What play aids are people using?

[The Big D]

A call to arms is a wonderfully simple space combat system adapted for several settings.

Every game needs its play aids to help you play quickly with the minimum of effort.

This thread is for people to share what they are using to help them play their games and have the most fun with the smallest effort so others can get some ideas for their games.

Turning markers, ship sheets, order counters, funny dice, damage effects whatever it may be, just throw it out there for all to see!

 

[The Big D]

First I begin by sharing the official stuff you can buy to help.

Mongoose ship cards.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/ctastarfleet/rulebooks/star-fleet-reference-cards.html

These look really cool being double sided and wipe off showing the ships weapons on one side and a record of game effects such as damage and criticals on the other.

Federation Dreadnought

Reverse Side

Klingon C8

C8 Reverse

Not yet availaible at time of writing but for only £9.99/$14.99 a bargain!

Also on the on the ADB site http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Mongoose/Special_Action_tokens_-_TLT.pdf

some handy special action tokens to record what your ships are up to. Just print 'em off and cut 'em out. Job done!

 

[McKinstry]

I've ordered custom plexiglass/plastic markers for all the special orders from Litko with the power drain ones in red and the non-drain in green. Litko's custom large markers has room for up to 12 letters so I have flourescent green octagons that say IDF CC-8 or flourescent red octagons that say Boost Shield or a translucent red that says Launch SS.

I also use a small yellow arrow markers that say Activate to indicate ships that have moved or fired and a red target reticule to keep track of what ships have had drones fired at them.

 

[The Big D]

Here are some of my own play aids I have come up with to use.

Being an impatient bunny I couldn't wait for the official stat cards so I made some of my own.

Federation and klingon dreadnought cards.

There were several things I missed off the first run of cards. Crew quality score is vital for a campaign setting and check boxes for fired weapons for defensive fire.

I decided to colour code all of the weapons so that dice could be thrown in batches for faster play. I also managed to fit the critical chart onto the card (in tiny writing) so you know what those criticals do!

Turn marker
Simply a bit of plasic cut to the shape of the base, the length of 45 degrees so it can be placed next to a ship as it turns. With the bases marked up as they are at 45 degree points these are rarely used in the heat of battle but I made them up anyway!

Special order counters.

I wanted to make some special order counters that showed all of the info of the ones you could download, but also if the ship has fired or not. During our first couple of games we realised a marker to see who had move and who had fired could be really useful. I made them octagonal so they are eaisier to cut out than round ones! The hole in the middle is still a pain to cut out and I stuck mine to 480GSM card which is really thick. On reflection I'd probably go for 240 max.

When you have moved a ship put the marker on it's black side up to show it has moved. There are some just for moved/fired even if there is no special order used. When it is time to fire, flip it over to the white side.

Starship moved

Starship fired!

Finally I have put together a quick reference sheet with all of the special orders on one side and all of the traits for ships and weapons on the other to refer to during the battle. I had to remove the flavour text from these to get them to fit eaisily onto the page.

Geoff

 

[LimeyDragon]

The play Aids I use are in my signature.. he he shameless plug..

The others are home brew ships sheets and the special action (red/green) tokens that someone on here made. For the life of me i can't remember who.

 

[scoutdad]

The others are home brew ships sheets and the special action (red/green) tokens that someone on here made. For the life of me i can't remember who.

I'll give you a hint... :wink:

 

[LimeyDragon]

The others are home brew ships sheets and the special action (red/green) tokens that someone on here made. For the life of me i can't remember who.

I'll give you a hint... :wink:

he he, i wonder it if was Scottdad.?

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I'm in the process of getting my decent quality play aids sorted out, but in the mean time here's a quick and dirty play aid:

An A4 sheet of paper has 90 degree corners. If you place it with the corner at the stem of your ship, and the edges of the paper equally off the ship's centreline, you have the ship's forward (or aft) arc. This also shows your 45 deg turn limits.
If you would prefer to have a 45 deg arc aid, just fold the corner in half (so that the fold runs from the corner, and the edges of the paper line up with each other). You now have a 45 degree arc reference

 

[Da Boss]

I tend to use the old gale force 9 ACTA movement / firing template

also Battle Fleet Gothic special orders dice - you can use their firing template as well - its a free download

 

[The Big D]

I also use a small yellow arrow markers that say Activate to indicate ships that have moved or fired and a red target reticule to keep track of what ships have had drones fired at them.

I completely forgot about the drone target limit so I knocked these up to track it!

