Early Game, Late Game: Part 2 - Late Game

Hi Everyone, thanks for stopping by to read this - I know it's been a while since I posted anything, and I haven't been playing quite as much STAW as I used to of late, since I've had other things going on in my life (like getting married and buying a house). I;m not holding out much hope for this post being anything like my best, so read at your own risk!

Star Trek: Attack Wing is almost equal parts list building and piloting. Certainly, some would argue that the List Building part is more important than the piloting part, since a good combo will often beat a good pilot with a bad combo. I've come into some criticism in the past since I have dismissed some cards as the refuge of a poor pilot. This got me thinking about the different phases of the game.

The Late Game:
So you've survived the initial engagement. The Thaleron weapon has fired and cost you dearly but you haven't lost the game, the opponent's Voyager has fired its Transphasic Torpedoes and fluffed, Lure has been used, Feedback pulse gone and Varel has been discarded for the last time. You are now in the late game. 

There are two challenges with building late game fleets, the first being that you have to build a fleet to actually get to the late game in the first place, and the second being that if you do get to the late game, you want to be in a position where what you have left is superior to what your opponent has left.



Actually getting to the late game is a bit of challenge since a lot of the cards that can help you to survive into the late game, like Varel and Feedback Pulse, are eventually going to be discarded and then their points are lost for the late game engagement. 

The trick is to spend your SP on cards that are going to have an effect on the game from turn one until the end of the game. One way to do so is to stack defensive buffs - evader voyager is your friend in this case - or to hold back the bulk of your fleet and sacrifice something in order to get your opponent to discard their best tricks - in which case Kor 6 is a pretty good bet. 

Ben Cheug's build for Worlds is a great example of a fleet built for the late game, since many of the discards (Quark and Cryogenic Stasis) are designed to make the fleet better at the end of the game than it was at the start.

For reference:

Resource: Officer Exchange Program (Federation/Klingon)

U.S.S. Equinox
Kor 6
Odo (Independent)
Multiadaptive Shields
Systems Upgrade
Quark: Improved Deflector Screens

I.K.S. Koraga
Kolo
Adm. Maxwell Forrest
Detonation Codes
Koss
Cryogenic Stasis: William T. Riker (Hood), Elizabeth Shelby

Kraxon
Martok (Negh'Var)
Glinn Daro

Total: 119

So, late game fleet are built to survive, to be in a better position than their opponent once they reach the late game, and to avoid discards that don't improve the fleet quality as the game goes on. I actually really like the idea of biological technology as a good late game card, but I haven't explored the uses myself.


Thanks for stopping by to read my ramblings, I'm hoping to post more often in future, also a thanks to Tucker Cobey for the write up of Worlds that gave me Ben Cheug's list.

Early Game, Late Game: Part 1 - Early Game

Star Trek: Attack Wing is almost equal parts list building and piloting. Certainly, some would argue that the List Building part is more important than the piloting part, since a good combo will often beat a good pilot with a bad combo. I've come into some criticism in the past since I have dismissed some cards as the refuge of a poor pilot. This got me thinking about the different phases of the game.

The Early Game:

At the start of a game of ST:AW you have all of your combos available, none of your discards have been discarded and few, if any (Jennifer Sisko withstanding) of your disables have been disabled. Certain upgrades seem somewhat less useful in the early game, since they don't really factor in until after the engagement has been made and after the initial joust has been completed. In the early game, positioning is important, as is piloting. Even if you have a killer combo, you want to make sure that you are in the perfect position to ensure that your combos go off. There are a number of cards that help to win the positioning battle in the early game that become less and less useful as the game goes on, like Lure.

Lure is currently my favourite card in the game, since it allows you to control when one of your opponent's ships enters the initial melee. I used it in one game at my last op to force one of my opponent's fleet out of formation, meaning I was only facing down 2 ships and 8 red dice instead of 3 and 12. Since my fleet was essentially 2 ships with 10 dice, the importance of being able to avoid the fire of one of those ships helped me to "win" that initial engagement in a way I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. Lure is a quintessential early game card since it requires your opponent to be outside of range 3 when it is used. As the enemy advances towards you, the opportunity to use Lure becomes rarer and rarer. 

Another early game card is the aforementioned Jennifer Sisko (MU). In fact, Jennifer Sisko is so early game that its effects are both utilised before the game even begins. The added slot only works during fleet building, whilst the disable effect works after set up but before the first turn. Jennifer Sisko is also an interesting card that starts out as an early game card, before becoming fuel for a late game ability, a card like Sakonna or Voyager B'lanna Torres. Certain abilities, like Mirror Benjamin Sisko, allow you to discard upgrades in order to receive a bonus to attack or defence dice. Jennifer Sisko, Sakonna and Torres all have abilities that come into play in the fleet building or set up phase of the game. Once their abilities have been used they do nothing for the rest of the game, but become discard fodder (just to clarify, slots are only added at fleet building, and if the card granting the extra slot disappears later in the game, that has no effect on the slots that have been added. This also means that you can't transfer these cards to add extra slots onto a ship after the game has begun). Some of the perfect cards to discard with an ability like Mirror Sisko are cards like Jen Sisko, Sakonna and Torres (in my play-group, the act of using MU Ben Sisko to discard MU Jennifer Sisko is known as the "domestic violence" play). 

Most discards are also early game pieces - as are some disables. If you are planning to use Projected Stasis Field as a means of crippling an enemy ship in order to win the initial engagement, you aren't going to have PSF later on in the game. Similarly, using Interphase Generator to win the opening engagement means that you won't have that particular tech to deal with things that are going to happen in the late game. What cards like this do, however, and what you should consider from these cards in the early game, is allow you to be in a better position going into the late game. As an example, if you are using IG to cancel 2 hits and turn them into a single hit in round two, is that going to benefit you more than saving it for the late game? Maybe in the late game, your opponent will have an opportunity to attack you with more dice than they do in the early game (thanks to something like Biological Technology) and having an IG to stifle their plans then will be more meaningful than being able to save one hit at the early stage of the game.

