# 5150: Fighter Command tags: #game/wargame/5150-fighter-command ![[5150 - Fighter Command (cover).jpg|600]] For when two hours of fleet bookkeeping is two hours too many. **5150: Fighter Command** is the **[[5150 - Wargames]]** line at flight-console scale — fast space-combat skirmish rules "that can be played with any ships, of any scale, you may already have," and that are usually over in two hours or less. It's the third theatre of the 5150 wargame side, the fighter-and-gunship corner between the fleet battles of Star Navy and the ground war of Star Army, and it runs hot and fast instead of grand and slow. ## Setting Where Star Army fights on planets and Star Navy moves whole fleets, Fighter Command lives in the space *between* — the sharp end of fighters, bombers, and gunships closing to knife range. It's the same 5150 universe and its factions (human and alien), just seen from the cockpit of a ship fast enough that the distinction between "you" and "your target" is decided in seconds. There's less galaxy-building and more throttle: the fiction is the frame for the fight, and the fight is the point. ## Mechanics Fighter Command is built on the shared **THW Reaction System** — the **taken-versus-Rep** 2d6 roll and the reaction tests that fire when your fighters come into range — streamlined for speed. It deliberately rejects the old **IGO/UGO** turn order in favor of the Reactive turns the whole THW family runs on, so your ships react as the action unfolds rather than waiting for a clean "your go / my go." With games capped at two hours and playable with whatever ships you already own, it's the line's pickup-game button. ## The games - **5150: Fighter Command** — the core fast space-combat skirmish game (Teixeira & Herrero). *In the library.* - **5150: Fighter Pilot (v2)** — a self-contained fighter-pilot game: plot your Star Fighter's moves turn by turn and run a pilot's career. Its latest edition is **Total War: Fighter Pilot**, the fighter book of the **Total War** re-issue. *In the library (v2 and the Total War edition).* **Supplements** (in the library): - **Points System** (2013, Herrero & Teixeira) — a balanced-force points system: each ship tallies its pilot/crew costs plus its equipment costs. - **Build Your Own Pilot (BYOP)** (2013, Herrero & Teixeira) — assigns point values across a 30-attribute pilot list so you can build your own pilot, faction by faction. - **Terran Trade Authority (TTA)** (2017, Cunningham & Teixeira) — a crossover to the TTA universe: the Devass warp drive, fighter hyper-jumps, and a full fighter/hull weapons list (laser cannons, rail guns, mass drivers, particle accelerators, and nuclear missiles). ## References - [5150 – Two Hour Wargames](https://www.twohourwargames.com/) - [5150 – Sci-Fi Games — Rebel Minis Press](https://rebelminispress.com/collections/sci-fi-games)