Hunting Season is Open

Star Trek is full of warrior races: Klingons became honourable at some point between TOS and TNG but remained a warrior race; Kazon were the overwhelmingly war-like race of the first 2 seasons of voyager; the Jem'Hadr were a race bred for war in season 3-7 of Deep Space Nine, the list goes on. One thing that was touched on in Deep Space Nine, and then expanded on in Voyager, was the idea of a hunter-race. The Deep Space Nine version appeared in one episode (Captive Pursuit) and was never mentioned again (the episode isn't well thought of amongst fans of DS9); but the Voyager version, the Hirogen, appeared in 9 episodes including the fantastic 2-parter "The Killing Game". (Sidenote: One thing that Voyager did very well was the two part episode, there are some fantastic episodes like Year of Hell as well as the end/opening of season double headers, like Scorpion and Equinox).

In terms of ST:AW, the Hirogen are represented by the Alpha Hunter expansion pack - a pack that has seen quite a lot of negative press, but one that I like a great deal.

Ship:
Alpha Hunter/Hirogen Warship.

The slashline of 4/2/3/4 is an interesting one - mainly because of the low hull value and slightly above average evade. when you consider that 4/1/3/3 is the slashline for a named B'rel, it isn't hard to draw comparisons with the Klingon fleet. The difference here is that it has the standard federation action bar (EM/TL/Sc/BS) as opposed to the Cloaker action bar (SE/Cl/TL/EM). This makes it better, since green dice are rightfully notoriously inconsistent, and 2 evade dice with BS conversions works out as only half an evade worse than a 5 dice cloaked evade roll with no quality, and you still have the use of those shields, can use BS as an attacking modifier and have access to scan for those minefield games. In addition, the usual advantage of having a cloaker's action bar, the ability to sensor echo, is countered in the case of the named alpha hunter with the ship's own named ability. Whilst limited to range 1, the ability to do a sensor echo as a free action, makes the Alpha Hunter a very manoeuvrable ship, with many of the advantages of a cloaked ship, whilst suffering few of the disadvantages. Having only 3 hull also gives opportunities to use some interesting in-faction tech, notably Improved Deflector Screens. Overall though, it's an expensive ship given how fragile it is.

Grade: B-

Captains:

Karr is truly one of the best independent faction captains. CS 8 is, in itself, a good starting point, but having 2 Elite Talent slots and a named ability that takes advantage of that high captain skill (Karr is one of few cards in the game with the ability to re-roll dice more than once) make Karr a fixture of independent builds. Effectively, Karr's named ability bumps the Alpha Hunter up to a slash line of 5/2/3/4, which is not to be sniffed at, and being on a 3 hull ship means he could benefit (in cross faction play at least) from Mirror Admiral Worf's additional activation phase attack. 

Grade: A-

Alpha Hirogen is another solid captain: CS6 is not to be sniffed at, he has a talent slot, and the named ability is one of the better named abilities (Converting a blank to a hit is the statistical equivalent of a re-roll on a 4 dice attack) - but what makes the Alpha Hirogen truly fantastic is his non-unique nature. If you fancy putting him on more than one ship, you can! Few 4 point captains are better, in any faction.

Grade: B

Crew:

The only crew in this pack is Turanj, who has some uses but isn't fantastic. Swapping a crew slot for a weapon slot is sometimes useful, but ultimately doesn't seem that worthwhile, particularly with the much better Sakonna in faction. The second part of the card is very situational, and almost forces you to play Turanj on a ship with a generic captain, so that you can make the captain switch at any point. 

Grade: C-

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes are pretty standard fare, and aren't even of the more useful timed variety.

Grade; D-

Subnucleonic Beam is an interesting card, that allows damage to have the additional effect of disabling crew. Unlike the much more expensive Thaleron Weapon, though, the crew are not discarded and the captain cannot be affected. For 5 points and a disable this card become too situational to use in OP play.

Grade: C

Tech:

Montanium Armor Plating is a much underused card, in the author's opinion. Having this 3 point upgrade on your ship gives you a 75% chance of avoiding an opponent's target lock, thus robbing them of both an action and dice efficiency. Often, people will say that if this is the case then they'll choose a BS action instead, but when you consider that this isn't an option for Borg, Cardassian Galor Class ships, Romulans and Klingons (in the majority of cases) the value of MAP goes up. It goes up further when you consider that it essentially stops people from using Transphasic Torpedoes, Chronoton Torpedoes and other Target Lock requiring secondary weapons. The second effect that MAP has is to allow you to remove a TL from beside your ship at the cost of an Action/disable. This means that, even if you fail the roll, you can remove the target lock in your own activation, should you activate after your opponent. 

Grade: A-

Sensor Network is less useful than MAP, and competes for a tech slot with other in-faction goodies, like Improved Deflector Screens. Dial peeking cards have some utility, and this one is better than most since it allows you to alter your own manoeuvre too, but a good pilot doesn't need them, and even a bad one only needs them situationally.

Grade: C

Elite Talents:

Full reverse is a lovely cheap talent that allows you to swap your own manoeuvre with a 1 or 2 reverse as a white manoeuvre. Whilst only situationally useful, being able to pull a trick like this can really alter the game in your favour if triggered at the right time.

Grade; B

Intercept Course is a little too expensive for what it is, but having a BS action as a free action is useful, and a more reliable use for the card than it's manoeuvre changing ability - which is situational. 

Grade: C+

Stalking mode may be the best card in the entire pack. One of few cards that has a continuous effect upon the entire game, it can be used to lower an opponent's CS and gain an additional attack dice when targeting said ship. Combined with Karr's ability to gain a dice when attacking an opponent with a lower CS, this could boost the attacking power of the Alpha Hunter to 6 dice a turn - nothing to be sniffed at! This is a fantastic hard counter to builds that rely on high CS to alpha strike an opponent, and when deployed to the same ship as Karr, it makes CS 9 captains worried.

Grade: A

So, if I'm building a fleet based on the Alpha Hunter (and faction pure Independent) I might consider something like the following:

Alpha Hunter [Alpha Hunter] (26)

Karr [Alpha Hunter] (5)Full Reverse [Alpha Hunter] (2)Stalking Mode [Alpha Hunter] (5)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (45)

Hirogen Warship [Alpha Hunter] (24)Hirogen [Alpha Hunter] (0)Turanj [Alpha Hunter] (3)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (34)

Hirogen Warship [Alpha Hunter] (24)Alpha Hirogen [Alpha Hunter] (4)Intercept Course [Alpha Hunter] (4)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (39)

Fleet total: 118 with 2 points to use as you feel fit.

As always, I'd be pleased to hear people's thoughts,

I'm still not Picard though.