Remember folks, the guy who rebooted Star Trek into the mess it is now, is the same guy who is working on the next Star Wars movie. Smile and say Jar-jar Binks.

Should I sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" first?

I'm debating whether to place a bet on the big space battle of Episode VII being ended via kamikaze attack, boarding party, or both.

Given Abrams' prior space battles one of the three is a safe bet I'm just having trouble deciding which

I see several votes for BSG. Whilst I like the show, I feel it lacks variety of ships to make a decent wargame. Whilst there are a few varieties of Battlestar, we never see any other warships in the show, and there are only 2 types of fighter for each faction that I recall (viper, raptor, cylon raider and heavy raider). Plus the cylons only have one type of capital ship (the resurrection ship doesn't count as its not a warship).

B5 on the other hand has several fighter types for each faction, and more importantly, lots of different capital ships, especially the EA ones. B5 would also introduce some different game mechanics for movement, interceptor weapons, etc.

While it's true that Abrams made a mess of Star Trek, it's also true that the weaknesses of his plots are down to two things: he doesn't care about plot, and his favorite collaborators are awful at plot. And, well, everything else they do too. Also, Paramount doesn't exactly care that much about stewarding the Star Trek brand.

With the Force Awakens, most of that changes. The other primary writer is the guy who did Empire, so it's reasonable to say he cares a bit about writing and has some talent for it. The brand is being overseen by Kathleen Kennedy, who is enormously talented. Disney very much wants to maintain the value of the Star Wars brand, and will not be on board with scripts as careless as those that usually accompany Abrams' work. So, sure, he's still bad at plot, but Disney and Lucasfilm have put in place talent to compensate for that lack.

I'm debating whether to place a bet on the big space battle of Episode VII being ended via kamikaze attack, boarding party, or both.

Well, IV opened with a boarding action, and VI included a kamikaze attack...so we already have both in Star Wars.

I see several votes for BSG. Whilst I like the show, I feel it lacks variety of ships to make a decent wargame. Whilst there are a few varieties of Battlestar, we never see any other warships in the show, and there are only 2 types of fighter for each faction that I recall (viper, raptor, cylon raider and heavy raider). Plus the cylons only have one type of capital ship (the resurrection ship doesn't count as its not a warship).

B5 on the other hand has several fighter types for each faction, and more importantly, lots of different capital ships, especially the EA ones. B5 would also introduce some different game mechanics for movement, interceptor weapons, etc.

I think a BSG game would be best as a single box game, maybe with one expansion. There just wasn't enough variety. Plus, that is now an old show.

B5!

Count me in line casting votes for the following:

Bab 5.

Classic BSG.

Honor Harrington Universe (my roommate and I were just discussing that the other night).

Freespace (I want more Shivans dammit)

Wing Commander

I do expect Wizkids to redo their Star Trek game to follow Armada rules. Of course they will simply use the same models. Why? Look at DnD Attack Wing. How many of those models are actually new?

Does Mongoose actually own the B5 license or did someone else pick it up?

Apparently Attack Wing has had a rules update recently. I didn't look too closely at it, but seeing how they've reclassified their fighter groupings from "ships" to "squadrons" made me wonder a little if some of the changes were inspired by Armada...

I'd rather not have WK license the rules for Armada and try to make their "Attack Wing 2.0" into an Armada clone. Fans of that new game would laud that it's an improvement over FFG's engine and chuckle to themselves on their forums how their game is much better. Nevermind that Attack Wing an over-saturated mess of upgrades and sloppily-designed abilities, and has dropped off the BGG hotness list like a rock as soon as Armada came out. *Sigh*

If Armada is going to contain Star Trek, it will either be through the efforts of us fans or if FFG can get their mitts on the Star Trek license. Since the latter is not likely to happen, Star Trek is just going to have to suffer continuously lackluster games representing them with the only occasional gem.

...forgive the Aside. Trek could do better but it won't, and it's a little disappointing that Trek is almost never going to see the same quality and presentation FFG puts into their games. Only Bandai made it that far with the deckbuilder and that's been discontinued.

I also think the mechanics of this game could be VERY easily adapted to a better version of Battle Fleet Gothic. Plus I'd love to see some pre-painted BFG models

BSG would also be pretty **** fun

Could never stand to sit through an episode of B5.

You may want to try one of the later seasons. The first season was a bit slow as it found its feet. Has some extraordinary space battles in the series - most of those ships feel a lot more 'real' (I know, funny word to use when talking about sci-fi).

