Star Trek Red Alert!

Star Trek Red Alert! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Scenarios

Scenarios set up the premise of each game, establishing objectives, victory conditions, and starting forces. In our example below, we use a scenario designed for two players, one controlling a Federation ship, one commanding a Romulan ship. The players have 30 points to spend on their fleets; the objective is to destroy the enemy ship. For more information on scenarios, including how to build your own, see below.

If you'd like to involve more players in your first game, follow along, modifying the examples to suit your needs.

Building Your Fleet

Your fleet is composed of the ships, crew, and tech you control. A fleet can be as large or small as you'd like, including dozens of ships or only a single ship with no crew or tech.

Teams control armadas. Some disks affect a fleet, meaning the disks you control, or an armada, meaning all the ships on your team.

All the elements of your fleet are purchased at the beginning of the game. Look up the Point Value on the scenario. For our sample game, it's 30. This gives each side 30 points to spend on its ship, crew, and tech.

Game Elements

In our example, Owen & Diana decide to face off. Diana selects the Federation and Owen picks the treacherous Romulans.

Diana has 30 points to spend. She starts by buying her ship: the Yamato.

The Yamato is "standard" size. There are two other ship sizes, small and large, although those are not as common. Maximum Shields, Maximum Hull, and Beam Damage all pertain to combat; they're explained below, under "Damage." Capacity gives you the total number of crew and tech disks a ship can hold. Torps is the number of torpedoes your ship starts with at the beginning of the game. Crew or tech disks you add to your ship can modify all of these values.

On crew disks, Command determines which ship goes first in a given round. Damage is used during crew combat. Orders are explained below.

Keywords such as "Bridge Crew" or "Start" appear on many disks. Some disks or rules only affect disks with specific keywords.

Tech disks are similar to crew disks. Some tech upgrades grant bonuses to your maximum shield rating. Others grant bonuses to your hull or capacity. If these are destroyed in play, you lose the bonus but don't immediately readjust your control panel. You're simply prevented from readjusting to your former maximum.

Diana's maximum shield rating is 6. If she purchased an Auxiliary Shield Bank her maximum would go to 8. If it were lost in battle while her shields were at 8 she wouldn't immediately readjust her shield rating down to 6. Her maximum would now be 6, however, and if she had to raise shields, they'd only go back up to 6.

Tech disks that increase capacity affect how many disks you may put onboard your ship at the start of play. During play, through boarding and transporter technology, you can end up with any number of crew or tech on your ship.

The Yamato costs 21 points, leaving Diana 9 points to spend on crew and tech. She examines the disks she owns and decides to purchase Geordi La Forge for 6 points and Mark III Torpedoes for her remaining 3 points. The Yamato has a capacity of 5, 2 of which Diana has used (one for Geordi and one for her torpedo upgrade.)

Meanwhile Owen purchases the mammoth T'deret, a D'deridex-class heavy warbird, for 24 points, leaving him only 6 points to spend on crew and tech. He decides not to buy crew, instead purchasing an Auxiliary Battery for his disruptors for 3 points and Heavy Torpedoes for 3 points. His ship has a capacity of 5, of which he's used 2.

In addition to ship, crew, and tech disks, Red Alert! also features scenario disks (which list a scenario on one side and terrain, usually a planet, nebula, alien ship, or other artifact, on the other) and obstacle disks (used in some scenarios to mark mines, asteroids, and other hazards of the battlefield). In addition, your starter box includes damage counters, order disks, torpedoes, and a range template. The use of each of these items is explained further along in these rules.

Now both players have spent their points. It is not necessary to spend all your points, nor is it required that both players spend the same number of points.

In another game, Charles has spent 29 of his 30 points while his opponent has spent all 30. Charles doesn't want to give any of his selections up, and can't find a 1 point disk he wants to buy. He decides to begin the conflict 1 point short, confident that his choices will carry the day.

"Start"

Some disks have the term "Start" listed at the beginning of their ability text. This means players purchasing those disks may begin play with the additional components described, for free.

The Klingon Crew disk "Advanced Strike Leader" reads "Start: 6 points of Away Team Crew." A player purchasing this disk gains 6 free points to spend on crew disks marked with the keyword "Away Team." Although free of cost, these disks do count against the ship's capacity.

