“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 #3

The following is a continuation of the Example of Play posted for last week’s “Talon Tuesday”.

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Now that the Impulse is over, the Change Initiative marker that Sacrifice placed steals the Initiative back from the Terran. Talon goes first in Impulse D.

Both the Service and Justice get Available Power. They each charge a Yellow box for one of their weapon groups.

During movement, Sacrifice must move so she advances 1 hex. Service does not get to move in Impulse D, but chooses to use one of her Afterburners (a special Talon ability) to enable movement. She marks it off then turns and moves forward, placing a Turn Radius marker 1 hex in front of where she moved, corresponding to her Turn Radius of 1. It’s a good thing Service used the Afterburner: now only her full rear and left Shield Arcs face the enemy instead of her damaged shields.

It is now Impulse D for the Terrans and they have a plan for counter-attack. Napoleon gets Available Power and uses it to enable a Sideslip. Guderian does not get available Power in this Impulse but does have a charged battery. She erases the battery charge and uses that power to pull in her turn radius. The turn radius is removed from the board and this allows Guderian to turn freely during movement.

When multiple ships get to move, the ships’ owner may choose the order. In this case, Napoleon executes her side slip, sliding to the left, then Guderian turns and moves into the space Napoleon just vacated. A 2-Turn Radius is placed 2 hexes in front of Guderian’s new position due to her 2 turn radius and Napoleon’s Sideslip marker is removed. Now these ships are in a “concave” formation which can be optimal for firing. However, they do not fire at this time.

It is now Impulse E for Talon since they are the Initiative Player. Only a “6” appears in Impulse E so not much may happen. However, both the Sacrifice and Justice decide to mark off and use their Afterburner to close in near the Terran ships. The Sacrifice has no charged weapons to fire. Justice does have a disruptor group available but opts to hold her fire for now.

It is now Terran’s turn for Impulse E. Their ships would not normally get power or movement but Napoleon decides to use her battery that was charged during a previous Round. She uses the power to place a Change Initiative marker. Both Terran ships decided to hold their fire. At the end of the Impulse, the Terrans steal the Initiative so they go first in Impulse F.

For Impulse F, both Terran ships use their Available Power to recharge their batteries. They may come in handy in the upcoming Round.

Napoleon moves forward and enters the same hex as Sacrifice. Since these ships are from different factions, their NFTL drives do not interfere and thus, no collision damage occurs. However, neither the Napoleon nor the Sacrifice can target each other. Guderian has a Turn Radius marker so she must move forward 1 hex. It’s a good thing that Terran stole the Intiative, getting in tight against Talon ships is a good tactic. Their disruptors are less accurate at range 1 than at range 2.

Guderian thinks she can “alpha strike” here. Guderian’s torpedo can fire on Justice’s forward Shield Arc at range 2, she rolls for a 2 which hits for 4 damage. Guderian erases the torpedo charge bar and follows-up with his left and right phaser groups. The left group rolls a 4, which hits for 2 damage. Justice only has 1 shield box left on the front arc. Guderian fires the right group, rolling a 6 which hits for another 2 damage. Justice’s front shields are down and she’s taken 1 hull damage.

Now Napoleon fires at range 1. If Napoleon had a fully charged torpedo group (she doesn’t) it would not be able to fire here since torpedoes cannot fire at range 1. Instead, Napoleon fires her phasers. She fires her right phaser group first. If she can score a lucky critical hit here, she can save the other phaser group for Service which is trying to run away. She rolls a 3 which hits for 2 damage, just enough to cause Critical Damage to Justice. Justice rolls on the Critical Damage table.

Oh no! She rolled 12. Her FTL core was breached and Justice was destroyed instantly. Napoleon AND Sacrifice (who was in the same hex as Napoleon) must now take 3 explosion damage. Napoleon takes the damage on her front shields and Sacrifice takes it on the left side.

It is now Talon’s Impulse F. Sacrifice spends its Available Power to enable a Side Slip and Service uses its power to pull in the Turn Radius marker so she can turn freely during movement.

Sacrifice side slips behind the Terran ships and Sacrifice turns in that direction as well, placing a 1-Turn Radius marker one hex away from her new position. This is a great move for Talon as they are behind the enemy, giving the enemy their “good” shields and buying time to recharge weapons.

It is now the Power Phase for Terran since he is the Initiative Player. First Terran recharges one Red box on each weapon group for each ship. Red boxes represent the time it takes to recharge a weapon, whereas Yellow boxes represent the power that must be put into a weapon. Next Terran has the option of adjusting his Power Curves on each ship by speeding up or slowing down. Napoleon decides to go from Speed 3 to Speed 4. This decreases his Available Power to 2 but does not alter his Turn Radius. He write “2 4 2” on the Napoleon counter. Guderian has two phaser groups that need Yellow boxes charged in order to fire. To be safe, he decides to slow down from Speed 4 to Speed 3 in order to get more power. Guderian’s new Power Curve is “3 3 2”.

Next Talon gets its Power Phase. Sacrifice marks off 1 Red box on each disruptor weapon group. Service already has the Red box on its left disruptor group marked off so that charge bar can now mark off up to 2 Yellow boxes (one for each weapon in the group). When all Red boxes on a weapon group are marked off you may mark off Yellow boxes equal to the number of weapons in that group. This finishes charging the left weapon group. Service then marks off the Red box on the right disruptor group.

Since the Talon player was Second Player, he can see how the Terran player adjusted the speed of his ships during the Power Phase and respond accordingly. Sacrifice decides to slow down from Speed 4 to Speed 3—she needs more power to recharge those disruptors. Her new Power Curve is “3 3 1”. Service is in trouble. She’s taken severe hull damage and in the left-most hull box a “–2” is written; this number is going to modify her Power for the next round. On top of that she has the –1 Power marker from the Critical Hit. This means a total of 3 is subtracted from her power. Service could keep her current Speed of 2 and still get a Power of 1 for the next Round. However,since Service has a weapon ready she doesn’t need power for that. She’d rather put some distance between her and the enemy. To do so she will increase her Speed from 2 to 3. Unfortunately, this means her Power for the next round will be 0, but between her Speed and her one remaining Afterburner she hopes to fire and get out of range of the enemy.

The Round marker advanced to the next Round and Terran begins Impulse A as the Initiative Player. Guderian does not get Available Power in Impulse A but uses her battery to finish charging her left phaser group. Napoleon turns.

Then Napoleon fires her left phaser group. The left phaser group can hit Service using its left Firing Arc. This will hit Service on the rear Firing Arc. Napoleon rolls a 1, dealing 1 damage. This marks of the 2nd critical hit box on Service, now she rolls on the Critical Hit Table. A 9 is rolled, Weapon Group Destroyed. Service has two weapon groups—the left and right disruptor groups. To select a random Weapon Group to be destroyed, Talon rolls 1 die for each group: left rolls 4, right rolls 5. The highest value (right) is destroyed and crossed off on the counter—it can no longer fire.

Next, Guderian fires the phaser he just charged at Sacrifice’s left Shield Arc. Guderian also rolls a 1 dealing only 1 damage, but this does shut down Sacrifice’s left Shield Arc for good.

That’s it for this extended example of basic play.

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Hopefully, one thing you take away from this example is how this game system relies heavily on beat-to-beat, important tactical decisions. Having an overall strategic objective (and sticking to it) is important, but individual turns are executed quickly and involve making tough tactical choices. Turns, and the battle, move very quickly because of this.

The rules and play book will be uploaded in the near future.

Thanks and stay tuned for the next Talon Tuesday post.

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Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #2 – Example of Play Part 1

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #4: The Talonverse (Part 1)