This logic applies to disables too, especially when you have no easy way of recycling those discards - in my PSF build, I run a Tactical Officer (KLI) on each of my non-PSF ships, and essentially I use them as discards, since I have no way to re-enable them other than spending my action, which would be better spent on using Drex or N'Garen. Essentially, once they are used once, they are unlikely to be used again. This isn't always the case, and if you have cards like Phlox, Ogowa or the Doctor, you can re-enable those cards and use them multiple times. Consider this carefully before you do so though, as you have to ask yourself how important cards like this will be after the initial engagement. 

I should discuss briefly what I mean by "winning" the initial engagement: most fleets in the 50/3 suggested format (at 120 Sp) have either 2 50 point ships and a 20 point support ship OR 3 ships of roughly 40 points. I have seen some variations on this (50/40/30) but the two examples I've highlighted are the most frequently seen. In 90+blind, the variation is even lower, as mostly you'll see one ship at 50 and one at 40 or two at roughly 45 each. Assuming you are running the same or similar load-out, you should be looking to destroy one ship of 40-50 points in the initial pass without losing one of your own in order to be deemed a "winner". My PSF build (detailed here) works by isolating one ship to be hit by the PSF whilst my two heavy hitters can line up to destroy it. Most of the time, after PSF has disabled shields and Klingon Boarding Party has disabled all the upgrades, my opponent has between 4 and 8 hull to chew through. With the two big hitters rolling 5 dice with both re-rolls and BS conversions (one of which will be a crit) the statistics say that I'll succeed in swinging the odds in my favour. High CS is important in this situation since I want to be able to swing the odds in my favour before my opponent gets a chance to fire back at my weakened PSF carrier and swap one of their ships for one of mine. If you've PSF'd the right ship, you can avoid their incoming fire to such an extent that you should be able to survive the return fire even in your weakened state. Lure helps with this even more by moving one of their ships out of position: 3 ships, one is PSF'd and destroyed, one is Lure'd and out of position, at which point you are trading 3 of your ships' fire for one of theirs, and you "win" the initial engagement. 

There are tactics you can use to avoid this state of affairs; Movement upgrades like Forrest and In'Cha help to stop you from being out of position thanks to Lure whilst PSF can be similarly neutralised by keeping your ship at range 3 from the carrier ship. This makes cards like Quark and Tahna Los better, since if you are hiding PSF your opponent can't react to it, can't disable it with Jen Sisko and won't know that they need to stay at range 3. 

So to distil my long ramble:

• The early game is the first 2-3 turns leading up to and including the initial engagement. 
• A fleet built to succeed in the Early Game will "cash in" their discards and disables early on in order to ensure that they'll get a favourable result out of that initial engagement. 
• An "Early Game Fleet" is unlikely to rely on cards whose value increases as the game goes on
• An EGF will have high Captain Skill 
• An EGF will want the game to end quickly, since as the game goes on, their ability to use the combos they have designed in list building will disappear.

Next time I'll take a look at the mid and late game and how you can build a fleet to thrive later on, and increase your chances of winning as time ticks away.

Thanks for reading, I'm Not Picard!

Different Ways to Play 7: the Combined Arms Build

Welcome back to my ever-longer series on different ways to play the game. I've tried to go through the different archetypes of how you can build lists to do different things:

1. High Quality Attacking
2. Defence Dice Stacking
3. Repeated Attack Cancellation
4. Multiple Movement Upgrades
5. Durability and Repairing
6. The Trick Build

The last of the series, (for now at least) is an attempt (perhaps weak and feeble) to combine counters to as many of these builds as possible into one list. It needs to be able to deal with cloaked mines and fighters, needs to be able to break combos and also to survive various tricks that someone else might pull on you. This is my attempt to do so, in mixed faction play, that I have been mulling over for a while. It isn't perfect, but it covers a lot of the builds you'll potentially be facing. I'll go through the down sides after I explain the build and how it works.

U.S.S. Hathaway [U.S.S. Hathaway] (22)

Jonathan Archer [Enterprise NX-01] (3)

Sakonna [Gavroche] (3)

Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)

Second of Five [Scout Cube] (4)

Projected Stasis Field [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (6)

Unimatrix Shielding [Delta Flyer] (5)

Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (1)

Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (0)

Total (46)

5/1/4/7

The Hathaway provides action economy, PWV of 5, PSF and combo breaking in the form of Second of Five. The Unimatrix Shielding makes it somewhat more survivable in general and a lot more survivable against Borg. Upgraded phasers help to deal with fighters and whilst Archer's primary role is to provide the extra crew slot, the ability to boost CS and Attack dice when needed can prove useful and gives the list flexibility.

Delta Flyer [Delta Flyer] (20)

William T. Riker [U.S.S. Hathaway] (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)

Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (5)

Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)

Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)

Total (48)

5/3/2/7

Bizarrely, this ship is the hard hitter of the fleet, despite being a shuttle. the Basic PWV is 3, which is added to by both Type 8 phasers and Upgraded Phasers, and 99 times out of a hundred it also benefits from Riker's ability too. Despite having 2 hull, the extra 4 shields provided by upgrades help to give it some survivability and if it becomes clear that it might just end up being in the firing line of something that ignores shields, dock with the Hathaway to avoid being targeted at all. On the defensive side, it has 3 evade dice, which is higher than average, although unlikely to be game-breaking and also Improved Deflector Screens to cancel one hit or crit per attack. 