Setup

After selecting a scenario and building your fleet, it's time to set up the play area.

Ship Placement

Most scenarios presume you're playing on your dining room table, or some rough equivalent, where the play area is rectangular. Feel free to change the parameters of the scenario to fit your play area. Treat the setup description on the disk as a guide, rather than a precise schematic that must be followed. Most scenarios tell you to place your ships within "range: 1" of your table end or the scenario disk. "Range: 1" means within the standard beam range, as measured by your Beam Range Template. "Range: 2" means within twice that range.

In the Balance Of Terror scenario (detailed below), the setup reads "Teams start on opposite ends of the table, each fleet within range: 1 of its end." Instead, you might decide to use scenario disks to mark each "end," with each ship starting range: 1 away from its local scenario disk. Or you might place a ruler one range template away from each end of the table and allow players to place their ships anywhere behind the ruler. Setup should be fast and easy, so feel free to alter scenario setup descriptions as you like.

The Control Panel

Each ship in your fleet must have its own control panel. One control panel comes with each starter box. The control panel tracks the status of your ship, and shows which crew and tech are aboard.

Each ship comes with a rectangular I.D. marker identifying your ship. Place this marker in the "Ship Name" box on your control panel. This makes it easy to keep track of which control panel goes with which ship during scenarios involving multiple vessels.

Each control panel uses three status counters. These are generic disks, numbered in sequence from 1 to 7 on one side, and 4 to 10 on the other. Place a status counter over the circles marked "Shields," "Hull," and "Speed." You'll typically use the 1-7 side of your status counters throughout an entire game. Occasionally you'll need values above 7; in these cases, simply flip the disk over to use the other side.

The "Shields" status counter represents your current shield rating. Your shields begin the game at the ship's maximum value. Set the shield status counter to reflect the Maximum Shields rating listed on the ship disk. If your shields fall to 0, remove the status counter from your control panel so it reads "Shields Down."

The "Hull" status counter represents your ship's current hull rating. At the beginning of the game, your hull is at maximum. Set this disk to reflect the Maximum Hull rating listed on the ship disk. If your hull falls to 0, remove the status counter from your control panel so it reads "Ship Destroyed."

The "Speed" status counter represents your ship's current movement rate. At the beginning of the game, your ship can be moving as fast as you'd like, so set the speed counter to show any value up to your maximum speed (see the next paragraph). If your speed rating falls to 0, remove the status counter from your control panel so it reads "Full Stop."

The size of a ship disk determines its maximum speed. As noted above, most ships, including the main ship in your starter box, are standard size. Standard ships have a maximum speed of 5. Small ships have a maximum speed of 6; large ships have a maximum speed of 4. Upgrade disks bought during setup can modify ship maximums.

Diana and Owen don't want to collide or overshoot each other, so they both set their Speed status counter to a moderate rate of "3."

If at any time in the game any of these values reaches 0, simply remove the status counter. If your hull counter reaches 0, your ship is destroyed. Other counters may be replaced if their values rise above 0.

Crew and Tech Disks

Crew and tech disks must be assigned to specific ships. Mark this by placing them on, or next to, the control panel for that ship. Whether they're placed on or next to the control panel depends on whether their player wants them to be revealed or concealed at the start of play. See "Step 1: Reveal/Conceal," below.

Now that both sides are set up, Owen and Diana prepare for war. Once all players have placed their ships and set up their control panels, it's time to signal "Red Alert!"

Turns and Steps

Games are played in a series of turns and steps. A turn consists of five steps: Reveal/Conceal, Assign Orders, Execute Orders, Boarding, and Ready Crew and Tech.

Step One: Reveal / Conceal

Each crew and tech disk on your ship can either be "concealed" and hidden from view, or "revealed" and ready to act. You may reveal or conceal any of your crew or tech disks, but only at this point in each turn.

