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.
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