Romulan Science Vessel [R.I.S. Talvath] (12)

Mendak [I.R.W. Haakona] (4)

Adm Alidar Jarok [R.I.S. Talvath] (4)

Quark [Deep Space 9] (3)

Cloaked Mines [I.R.W. Praetus] (3 overridden to 0)

Cloaked Mines [I.R.W. Praetus] (3)

Total (26)

A classic mine layer, the RSV also has Mendak to give out BS tokens, mainly to the Delta Flyer, since it doesn't have BS natively on its action bar. I made the decision to take Admiral Jarok since I like his ability to remove opponent's target locks, but it gives the ship some flexibility in regards to Offence vs Defence. If you want to attack (since you have the CS advantage over your opponent) then use mendak to give out a BS, if not then use Jarok to rob them of their quality. You could even do both, since Jarok is a fleet action. Cloaked Mines and Quark should be relatively self-explanatory.

I haven't used a resource for this build since I was planning to use this for UK Nationals, which unfortunately I can't attend, and I wasn't sure which resources would be retired by then. You could conceivably take OXP Fed/Indy to drop the cost of Sakonna by 1 and allow you to swap out one of the captains for GenKhan or Lore, but I think the build works pretty well as is. 

The issues and weaknesses I forsee with it are basically a) Madred and b) Cloaked Mines. Madred could be used to remove one of the captains without too much trouble as I haven't got any protection against this kind of ability. As for cloaked mines, I get the feeling a good pilot shouldn't ever really worry too much about cloaked mines since a good pilot should be able to minimise their effectiveness, but if an opponent is really going to spam them, then that might just create problems for this list, having said that, the two combat ships have scan on their action bars and a lot of shields, so that could be helpful when facing mine spam lists. Finally, the ships all have what I would consider to be Low Captain Skill. Archer is at 5, Riker at 7 and Mendak at 8. Ideally they'd all be 9, since otherwise they could potentially be in a position where they can't fire since they'll be dead. 

So there you have it, the last of my different ways to play series, and the best list I could possibly come up with as a counter to all of the other different ways to play.

Comments are welcome as always

I'm not Picard!

Different Ways to Play 6: The Trick Build

Welcome back to my irregular multi-part series on playing STAW in different ways, today I deal with perhaps my preferred way of playing, certainly for the last few OPs, the Trick Build.



The Basics

The trick build is often based around an upgrade that robs your opponent of his ability to attack, and often his shields too, although this isn't always the case. For me at least, the trick build is about getting an advantage in the game very quickly so as to ensure that your opponent is a ship down before the game really gets under way. It's easiest for me to explain using a build that I used to win TCW 1 and TCW 2, so some explanation on that build first before I post it (and some explanation of our weird system of house rules too.)

House Rules: When I first started playing at my current venue, the only house rules in place were a general acceptance to not go over the top, which quickly disappeared (certainly my first game was a baptism of fire when a 100 point Borg Tactical Cube came flying across a planet across the board at me turn 1 and nuked one of my ships before I even got started) but as time on we've tried to refine more and more what it is that we want from the game, leading to our current set of house rules. We have a number of experienced players on board, so we made the decision relatively early on not to retire resources, since a new player could easily borrow those resources from us if needs be, we also don't enforce the 50/3 limit, so as to distinguish our own store from others. It's surprising how much fun you can have with only a 120 point dreadnought! As well as these two rules, the other ones of note are that ship purity is enforced, with the exception of independent cards, that can go anywhere, and for the Reinforcement booster missions, we made the decision to go to 160 points (120 plus blind) to mitigate the impact of having a poor blind.

My favourite trick build, is the following:

I.K.S. T'Ong [I.K.S. T'Ong] (24)
Koloth [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (4)
Klingon Boarding Party [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
Projected Stasis Field [I.K.S. Gr'oth] (5)
Total (38)

I.K.S. Maht-H'A [Starter] (28)
Martok [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
Fleet Captain: Klingon [Fleet Captain Resource] (5)
Lure [U.S.S. Dauntless] (1)
Tactical Officer [I.K.S. T'Ong] (2)
N'Garen [I.K.S. Koraga] (4)
Total (45)

Vor'cha Class [Starter] (26)
Kor [I.K.S. Ning'tao] (5)
Tactical Officer [I.K.S. T'Ong] (2)
Drex [I.K.S. Negh'var] (4)
Total (37)
Fleet total: 120

The idea here is that you use lure to make sure that the opponent's most expensive/hardest hitting ship is in range, then you use the two additional actions that CS 10 Martok gives out to trigger first Projected Stasis Field and then Klingon Boarding Party. With the opponent's shields down, all of their upgrades disabled and unable to shoot, the two Vor'Chas then open fire with Drex/N'Garen for BS conversions and tactical officer, if needed, for re-rolls. There are problems here, since KBP doesn't work on cloaked ships, so a Romulan ship with multiple Interphase Generators may prove a hard nut to crack. I used this build to great effect against a Federation Voyager evade build, reducing it to just 4 durability and then removing all of its agility upgrades. Lure was used to ensure that it was in place for the PSF/KBP hit and then the two Vor'Chas firing at 6 dice thanks to range with great quality easily got rid of it. 

The eponymous tricks in play here are: Lure, PSF, KBP, Klingon Fleet captain and Martok. You can achieve similar without the fleet captain, but you have to change Koloth for GenKhan to ensure simultaneous movement with Martok, and it isn't nearly as reliable in this case, but still do-able and it fits into 50/3 (although not fleet/ship purity). 

Tactics:

As with most of the builds I've been cooking up for this series, this fleet is scuttled by having key aspects of it removed, such as Martok, PSF or KBP. If anything, writing this series has really opened my eyes to how important it is to have things in your build that can scalpel out key aspects of an opponent's build. It should also be noted that the trick build isn't limited to PSF combos, but could also work with Kor 6, Mirror Bashir, Breen Energy Dissipator...basically any card that messes with your opponent's fleet, either in how they can fire, how they can move or what actions they can take. The new Ceti Eel Elite Talent from Wrath of Khan's Indy Reliant prize ship is a great example of a card that can mess with your opponent's plans, and that is essentially all that the Trick Build is about, find new and interesting ways of messing with your opponent.

