Squadrons Rules

Playing Squadrons

Squadrons is best played on a 3ft x 3ft or similar sized area and each game lasts for 4 rounds.

Ship Movement

Each time you activate one of your ships you must always take a Move action, though you may still choose when to perform this action. When you perform this action or and Advance action you must also move the maximum distance allowed and may only make 1 pivot per action.

When you make an Advance action you may instead move 2 inches forward and pivot your ship exactly 180 degrees.

You may move over the bases of any friendly or enemy ships during your movement so long as you have sufficient movement to complete the move without the bases overlapping. If you do not have sufficient movement your ship stops before passing over the enemy base and your activation ends.

Evasion

When a ship is targeted for an attack it may try to evade the attack if it still has Command Points remaining. This must be declared before any dice are rolled for the attack and the attacking player must give sufficient time for the player to declare they are evading. Spend one Command Point and move this ship up to 2 inches directly to the left or right of its forward direction, stopping if it would overlap another ship's base. This ship may re-roll any failed Defence and Counter rolls from the attack that targetted it.

Terrain

Terrain plays a limited roll in Squadrons and is not needed for every game, however it can add some interest to have some small items such as asteroids, debris, or other such items. All terrain in Squadrons is required to have a suitable base or footprint to determine line of sight through it.

There are two types of terrain available in Squadrons: Obscuring and Dangerous. Ships may move freely across this terrain with the following additional rules.

Obscuring

Obscuring terrain typically represents gas clouds or other phenomena that obscures vision. Ships cannot target an enemy ship if any line of sight can be drawn between them that passes through Obscuring terrain.

Dangerous

Dangerous terrain represents solid objects such as asteroids or debris fields which a ship must be careful to avoid. Ships may move through dangerous terrain, the model is often just a representation of multiple objects, however any ship that spend any part of their activation within Dangerous terrain must roll a d6 at the end of their activation, on a roll of a 4+ they take 1 hit with a Damage of 5 and must roll to Counter it as normal.

Ship Attacks

Ships may only target enemy ships that are over an inch away but otherwise may choose any enemy ship as a target.

Line of sight in Squadrons is always worked out on the flat surface of the battlefield using only the ships bases to determine the results.These lines are treated the same as the sight lines you would use when looking through a model.

Objectives

Squadrons has three types of objectives: Scan, Recover, and Destroy.

Scan: Scan objectives require a ship to make a close pass of the object to secure them. A ship must move over the base of a Scan objective during it's activation before taking a secure action for the objective marker.
Recover: A Recover objective is secured in the same way as a Scan objective, except that the ship cannot have performed an Advance action during it's activation. A recover objective is only scored at the end of the game if the ship that recovered it survives.
Destroy: A Destroy objective is treated much the same as an enemy ship though it never activates and does not move. A Destroy objective is scored when it is destroyed. It has the following profile: Defence: 4+, Toughness: 4, Hit Points: 2.

Special Rules

The following new special rules apply to units and weapons in Squadrons.

Unit Special Rules

Rule	Details
Boost	If this ship makes a Move and Advance action and does not pivot it may add up to 3 inches to it's movement.
Countermeasures	Once per game this ship may evade an attack without spending a Command Point.
Squadron Leader	Friendly ships within 6 inches of this ship do not have to roll to see if they lose a Command Point when activating with just 1. This ship also gains +1 to it's Command attribute on the first round, up to a maximum of 6.
Signal Jam	Target Lock rolls against this ship only succeed on a 5+.

Weapon Special Rules

Rule	Details
Disruptor	Rolls to Counter Damage against this weapon do not gain the benefit of the Shields special rule. In addition, any ship that loses a Hit Point to an attack from this weapon also loses 1 Command Point.
Target Lock	Roll a d6 before making any attack rolls with this weapon, on a 3+ this weapon can be used, on a 1 or 2 you may choose a different weapon for your attack but it must be against the same target. If you cannot make an attack with any other weapon you may not make an attack but still count as having taken an attack action.
Kinetic	This weapon counts their Piercing attribute as -1 against a ship with Shields, while the effect of the shield is active.