up a couple of small bits, a BUNCH of fighters and one honking big battleship and then this fleet is done.
(https://i.imgur.com/Q8KLW9l.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WmeXBma.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OfgvCm2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/pjkVKd7.jpg)
I also did some quick and dirty civilian construction ships, I was aiming for a simple thunderbirds esque look on these.
(https://i.imgur.com/uov8hST.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/IWulW6z.jpg)
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Nice, those orange ships are beauts - your design?
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Nice, those orange ships are beauts - your design?
I wish! More Smight designs
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Ah I don’t remember seeing them. Nice job, you’ve really captured the civilian feel with them
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Certainly got the 'Thunderbirds vibe' happening there. :-* I can almost see the wires. lol
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Ah, good to know. I just grabbed some Smight stuff to scale up to 15mm. I like the look of his work.
https://www.thingiverse.com/smight/designs (https://www.thingiverse.com/smight/designs) in case anyone wants to look deeper.
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Meanwhile, I've started designing and printing my own ships!
Here are the first 3, painted in the same scene as it shows the details nicely but I'd love to hear suggestions for easy to paint colour schemes that would look good on them.
(https://i.imgur.com/IB1YKbN.jpg)
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Those are really nice maybe - will you make files available?
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Those are really nice maybe - will you make files available?
If I can get them to a complete fleet for ABS I think I'll put them up on gumroad or MMF for a couple of bucks as a pack. With the market moving more and more in that direction its a venue I need to explore more as a designer I think. Ofcourse if I grind to a halt halfway trough I might just give up and put then out for free. ::)
Meanwhile here is a preview of the small and medium Utility ships.
(https://i.imgur.com/U8sryiw.jpg)
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Yeah nice - I'll certainly pick them up.
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Great designs. I hope you dont grind to a halt!
I cant wait to get my hands on the rulebook. Saw some nice batrepts and really dig this game
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Cheers gents!
Meanwhile here are a corvette and a destroyer. The destroyer needs a bit more work though I'm happy with the overall shape at least.
(https://i.imgur.com/HtwEV80.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/9ShDihx.png)
I've got prints of all of these recent ones primed as well, I'll give them a quick coat of paint and post them up.
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Nice - these are ace.
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Another quartet of ships test painted. The fast corvette, light and medium utility ships and the long range missile destroyer. Not happy with the last one detail wise but we are nearing completion on this fleet!
(https://i.imgur.com/Njhnu66.jpg)
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Really nice mate, really great looking.
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Nice style. Look good printed
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Very good work!
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Nice assortment of ships, have a catalogue or sites that sell compatible scale ships?
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Nice assortment of ships, have a catalogue or sites that sell compatible scale ships?
I'll be honest I've been doing these to my own preferences scale-wise. Ofcourse with them being 3d files you can scale them to personal taste. For other ships in the same kind of scale, you can find a number of good ones by Smight on thingyverse, marked as microfleet scale. He also has done a number of fleets for "stars and steel" wargame on wargames vault for very reasonable prices. Gamer god terain do 2 ranges of ship files that start at roughly the same scale though the largest ships go a lot bigger, they don't have thin parts and would scale down to match just fine I think. Lastly national cheese emporium on shapeways sells even smaller ships with the same idea of pocket sized fleets.
Of course I also plan to create another 2-3 fleets to this scale standard. Chances are good that prints of these ships will be available through microworld games under licence.