A Blast from the Past!: The Starter Set

For those of you who are paying attention, I've been writing a series of posts doing retrospective reviews of wave zero, both to show how good they were at the time, and how good they have become in the 2 year intervening period since their release. On the Facebook group this week Herethere has been discussion of the relative strength of the ships available in the Starter Set, which has inspired me to consider the starter set's cards in a new light. Seeing as all that was available for the first two months of release of the game was the Starter set, Wave Zero and the first 2 prize ships, it makes sense to do a review of the Starter Set too (and possibly the first two prize ships too).



The starter set itself has a distinctly TNG feel to it, featuring three stalwarts of the Next Generation: the Enterprise-D, the Romulan D'Deridex class Warbird and the Vor'Cha class Attack Cruiser. As with all my reviews I'm writing mainly from a Faction Pure viewpoint, although I do sometimes consider cross faction abilities and synergies too. Please don't damn me for missing on the best cross-faction combo, since I don't regularly play cross-faction, I'm not as clued up on it as I am with Faction pure.



So, to the review itself:

Ships:



Enterprise-D/Galaxy Class

For a long time the Galaxy Class was the workhorse of Federation fleets, since its 4 PWV was higher than any subsequent release for the faction up to the USS Voyager (for reference, that's the Tinyprise, Reliant, Defiant, Excelsior and Equinox). The other thing that made the Enterprise-D a staple was its named ability, to fire at 360 with -1 attack dice. Up to the release of the Enterprise-E, with its Dorsal Phaser Array (so that's another 4 waves, Voyager, Enterprise-refit and NX-01, as well as those rarest of things, the wave-with-no-fed-releases) there wasn't really any way to get 360 fire for Federation outside of the E-D's named ability and Voyager's named ability. It does also have a 90/90 arc natively, so is a good way of maintaining coverage, with a simple torpedo upgrade (yeah, I know) the E-D can fire 90 forward and 90 rear at range 3 together with the other 180 degrees (90 left and right) being covered at range 2. All of this goes to make up for the horrendous dial that the E-D has, with no white turns to speak of. Although it does have 5 green manoeuvres, that go well with the Federation Elite Talent from this pack. The generic loses the 360, but thanks to Dorsal Phaser Array, can now be used to much the same effect (except without losing the red die) for an additional 5 points (which means that you essentially pay a weapon slot, a shield and 3 points to avoid losing a single red die, that you get back at range 1 anyway). Slots wise the E-D has 3 crew (good) 2 weapons (meh) and no tech. With so many ways in the game now to get additional tech slots, namely systems upgrade, which can go in one of those superfluous weapons slots, it becomes 3 Crew, 1 Weapon, 1 Tech without much effort. The Generic Galaxy loses a weapon, which isn't so much of a big deal.

Grades: Named B-, Generic C

IKH Maht'h'a/Vor'cha Class



With a stat line of 5/1/5/3(2) the Maht'h'a has a lot going for it straight out of the gate. With a standard cloaker action bar, the Vor'cha doesn't suffer too much from having a low shield value, and it has a dial to die for: 6 green manoeuvres, white hard 2 turns as well as a come about and hard 3 turns in red, it is relatively nimble for a ship of its capabilities. The named ability is one that you will use frequently, but won't set the world on fire (enemy ships lose 1 die at range 1 when attacking this ship). For slots it has 2 crew, 1 tech and 1 weapon, which is serviceable - the generic loses a crew slot, which is a shame but not impossible to get around.

Grades: Named B-, Generic B-

IRW Khazara/D'Deridex Class



The Red-Headed Step Sister of the starter set is the Romulan Warbird. With a slashline of 3/2/6/4(3) the firepower is lower than on the other ships in the starter set. This is offset somewhat by the named ability (+1 red die when firing whilst cloaked). The Slots are pretty good too, with 3 crew, 1 tech and 1 weapon. Dial-wise, the D'Deridex is pretty good, with the standard 4 green, white 2 and 3 hard turns and a red 1 reverse. Coverage is pretty bad, and is another big let down for this ship, as it only has a 90 forward arc. With new weapons upgrades like Disruptor Pulse and Disruptor beams, the Khazara gets better, since the named ability works on all attacks whilst cloaked, rather than just one. The tech slot is also a good place for either Interphase Generator (from the RIS Apnex) or Advanced Cloaking (from the Vorta Vor) so the Khazara has improved over time. Still not as good as either of the other ships in the release (The generic loses a shield and a crew slot).

Grades: Named C, Generic C-

Captains:



Jean-Luc Picard 9 is the best single card in the game. He offers action efficiency, high CS and can put BS on a non BS ship if used cross-faction. During the Borg Supremacy, he was often found piloting Borg Spheres, but even in faction he is a fantastic way to double up on actions for fantastic attack dice efficiency. There isn't much to say here, Picard is the best. Make it so.

Grade: A+

William T Riker is the other Federation Captain here, and his CS is a little lower at 6, with an action that allows you to counter attack. It isn't an action you'll use every turn, and as a card it has gotten worse as time has gone on, simply because taking William D Riker (the D denoting the ship he comes with) stops you from taking William H Riker (Hathaway) William P Riker (Pegasus) and William H Riker (Hood) all of whom are better.

Grade: C-



The Klingon Captain is the infamous fat klingon, Nu'Daq. Nu'Daq is only skill 5, but his ability is great on the Maht'h'a, as it allows one BS result to be converted to a hit. Based on probabilities (which are somewhat dodgy here) you should only roll 1 or 2 BS results per 5 dice attack from the Maht'h'a and since he doesn't cost an action, you can still take a TL for almost as good dice efficiency as you would get with TL and BS.

Grade: B-



Toreth is the Romulan captain in this pack, and she has a nice ability, converting a normal hit into a critical hit, and a good CS of 4. She doesn't blow me away, but she has good utility for 4 SP.