It's been difficult to give a full and thorough account of this way to play simply because there are so many variants of it. Certainly it is something to consider when playing, as a canny opponent with a good grasp of what to do to mess up your plans can really ruin your day! So make sure to build your fleet with PSF, Madred and Lure in mind, since not planning to deal with trick may be your undoing!

NEXT TIME: Combined Arms Builds

Different Ways to Play 5: Durability and Repairing

I know it's been a while, and this might not be as highly anticipated as I'd like it to be, but...Welcome to the Fifth edition in my series of articles encouraging you to find different ways of playing STAW!
Previously I've spoken about High Quality Attacking, Defence Dice Stacking, Repeated Attack Cancellation and Multiple Movement Upgrades. Today, we look at a very Borg way of playing the game: Durability and Repairing (D&R for short). I actually think that this way of playing is a pretty reliable way of playing the game since it allows you the opportunity to out-last your opponent in the same way that DDS does, but without as much of the associated cost, and reliance upon those ever so fickle green dice!

The Basics
You want ships that are big, and I mean really big; Borg Tactical Cube and Dominion Battleship type big. Okay, so those aren't perhaps the best examples, but the internal logic is that you want large numbers in both the Yellow and Blue boxes at the side of the ship stat card. You used to want higher numbers in the Blue box (Shields) than the Yellow Box (Hull) since Critical Hits did little extra to shields and could devastate a ship if you let them get to the hull. Nowadays, thanks to the shield ignoring upgrades that exist like Phased Polaron Beam and Proton Beam, the balance is less clear cut. Regardless of the balance of the two, you want to have a combined hull and shield value (lets call this Durability) of more than 10; and the higher it is, the better your D&R build will be. This sorts the "D" side of "D&R";Next we have to consider the "R" side.

In addition to having loads of durability, you also want to be able to get it back during the engagement. Both Borg and Species 8472 ships have this ability as standard, although it comes with a huge drawback; the Regeneration action will allow you to repair a hull point, but it will stop you from firing that turn, so ideally you want another way of growing your durability back.

Staying with the Borg faction (who do D&R really well, by the way) we have the upgrade Vinculum, As an Action/Disable, you can repair one damage, which may seem a steep cost, but it doesn't cost you your attack and there is nothing on the card stopping you from healing a face up damage card. I played a game against someone using Vinculum on a Borg Sphere not long ago, and it proved to be the difference between the game ending on turn 4 or turn 8. The Sphere was down to 1 hull and had the Damaged Sensor Array Critical hit. This meant that he couldn't use the actions on his action bar, meaning no regeneration action. As it was, he used Vinculum to repair the damaged sensor array and as a result he was able to use regeneration in subsequent turns that he wouldn't otherwise have been able to. On the turn he did use Vinculum I was able to hit his ship for 1 damage; had he not had vinclum to use, that one point of damage would have destroyed him, as it was he stayed in the fight for another 4 turns (at least).

Other repair cards are available, and most factions have access to them: Glinn Daro, Mirror O'Brien, Charles Tucker III, Bu'Kah, Mirok, Micro Power Relays...the list goes on. The point is that in this type of build you have as many of them as possible simply to ensure that you can heal over and over again. If you are playing Klingons in D&R, go for a ship with Bu'Kah and Tritium Intermix, since they are both discards, having multiples helps. In Romulan D&R, Mirok and the Drone ship both heal for free.

Some factions, however, suit D&R more than others. Both Klingons and Romulans are mainly cloaking fleets, and D&R doesn't really want to cloak, since that will cost you a lot of your durability from disabled shields. The Two factions that do D&R best are Federation and Borg:

List 1:
Federation D&R 120 Points

U.S.S. Excelsior [U.S.S. Excelsior] (26)
Data [Sakharov] (2)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
B'Elanna Torres [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Unimatrix Shielding [Delta Flyer] (5)
Micro Power Relays [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Immersion Shielding [Delta Flyer] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Total (50)

U.S.S. Hood [U.S.S. Hood] (26)
Federation [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (0)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Eric Motz [U.S.S. Pegasus] (2)
Immersion Shielding [Delta Flyer] (3)
Micro Power Relays [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Unimatrix Shielding [Delta Flyer] (5)
Arsenal [U.S.S. Phoenix] (4)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (50)

Enterprise NX-01 [Enterprise NX-01] (16)
Clark Terell [U.S.S. Reliant] (1)
Adm Hayes [U.S.S. Thunderchild] (3)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (0)
Total (20)

Fleet total: 120

The idea here is that you have two incredibly durable ships, since both the Hood and Excelsior have 5 hull and 8 Shields for a total durability of 13, with the ability to heal themselves (thanks to Micro Power Relays). The third ship hands out both defence dice (Terell) and attack dice (Hayes) each turn and can take a bit of a pounding (although not much) thanks to Enhanced Hull Plating. Both the Excelsior Class ships swing at 5 dice basic, with an extra 1 (2 against Borg) from Hayes. Whilst you will be using your actions for Micro Power Relays most of the time, the first turn engagement will allow some quality on those dice, thanks to Data, the Excelsior's named ability and a ship action that won't otherwise be used. 

List 2:

Borg D&R 90 Points

Borg Sphere [Borg Sphere 4270] (38)
Tactical Drone [Borg Sphere 4270] (3)
Vinculum [Assimilated Vessel 80279] (5)
Total (46)

Borg Sphere [Borg Sphere 4270] (38)
Tactical Drone [Scout Cube] (1)
Vinculum [Assimilated Vessel 80279] (5)
Total (44)

Fleet total: 90

Very simple and straightforward: One cube has Tactical Drone 4270 for re-rolls without needing to spend a target lock and the other has the Counter Attack tactical drone to make attack the cube even more futile than resistance normally would be. Both spheres have Vinculums, either to heal up the 13 durability that both spheres have or to replenish Drone Tokens that are needed to use captain abilities. Obviously it needs to get into range 2 to do its dirty work, but Borg players seem to like things down and dirty.

