“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 #28: Talon 1000 on P500

We’re so excited to announce the next addition to the Talonverse (what we call the universe in which Talon takes place) – Talon 1000.

As some of you may have already seen in GMT’s September Update, Talon 1000 is now available for pre-order through the P500 system.  (If you’re totally in the dark about what P500 is- in short it is a pre-order system GMT uses to plan game production and printing. More details here if you want).

So what is Talon 1000 and why should you get it?

Talon 1000 is a dependent expansion for Talon. A copy of the original Talon game is required for play. This expansion adds:

• Scenario Book with over 1000 new scenarios
• ~130 new laminated, double sided, hexagonal ship counters on 4 sheets
• Over 20 new ship designs

Yes. 1000 scenarios…. Also, over twice as many ship counters as the base game….

If you’ve read earlier Talon Tuesday posts, you know that the ships in this game are balanced around Ship Points (The value on the Player Aid Card). Beyond the scripted scenarios in the original Talon game that play out the story of some of the major battles of the First Talon War, you can design-your-own scenarios by selecting a max amount of Ship Points then crafting fleets to reach that amount. In the long run, this is the major method of competitive play for most people.

However, in the base game there are limitations to how many different combinations of ships you can stick in a fleet with a point cap. This can somewhat limit the variety of ships in the game.  To fix this, we’ve designed over 20 new ship variants to fill in the point gaps.  At the surface these may look like minor changes in the design—but, diehard Talon veterans should know the smallest of changes in this game can have far reaching consequences in a battle.

(Note art, name and ship points for this ship are not final).

Take this “DD+” for example. It only costs 13 more SP than the standard DD but packs an extra forward-facing torpedo — It’s alpha-strike capability is double. It’s forward and rear shields are also buffed up. This ship helps close the gap between the DD class and the CLs plus offers some really interesting tactical choices not necessarily present in the base game.  This baby could wipe the front shield off a Talon Battlecruiser : – )

There are similar ships with diminished capacity both in terms of weapons and defense to fill the lower end gaps of a given class as well.

Of course since our Ship Point system is built from the ground up, you get weird point values for ships. A BC is 134 and SC is 37… This is where the “1000” of Talon 1000 comes in.

We’ve put together a series of pre-crafted fleets for both factions at 10 different point levels. I.E. 300 SP, 400 SP, 500 SP…   This idea is similar to fleet selection for the tournament we ran at Dice Tower Convention 2015, which I’ve written about in a previous Talon Tuesday. At each point level, each faction has 10 fleets to choose from. This means, by the fleet variety, each point level has 100 possible scenarios thus the game will include 1000 new scenarios… And this doesn’t even take into account random terrain placement or Game Modes such as Base Assaults and Planetary Invasions; which add even more variation.  You can pick your fleet from the menu or use a 10-sided die to select one at random after you’ve picked the scale of the battle you want to have.

This expansion adds a ton of depth and replay-ability. These new ship designs are really greater than the sum of their parts. Alright, and I just found this out as I started writing this article- the P500 price is $23. I had to do a double take. I’m not high enough on the totem pole to know (or care necessarily) about the game’s price point. But this is a steal: 130 ships for $23 bucks.

What else is coming?

We’re going to use an improved lamination type on the counters so that should help prevent any residue on erasing, regardless of dry erase marker type used. Our resident ship artist, Brett, is working on new artwork for the ships to give them more flavor since they are essentially different, sometimes improved sometimes “jury-rigged” versions of existing ships. Also, we have a few rules changes cooking, but those will go in the living rules. They’re not just for the expansion.

On the not-so-distant horizon will be the second expansion for Talon. This will be more of a “big box” expansion and should exist as a stand-alone game containing all new factions (although, right now the team is focused on Talon 1000 development). If you missed out on the original Talon, the reprint is available on the P500 for $41.

Stay tuned, we’ll have more to share in the coming weeks.

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #27: Talon Puzzle 3 – Solution

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #29: Talon 1000 – Heavy Battle Cruisers

Author: Bob Seifert