Alternate Play System - TACOS mk.II

played last Friday.
- i like how the focus change from one flank to the other as cards are flipped. it is much more dynamic than ITS where once you secure the crucial zone you are winning (well, it ITS 9 there are no more mission rooms, so that effect is not as present in ITS).
- compared to previous version, it is nice to score cards in ARO instead of waiting your reactive turn doing nothing.
- in our game, we had almost no casualties, i'm neutral on that as it was only 1 game.
- i feel like the mission favors going second.
- I still have trouble understanding where the placement goes in the start of game sequence from reading the rules.

Usually :
- Lt roll off.
- The one who wins decide either initiative or deployment and immediately makes his decision related to that. (if if he pick turn order he says who goes first; if he picks deployment he says who deploy first.)
- The one who didn't win, gets the other and immediately makes his decision. (if if he have turn order he says who goes first; if he have deployment choice he says who deploy first.)
- Whoever must deploy first deploy his models.
- The other player deploys.
- reserves...
- Whoever must play first starts his turn.

How we played, was that immediately after winning the Lt roll off and choosing who gets what, the one who controls initiative deploy the first objective, and once they are all placed the Lt winner decide the deployment order if he control deployment or turn order if he control initiative.

But I also was thinking it should go after decisions are made and prior to deploying your models.

Objective placement refer to "controlling initiative" it could refer to making the placement as soon as you know who controls initiative (and before he decides the specifics of the initiative order). This is also based on the first edition text which was : Roll for Dep/Init as Normal. Then the player who controls initiative place the first marker.

Which is how we played it : Make the Lt Roll off then whoever gets initiative choices starts placing objectives immediately; and then we resume start of game sequence (Lt winner makes his choice, other player makes his choice, start deploying).

 

Hi, I had a quick look to the system; it is nice.
Please note that Disabled is not label as Null state.

 

I see, it is not the status "Disabled" but it is the "summary term" for grouping the Null states; isn't it?
thank you

 

Are the cards in any sleevable standard? Looks like "standard american" size, but I'm not sure.

(BTW, it's much more convenient to do it in CCG size. It's cheaper and less hassle to print them one-sided on thicker cardstock, and finding non-clear sleeves in different sizes is a bitch.)

 

I plan to do a tournament running these cards, will let you know how it goes. Only one issue I had when testing, was how often can you score each mission?

I had a good combo (Kill Models, Kill Models with Camo) and it made scoring points very easy, leading to a snowball situation. Wep layed so that you could score more than once. Was that correct?

 

It's pretty straight forward. You deploy as normal, and you have four objective markers - Crate, Console, HVT and Intelligence Operative. Whoever wins initiative places the first marker, which can't be on a building, in a deployment zone and has a ZOC of 8" - which includes other objective markers. You take turns placing the rest of the objectives.

Okay, so just to get it straight, since I wanna try it. Who wins initiative pick which ,marker to deploy first, if he deploys it right at the edge of enemy deployment zone, you give him a bit of edge since objective is closer, but you can also create big radius in his DZ where nothing can be deployed(16'' long and 8'' deep from centre of objective), I mean, this does seem like a big piece of DZ negated from enemy. Place 2 and he will be herded really tight with a lot of models...bring in BSG/templates and clear half of his army with few orders?

Have you not run into issues like this when playing?

 

Right, I guess we will play it your way a couple more times and see if what happened was a fluke or a regular kind of occurrence. I mean I scored like 6 or so points in just one turn, only for killing dudes. Seemed like easy points :)

 

Yes but I scored a combo of two cards three times. Can you only score each card once a turn?

 

What if it's "Disable an enemy model" and "Disable an enemy model in camo"? Would they have to be done by two separate models (each one of mine kills a Chasseur for example, for two dead Chasseurs in total), to get 4 points in a given turn?

 

Thanks, that clarifies things :)

 

No problems, I'll let you know how my people liked the tournament :)

Maybe also come with some questions.

All in all, thanks for the work put into this, much appreciated.