Is D&R a viable tactic? I certainly think it has some legs, and it's a tactic that won't rely on dice rolls the way that DDS does. Reliably being able to regenerate one point of damage a turn whilst not necessarily being pillow fisted in return means that in an attrition battle, you might just come out on top over a pure HQA fleet. Having the upgrades that aid healing on board certainly give you the flexibility to do more than one thing on turns that you haven't engaged your enemy, that perhaps HQA doesn't have. As with all of these builds, going all-in on one strategy might not be the best way of doing things, and I think a combination of both D&R and HQA might just be the ticket. More on that later though....

EDIT: the regenerate action only allows hull to be healed, not shields. This makes some difference to the utility of Borg/Species builds but also reinforces the point about wanting extra repair upgrades.

NEXT TIME: The Trick Build

Different Ways to Play 4: Multiple Movement Upgrades

Welcome to the fourth edition in my series of articles encouraging you to find different ways of playing STAW. I started with the obvious High Quality Attacking (HQA), before moving onto the less popular (and less effective) Defence Dice Stacking (DDS) and Repeated Attack Cancellation (RAC). I don’t think either DDS or RAC are tactics that will consistently beat HQA, mainly because of a) the cost and unreliability of DDS in a 50/3 meta and b) the difficulty of creating multiple reliable RAC ships. For the record, both DDS and RAC get better outside of 50/3 and in scenario play.

The question this poses seems to be “is there a way of beating HQA that isn’t just better HQA?” and the answer is “yes, usually”. DDS is a very obvious and straight-forward way of playing the game (so is HQA) and whilst RAC takes a little thought, it is still a way to play the game that relies almost entirely on list building as your main source of victory. The glorious thing about STAW, what discerns it from other similar games, like M:tG, is that it is not just a case of comparing lists or decks to see who wins (and yes Magic players, I know that you don’t just compare decks and that there is more skill than that involved) you have to actually fly the fleets against one another to see who wins.

So the fourth way to play tries to maximise your ability to fly right, at the cost of perhaps creating weaker combos: I call that style “Multiple Movement Upgrades” (MMU for short).

The Basics

The list is based on a number of relatively simple ideas. First, there is the principle that in a 50/3 game you are likely going to be facing 2 or 3 other ships with your 2 or 3 ships (Shuttles docking account for it not being 3 all the time) and as such you want to engineer a situation in which you have more of your ships firing at their ships than can be fired back upon. Secondly, in order to engineer those kind of situations, you want to purchase upgrades that allow you to move more than once per turn, preferably after you have moved yourself in order to guarantee that you stay out of range or arc. Third, given that your ships are likely on the fragile side, you are forced into making the choice of moving out of a position where you can fire into a position where you cannot fire if staying in a position to fire would cause your ship to be destroyed. Ideally you want to be able to move last and fire first, so high captain skills are a must with this kind of list. GenKhan is a particularly good choice since he will tie the highest CS on the board and if he is on a relatively low initiative ship (Borg, Species, Mirror) then he can guarantee moving last. For clarity, if given the choice between moving last or firing first you want to take moving last in MMU.


With a few important caveats, I’d consider the 2015 World Championship Winning build to be an example of MMU: the two main ships involved were Scout 608 (the now infamous Scout 608 that could potentially move 3 times per –activation) and the Queen Vessel Prime, with Weyoun 6 and Romulan Pilot, allowing potentially 3 moves per activation). Joseph Van Der Jagt’s second place build also had two ships with movement upgrades (in this case Admiral Forrest coupled with the now retired Indy Federation Fleet Captain) – whilst both of these fleets did MMU in as much as their fleets could move multiple times per turn, they also had High Quality Attacking (either Mag Charges or Picard 9) and high durability (Borg Ocatahederon or Bioships) too, so it wasn’t an ‘all-eggs-in-one-basket’ affair.

As with a lot of the other different ways to play, if you want to skew fully in this direction, I'd suggest cross-faction:

I.K.S. Ning'tao [I.K.S. Ning'tao] (22)
Chang [Chang's Bird of Prey] (4)
In'cha [I.K.S. Negh'var] (5)
Synon [IKS Ch'tang] (5)
Total (36)

Scout 608 [Scout Cube] (24)
Khan Singh [GenKhan] (4)
Full Reverse [Alpha Hunter] (2)
Dispersion Field [Scout 255] (2)
Sakonna [Gavroche] (3)
Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (5)
Proton beam [Scout 255] (2)
Magnetometric Guided Charge [Assimilated Vessel 64758] (3)
Total (45)

U.S.S. Hathaway [U.S.S. Hathaway] (22)
Benjamin Maxwell [U.S.S. Yeager] (4)
Adm Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)
Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver [U.S.S. Enterprise] (5)
Thruster Array [U.S.S. Montgolfier] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (39)

Fleet total: 120

The Ning'Tao gets its manoeuvrability from sensor echoes that thanks to Chang 7 it gets twice a turn and can come about after doing one of them. Synon allows you to do a "3" sensor echo too if the need arises. It is a very fragile ship, but the flexibility it has with movement allows you to get out of arc until you are in a really good position to fire. 

Scout 608 is a toned down version of the World Championship Build, but retains a lot of the movement shenanigans that it had previously. Gen Khan guarantees that it'll move last. 

The Hathway is probably the weakest of the three ships here, but Forrest's fleet action allows for extra movement as does the Thruster Array. Cochrane Decelration Maneuver gives you that one shot come about if you really need it and Ben Maxwell lets you change your dial if you mess it up one turn.

None of these three ships are particularly hardy or shooty, but the firepower is enough that if you can outmanoeuvre your opponent it will cause him problems if all three ships fire on the same target. 