Grade: B

Crew:

Data was an early game staple, who could significantly improve the survivability of a boat like the E-D. Essentially Data transferred power from the weapons to the engines to allow for more evasion and as a thematic card, Data is brilliant. In terms of his ability in the game, it was good for all of a week, before the Tinyprise came into the game and gave us Sulu. Then, with the rise of Mag Charges, Data got better again, since Evade tokens work against MGCs and evade dice don't. I still think Data is useful, but has to be built around, and is somewhat situational.

Grade: B-

Worf is another card that was good until a better version came along. He allows you to re-roll all of the dice from your attack, a good ability although you have to re-roll all of your dice. I like this as a rubber dice ability, you have a terrible roll, and then you disable Worf to re-roll. It isn't an action, and since you won't need this ability every turn, you can re-enable the card whenever, rather than having to use phlox/Crusher or ERiker/Doctor to re-enable him every turn. He'll also come in handy when you need to guarantee a kill shot. Having said all of this, Chekov is better, if slightly different.

Grade: C-

Geordi is the weakest of the Federation crew upgrades in this pack as he is action sapping and doesn't prove 4 points worth. In addition to that, his other versions from the Big E and Hathaway are better.

Grade: D

Miles O'Brien is an Action/Discard  ganker, who only disables, but can be used on any upgrade. At 2 points he is somewhat interesting, and works against cloaked ships and ships with shields - he also has range 3. I think this is a good combo breaker, and having talked to David Montgomery about the subject, Combo Breaking is something that people need to fall back in love with as the Meta stands at the moment.

Grade: C+

The first Klingon crewman is Klag, an Action/Discard Teleporting Ganker that only works on crew. He's only a point, but with all the restrictions on him, I'll pass.

Grade: F

Konmel is a repair card that has some utility. He only works on shields (and thus requires you to be uncloaked) but there are no other restrictions. You don't have to be out of firing arc, you don't have to perform a green manoeuvre or be in range 1 of a friendly ship. As an action, heal a shield. Job Done.

Grade: C

Romulans have a card, Bochra, that does exactly the same as Klag. Read above to find out what I think.

Grade: F

The second Romulan crew upgrade in the pack is often overlooked. At 2SP and an Action (and disabled shield) for a single extra red die, N'Vek's ability doesn't seem that great, but since there is no expectation of firing with primary weapons, he has some utility as a secondary weapon boosting card if you can find a way of getting around his action cost. In cross faction play, certainly, you could potentially use ERiker/Phlox/Crusher to get the action for free each round, on a Borg Ship with Mag Charges, captained by Gul Macet or Lemec, with a fleet that included Donatra and Admiral Hayes, you could potentially get 7 dice Mag Charges...but that's a lot of points to spend for it. Overall, I think N'Vek has untapped potential, but as it stands right now, he needs too much investment to make him work.

Grade: D-

Tech:

No Federation tech in the starter, since the E-D doesn't have a tech slot, so first, the Klingons, who have two tech choices. The first is Tractor Beam, which I reviewed in the Negh'Var expansion review, so won't go into again here, the second is Advanced Weapon System, essentially allowing you to remain cloaked indefinitely, but at the cost of an action every round. For 5 points it is very expensive and action intensive. At the begginning of the game, when cloak was king, it was a worthwhile upgrade. Now, where PWVs are high enough to burn through cloak easily, I'd give it a miss.

Grade: D

The Romulan Tech offering is Artificial Quantum Singularity, which is okay, but expensive at 3 points. Problem is, scan as an action is so rare, that you'll rarely get much use out of this upgrade. As time has gone on, the competition for Tech Slots has gotten more and more fierce for Romulans especially. and if you take AQS over Interphase Generator or Advanced Cloaking, let alone Cloaked Mines, then you are doing something wrong!

Grade: D

Weapons:

I don't like non-tine token photon torpedoes, even if they do get a +1 when firing from a Vor'Cha class ship. So both the Federation and Klingon versions of Photons in this set will get a pass from me.

Grades: Klingons F/Federation F

Plasma torpedoes suffer from the same action economy problems as Photon Torpedoes, but the advantage here is that they don't lose out on the dice efficiency. Trouble is, I like the timed versions so much better, so I'll be passing on these too.

Grade: D-

Elite Talents:

The only elite talent in this pack is Engage, which has tremendous synergy with both Picard and the Enterprise D. It is an action, but that isn't as much of a problem with Picard, and it also requires a ship with a good set of green maneouvres, which the E-D has. This card is less effective than it was on first release because it is perhaps not as useful as Admiral Forrest's fleet action, but if you want to use your admiral slot for someone else, then Engage is a fairly good alternative.

Grade: C+

So there you have it, the final (or first) piece of the ST;AW puzzle, the starter set. I plan to do another blog post in the near future wrapping up my "Blast from the Past!" series, but for now, there you have it.

All comments welcome,

I'm not Picard!

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: USS Reliant

The Last of my wave zero reviews covers the almost (but not quite) dual faction release of the USS Reliant. The point of these reviews is to see both how good the cards are in a vacuum, but also how changes in the game since their release have changed their effectiveness.



Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is my favourite Star Trek film for a number of reasons: A set chewing performance from Ricardo Montalban as Khan for one, but also it was everything a Star Trek movie should be, character driven, with an internal theme (of revenge) and with twists that you don't see coming. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are at their finest here, in a film that both stands alone and starts a 3 film arc.

Ships: USS Reliant/Generic Miranda Class.

The Reliant itself comes with a 2/2/3/3 slash line, a 180 front arc and a 90 rear arc. The dial is also pretty impressive, with the only red manoeuvre being a 2 reverse. It has the standard 4 greens, but a 2 and a 3 white hard turn. With it's arcs and dial, it is a ship that is difficult to avoid. It has 2 crew and 1 weapon slot. The named ability is an attack boost of +1 at range 1 in addition to the normal +1, meaning it fires with 4 dice when in close. This ship has improved as time has gone on simply because of upgrades such as Type 8 phasers and Upgraded Phasers, as well as cross-faction weapons like Disruptor Pulse. At only 20 SP, it is a ship well worth checking out. The Generic loses the named ability. a shield and a crew slot, but works well as a torpedo boat, with timed torpedoes now a thing, it's better at that job than it was when first released.

