Messages seperated by "+++++++++++++++++" From: "Jayson Chapman" Date: Mon Aug 25, 2003 10:51 am Subject: Full Thrust Friday night I had the pleasure of trying out this system for space ship combat. Let me tell you it was a blast. Quick and simple to learn, plenty of variables to make the game interesting, and it allowed for the use of tactics and you paid for your mistakes. Bottom line a great system, easy to pick up, with lots of room to expand. Far easier, faster and in my opinion a better system than BFG. The best selling point in my book though is that you can use and adapt in just a few minutes the ship sheets to reflect your existing BFG models. Honestly I cant see ever playing BFG again. So for those of you who have fleets sitting gathering dust here is a great chance to play with them. The game Tim and I played had 2 cruisers and 3 escort ships on a 3x4' playing surface. I had never used the rules before and it had been awhile since Tim had... total time for the game, little over an hour and it was a great game. I paid for a mistake in targeting but it still came down to one ship surviving. A ton of fun and something I am looking forward to playing again. Jayson +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Tue Oct 7, 2003 9:20 am Subject: Basic Training for a Full Thrust Campaign! After running two playtests and numerous "simulations"[1] of Full Thrust by Ground Zero Games (www.gzg.com), I'm prepared to entertain the notion of running a Full Thrust Campaign! If you like the idea of playing space Battle Fleet Gothic, you'll like playing Full Thrust! Full Thrust is an excellent game that has won awards for five years running: http://www.sfsfw.net/awards6.html (Check the "Best SF Wargames Rules" category for each year listed!) In the campaign you will recieve a home planet and points for a fleet, then points for an economy. You will also recieve a hex map of the campaign's "Universe". The information on that map will be limited to what your "Empire" knows about the universe. You will be able to spend points from your economic pool to build settlements on other planets and thus increase your overall income and resources for the running of a campaign. Diplomacy will be up to the player's whims, you can make and break alliances, and honor or ignore treaties. I'm not about to make rules about that. Within the campaign system you must assemble and maintain your fleets, and supply lines, while abstracted, will be enforced. Repairs for damaged ships will come out of your economy and must be balanced with your need for constructing new ships for your fleets (which can be of completely custom design!) and investing in developing your colonies in order to reap the economic benefits of their increased production. Ground combat will NOT be simulated in this campaign, once a system/planet is controlled in space, it is controlled on the ground. If this campaign is a success, then I may consider using a single skirmish game to determine control of a planet in later campaigns. First, though, I need players. Thus the "Basic Training" part of this message's subject. Anyone who would be interested in participating in a campaign using Full Thrust rules is invited to participate in some games in the semi-near future so that they can be familiar with the rules before the campaign begins. I will make announcements about when I'll be available for running a demo at any of the Grand Rapids gaming stores. My preferred place to play is "The Only Way to Play" on Wealthy. The Full Thrust rules are very easy to learn and new players are usually running the game themselves within a couple of turns (which go pretty quickly, by the way). Just one game prior to the campaign starting OUGHT to be enough for a player to avoid getting spanked because he/she is unfamiliar with the rules. You can use any ship models you have on hand as long as they are the appropriate size. So if you already own a BFG fleets you're good to go with regards to ships. Schedule-wise, I'm looking at starting up the campaign after the Holidays and running it until whenever at a nice-relaxed pace. Maps will be distributed via email and turns will go as fast as players want them to, limited only by the contraints of getting together to play the tabletop games that will be needed by fleets moving into "combat range" on the campaign map. Anyone interested in playing please email me. If there is sufficient interest, I will form a mailing list based on the response. -- --Tim http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72 "Who draws his sword against the Prince, best throw away the scabbard." early 17th Century English Proverb [1] "simulation" means I set up a situation and played it out, just to get a feel for the rules. Not a full game, just specific weapons resolutions or somesuch. +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Tue Oct 14, 2003 3:18 pm Subject: Full Thrust Campaign is a go... I will be running a Full Thrust campaign shortly after the new year! I have a large enough group of interested people to commit to running a campaign. Let me re-iterate (and clarify) a statement I made about Full Thrust the first time I posted about running a campaign: If you like playing Battlefleet Gothic you'll like playing Full Thrust. If you DON'T like BFG you STILL might like playing Full Thrust because the rules are "Better"[1]. Basically, if you want to play ship-to-ship battles in the cold, hard vacuum of space then Full Thrust are the rules to use. It doesn't matter what models you use for the game either. We've been playing using BFG models to date, but we're getting ready to order some ships from GZG.com. There are people who use Micro-Machines spaceships from Star Wars or Star Trek, etc.... Lots of people scratch-built their ships using polystyrene plastic, balsa wood plastic beads or whatever. I have a pretty long list of sites from which you can order ships that are suitable for use.