There is a widely held
opinion that wizkids hates Romulans – It is not a view to which I subscribe.
For a long time the Romulans seemed like an underpowered faction that lacked
the firepower of the Klingons or the options presented by the Federation. It’s
very easy to forget that for a long time the Dominion were the ugly stepchild
in the game – at least up until wave 2 (for those of you who have only come
into the game recently, the first 4 or so waves were 4 ship releases every two
months, rather than 3 ships every month, so up until wave 2 is actually longer
than it might at first seem). I remember reading a blog a couple of years back
where the author (I can’t find the blog at the moment, If I do I’ll credit it
at the end) was talking about how to make Romulans competitive in the old
non-3/50 environment, and he was quite happy running a single D’Deridex and a
Valdore, arguing that this was sufficient to survive in the pre-Borg world.
Anyway, enough dispelling misconceptions, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for
your enjoyment, the Romulans!
“The Romulans were a humanoid race from the
planet Romulus. The Romulans were biological cousins of Vulcans, as they were
descended from those who rejected Surak's reforms during the Time of Awakening.
The Romulan Star Empire was the Romulan state and one of the major powers known
in the galaxy.”
Romulan Ships
The standard Romulan
ship is the D’deridex class Warbird, seen in ST:AW as the Khazara, Aj’Rmr,
Haakona and Avatar of Tomed. At 3-2-6-4 with the cloaking action bar, it is a
serviceable ship that from the very start of the game has suffered from having
low firepower whilst still being costly (30 for the named, 28 for the Generic).
That being said, the 4 Hull and 2 Evade on a cloaking ship is nice from the
survivability point of view, and with some of the upgrades that Romulans have,
it’s becoming more and more efficient at surviving incoming fire. The other
early release that the Romulans had was the IRW Valdore, which for a time was
one of the best ships in the game: 6 green manoeuvers on the dial with a come
about, a great cloaking ship with 6 hull, 2 evade and only 2 shields on the
generic, plus a PWV of 4, 5 on the named with its ship ‘perk’ of gaining +1 red
dice on a turn in which you complete a green manoeuvre.
The 28-30 point ship
has almost become the Romulan standard ship size, unlike most other factions
that have the majority of their ships in the 24-28 point range. The only Romulan
ship in that range is the Prototype 01, an odd 24 point ship with 3-3-3-3 and a
Scan, Target Lock & Evade action bar. The prototype is not the kind of ship
that you want to run straight at the enemy, and since it doesn’t have cloak, it
isn’t as survivable as its bigger brothers. It is the perfect minelayer, and
often finds itself in Romulan fleets in that role.
Below that in terms of
points cost are the Birds of Prey, the Vorta Vor and Gal Gath’thong, both are
2-2-3-2 and come in at a mighty 18 points. The Gal Gath’ong makes a brilliant
torpedo boat thanks to its ‘perk’ of being able to fire Plasma Torpedoes
without a target lock, particularly with the new Plasma Torpedoes from the Vrax
pack (listen to the Warpcore Breach Podcast to find out more!). Both of the
Birds of Prey act as pretty good secondary antagonisers, but are a little too
big to be support ships, thankfully the Romulans have good support ships in
spades.
Both the Romulan Scout
Vessel and the Romulan Science Vessel are cheap enough to become great support
ships. At between 12 and 16 points, the generic/named versions of these two
ships provide a really cheap base upon which to build a support ship. The
generic science vessel offers the cheaper option, but for that you get no
benefits outside of the 1-2-2-1 spaceframe, if you ever have a spare 4 points,
I’d suggest the named RIS Vo Scout Vessel, that gives a free evade action in
exchange for not firing (and IMHO, support ships are better off staying cloaked
and not firing).