Generic: C+ Named: B

Captains:



Given the precedent set by the Robinson, I wonder if this had been released today would it have been a dual faction ship (Independent/Federation) or maybe even the named would be Independent and the Generic Federation. The reason that I say this is because it contains both Independent and Federation captains. Khan Singh is a CS 8 captain who allows you to use a BS token to convert BS results to crits rather than just normal hits. This is great for doing loads of damage and if Khan is on a ship with BS I see no reason he shouldn't take it every turn. He also makes it so that no other upgrade deployed to the ship has to take a faction penalty, so in penalty pure environments he helps to get great combos onto some ships. My one slight regret for this card is that he doesn't nullify the faction penalty on himself, so that in penalty and faction pure environments, he cannot be deployed to the USS Reliant he comes on. I would advise all Faction Pure venues to make an exception for Khan on the Reliant, or do as our venue does and allow Independent captains to be fielded to any ship, regardless of faction. Unfortunately, Khan's ability only works with the spending of a BS token so can't be combined with Mr Spock or Drex/N'garen for the same effect. He does work with a token granted from Admiral Mendak though.

Grade: B

The other captain in this pack is Clark Terrell. A good choice for swarm fleets, Terrell suffers from CS 2 and no ET slot. Not entirely useless though, and can be fun when combined with Donatra, Admiral Hayes and Gowron in a mixed swarm build.

Grade: C-

Crew:
Again, there is a split between Independent and Federation here. Joachim is the first Independent offering, for 4SP he allows you to draw 2 crit cards every time you inflict a crit to the opponent's hull. You don't inflict crits very often though, so his utility is limited...OR IS IT? Joachim has great synergy with Khan 8, since Khan vastly increases your chance of a critical hit. Not all Crits were created equal, so doubling up on crit cards could be an interesting ability...

Grade: B-

The Second independent offering is "Follower of Khan" a generic 1 point crew card. A teleporting ganker, this is useful discard fodder, a la Parem, Bochra or Klag, but otherwise isn't worth much,

Grade: D-

On the Federation side of the upgrade side, we have first commander Kyle. Kyle is a shield healing card that requires you to perform a green manoeuvre and reduce your attack dice by 2. That's a lot of conditions for a repair card and at 2 SP he is expensive for what he does when compared to other repair cards, most notable Glinn Daro, who for one point more doesn't reduce attack, isn't limited to shields and doesn't require a green manoeuvre. Even in faction, there is Montgomery Scott, who provides additional flexibility and Charles Tucker III who has greater flexibility and less of a restriction.

Grade: D-

The star crew card of this pack is Pavel Chekov, who allows you to remove an APT when performing a white manoeuvre. This card is gold when used on a ship like the Voyager, which requires APTs to fire in 360 and any non-tinyprise with either first officer or Jayneway, where you get APTs to double up on actions. This card has improved over time where the number of cards requiring APT removal has increased, and remains a staple in most Voyager builds.

Grade: B

No tech, so onto Weapons:

3 SP, 4A photons without time tokens? Pass.

Grade: F

Elite Talents:



I stab at Thee is perhaps the best (although Tasha Yar runs it close) card for making an opponent think twice about destroying your ship. ISAT gives you 3 attack dice at every enemy ship in range 1, which they then don't get to roll defence again. It's nice and when coupled with cheat death becomes somewhat fun, but it lacks the scary factor it once had and could result in 0 hits. I still like it though.

Grade: C

Superior Intellect suffers from being an Action/Discard that requires teleporting, but has potential as a combo-breaker for stealing. The fact that it can steal any upgrade makes it better than Crosis, but the fact you need to drop enemy shields first makes it worse. I'd still take it, but only as an additional fun aspect of a build, rather than the key to a build.

Grade: B-

So all in all a pretty fun expansion with some interesting cards, I'd happily buy a second and third, where I able to find them!


Some ideas for a Miranda Torpedo Swarm:

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)Photon Torpedoes [Starter] (5)Total (27)

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)Photon Torpedoes [Starter] (5)Total (29)

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)Federation [U.S.S. Prometheus] (0)Rapid Reload [U.S.S. Thunderchild] (2)Photon Torpedoes [[U.S.S. Thunderchild] (5)Photon Torpedoes [U.S.S. Thunderchild] (5)Arsenal [U.S.S. Phoenix] (4)Total (34)

Fleet total: 90


So Spock take TL and re-enables torpedoes, Picard takes TL and Re-enables torpedoes, the third ship takes TL then uses time token torps and arsenal to ensure that they work every turn. Rapid Reload is there as a contingency.

The second list is a souped up Reliant:

U.S.S. Reliant [U.S.S. Reliant] (20)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)
Adm Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)
The Needs of the Many... [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
B'Elanna Torres [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Immersion Shielding [Delta Flyer] (3)
Unimatrix Shielding [Delta Flyer] (5)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (50)

Fleet total: 50

With Type 8 phasers and Upgraded Phasers the base attack value is 4, 6 at range 1. Spock means free TL and then ship action can be BS. The three shield upgrades add an extra 4 shields and if those shields go, discard TNOTM and B'elanna for 3 shields back. The extra movement provided by Forrest allows for range 1 as soon as possible, and will help to keep enemy ships in that arc of fire.

Comments are, as always, appreciated!

I'm Not Picard!

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: The IKS Negh'var

The next in my series of retrospective reviews of wave zero, both in their original context and the context now, 2 years down the line, takes a look at the second Klingon offering from the very start, the IKS Negh'Var. The Negh'Var is one of my favourite ships in the game, and as the Klingon's "big bad bird" it has always fascinated me, both on screen, as the Flagship of Gowron's invasion force in Deep Space Nine, and in the game, where it often seems to be forgotten about, despite its advantages.



