Attack Vector: Tactical
Space Combat in the Real World
- Origins Award Winner
- Endorsed for scientific accuracy by Scientific American
- The only realistic space combat game playable on a tabletop
Attack Vector: Tactical is the award-winning game of 3D spaceship combat. Command heavily armed and realistically modeled warships hurling kinetic weapons in a bullet-speed ballet of maneuver denial. Feel the crack of of high energy lasers drilling through your armor as you try to get position and timing right for a counter-strike without flying suicidally through a cloud of depleted uranium penetrators.
Best described as a combat flight simulator with spaceships, Attack Vector: Tactical sets the bar for realistic and playable space combat in a boardgame. Each decision you make will have serious consequences down the line, but the award-winning play aids handle all the scary math so you can blow things up.
- Ideal Scale: One to two ships per player.
- Recommended Ages: 14 on up
- Time to Play: 2-3 hours.
- Time to Learn: 2-5 hours.
Features
- Streamlined segmented movement system gives you full control over when you fire Vector movement system with constant acceleration, fuel and orbital mechanics.
- Altitude and attitude markers that let you visualize your ship’s pitch and roll on the board.
- Accurate power management system gives recharge rates for batteries, and thermodynamic endurance for power generation.
- Kinetic weapon system that accurately scales damage by the square of the impact velocity, while keeping the map clear of counter-clutter.
Setting
The Ten Worlds setting grew out of a “great game” played through a Yahoo Group, where players would write (or rewrite) news stories as pertained to events on the governments of their worlds, building forward from that fateful day in February 2214 when ships from Earth stopped returning.
Fifty years of history, trade embargoes, alliances and random chaos factors introduced by the moderators resulted in a deeply nuanced setting, where the ten colony worlds of Earth struggled at the abyss of the Long Night and, for now, hold on to the edges, attempting to make economies work...and saddled with fleets of warships leftover from before the Loss.
Downloads
Attack Vector: Tactical Demo Flyer PDF
A double-sided flyer showing the four key points of the 3-D movement engine used in AV:T, SITS, and Squadron Strike. It includes a walk-through of a firing solution in 3-D.
VMS Versus Attack Vector PDF
One of the questions I get is "Why do you track thrust, rather than simply assume that the displacement on the turn of thrust is equal to the change in velocity, like VMS and Full Thrust?"
The download above shows why this simplification isn't really much of a simplification, and why it results in gaping holes in the veracity of the simulation.
Red vs. Blue Tilt Blocks, 4 vs. 4 PDF
Eight "origami" style tilt blocks, four each of red and blue, with instructions for assembling them.
Attack Vector: Tactical—Tutorial PDF
You can learn how to play using the tutorial from the Attack Vector Tactical 2.0 rulebook. This also includes the table of contents for the complete rulebook and an introduction.
Complete Tutorial with All Supporting Files ZIP
Includes the tutorial, bearing tutorial, both sample ships, box miniatures, ship control cards, movement and weapon play aids, and the Range-Angle Lookup Table, all in one convenient PDF. The PDF is zipped to keep the file size down (it's only a little larger than the single tutorial file, but you have to unzip it).
Bearing Tutorial PDF
Examples of how to shoot bearings, in addition to those in the main tutorial.
Master Ship Chart PDF
This is the master ship chart for all ships in the game; it includes the volume and page number, as well as important information for setting up scenarios.
This is the index for the entire game, referencing topics by rule number.
SML(F) Mark 1 Hosni al-Rafik Class Multi-Role Fighter
A spheroid frigate used by the Medinan Star Force with a full class history on the facing page. This is a high-end frigate (arguably the best one in its price range) and is used for demos around the country, along with the Wasp.
Wasp Class Fast Attack Destroyer
A cylindrical frigate used by the Olympian Defense Forces Space Arm for fleet fire support, this version has the full class history on the facing page. It's given as a dueling partner to the Rafik class above.
Box Minis PDF
This PDF has 5 box minis with the production artwork for the Rafik and Wasp, four "origami" style tilt blocks, and instructions for assembling them. Best printed on card stock, but we've used plenty of plain paper ones.
Deluxe Ship Control Card Play Aids PDF
The deluxe version of the Ship Control Cards for Attack Vector: Tactical that come with the second edition. There are two play aids in this file, one blue (with A on top) and one red (with D on top). Print them double-sided, laminate them, and then trim them. If you trim first, and carefully, you can generally put 4 of these sheets in an 11x17 pouch at Kinkos.
The front side has all the maneuver information, including a worksheet for the new orbital mechanics rules. The back side has an improved seeking weapon launch work sheet, heat tracking, and damage control tracking.
Movement, Weapon and Shellstar Pages Zipped PDF
The movement card has the remainder grids for horizontal and vertical vector allocation, as well as the master sequence of play for the entire game.
The weapon card has all the weapons in the primary AV:T boxed game, including coilguns, laser tables and nuclear proximity and zone defense weaponry tables. The Shellstar card has 6 shellstars for launching ballistic weapons. We recommend printing many of them, or printing a few and laminating them.
Range-Angle Lookup Table PDF
This is a table of the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating ranges along the slant; it's also been color coded to indicate which AVID ring the target is visible through. Completely optional, it's for people who are more comfortable with table lookups than rules-of-thumb.