Star Blazers Fleet Battle System

> >> A new spaceship combat game is available from Musashi
They are selling the system to distributors, you should see it in stores soon.
We are doing a logo starmat for them that will be available after October 15,
1997.

Dear Star Blazers Fans:

A new spaceship combat game is available from Musashi Enterprises called The
Star Blazers Fleet Battle System for $25.00 U.S. The game has rules for all
weapons, fighters, and the ships from the first 2 T.V. series The Gamillons,
Earth Defense Force, and The White Comet Empire. The book is spiral bound.
color cover. And there are ship miniatures for the game available at this
time. There are also counters that can be photocopied in the book.

I thought I would plug this game here.

      Sincerely

> On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, MR DAVID E PETERS wrote:

Got my copy at Gen Con. It's a very good game people. I suggest you pick up a
copy.

Later,

On Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:49:40 -0500 (CDT), "<Mark Andrew Siefert>"
writes:
> On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, MR DAVID E PETERS wrote:

Do you know if they're working through any distributers or only direct sales
at this point?

Has anyone picked this up or even actually tried playing it yet?

I just bought mine a couple days ago and have to say I'm disapointed.

Did any thought of layout, design and organization get put into this book? The
text is filled with numerous abbreviations that it's difficult to follow. Some
terms such as "battlecraft" instead of just saying fighters seemed confusing.

No index. The table of contents (with page numbers) is in the middle of the
book??! Oh wait, I've just noticed that there is a table of contents toward
the the front that is more of a chapter overview with no page numbers.

No consistancy in the layout of SSDs. It's as if ship information was randomly
scattered on the page

The inside artwork is either scanned from Roman Albums, obviously traced, or
have a disruptive more' pattern. There are a few pieces of original artwork
that I liked, but are ruined by the print job. Are
people still using zip-a-tone?  The cover art looks funky because all
the ships in the "fleet" have there own seperate vanishing points intead of
sharing one. Due to their being traced from different source material.

Yes, I'm nitpicking. I've been waiting for an official Yamato game for almost
twenty years and this is what I get. Why is it that when I've bought Jovian
Chronicles, Full Thrust, Babylon Wars, Silent Death, and Star Fleet Battles,
reading the books made me want to play. Star Blazers:FBS certainly doesn't.

If anyone has played this, please tell me it's worth it.

Grrrr!

> Has anyone picked this up or even actually tried playing it yet?
Yes, see below.

> I just bought mine a couple days ago and have to say I'm
Wait till you play it, more of the same.

> The inside artwork is either scanned from Roman Albums, obviously
In a nut-shell, no.  I have been a major fan since I saw the first
episode on TV. I was lucky enough to be one of the first to play it at GenCon,
and was extremely dissapointed after I did. The combat
rules (primarely firing missiles and such) is as hodge-podge as the
rulebook layout. It took forever to go through a turn. On top of that, the
minis are a little on the expensive side and no doubt hard to find. The detail
is very good, but hardly what is going to make me buy them all. Now, don't get
me wrong, I will get a fleet or two, but will use the Full Thrust rules (after
some conversions of course) instead. Hope it helps, but I'm sure some of you
(meaning list readers) will tell me how awesome this game is and I don't know
what I'm talking about. Have fun.

To All, The Starblazers book just arrived locally, I was able to get only a
quick look at the rules and so I do not wish to give an opinon before trying
them out. The Comet Empire ships look very nice and should go well
with 'FT' as a new race.   Yes it is time to get the little
grey cells working! By for now,

> At 11:08 PM 10/28/97 -0400, you wrote:
==with LOTS of snips===
> Has anyone picked this up or even actually tried playing it yet?

Well I bought the Star Blazers Fleet Battle System Rulebook yesterday, before
I saw the above review. I have not played the game and have only browsed
through the book a couple of times but I already disagree with most of the
above complaints.

The Table of Contents is on page iii. It indeed does not have page numbers
only Chapter numbers, but following the Contents page is a brief history of SB
then a nice three page explanation of the Warship Data Forms (WDFs) and then,
on page xii, xiii, and xiv are three detailed sequence of play lists with page
numbers and rulebook section numbers. If that is not enough,
pages 72-74 include a rulebook INDEX with page numbers.

I don't see a problem with the abbreviations. If you actually start to read
the rules they make perfect sense, especially if you are familiar with any
space combat games (FT, SFB, etc.) and on pages i and ii there is a list of
most of the abbreviations used. I agree "battlecraft" instead of "fighter" is
a bit odd but perhaps "fighter" is not all that accurate when the game
includes shuttles and such.

I don't see how the Warship Data Forms (WDF) are inconsistent. They all have
the ship top view with weapon locations on the right and the weapon charts on
the left (very similar to the Star Fleet Battles' SSDs but
better). Again, pages xii-xxi explain the displays in detail very well.

The internal artwork is inconsistent. It ranges from fine, line drawings to
what look like rough pencil sketches and charcoal drawings but all are quite
good. The cover art may have "different vanishing points" but the ships are
also heading in slightly different directions and if you've watched the
cartoon recently you'll know that the real thing takes great liberties with
such things as scale and perspective. The animation in the series is very
rough, especially by today's standards.

The only complaint I have so far with the Rulebook is that the printing
quality is poor. Either the book was quick printed or was printed on a very
old offset press. The type has "blead" poorly causing the smaller type to
fill-in on the WDFs and the gray fill areas to appear a bit ruddy. This
is a very minor problem though.

As I said, I have not played the game yet so Star Blazers may be quite awful,
but from what I've seen so far, it looks very good. It is a step or two above
FT in complexity yet far easier than Star Fleet Battles and, from what I've
heard, Babylon 5. So far, I think I made a good purchase.

Later,

Saw an early version when I was over for GenCon last year, and would quite
like to get hold of the published version for the 'ol collection (yes, I'm