andywatkins1963
Mongoose
My friends and I played our first game of ACTA-SF last night, it was rather hectic and took longer than anticipated but that was because we used a squadron box of klingons, a squadron box of Federation, had 3 players each side and no one had ever played the game before.
I think we got a few rules wrong and I think we made some tactical mistakes. I will start by giving an overview of the game and then raise some queries regarding the rules.
One player on each side got a dreadnought in the centre of the board, they were each flanked by 2 players with 2 lighter ships each.
TURN 1
Everyone moved towards each other, not much shooting.
TURN 2
The klingon Dread, C7 and F5 all charged forwards and engaged the Fed frigate which was destroyed. The fed dread, battlecruiser and Frigate all charged forward and concentrated fire on the Klingon Dread, it survived the 1st turns attention but lost all it’s shields and almost half it’s hull along with some criticals.
On the other flank the Klingon D6 and D7 swung around in a broad arc and the Fed Texas and Enterprise did likewise.
Things looked bad for the Klingons
TURN 3
Klingons won the initiative, and with the Feds only having 4 surving ships they were totally out manouvered, most klingon ships ended up behind fed ships, the fed commander discovered the Fed Dread had almost zero ability to turn around
From now and for the next couple of turns the Klingons were permanently on the Feds tails, the feds had no answer to this and went to pieces.
At the point we ran out of time and stopped the battle it was informally agreed that the Fed dread was almost untouched and escaped easily. The Battlecruiser was not quite crippled so we allowed it to escape, but it was in a bad way. The Enterprise was fairly damaged but we let it escape. The Texas and the fed frigate were both destroyed.
The klingons suffered no losses. The dreadnought was badly damaged but two turns of recharging the shields meant they were almost back to full strength. The C7 was lightly damaged and the klingon frigate was hardly touched. That little ship had zipped around and inflicted a stupid number of criticals throughout the game through good luck. On the other flank both my D6 and D7 had lost all their shields and about half their hull, so although the Texas was destroyed and the Enterprise damaged it was in no way a one sided engagement on that flank.
Lessons from the battle
You need Initiative sinks, don’t let your frigates get taken out early in the game.
Shield recharging on a ship with 19 or less starting shields is not worth the effort, but on a dread with 30 shields, hence 3D6 repaired each turn it is extremely effective.
The lumbering fed dread is a liability. Not sure what we should have done, I suspect keep it further back out of range of enemy vessels getting on it’s tail?
MISTAKES WE MADE IN THE RULES
We missed that ships with overloaded weapons could only move 6” so both sides were zipping around with overloaded weapons, especially the klingons with their disruptors.
We missed that lumbering ships could not do High energy turns. Fed tried it on the last turn with his dreadnought, tried a 180 degree turn and failed, this resulted in ripping the guts out of his Dilithium Gear Box!!
We knew the klingons had +1 initiative but missed that ONLY the feds in the starter boxes had command trait ships so we should have been rolling on a level playing field whereas actually we were assuming the klingons initiative was on a +1. This did make a difference on 1 turn when we both rolled 7 so gave it to the klingons.
Got very confused about multi hit weapons, kill zones and what you did when the shields were all gone. Also kept forgetting precise.
The following is I THINK the correct sequence to follow when firing at a target. Could someone confirm this is correct. This is not what we always did last night!
1 X Phaser 1 2AD Accuracy +2 killzone 8, precise firing at target at 6” range
Scenario 1 – target has shields still up.
Roll a 4,6
1 “shot” goes on to the shields though because KZ8 this removes 2 points of shields
1 “shot” goes through the shields. This causes 2 “hits” on the hull though because of KZ8
Roll again getting 1,5 Because of precise this causes one point of hull damage from the 1 and a critical from the 5. (2 and 6 would have had the same effect if weapon had not been precise).
Roll again on the critical table to determine which table is consulted. A “4” means the critical score on the Weapons critical table is increased by 1.
