Red Alert! - Pseudo FAQ v1.3

Official LUG Update: 11-23-00

A Q&A with Matthew Colville from Wizards of the Coast South a.k.a. LUG

SETUP

• Check this out: Is it allowable to look at other players' revealed disks? It seems like that's what "revealed" implies, but I'm not sure if that's spelled out in the rules. (One of my player's thought it wasn't legal.)
  A: If someone's disks are revealed, you can check them out all you want.

• Flipped: Does +X (a purchased upgrade) Beam Weapon or Torpedo are flipped when used? Alternatively, are they constant? What about the use of Shield, Hull and Transporter Upgrades, is it constant? (*This can lead to a lot more questions*) or are they flipped upon use.
  A: The following is true for all crew/tech disks: If the disk's special ability text has the AC/T symbol in front of it, that ability requires a AC/T order to use, and flips the disk. If the disk's special ability text ends with "flip" that ability requires you to flip the disk in order to use it. If the ability doesn't have either of these, it's always on, always produces its effect, even if it is flipped. This is also true of Command. So if you've got Captain Jellico on your ship and you flip him for his Attack/Attack order, he still grants his bonus to your beam weapons and still adds his command to your initiative. He's still on your ship, still inspiring the crew, he's just busy blowing people up.

• Flipped #2: Do you have to issue a command to flip an Upgrade Tech and what happens if you can not fire that weapon this command phase? (Obviously if you can not fire it this turn, it loose all of its bonuses starting next turn.)
  A: I think the previous answer covers this. You only need to flip a tech disk if it's got an ability that has the AC/T order in front of it, or if that ability says "flip" at the end.

• "Highlander": Can you have more than one Captain (or unique position disks) on a ship at the same time? If you can have more than one, can you have more than one revealed? i.e. both Cpt. Desoto and Cpt. Jellico on the bridge simultaneously? (Perhaps one revealed and another under your Unrevealed Crew and Tech?)

A: No. Something that got left out of the printed version of the game, is the keyword *Unlimited.* All base Security and Away Team guys are unlimited, meaning you can have as many as you'd like on a ship. All other disks have a limit of one per ship. This is different than Unique, meaning 1 per game (all players). Note: You can only have one Captain or one Admiral on a Starship at the start of the game. During the game, you can only have one Captain or one Admiral REVEALED on the Satrship and any one time.

 

• Cloaked: Obviously there is a typo on the Cloak Type 1 disk because there should be a Command icon on the disk before the typed line, Cloak Type 1. (see Cloaking Devices rules)

A: It's not a typo per se. The rules for Cloaking Devices are covered in the rule book. There was no way we could fit those rules on a disk. So the cloaks have flavor text describing what they are. Their rules are contained elsewhere.

STEP 1: REVEAL/CONCEAL

• n/a

STEP 2: ASSIGN ORDERS

• n/a

STEP 3: EXECUTE ORDERS

• Q: Can you use more than one crew order in a phase -- that is, an order or orders from more than one crew disk?
  A: Nope. When you issue an AC/T order, that allows you to flip one crew disk.

• Q: Was Commander Tebok's bottom order -- a lone Activate Crew/Tech -- supposed to be something else (since it's useless as it is)? If so, what?
  A: Tebok should have two rows of orders. R1: Attack R2: Ac/T, Shields.

• Data: How does Lt. Cdr. Data work? Does he choose any skill to copy in play, including from another player? Does this include command lines? I.e. Crew with fire, raises shields, change-heading etc.
  A: ?

• Khor'tal: What about the Klingon Khor'tal, how dose he work? (Command: flip an opposing crew). Does he flip any opposing crew during your phase or is this just during boarding? If at any time then he seems way to powerful, for the cost, he could flip your captain or some other essential crew and just sit on him for most of the game.
  A: You issue an AC/T order and pick an opposing crew member. That crew disk is flipped. This guy has the wrong cost, he should be an 8.

• Torps vs Cloaked: Must you declare a target in order to fire a torpedo? Can a player to fire a torpedo and move it in front of a cloaked ship.
  A: Sure, but Cloaked ships are immune to torpedoes and collisions. This'll be in the F.A.Q./errata.

• Torps: Must you have a Torp Tech (or any Upgrade Tech) revealed (and do you have to flip it) before the Torp is launched (any upgrade tech bonus) for its effect to be gained?
  A: Unless an upgrade's text begins with "Start" then you must have the disk revealed in order to gain it's bonus. I don't think there are any Torp upgrades that require you to flip the disk, so they'll grant their bonus even if they're flipped.

• Torps #2: After a Torp Tech has been flipped, do all subsequent Torpedoes fired during that turn receive the bonuses from said disk?
  A: See the above answer.