The final Romulan ship
worth mentioning is the Scimitar. Popular on the first day of the ST:AW World
Championships at Origins, the Scimitar is the big beast of the Romulan fleet at
6-2-7-4 with a ship ‘perk’ that works functionally the same as the Advanced
Cloaking upgrade – you can choose to remain cloaked when firing if you take an
Auxiliary Power Token (APT). The Scimitar revolutionised the Romulans in so far
as it gave them a real heavy hitter to go alongside the survivable but
pillow-fisted D’Deridex and Valdore. The Valdore is perhaps the most manoeuvrable
non-borg 6 PWV ship, when compared to the Dominion Jem’Hadar Battleship it is a
veritable ballerina!
Romulans in general
have good Manoeuvre dials, although not as across the board manoeuvrable as the
Klingons. The D’Deridex has all white manoeuvers except for a red reverse
rather than the customary come about. It’s difficult to classify the Romulan
fleet except to say that they have Big Ships, Very Big Ships and Small Ships,
with nothing really in between, and that’s always been the weakness of Romulan
Fleets.
Romulan Captains
Most factions have a
stand out captain, mainly when they improve the action economy of a build. The
Federation have Mr Spock and Picard 9, Dominion have Dukat 7, Klingons Martok
8, Borg Queen 8 and even Vulcans Soval and Bajorans Kira 5. All of these
captains offer greater action economy in some way or other that really helps to
build the combos that make a fleet worthwhile. Romulans lack a stand-out action
efficiency captain of the type that other fleets enjoy. That isn’t to say that
all of their captains are bad, since Toreth, Salatrel, Valdore, Liviana
Charvanek, Mirok, and Letant all have something to offer, but what they offer
is less immediately viable than say Picard 9. The other thing that Romulans
struggle with is high Captain Skill (CS). Romulan Commander, Shinzon and
Salatrel all help in this regard, but only really Shinzon makes the elite group
of CS 9 captains. This means that Romulans have to struggle to get that really
high captain skill that should be (IMHO) the most important factor when
choosing captains. I like Liviana Charvanek since she works well with the
Romulan Security Officer from the Haakona expansion – Each security officer
offers a +1 bonus to CS, and can be disabled to grant a re-roll on defence.
This pairs well with Charvanek since her ‘perk’ is to roll a defence dice when a
crew is disabled in order to stop in from disabling. This is great as it will
help keep her captain skill up, and avoid having to re-enable those crew,
solving both the action economy and captain skill problem simultaneously!
Romulan Crew
A major identifying
factor of Romulan Crew when compared with other factions is that they are
usually non-unique. This means that multiple ships can have multiple copies of
a similar upgrade, making them more flexible than the crew of other factions.
Be it Tactical Officers, Helmsmen, Pilots, or security Officers, you can use
them without fear of paying an opportunity cost elsewhere. That’s a fantastic
trait to have as a faction and with the release of the new Bridge Officer, it
makes things even better!
Of the un-named Crew,
Varel is an old favourite that helps to cancel enemy attacks, which works even
better with Centurion (another generic card) that can stop her from discarding.
Romulan Tech
The real strength of
the Romulan faction lies in tech, particularly with Cloaked Mines and
Interphase Generator. Cloaked Mines are potentially the best card in the game
at the moment, and allow for great board control, whilst Interphase Generator helps
big hulled Romulan ships to survive even longer. There are other upgrades, like
advanced cloaking, that see some use, but more often than not these two tech
upgrades will be the ones competing for space in the somewhat sparse Romulan
Tech Slots.
Romulan Weapons
Lots of Torpedoes, and
a few more interesting upgrades like Disruptor Beams and Disruptor pulse that
help to improve the damage output of Romulans. As with most factions though,
you’d rather have huge PWV than spend points on action sapping secondary
weapons, that is at least until the new time-token Secondary Torpedoes came out
with the Vrax pack, making Romulan Torpedoes all the more efficient!
So, what is the
Romulan Faction identity?
1.
No Medium
Ships
2.
Generic
Crew
3.
Poor
Action Economy
4.
Lots of
Board Control and Attack Cancellation to frustrate the enemy
Romulans are the
sneaky faction, the one that takes some finesse to play – or the fleet that
runs double Scimitars and wrecks face!
Until Next Time,
I’m still not Picard.
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