SBminisguy, they're surprisingly different, in large part because AV:T breaks game turns down into eight segments. There's very little range band jumping, you see your pivots go window by window, you get to react segment-by-segment, and so forth. Importantly, how often a weapon can fire is measured in segments, not turns. The Rafik's 3MRLSes can fire every fifth segment, while the Wasp's 4SRLSes fire every eight segments (one full turn). This means that you can't just compare weapons on how much damage they can do in one shot, since those medium range lasers fire almost twice as often as the short range lasers. (Differences can be a lot more subtle, though.)
Power and heat are another difference. In Squadron Strike, you generate Action Points with Bridge or Auxiliary Reactor boxes; some weapons need APs to fire, or to use special traits, etc. In AV:T:
Batteries power weapons
Reactors recharge batteries
Reactors generate waste heat that has to be stored in heat sinks
Radiators can dissipate heat from radiators (very slow, and not when you thrust or pivot, and they take a full turn to extend before you can use them, and a full turn to retract after using them, and they get hit automatically if in range of enemy weapons … so they don't get used a lot)
When your heat sinks reach capacity, you start overheating your ship, which causes increasing problems. It's both realistic and a bit like Battletech. The result is a "heat clock" on combats. You can only run the reactors so long before the ship overheats, which means that you can only generate so much energy before the ship overheats, which means that you can only power your weapons so many times before your ship overheats.
Check out David's other recent posts as "TrotskyTrotsky" on the BGG page for AV:T
link
and his videos
link
You can download the tutorial pack and try it for yourself: link
, a big step for his Grey Knights.