Ships:

The named version of the Negh'Var weighs in at 5/1/6/3 with 2 crew slots, 1 weapon and 1 tech. The slots are almost perfect, although having only 4 seems a little on the skinny side, and if there were a fifth (a crew slot) that seems to fit the ship a little better, given its immense size. A front arc of 90 and no rear arc hurt, but the dial is pretty good, with the standard 4 greens, hard 2 whites, with a red 3 come about and 3 hard turns. When compared to the Maht'h'a from the starter, this is a pretty good ship, but the Maht'h'a has a better dial and loses only 1 hull. The named ability is not one you will use every turn, although it is essentially an activation phase attack when used against ships with active shields, and has the added in synergy of working with one of the upgrades in the pack. Given that this is a cloaker, and as such has the standard cloaker action bar (TL, C, SE & EM) the extra 2 points cost for the shield is only worth spending if the ability is worthwhile, so I'd actually grade the generic higher than the name. for the 2 points that you save, you lose a crew slot and a shield, as well as the named ability, so it isn't that bad.

Grade: B-(named)/B(Generic)

Captains:

This is where things get really good. Gowron is skill 6 and has an action that will benefit every other klingon ship in his fleet, a key to building swarm fleets, Gowron's big let down is that he uses his own action to benefit other ships (I'll talk more about this below). As the captain of a third ship in a three ship Build, Gowron's medium skill of 6 is not the biggest let down, so all in all a solid captain.

Grade: B-

Martok 8 is one of the 2-3 best captains in the whole game. He allows a friendly ship to take an additional action, which doesn't have to be an action bar action (although obviously has to be an action that the ship can take, no using Martok to take BS on a Borg Sphere!). The flexibility that this offers is unmatched, and is a fantastic way of building combos. It also doesn't rob Martok of his own action either, so you can help out other ships without reducing the effectiveness of your own ship. The synergy with Gowron should be obvious: Gowron uses his action to help Martok's (and any other ship) whilst Martok returns the favour by allowing Gowron to take the TL or Cloak action he was going to take but couldn't because of using his own action. Martok's flexibility even means that he can be used to activate Drex (see below) on Gowron's ship. His CS of 8 also works wonders, and there aren't many captain's in the game who natively outrank him (Picard 9, Shinzon, Borg Queen 9, Locutus, Kirk 9) or equal him.

Grade: A+ (you won't see many of these)

Crew:

Klingon Boarding Party is one of the Teleporting Ganking Cards. Generally speaking these aren't great as you have to disable your opponent's shields before they can activate, but seeing as the Negh'var's named ability allows you to (potentially) disable 3 shields in the activation phase, it isn't perhaps the cost that it can be on other cards of the same type. Added to this, the KBP has a pretty great effect: all of your opponent's upgrades are disabled and they lose BS tokens. This is the death knell of evader voyager builds, combo builds, and the federation in general, a faction that relies heavily on upgrades, can be thoroughly shafted by a timely application of KBP. The obvious synergy with the named Negh'var aside, the other synergy is with Projected Stasis field. Usually with ganking cards, you won't choose to use them since a ship without shields is likely to be destroyed by a well placed shot, so why use KBP when you can target lock instead? Well, if you have used PSF on a ship to drop its shields, then you won't be at top firing efficiency (PSF reduces your attack by 2) so that seems like the perfect time to use KBP. The downside here is that you need 2 actions to do this... If only Martok 8 was around to help! There are too many moving parts needed to make KBP work to full effectiveness though, and if it didn't require teleporting (no shields on either you or your opponent) then it would be much much better.

Grade: B-

Drex is a very good card, offering the player BS conversions, with one of those conversions being a BS>Crit conversion. This is not a BS action though, so the brand new Hathaway Worf does not counter this card! Drex is a way of getting a better BS action onto a ship that does not have BS on its action bar. The downside is that you pay 4  points for that privilege, and you could just take a ship with BS in the first place if that is what you genuinely want. Since Drex's action is prefixed by "When Attacking" it applies to all attacks made in the round. If you have a way of attacking multiple times, or attacking in the Activation phase, Drex will work on those attacks too, Seeing as the point of these reviews was to show how cards' effectiveness have changed over time, Drex is a card that has definitely improved recently, thanks to the WORF ruling on "When Attacking..." and the advent of Hathaway Worf as a new type of defence. It's still 4 SP to get BS though, so are those 4 points really worth it? I think they are, due to the other bonuses involved, but I play mainly Faction Pure, where getting BS onto a ship is something the Klingons need to do. His value drops in Mixed Faction Play.

Grade: B

Tech:

Tractor Beam is available in the Starter Set too, so nothing new added here, at 3 SP, an action and no guaranteed result, this is not really worth taking. I can see it being of some use to reduce the number of dice rolled by a ship sporting Multi-Adaptive Shields, but this is such a niche case, that it isn't really ever worth taking, it does, in some ways, add a scan action to a ship without scan, but this is again, not that great an ability for 3 points. Again, I also understand that this works better than a scan against Hathaway Worf, but for 1 SP more, you get Drex, who is better in a number of different ways, much as a BS action is better than a scan. Since it isn't actually a scan, you can't trigger any scan enhancers off it. I think if this card was not an action, and cost 2 SP for a disable then I might consider it, as it is....Nope.

Grade: F

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes that get a +1 bonus when fired from a Negh'Var class ship. If the Negh'Var had a rear arc I might consider it, but with Monotanium Armor Plating rolling around, and the action economy issues of Torpedoes, I won't bother.

Grade: F



Elite Talents:

The Klingon faction is full of 5 point action/discard talents that aren't worth the paper they are printed on. In'Cha is one of the rare cases (Defense Condition One being another example) or where a 5 point action/discard is a useful and worthwhile card. Klingons as a faction are notoriously fragile, so being able to perform two manoeuvres in the same round, after most other ships have moved enables you to dodge firing arcs like a boss. Being a one-shot deal is costly, but if timed correctly, it can swing entire games, as it has in both games I have seen, and been involved with. The cost in terms of Action economy and SP does drag it down a little though.

Grade: B-

Overall then, a great expansion pack with many good cards. It's a shame so many of these early releases are now difficult to come by, because this is one that I'd heartily encourage people to pick up if they got the chance. Not a lot of multi-use cards, but certainly having Drex, Gowron and Martok 8 are a must for a competitive Klingon faction pure player.