[2] Heck, the game can be played with counters made from cardstock if you're really strapped for cash... (I prefer miniatures, of course.) If you're curious about the rules or like the idea of playing in a space-based empire-building campaign "stay tuned" to this Yahoogroup because I'll post announcements when I'll be able/willing to introduce people to the rules as well as when I'm going to be kicking off the campaign. There ought to be plenty of opportunities to try out the rules before the campaign. -- --Tim "Trying to stir up interest in non-GW games since 2001." Gray [1] Full Thrust is "better" than BFG because it's won the SFSFW's "Best SF Wargames Rules" for the past five years. And YES, GW products are considered for these awards. (Not that this award precludes or invalidates different opinions.) http://steve.pugh.net/SFSFW/awards6.html [2] I will send a list of the "spaceship shopping sites" if anyone is interested. +++++++++++++++++ From: "Jayson Chapman" Date: Tue Oct 14, 2003 3:25 pm Subject: Re: [luna-wolves] Full Thrust Campaign is a go... Cool I cant wait... just have to paint my fleet... J +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Tue Oct 21, 2003 1:56 pm Subject: Full Thrust at The Only Way to Play this Friday I'll be running Full Thrust at The Only Way to Play this friday. Anyone interested in trying out the rules is welcome to show up and play. I will have some BFG and Noble Armada ships handy for loaning out for the the duration of the game. For those of you who have been ignoring me *frumple* when I've said it earlier: Full Thrust is a set of rules for playing out ship-to-ship combat in deep space. The rules are open to using whatever ship models you deem suitable and there are detailed and flexible ship design rules that can be used to allow your to fit whatever ship you want into the game. If you already own some BFG, Star Trek, DS9 or whatever kind of ships then you already have a fleet for Full Thrust! I'm going to be running introductory games over the next few months in order to get a core group of players familiar with the rules. After the New Year when the holidays settle down a bit I'm going to start a simple campaign of Galactic conquest in which players will have a core of systems and a starting pool that they will establish their initial colonies and space armadas with. Then it's off to battle in which the players will be able to move fleets between worlds via a PBEM game. When fleets meet then a game of FT will be played on the table-top to determine the outcome. Should be a good time! -- --Tim http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72 "Who draws his sword against the Prince, best throw away the scabbard." early 17th Century English Proverb +++++++++++++++++ From: "Brian" Date: Mon Oct 27, 2003 8:51 am Subject: Thoughts on Full Thrust I had the opportunity to play Full Thrust at OWTP last Friday night, and I must say I am now hooked on this game. Extremely easy rules to learn (at least basic rule, but more advanced ones don't appear to difficult.) I have never played BFG, so can't say how it compares, but I would highly reccomend this game to any of you who enjoy tactical space games. You can use any models you want, as long as they are spaceship looking, and the games don't last too long. We were dooling out a turn every 3-5 minutes or so. Check the past posts for a little more information, but friday nights is what appears to be the night to blast some capital ships out of the sky. +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:07 am Subject: Re: [luna-wolves] Thoughts on Full Thrust Thanks for the positive review of the game you played on Friday. I was really pleased to see the two new players able to run their own movment and firing after just the first couple of turns. A game system that is THAT easy to pick up really lends itself to quick adoption by interested players. Even more gratifying was watching each of the three players pay close attention to each roll of the dice as the capitol ships tried to bring their systems on-line, initiative and damage rolls. I dislike games where players wind up uninvolved and possibly disinterested in the goings-on of the game for large portions of time. FT kept player involvement up pretty much the whole game and that was great! I think the "roll-overs" rule for damage we used really made the game a lot more bloody, and dice-rolls much more tense. That evening, the Full Thrust rules really shined for multiplayer as each player was involved and interested in the outcome of each roll of the dice. I think your Lt. Cruiser's return from the "dead" at the 12th hour of the game really made for an interesting twist to what was otherwise a ruthless and straigh-forward slugging-match. For those who wondering: One of Brian's Lt Cruisers was drifting, no power and failing life support systems for about 4 turns, the LAST turn on which it would have enough thrust to keep itself on-table it brings up the systems it needed and begins to thrust back towards only two ships still fighting, one Frigate each from Patrick's and Rich's fleets. Due to it's damaged main drive's, Brian's ship was unable to close on the smaller ships before Patrick was able to dispatch Rich's Frigate, which had lost fire control and was thus a sitting duck. Patrick realized that even though Brian's Cruiser was damaged, his Frigate was in no condition to take on the heavier ship and made a faster-than-light jump, removing it from the table and leaving Brian's heavily damaged Cruiser in control of the board. Had Brian not rolled two sixes for damage control (one for Life Support, another for Power-Core) his ship would have drifted off of the table and Patrick would have won that sector of space. Rich and Patrick's decisions to ignore that drifting hulk instead of finishing it off allowed it to repair critical systems and return to battle. Not that the decision was a mistake on their part, there were other ships that still posed a threat at the time, leaving that Cruiser to drift was a tactical decision that allowed them to work on taking out active threats that were still shooting at them! I won't be able to run FT games this friday due to running my kiddos around getting free candy. The friday of November 7th looks good though. We plan on introducing the