Star Trek for Talon

A Total Conversion Mod by Adorable Rocket

Version 1.0 beta - Everything you need to play!

Introduction
Star Trek for Talon is a set of variant units, weapons, and rules for Jim Krohn’s Talon, a fast, fun and
simple space combat board game, published and developed by GMT Games. Using an innovative Power
Curve table, and a dry-erase system for keeping track of ship stats, all of the glory and thematic feeling of
power allocation space combat is streamlined into a game that can see massive fleets of 10-15 ships
duke it out in about two hours.

That’s less time than it takes to protect Earth from a returning neurotic space probe, and almost less time
than it takes for Admiral Kirk to fly around the refit Enterprise!

Talon was heavily influenced by the classic games of Star Trek starship combat: Star Fleet Battles and
Federation Commander. It’s only natural that Star Trek fans would like to play with the ships and
characters they know and love in the elegant and streamlined Talon system.

Star Trek for Talon is intended to add only a minimum of rule complexity required to more specifically
evoke the Star Trek universe, while supporting playable ships from all three centuries of Star Trek lore :
Enterprise in the 22nd Century, The Original Series and Motion Pictures in the 23rd Century, and The
Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager in the 24th Century.

What You Need

Talon - This is not a full game! You need a copy of Talon to play. Go buy one from GMT or from an online
retailer!

Printer & Dry Erase Solution - The ship PDFs are formatted for 8.5”x11” sheets of paper. However
because you’ll want to use the dry-erase system to track stats on the cards or counters you’ll need to
laminate your printouts or sleeve them with card holders or penny sleeves. There are many good options
for both, but here’s a few off Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Pro-Premium-Topload-Holders/dp/B00095M5C2/

http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Pro-Sleeves-Penny-Sealed/dp/B00CV859XC/

http://www.amazon.com/Avery-Self-Adhesive-Laminating-Sheets-73603/dp/B00006IC7H/

If you don’t have a printer, a local copy shop or office supply shop like Staples or Office Depot will be able
to print and laminate the ship PDFs for you.

Miniatures - Ok, these are technically optional… but they make the game way cooler! Star Trek miniatures
come in a variety of scales, prepainted or needing assembly and painting. A few good choices are:
● Micro Machines - surprisingly good miniatures for game playing at this scale. Not to scale and
occasionally a little droopy, warped or lacking detail, they are nonetheless readily available,
relatively cheap, and did I mention pre-painted?! You can find many on E-Bay by simply searching
for "Star Trek Micro Machines".
● Star Trek Attack Wing - the miniatures game from WizKids. The miniatures are hard plastic, so
less droopy, but quality is hit or miss - the bad ones are worse than the worse Micro Machines.
That said they offer an alternative for scale and many of their models are excellent - I don’t think
there’s a better K’Tinga anywhere in Human space!
● Shapeways - 3D printing requires careful searching, and of course your own painting, but offers
great selection of ships and scales. Shapeways’ search tools seem to suck, and you can’t trust
their tag system, but you can use Google to search for specific things using the syntax
“site:www.shapeways.com klingon”, and then look at what other models a specific designer has.
● Starline Miniatures - Requiring both painting and assembly, and only focusing on The Original
Series era, Starline is not for the faint of heart, but certainly offers the highest quality (and two
large and beautiful scales) for those with a true warrior’s modeler’s heart!
Ships and Weapons
You can play Star Trek for Talon in a few ways:

1. Print the unit cards and use them to track all your ship’s stats like a traditional miniatures game.
2. Print the unit cards and the ship counters. Use the tokens to track shield status on the map like
Talon, but keep weapons and other status off map.
3. Print the unit cards and use them directly on the map! Surprisingly it works pretty well with the
official Talon board, and works even better if you have a space mat with larger hexes!

Whichever method you choose you’ll need to print the ships and counters, cut them out and protect them
for use with the dry erase marker

Current Ships can be found in this PDF:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4S5K6cGk6PCOEZudWJVSFM2UTA

Alternate Ship cards with hex backgrounds (for play without miniatures or tokens) can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4S5K6cGk6PCa0NfLU91bEZhUms
Modified & New Rules

1. Moving

1.1 Full Stop

In Talon ships may not stop. This gameplay restriction keeps games fast moving and prevents “turtling”,
however it feels weird in the context of Star Trek. These rules allow ships to stop in space as we see often
in Star Trek. Hopefully they create sufficient penalties to prevent dull game situations.

1.1.1 Going to a Full Stop: During the Power Phase, when adjusting the Power Curve, any ship that started
the Power Phase at Speed 1 may declare that she is reducing Speed to 0.

1.1.2 Not Moving: A ship at a Full Stop does not move for an entire Round. She may not spend AP to gain
Sideslip markers, or to Power Through a Turn.