Concealed Disks

Concealed disks are essentially out of the game. They're still on their respective ships, being destroyed if their ship is destroyed, but they don't affect play, and generally can't be affected by things that go on in the game. Nonetheless, they count against the ship's capacity, and can be affected by game elements that specifically target concealed disks. Some disks produce devastating effects. Keeping them concealed until the last minute lets you surprise your opponents at a critical moment!

Stack all concealed disks on your control panel, covering them with the "Concealed Crew And Tech" disk to hide them from your opponents.

Revealed Disks

Revealed disks are ready to be used and may, depending on their ability, automatically produce effects when revealed.

Revealed crew can be attacked or participate in an attack during Step 4: Boarding (below). Revealed bridge crew is also subject to destruction from a Bridge Crit (see "Criticals").

In our sample game, Diana decides to reveal both her crew and tech at the start of the first turn. Her Mark III torpedoes need to be revealed to apply their bonus, and since Geordi isn't bridge crew, he's safe from bridge crits. Owen does the same, revealing both tech disks to gain their immediate benefits.

Step Two: Assign Orders

Each turn your ship takes three actions called "orders." Each player chooses three orders he wants to execute during the turn and places them face down during this step. This requires some planning; once you've placed your orders you may not change or replace them during the turn even if they turn out to be ill-conceived.

Players can choose from five orders, each represented by a different disk: Change Speed, Change Heading, Raise Shields, Attack, and Activate Crew/Tech.

Change Speed. Raise or lower your current speed by one or two. When revealing this order, rotate your speed status counter so the pointer on your control panel indicates the new speed. If your ship's speed falls to zero, remove the status counter so the control panel shows "Full Stop."
Change Heading. Normally, your ship moves in a straight line. To change direction by any degree, you must execute this order. When you do so, rotate your ship in any direction up to 360º. If your ship's current speed is 0, it may change its heading at any time, without executing a Change Heading order. Evasive action (see "Collisions," below) also allows you to change heading without an order.
Raise Shields. Use this order to raise or lower your shields to any setting, from 0 up to their maximum strength. When executing this order, rotate your shield status counter so the control panel pointer indicates the ship's maximum value.
Attack. This order allows your ship to perform one attack action. You may either fire your beam weapon once, fire one torpedo, or transport any number of crew from your ship to another ship or terrain disk.
Activate Crew/Tech. The most versatile of the five orders, Activate Crew/Tech allows you to use a crew disk aboard your ship to perform its orders or to flip any crew or tech disk that reads "Activate Crew/Tech icon" to perform the described effect. See "Activating Crew/Tech" for more information.

Placing Order Disks

At the beginning of each turn, place your three order disks face down on the "Orders" circles on your control panel, with the "ORDER" side of each disk facing up. Players on opposite teams may not examine each other's orders until they are revealed. Teammates may confer at any time regarding the orders they have selected. During the turn, each player executes orders from left to right, with all players completing their first order in sequence before proceeding to their second and third.

Diana picks Change Heading, Attack, and Attack, for her first three orders. She places them facedown on her control panel, without letting Owen see what they are. Owen is a little more cautious and selects Change Heading, Attack, and Raise Shields.

Step Three: Execute Orders

This is the most involved part of the Turn. Movement, weapon fire, damage resolution and most disk effects occur during this step, with the exception of crew combat, which occurs during Step 4: Boarding.

This step occurs in three phases. In each phase, every ship reveals and executes one of its orders and moves its current speed, and all active torpedoes move.

Determining Command Initiative

To determine which ship goes first in any given orders phase, add up the total command value of the revealed crew on each of your ships. The ship with the highest command total goes first. Ties go to the ship with the lowest current speed. In the case of two or more ships having equal command going the same speed, use a random method such as the highest number of hits dropped on five damage counters to determine which ship goes first in the phase.

The player controlling the first ship may opt to defer to the next player. That player may in turn defer to the next. The last player to go cannot defer, and must execute his or her first order. The option then passes back to the first player, who may defer repeatedly if he so desires, waiting until everyone else has gone before executing his first order.

Diana has revealed Lt. Cdr. La Forge, command value 4. Owen didn't buy any crew, and has an effective command of 0. Diana has the first option to act, and decides to defer to Owen, waiting to see what he'll do. Owen must now reveal his first order and execute it.

