To Boldly go- and have cake!

My son's Black Ops Star Trek birthday cake

Star Trek Birthday Party Games

My son N has turned 12, and with that comes his themed birthday. This year he chose Star Trek as the theme, since we've been really enjoying the new Discovery show. My Mrs, who makes amazing cakes (both inside and out) createed a great badge cake in the "Black Ops" style, and it was up to me to provide the games. Having a couple of weeks to think about it, I went for two options.

 The first was to introduce the crowd of 12 year olds to the fun card game, Space Poo- because what 12 year old does not like saying those words together!   Things got out of hand (see what I did there?) quickly, and a raoucous good hour was spent. 

Then on to the main event- a Star Trek table top game!

But first, let's step back a few days before the party, where your humble narrator had nothing quite ready and just a bit of free time to rub together.

Star Trek Prep

Okay, so I have a set of Starship rules (See Starship on my blog) and I had gleaned about 8 pre painted ships from the Community Manager on the Star Trek Online game at work from the swag pile he had. This gave me enough Klingons and a cool Romulan or two, but only a couple of Miranda class Fed ships. Panicked I searched Ebay and Amazon, but nothing could get to me in time.

Then I called up my local game store Game Kastle, and asked. They had some primed and unpainted ships from Wizkids- perfect! A quick lunch trip and I nabbed three great ships. These I painted up two nights before the party.

Sexy Ships STO has lots of cool reference on how to paint ships

I added connector "nipples" to the bottom of all the ships and then they were ready to go 5 Fed, 5 Klingon/Romulan ships. Now to stat them out.

The Photoshopening

I pencilled in some stats playing on strengths of the sides. Feds get more armor and shields and more phasers than the Klingons, and some photon torpedo salvos.They also got a free fix it token to use once per game, as that is a typical thing that happens in the shows. 

Miranda class ships are cool!

Klingons got some phasers, decent amount of Torpedoes, and a short range disruptor that was like a shotgun of doom!  Oh, they also have cloaking... what am I going to do about that?  Quickly I took one of the outlines I had and traced it in vector, then cut clear plexi birds of prey. They would be used when the Klingon ships were cloaked. Turned out better than I had hoped.

The center warbird uncloaks and fires a salvo of photon torpedoes! 

okay, I had all the ships ready, now to build the game out for a 12 year old mind and attention span.

Stat Sheets

I wanted the game to be easily understood, with simple measuring and firing system. As most if none (turned out none, other than my own) had ever played a table top game, I figured odd dice would throw them so just stuck to D6's and incremented the weapons in those variables.

Movement was done by stick, as were gun ranges. Torpedoes went 3d6 per turn- and if you rolled more 1's than anything else, would burn out. 

With those rules pretty clear in my head, I stated out the weapons, and then went into photoshop to build out some easy ship sheets. Similar to Starship, each vessel has sheilds, armor and crit boxes, plus a compliment of weapons with ranges and stats on the page, so all you need is there for you.

Stat sheets- players mark off damage boxes, and erase when repaired.

The Game! (jumping back forward)

All was done, and set up a few hours before the guest arrived.  Sides were taken and the rules quickly explained then we just jumped into it. Everyone got how to play by turn 2, and by turn 3 the first ship was blown to smithereens- a Klingon bird of prey that got too close to 2 Fed ships and ate a torpedo!

Federation captains at the ready

The Klingon empire's finest!

Young Fossling commands the USS Hussar deftly into the asteroids

So, overall the game was a success, with a noise level of a horse race! Once the Klingons realized that they were both explodable, and that the Fed ships were more vunerable from behind, Two Bird of Prey ships cloaked and did a back end button hook, to successfully clobber three of the Fed ships from behind, while the larger Romulan vessel bravely stood up and tanked the Feds from the front.  Two turns is all it took and it was curtains for the Federation! Victory to the Klingons!

Cloaked ships get behind the Federations line.

Battle stat sheets are an excellent after action report card

All in all a good time was had by all- which then culminated in a traditional Fosshaus party- with a melee in the back yard!

I hope next years parties are just as exciting and challenging.