Re: FT Demo - Advice, Do's, Don'ts?

> 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.

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.

Dean Gundberg

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