Movement & Orders

Each ship must reveal an order and move its current speed each phase. A player may opt to reveal his order, but not execute it. In this case, his ship simply moves its current speed in a straight line, along its former course.

A ship can execute an order and move in any sequence. A ship executing a Raise Shields order may move first then raise shields, or raise shields then move. Unless specified by a disk's effect, orders may not be executed in the middle of movement.

It's possible, through activating crew, to perform more than one order in a phase. In these cases, each order may occur before or after movement. You may execute all orders, then move; move, then execute all orders; or execute some orders, move, then execute the remaining orders.

Movement

A ship moves by flipping end-over-end in a straight line. It flips a number of times equal to its current speed. During each order phase, each ship must move its current speed. If the ship is at Full Stop, of course, it doesn't move at all. Tech upgrades that give bonuses or penalties to speed affect the ship's maximum speed, not its current speed.

Owen's going first. He decides to move before revealing his Change Heading order. His speed is 3, so he flips his ship three times, then reveals and executes the order by rotating his ship so he's facing Diana. Now Diana goes. She reveals and executes her Change Heading order first and points her ship in Owen's direction. She flips her ship three times, ending about 8 inches away from the T'deret.

You may only change speed by one or two (see the Change Speed order description, above). Some disks have the ability to alter this restriction, but these abilities generally do not allow you to increase your speed above your maximum.

As ships move around the table, they're free to pass over one another. It's presumed the play area is not to scale: your ship is not actually as large as the space filled by its disk. The disk indicates your ship's general location and represents its zone of safe operation. But it is possible to collide with another ship, a planet, or any terrain disk. See "Collision," below.

Any ship that moves out of the play area is considered destroyed.

Torpedoes have special rules for movement. See "Torpedoes," below.

Collision

If a ship ends its movement overlapping another disk, the two disks might collide. The collision types cover three possibilities: ship-ship, ship-planet, and ship-obstruction collisions.

If your ship is about to collide with a ship, planet or obstruction, you may declare "Evasive Action." Evasive action allows your ship to Change Heading right in the middle of movement, regardless of its current order. Upon declaring evasive action you must complete your movement, then immediately remove all remaining orders from your control panel and reduce your speed to zero. You may not take evasive action on the third order phase of a turn. Evasive action also can't be taken to avoid running into a torpedo.

Ship-Ship. If your ship overlaps another at the end of movement, there is a chance you may collide. Shake and drop five damage disks (described below): if one and only one of the disks shows a critical, you have collided. Your ship takes one hit to its hull, regardless of its current shield rating. In addition, you must reduce its speed to zero, and remove all remaining orders from your control panel just as if you had declared evasive action. Lastly, the player whose ship you hit may pick your disk up and place it anywhere adjacent to (i.e., touching, but not overlapping) his ship, placing it facing any direction.

Ship-Planet. If your ship overlaps a planet, space station, or other terrain disk, drop five damage disks just as in a ship-ship collision. Again, if you get a single critical result, the ship-ship collision results apply with the following exceptions: your ship takes two hits to its hull, and you reposition your ship adjacent to the planet. Some scenarios may present alternate rules for colliding with terrain, typically describing the results on the scenario side of the disk.

Ship-Obstruction. If your ship overlaps an obstruction, remove the obstruction from play immediately and suffer the full damage as defined by the scenario. Generally, this damage is not random. Instead of dropping damage disks, you simply take a number of hits equal to the obstruction's damage value.

Attacking and Damage

When a ship executes an Attack order, it may do one of three things: fire its beam weapon, launch a photon torpedo, or transport any number of onboard crew to another ship.

Firing Beam Weapons. To attack with beam weapons, there must be a target ship within range of your ship's weapons. A ship is in range if the range template can be placed between the ships such that it overlaps both ship disks. Your ship has a beam weapon rating describing how much damage it does.

Launching Torpedoes. The small depression along the front (not the back) of your ship disk is your torpedo bay. When launching a torpedo, place the torpedo in the bay. Torpedoes have their own rules for movement; see "Torpedoes," below.

