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Red Alert
Official Rules!
Contents:
(scroll down to begin at the top or click on
'Introduction')
Welcome to Star Trek:
Red Alert!, the fast-paced space combat game set in the Star Trek
universe. In Red Alert!, you and your fellow players build fleets
of ships, man them with crew, and outfit them with unique technologies.
Select a scenario, arm your fleet, and prepare for battle!
Your starter box includes
several flats of disks. Starters contain the ship displayed on the front
of the box, a flat of crew and tech disks, a scenario, two counter disk
flats, and an assortment of three additional random disk flats. From your
starter box you should be able to select a ship, man it with crew and
tech, and immediately begin playing.
Each game breaks down
into turns, and each turn contains several steps. Before the first turn,
you’ll go through a few steps to get ready for play. Those steps, and
the phases in each turn, are described in the following sections.
Getting Ready
Begin by selecting a
scenario and picking your faction. You may know which faction you want to
play before choosing a scenario, or decide on a specific scenario and pick
your faction based on that. Feel free to modify any scenario and make up
new scenarios as you wish. For more information, see “Designing Your Own
Scenarios” on the back of this sheet.
Five factions appear in
the Premier Edition of Red Alert!:
Federation, Romulan Star Empire, Klingon Empire, Cardassian Union, and
Ferengi Alliance. Each Faction has its own ships, crew, and technology.
Unless specified elsewhere, no faction can use any of the game elements of
another faction.
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 it 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.
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.
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