Drone target markers

Geoff

 

[Renny]

Inspiring thread. Thanks and nicely done. I mainly use a home brew rules reference sheet but I may have to knock up some markers to use. Really like that idea. I assume your ship data sheets are A5 size?

 

[Greg Smith]

A B5 ACTA turn/fire template.

A dice to indicate special actions/power drain.

In big battles, I put a tiddlywink beside a ship as it moves, take it away after it fires.

 

[The Big D]

Inspiring thread. Thanks and nicely done. I mainly use a home brew rules reference sheet but I may have to knock up some markers to use. Really like that idea. I assume your ship data sheets are A5 size?

Actually they are A6! I can squeeze 2 onto an A5 laminating sheet. Some come out a bit smaller as they have less boxes/weapons on them.

Geoff

 

[Renny]

A6? Good idea. Thanks for sharing all of these, some great inspiration here.

 

[bolive]

Great aids guys. nice work.

 

[scoutdad]

In addition to the nice green and red Special action tokens by an unnamed contributor ( :roll: ), we have made our own reference cards using 4x6 inch postcard stock.
They have a single unit on side one and three identical units on side two; and include weapon firing arcs, check boxes for fired weapons, check-off boxes for sheilds and hull points, and a critical hit chart on side one. Side two contains the same data but only has a single larger box for marking shield / hull damage.
In addition, they have each trait listed on both sides, so once they are laminated - you can mark through any traits lost due to damage or critical hits.

We're currently using dice to indicate moved / fired ships. Place a d6 behind the ship after it moves and then remove it once fired, but I'm intending to make specific markers for this in imperial colors prior to NashCon.

 

[The Big D]

In addition to the nice green and red Special action tokens by an unnamed contributor ( :roll: ), we have made our own reference cards using 4x6 inch postcard stock.
They have a single unit on side one and three identical units on side two; and include weapon firing arcs, check boxes for fired weapons, check-off boxes for sheilds and hull points, and a critical hit chart on side one. Side two contains the same data but only has a single larger box for marking shield / hull damage.
In addition, they have each trait listed on both sides, so once they are laminated - you can mark through any traits lost due to damage or critical hits.

We're currently using dice to indicate moved / fired ships. Place a d6 behind the ship after it moves and then remove it once fired, but I'm intending to make specific markers for this in imperial colors prior to NashCon.

Cunning! I thought about doing some squadron cards of several of the same ship but I like to move mine about so I can remember which card goes with which ship more eaisily.

I did the markers becase everytime I use dice to mark stuff they just seem to get rolled in the heat of the moment!

 

[The Big D]

Couple more bits came out of my last game.

I've modified the order counters so you can just put it on to and take it off the base. The 'key hole' slots may have been elegant but definitely over engineered and not that easy to get on and off.

I was also requestd to make counters for the power drain effects and for how the feds are using their drone racks.

All these counters are double sided and although shown next to a ship they are designed to sit on the ship cards I've done as a reminder when firing.

I didn't do one for the movement power drain as once you have moved your ship it has no further effect on the game.

Geoff

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

Wow, Big D. I love your counters, and I gotta say, your record sheets are a lot nicer looking than the ones I cooked up. I didn't think of including check boxes for weapons fired off (though actually I do have individual check boxes for Photon and Plasma Torpedoes).

I may have to rework my sheets, though I don't know if you really need a fully copy of the critical table on each sheet as long as you've got a few boxes to mark the crits and another cheat sheet detailing the full table.

 

[The Big D]

Wow, Big D. I love your counters, and I gotta say, your record sheets are a lot nicer looking than the ones I cooked up. I didn't think of including check boxes for weapons fired off (though actually I do have individual check boxes for Photon and Plasma Torpedoes).

I may have to rework my sheets, though I don't know if you really need a fully copy of the critical table on each sheet as long as you've got a few boxes to mark the crits and another cheat sheet detailing the full table.

The check boxes for weapons came from the game where we were trying to rmember what had been fired and what had been used for defensive fire. It turned into such a head bender even with only 3 ships each I had to put it in!

You're right that you don't really need the full crit chart, I just find in the heat of battle I forget stuff and I don't want to stop to check another bit of paper for fhe effects as it slows the game a bit.
As we get more used to playing we might find it isn't really needed anymore but for novices to the game it is definitely handy!

I like the multiple ships on a single card. Keeps the gaming area uncluttered!

I also found colour coding weapons works well for different coloured dice. That way you can fire a volley in one go and everyone is using the same colours (mostly).

Geoff