1.1.3 Turning while at full stop: A ship at a Full Stop may turn one hexside per round. This turn is
performed in place (the ship remains in her current hex). The ship may only perform this turn during her
activation on Impulse 6

1.1.4 Power: A ship at a Full Stop receives Power as though it were moving at Speed 1.

1.1.5 Sitting Duck: Attacking a ship at Speed 0 gives the attacker a +2 bonus to all die results. Results
rolls of greater than 6 are treated as 6.

Example: A D-7 rolls a 2d6 Disruptor attack against a Miranda class cruiser at range 1. The result of the die
rolls are a 1 and 2. Normally these would both be misses, however the +2 bonus means the two dice are
treated as though they were actually 3 and a 4. The 3 result is still a miss, but the 4 result is now a hit for 2
damage.

1.1.6 Leaving full stop: During the Power Phase, when adjusting the Power Curve, any ship that started
the Power Phase at Speed 0 may declare that she is increasing Speed to 1.

1.2 Collisions
In Talon friendly ships may not occupy the same hex in order to discourage stacking (which is clumsy and
counter to the game’s goals of seeing all the data on the counters. It also discourages the creation of
‘virtual mega-ships’ by moving a stack of ships together.

In Star Trek ships are shown to be flying much closer together and maneuvering in much smaller spaces
than what Talon envisions. These rules are intended to *prevent* friendly ships from occupying the same
hex, and work together with the obstructing fire rules to spread ships out somewhat for more natural target
selection.

1.2.1 A ship cannot move into a hex occupied by another friendly ship.
If a ship would normally move into a hex occupied by another friendly ship, it must attempt to avoid the
collision by the following procedure:

1. Forced Turn - The ship must turn into an empty hex to the right or left.
If it cannot turn due to having a turn marker on the board, then...
2. Forced Sideslip - The ship must perform an emergency Sideslip. This procedure severely taxes
the ship’s systems and she immediately takes 1 hull point of damage.
If she cannot sideslip due to all three hexes ahead being occupied, then...
3. Forced Speed Reduction - The ship must perform an emergency speed reduction to avoid
collision. This procedure strains the ship’s systems and the moving ship immediately takes 2 hull
points of damage.

Play Note: Because ships move at different times on their impulse track, players should be careful when
flying large fleets. A ship may be forced to avoid collision more than once per round!

2. Firing

2.1 Obstructing Fire

In Talon ships do not obstruct each other’s fire. While this feels natural in a game that abstracts 3D battles
into 2D space, this results in many opportunities to concentrate fire upon a single target in a firing pass.
This is a logical strategy for winning a game with these mechanics, and is highly desirable in the abstract
analysis of any combat real or fantasy.

However, real life naval military history doesn’t show this strategy as effective in nearly the same degree as
it often ends up in wargames. This is due to many factors, chiefly among them the difficulties in
coordinating fire and assigning target priorities.

While we can assume that the future of Star Trek must have the kind of networked command and control
systems that would allow perfect concentration of fire, the shows and movies instead generally represent
combat in the more historical vein. Whether you choose to attribute this to subspace ECM or the writer’s
references to what they know, these rules are intended to reduce the opportunities to concentrate fire in a
single impulse.

2.2.1 Friendly and enemy ships obstruct fire, and impose a -2 penalty to all die results. Resultant rolls of
-1 and 0 are treated as automatic misses for that battery.

Obstruction is determined by the same LOS rules as for planets (Talon Rules 17.2.2).

Example: A Miranda rolls a 2d6 Phaser attack against a crippled D-7 class battle cruiser at range 2.
However an K’Tinga class battle cruiser is in a hex obstructing the attack. The result of the die rolls are a 2
and 3. Normally these would both be hits, however the -2 penalty means the two dice are treated as though
they were actually 0 and a 1. Despite the fact that Phasers normally always hit at range 2, the 0 result is an
automatic miss, and the 1 result is now a hit for only 1 damage - not quite enough to finish off the D-7!

3. Cloaking
Some ships have the ability to cloak. Yeah, it wouldn’t be Star Trek without it.
3.1 Cloaking Devices
Cloaking devices have a Charge Bar and Duration Bar. The Charge Bar is charged during the Power Phase
in the same fashion as a Weapon Group. Like a Weapon Group the cloaking device Charge Bar begins the
game fully charged, and like a Weapon Group the cloaking device cannot be activated without a fully
charged Charge Bar. The Duration Bar is used to record how long the cloaking device has been in use for
and how much of a defensive benefit being cloaked provides.

