I'm doing a Full Thrust demo a few weeks from today at one of the local
game stores in town (Rusty Scabbard, 11/29, 1pm to 4pm if you happen to
be near Lexington, KY). This will be the first time I've done something like
this outside of teaching some friends the rules. Rules-wise, I'm
planning on using cinematic movement, damage control, basic beams and pulse
torps to keep things simple, but I'm not sure how many ships to use per side.
I've got one 4'x6' table to work with. I've been thinking along the lines of 2
destroyers, 1 light cruiser and 1 heavy cruiser per player, or maybe 1 heavy
cruiser per player if I get if a large turnout. I'm pulling these
numbers out of the general vicinity of my back pocket however, so I'm open to
any advice anyone might have.
OK as a Demo Veteran I've got some advice:
DO Run each step of the first turn, explaining the game as you go.
DON'T try to teach EVERYTHING, then run the turn.
DO have legible record sheets. I recommend you create the sheets with full
SSDs on a computer then laminate them. Use transparency markers to mark them.
That way you only ever need one set of records.
DO have everything that the player's need: minis, dice, tape measures, turn
lassos.
DON'T go wandering around unless you have to. Stick around to answer questions
from your players.
DO arrive on time.
If playing DON'T try to win... let your players do that.
and most importantly...
DO have a good time.
Later, Mark A. Siefert
[quoted original message omitted]
> I'm doing a Full Thrust demo a few weeks from today at one of the
Ray, Mark has lots of good points. I'll add a few more from my experience at
GenCon and some local conventions.
Be prepared. You should have everything you need to play. All the players
should have to bring is themselves.
I usually demo on a 6'x9' table and have them set up on the long sides so they
come into contact within a turn or two. You could have them start
4'
away but that is really close so I'd suggest have them start on the short ends
of the table so they have the full 6' to play.
Give them SSDs and minis and then start the explanations
Describe the SSD and what all of the icons mean, but let them know you will
not explain how they all work until they come into play.
Explain movement and turning, using a mini to show them. Do lots of examples
and answer questions.
Have them set up their minis within 8" of the edge of the table with a
velocity of 6 and have them write orders.
Make them move their ships according to orders and help them when they have
questions and watch so they don't make big mistakes without asking questions.
No one should be in range yet so write orders for turn 2.
Do movement for turn 2, watching just like the last turn.
Have them roll initiative since someone is probably within range of long range
fire. Now explain how beam weapons work. Resolve fire and explain how damage
is taken when someone is hit. Finish combat.
Orders and movement for turn 3 as prior turns. Initiative and combat as
before, answering questions as more players fire. Explain new weapons as they
come into range. This turn someone will probably hit a threshold, explain how
to resolve threshold rolls and help them through it. Finish combat.
Sit back and watch as the players will probably take it from there and will
just ask a question or two each turn from then on as they can do most of it on
their own.
Often the battle will break down into a couple separate sub-battles and
have them resolve the turn separately to speed things up.
On fleets to use: I did use fleets of 2 DDs and 1 CH per player for a 2 hour
slot with 12 players. It worked but it was tight and it was too easy to take
out a player early (always give a player more ships if their fleet is taken
out early). This year I used fleets of 2xDDs a CE and a BC for 8 players in a
2 hour demo and that worked well. I have the SSDs for all of these fleets as
gif files if you want to use them. All the ships are from FB1 except for a
couple ships from my Reinforcements page when I couldn't make balanced point
fleets from only FB ships.
[quoted original message omitted]
There's been some great and sound advice (someone mentioned going to
6'*9',
and I'm assuming with 1" = 1 mu, and that looks good), but I'd like to add one
thing:
__ Check if anyone has played before. __
This can make a huge difference on both your advice or on how you might split
up the players...
When I've ever put on a display game I've always had a crew of 3 or more
-
umpire, plus helpers on each side to explain the rules and tactics (plus
one spare to wander off round the show). Mark's emphasis on _minimum_
explanation at the start is very sound: it keeps interest, you can't avoid it
all, but giving a quick overview (and I stress overview) and then explaining
each step as he suggests really helps get things going.
As far as 6'*4' goes, assuming 1mu = 1 inch, the 4 ships you mentioned could
give a fun, fast game.
Just wanted to thank everyone for the advice. Hopefully I won't make too much
of a mess of this.
This weekend I'm in the process of painting up all the ships I've put off
painting for this thing. Fortunately, my standards are low:), and the ships
are almost all Fleet Action Earth Alliance, so it's pretty much a matter of
gray base coat, black wash, silver drybrush, squadron colors, wash, rinse,
repeat.
Well, my demo went fairly well. It got pushed back one week because the
table was needed for a sale event. Four players total, ran around two
hours for a 16 ship game
Ok, technically, only one of the players was new to the game, the others
being myself, my wife and a friend who's played before, but everyone had
fun, so whose counting?
I did up a combination reference/record sheet for the game based on the
one Karl did (Thank you very much for this by the way). Every time I try to
write a quick reference sheet, it always comes out way too wordy, so having a
more concise one to base it off of was a great help.
I tossed a copy of the sheet up onto my web site if anyone would like to
look at it or use it:
http://www.wombatzone.com/files/FTDemoRecordSheet.pdf
Ok, actually, the one I used today had two Ticonderogas, a Huron, and a
Vandenberg, but I replaced them with some non-FB designs since PDS in
anti-ship mode is not really needed in a demo game.
These are awesome ray! I've been running a series of demos at a local game
store to drum up support for FT and these will REALLY help.
Later, Mark A. Siefert
[quoted original message omitted]