rules for missiles and fighters in that game, which ought to liven up things. --Tim +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:19 am Subject: Open Demo games at The Only Way to Play this Saturday (Nov. 1st) I will be around TOWTP at 1522 Wealthy Street this Saturday from around 5-5:30pm to whenever. I'll be willing to run one of two games: Full Thrust - a space-battle game, you can use your BFG ships with it if you want to try it out. Mein Panzer - Micro-Armor WWII game. It plays at the Armor-Skirmish level where one tank is a single tank but a stand of infantry is 3-5 men. Anybody interested in one or the other should let me know ahead of time which game I should bring as I'll probably only bring the one that has the most interest. If I have no takers on the gaming then I'll just hang out and paint. -- --Tim http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72 "Who draws his sword against the Prince, best throw away the scabbard." early 17th Century English Proverb +++++++++++++++++ From: "Jayson Chapman" Date: Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:37 am Subject: Re: [luna-wolves] Open Demo games at The Only Way to Play this Saturday (Nov. 1st) Gentlemen I would recommend Full Thrust to anyone who even remotely is excited about space based games. Its a great game. It has inspired me to finally paint my BFG fleet and I even made a custom case for them. Mein Panzer also rocks. A great historical game that is pretty easy to pick up and allows you to actually plan and use tactics. Fun fun game... inspired me to invest in two historical armies. If you guys can make it I highly recommend it. It would be a fun eve. J +++++++++++++++++ From: "jasonfreese" Date: Sun Nov 2, 2003 8:57 am Subject: Full Thrust Demo Game on saturday WOW! that was a blast. I wsih I could have been there longer to keep going. By the end of the second turn I had the movement system, basic combat was pretty easy, after a few rounds the fighter craft seemed pretty easy as well. The best part, i think was how the game handled space physics. It was simple yet pretty accurate as to what it would be in space (according to the known rules of physics). Now i just have to aquire a fleet and the rules. Thanks Jason F +++++++++++++++++ From: FlakMagnet72 Date: Mon Nov 3, 2003 12:48 pm Subject: Re: [luna-wolves] Full Thrust Demo Game on saturday On Sunday 02 November 2003 8:57 am, jasonfreese wrote: > WOW! that was a blast. I wsih I could have been there longer to keep > going. By the end of the second turn I had the movement system, > basic combat was pretty easy, after a few rounds the fighter craft > seemed pretty easy as well. We'd have gotten a lot more KPBT[1] done if it weren't for my genius idea of using cm instead of inches as the unit of measurement. It makes the table-top larger, but spending 5 turns (though they were quick turns) moving into weapons range at some time. That was the first time I've asked players to try that, and in the future I'll probably only do that for exceptionally large games or games with smaller ships on the board where higher velocities and the thrust to handle them will be the order of the day. I think a big part of the ease-of-play is due to the fact that while you do need the SSD's (Ship Status Displays, or ship record sheet), you don't need a bunch of game-play charts on the table. > The best part, i think was how the game handled space physics. It was > simple yet pretty accurate as to what it would be in space (according > to the known rules of physics). That's my favorite part of the game too. The way it accomplishes the physics is mechanical instead of mathematical, which seems pretty clever to me. As I mentioned to you Saturday, there are two sets of movement rules for FT, we used Vector, which does a decent job of representing newtonian physics without requiring a calculator or slide-rule. The other set of movement rules is called Cinematic, which basically give the ships the "feel" of flying like aircraft. Vector should be used for a "hard sci-fi" feel and Cinematic used for a "space opera/fantasy" feel. > Now i just have to aquire a fleet and the rules. The rules are available for 20GBP from gzg.com. That site also has a pretty good variety of fleets on the site too. Not too many pictures on the site, but you can see pics of the models if you download the catalogs at the "Downloads" link. If you're not dead-set on buying Battlefleet Gothic ships for use with Full Thrust, GZG is good to go to and you can also check out: www.star-ranger.com They have a pretty comprehensive list of companies and garage-shops that produce/sell spaceship minis. One thing to note though, shipping for the rulebooks by themselves will drive up the price by quite a bit. It's a good idea to order models along with the books as the added weight will not drive up shipping that much. If you're not interested in any of GZG's models, it might be worthwhile to try to combine your order with someone. (BTW, the FT starter sets listed under "specials" are a good deal). > Thanks No problem, thanks for coming out and playing. I'm glad you had a good time. Dan, Patrick and I were talking about playing games in the gravity well of a black-hole. He suggested arranging six tables into a hex and using the inner edge of each table as the "event horizon" of the hole. Discussion continued and we basically came up with a concept in which the spacefaring races are using a black hole as a dumping ground, which renders the gravity well of a black hole a very dangerous place as all this junk of whatnot comes swirling into the black hole. Naturally, someone decides it would be a good idea to start having no-holds barred races in this junkstorm! Think X-games meets Full Thrust. After we finish some development and such, expect to see an announcement about such an event in the future when we have a more experienced core of Full Thrust players! -- --Tim http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72 "Who draws his sword against the Prince, best throw away the scabbard." early 17th Century English Proverb [1] Killing People and Breaking Things.