I decided since I have all these Modiphius Star Trek miniatures, I should play something with them. This left me with the task of finding a set of rules conducive to Star Trek skirmish gaming. Modiphius has their own rules, callled Red Alert, for just this sort of thing; but I find it to be a cumbersome system that requires familiarity with their roleplaying game (which I have, but still…) I looked into a few other options, like using Osprey’s Black Ops (fail) and Pulp Alley (I only perused the starter rules, but it seemed like too much work for Trek). None of them really captured what I was looking for: simple rules that allow for heroic acts and can capture the feel of Star Trek.

Then I remembered Fantastic Worlds, which is the pulp sci-fi version of Rattrap’s .45 Adventure. I haven’t played .45 Adventure in a long time, but I love it lots. After I dug out my copy of Fantastic Worlds I knew I had what I needed. I made some rules changes (primarily to combat) to help speed everything along.

The rules I changed were really quite simple. .45 Adventure has a detailed combat system that involves wound location and deteriorating statistics based on damage received. For example, you get shot in the arm, your shooting and brawling abilities go down; you get shot in the legs, your movement speed decreases, etc. The better your character, the higher his stats and the more wound boxes he has; therefore wounds have less of an effect on heroic characters and a greater effect on scrubs.

For my game, this was a bit more bookkeeping than I wanted to deal with. I decided a model has a number of wounds equal to its rank and damage resistance (DR) commensurate with their abilities, and that wound location doesn’t matter. If a character is wounded, he loses a wound. Rank 3 and Rank 2 characters are KOed when they lose their last wound; Rank 1 scrubs aren’t so lucky: they’re dead (unless they are supposed to be KOed). This makes combat a lot faster and more deadly, but requires a lot less effort to keep track of a character round-to-round. Heroic characters ( like Kirk) may have access to abilities that allow them to shrug off and/or heal wounds, or to act regardless of them, but Joe Redshirt is probably going to die. It’s the Trek way.

The tradeoff is that a lot of special abilities are based around wound location, such as Supreme Effort, which allows a model to use his starting stats for a wound location for a turn (regardless of how badly damaged that location is); or Dead Shot, which improves your chances of hitting a specific location. Since I scrapped wound location, none of the models could use these; which somewhat limited the selection of skills I had access to. Each location also has its own Damage Resistance value. It’s generally easier to wound someone if you hit them in the head as opposed to hitting their arm, for example. I scrapped that too, and just assigned a blanket DR to an entire model. The more important or tough the model is, the more DR it has.

I was ready to boldly go. I just needed a compelling story. So…

Hubbard’s World (or Q’uvakh, as it is known in Klingon) is a lush, jungle-covered M-Class planet in the midst of the Klingon/Federation Neutral Zone. No one can say with certainty who discovered it first (although Dr. William Hubbard took the liberty of naming it after himself); however, both the Federation and The Klingon Empire have staked a claim. Under the provisions of the Organian Treaty, both powers are allowed to develop the planet for non-military use to the best of their ability, while ensuring any native species are not interfered with.

Several months ago, the Federation sent a science team to set up an outpost to observe the new life on Hubbard’s World, but soon lost contact with them. The U.S.S. Enterprise was dispatched to investigate the disappearance of Dr. Hubbard and his team. When they arrived in the sector they discovered a Klingon battle cruiser orbiting the planet. Naturally, suspicion immediately fell upon the Klingons; but they denied any knowledge of the science team’s disappearance.

The Klingons explained that while the Federation claimed to be interested in scientific research, the Klingon Empire had more practical concerns: their intent was to cultivate the world for food production, as (unbeknownst to the Federation) the Empire was in the midst of famine. They loudly insisted that they had no reason to interfere with any scientific expedition and resented the implication they would do so. They warned the Enterprise to quickly conduct their investigation and be on their way, as they considered this larger Federation presence to be an act of aggression.

Of course, the Federation was telling the truth about their motives. The Klingons were lying…

Up next: Hubbard’s World, Part 1: Outpost Laertes!