Apparently Attack Wing has had a rules update recently. I didn't look too closely at it, but seeing how they've reclassified their fighter groupings from "ships" to "squadrons" made me wonder a little if some of the changes were inspired by Armada...

I'd rather not have WK license the rules for Armada and try to make their "Attack Wing 2.0" into an Armada clone. Fans of that new game would laud that it's an improvement over FFG's engine and chuckle to themselves on their forums how their game is much better. Nevermind that Attack Wing an over-saturated mess of upgrades and sloppily-designed abilities, and has dropped off the BGG hotness list like a rock as soon as Armada came out. *Sigh*

If Armada is going to contain Star Trek, it will either be through the efforts of us fans or if FFG can get their mitts on the Star Trek license. Since the latter is not likely to happen, Star Trek is just going to have to suffer continuously lackluster games representing them with the only occasional gem.

...forgive the Aside. Trek could do better but it won't, and it's a little disappointing that Trek is almost never going to see the same quality and presentation FFG puts into their games. Only Bandai made it that far with the deckbuilder and that's been discontinued.

I wouldn't put it past a company to simply cash in [again] on a craze. I think I'd rather players and online communities just customize the existing system to fit in other universes rather than Wizkids or some other company put a half-assed job into a similar system or the models. For awhile my local store put X-wing next to Attack Wing and you can see the distinct difference in just the quality. Customers also saw that difference and now Attack Wing just sits there and begs to be bought by anyone.

I'll say that Decipher did a decent job with their ccg and the license back in the day, even if it had problems with the usual Decipher 'bloat' that was common in their games.

Does Mongoose actually own the B5 license or did someone else pick it up?

They lost the license a few years back. AFAIK, no-one else has picked it up. Its been over 10 years since the last B5-related production (The Lost Tales), so it probably just isn't viable right now. If the rumoured reboot does happen, then that will probably be our last, best hope for a B5 miniatures game.

I see several votes for BSG. Whilst I like the show, I feel it lacks variety of ships to make a decent wargame. Whilst there are a few varieties of Battlestar, we never see any other warships in the show, and there are only 2 types of fighter for each faction that I recall (viper, raptor, cylon raider and heavy raider). Plus the cylons only have one type of capital ship (the resurrection ship doesn't count as its not a warship).

B5 on the other hand has several fighter types for each faction, and more importantly, lots of different capital ships, especially the EA ones. B5 would also introduce some different game mechanics for movement, interceptor weapons, etc.

A bit more, not much but a bit:

Here are some of my ideas for the capitals:

Twelve Colonies of Man

Antantia-Class [TOS]

Hull: 6 Shields: 2/2/2/2

Anti-Figher: 2B

Anti-Cap: 4B/ 4B / 4B / 2B

Defense: 1 Contain, 2 Brace

Speed: 3 (1 click/2clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 2/4/2

Upgrades: Officers, Support Teams, Flight Crew, Nukes, Hardwired

Famous ships: Galactica, Pegasus, Columbia

Galactica Type

Hull: 8 Shields: 2/2/2/2 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: 1R 1B 1b

Anti-Cap: 2B / 4B 1R / 4B 1R / 2B

Defense: 1 Contain, 2 Brace

Speed: 3 (1 click/3clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 3/4/4

Upgrades: Officers x2, Support Teams, Flight Crew, Nukes, Hardwired

Famous ships: Galactica, Athena

Mercury Class

Hull: 11 Shields: 3/2/2/3 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: 1R 1B 2b

Anti-Cap: 4R 2B / 4B 1R / 4B 1R / 2B

Defense: 1 Contain, 2 Brace

Speed: 3 (1 click/3clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 3/4/4

Upgrades: Officers, Support Teams, Flight Crew, Nukes, ECM

Famous ships: Pegasus

Valkyrie type

Hull: 5 Shields: 1/1/1/1 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: 1R 1b

Anti-Cap: 1B / 3B 1 R/ 3B 1R / 1B

Defense: 2 Brace

Speed: 4 (1 click/4clicks/3clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 2/2/2

Upgrades: Officers, Support Teams, Flight Crew, Nukes, ECM

Famous ships: Valkyrie, Yashuman

Orion Class

Hull: 3 Shields: 0/1/1/0 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: 1R 1b

Anti-Cap: - / 2B 1R/ 2B 1R / -

Defense: 1 Brace

Speed: 4 (1 click/4clicks/3clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 2/1/2

Upgrades: Officers, Support Teams, Flight Crew, Stealth

Famous ships: Osiris

Cylons

Thousand years war Basestar [TOS]

