Hi folks! After a fun evening blowing up spaceships and identifying some ambiguity and player agency issues last night, we have a few release announcements to make today. But first:
That’s our very own Erin playing the Selourians, and early adopter Vince playing a Dathian mining swarm! Highlights included a Dathian mining cruiser safely approaching the Black Hole, daring the space sharks to skirmish. The Selourian response was that there was Blood in the Water…
With no ranged cover in black hole spaces, this left the poor mining cruiser open for some heavy firepower.
At the end of the game, the Dathians had won out. The results of that and other games this week gave us some insights into some interactions that needed clarification:
Errata: Shield Facings
Certain weapons and cards (especially Selourian plasma-based weapons) gain benefits when a target’s shields have been damaged. Unfortunately, the wording on these cards has not addressed shield facings on larger ships (an oversight Tom is rather embarrassed about). Read as Written, this means, for example, the deadly Devastor Launchers mounted on several Selourian ships proved rather useless against the larger targets they were designed to chew through.
The next rulebook update will contain new wording on how to read “Target has Undamaged Shield Boxes”, which will allow these abilities to trigger if the target is Heavy or Super Heavy and the applicable shield facing has no undamaged boxes. No longer will a Paladin’s rear shields save it from the barrage of a full wing of Eradicator Strike Bombers!
A minor adjustment is also coming to situations where a ship is between two shield facings. Specifically, the Defender must nominate a shield facing that is affected each time an Armament is fired at that ship. The defender can only use that shield facing until that armament’s attacks are completely resolved. The effect here is that larger ships (especially Accords ships with their copious shields) will no longer soak heavy firepower across two shield facings from a single armament.
Critical Hits
Another mechanic truly put through a stress test this week was Critical Hits, your one-stop ship-killers. With Mining Drones, plasma weaponry, and Lasers now being much more reliable delivery methods for this deadly effect, the full elimination of keywords from Heavy ships especially turned out to be particularly strong against the keyword-heavy, Shield-light Selourians. We’re still working with options on this update, but one thing you can absolutely expect is a new order to help you repair your Crippled ships and get them back to full working condition. And on the topic of new cards….
Fires of Conflict 1-week delay
For anyone hoping to get their hands on Refits this week, we’re sorry, but you can expect them next week! We’re holding off on the release of this new digital title for a couple reasons.
Primarily, due to the adjustments being made to the system, we’re working on a rulebook update parallel to Refits that explains how to use these new ships. Rather than wait to add the new Errata noted above in a future release, these are going to be integrated alongside the Refit rules addition.
In addition, as we noted in the Critical Hits topic, there’s more orders coming to support additional strategies and fill gaps in your toolboxes. You can expect to see these additional orders with the Fires of Conflict release next week!
Upcoming Events
Battleground Games and Hobbies in Norton, MA has been our home as both gamers and designers for many years, and we’re proud to announce that, this boxing day, you can start your own Career as an Admiral in the Grandis Galaxy!
On December 26th, come on down and pick up a Career Play set and play on those fancy new Battlegrounds playmats! A sealed format, Career Play starts you off with a set of your faction’s ships and a starting order library, and lets you gain additional ships and orders as you complete each Tour of Duty! If you finish a Tour of Duty at Battlegrounds on the 26th, we’ll give you your first new sealed packs for free!
We’ll be previewing these sets all through next month, so be on the lookout if you want to start planning your Career fleet early!
Constructed Play Nights
Lastly, we’ll also be hosting Constructed Play nights at Battlegrounds, including monthly “Build-A-Fleet” events, where you can pick your Ships and Orders for a single constructed play list and start playing right away! If you’re not around for an official event but still want to get a game in with a friend, the playmats are at Battleground Norton to stay (check the X-Wing/Warmachine cabinet), and if you want some at your local store (we’ve already had requests for rulebooks at the Battleground Abington location), give us a shout!
That’s all for this week. we hope everyone has a wonderful weekend with some great gaming stories to tell!