A Blast From the Past! Wave Zero: IKS Gr'oth

The traditional opponents of the Federation in the original series, the Klingons were not to honourable warrior race we know and love, but a much sneakier and more underhanded race of antagonists. It wasn't really until Star Trek 6 that the Klingons became what we know today, even through the early movies, the Klingons were backstabbing their way through the Federation (and Dr David Marcus). From a certain point of view, the Gr'oth does this well, since it isn't the all out attacking monster we have come to expect from the Klingons...

Ship:

IKS Gr'oth/D7 class

With a slashline of 3/1/3/1 (3/1/3/2 for the named) the Gr'oth is nothing special at all. 18 points does not seem expensive, but seeing as the ship has a TL/EM/BS action bar, you don't benefit from the typical support ship boon of cloak and sensor echo. Having BS is nice, particularly because the D7 lends itself to being an 'Anger Cannon' of 3 dice attack on a cheap hull, and as I've discussed before, 2 green dice with BS is almost as good as 5 without. How do you get the second die? The ship's named ability allows you to roll an extra green die when defending at range 1, which is nice, but not game breaking. Being that your opponent will have an extra red dice (better quality with red dice than green to start with) at range 1, this is not an ability that you would ever deliberately engineer a situation in which to use, so I'm pretty unimpressed by it in general. 3/1/3/1 isn't a stat line to be excited about and 18SP for the named is too expensive for a ship with only 5 durability. I struggle to like this Ship, and I think it is of limited utility. It might be a good ship to build a swarm around, but given all the issues that swarm build have, and with the generic B'rel at 4/1/3/2 for only 4 point more, it isn't a ship I can ever see myself using.

Grade: C-

Captains:

Krell is interesting, since he is cheap (2SP) and has an ability that you can conceivably use every round (re-roll a BS) but perhaps not on this ship, since you have the BS action. I can see Krell also being a useful piece in a B'rel swarm build, where most ships don't have BS, but for the Gr'oth, it doesn't have fantastic utility.

Grade: C

Koloth is more annoying that Krell, with a higher CS and a meaningful defensive ability. Trouble is that Koloth fits into the same SP bracket as A LOT of more useful Klingon captains, and as such will rarely see play. 

Grade: C

Crew: 

The only Klingon crew in the pack is Korax. Korax is a ganking card, but not the good type (that allows you to target ships that have shields or are cloaked). His only USP is that he allows you, for an Action/Discard, to discard 2 opposing crew. This is a great combo breaker (imagine losing both Crusher and Phlox on one of those infinite repeating Fed-disable builds!), but given his limitations (opposing ship must have no shields, not be cloaked and you must disable your own shields to use him) he won't see play that frequently when in the same faction as Klingon Boarding Party, Klingon Stealth Team and (my personal favourite) T'kar.

Grade: D-

The independent crew in this pack is the delightful Cyrano Jones, who will never, ever see play on this ship. Tribbles are a good way of boosting Red and Green Dice, can really annoy your opponent and are funny as all hell, but aren't as good as they used to be. That being said they are still viable and offer an interesting game mechanic.

Grade: B-

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes, not terrible on this ship perhaps, given it's low PWV, but not really worth considering for long either.

Grade: F

Magnetic Pulse is a disable but doesn't require a TL, gives you 4 dice but at the cost of having to disable one of your own shields. It is an early phased polaron beam/chroniton torpedoes since Critical Hits ignore shields to become regular hits on the opponent's hull. It bothers me that there is a grammatical error in the card text. Ultimately, I'm not a fan.

Grade: D- (Only because it doesn't need a TL)

Elite Talent:

Sabotage offers something quite rare: The ability to discard an opponent's weapon upgrade. It is uneconomical (Action/Discard) but relatively cheap (3 SP) and potentially invaluable to remove an opponent's Dorsal Phaser Array, Magnetometric Guided Charge or Thaleron Weapon at the right time. It suffers from ganking restrictions though (can't be used on cloakers or ships with active shields) so is perhaps only useful as a free elite talent (If a new resource ever comes along to allow them).

Grade: C

Tech:

Projected Stasis Field is the out and out star upgrade from this pack. It is not unique, it offers something very rare in the game and it synergises well with the plethora of ganking cards in this pack - as well as a whole heap of other cards. It works best on a ship moving last, as this will allow you to make the most of its abilities and on a ship that isn't key to your attacking power, since it drops your red dice by 2. On the other hand, use PSF first then use ganking cards on other ships with a wild abandon. Being able to drop shields on an opponent's ship opens up a world of possibilities: Drop shields then use KBP to disable all the crew on evader voyager, drop shields to teleport those annoying tribbles back from whence they came, drop shields to allow T'Kar to discard Varel, the list is pretty much endless in faction, let alone in cross-faction play. All of this paints the picture of a fantastic card, and that's before we have even considered the other effect that the card has: The ship that is hit by it cannot attack, so it's a form of attack cancellation. Even though it is an Action/Discard, and forces you to disable all of your shields, it doesn't reduce how much I like this card. An absolute star of a card that makes the Breen Energy Dissipator look weak in comparison.

Grade: A+

So how would I build from this pack? 

If I'm just using the ship, then it's likely to be something like this:

D7 Class [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (16)

Gowron [I.K.S. Negh'var] (4)
Total (20)

D7 Class [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (16)
Martok [IKS Ch'tang] (6)
Total (22)

I.K.S. Gr'oth [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (18)
Koloth [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (4)
Worf [I.K.S. Rotarran] (2)
Projected Stasis Field [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (5)
Total (29)

D7 Class [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (16)
Klingon [I.K.S. Negh'var] (0)
Klag [Starter] (1)
Total (17)

D7 Class [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (16)
Klingon [I.K.S. Negh'var] (0)
Total (16)

D7 Class [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (16)
Klingon [I.K.S. Negh'var] (0)
Total (16)

Fleet total: 120

It isn't great and has clear weaknesses in terms of being fragile as all hell, but with skill 9 Koloth moving last to put the PSF in the best position, and Martok and Gowron boosting the firepower of the rest of the fleet, it would certainly be different to play with. 

As always, thoughts are most welcome and....

....I'm not picard.