Hull: 7 Shields: 2/2/2/2

Anti-Figher: 2B

Anti-Cap: 2B/ 2B / 2B / 2B

Defense: 3 Contain

Speed: 3 (1 click/1clicks/1clicks)

C/S/E: 2/5/2

Upgrades: Command Cylons, Nukes, Pulse cannons

Cylon war Basestar

Hull: 7 Shields: 2/2/2/2 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: -

Anti-Cap: 2R/ 2R / 2R / 2R

Defense: 3 Contain

Speed: 3 (1 click/1clicks/1clicks)

C/S/E: 2/6/2

Upgrades: Humanoid, Nukes

Late Cylon war Basestar

Hull: 5 Shields: 2/2/2/2 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: -

Anti-Cap: 2R/ 2R / 2R / 2R

Defense: 3 Contain

Speed: 3 (1 click/1clicks/1clicks)

C/S/E: 2/5/4

Upgrades: Humanoid, Nukes

Guardian Basestar

Hull: 7 Shields: 2/1/1/2 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: -

Anti-Cap: 1R/ 1R / 1R / 1R

Defense: 3 Contain

Speed: 3 (1 click/1clicks/1clicks)

C/S/E: 2/3/3

Modern Basestar

Hull: 6 Shields: 1/2/2/1 [Armour only]

Anti-Figher: -

Anti-Cap: 5R/ 2R / 2R / 5R

Defense: 3 Contain

Speed: 3 (1 click/2clicks/2clicks)

C/S/E: 2/6/5

Upgrades: Humanoid, Nukes, Regenerative Armour, Regenerative Hull

however I also see a lot op appeal in plain Basestar vs. Battlestar Raider vs. Viper actions.

Apparently Attack Wing has had a rules update recently. I didn't look too closely at it, but seeing how they've reclassified their fighter groupings from "ships" to "squadrons" made me wonder a little if some of the changes were inspired by Armada...

I'd rather not have WK license the rules for Armada and try to make their "Attack Wing 2.0" into an Armada clone. Fans of that new game would laud that it's an improvement over FFG's engine and chuckle to themselves on their forums how their game is much better. Nevermind that Attack Wing an over-saturated mess of upgrades and sloppily-designed abilities, and has dropped off the BGG hotness list like a rock as soon as Armada came out. *Sigh*

If Armada is going to contain Star Trek, it will either be through the efforts of us fans or if FFG can get their mitts on the Star Trek license. Since the latter is not likely to happen, Star Trek is just going to have to suffer continuously lackluster games representing them with the only occasional gem.

...forgive the Aside. Trek could do better but it won't, and it's a little disappointing that Trek is almost never going to see the same quality and presentation FFG puts into their games. Only Bandai made it that far with the deckbuilder and that's been discontinued.

Or you could just take WizKids modells and use a community made ruleset for Star Trek Armada.

I'm debating whether to place a bet on the big space battle of Episode VII being ended via kamikaze attack, boarding party, or both.

Well, IV opened with a boarding action, and VI included a kamikaze attack...so we already have both in Star Wars.

I've said this before in other topics I don't mind boarding or ramming happening sometimes but literally every on screen space battle in Abrams Trek movies goes down that road. There literally is not a single onscreen space battle in his movies which is a straight ship to ship fight with no boarding or ramming involved. In his last Trek movie Enterprise never even got a single shot off during the main battle.

Abrams suffers from villain super shipitis. The idea that villains can never use a regular ship roughly equivalent to that available to the heroes. Instead they must have giant overpowered vessels able to decimate entire fleets alone with ease and cripple the heroes' ship in a couple of salvos.

I see several votes for BSG. Whilst I like the show, I feel it lacks variety of ships to make a decent wargame. Whilst there are a few varieties of Battlestar, we never see any other warships in the show, and there are only 2 types of fighter for each faction that I recall (viper, raptor, cylon raider and heavy raider). Plus the cylons only have one type of capital ship (the resurrection ship doesn't count as its not a warship).

B5 on the other hand has several fighter types for each faction, and more importantly, lots of different capital ships, especially the EA ones. B5 would also introduce some different game mechanics for movement, interceptor weapons, etc.

We see some non-Battlestar or Basestar warships in NBSG's Blood and Chrome plus they are stated to exist in the series (Adama mentions having commanded escort warships in a flashback.

CBSG never outright states that there are smaller warships but they are IMO strongly impled to exist in Take the Celstra with some small warships being mentioned in the novelization of the premiere as well.