A counter sheet for the Borak, Peladine, Juggernauts and Nicozians. (AND POLAR ALLIANCE)

Module C3A countersheet. (THIS WAS BUILT INTO THE REPRINTED C3 SHEET USING THE EXTRA 64 COUNTERS.)

Tournament countersheets in alternate colors for same-empire duels.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, November 26, 2024 - 10:54 pm: Edit

Perhaps such "short-run" countersheets might be useful for certain "side" products - be they Alpha or non-Alpha - going forward?

Be it a potential M81 Galaxy module; a second module for the Lesser Magellanic Cloud; a follow-up module for the "lost empires" of Module C6; one of several options for a new Omega product, to include some of the "Omega's Lost Futures" currently previewed in various issues of Captain's Log; or perhaps even a " dark future" module set in the Darwin's alternate timeline.

Could these, or other such new module ideas, be up for consideration with this new countersheet paradigm in mind?

By Riccardo Perni (P_R_S) on Wednesday, November 27, 2024 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Star Fleet Marines Counter Attack, Counter Punch and Counter Strike? GOOD IDEAS!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, November 28, 2024 - 06:16 pm: Edit

F&E sheets for Paravian and Carnivon.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, November 28, 2024 - 09:10 pm: Edit

F&E sheet for the generic units in the Civil War colors of the Romulans, Kzintis, and Lyrans. GOOD IDEA!

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Friday, November 29, 2024 - 11:15 am: Edit

Obviously I like the same-empire Tournament sheet idea, as I was one of the ones to suggest it!
I just hope some of the new counter suppliers come up a little more cost-effective than the one for the Basic Set counters re-print; more than triple the price is pretty ouch. (WELL, IT IS ABOUT TRIPLE, $30 VS $9. HOWEVER, IT COSTS US FIVE TIMES AS MUCH.)
Of the existing products, now the Basic Set is back in print, the biggest gap in the stock list now is surely Module Y1? (BASIC SET WILL BE BACK IN PRINT IN ABOUT A WEEK. IT'S NOT TECHNICALLY IN PRINT YET BUT IT IS ON THE CART.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, November 29, 2024 - 12:56 pm: Edit

Y1 will be in the short run batch that goes to press in a week. Having to create all of those icons is very time consuming.

The short run system costs us five times as much per sheet. They actually cost us more than the retail price of counters done the old way. But if the maximum market is 25 a year, the old way produces a 40 year supply and that isn’t practical.

Things are still in flux and it is unclear if the retail price of these short-run counters will be $25 or $30. I'll let you know when the rest of the information comes in.

By Stephen G. Parry (Mutant) on Friday, November 29, 2024 - 10:43 pm: Edit

Thanks for the info Steve. I appreciate that the counter economics are shear madness for you at the moment. One query though - the site lists the Basic Set counters as $29.95 (or 26.95 with thanksgiving discount), not $25. Is the site in error?

Y1 is good news - I have been waiting for it to return to press for a while now and am looking forward to adding it to my collection.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 30, 2024 - 03:31 am: Edit

Obviously there is something about the cost Jean hasn’t told me yet.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Saturday, November 30, 2024 - 09:51 am: Edit

Will the reprinted counter sheets be available as spare parts? YES

By Jean Sexton Beddow (Jsexton) on Saturday, November 30, 2024 - 12:31 pm: Edit

The cost to us is so high that even the $29.95 isn't the usual profit margin. We absorbed as mush of the cost as we could on the boxed sets.

Jean

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 30, 2024 - 06:40 pm: Edit

Yes, they will be available, at a price to reflect the cost.

Having found a source, we are checking on two other sources to get a reduced cost.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Sunday, December 01, 2024 - 04:01 pm: Edit

I assume this is limited to 1/2 inch counters, and not one inch counters as well?

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, December 01, 2024 - 05:56 pm: Edit

The company does one inch counters as well.

Some of the staff members had Chuck's new fleet markers printed there.

They look amazing.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 01, 2024 - 06:12 pm: Edit

Yes, we can do one inch. I don’t know right off how many one inch counters fit on a sheet, or how many sheets would be needed to do a fleet set for F&E. I think there might be a need for one inch counters for FEDCOM but I am not sure how many sheets would be needed or how many we would sell.

By Ryan Opel (Feast) on Sunday, December 01, 2024 - 06:18 pm: Edit

72 one inch counters per sheet, four sheets for all the counters.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 01, 2024 - 11:12 pm: Edit

That would mean that a run of inch counters would yield 25 sets. Will anyone pay $60, $80, or $100 for such a set?