Transporting Crew. To transport crew you must be within range of the target ship or terrain disk and your shields and the target's shields must be at 0 (use the Raise Shields order to lower your shields). Use the range template to determine if you're in range in the same manner as when firing beam weapons. You may transport any number of ready crew (see "Ready & Activated," below). If you've transported to a ship with enemy crew aboard, combat ensues during Step 4: Boarding.

Damage. Each weapon has a damage rating. To determine damage, pick up a number of damage counters equal to that damage rating. Shake the disks and drop them on the table. You score one hit for each disk with the "HIT!" side face up. Ignore the rest.

Moving into the second Order phase, Diana still holds the highest command and may act first or defer. She's got the T'deret in her sights, so she decides to go first. Diana's current speed is 3, so she flips her ship 3 times, moving in a straight line. She then reveals her Attack order and uses her range template to determine that she's in range. She fires! Her Beam Weapon rating is 4. She picks up 4 damage counters and drops them on the table: 2 of them land with "HIT" face up. She's scored 2 hits to the T'deret!

Hits damage shields first, with residual points damaging the hull. A ship only suffers hull damage once its shields fall to zero. If your hull reaches 0, your ship is immediately destroyed.

Owen's ship has current Shields of 7 and a Hull of 7. Diana's two hits inflict two points of damage to Owen's ship. Owen applies the damage to his shields, rotating his shield status counter so it reads "5."

Had Owen's current shields been at 1, he would have applied the first point of damage to his shields, removing his shield status counter to show "Shields Down." Then he would have applied the second point of damage to his hull.

Critical Hits

Any time a ship takes a hit to its shields or hull, regardless of how much damage is inflicted, there is a chance of critical damage occurring.

The back of every damage counter describes a type of critical result. There are five types of criticals possible. Whenever you inflict damage on a ship, select one of each critical counter, shake all five of them, and drop them on the table.

Diana has inflicted two hits on Owen's ship. She picks up five damage counters, each with a different critical on the back, shakes them, and drops them on the table.

Criticals are unlikely. If your ship takes damage only to its shields, then a critical occurs if only one of the five damage disks shows a critical. If your ship takes any hull damage during an attack, then a critical occurs if one or two damage counters show a critical.

When a critical occurs, apply the effect described on the critical disk. If hull damage occurred, and two crits came up, apply the effects of both counters.

Diana drops her critical counters. Only one of them shows a critical (a "bridge crit"), the rest show ordinary hits. The bridge crit reads "Remove all revealed bridge crew from play." Owen doesn't have any bridge crew, so he doesn't suffer from this effect. Had two or more disks shown a critical, no crit would have occurred.

A ship can only sustain two of the same type of critical hit before being destroyed. After taking a critical of any type, mark the control panel with your own set of counters to keep track of the criticals your ship has suffered and the effects they generate. As soon as a ship takes a second Crit of the same type, it is destroyed.

Owen didn't lose any crew, but he did take the critical to his bridge. He takes one of his bridge crit counters and places it on his control panel. If he takes another bridge crit this game, his ship is destroyed and Diana wins.

Activating Crew / Tech

One of the most versatile orders in the game, Activate Crew/Tech allows you to use crew and tech disks to perform special abilities and carry out multiple orders.

Ready & Activated

As we've already explained, crew & tech disks can be either revealed or concealed. Revealed disks can also be "ready" or "activated."

If a crew or tech disk is face up, capable of performing its special ability or issuing an order, it's "ready." A crew or tech disk that's been flipped over, for any reason, has been "activated." Activated disks can't use abilities, issue orders, be transported, or be used in any other way until readied again.

Special Abilities

Most ship, crew, and tech disks have special abilities. Many abilities produce their effects continuously throughout the game.

The Federation's Advanced Transporter tech reads: "+1 transporter range." This increase in range is continuous: the disk produces its effect throughout the entire game (unless destroyed), without requiring activation.

Some disks have special abilities followed by the word "flip." These disks can use their abilities at any point in the game, but they must be flipped after use. The ability cannot be used again until the activated disk is readied.

The Federation's Pulse Phasers disk reads: "If you score 3 hits from Beam Weapon, you may immediately fire again, flip." The player with this tech can, if he scores three hits from his beam weapons, immediately fire again, but he must then flip this disk to its "activated" side (no order required). As a result, he cannot continue to fire again even if his next shot scores three hits.

