States

One of the most taxing parts of a tabletop wargame is keeping track of the states of various aspects of the game. To bound the complexity of this problem in Jovian Wars, there are three major time windows during which a model may be affected by one or more effects or states:

• During an Activation - Something a player chooses to do may apply some effect or state to a model, and this state will disappear at the end of the current model's activation. These effects should be simple enough to keep in players' working memories and should require no physical memory aids.
• During a Turn - A model may have an effect that lasts throughout an entire game turn. In this case a Token may be placed next to a model as a memory aid, and most tokens will be removed during a turn's End Phase.
• During a Game - Any effect or state that lasts the entirety of a game should be tracked exclusively on a model's Unit Card. This provides for a single source of truth when tracking damage, negative status effects, etc. and will keep the play space uncluttered.

Of course, it's never that simple, and some states and state changes do not fit nicely into the above model, such as In Reserve and Embarked. When possible, however, the rules hold to the above three timing windows.

States generally have requirements to enter a state as well as conditions for cancelling a state.

Here you will find some general gameplay states. States which correspond to an Action or [Trait] will be found with the appropriate rule.

Captured

Control of a Captured model goes to the player who successfully Boarded it, and the Boarders rating becomes the new Marines rating of the ship, to a maximum of the original Marines rating of the ship.

As a Captured model becomes Captured before the original owning player declares moves and attacks or resolves Actions, the new owner may choose whether or not to resolve the chosen action, but may not change the action for this activation.

A Captured model may be subject to a [Boarding] action by its original owner in attempt to regain control.

• A Captured ship is worth 1.5x points for its captor at the end of the game for Victory Points Purposes.
• A Captured ship is reduced to Fire Control: 1.
• During its activation, a ship may engage in Movement and Attack as normal, taking into account any damage it may have suffered.
• A Captured ship may only take the following Actions:
  • Repair(/traits#repair)(/action/repair)
  • Withdraw

Crippled

A Capital Ship with 0 remaining Structure is considered Crippled.

If a Crippled ship remains on the table, i.e. not Dead or Exploded, it obeys the following rules:

• A Crippled ship are worth 0 points for Victory Points purposes, unless it successfully Withdraws.
• A Crippled ship is reduced to Fire Control: 1.
• During its activation, a ship may engage in Movement and Attack as normal, taking into account any damage it may have suffered.
• A Crippled ship may only take the following Actions:
  • Repair(/traits#repair)(/action/repair)
  • Withdraw

While is it not possible under any circumstances for a Capital Ship to cancel the Crippled state by itself, a Capital Ship successfully repaired by a ship with the Dock(/traits#dock) trait may exit the Crippled state.

Each Crippled ship rolls on the Catastrophic Damage table when:

• The ship loses its last Structure and enters the Crippled state for the first time.
• You start the Deployment Phase of a turn.
• The ship would lose another point of Structure (ships cannot be reduced below zero Structure).

Destroyed

A Squadron with 0 remaining Structure rating is considered Destroyed and is removed from the game.

A Capital Ship that has suffered the Dead or Explode results on the Catastrophic Damage Table is considered Destroyed and is removed from the game.

Destroyed models are worth 0 points for Victory Points purposes.

Embarked

Models may start the game In Reserve or Embarked. The presence or absence of a model in the Embarked state at the start of the game is secret information, along with its unit card.

Squadrons may be Embarked on any model with the Hangers(/traits#hangers) trait. If the scenario allows, Capital Ships may be similarly Embarked on models with the Dock(/traits#dock) trait.

In both cases, the number of Embarked models may not exceed the limits as specified by the relevant trait.

If the scenario allows, it is possible to have Squadrons Embarked on Capital Ship that is itself Embarked.

As with the Reserve state, models that are Embarked are considered to be off the table until they are placed on the table with a Launch action.

States which apply to Embarked models are tracked normally, e.g. damage persists, any state that would expire at the end of turn expires at that time, etc.

Once a model has been on the table, its unit card as well as its presence or absence aboard a ship is public information when it is Embarked as well as on the table.

In Reserve

Models may start the game In Reserve or Embarked. The presence or absence of a model in the In Reserve state at the start of the game is secret information, along with its unit card.

Model In Reserve are placed off the table until they are deployed in a deployment phase. Models that are off the table may not Attack or use Actions. They are considered to be on approach to the area of operations.

Withdrawn

A ship that has successfully executed the Withdraw action enters the Withdrawn state and is removed from play.

For the purposes of Victory Points a Withdrawn ship is worth 0.5x its points.