From Steel Dreadnought Games

"In the far future, Terran colonies are warring amongst themselves, even as a hostile xenophobic race approaches, bent on scouring all 'alien' life from the galaxy. Take control of a task force of starships from your colony world and lead your fleet to victory or die a horrible death in the cold vacuum of space! Anything from a stealth destroyer to a mighty battleship is yours to command.

Colonial Battlefleet features easy to learn rules and exciting game play with minimal time spent waiting between turns. Shooting and damage resolution is easy and yields plenty of carnage. Best of all, Colonial Battlefleet is more about tactics, and less about your die rolls.  Although the rules are very straightforward, the game offers tremendous tactical depth and your command skills will be put to the test! There are no cumbersome or complicated systems to slow down play. All your attention will be focused on outmaneuvering and outwitting your opponent - not trying to remember rules.  (But you still get to roll plenty of dice!)

The core rules come with a rich background which includes three playable factions. In addition, rules for creating your own factions are provided, and the system will support starship combat from any sci-fi setting. Technology trees allow you to easily tweak the rules to match the style of starship combat from your favorite books, movies, or TV shows.

Features of Colonial Battlefleet include:

• Fast and simple movement, shooting, and damage resolution

• Balanced fighter rules with minimal bookkeeping

• Adaptability to any sci-fi setting

• A robust yet easy to use starship construction system

• More than thirty unique weapons, defenses, and special equipment you can outfit your ships with

• Eighty hull sizes grouped into five categories from destroyer through battleship for maximum flexibility in creating your own designs.

• Ten starship roles like 'Flagship', 'Battleline', or 'Screen' that define each ship's purpose and gives them bonuses that are relevant to that mission.

• Six technology trees for customizing races

• Optional rules for boarding actions, black holes, planets, warp storms, relatavistic distortion, the dangers of simultaneous warp point transit, and more!

• Full color double-sided counter sheets for missiles, asteroids, mines, warp points, planets, black holes, grape shot, and strategic bombardment rounds

Customers with Excel can take advantage of the point-and-click starship construction tool that is included with the files - making the easy process of building a starship even easier!  You can even save your classes and print off entire fleets in mere minutes."

4/1/2012 - A new setting of Star's Reach is in the works one of old school space opera, before it got dark and grim and gritty dealt with the last survivors of humanity.  It will be shared with the Squadron Strike game and three factions of miniatures for this setting are currently available for pre-order.  Setting books are in the works and could be out at the end of May.

2/6/2011 - Now available is the first supplement for Colonial Battlefleet, Man vs. Machine.  This supplement tailors the core rules specifically to a style of combat where swarms of fighters engage in deadly duels to the death while heavily armed and armored Colonial battlecarriers attempt to close with more numerous, but lightly armored Cyborg carriers. New features you will find in Man vs. Machine include:

* 9 fighter profiles
* New fighter abilities like microjump, boarding, and computer-infiltration attacks
* A new fighter type - the gunship
* 2 new starship roles - the Battlecarrier, and the Raider
* A new FTL system - the Jump Engine (no warp point needed!)
* Expanded rules for boarding actions
* 76 starship data cards for the Colonial and Cyborg fleets, showing the ships available during the first Cyborg war, as well as the current conflict. Civilian ships are also included
* 6 new scenarios covering key battles during the war

8/1/2010 - "Steel Dreadnought Games has released an update to Colonial Battlefleet, based on player feedback at the Steel Dreadnought Games (SDG) forums.

A core design goal for Colonial Battlefleet was to bring to market the first unbreakable construction system in the starship gaming genre. After it's initial release, we sought feedback from our customers, and the consensus of opinion was that in achieving our design goals, we'd been a touch too conservative in some areas - including the always problematic issue of space fighters.

Together with our forum regulars, we waded into the details and managed to increase the potency of a couple of weapons systems (including fighters) that had been slighted - without jeopardizing game balance. While we were at it, we made a few tweaks to the tech trees and starship roles, to better ensure the competitiveness of all the different options."

"Players of Colonial Battlefleet should be on the lookout for the first two Fleetbook expansions to be released later this year with more weapon systems, more options, new fleet lists, and expanded rules for further tailoring the game to specific styles of space combat. The campaign system is also in development and is targeted for release in the first half of 2011.
As always, existing customers can download the updated version for free from Wargame Vault. The starship builder tool has also been updated to reflect the changes."

5/29/2010 - Colonial Battlefleet is now available as a pdf download from Wargames Vault. 

A Yahoo group and forums for this game have also been setup at the Steel Dreadnought website.