For the Prophets!

One of the major criticisms of Faction Pure play is that the smaller factions have difficulty keeping up with the larger factions. Including blind boosters and OP prizes, the Federation Faction has access to 20 different expansions, the Borg 12, Dominion 13, Romulans 12 and Klingons 14. Even the Mirror Universe has 8 expansions to choose from, whilst (at time of writing) Ferengi have 2 (with one due soon) Bajorans and Kazon 3 and Vulcans 4. How on earth are these smaller factions meant to compete with the other factions when the other larger factions have so much more to choose from? 

One of the great things about faction pure play is that the character of each race really comes out in their fleet builds, all of the factions have strengths and weaknesses that can’t be mitigated by cross-factioned cards. Obviously the criticism therein is that in a truly competitive environment, people will ignore these weaker factions and they’ll never see play at all, whilst in a mixed faction environment cards like Li Nalas and Quark see play relatively frequently, proving that to get the most out of every expansion, you really should play mixed factions. I get this, and have enjoyed the (relatively few) mixed faction games that I’ve had in the past, but I wanted to try to make Bajorans playable in a Faction Pure environment. 

With Borg in fleet pure suffer from a low –and dropping- choice of captain skills to counter-balance their high durability and firepower, the Klingons do the Alpha Strike really well, but not much else, the Federation have access to the best crew and captains in the game and their sheer number of expansions means that they can tool a fleet to do whatever the commander wants it to do with little difficulty (NB: To start with the federation were plagued by low PWV and ships without much ability to effectively evade. As the number of expansions available to them has increased the number of faction defining weaknesses have become fewer and fewer to the extent that, rightly, some argue that Federation sit proudly atop the faction rankings in pure play) and Romulans have loads of sneeky abilities like interphase generators, cloaked mines and Muon Feedback pulses. Bajorans have only 3 named ships in their particular faction tool box (leaving aside Deep Space 9 for now) and all of them are fragile, low firepower and high agility. 

A brief look at what the Bajorans have to offer:

1. The Akorem

Kira Nerys (CS5), Tahna Los (CS5), Day Kannu, Li Nalas, Blockade, I am Kohn-Ma

2. Interceptor 5

Hazar (CS7), Lenaris Holem (CS3), Anara, Neela, Manoeuvrability, Warp Drive Refit, Phaser Strike, Militia

3. The Ratosha

Day Kannu (CS4), Jaro Essa (CS2), Krim (CS6), More Than Meets the Eye, Provisional Government, Assault Vessel Upgrade, Bajoran Militia

Others: 

Kira Nerys (CS3) (USS Defiant Expansion)

Deep Space 9

Some people have written some really interesting and potentially devastating builds based on Deep Space 9 and Bajoran Militia (5 attack dice basic and then potentially an additional 3 for Bajoran Militia with Kira on another ship to grant that attack a Target Lock and hence some quality) and that is an option available to you, but I decided when I sat down to write this post that I’d wilfully ignore the former-Cardassian space station in favour of looking at what the ships themselves had to offer.

As I said above, the fleet benefits are high maouveability and low cost, which makes me think the way to go maybe a swarm.

Ratosha [Ratosha] (18)

Kira Nerys [Akorem] (3)

More Than Meets the Eye [Ratosha] (1)

Assault Vessel Upgrade [Ratosha] (4)

Total (26)

Akorem [Akorem] (18)

Tahna Los [Akorem] (3)

Adm Jaro Essa [Ratosha] (1)

Militia [Interceptor Five] (3)

Blockade [Akorem] (5)

Assault Vessel Upgrade [Ratosha] (4)

Total (34)

Bajoran Interceptor [Interceptor Five] (16)

Bajoran Captain [Interceptor Five] (0)

Phaser Strike [Interceptor Five] (4)

Total (20)

Bajoran Interceptor [Interceptor Five] (16)

Bajoran Captain [Interceptor Five] (0)

Phaser Strike [Interceptor Five] (4)

Total (20)

Interceptor 5 [Interceptor Five] (16)

Bajoran Captain [Interceptor Five] (0)

Phaser Strike [Interceptor Five] (4)

Total (20)

Fleet total: 120

The idea here is to keep the fleet together and trigger Blockade and Kira to allow the whole fleet to take a Target Lock, whilst gaining +1 attack and defence dice. The Interceptors then take the phaser strike action to attack at CS 10 with the benefit of Target Lock and blockade. Kira’s Ratosha gets BS (and Scan if needs be) whilst the Akorem has the TL and Militia. If everything clicks you get the following:

Ratosha – 4 Dice + BS and Scan

Akorem – 6 Dice + BS and TL

1st Generic Interceptor – 4 dice + TL

2nd Generic Interceptor – 4 dice + TL

Interceptor 5 – 4 dice + TL

That’s 22 attack dice with some quality; a potent alpha strike that could potentially cripple the main enemy ship before it has had a chance to fire. Not the best possible build in the world, but certainly not weak!

In the hands of a good pilot, with the right combination of upgrades, the Bajorans can be a competitive fleet, even if they don’t have all the tricks that the big 5 have.

As always, comments are welcome, it’s been an interesting time thinking about how to make Bajorans work.

I’m still not Picard,

D