Scenario 2 – target has depleted all of it’s shields.
Roll a 4,6
Both shots are hits, both shots go through the shields because there aren’t any. Effectively in this scenario a 6 is no different than any other roll that successfully hits.The 2 “hits” actually cause 4 rolls on the hits table because the KZ8 makes them multihit 2
Roll again getting 2,5,6,6 . Because of precise this causes one hit and 3 criticals. One point of hull damage is caused and 3 dice rerolled.
2,5,5 are rolled meaning the critical score on the impulse chart is increased by one and the critical score on the crew chart is increased by 2.
I think the above is correct?
What we actually did was different because we got confused. Two areas of special confusion were :-
Rolling “6” on the initial AD dice roll and the target has no shields, we were confused because the “6” had gone through the shields even though there weren’t any, so did you drop to the next table and count the “6” as an automatic critical. Not correct I think, but we were confused.
Scoring a hit with a multihit weapon. Got one hit so rolled one dice, rolled a 6 which means a critical but it was a multihit weapon so does that mean we did 2 criticals? We did that at least once though again not true I believe.
I think both of these mistakes would be easy to make.
Basically when shooting you
“Roll to hit” (applying modifiers)
“Then reroll hits that went through the shields” remembering to double dice for multi hits etc
Then roll for ciritcal location
Then increase critical table for each affected area.
This is quite a long winded process for ONE attack dice, and I think I can see why we got confused. Most of the players could not get their minds around what they were rolling for, why and what they needed to score. This spoilt it for 2 players who are not keen to play again. One I am certain will never play again.
Whilst I am not suggesting the process is changed, I think it can be better explained with examples. As far as I remember there is only one example in the book and it is wrong! That is not helpful.
All constructive criticism, plus the occasional slanderous attack, will all be gratefully accepted. I like the game and am keen to get the hang of it. Will be playing a 2 player game against another club member in 3 weeks time.
To pre-empt the obvious observation, yes starting with 2 players would have been more sensible that starting with 6, but I had a ton of people (well 6) very keen to give it a try!
Andy
I think we got a few rules wrong and I think we made some tactical mistakes. I will start by giving an overview of the game and then raise some queries regarding the rules.
One player on each side got a dreadnought in the centre of the board, they were each flanked by 2 players with 2 lighter ships each.
TURN 1
Everyone moved towards each other, not much shooting.
TURN 2
The klingon Dread, C7 and F5 all charged forwards and engaged the Fed frigate which was destroyed. The fed dread, battlecruiser and Frigate all charged forward and concentrated fire on the Klingon Dread, it survived the 1st turns attention but lost all it’s shields and almost half it’s hull along with some criticals.
On the other flank the Klingon D6 and D7 swung around in a broad arc and the Fed Texas and Enterprise did likewise.
Things looked bad for the Klingons
TURN 3
Klingons won the initiative, and with the Feds only having 4 surving ships they were totally out manouvered, most klingon ships ended up behind fed ships, the fed commander discovered the Fed Dread had almost zero ability to turn around
From now and for the next couple of turns the Klingons were permanently on the Feds tails, the feds had no answer to this and went to pieces.
At the point we ran out of time and stopped the battle it was informally agreed that the Fed dread was almost untouched and escaped easily. The Battlecruiser was not quite crippled so we allowed it to escape, but it was in a bad way. The Enterprise was fairly damaged but we let it escape. The Texas and the fed frigate were both destroyed.
The klingons suffered no losses. The dreadnought was badly damaged but two turns of recharging the shields meant they were almost back to full strength. The C7 was lightly damaged and the klingon frigate was hardly touched. That little ship had zipped around and inflicted a stupid number of criticals throughout the game through good luck. On the other flank both my D6 and D7 had lost all their shields and about half their hull, so although the Texas was destroyed and the Enterprise damaged it was in no way a one sided engagement on that flank.
Lessons from the battle
You need Initiative sinks, don’t let your frigates get taken out early in the game.
