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!
No comments:
Post a Comment