Pyramid Review
Federation Commander: Klingon Border
Designed by Stephen V. Cole
Published by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.
Boxed game; $59.95
Federation Commander: Klingon Border is the latest in the Star Fleet Universe family of games from Stephen Cole's starshipyard at Amarillo Design Bureau. Should you reach up on the shelf to take this down for inspection, beware! The box is densely packed and much heavier than you might expect. What do you get for your hard-earned cash and muscular exertion?
The second thing I noticed after sliding off the full-color slip cover and opening the plain white box underneath was the map panels. Gone is flimsy black hex map sheet. Instead you get six thick letter-size panels with full-color space photography (care of NASA), marked in 5/8" hexes on one side and 1-1/4" hexes on the other. Space wargamers who deal with hexagons probably just got their investment's worth right there. These are also being sold separately as the "Deluxe Space Battle Maps" ($29.95), which includes these same six panels plus two more with planet art.
The game also includes two six-sided dice, a grease pencil, a pinch of paper clips in a zip-bag, two sheets of counters (one in the 1/2-inch size, color-keyed by government, for use on the small-hex map; the other with full-color ship art on 1" counters), a pair of helper sheets for using plastic or metal miniatures with the game, two laminated reference cards (full-page size, both sides used) and sixteen laminated half-page cards . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 16, 2005
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