Cloaking devices are powerful highly advanced technology, but they come with many limitations and
drawbacks. In Star Trek we see that ships cannot use shields, or fire while cloaked, and cloaking devices
take time to re-charge after use. We also often see in Star Trek that a crew can detect “something’s out
there,” without being able to lock on and target a weapon. The Cloaked Duration provides a limit on how
long a ship can go without giving away some hint as to its general position.

3.2 Cloaking: At the beginning of the Power Phase (before the Passive Power step) a ship may active her
cloaking device if she is at speed equal to or lower than her Max Cloak Speed, and has a fully charged
cloaking device Charge Bar.

PLAY NOTE: A ship that has a Red box left on her cloaking device Charge Bar cannot cloak in the same
Power Phase that she fills her Charge Bar. The opportunity to cloak is at the beginning of the Power Phase,
before the cloaking device was fully charged. That ship must wait until her player’s next Power Phase.

Procedure:

● Completely erase the cloaking device’s Charge Bar.

● Remove the cloaked ship from the board, marking her last spotted location (you may remove the
miniature from the base leaving the base in place, or use a ‘Last Contact’ counter).
● Mark the first round on the cloaking device’s Duration Bar.

3.3 While Cloaked

Cloaked ships are ‘running silent’. They are effectively moving at a lower speed and may not charge any Red
boxes. Their movements are not plotted on the board, but are resolved after de-cloaking to represent the
advantage that being invisible provides.

3.3.1 Movement: Cloaked ships movement is not represented on the map board during movement
impulse activations. Their actual movement is resolved when de-cloaking by tracing a Cloaked Route
from their Last Contact.

3.3.2 Shields: Cloaked ships have temporarily dropped their shields. Any damage they receive is allocated
directly to their hull. Cloaked ships may not spend AP to reinforce shields.

3.3.3 Initiative: Cloaked ships are not producing any emissions and may not contribute to active jamming
or other ECM. Cloaked ships may not spend AP to protect or change the initiative.
3.3.4 Power Allocation: Cloaked ships may otherwise spend AP as normal during power impulse
activations.

3.3.5 Firing: Ships may not attack while cloaked.

3.3.6 Cloaked Ships as Targets: Enemy ships may fire at cloaked ships. The attacker must declare a
target hex that his weapon system has LOS to, and that is the destination of a valid possible Cloaked
Route for the target.

Example: A B’rel class Bird of Prey has been cloaked for 3 rounds. An Excelsior Class Heavy Cruiser is at
range 6 from the B’rel’s Last Contact, but it shows that a possible Cloaked Route for the B’rell: it could have
moved forward 3 hexes and thus could be in range of one of the Excelsior’s Phaser bank. The Exclesior may
therefore attempt to discover the B’rel by firing blind into that suspected hex.

The Attacker performs the attack, and subtracts the current Cloak Duration from the result of each die.
The final results are evaluated against the weapon’s longest effective range.

Example: The Excelsior Class Heavy Cruiser discharges a Weapons Bank of two Phasers at the Cloaked
B’rel. The die results are 4 and 5, normally two hits using the Phaser’s longest range, but because the B’rel
has been cloaked for 3 rounds, the final result is 1 and 2. Both shots miss.

If an attack hits (and the defender survives) the cloaked ship resets their Cloaked Duration to 1, and
moves their Last Contact Marker to the hex declared by the attack.

3.3.7 Power Phase: At the end of each Power Phase, a cloaked ship must mark one more round on her
Duration Bar.

If the Duration Bar is full, she must place a new Last Contact counter by tracing a Cloaked Route from the
previous Last Contact counter to the new one. A ship may voluntarily place a new Last Contact marker
before she has to, by tracing a Cloaked Route to it, and resetting her cloaked Duration Bar to 1.

3.4 Cloaked Routes

A Cloaked Route verifies the path a cloaked ship actually traveled during the time she was cloaked. It is
used when resetting the cloaking device’s Duration Bar, and when De-Cloaking.

A Cloaked Route may be no shorter than the ship’s Cloaked Duration, and may be no longer than the
ship’s Max Cloak Speed multiplied by it’s Cloaked Duration. While tracing a Cloaked Route, a ship may
sideslip at any time, and is considered to have a turn radius of 0. A Cloaked Route must otherwise be
composed only of legal moves.

3.5 De-cloaking
A ship may exit cloak at the beginning of any impulse.

Procedure:
 ● Completely erase the cloaking device’s Duration Bar.
● Trace a Cloaked Route from the ship’s Last Contact counter to the position the ship is de-cloaked
in.

When a ship de-cloaked she may allocate power, move and fire as normal for the remainder of her
impulse.

PLAY NOTE: De-cloak and firing in the same impulse can produce a devastating a surprise attack. However
because Red boxes do not charge while cloaked, ships will not be able to repeat that strategy without
spending a Power Phase un-cloaked. Older cloaking devices also may have one or more Red boxes which
require charging, so it is important to consider when to de-cloak.

