“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays. It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.
Issue #18: The Player Aid Cards
One of the challenges of making a war game more accessible is trimming the number of tables. STOPPING play to reference something goes against making any kind of streamlined game. Not that I have anything in particular against tables: as a developer they are a fantastic tool. With them you can add a great deal of depth, flavor or choice to an action (see the article on the crit table from last week). As a player, I love them too, in moderation.
I remember the first time I picked up an AD&D player’s handbook and being totally awestruck by the fact that there was a (serious of) table(s) delineating what my 9th level fighter’s household guards have equipped. They’ve thought of everything! Simulation and theme!
While that works in a tabletop RPG, where you’ll have time during a campaign to plan that stuff out—if you’re playing a war game (whether you’re new to them or not) you may not have the luxury or the patience to grock multiple tables in order to complete an action. Trying to outsmart my opponent should be taking up my mental bandwidth, not what page should I be flipping to.
You only need one reference card to play Talon. The Player Aid Card, printed front and back, which contains all the weapon tables, the ship power curves, the critical table (condensed and expanded version), and a few helpful illustrated reminders. The reminders are for Ship Movement/AP restrictions (you can never spend more than 1 AP per Impulse or move more than 1 hex per Impulse), movement/turning, side slipping and firing side determination. These reminders were things that both players new to this kind of game struggled with as well as players who had experience with systems like Star Fleet Battles (there are some things you might assume about the mechanics if you were in the latter group).
The weapon tables and ship power curves are all on the front side of the Aid Card. We tried to make them color coded and easy to read. The default/starting power curves for a given ship are in a box. If, during the Power Phase, you want to speed UP, you just shift your power curve values UP on the chart. The values on the aid card have matching icons on the top of the chart that line up to the same icons on the ship power curve space.
Resolving fire using the tables is dead simple. Any kind of “damage” related to firing or the explosion of a ship is represented by red text on a white background. So if you look at the phaser table, you’ll see that it’s all about damage-at-range. What range are you? What did you roll? There’s the damage you dealt in red. The torpedo, on the other hand, always deals 4 damage (in red) so this is a roll-to-hit table, similar to the disruptors. The missiles have a handy reminder about their Speed and Range too and on the reverse side of the aid card is a table explaining what happens to Missiles when they take damage. After a few games, you probably won’t even have to look at the weapon tables for disruptors, phasers and missiles.
The only other thing you’ll need to play is the Impulse Tracker. This tracks Turns, Impulses and Rounds and has a few reminders for the sequence of play. As the game progresses the Impulse counter moves from Initiative Player box to Second Player box and continues from Impulse A to B and so on. By the end of a Round you move the counter to the Power Phase, Reinforcement Phase, Retreat Phase and then end the Round.
The tracker has hints regarding Passive charging of weapons – a rule for which many play testers needed a quick reminder. In brief: your weapon charge bar yellow boxes are normally charged by spending AP during an Impulse, however, if you have uncharged yellow boxes and your red boxes are full charged, your ship may charge yellow boxes equal to the number of weapons in that group. Instead of dumping power into charging the weapon faster, your weapon group is recharging completely on its own, over time. Use this to your advantage to optimally recharge weapons.
The tracker also has a list of all the things you can do when you Move or when you get AP.
That’s it! There’s not many things you need to look up during play to resolve an action. Everything is still available at-a-glance, on the board.
Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #17: The Critical Damage Table
Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #19: The Newest Ship in the Fleet
Author: Bob Seifert
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