Finally, some disks require the Activate Crew/Tech order to use. These disks have the Activate Crew/Tech order icon ("[Activate Crew/Tech icon]:") at the beginning of their text. When activating such a disk, you must flip it.

Lt. Barclay's special ability reads: "[Activate Crew/Tech icon]: Ready a Tech." If the player controlling him issues an Activate Crew/Tech order, either from his control panel or from another Crew, he may flip Barclay and ready any tech on the same ship.

Special abilities generally affect the ship with the crew or tech disk onboard. Some disks target other ships, crew, other player's orders, etc. These disks use the word "target" when referring to an opposing ship.

Crew and tech disks that have been activated, for any reason, generally cease to produce their special ability effects. This is true of all disks, including those that don't need to be flipped to perform their abilities.

Using Crew to Execute Orders

Some crew have order icons on their disk. In this case, the crew may be flipped to execute those orders. These are the same five orders your ship can execute, and they work exactly the same way.

Many disks have more than one order. Unless the orders are paired together in the same row, you must choose only one of the listed orders when you activate the crew.

Lt. Cdr. La Forge has the Raise Shields, Change Speed, and Change Heading orders listed on his disk. With an Activate Crew order, Diana could flip La Forge to carry out any one, but only one, of these.

Some crew disks have one or more sets of orders paired together in rows. This means you may flip and activate this disk to perform both orders in a pair in one Order phase.

Orders generated by crew can occur in any order, before or after movement, just like those prompted by normal Order counters. If your crew disk has two order icons in a row, they can occur in any order, before or after movement.

Charles reveals an Activate Crew/Tech order. He's got Cpt. Picard on his ship, and decides to use him. Picard has three order options: Attack and Activate Crew/Tech (paired together), Raise Shields and Change Speed (again, paired), and Change Heading (alone). Charles decides to use the middle row of icons: Raise Shields and Change Speed. Charles activates Picard, and may now move, Raise Shields, and Change Speed in any sequence desired.

The key thing to remember when combining crew orders and ship movement is that each order can be carried out before or after movement.

Cloaking Devices

Ships with cloaking devices can evade detection, and therefore attack, but at the cost of losing offensive capabilities. Cloaked ships cannot fire or be fired upon by enemy ships.

There are three types of cloaking devices. The most basic is the Type I cloak. An Activate Crew/Tech order must be used to activate the cloak. While activated, the ship's shields are reduced to 0 and it cannot fire at other ships. At the beginning of any Orders phase, before revealing that phase's order, the player may drop the cloak (flipping the disk back to its ready state), but the ship's shields remain at 0 until they are raised.

The Type II cloak works like the Type I, but it may be activated (the cloak raised) before any Orders phase, without requiring an Activate Crew/Tech order. It may not be lowered the same phase it was raised.

The Type III cloak works as a Type II, but when the cloak is readied (dropped), the ship's shields immediately raise to full without requiring a Raise Shields order.

Torpedoes

Torpedoes move when they are first launched, then again at the end of the orders phase, after each player has moved his ships and completed his orders. A torpedo remains in play for two additional order phases, giving it (unless it strikes a ship first) four opportunities to move: once when launched, then again at the end of three order phases. At the end of its third orders phase, the torpedo expires. Remove it from the table.

Torpedoes move much like ships. They flip end over end a number of times equal to their movement. They do not, however, require Change Heading orders. When the torpedo is launched, you may change its heading after each flip. On its three subsequent movements, you may change its heading at the beginning of each move. Torpedoes can't change their speed, and always move their complete movement rating. During torpedo movement, all torpedoes move simultaneously.

If a torpedo makes contact with any ship at any time, it inflicts its damage immediately and is removed from play (see "Damage," above). This includes the possibility of a ship hitting a torpedo at any point during the ship's movement. Ships can hit their own torpedoes, so be careful!

Step 4: Boarding

Once Step 3 ends, Step 4 resolves crew combat on any ships containing crew disks belonging to opposing players.

