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