Shield recharging on a ship with 19 or less starting shields is not worth the effort, but on a dread with 30 shields, hence 3D6 repaired each turn it is extremely effective.
The lumbering fed dread is a liability. Not sure what we should have done, I suspect keep it further back out of range of enemy vessels getting on it’s tail?
MISTAKES WE MADE IN THE RULES
We missed that ships with overloaded weapons could only move 6” so both sides were zipping around with overloaded weapons, especially the klingons with their disruptors.
We missed that lumbering ships could not do High energy turns. Fed tried it on the last turn with his dreadnought, tried a 180 degree turn and failed, this resulted in ripping the guts out of his Dilithium Gear Box!!
We knew the klingons had +1 initiative but missed that ONLY the feds in the starter boxes had command trait ships so we should have been rolling on a level playing field whereas actually we were assuming the klingons initiative was on a +1. This did make a difference on 1 turn when we both rolled 7 so gave it to the klingons.
Got very confused about multi hit weapons, kill zones and what you did when the shields were all gone. Also kept forgetting precise.
The following is I THINK the correct sequence to follow when firing at a target. Could someone confirm this is correct. This is not what we always did last night!
1 X Phaser 1 2AD Accuracy +2 killzone 8, precise firing at target at 6” range
Scenario 1 – target has shields still up.
Roll a 4,6
1 “shot” goes on to the shields though because KZ8 this removes 2 points of shields
1 “shot” goes through the shields. This causes 2 “hits” on the hull though because of KZ8
Roll again getting 1,5 Because of precise this causes one point of hull damage from the 1 and a critical from the 5. (2 and 6 would have had the same effect if weapon had not been precise).
Roll again on the critical table to determine which table is consulted. A “4” means the critical score on the Weapons critical table is increased by 1.
Scenario 2 – target has depleted all of it’s shields.
Roll a 4,6
Both shots are hits, both shots go through the shields because there aren’t any. Effectively in this scenario a 6 is no different than any other roll that successfully hits.The 2 “hits” actually cause 4 rolls on the hits table because the KZ8 makes them multihit 2
Roll again getting 2,5,6,6 . Because of precise this causes one hit and 3 criticals. One point of hull damage is caused and 3 dice rerolled.
2,5,5 are rolled meaning the critical score on the impulse chart is increased by one and the critical score on the crew chart is increased by 2.
I think the above is correct?
What we actually did was different because we got confused. Two areas of special confusion were :-
Rolling “6” on the initial AD dice roll and the target has no shields, we were confused because the “6” had gone through the shields even though there weren’t any, so did you drop to the next table and count the “6” as an automatic critical. Not correct I think, but we were confused.
Scoring a hit with a multihit weapon. Got one hit so rolled one dice, rolled a 6 which means a critical but it was a multihit weapon so does that mean we did 2 criticals? We did that at least once though again not true I believe.
I think both of these mistakes would be easy to make.
Basically when shooting you
“Roll to hit” (applying modifiers)
“Then reroll hits that went through the shields” remembering to double dice for multi hits etc
Then roll for ciritcal location
Then increase critical table for each affected area.
This is quite a long winded process for ONE attack dice, and I think I can see why we got confused. Most of the players could not get their minds around what they were rolling for, why and what they needed to score. This spoilt it for 2 players who are not keen to play again. One I am certain will never play again.
Whilst I am not suggesting the process is changed, I think it can be better explained with examples. As far as I remember there is only one example in the book and it is wrong! That is not helpful.
All constructive criticism, plus the occasional slanderous attack, will all be gratefully accepted. I like the game and am keen to get the hang of it. Will be playing a 2 player game against another club member in 3 weeks time.
To pre-empt the obvious observation, yes starting with 2 players would have been more sensible that starting with 6, but I had a ton of people (well 6) very keen to give it a try!
Andy
Perhaps also rewritten shakespeares works whilst I was at it 
