Federation Commander is a tactical starship combat board wargame system, produced and developed by Amarillo Design Bureau Inc. (ADB) It is designed to represent combat between vessels of various factions in the Star Fleet Universe, such as the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire.
Federation Commander is largely based on Star Fleet Battles (SFB), and carries over many of its basic rules and game dynamics.
[1] Some Star Fleet Battles rules were omitted from the game, in order to make gameplay more streamlined, and to eliminate some processes which some players found overly complex.
[2] Combat takes place as two or more players each control one or more starships represented by counters that move across a hexagonally gridded map that may include astronomical features such as stars, planets and asteroids.
The turn is divided into eight sub-steps called impulses in which movement takes place and additional energy is used to activate weapons, reinforce shields and use other shipboard systems such as transporters.
This value is used to balance game play ensuring that one side does not have an overwhelming advantage over another and can be used to calculate victory points to determine a winner by totalling the value of destroyed or disabled vessels.
Scenarios exist that allow variation in the specific winning condition, such as rescuing crew from a crippled ship, gaining sensor information from a planet, escorting a freighter or surviving for a specified number of turns in the face of unbeatable odds.
Colour-coded boxes over the ship's silhouette represent its weapons, shields, number of shuttlecraft, available warp and impulse power etc.
Players can make new decisions during a turn by using a "pay-as-you-go" power allocation system, which creates a more realistic feeling of actually commanding a ship.
Klingon Border is the original set released for Federation Commander It is a complete game that contains a 60-page rulebook, reference play sheets, map boards, several ship cards and two sizes of counters (there are no functional differences in the size, one being larger to include a larger colour illustration of the vessel).
Due to the additional special rules involved, the Tholian, Hydran and Andromedan empires are considered more difficult for beginners to play.
Currently (February 2011) there are 30 Booster Packs associated with the various main products, as well as Line of Battle, a nearly full-sized product with additional double-sized cards from Battleships Attack, and Booster 91 which includes some iconic ships designed by Franz Joseph (the man who wrote the book upon which the Star Fleet Universe is substantially based).
Federation Commander Briefing #1 is a collection of scenarios and ships, many of which had been published places like Captain's Log but had not been in a 'regular' FC product before.