For $50 you get a large box, 2 books both rather thin, and a ton of counters. Honestly this is the game’s biggest failing. The cost per value issue here is a biggie. I have been told the second edition (coming soon will be $30 for a hardback which will be a much better deal, but in the mean time I’m reviewing first/revised edition, so I won’t go into that.) The rulebook (48 pages) is black and white printed while the ship roster book (96 pages) is full color. This make sense since the rules don’t really need color but the ship roster will have to be utilized as a painting guide by those who don’t fancy pushing around counters. The counters are printed on a magazine card stock, rather light and not something that makes me scream high quality, in essence they are CG representations of the ships with the arcs and center points marked. They did forget in the first edition to add numbers to the ships, but luckily fixed this in the revised version. Those unfamiliar with this game or battlefleet gothic may ask why no grid or space map? Trust me this will come up later.
The rules are not hard (as evidence by the thickness of the rulebook.) They are based on a few basic principles. First everything is measured from stand to stand. This is because space is big, really big you may think it’s a long way to the chemist’s but that’s just peanuts in compared with Umm, you get the idea. Ships move (in inches) from center post on the stand to center post on the stand. This is also true with fire combat. Turns are done in increments of 45% and must have 2 inces between each turn (unless a ship actually has a 90% which is possible) Each weapon has an amount of attack dice (which in some cases can be split up to fire at different targets) and must roll higher than the opponent’s hull rating to hit. (assuming it’s in range and on the right arc). Damage is done through a series of charts. And each ship has a rating for crew and damage. Each of these numbers is represented with a hash mark (such as an Earth Alliance Omega which has a Crew of 60/14, and a damage of 40/10.) second number of which is the rating for a ship that has a skeleton crew or is crippled respectively. Both of these conditions make a ship harder to run. On top of this damage charts may give critical hit further effecting the way a ship performs. (such as taking out weapons systems or internal fires.) one other thing to note is that weapons and ships have special abilities which circumvent normal rules. I would attribute these more to feats in d20 than to the ccg/ cmg habit of special rules as they are all listen in the core rules and do not represent any great game breaking power. Fighters also add to the mix. For the most part they come in swarms in this game and are able to cause all kinds of trouble. Luckily most capital ships take them out in flights (I.e. it takes a single point of damage to take out a flight) fighters have notoriously short ranged weapons. And have the ability to get into “dogfights” with other fighters this the best defense against fighters is other fighters. Ships also have a benefit of “special orders” depending on your crew’s quality (usually 8) you select special orders that give benefit to actions but must make a check (roll 2d6 + mods or automatic for some actions) and get over the target number to have the command followed out. This along with ship and weapon special abilities creates a plethora of tactical options.
One other thing that makes ACTA interesting is it’s point ranking system. Gone are the days of 5000 point incursions where you are trying to find a ship you want to cover the 87 points remaining but can’t find anything you really want. Each ship is rated in priority from patrol (small) to War (huge). Balancing this, players chose a level and a point value such as a 4 point battle. Ships below the rating (in this case skirmish is just below battle) are worth 1/2/ a point and ships above the level (war is the level above battle) are worth double the points. So you could have 4 battle ships, 8 skirmish ships 2 war ships or any combination. Just to round this out you could have 16 raid level ships or 32 patrol ships as well, but you get the idea. The game also includes a campaign option (which is a load of fun for players wanting to keep playing the same forces and having the crews improve and dealing with long-term damage.
Personally I think this is probably the best of the Babylon 5 based minis games, it is a fast yet simple system with enough crunch and tactical variance to keep it interesting. It is a bit pricy (especially since you’ll probably want to pick up a copy of the hardback supplement Sky full of stars for expanded ship rosters and such.) and the minis are equally expensive (a fleet of one race will normally set you back $100.) but if you like B-5 and want to go tactical I can’t say enough good things about this game. But you may want to wait to see the new edition before rushing into battle with the shadows, or Centauri.