Tactics:

As with many of the other builds in this series, if you take away the upgrades then the fleet becomes a lot less tricky to deal with, the scout in particular would be an ideal target for activation phase attacking or Decker damage. You want to try as much as possible to get shots in when you can, since this fleet will dance and dance and dance to deny you a firing solution. The upside is that this is a complicated fleet to play with quite a high skill ceiling. If someone doesn't know what they are doing, or takes a wrong move with this fleet, then you can make them suffer.

As always all comments are welcome, so thanks for reading!

NEXT TIME: Durability and Repairing

Different Ways to Play 3: Repeated Attack Cancellation

For a long time attack cancellation, particularly Repeated Attack Cancellation (RAC) was the bogeyman of Star Trek Attack Wing and was frowned upon. Before I get going it is worth mentioning the recent Wizkids Online Rules Forum (WORF) errata of Conditional Surrender so that the card now reads "When your ship is attacked, before any dice are rolled, discard all of your (Crew) Upgrades and this card to cancel the attack. You must have at least 1 (Crew) Upgrade on your ship in order to use this ability". This makes a huge difference to the viability of RAC as there is only one way to do it multiple times (namely Varel) rather than the two that there used to be. 

The Basics

As I discussed last time, those green dice can be fickle, and because they can be fickle you need a more reliable way of avoiding damage. The way to do this, certainly before either the "may" ruling or the 50/3 ruling was to have a ship that could cancel multiple attacks in order to stay alive. One of the ways to do this was to combine Weyoun 6 from the 5th Wing Patrol Ship, who can disable to stop a crew card from discarding or disabling, and Varel from the RIS Apnex, who was discarded upon being targeted by a ship, before any dice were rolled, to cancel that attack. Back in the pre-50/3 dreadnought meta one Borg Tactical Cube with Weyoun and Varel was a regular sight and a pretty successful build to. After the 50/3 ruling RAC was still seen, mainly by having a second ship with Sopek (from the Ni'Var) and Conditional Surrender (or a combination of Weyoun, Varel, Sopek or Conditional Surrender). The Conditional Surrender Ruling above has rather put the kybosh on that though, so as it stands at the moment, repeated attack cancellation is difficult to do.

At least it is difficult to do on the same terms as it used to be, there are still ways to limit the damage coming into your ship without necessarily guaranteeing attack cancellation every turn. There are a number of different upgrades that allow for limited attack cancellation with some degree of repetition, such as Kurak, One, Interphase Generator and Feedback pulse, and a number of cards that stop discards/disables, such as Centurion (crew), Li Nalas, Beverly Crusher (crew), Shroud, Goval and Temporal conduit. This means that if you are all in on RAC, you can still do it although it won't be every turn forever any more. 

This tactic doesn't really work in faction pure, but here are some cross-faction ideas:

Prakesh [Prakesh] (26)
Miles O'Brien [I.S.S. Defiant] (3)
Adm Worf [Regent's Flagship] (2)
Conditional Surrender [Krayton] (4)
The Benefactor [Temporal Cold War Cards] (5)
Breen Aide [Gor Portas] (2)
Temporal Conduit [Temporal Cold War Cards] (5)
Shroud [4th Division Battleship] (2)
Total (49)

Regent's Flagship [Regent's Flagship] (32)
Weyoun [5th Wing Patrol Ship] (3)
Varel [R.I.S. Apnex] (11)
Julian Bashir [I.S.S. Defiant] (2)
Goval [Soong] (2)
Total (50)

I.S.S. Avenger [I.S.S. Avenger] (16)
Gul Macet [Assimilated Vessel 64758] (2)
Boheeka [Koranak] (2)
Total (20)

Officer Exchange Program (0)

Fleet total: 119

The idea here is that the Prakesh can use Conditional Surrender once, and save Breen Aide from the discard with shroud. After that, Temporal Conduit can be used to reclaim Conditional Surrender and The Benefactor can make that reclaimation instant.

The Regent's Flagship can discard Varel to cancel attacks and then save the discard with either Weyoun or Goval. Julian Bashir makes it so they have to attack the Flagship when the Prakesh isn't in a position to attack cancel, whilst the Flagship can cancel an attack every turn.

The Avenger is in the list as an annoyance but the combination of Macet, BS action and Boheeka would make the ship a 5 dice attack with quality. Not bad for 20 points!

The other idea has been covered on State of the Federation, but the idea is to use officer exchange programme to get repeated uses of One:

Tactical Cube 138 [Tactical Cube] (46)
Sopek [Ni'Var] (3)
Goval [Soong] (1)
One [Scout 255] (4)
Total (54)

Suurok Class [Ti'Mur] (18)
V'Las [Ni'Var] (3)
Adm Borg Queen [Queen Vessel Prime] (4)
Total (25)

Koranak [Koranak] (26)
Weyoun [5th Wing Patrol Ship] (4)
Varel [R.I.S. Apnex] (11)
Total (41)

Officer Exchange Program (0)

Fleet total: 120

V'Las is added to give some protection against gankers, and the Weyoun Varel combination on the Koranak is fairly self explanatory. 

Tactics

Since a build like this relies so much on its upgrades and discard cancellers, being able to mess with that is key to defeating a build like this, especially with captain killers like Madred and Tantalus Field. Outside of that, having more ships to shoot with, and hence more attacks to cancel can also be a good tactic. This build is nowhere near as effective as it once was, since Conditional Surrender was errata'd and the 50/3 meta forces you into 3 ship builds. Also, a lot of venues have specifically banned the Weyoun/varel combination. An alternative to Weyoun/Varel is Weyoun/Odo, since the Odo card from Quark's treasure allows you to copy a card and use it's ability. In that case I'd probably go with Weyoun/Odo on one ship and Sopek/Varel on another.

Next time: Movement Upgrade Spam

Different Ways to Play 2: Defence Dice Stacking

Just a short prefix to all this: I'm English and the game of STAW is an American production, hence some of the wording is in American English and by virtue of my writing in British English there may be some inconsistency with spelling. Hence the title of this post is Defence (the British English version) rather than defense (the American English Version). Please don't take this inconsistency as evidence of my inability to spell, just difficulties with auto-correct on a British English computer when writing about an American game. 