If, at the beginning of Boarding, your crew occupies an enemy ship that also contains revealed opposing crew, your crew enter combat for control of the ship.

If you transport over to a ship that has no revealed enemy crew, no combat ensues and you take control of the ship uncontested (see "Taking Control," below).

Resolving Crew Combat

A player with crew in combat totals the combat values of all his ready crew aboard that ship (do not include the combat values of activated or unrevealed crew), then shakes and drops exactly that number of damage counters.

The player scoring the most hits (or the team with the most total hits) wins, and his opponent loses one crew disk of his choosing (in other words, one of the loser's crew, his choice, is killed). The opponent may choose to kill an activated crew, but unrevealed crew cannot be killed. In the case of a tie, both players lose one crew.

Repeat this segment two more times, or until one player has no more crew left. If, at the end of three segments, both sides have crew aboard the ship, combat ends and the side with the highest command total takes control (see just below).

Christian and Julie are teammates, and have both beamed crew aboard Matt's ship. Christian's crew has combat value total of 2, Julie's has a total of 5. They drop their damage disks, with Christian scoring 2 hits and Julie scoring 1. They have a combined total of 3 hits for their team.

Matt's total crew combat Value is 3. He drops 3 damage counters and scores 2 hits. Julie and Christian have a higher total, so Matt eliminates one of his crew.

Taking Control

At the end of Step 4, the player whose crew has the highest total command value on the ship controls that ship for the next turn. Take the control panel for that ship, and use it as if it belongs to you, issuing orders and moving the ship each phase. The other player may not be out of the game, though, especially if he still has crew on board, or if his teammates can transport crew aboard to retake the ship!

Step 5: Ready

During the final step of the turn, all players flip their activated crew and tech, restoring these disks to ready status.

After completing this step, begin a new turn starting with Step 1: Reveal/Conceal Crew and Tech. Play then moves into the next Turn, continuing until one player achieves victory.

When we last left our players, Diana had just scored two hits on Owen's ship. It's now Owen's turn. He reveals his Attack order and decides to attack Diana first, and then moves.

The T'deret does 5 damage, but Owen's Auxiliary Battery gives him +1 to his beam damage, for a total of 6 damage. Diana was in range of Owen, and no one's moved, so they're still in range.

Owen picks up 6 damage disks, shakes them, and drops them on the table. Five disks show explosion icons. 5 hits! Diana lowers her shields 5 points and worries about taking a critical.

Owen has done damage to Diana's ship, so he picks up the five critical damage disks, and drops them on the table. Only one of them shows a critical, an engineering crit. Diana must remove her Mark III Torpedoes tech disk from the game.

Owen's movement now occurs, taking him away from Diana. On the next Order phase, Diana will reveal an Attack order, but be too far away to hit. Without a Change Heading order, she can't turn and move toward Owen. Owen will reveal a Raise Shields order, restoring his shields to full strength, and move further away. Owen will begin the next Turn with no damage, ready to Change Heading and finish Diana off. Diana, in the meantime, will have to Raise Shields, Change Heading, and Attack before Owen closes in!

Scenarios

Scenarios in Star Trek: Red Alert! expand the game's possibilities, giving you new objectives and types of battles. What follows is a brief guide to scenarios and scenario construction. First, we'll examine the basic features of a scenario. We'll use Balance of Terror, the scenario from the examples above.

Were Balance Of Terror a scenario disk in Star Trek: Red Alert! its stats would read:

Name: "Balance Of Terror"
Mission Type: Seek & Destroy
Teams: 2
Players: 2
Factions: Romulan vs. Federation
Point Value: 30
Mission: One Romulan ship, one Federation ship, one line drawn in the sky. Someone has crossed a sensitive border. Each side believes the other has committed the infraction. Surely an act of war!
Setup: Teams start on opposite ends of the table, each fleet within Range: 1 of the end of the table.
Restrictions: None.
Victory: The first player to destroy the enemy fleet wins.

Names in quotes refer to episodes of Star Trek. All the episode-based scenarios in the Premier Edition of Red Alert! are from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Mission Type is purely flavor text.