One inch counters cannot be mixed in a run with half inch, I don’t think so, anyway.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 09:22 am: Edit

One idea for a partial counter sheet would be some 3xF5L and 3xF5 counters.

The F5Q counters mirror the historical Klingon F5 deployments, but they are less than optimal for a few use cases:

1. For pure pinning or pure efficient (odd factor) damage absorption, just using F5 is better. The 3xF5 counters make it easier to move them around and use them. Some players (as seen here in online games) mostly skip F5L in favor of F5 to save a little cash and maximize this efficiency.

2. 3xF5L counters can be used like the 3xDW counters of other empires, typically when short on 3xCW.

3. A 1xF5Q counter and 3xF5 counter together can be used as a 6 ship pinning force of the exact right size to use the F5L CR of 5.

4. 1xD7C and 3x[3xF5] makes a decent 10 ship pinning force.

The 3xF5L and 3xF5 counters don't change any of the game rules, they just make play logistically easier. I use homemade ones I put together using some other mostly surplus Klingon counters (E4A) and some stickers I made up with my label printer.

--Mike

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 09:34 am: Edit

There really isn't a way to market a part of a sheet, but if you want to propose an F&E sheet of "the most wanted counters" we can do that. I don't really know of any "quirks" other than F5/F5L that need attention.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Do the counters on a given sheet have to be square, or can they be in other shapes?

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For example: back when Shapeways was a thing, there was a range of 7000 scale miniature sprues that had hex stands attached to each miniature. So, a separate sprue of adaptors was offered that these hex stands could be placed into, so as to enable them to be used to play A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. These hex-to-curcular adaptors even had the ACtA:SF firing arcs marked on them, so as to make it easier to play that game with these miniatures.

While the 7000 scale hex bases were smaller than the ones used for 3788 or 3125 scale miniatures (to the extent that it was advised to scale down from inches to centimetres when playing ACtA:SF with the smaller scale miniatures), I don't recall if there were any adaptors offered for the larger hex bases also.

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Aside from this, there were specific web counters offered on Shapeways also, which themselves were intended to cover how web functions in ACtA:SF relative to how it works in SFB or in FC.

While these web counters were based on the templates shown on pages 29-30 of ACtA:SF Book Two, the variety of web counters themselves are shown on Pages 172-3 of that same volume.

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So, I was wondering:

Would it be an option to offer hex-to-circular adaptor sheets for 7000 scale and/or 3788/3125 scale miniatures, for players who wish to use their Starline and/or Shapeways miniatures for ACtA:SF play?

And also, would it be possible to provide 1" and/or 2" web templates for ACtA:SF use - to include room for cardboard stands which they can sit upon?

Or would it be best to wait until or unless a viable "post-Shapeways" miniature storefront is set up, so that the prior adaptors and templates can be offered in plastic once again?

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 04:08 pm: Edit

Where there some Peladine F&E factors in a Captain's Log? I seem to vaguely recall this. If so, if you do Paravians and Carnivons f&E counters maybe there might be some room for Peladine since they were also a 'could have been" empire.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 04:28 pm: Edit

So far as I'm aware, there are as yet no SIT listings in Captain's Log for either the Peladine or the Borak.

Personally, I would prefer to keep the "has-been" Alpha empires in a separate category from the "never-weres": not least since, between the ships currently in SFB Module C6 and those that could be added in a would-be "Module C6R", there would be more than enough units for the Paravians and Carnivons to fill up a would-be F&E countersheet in and of themselves.

That said, one interim step could be to "upgrade" the Borak and Peladine to formal publication status in a would-be "Module C7", and to offer a "short-run" countersheet for such a product here. Then, at some later point, a "forgotten empires" countersheet could be drawn up for F&E, should the "short-run" concept prove to be a successful one.

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Also, I was asking over on the F&E side of the BBS whether the same print companies might also be able to offer "short-run" map prints - say, for "Mapsheet P", in the case of would-be Paravian counters for F&E.

But, since it was pointed out above that Star Fleet Marines could benefit from new "short-run" countersheets as well, could new terrain maps for SFM be offered in short print runs to go alongside them?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 06:46 pm: Edit

Hmnm, the old RS countersheet had '3xF5L' and '3xF5' (F5B) counters …

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 11:04 pm: Edit

Not that we need it but RS could be reprinted quickly since it's already done.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 02, 2024 - 11:05 pm: Edit

The counters of a given batch have to have the same die pattern. This could be any pattern that I can produce on a drafting program. Assuming we think we could sell them.