Build Ideas:

The Negh'Var alone allows the following ship to be built:

I.K.S. Negh'var [I.K.S. Negh'var] (30)
Martok [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
In'cha [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
Klingon Boarding Party [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
Drex [I.K.S. Negh'var] (4)
Total (49)

Fleet total: 49

Expensive and a bit of a toolbox ship (lots of options rather than doing one thing well) this version of the Negh'var is made entirely from this expansion, and it ain't half bad!

Using other Expansions you could use it like this:

Negh'var Class [I.K.S. Negh'var] (28)
Martok [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
In'cha [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)Drex [I.K.S. Negh'var] (4)Total (42)

I.K.S. Negh'var [I.K.S. Negh'var] (30)Gowron [I.K.S. Negh'var] (4)
Klingon Boarding Party [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)N'Garen [I.K.S. Koraga] (4)
Projected Stasis Field [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (5)
Total (48)

Fleet total: 90

The Negh'var itself pulls off the PSF/KBP trick thanks to Martok, then in subsequent turns Martok allows Gowron to use his own action and N'Garen (who is a clone of Drex). Martok's own ship just uses Drex every turn. Seems like a very solid Faction Pure build for the current 90/40 meta.

So there we go, an outright winner of an expansion,

Comment appreciated,

I'm Not Picard!

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: IRW Valdore

The next in my series of retrospective reviews goes back to the Star Trek: Nemesis to take a look at the IRW Valdore. The point of these reviews is both to give readers an idea of how effective the old expansions were, but also to see how the effectiveness of certain upgrades changes as time goes on...



Nemesis is not my favourite film, by any stretch of the imagination. The first time I saw it, I was so disappointed that I gave up on Star Trek for years. It wasn't until the original motion picture series came out on Blu Ray that my interest was piqued again. One thing that Nemesis did give us, though, was the Valdore. The Valdore was the first Romulan Battleship to appear in Trek Canon since the D'Deridex. Overshadowed somewhat by the Reman Warbird Scimitar on the same film, let us see what the Valdore has to offer to STAW...

Ship: IRW Valdore/Valdore Class

At 30 SP the Valdore costs the same as the named D'Deridex from the starter set (Aside: I'm planning to do a review of the Starter Set at some point, bear with me), in fact it costs the same as any of the 645 Billion named D'Deridex ships currently in the game. There is, therefore, a meaningful comparison to be made between the Valdore and the other ever-present Romulan Warbird. The named Valdore has a slashline of 4/2/6/3, losing a shield and gaining an attack compared to the named D'Deridex. The Valdore also loses the red full astern manoeuvre of its predecessor in exchange for a red 3 come-about. That's a trade off I'll take willingly. Whilst the Valdore has red 3 hard turns, the D'Deridex has white 3 turns, but the D'Deridex has white 2 banks whilst the Valdore has green 2 banks, which is a huge deal. Having the option of 6 green manoeuvres with the ship's named ability is very useful, especially since the Valdore has that come about. Where the Valdore falls down a bit is that it doesn't have a tech slot. In fact, where it comes to slots in general, it's a little bit on the skinny side (2 weapon, 2 Crew). Romulan ships really need tech slots, so not having a tech slot is a big deal. There are a couple of ways in faction, and a couple of (soon to be retired) resources that get around this though, so it wasn't as big of a deal as it once was. If the Valdore had a single tech slot, I'd happily give this ship an 'A' grade, but as it doesn't and you have to build around this limitation, it'll be a little lower.

Named Grade: B+

Generic Grade: B-

Captains:



Donatra is a staple in most of my Romulan Builds, since she has an ability that you'll use almost every turn, doesn't take an action and offers something to all other ships in the fleet. Captain skill is middling, but not so low that it stops her being useful. With so many ways of improving CS, this is not the limitation it once was, and Donatra pairs up well with Mendak as a support ship pairing. 

Grade: B

Tomalak disappoints me on a number of levels. First, Tomalak was one of the most interesting antagonists on TNG and his CS deserves to be better than a lowly 3. In addition to that, his ability is not something you'll use every turn, essentially meaningless when using secondary weapons, and so much worse than most other captain's abilities. Captain slots are the rarest of all slots, so wasting one on Tomalak seems beyond stupid.

Grade: F

Crew:

A staple of most early Romulan builds, and something that still plays well today, is the Romulan version of the Tactical Officer. Target Lock provides you with 75% attack efficiency, TL and BS provides you with just under 94% efficiency. BS on its own gives 75%. Tactical Officer provides similar efficiency to both TL and BS together, but only at the cost of one action. That's fantastic for both dice efficiency and action economy. There are some drawbacks though: 1. It only works if you have a target lock and you are using that TL to re-roll attack dice. This means that if you are firing a secondary weapon, you don't get to re-roll twice (even plasma torpedoes) and if you are getting a re-roll from somewhere else, you don't get to do it twice. 2. You have to have a target lock to use it, so it can be pretty useless against a permacloak fleet.

Overall though, it's a fantastic card that is in almost every Romulan fleet I write. 

Grade: B+

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes: YAWN.

Grade: F

Plasma Torpedoes are actually a better bet than Photon Torpedoes because they provide you with some efficiency when you attack with them and they work at range 1. They do stop you from using the Tac Officer, but they offer a boost to PWV for some ships (although not significant enough of a boost on this ship) they work well on the Gal'Gathong, but even then, the Time Token versions are better.

Grade: D-

Talent:

Many people have said that if there was an action on every action bar that allowed you to roll one extra red die, that it would still be worse than TL or BS. This card is an Action/Disable that allows you to roll an extra attack die. It's terrible and for 4 points criminal. I see no reason why you should ever take this talent.

Grade: F

In summary then, buy it for Tac Officer, Donatra and the Named ship itself, but it isn't the powerhouse it once was (I once declared this the best ship in the game). 

Again, I'm not picard.

