Star Fleet Battles

Back when I was a kid I was a huge Star Trek fan. I discovered the show when I was in kindergarten. I may have seen a few animated episodes before then, but didn't really make the association. For the record I started kindergarten in September of 1974. I remember coming home from school, sitting down in front of the TV and looking for something cool to watch. It must have been raining or something because back in those days kids played outside. Anyway, I found Star Trek and was captivated,it was probably my first introduction to science fiction and I have loved it ever since. I even made my dad take me to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it came out and I loved it too.

As an aside, I don't think that ST:TMP gets enough trekkie love, sure it pales in comparison to the later original series cast movies, but they forget what it was like to not have any new Star Trek for so long, plus we were dependent on the whim of broadcasters for when we could see the old stuff. I was fortunate that the Canadian tv station we got (when the weather was good) ran syndicated Star Trek every day after school at 4:00PM until after I was out of high school. Thank you CKWS!

The point of all of this is that I loved Star Trek. I picked up Star Trek fan magazines when I could find them and when I could afford them. Same thing with Star Trek novels, of which there were far fewer in those days and the quality was all over the map. When I found a Star Trek game in the early 1980s I was pretty psyched and bought it. I was already a regular wargamer and had been playing D&D for a couple of years too, so the rules were not too complex for me. Me and my buddies (and one of their dads) started playing Star Fleet Battles pretty regularly.

I got the volume 2 boxed set in January of 1986. I remember it clearly because it is wrapped up in the memory of my Grandfather's death. My friend Tim M. went to Twilight Book and Game Emporium in Syracuse to pick it up for me and brought it to my house the day after his funeral. That Sunday also featured Superbowl XX, in which the Chicago Bears absolutely destroyed the New England Patriots.

I don't know what happened to my original Star Fleet Battles boxed sets. I think Tim might have my Volume 2 set, borrowed decades ago for whatever reason. But I just got a copy of my first boxed set, pictured above, off of EBay and when my Daughter Ashli saw it she said she wanted to learn to play.

I call that a win.