Homeworld Fleet Command

I had played Homeworld 1 and 2 to death on PC—until our group ended up playing Sins of a Solar Empire more often, because not everyone’s machine could handle the graphics. So I backed the Homeworld Fleet Command Kickstarter out of pure nostalgia. And, along with plenty of other people, I paid to receive something that does not feel complete. The rules are dreadful, the production is mediocre to poor, and the overall impression is one of slapdash work, as though someone decided a beloved name would do all the work by itself.

On the table, it is about space engagements with fleets and ships of different sizes, in a system based on Airfix Battles. The introductory scenarios let us play two games without having a bad time, precisely because they did not put every element of the game on the table.

Once we moved beyond them, the problems started. Movement for the larger ships remains one of the major issues that has not been adequately clarified, while the errata has already reached, as far as I know, 17 pages. Interaction in combat is not the problem in itself; the problem is that we first have to agree on what our fleet is actually allowed to do.

The production quality is nothing like Fallout Miniatures, and that hurts even more in a game that, in theory, should not be carrying such fundamental problems. We put it aside while waiting for a new rules package toward the end of the year. Until then, the most positive thing I can say is that, given the amount of criticism it has received, it may soon turn up dirt cheap. And perhaps—the key word is “perhaps”—the rules will eventually be fixed too.