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