• Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 16

Topic: Rules questions after first game

We played SAE last night at our club; we have played SX a good bit before.

I have some rules questions/confirmations/clarifications that I hope can be resolved in this forum.

(1) Area Effect weapons: these seem a bit powerful, so I want to confirm we are playing this rule correctly- First, can a blank hex be targeted, or must there be a ship in the target hex? Second, if three guns with ROF 3 fire at target hex does this mean that 9 shots will be applied to seven hexes? Third, if there is more than one ship in a given hex, target or adjacent, does every ship in each of the seven hexes get hit with 9 shots, or must one ship in each hex be selected to receive the fire?

(2) Extra Hull Damage: does this mean that 1,3,5 rolls yield 2 hull hits and 2,4,6 yield single hull hits, or does it mean that 1,2,3,4,5,6 all yield single hull hits?

(3) Boarding Pods: as these are a subset of fighters, they are treated like fighters- does this mean that boarding occurs at a range of 1 hex? This question came up last night when Marines tried to board a ship that was in  an asteroid field hex. Would the pod flight have to test for impact with asteroids before they attempted their assault on the target ship, implying that they are in the same hex as the target when they board?

(4) Marines: this can be played according to gamers' wishes as it is not in the rules i think, but we had a bit of debate about what marines on a captured ship can do? Options: (1) nothing- ship stands in space, or continues on designated vector; (2) marines can fly ship, but not fire weapons; (3) marines can fire ship weapons, but cannot fly ship (after all, they are trained waepons specialists?); (4) marines fire weapons and boarding pod pilots fly the ship.

of course, ship size might need to be considered relative to the boarding party contingent. We played an Escape from Ice Planet Hoth scenraio in a Starwars universe, and the Millenium Falcon was successfully boarded and captured. What seems most reasonable for game play int this situation?


(5) new movement: we need practice with this- I think that it made most players a bit conservative in their actions, but it worked quite well as some Rebel Alliance ships were able to accelerate their way through the Imperial blockade- I think we will grow in to this system in a bit

thanks in advance for any comments and clarifications-

Lamont Anderson
Colorado Springs Gamers Association
http://csga.webng.com/

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Rules questions after first game

lamont wrote:

(1) Area Effect weapons: these seem a bit powerful, so I want to confirm we are playing this rule correctly- First, can a blank hex be targeted, or must there be a ship in the target hex? Second, if three guns with ROF 3 fire at target hex does this mean that 9 shots will be applied to seven hexes? Third, if there is more than one ship in a given hex, target or adjacent, does every ship in each of the seven hexes get hit with 9 shots, or must one ship in each hex be selected to receive the fire?

First, the rules say the weapon is fired at a hex -- there is no statement that the hex must be occupied.

Second and third, a complete attack is made against all targets in the affected area. Thus, every ship in each of the seven hexes gets hit with 9 shots. (!)

(2) Extra Hull Damage: does this mean that 1,3,5 rolls yield 2 hull hits and 2,4,6 yield single hull hits, or does it mean that 1,2,3,4,5,6 all yield single hull hits?

The extra hull damage is in addition to the normal damage -- thus 1,3,5 result in 2 hull hits, and 2,4,6 result in one hull hit.

(3) Boarding Pods: as these are a subset of fighters, they are treated like fighters- does this mean that boarding occurs at a range of 1 hex?

The attack is made at a range of 1, so no, the boarding pods do not need to test vs. asteroids/mines in the target's hex.

(4) Marines: this can be played according to gamers' wishes as it is not in the rules i think, but we had a bit of debate about what marines on a captured ship can do?

I agree that there is room for players to do with this as they see fit, but the rulebook does state what happens as the "default":

"During the End Phase, if the number of boarding parties is equal to or greater than the number of unchecked boxes remaining on a starship's hull track, the ship has been captured by boarders and is removed from the game board. It is considered destroyed for victory purposes, although in a campaign (a series of linked games) captured vessels may have a different fate than those destroyed by weapons fire." (p.38; emphasis added)

(5) new movement: we need practice with this- I think that it made most players a bit conservative in their actions, but it worked quite well as some Rebel Alliance ships were able to accelerate their way through the Imperial blockade- I think we will grow in to this system in a bit

I hope so. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Lamont Anderson
Colorado Springs Gamers Association
http://csga.webng.com/

Where do you meet? I'm just up I-25 in Castle Rock... smile

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 16

Re: Rules questions after first game

we meet at the Sand Creek Police Station in their community room, every Saturday night- we have the room from 5PM until..... there is a map on the club website

there is also an e-mail broadcast that keeps members informed of game events that are planned for each week, if you would like to get on that list

at this page on the site

http://csga.webng.com/index2.html

if you scroll down to Aug 5, 2007, there are some pix of a Psilon raid on a Kzin space station in the SX rule system- the two races were primarily derived from Brigade factions, Psilons having cloaking and meson guns that did little hull damage, as well as marines; the kzin were the faction that had good armor plating and battle sats- I should like to re-play this scenario under the new rule system soon

lamont