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: Gor Portas

The next in my series of retrospective reviews goes back to the Dominion War to take a look at the Gor Portas. The point of these reviews is both to give readers an idea of how effective the old expansions were, but also to see how the effectiveness of certain upgrades changes as time goes on...

It wasn't really until the season 7 DS9 episode "The Changing Face of Evil" that we really got an idea of what the Breen could do. At the second Battle of Chintoka, the Breen used their energy dampening weapons to devastating effect, destroying the federation alliance fleet and swinging the war in favour of the Dominion. It's a pretty impressive first outing, but does the Gor Portas match up to that billing?

Ship: Gor Portas/Breen Battle Crusier

The named ability of the Gor Portas is an interesting one, meaning you can fire torpedoes and then use your target lock for re-rolls. On a ship with low PWV (3) and no BS action, that's a nice ability to have. At 26 points, the Gor Portas comes in at the same points as the Kraxon, but loses 1 red dice in favour of one green dice, for a slashline of 3/2/4/4. This in itself is not a worthwhile trade off, but the manoeuvre dial is significantly improved when compared to the Galor class (white hard 2 turns and a red come about compared to red 2 and 3 turns and no come about). The slots available to the named Gor Portas are 1 crew and a mighty 4 weapons. That's right, 4. Not having any tech slots is a problem, as is only 1 crew slot (as an aside, I'd currently ranks slots: Crew>Tech>Weapon). I'd happily swap 2 of the weapon slots for one each of crew and tech and the Kraxon's 1 crew, 2 tech, 1 weapon seems like a better deal. The Kraxon also benefits from a 180 front arc, whereas the Gor Portas only has a 90. As you can probably already tell, I'm comparing this expansion heavily with the Cardassian expansion from the same wave, which seems to make sense to me since they come in at the same points cost at the same time. In terms of firing arc, slots and stats, the Kraxon wins, yet the Gor Portas is better in terms of dial and named ability. It's a close run contest, but I think overall that the Kraxon is better.

Grade: C+

Captains:
Sar is a simple and cheap captain whose ability you can make use of every turn. Whilst green dice have never been the be all and end all of STAW, having an extra one can be useful and at 1 point, he isn't too much of an investment for that.

Grade: C+

Thot Gor seems perfect for the Gor Portas, his -1 cost to weapons works best on a ship with 4 weapon slots! Trouble is that there are many cost reducers in the game, so he isn't worth giving up a captain slot for that cost reduction. His captain skill is middling and he has no ET slot, so 4 points seems a lot to pay for him when compared to other options in faction. I'm not a fan.

Grade: D+

Crew:

Breen aide is one of my favourite cards in the game, allowing a passive conversion of 1 blank to a hit when you have a scan token. The drawback of this card is that you have to scan in order to activate him, and there always seems to be a better action than scan. I'd advise that you TL one turn, then scan subsequently, which is especially easy given the Gor Portas' named ability. Still, at 2 points and generic, this is a mighty fine card.

Grade: B-

Weapons:

Unlike most torpedoes the Breen Photon Torpedo can't be so readily overlooked. On the Gor Portas, the problem of Torpedo quality is somewhat removed, and the range restrictions on this torpedo (1-3) are better than the range restrictions on most torpedoes (2-3). Coupled with Thot Gor and the 4 weapon slots that the Gor Portas has, the action economy issues are somewhat removed, although I really wish that there was a time token version of this particular torpedo, since that would make it even better. Fingers crossed that a third breen ship gets released with time token dominion range 1-3 torpedoes. This ship was clearly designed as a torpedo boat, and the synergies that exist between these torpedoes, the Gor Portas and Thot Gor is clear. It's a tremendous shame that even with all this considered, the torpedoes aren't the best choice available.

Grade: D-

The key card in this pack is the Energy Dissipator, and so it's worth quoting the card text in full:

"ATTACK: Disable this card to perform this attack, If this attack hits, the target suffers no damage, receives 1 energy dampening token, and you may immediately attack with another weapons. This upgrade costs +5 Squadron Points for any non-Breen Ship"

And as such it is worth working out what an Energy Dampening Token (EDT) does too:

"As soon as the ship receives the EDT, disable all of its remaining shields and remove its cloak token, if any. While the ship has the EDT, it cannot attack or raise its shields.

During the planning phase the owner does not assign a manoeuvre dial to this ship.

During the activation phase the owner moves the ship as if it were assigned a White Straight 1 manouevre, removes all EDTs from this ship it may now perform actions and attack as normal"

That's an absolute wall of text to get through before you work out how this thing works, so to summarise, if your 3 dice attack hits, you get another attack for free, and the target ship loses its shields, until the end of the NEXT TURN (since disabled shields go back up in the end phase). The catch is that you rely on this initial attack hitting. In the age of cloakers (that preceded the age of Borg that preceded the current game age that we are now in (the 3rd Age?)) this was a difficult hit to land. However, now that evade dice are generally lower, this is a potentially brilliant ability. On the Gor Portas itself, you can follow up the EDT with torpedoes against the opponent's hull and get quality with the Target Lock that doesn't need to be removed thanks to the ship's named ability. The thought and synergy that went into that combination is admirable - the points cost to achieve it? Not so great.

The energy dissapator is probably best used, despite the exorbitant cost of running it on anything other than a breen ship, on something with a much higher PWV than the Breen Battle Cruiser. On the Dominion Battleship, Dominion Battle Cruiser or the Cardassian Keldon class, this is a high quality weapon. On the Breen ship, it is just okay.

Grade: B-

So there you have it - a bit of a mixed bag overall. The only card from this pack that sees regular use for me is Breen Aide, followed by Sar and the ED. Together with the Kraxon and lack of ship in the starter, the Dominion were certainly playing behind the other factions to start with. I'd go as far as saying that it wasn't until wave 2 that they began to achieve some parity, and the prevalence of cloaking in the early metagame made this ship in particular weak. As for its place in the game now - the ED should be used more than it is, although I'm still waiting for the completitive scene to shake itself down following the Borg Nerf and the new anti-fighter tech, so I'm not sure what is the number 1 build at the moment (I think it might be Federation Shield Spam, but I'm not sure); Sar and Breen Aide are still useful, but overall this is not a pack that has grown in utility over time.

