Another go with the 7TV rules, this time using the Star Qualities and Special Effects. The original Star Trek away team...
...were pitted against a group of Grey Aliens with an extra tentacled alien:
Location was the interior of a spaceship using loads of the Galactic Core Set scenery.
Stuart took the Star Trek cast and Kieron the aliens. We used the Watch The Skies trope with an Alien Meteorite as the maguffin.
Kieron's Great Monstrosity made an early rush to the meteorite but Stuart's next script card allowed him to swap Uhura with the alien, so she picked up the meteorite instead. The Monstrosity got its revenge by taking out Dr McCoy, and grappled with Spock whilst the Grey Aliens chased Uhura for the meteorite.
After Kirk and Uhura had worn down the Alien Leader with statuses, Scotty was able to take it out.
A card brought the alien back for one last turn and he injured Spock and scared Uhura, before dying permanently.
Although the objective markers had been collected by both casts, the Enterprise team had the maguffin and had taken out the alien leader, giving them 8 points against 3 - a difference of 5 being a Decisive Victory for Stuart.
A few days later, I replayed the episode with Andy but with a different location - a red planet with a couple of buildings, to allow more ranged attacks than the spaceship interior.
In the first turn, James drew the script card that swaps an ally and enemy position. Kirk found himself on the aliens entry edge whilst Uhura found an alien next to her in his place. Feeling vulnerable, Kirk stole the scene to finish off the alien he'd ended up next to.
Andy's aliens advanced after the objectives, ignoring Kirk. Uhura then killed the alien next to her whilst Spock climbed to the roof for an objective marker, and Scotty entered the building, recovering another marker but becoming Infected for his efforts.
A brief visit by Space Vampires caused wounds to both Kirk and Uhura, with Andy's stars escaping a similar fate, and they pressed the attack.
McCoy went for another objective marker but was overrun and taken out by a couple of Greys.
In the last turn, Kirk managed to shoot the alien leader dead and Spock thought he had captured the tentacled alien, until we realised that "Large" characters can't be captured.
A very close outcome, with the points for objectives equally split between the teams but with Andy's loss of the alien leader outweighing the benefit of recovering the alien meteorite by a single point. However, although that looks like a very minor victory for James, the rules judge that a point difference of zero or one should be considered a Draw, which feels like a reasonable outcome.
In these games, we introduced more of the rules, leaving out only the Genre Cards I think. We also reduced movement to 4" in the second game as the open terrain on a 24"x24" mat meant that otherwise many of the objective markers could be reached in the very first turn. We learned that Extras can take out a Star if that Star is already worn down a bit by some status markers. Also that holding back plot points for a big push in one later turn can turn out well. Using the Star Qualities and Special Effects on the back of the cards does add extra reading and some complexity but with the benefit of more variety and more story. I think we're getting used to it. What should help is that the 7TV rules seem applicable to pretty much every genre so it would be good to use them for other skirmish games so the rules become even more familiar.
The 7TV 80s Genre Guide that I backed on Kickstarter should arrive soon - the PDF has already been sent but I'm trying to hold back until I can sit down with a real book in my hands!
