First Play Questions

[Kersus]

In the 2-player starter set - is piracy a viable strategy? (Beowulf/Scout) - In an early turn could you attack the other player's ship and if they can't immediately pay the expense to cover the damage, are they bankrupt? Thus you need to always keep cards in reserve if anyone is involved in piracy?

What are the target cards for like Glitch? Am I supposed to use them every time we attack other crew with cards that also say target on them?

Beowulf allows 2 of each connection sub-type - can they be two identical connection titles?

Is the resolution of an adventure simultaneous (multiple captains can win it) or in order set by initiative?

It mentioned that if you damage another ship in piracy that it's successful. What does being successful gain you?

I really don't understand targeting.

I have some promo cards that are weapons but they don't seen to have an in-game function - Staplegun. Same with medals.

[Kersus]

I was also wondering if other people found that Crew were pretty important?

On our play through I had my opponent reshuffle their deck and make sure they got some crew. By the time they had any crew, I already had 10 victory points and there was really no catching up.

While this is only one play through and not enough to analyze the game, I was thinking about saying any first hand without a Crew gets reshuffled and drawn again.

[Horizon Jeff]

It may be easiest to think of targeting as selecting some other card to be the recipient of an effect. If you have an ability that does 2 to target , that means you choose a when you generate the ability to receive the injury.

[Kersus]

It may be easiest to think of targeting as selecting some other card to be the recipient of an effect. If you have an ability that does 2 to target , that means you choose a when you generate the ability to receive the injury.

So in the case of your example, if my was being targeted, I could play something like Glitch where I can target something to redirect the target back to the other player?

[Horizon Ian]

In the 2-player starter set - is piracy a viable strategy? (Beowulf/Scout) - In an early turn could you attack the other player's ship and if they can't immediately pay the expense to cover the damage, are they bankrupt? Thus you need to always keep cards in reserve if anyone is involved in piracy?

Players can pay expenses from their draw decks. The fastest I've seen a piracy deck bankrupt someone is round four, and that's typically with only two piracy actions on rounds three and four.

Tactical piracy can be viable in a plethora of situations. Many times, I probably switch to piracy in a non-piracy deck a round or two too late to see if I can push someone over the edge who is out VPing me.

What are the target cards for like Glitch?

Upgrades. Translating the icons, the card text reads "Ready or exert target upgrade." For instance, you could exert Narda Laser, removing its AV bonus or you could ready Modular Hold to be able to use it twice to generate capability tokens.

Am I supposed to use them every time we attack other crew with cards that also say target on them?

If you want to deal a wound to a crew, let's say, with Body Pistol, only the crew and the Body Pistol attached to each other are required. During the action phase, the attached crew would have to exert as an action to "use" the Body Pistol. Not sure this is answering the question.

Beowulf allows 2 of each connection sub-type - can they be two identical connection titles?

Yes. Duplication in play of cards for a single player is generally not restricted. Crew by title cannot be duplicated for a single player. Gear on a single crew are limited by subtype, so no two weapons unless one of those weapons is trifling. Upgrades and Connections are *not* restricted by title.

Is the resolution of an adventure simultaneous (multiple captains can win it) or in order set by initiative?

Page 20 of the online rulebook is unfortunately confusing. Under Stage 3, it says captains resolve contracts in initiative order. In the sidebar, it speaks of multiple captains completing the same contract. When multiple captains are pursuing the same contract, they all get the opportunity to complete the contract and the sequencing should be clearer about when the contract is replaced, etc. Victory check isn't until the end of the phase. Though, bankruptcy is immediate, in case something happens that would cause bankruptcy.

It mentioned that if you damage another ship in piracy that it's successful. What does being successful gain you?

There are cards that key off of successful piracy. Subsidized Merchant loses a VP if it is successfully pirated, for instance. The Trouble on the Mains set has more cards that care about piracy action.

I really don't understand targeting.

While different customizable cardgames can have somewhat different meaning to the game term "target", target is used extensively in customizable cardgames to denote that an effect requires choosing a card or player or discard pile or whatever specifically. In at least one CCG, "choose" and "target" mean two different things, but target is intended to convey the idea of choosing something to affect.

Target is an important word because Invulnerability means an effect can't target the Invulnerable card. But, it's also important whether a card targets a card in play or targets a player and the player chooses a card in play. Walter Glen, IMC (ret)'s ability doesn't work precisely the same as Vorn Drusus's, for example.

I have some promo cards that are weapons but they don't seen to have an in-game function - Staplegun. Same with medals.

Jeff can answer this better as there was done a special promotional printing that didn't go through standard development.

[Horizon Ian]

I was also wondering if other people found that Crew were pretty important?

On our play through I had my opponent reshuffle their deck and make sure they got some crew. By the time they had any crew, I already had 10 victory points and there was really no catching up.

While this is only one play through and not enough to analyze the game, I was thinking about saying any first hand without a Crew gets reshuffled and drawn again.

With the preconstructed decks and almost all decks I've seen built, crew are hugely important and a significant crew imbalance early on often leads to a player getting out to a big lead. Though, how many rounds a captain fails to do a contract is more of an indicator as to who will win, assuming two (or more) decks that rely on contract completion for winning.

When I run demos, I've yet to run one (for Traveller) where the cards are preordered, so I tell players "If you don't have at least two crew in your hand, you probably want to discard cards."

I've yet to do it, but on my list of things to do is a crewless deck, which also means no gear (besides maybe hindrances) and no heroic actions, very likely relying heavily on events to do subplots or whatever. But, the reason I haven't gotten to this is that crew are so much a part of the game. When building decks, we routinely run far more crew than the preconstructed decks, as the preconstructed decks are trying to serve many purposes, including giving a wider range of cards to have in one's collection to use for constructing decks.

As Traveller isn't focused on tournament play, I view it as harmless if different players want to use their own house rules. Also, we can sanction variant formats for tournament play, if there's a desire by the player base to do so. I worked extensively on Precedence Publishing's CCGs, where the norm was being able to choose your opening hand, and my Shadowfist group has partial opening hand choice to get around how that game can be Difficult in the Beginning.

A more forgiving way to play, perhaps more appropriate to preconstructed vs. preconstructed play, would be something like "Select one crew card and one other card as part of your opening hand, drawing enough additional random cards to reach your ship's hand size." It does mean that combinations early in the game become much more viable, such as having Dezihdhodhude Mehro come out consistently on round one with a Neural Gun, which is why we didn't go the route of choosing any cards for an opening hand. But, different players are going to want different experiences and, I imagine, most players don't want to have highly unbalanced starts to games.