Now, if wizkids would give me some dominion range 1-3 5 dice photon torpedoes with time tokens, then I'd be a happy not Picard.

The Rise and Fall of the Borg

Sphere 4270 changed the game perhaps more than any other expansion. The Borg arrived on the scene with high PWV, great manoeuvrability and fantastic durability. In cross faction play, they could easily get access to the BS action (that wasn't on their action bar) and action economy for 6 red dice with both TL and BS every turn. Things only got better for the Borg for the next few releases: The Tactical Cube dreadnought was the star of the dreadnought era, with Weyoun 6 and Varel/Conditional Surrender for attack cancellation that could, before the "may" ruling be used multiple times per turn with cards like Li Nalas. The Queen Diamond came out just before the 50/3 ruling, but people were ready planning unkillable ships with Koss/Dispersion Field, Li Nalas, Weyoun, Varel and Conditional Surrender.

The first thing that really stopped the irrepressible rise of the Borg was the aforementioned 'may' ruling. Well, I say stopped, when I really mean that it slowed it down. The may ruling, and the 50/3 ruling combined killed off the Borg dreadnought as a strategy in official rules play, but it did not really slow the Borg down all that much. Borg Missile and Tactical Drone 4270 still made the Borg dangerous in even faction pure environments, and when the Borg Missile was errata'd to be 1 APT rather than 1 APT per hit, MGCs ably took their place. Even as late as the US nationals, the Borg were the faction to beat in mixed play (and pretty good in some variety of purity).

The next step in the fall of the Borg was the "Borg Nerf" forcing their ships to perform the spin manoeuvre after movement rather than before and limiting primary weapons fire to range 2. Thematically, the first change makes sense: The Borg were always depicted on screen as a slow and relentless enemy, so the balletic antics of Borg ships in the game always seemed a little odd. The second change only makes sense in terms of game balance - No matter how good a pilot you were, you could never be in a position where you could shoot the Borg and they couldn't shoot you. Both of the changes look good on paper, either thematically or in terms of balance, but both together were perhaps too much of a heavy handed change. Personally, I'd have preferred the change to primary weapon range, but not the change to movement. Both changes contradict the rules on the cards in the ship packs themselves (although this may have changed - if anyone has bought a cube, sphere or diamond recently, and the additional rules cards in the packs have changed, then please let me know) but the change to the spin manoeuvre is more difficult to explain that the change to PWV range, and I like the change to PWV range, since it rewards good piloting. Having played 6 months (I think) with the rules changes I now think that the combination of both changes was too much.

The final thing that really put the nail in the Borg coffin for me was the increasing number of anti-borg upgrades that you can take. It started as early as the first Collective OP event, with Elizabeth Shelby (who gains a green die and a heap of re-rolls when facing Borg) but lately it has gotten much worse. The Thunderchild expansion gave us Hayes (+2 instead of +1 when attacking Borg) and Persistence (4 instead of 2 dice when targeting Borg) but the real tipping point was Unimatrix Shielding (2 extra shields, but when defending against Borg, you can disable these shields to cancel a hit). I can't see many reasons not to take Unimatrix Shielding for Fed (2 extra shields are always useful) and given the borg's relative lack of dice efficiency (No BS natively) they really hurt the borg player's ability to damage federation ships.

We played a 1 ship no points limit game to celebrate Christmas last weekend, and there were 3 federation ships and 2 borg ships. In game 1 (we played the game twice) the Borg ships were the first and second ships to go down. In game 2, they went down second and third. Having played as one of the borg ships in the second game, the abundance of monotanium armour plating and unimatrix shielding made the borg's damage negligible. That particular card combination (Unimatrix Shielding and Monotanium Armour Plating) is anathema to the borg. It robs you of quality and essentially reduces the damage you do by 2 each turn (for those watching at home, Hathaway Worf does similar things).

Don't get me wrong, I think it is good that there are cards specifically designed to work differently against different factions, and the Borg were massively overpowered at one point, but the combination of the 'Nerf', 50/3 standard and these new upgrades make the borg almost unplayable now.

Or do they...

The Borg are certainly not the powerhouse that they once were, but my thesis is this: The Borg are now a finesse fleet, that are forced into playing more in character now than they ever were before.

As I've written above, the Borg can't rely on Target Lock for efficiency any more, which renders cards like the extra-action Borg queen somewhat less effective than she was. As I'm only too fond of reminding people though, there are other ways to get re-rolls on attack dice. In the case of the borg, tactical drone 4270 allows a re-roll at the cost of a drone token. This means that cards like Hathaway Worf and Monotanium Armour can't stop you from taking that re-roll. The drone token cost is annoying and limiting, but being able to add quality to dice without needing a Target Lock is a great ability with so many cards around that limit the effectiveness of Target Lock. With protocol about to become the go-to resource for many non-OXP venues, this means that you can spend your action on other things, like scan. The ability of the QVP allows you to spend a scan token from beside your ship to increase the number of attack dice you roll, so a doubled up scan token (thanks to protocol) can be especially useful on the QVP, as it both adds attack dice and limits defence dice.

In universe, the Borg rely quite heavily on assimilation to weaken their enemies, and with actions now free for cards like second of five and BATS, the power of ganking cannot be underestimated. With Unimatrix Shielding such a big issue for the Borg, using BATS or similar to get rid of it before you fire seems like a decent tactic to ensure that your hits don't get cancelled.

Tactical Cube 001 came with a Borg Faction version of Data who might just be the key to ensuring that opponents don't get any dice quality either. Use Data to disable the likes of Picard 9 and Captain Spock, and into the bargain you get a free scan token. Then use Tactical Drone 4270 to re-roll those attack dice, that can be boosted by the QVP. Seems both effective and in keeping with the Borg in universe.

A card that still carries with it a great deal of weight is Magnetometric Guided Charge. Permacloak builds or federation defence stacking builds can be seriously hampered by the liberal application of MGCs, and it also gives you back range 3. Sure, at 5 points it isn't cheap, but 360 range 3 attacks make the most of those borg firing arcs.