Design Notes
Cloaking is one of the trickiest things to design in a way that is fun, balanced, and even vaguely
representative of the kind of things we see in the shows and movies. As my inspiration I chose the idea
of submarine warfare, where immediately cloaking still leaves the ship somewhat vulnerable.

I original thought of ways to try and keep a form of actual hidden movement, but quickly abandoned it
when I realized that I wanted to have large fleet battles with sizable squadrons of cloaked ships. I wanted
to allow 8 B’rel’s swooping around the periphery of the battle field, waiting to pick off wounded targets, or
a massive cloaked column of 4 D’deridex’s maneuvering for the perfect opening position.

Once I realized I didn’t want the hassle of on board hidden movement with decoys, or the bookkeeping
and error proneness of plotted secret movement, I was left only with leaving cloaked ships on the board
and making them hard/impossible to hit (practical but unsatisfying - I want ‘terror’ to be in the balance of
players who aren’t quite sure where the enemy will pop up), or abstracting movement during a cloaking. I
choose the latter because it’s a fun game design challenge, and also because it’s a form of ultimate
initiative - if nobody can see you, it’s ok to wait and see where everybody else is going before you pick
your route.

To keep the “Tada - here I am!” factor down, I added the idea of Cloak Duration, which has the nice side
effect of also providing a way to make ships which are cloaked longer, harder to hit.

The most counter intuitive part of the design is the idea that an attacker (with a lucky hit and at the cost
of its weapon’s charge) can force a cloaked ship to ‘reset’ its last position in the hex of the attacker’s
choosing! What if I thought my ship was going the other way?! This is illogical captain!

My intention is that this mechanic represents the ‘depth charge’ effect of having the attacking ships fire
blindly and broadly but at some real risk and restriction to the ‘submarine’. The attacker is not just hoping
for a lucky kill, but may also be effectively denying certain avenues for a cloaked ship. Imagine that the
single attack against a cloaked ship is actually a set of wide dispersal barrages spread out during the
time that the cloaked ship would have been tracing her Cloaked Route. A cloaked defender who wants to
avoid being shepherded this way, may voluntarily reset their cloaked duration to get out of range. You can
imagine that as slightly more aggressive maneuvering, rather than simply drifting in full silent running. As
a result some slightly more frequent emissions are giving a hint as to their general location.

Anyhow, the cloak rules are very much an experiment, this is just what I hoped they would do. Feedback is
much appreciated!
Future Work
● Cloaking - ‘Nuff said.
● More ships, more races!
● I do want more agonizing choices on what to spend my limited AP on, so perhaps other actions
like X-Wing’s focus, target lock, or evade like actions might be interesting. Will also crack open
Serpents of the Sea again for inspiration.
● Crew and Equipment upgrades - somewhere between Sails of Glory and X-Wing style. I’ve no
desire to recreate the Attack Wing “win the battle through deck building” model, but I do want a
little more flavor per ship, more ways to add or subtract points from a build, and again a few more
things to do per round.
● Transporters and away teams - it’s not Star Trek without scenarios that require beaming… can
you say Klingon boarding parties? Qapla’!
● Scenarios - Not just our onscreen favorites like the Mutare Nebula, the Koyashi Maru, the Tholian
Web, or the Balance of Terror, but all the epic fleet battles and border skirmishes between the
Federation, Klingons, and Romulans that we know happened, didn’t have the budget to see until
DS9!

Change Log
0.8 Beta - First Version!
0.9 Beta - Added Cloak rules!
0.9.1 Beta - Ships now cloak only at the beginning of the Power Phase.
1.0 Beta - Including a full complement of ship cards and tokens for TOS and TMP Federation and Klingon
Ships. Known Issues: Ship glows and Weapon grey arcs don’t render properly in Apple Preview. They
render fine in Chrome’s PDF viewer. Unknown if they print properly.

Disclaimers
Talon is copyrighted and owned by GMT Games. Star Trek is copyrighted and owned by Paramount.
Neither of these two entities in anyway endorses this game mod, nor does this mod impose in anyway
upon their intellectual property.

All other aspects of this game mod and contents are copyright 2016 by Adorable Rocket. It is provided
‘as-is’ with no guarantees. It may give you Risean skin rash, or delusions of captaincy, be illegal on your
planet or other local jurisdiction, or damage the space time continuum. Use at your own risk.

Feel free to reuse and modify (create derivative works) for non-commercial use, so long as credit and a
link to the current version of this document is given.

Here’s the latest full illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/open?

id=0B4S5K6cGk6PCTHpKX2dkelRTOTQ