Talon: Fleet Combat in Defense of Earth

Last year I traded away Talon for Gorechosen, but, I immediately bought it again in anticipation of Talon 1000, which I pre-ordered. Can't wait. Talon 1000 is eagerly anticipated by me for the solo rules with the AI, new scenarios, new ships, and the terrain on the backside of those ships.

Though people have complained about the ink residue with Talon, I've never had that problem. Why? The best way to remove dry-erase ink residue is contrary to what you'd think. You need to re-ink and go over the area with a dry-erase pen and then immediately wipe it off again. A dry-erase pen's solution is ink and a solvent; it's the solvent that allows the ink to wipe-off so when you re-ink an area, the solvent puts the ink into solution and you can wipe it off again. I also don't think that you should judge Talon by the first few scenarios--they're training scenarios only and boring.

Dry Erase pens also clean Sharpie ink.

I’ve de-ordered Talon 1000 because Talon is not getting enough play in real life. But yeah, I’ll agree that you shouldn’t bother with anything before scenario 3.

I’m seeing Talon on Amazon for about half price at the moment — $30.84 and Prime free shipping. I know oe Amazon prices vary by user, but I thought I’d point it out in case you’re considering. You may see it even cheaper.

www.amazon.com/dp/B01BMPBKRS/ref=cm_sw_r...cle-boardgamegeek-20

You know . . . you know . . . I didn't pick up Talon 1000 because Talon isn't getting a lot of mileage with my group. The game is nearly two years old so it's clearly outdated and no fun. I dropped my pre-pub on the expansion not because it was expensive ($23), but because the shipping would make it expensive if it came on its own. Shipping would likely add $12-$15 which means I'm better off picking it up locally.

So now it looks like SpaceCorp and Talon 1000 are going to charge and ship at the same time. So dollars to doughnuts it would only have cost me like $4 more to ship both together.

Of course now that I'm in the great purge it's less attractive, but I've replaced my mounted boards with a paper map in the original, so it likely will fit in the original box.

Decisions decisons . . . solitaire rules with AI pieces, many more ship types, new scenarios . . . likely need to decide by CoB today, due to charge tomorrow.

Miniature Market is listing Talon 1000 as "New Arrival", for $23. I'm leaping to the conclusion that either means they have 20+ copies on a shelf, or they've been alerted that GMT is shipping them their order.

The second-printing ship counters are almost like tiddly winks, relative to the matte-finished, cardboardy-feeling first-printing ones. They certainly seem to wipe off well with a swab. I need to probably give a more varied, non-mirror match setup a try (I know, everyone's said to do this) to reignite my interest, but I had to start small since we hadn't played but once and that a while back. On the plus side, it was very easy and quick to reteach. It seems a little shocking that governments would put so much money into capital ships shredded so easily, but maybe they got the memo about playability and modern tastes.

I have Talon 1k but haven't opened it yet.

And it's kinda sad to reread this thread and think how Armada has more or less been dead for a couple of years.

Yeah, Armada is sorta dead besides that dumbass imperial SSD. On the other hand, I think the range is pretty much fully fleshed out.

I nearly didn't buy Talon 1000 because, frankly Talon has a LOT of game in it. I would have been happy for 100 plays with it. But it was Christmas time and I needed a couple of titles to fill out the list, and I had store credit. So Talon 1000 "made the cut."

It's nice. I peeked inside but didn't punch it. That's a half-century old wargaming tradition!

Yep. The next box planned is Talon: Galaxy at War. It will be an independent expansion with two new empires. Of course, you will be able to battle against the Talons and Terrans as well, if you desire.

That's the most recent from Jim Krohn, the designer of Talon. Talon is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment due to its availability on Board Game Arena, one of two wargames on there and the only one that works properly. An expansion that added a new self-playing faction came out a few years back and it greatly expanded the number of ships available, mostly in the form of different fit-outs of existing classes. They add to the flavor as a swap-up of a weapon system or two can really change the way you need to play.

So this will be two more "empires" for a total of five. It seems to me at this point you can mix and match as you see fit, especially in battles where you're just playing to blow each other up. The original Talon has legit goals -- scenarios where you have to board a base station or destroy an orbital colony. If you're looking for head to head matches there will be plenty to work with once "GaW" comes out. Still off in the distance a bit as Krohn has his other big sellers to get to market, but it's in the works, and he has indicated that he loves the system. With each passing day I think a few more people do. About as accessible as a wargame can be and doesn't set off cultural alarm bells.

P.S. If you like you can put an eyeball on my current game here -- boardgamearena.com/2/talon?table=201663492

I'll just mention that I'm continuing to love this game. At the moment I have three games active on Boardgame Arena, Wingspan which is a cooler play but good, Through the Ages which is a heads-down-long-brooder of a play (and arguably the best Civ game ever), and this, Talon, which is run and gun and catch your opponent by doing something he doesn't expect.

In this particular case my opponent used up all his afterburners to catch me sleeping at the beginning of the game, leaving two of my ships out of the battle until the first volleys were fired. I was very outnumbered. I had to go into oh-shit mode to get back to a respectable place, losing one ship in the interval. By dumb luck I got a core breach on one of his cruisers to keep me in the running. Now all the ships are in one big furball working to get weapons charged just to keep shooting. Everyone is in range of everyone else.

Talon is about as accessible as a traditional hex and counter wargame gets. If you're wargame-curious, this is definitely your ride. BGA's version is in Alpha but it's solid. I can get you an invite if you need one. The physical copy is a little scarce at the moment.

At times I'm playing a bunch of light frilly stuff on BGA, right now I'm in three really good gamer's kind of games. Really enjoying it when I take the time to see what turns I have waiting for me.

I’m playing Sag right now and it’s really rekindled my interest in this game, enough that I bought a copy off eBay. I’ve also been playing some solo games on BGA with the alpha build.

This is very much a modern Star Fleet Battles. It trades a lot of crusty detail for accessibility and it’s a damn good trade. You still get a very high level sense of doing big space ship shit like shuffling power around to systems and trying to steer the damn thing, but with a lot of finicky stuff excised. There is no boarding for example, which eliminated like a while binder of SFB rules.

It also shares with Battletech a certain ease of play. But it’s even easier. Pick a scenario, throw some ships out and go- you don’t need anything but a few counters, markers, and dice.

The BGA implementation is quite excellent and I think I’m going to get a lot of play out of it- it’s perfect for async.

I think I may finally try Space Empires 4x next.

If you like the old schoolness of this, I think you'll like space empires as well. Sornars and I played it a few times and it's a pretty ruthless pared down mean 4x game. It lacks any subtlety or non-battle depth but it can be kind of refreshing.

And Armada is dead again.