Last time I spoke about the standard tactic in STAW: Quality attacking. It seems only reasonable to talk now about the opposite of that tactic, Defence Dice Stacking. Up to Wave 2, defence dice stacking seemed to be the most popular way to play the game - this was mainly because of the strength of cloaking in opposition to low PWV/poor quality that existed in the early game. The idea behind defence stacking is that you make it so difficult to kill your ships that eventually your attacking, which may be low in dice and quality, will break through your opponent's defences. It is the quintessential "Attrition" strategy.

As I've already alluded to above, this tactics used to be better than it is now. The two main reasons for this are the gradual power creep that has seen higher numbers of red dice being rolled (with increased quality) and the loss of the dreadnought thanks to the 50/3 format change. At Regionals last year, before the 50/3 format change, the 90 point Federation dreadnought with 8-9 defence dice with quality was a legitimate (and winning) strategy.

The Basics
Unlike with High Quality Attacking (HQA), Defence Dice Stacking (DDS) doesn't require High CS captains. The main reason for this is that HQA relies upon killing your opponent before they get a chance to hit your weaker defence whilst in DDS winning only requires survival. For this reason, DDS prefers captains with abilities that aid defence. Some examples of this are Robert De Soto, Gul Evek, Rudolph Ransom, Sar - all of whom have lower CS but also Ahab Picard, Jayneway, Koloth and Letant, who have higher CS. The point is when choosing a captain for DDS you are choosing based on the ability that captain has, rather than their CS. The other reason for wanting to fire last is that you will have weathered enemy fire to the point that it's safe to spend that BS conversion on attacking since you won't get attacked again and really regret not having that BS token to convert into successful evades.

The Second factor in DDS is that you want to maximise the number of upgrades that give you bonus defence dice. Federation are overburdened with these type of upgrades: Hood Riker, Tinyprise Sulu, Tom Paris, Multi-Adaptive Shielding, etc. Other factions have some of these too, Amat'Igan and Tetryon Emmissions from Dominion for example. Some factions are heavily lacking in DDS upgrades (I'm struggling to think of a Klingon example).

Next, you need a ship that both has the slots to put these upgrades on, and a good native agility ability, like the USS Voyager (3 crew slots, 1 tech slot, 2 native agility) or the RIS Vo (3 native agility and Cloaking). The USS Voyager is the archetypal spaceframe to build DDS onto.

Finally you need a way to get quality on those dice. This can be via upgrades like Romulan Security Officer (that allow a re-roll for a disable), Ship Text (the IRW Belak allows re-rolls of BS results) or captains (Gul Evek allows you to re-roll all blank results). It is better if these abilities are passive, since then you can take either a BS or Evade token. Before anyone says anything, yes, High CS action economy captains are good in this build, but you may want to avoid them because you want to spend that BS token at the optimum time, and that might not always be by firing first (but it sometimes will be).

A Cross-Faction example:

U.S.S. Voyager [U.S.S. Voyager] (30)
Robert DeSoto [U.S.S. Hood] (3)
Pavel Chekov [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (3)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Hood] (3)
Hikaru Sulu [U.S.S. Enterprise] (3)
Multi-adaptive Shields [U.S.S. Raven] (5)
Total (47)

U.S.S. Bellerophon [U.S.S. Bellerophon] (30)
Rudolph Ransom [U.S.S. Equinox] (2)
Tom Paris [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Amat'Igan [Battle Cruiser] (3)
Total (39)

R.I.S. Vo [R.I.S. Vo] (16)
Liviana Charvanek [I.R.W. Vorta Vor] (4)
Admiral Mendak [I.R.W. Haakona] (4)
Diplomacy [Ti'Mur] (6)
Romulan Security Officer [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Distress Signal [R.I.S. Pi] (2)
Total (34)

Officer Exchange Program (0)

Fleet total: 120

The two Federation Ships have 6 dice and the Vo has 7 whilst cloaked. Voyager get 2 BS conversions for free and 3 re-rolls from De Soto, the Bellerophon gets an Evade token and can take the BS token from Mendak's fleet action too, as well as being able to cancel a hit by disabling 2 of its 5 shields. The Vo's named text allows for you to take an evade token for free as long as you don't attack and with distress signal you can add 2 extra dice when needed. The RSO gives you a re-roll for a disable and Charvanek's ability can save you from the disable. Diplomacy can even act to reduce incoming fire on a key turn to save one of the larger ships (and as a side effect, save the Vo too!).

Federation can do a similar build, which isn't quite as effective:

U.S.S. Voyager [U.S.S. Voyager] (30)
Robert DeSoto [U.S.S. Hood] (3)
Pavel Chekov [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (3)
Hikaru Sulu [U.S.S. Enterprise] (3)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Hood] (3)
Multi-adaptive Shields [U.S.S. Raven] (5)
Total (47)

U.S.S. Bellerophon [U.S.S. Bellerophon] (30)
Rudolph Ransom [U.S.S. Equinox] (2)
Tom Paris [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Data [Starter] (3)
Dorsal Phaser Array [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)
Total (44)

Enterprise NX-01 [Enterprise NX-01] (16)
Clark Terell [U.S.S. Reliant] (1)
Admiral Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)
Elizabeth Shelby [U.S.S. Yeager] (2)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (0)
Total (22)

Main Power Grid (3)

Fleet total: 120

With this version of the build you get 7-6-3 dice, although the NX has enhanced hull plating to cancel two hits and Shelby potentially gives you an extra dice. The Bellerophon loses a native green dice but gains an extra evade token and increased coverage from dorsal phaser array. Forrest gives you extra manoeuvrability, and boosts the NX to skill 3. The Main Power Grid resource allows you to cancel two hits incoming against one ship for the cost of an APT although you lose the opportunity to attack if you do this, interestingly, the NX-01 could cancel up to 4 hits a turn against it, for the cost of 3 APTs. 