Whilst the movement of borg isn't what it once was, having the ability to fire in any direction makes it tactically astute to get behind your opponent at the first opportunity in order to make their life difficult. The Borg player doesn't need to turn around to fire their weapons whereas your opponent either does, or has to use secondary weapons with reduced quality to do so. The federation dorsal phaser array is an issue here, but the answer is simple: Just steal it, discard it or disable it.

To summarise then:

1. 50/3 hurts the borg due to their high cost
2. Anti-Borg upgrades rob you of attack strength and dice quality
3. The 'Nerf'' stops you from Manouevring quite as effectively and stops you firing at range 3.

but, you can do some things about this:
a. Ganking can get rid of that anti-borg tech, and no faction does it better than borg
b. There are other ways to get dice quality for borg, that don't rely on Target Lock
c. Borg still have some ships (QVP) and upgrades (MGCs) that allow you to work well within this restrictive environment.

Don't give up on the Borg just yet, just don't be too disappointed when then aren't as point and click as they once were.


Picard knew how to beat the borg, and how to command the borg - but i'm not Picard.

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: Kraxon

I don't know in canon if the Cardassians ever had a ship ownership abbreviation like USS or IKS, but the Cardassian offering for wave zero was just known as the Kraxon. Maybe CUS Kraxon (for Cardassian Union Ship) or CSS Kraxon (Cardassian StarShip) was too confusing since the ships never had that prefix on the show, regardless, by having name alone, the Kraxon established that Cardassian ships never had any Prefix.

In my last post I posited the theory that "Wizkids hates Romulans" then dismissed it wholesale. For a while, at the beginning of STAW's life, "Wizkids hated the Dominion" that is to say, that until Wave 2, the dominion lagged behind their opponents (mainly, it has to be said, because they didn't receive a ship in the starter).

The Kraxon expansion is not in itself a terrible expansion, it just wasn't as great as the USS Enterprise from wave 0 or the Maht'h'a and Enterprise-D from the starter.

Ships:
Kraxon/Cardassian Galor Class

The slashline of 4-1-4-4 for the named Kraxon is almost perfect. 4 attack is worthy of note whilst 8 durability is the sweet-spot for avoiding a single attack death (without some unlucky critical hits at least). Agility of only 1 may seem bad, and certainly the 2 points paid for this stat would be better placed in literally any of the other categories, but seeing as agility 1 is standard on most capital ships, it shouldn't be begrudged too much. The named ability of the Kraxon is useful, as it allows you to siphon damage off from other ships, but not as useful as it once was thanks to the "may" ruling. As for slots, the named has Tech/Tech/Weapon/Crew, which is nice thanks to the two tech slots. In faction pure play, though, you really would like some better tech choices to go in those two slots, and in most cases I'd swap a tech for a crew (as you get on the Reklar). The generic loses a tech slot. Another downside to the Kraxon is that it has an action bar of Scan, TL and Evade. No Battlestations action really makes the ship less effective.

Grade: B-

Captains:

Gul Ranor is the higher CS captain from this expansion, but apart from his middling CS of 5, he has little to offer when compared to Gul Danar, the other captain from this pack. The only use I see for him is if you need to guarantee a first turn attack on an opponent (kill a shuttle before it docks, for example) then he may work, but otherwise I wouldn't run him, simply because the cost of taking his action (action/apt) removes much of the utility of doing so.

Grade: D-

Gul Danar has a low CS (3) but his ability is one that you can conceivably use every turn, allowing you to re-roll a blank red dice. Since his ability is prefixed with "when attacking" it goes to follow that if you are able to attack more than once per round, you get to use the ability multiple times. This has synergy with one of the upgrades in the pack, so I actually prefer Danar to Ranor. Danar is pretty cheap too, so you can use him as a third captain in a 3 ship fleet.

Grade: C+

Crew:
Glinn Telle is the only crew option in this pack, and his action is good, reducing one ship's incoming fire by 2 dice for the round, but expensive in both economical (Action/Discard) and cost terms (3SP). I have used him in the past, but don't see him as a card of use all that often.

Grade: D

Tech:
Antiproton Scan is a card that I see having some mileage, and as I said on Warp Core Breach, is one of a number of cards in faction that enhance the scan action. It works best against cloaking fleets and since you can't TL a cloaked ship, you'll probably be taking scan anyway, so scan away and then make use of the extra red die to make up for having no quality.

Grade: B-

EM Pulse offers a modified version of Glinn Telle. You get to impose -1 red and -1 green die on an enemy ship for the cost of an action/disable. At 4SP it is better than Glinn Telle's 3SP discard, it's almost a shame you can't use both in the same turn for -3 red dice! It still has limited utility though.

Grade: D+

Weapons:
Forwards weapon grid allows you to divide your attack between 2 different ships in your forward firing arc, which is great if you are facing fighters and synergises well with Gul Ranor. At 5 SP it is quite expensive, but doesn't require either of your targeted ships to be target locked. It is a disable though.

Grade: C

So in its totality this expansion doesn't bring anything fantastic to the table. The Kraxon's main utility is in using its ship ability to keep other, more important targets alive longer. My only build suggestion is the following:

Kraxon [Kraxon] (26)
Gul Ranor [Kraxon] (3)
Antiproton Scan [Kraxon] (4)
Forward Weapons Grid [Kraxon] (5)
Total (38)

Fleet total: 38

38 points is a lot to spend on what is essentially a support ship. Hang close to the rest of your fleet and bleed damage onto the Kraxon, when you face fighters you can use the forward weapons grid to knock a token or two off, and the Anti-proton scan gives you a use for the scan you'll be taking against cloakers. I'd almost suggest taking a scan action every turn, since you have Ranor for some quality anyway, then you are firing with 5 dice, a re-roll and a scan each turn against cloakers, 6 dice when using forward weapons grid. Not the most game breaking combination, but the best available from a pretty sub-par pack.


Thanks for reading, I'm not Picard.