Declare your independence!

The Independent faction is perhaps the most difficult faction to pin down in term of theme or ability, since it is a hodge-podge and mismatch of different ships from different on screen factions and eras. As such there are a variety of ways of dealing with independent faction cards in the game. In many cases, people just deal with Independent as they do with any other faction: In faction pure they are a faction on their own and then they are used as another faction to mix from in mixed faction play. In other situations, you could do as the guys on Red Maneuvers do (http://www.redmaneuvers.com/) and play penalty pure but allow independent cards to be played cross faction (still having to pay the 1 SP faction penalty). Whichever way you play it, the Independents have a lot to offer (although maybe not in terms of ships).



With this in mind, I decided that I'd take a look at the Val Jean Expansion. There are lots of bits and pieces in this expansion that give you options that you don't get elsewhere, so it's well worth looking at in a little more detail.


Ships:

Val Jean/Generic Maquis Raider

The slashline is nothing to write home about at all at 2/3/3/3(2) but you do have the small advantage of a 90 forward and 90 rear arc, which makes things a little better for using secondary weapons. I must say, that whilst I usually hold secondary weapons in contempt, the Val Jean is a pretty good platform for them, it doesn't lose a lot in terms of PWV to fire its secondary weapons and it also has the front and rear arcs to make the most of them. It also has a pretty good dial, standard 4 green and a 3 red come about - but everything else is white, including both a 2 and 3 hard turn. This thing manoeuvres well. The Generic then, is okay, but nothing special.

The named ability is great: You can disable up to 3 upgrades to add Evade results to your roll when defending. Given the unreliability of green dice, the guaranteed nature of these green results is well worth it. It does occur to me, though, that if you are getting fired at with this ship, you aren't making the most of all of its abilities.

With the standard 'Federation' action bar of BS/TL/EM and Scan, this is a decent ship, if not anything that will blow you away

Named: D+ Generic: D

Captains:



Chakotay's independent version is (for some reason) a higher CS than his Federation version (CS6). I really like this card for two main reasons. 1) with the retirement of Flagships, Fleet Captains and Officer Cards, there are few ways to add slots to a ship's upgrade bar. Chakotay gives you the option of adding either a crew or weapons slot to your upgrade bar. The weapon isn't the most interesting thing to add, but an extra crew slot would be useful on ever so many ships. If you play mixed faction, then Chakotay is a relatively cheap way of getting an extra slot. 2) Chakotay's ability is actually brilliant. As an action you can perform a second manoeuvre from your dial with a number of 3 or less, for the cost of an APT (with a second APT being added if the manoeuvre is red). This ability is absolutely golden as far as getting out of arc, out of range and keeping you ship alive. Keep in mind that you don't have to run Chakotay on the Val Jean, so why not shove him on a Borg ship, and relive the hey-day of pre-nerf Borg!

Grade: B+

Calvin Hudson also adds a slot to the upgrade bar, but gives you greater flexibility than Chakotay in that he allows you to add a tech slot too. Hudson also allows you to reduce the cost of upgrades deployed to his ship, if it's an independent ship. Back in the days of flagships, this was a fantastic ability to have, since any ship could become an independent flagship, but is less good now...although still worthwhile and useful.

Grade: B-


Elite Talents:

Be creative is a re-usable Disobey Orders - it allows you to convert an evade/scan/BS token to an Evade/Scan/BS token 'at any time' (which is a bit of a misnomer since as WORF stands at the moment, 'at any time' means between phases. I really hate this definition) with the definition of 'at any time' being as it is at the moment, I'd pass on this upgrade at the moment.

Grade: C-

Evasive Pattern Omega is an ability I really like, since it allows you to sensor echo if you end the phase in the forward firing arc of an opponent's ship, and you don't also have that ship in your firing arc. Okay, it's a disable, but the benefits that this has in terms of manoeuvrability shouldn't be underestimated. When coupled with Chakotay and his extra move, this is a brilliant ability.

Grade: B


Crew:



I'll start with Tuvok, since he fits in with the manoeuvrability theme of the expansion. For a disable, Tuvok allows you to perform an additional 1 manoeuvre (straight, bank or turn). With all the Manoeuvring on offer, you could potentially move, move again, sensor echo, attack and then move again all in the same turn. I love that kind of flexibility!

Grade: B

B'Elanna Torres goes some way to aiding the low PWV of the Val Jean, in that she allows you to, when attacking at range 3, add 1 attack dice at the cost of a disable, What's nice is that if you add that upgrade to a ship with hull 3 or less, you can disable Torres to add 2 extra dice. If it wasn't a disable it would be golden, but still has some utility in so much as you could easily deploy B'Elanna to a Scout Cube with mag charges and disable for an extra 2 attacks! - but only in cross faction play.

Grade: C

Kenneth Dalby is a pretty standard repair card with some flexibility. Action/Disable for 1 hull or shield repaired and action/discard for 2 hull or shields repaired. It isn't bad as repair cards go, but it'd be better if he wasn't a disable or alternatively wasn't an action.

Grade: C



Seska was a card that caused a lot of moaning prior to its release, since the preview on StarTrek.Com suggested that she would be attack cancelling. Thankfully, she isn't a copy of Varel, but for 5 points she allows you, for an Action/Discard AND disabling another upgrade, to target an enemy ship at range 1-3 and then stop it from attacking you. There are so many moving parts here, and the chances of being in the firing arc of more than one ship are so high, that I might even suggest that this is too expensive a card to waste Weyoun or Sopek on in cross faction play.

Grade: D

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes do what you'd expect 5 point photons to do. If they were timed, they might be worth taking on this ship, as it is. Pass.

Grade: F

Ramming attack is one of the more efficient ramming/suicide ships in the game. Basically, there is a lot of text on this card, but you ram something, your ship blows up, and the target ship takes 6 dice worth of damage at -3 defence dice. This card has applications, don't get me wrong, but it is so costly (you blow up) that I can't see taking it all that often.

Grade: D

So there you have the Val Jean. I really like the Maquis faction, and this and the Gavroche together add plenty of Maquis themed cards to your arsenal. As for fleet builds, I have two to suggest:

1.
Maquis Raider [Val Jean] (20)
Chakotay [Val Jean] (4)Evasive Pattern Omega [Val Jean] (3)Tuvok [Val Jean] (3)Total (30)

Not the hardest of hitters, but with so much manoeuvrability, you can kill your enemy with a thousand cuts! 

2.
Val Jean [Val Jean] (22)
Calvin Hudson [Val Jean] (3)
Sakonna [Gavroche] (1)
Kenneth Dalby [Val Jean] (1)
Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (3)
Plasma Torpedoes [Tholia One (Retail)] (0)
Plasma Torpedoes [Tholia One (Retail)] (0)
Plasma Torpedoes [Tholia One (Retail)] (0)
Total (30)


With so many upgrades at reduced cost, the Val Jean has lots of scope to make the most of its ability to disable a card to add to the evade results. Also, by having 3 Plasma Torpedoes, you could potentially do some damage. 

So, there you have it, the Val Jean, full of decent upgrades and useful crew.


I'm Not Picard.