Tactics

When facing a fleet like this the one upgrade that absolutely destroys it is Magnetometric Guided Charge. Having invested so much in defence, and upgrade that just ignores all that is just brutal. Whilst MGC is the best way, you could use any other scan enhancers or agility reducers to cut through those defence dice and also because it is so reliant on its upgrades, using any gankers to remove key upgrades, like Sulu or Diplomacy will be significantly irksome. The truth of the matter is, ultimately, that even the best defence is unlikely to stop a really good offence, so a 6 dice attack with both TL and BS could burn through a 6 dice defence with both re-rolls and Conversions. If the dice are on your side though, DDS will beat HQA eventually - that's a big if.

Anyway, there you go, another tactic you can use in your STAW games, something to try out and test. Any comments are welcome, especially if you've had experience running this type of build!

Next Time: Repeated Attack Cancellation

Different Ways to Play 1: High Quality Attacking

Recently I've been getting into Privateer Press' Warmachine and Hordes game system as a more complex miniatures game to go with ST;AW. With a long history (20 years) of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 behind me, I've found it interesting comparing the different ways that those systems allow you to play (although GW can burn in hell for eternity for killing off Warhammer fantasy). It got me thinking about the different potential ways that there were to play in ST:AW and that really got me thinking about the elephant in the room: That there is only one way to play ST;AW effectively. Is that even true? That's what I'll try to cover in this post.

From the point I started playing STAW at OP events, to the point that I regularly won OP events was about 6 months for me. In the last year I've won 10 out of 12 OP events and I feel I have a pretty good grasp of how the game plays. I still ask questions and sound out other people on lists and ideas precisely because I feel you get to know the game better by bouncing off other people's expectations and ideas. I don't claim to be the world's foremost expert on top level competitive play, as I've never had the opportunity to play at that level, and my local OP scene plays with some pretty funky house rules, so your mileage may vary as regards these ideas, but please don't discount them out of hand.

Way 1: High Quality Attacking
It's a relatively simple paradigm that seems to dominate discussion at the moment; the basic idea is that you have at least 2 ships rolling 5+ red dice with both re-rolls and BS conversions. It's helped by high CS captains and Federation plays it best, a sample list would be:

USS Enterprise-E [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (30)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)Picard Maneuver [U.S.S. Stargazer] (5)William T. Riker [U.S.S. Pegasus] (4)Dorsal Phaser Array [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (6)Total (49)

U.S.S. Prometheus [U.S.S. Prometheus] (30)Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)Dorsal Phaser Array [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (6)Total (42)

Fighter Squadron 6 [Fighter Squadron 6] (24)Coordinated Attack [Fighter Squadron 6] (3)Total (27)

Fleet total: 120



Both the Enterprise-E and the Prometheus fire 5 dice with both TL and BS. The Fighters have 6 dice when undamaged, and at least one turn of TL and BS thanks to Co-ordinated attack. The CSs are 9, 9 and 6, so against most opponents you will fire first. The dorsal phaser arrays give great coverage and between Picard Maneuver and the Prometheus' ship action, you should be able to close really quickly on your opponent and get that alpha strike in quickly. The fast closing speed allows for TL against Cloakers first turn, and even though the dials aren't great, the DPA allows you to keep firing every turn. The fighters are a reasonably priced offensive support ship at 27 points, and this build also shows that the build out is two big ships and one smaller support ship, a pretty decent build in most circumstances, and one of the two most frequent combinations I see (the other being 3 ships all roughly the same cost). 

It works mixed faction too:

Scimitar [Scimitar] (38)
Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)
Total (43)

Reman Warbird [Scimitar] (36)
Gul Dukat [Koranak] (6)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Pegasus] (4)
Advanced Cloaking [Vorta Vor] (4)
Total (50)

Fighter Squadron 6 [Fighter Squadron 6] (24)
Coordinated Attack [Fighter Squadron 6] (3)
Total (27)

Officer Exchange Program (Federation/Romulan)

Fleet total: 120

CSs are 9-10-6 and the advantage of this build over the fed pure build is that you have 2 ships rolling 6 dice each with both TL and BS, and the Benefits of Permacloak from the Two Scimitars. The fighter squadron is as before. The downside is loss of the DPA meaning worse coverage and although this is somewhat made up for by the Scimitar having a come about, the APT you get from firing whilst cloaked means that you'll probably not be able to use it when you really need it.

So there's the first way to play, both in faction and cross-faction, you can get high PWV attacks with quality in a 3 ship build and in the 50/3 format. Easy enough to fly, little tactical input needed as most turns you move forward, TL and BS, then fire. Concentrate that fire to destroy the most threatening enemy ship and fly in formation to maximise the damage.

To beat a fleet set up like this I'd want to limit its ability to concentrate fire power. If you can engage one of their ships with all three of yours then that really limits the damage that the high quality attack can do. Obviously there are difficulties in causing that to happen, but with enough movement upgrades and with proper use of terrain (if there is any) you can outmanoeuvre the fleet. A good player isn't going to let you do this though. A tactic that I usually use in most builds is ganking to combo break, but there isn't much to gank in these fleets, so a better but similar tactic is to kill off the extra-action captains. Both Gul Madred and Tantalus Field will cause this fleet problems, although Riker provides extra defence for captains and that shouldn't be forgotten. Another key to defeating fleets like this is finding ways to stop them from taking actions, since this will stop them taking free actions too. In this case, upgrades that hand out Aux tokens are golden, particularly against the permacloaked Scimitars, since they are likely to already have an APT thanks to their own desire to stay cloaked. 

This is a good build, and it's relatively easy to build for most factions or cross factions, but it does have some weaknesses, and those can be exploited by good counter-builds to make it easily defeated. 

Next time: Defense Stacking Builds