“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 #26 Talon Puzzle 3 – Solution

OK. Answer time for Puzzle 3.

First I apologize for not being more clear about whether or not you can lose a FTR during the puzzle solution. You can and you must, in my answer, lose two FTRs. There were some really great solutions posted by Niko, Wes and Erich on Board Game Geek all came up with outstanding solutions. To be honest, yours might be better than mine in terms of the situation that develops after the puzzle ‘ends’. Not everything in Talon can be boiled down to an optimal move. We also operate under the assumption, in these that the snapshot I show you is the entirety of the battle and not just a skirmish happening in the corner of a larger engagement.

The short version is. You need Cougar to save it’s phasers and make the assault on the BC at close range (to make up for the Nebula -1 to fire). All other Phasers between Wolvering and Cougar go towards saving FTRs from dying in Wolverine’s squad. You could fire off the rest of Cougar’s phasers and save Wolverine completely… in fact this may be an even better move given how badly hurt the Talon BC is and that her weapons are all uncharged for the moment. Here I opted to trade 1 FTR in Wolverine to get a killshot on the BC. Killshots are almost always a better move in my opinion.

Cougar sideslips and Wolverine moves to fire on the Missiles. Ace of Spades is a bit of a “distractor” in test-taking terms. That squad should just focus on getting behind the BB. Nothing fancy there. No weapons can hit that squad for the time.

Next Wolverine fires all phasers on 2 missiles. Destroying 1 and damaging the other, regardless of roll.  Cougar follows up with 1 phaser shot, destroying the damaged Missile.  One Missile remains.

Next the BB has several options for Power. If he was able to discern Terran’s move (unlikely in my opinion given Terran only gets 1 AP at a time from its CV and it probably has other things it is more concerned about like the Ace of Spade squad circling behind it or finishing off the CV) he could spend AP to defend the initiative and thus cancel Terran’s optimal move. I think in reality he would pull in his turn radius so he could potentially turn again and nail some FTRs with a disruptor or try and shake the FTR group—that would give him options if he didn’t want to go straight for the CV. Sorry folks, these puzzles aren’t perfect.

The BC must move straight into the Neb, shutting down it’s shields.

The CV spends its AP to change the initiative. Cougar moves straight while Wolverine turns in (will turn out shortly). Sorry the Cougar Squadron still has the side slip marker on in this image, should be gone!

Now it is Terran’s impulse again (again Cougar should not have a Side Slip, sorry). CV should probably power up one of Ace of Spade’s phaser in preparation for assault of the BB’s rear. Wolverine gets out of the way by turning, Cougar turns into the BC.

Cougar wants to fire both phasers at the BC now that the BC’s shields are down. Cougar fires two phasers. There will be a -1 for the Nebula. So snake-eyes means no hit and no kill (hence I say “pretty much guaranteed”).  If at least two 2’s are rolled they will get a crit. If >2 and >2 are rolled– BC explodes. Pretty good odds.

If the BC blows, Cougar squad will lose one FTR ; still worth it though. Now we have a FTR in position behind a BB. The others can follow suit. CV may take some hurt from the BB’s Fusion Cannon if it doesn’t speed up. 6 FTRs vs 1 BB and positioning is good. Not too shabby for Terran.

Use the included VLOG file to follow along with the puzzle in the Vassal module. I’ve annotated the moves there.

PS- Vassal’s main engine recently updated to version 3.2.16. Please update your copies of Vassal as this helps to avoid some weird bugs. The Talon module is unchanged as of this writing; still at v1.0.

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #26: Vassal Module

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #28: Talon 1000 on P500

Author: Bob Seifert