I put this together as a rough draft of something to send to Matt if there's going to be an official ACTA ezine launching in 2012, but wanted to throw it out to see what people thought. I've probably made the fleet selection a bit too complicated and need to streamline it.
Convoy Attack
Special Rules
Capturing civilian ships
Civilian ships don’t have the security or marines of warships, or crews armed as a matter of course when engaging enemy ships in order to repel boarders. This means that civilian ships are vulnerable to boarding. Faced with armed boarding parties, most civilian crews surrender quickly in the knowledge they’ll be ransomed or released later, whereas resistance is very likely to result in being vaporised.
To board a civilian ship a Transport Marines! special action is required, as described on page 13 of the rulebook. Instead of rolling on the Raid table, the following table is used.
Dice Roll Result
1-2 The Marine is lost in a cargo hold or trapped in an airlock, the Marine is lost.
3-4 The Marine can’t penetrate the command deck, and returns.
5 The command deck is captured, but not before the crew lock out the weapon controls. The ship is now controlled by the marine player, but cannot fire weapons.
6 The command deck is captured intact and the crew surrender. The ship is now treated as one of the marine players ships.
Special Rule – Poor Handling
Civilian ships are weighed down with cargo and handle with all the manoeuvrability of a brick in a tub of molasses. While initiative is rolled as normal between the convoy and raider player (using their fleet initiative bonuses), all civilian ships will move before the raider/s and convoy escort, who will then move in initiative order.
Design note - This prevents the convoy distorting initiative by moving freighters to allow the escort to always outmanoeuvre the raider player.
Scenario
Convoy Attack!
Merchant vessels carrying valuables, critical supplies or personnel are high value targets for opposing fleets and pirates alike. While most independent pirates prefer solitary targets without escorts, a sufficiently valuable cargo can induce an attack on an escorted convoy by an ambitious pirate. For the captain of a commerce raider, damaging the enemy economy and denying them vital supplies is another step on the path to victory.
Fleets: The standard conflict intensity of a convoy battle is patrol. The convoy player has 200 points to spend, and may purchase the cheapest ship available to his fleet (Federation POL, Kzinti FF, Klingon E4, etc). The remaining points must be spent on purchasing at least four civilian ships.
Alternatively the Raider player may take a commerce raider or pirate squadron, selecting up to three non-dreadnoughts from his fleet list. The Convoy player may take escorts equal to 75% the value of the commerce raider/s, rounding up to the nearest 5 or 10 (so if an FD7 was selected an escort costing up to 150 points can be chosen). The convoy is made up of the points difference between the commerce raider and escort multiplied by three, and must consist of at least three ships more than the number of Raider ships.
Pre-Battle Preparation: The Convoy is placed in the central deployment area marked on the map. The Raider player places his ship/s within six inches of any table edge. Stellar Debris is generated randomly.
Scenario rules: The Raider player automatically wins initiative on the first turn.
Game Length: Eight turns. If the Raider player has ships still on the board at the end of Turn 8, they count as destroyed by an arriving reinforcements.
Victory and Defeat: This scenario uses Victory points in order to determine the winner. However no The Raider player scores triple victory points for each freighter in their possession that has left the table at the end of the game.
Convoy Attack
Special Rules
Capturing civilian ships
Civilian ships don’t have the security or marines of warships, or crews armed as a matter of course when engaging enemy ships in order to repel boarders. This means that civilian ships are vulnerable to boarding. Faced with armed boarding parties, most civilian crews surrender quickly in the knowledge they’ll be ransomed or released later, whereas resistance is very likely to result in being vaporised.
To board a civilian ship a Transport Marines! special action is required, as described on page 13 of the rulebook. Instead of rolling on the Raid table, the following table is used.
Dice Roll Result
1-2 The Marine is lost in a cargo hold or trapped in an airlock, the Marine is lost.
3-4 The Marine can’t penetrate the command deck, and returns.
5 The command deck is captured, but not before the crew lock out the weapon controls. The ship is now controlled by the marine player, but cannot fire weapons.
6 The command deck is captured intact and the crew surrender. The ship is now treated as one of the marine players ships.
Special Rule – Poor Handling
Civilian ships are weighed down with cargo and handle with all the manoeuvrability of a brick in a tub of molasses. While initiative is rolled as normal between the convoy and raider player (using their fleet initiative bonuses), all civilian ships will move before the raider/s and convoy escort, who will then move in initiative order.
Design note - This prevents the convoy distorting initiative by moving freighters to allow the escort to always outmanoeuvre the raider player.
Scenario
Convoy Attack!
Merchant vessels carrying valuables, critical supplies or personnel are high value targets for opposing fleets and pirates alike. While most independent pirates prefer solitary targets without escorts, a sufficiently valuable cargo can induce an attack on an escorted convoy by an ambitious pirate. For the captain of a commerce raider, damaging the enemy economy and denying them vital supplies is another step on the path to victory.
Fleets: The standard conflict intensity of a convoy battle is patrol. The convoy player has 200 points to spend, and may purchase the cheapest ship available to his fleet (Federation POL, Kzinti FF, Klingon E4, etc). The remaining points must be spent on purchasing at least four civilian ships.
Alternatively the Raider player may take a commerce raider or pirate squadron, selecting up to three non-dreadnoughts from his fleet list. The Convoy player may take escorts equal to 75% the value of the commerce raider/s, rounding up to the nearest 5 or 10 (so if an FD7 was selected an escort costing up to 150 points can be chosen). The convoy is made up of the points difference between the commerce raider and escort multiplied by three, and must consist of at least three ships more than the number of Raider ships.
Pre-Battle Preparation: The Convoy is placed in the central deployment area marked on the map. The Raider player places his ship/s within six inches of any table edge. Stellar Debris is generated randomly.
Scenario rules: The Raider player automatically wins initiative on the first turn.
Game Length: Eight turns. If the Raider player has ships still on the board at the end of Turn 8, they count as destroyed by an arriving reinforcements.
Victory and Defeat: This scenario uses Victory points in order to determine the winner. However no The Raider player scores triple victory points for each freighter in their possession that has left the table at the end of the game.