Number of Players refers to the total number of players in the game. If this reads: "6" and there are two teams, then you probably want three players on each team. For this reason, always cross-reference the number of players with Teams. It's not required that teams have an equal number of players, but it's generally best if they're even.

Point Value indicates how much each team, not each player, has to spend on ships, crew, and tech. A 100-point scenario therefore grants each team 100 points to spend on its fleet. Players are not required to divide the points evenly, although they should agree. If, in a 100 point scenario with 2 players per team, one player's fleet cost 58 points, those 8 extra points must be given to him by his teammate, who would then have only 42 points to spend.

If your team can't agree on spending points, designate a team captain to oversee fleet building.

Factions describes which factions we recommend you use. Some scenarios are entirely generic, for use with any factions. These read "Factions: Any." The rest are described from one faction's point of view. You'll see a symbol for that faction in the background of the scenario disk. There's a Klingon scenario, for instance, which sees the Klingons attempting to free some prisoners being held by the Federation. Since it's a Klingon mission, the point of view is Klingon and the language is slightly different than a Federation version would be.

Mission is a brief overview of the scenario from a story-based point of view. You won't find any rules or game mechanics here. If you want to quickly understand what a scenario's about without referencing all its stats, read this first.

Setup tells you where all the ships, terrain, and additional disks are placed at the beginning of the game. There's some standard language here. "Teams start on opposite ends of the table, each fleet within range: 1 of its end" is used often. By that we mean that the teams start at the ends furthest apart from one another, not along the wide sides of the table.

Restrictions make the scenario more interesting by reflecting the stated goals of the factions. Many scenarios have no restrictions.

Victory describes the conditions necessary to win! Again, there's some standard language here. "Points for ships" means that players get points for every ship they destroy, equal to the cost of the ship. Whoever has the most points when one side is out of ships, or the other victory conditions have been fulfilled, wins. This is similar to another common victory condition: "destroy the opposing fleet." Under this condition, the opposing team loses when its last ship is destroyed. Points are not kept track of. In all cases, the game isn't over until the end of the turn during which victory conditions are met.

Other victory conditions require your team to achieve a certain goal. In some scenarios, you'll win as soon as the goal is achieved, in others you'll get points for achieving the goal. In these latter scenarios, it's usually possible for your opponent to win through other means, or by destroying your fleet.

Designing Your Own Scenarios

Scenarios have few elements, are easy to design, and fun to playtest! We calculated that the average ship with average crew and tech onboard is worth a little less than 50 points, so we gauged the total point values of the scenarios by deciding how many players should be on a team, and multiplying that number by 50. We then raised or lowered the value based on how nasty we thought the scenario should be. Some scenarios are best played with one ship per player, with light crew and tech. Others, such as the Borg scenario, are designed for several ships per player, with lots of expensive crew and tech.

We encourage you to develop your own scenarios and send them to us. Make sure you play it a few times, iron out the bugs, then send it in! If we like it, we'll put it on our website and credit you with the design. Visit www.lastunicorngames.com for complete guidelines.

Keywords

The following are some of the keywords used in the game. There are many other keywords in the game; they describe the disks' general function and sometimes make them the target of other disks' special abilities.

Armada: Disks with this keyword affect all ships on the same team, including ships controlled by other players.
Boarding: Effects preceded by this keyword occur only during Step 4: Boarding.
Bridge Crew: Crew with this keyword are vulnerable to Bridge Crits. When a ship suffers a Bridge Crit, all revealed Bridge Crew are eliminated.
Constant: Special abilities with this keyword give the controlling player the option to continue generating the effect the next turn by keeping the disk with Constant flipped during the Step 5: Ready.
Crit: May occur when inflicting a critical hit.

Rozhenko's special ability reads: "Crit: Change crit to bridge crit if target doesn't have one." This allows the player to change any critical he's inflicting to a bridge crit (if the opposing ship doesn't already have a bridge crit).
Damage, Hull, and Shields all have their own icons used in special ability text.
Fleet: Disk with this keyword affect all ships controlled by the same player.
Intel: Disks with this keyword generally affect other players' crew and orders. Obsidian Order, Tal Shiar, and Tal Diann are all considered Intel.