• Command Initiative: How often do you determine Command Initiative? (Once a turn, or once each phase?) If once each phase do Activated Crew count towards your Command Initiative?

A: According to the rules, it's per order phase. We may errata this and change it to once per turn. If you're playing with Initiative every phase, then it's determined before orders are revealed. If you're playing with it once per turn, it's immediately after revealing crew. Initiative doesn't change that much throughout the game, so I encourage you to use the method that works best depending on the number of people playing.

 

• Executing Orders: When using the Activate Crew/Tech order, how many Crew and/or Tech can you activate at a time? i.e. Phase 1 is an AC/T order, can both Cpt. Jellico and Lt. Barclay be use to fire the Upgrade Tech - Dual Phaser Banks twice, at +2 Beam Weapon each?

A: Issuing an AC/T order allows you to activate one crew member or piece of tech. Some crew themselves can execute an order and then activate something else, but this is a function of that crew disk, not the AC/T order in general.

 

• Change Heading: We feel that the rotating of the ship (or torpedoes) during Change Heading allows a little bit of fudging when you move the disk. Do you have a method to help stop this? Flipping disks in DiskWars is so exact... Obviously the rotation takes place when the disk is parallel to the playing surface, perhaps this should be mentioned in the F.A.Q..

A: Actually, we've had the opposite experience. Because disks in DiskWars can always move in any direction, there's a lot of 'play' in the movement. We intentionally chopped the tops and bottoms of the disks off so that they have to move in a straight line. Obviously it's not absolutely precise, but Red Alert! isn't simultaneous. We don't encourage people to play expecting a high degree of precision. Change Heading hasn't presented a problem, you're just rotating the disk, it doesn't actually move.

 

• Critical Damage: We feel that Critical Hits need to be better defined and spelled out as to what happens. What is the true effect of a Life Support Critical? Does it cause all revealed Crew to lose their abilities, i.e they become Activated for this turn? Does it last for the game, one phase, one turn, what? How about Unrevealed Crew being revealed at in a latter turn? We feel that a full description of the effects of each critical would be very helpful to the end gamer. Do any other critical (besides Bridge Critical) kill/remove crew from play?

A: Life Support crits simply prevent your crew from using their orders. It doesn't effect their special abilities (note the wording on the crit) nor does it change their activation state. And it remains true as long as you have that crit. If you can remove the crit, it stops producing that effect.

Some crits produce an affect that's instantly resolved (remove all revealed bridge crew from play.) Once you've taken that crit, your bridge crew are dead. If you remove that crit later, with an engineer for instance, your crew don't ressurect.

Other crits, like the Life Support crit, limit the functionality of the ship. If these crits are removed, the effect stops. In both instances, it's still to your advantage to get rid of the crit, since if you take another one, you're ship explodes.

 

• Ignore Hits: When using Klingon's Upgrade Tech - High Energy Shields (which states ignore up to 3 hits) does this include tossing for the Crits? i.e. only 3 hits were taken, so the Klingon's sacrifice the UT- HES disk, there by ignoring the 3 hits, does the attacker still get to toss for a crit?

A: If you ignore the hits then it's just as though they never happened. They don't count as hits for anything, including criticals and special tech (like the attack again if you score three hits.)

STEP 4: BOARDING

• Cinderella Story: In the rules it says that if a ship is taken over the player may not be out of the game if he still has crew on board or his allies beam crew over to take it back. (The player has unrevealed crew on board) is confusing. Under the Taking Control heading it says the player in control takes the ship and issues orders and moves the ship as if it were his own. Despite this, the player whose ship has been taken over can still reveal his unrevealed crew during the Reveal/Conceal Crew phase? This Crew can then try to re-take the ship during the boarding phase. Is this correct?
  A: Yes. The player who owns the disks controls concealed disks. But this is not the most common permutation that results in you having crew on your ship after it's been taken over. Remember, you can only lose three crew disks during Crew Combat.

STEP 5: READY

• Q: Regarding the Temporal Anomaly: When you toss a ship back onto the table from the anomaly, what do you do if it lands in the anomaly's area of effect?
  A: We played the temporal anomaly scenario last night, and it was a lot of fun. Our house rule was to re-toss any ships that landed back in the anomaly. Of the 4 players, 3 of us went into the anomaly -- 2 on purpose (to escape attack), one forced to in order to avoid a collision with a ship. This sounds good although you could just rule that you can't reappear in the anomaly. If you land on it, you land on it and just move on. Remember this is 3-d space we're simulating. Just because the disk lands on the anomoly doesn't mean it's actually touching it.

SLDWeb master's note: If you have a question about Red Alert! that is not answered above, you can send it in to SLDWeb master or chek out the Official FAQ.