[FT] New way of moving ships

After coming back from Gencon UK, I thought I'd share my new and
improved
way of moving ships that one of my players spotted a while ago and it's
made
life a lot, lot easier since I started using it.

I assumed that many other people also did this, but I find that people
are
not aware of it.

Here it is:
As long as your miniature is based on a hex base, you will no longer
need to
use the turning circle thing.  Over the whole weekend of Gencon, I
didn't
use mine once, except for fire arcs.

Quite simply, each of the ships at all times must be facing one of the
12
vectors, there are no in-betweens.  On my movement sheets, I have
players
log their speed and vector.  That way, if a figure gets knocked over,
it's
easy to put it back in the same orientation that it was.
Because the hex base it 6 sided, it also is true that at any one time,
one
of the flat sides of the hex must be lined up exactly with one edge of
the
board, be it the top/bottom or left/right.

Now, when your ship does a 1-point turn, you simpy rotate the base
through
30 degrees.  This is really easy to do, but maybe difficult to explain
without pictures.  If, for example, the hex base is lined up with the
top of
the map (one of the flat sides is perpendicular to it), then rotating it
30
degrees to the left means that one of the points of the hex is then
pointing
towards the top of the map (and thus the flat sides are now lined up
with
the sides of the map).

Doing a 2-point turn is even easier, simply rotate the figure 1 complete
hexside, so the hex base lines up with the same side of the board as it
did
previously.

For big ships, which I base on 2mm MDF with 2 stands, I still have to
use
the turning circle.

Give it a go next time you play.  I think it really speeds up play and
it's
really easy to do.  We also do a check at the end of the turn to make
sure
all ships are facing the way that has been plotted on the movement
chart.

Any comments welcome

Paul Grogan
Runestone Games
www.runestonegames.freeserve.co.uk