A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: Kraxon

I don't know in canon if the Cardassians ever had a ship ownership abbreviation like USS or IKS, but the Cardassian offering for wave zero was just known as the Kraxon. Maybe CUS Kraxon (for Cardassian Union Ship) or CSS Kraxon (Cardassian StarShip) was too confusing since the ships never had that prefix on the show, regardless, by having name alone, the Kraxon established that Cardassian ships never had any Prefix.

In my last post I posited the theory that "Wizkids hates Romulans" then dismissed it wholesale. For a while, at the beginning of STAW's life, "Wizkids hated the Dominion" that is to say, that until Wave 2, the dominion lagged behind their opponents (mainly, it has to be said, because they didn't receive a ship in the starter).

The Kraxon expansion is not in itself a terrible expansion, it just wasn't as great as the USS Enterprise from wave 0 or the Maht'h'a and Enterprise-D from the starter.

Ships:
Kraxon/Cardassian Galor Class

The slashline of 4-1-4-4 for the named Kraxon is almost perfect. 4 attack is worthy of note whilst 8 durability is the sweet-spot for avoiding a single attack death (without some unlucky critical hits at least). Agility of only 1 may seem bad, and certainly the 2 points paid for this stat would be better placed in literally any of the other categories, but seeing as agility 1 is standard on most capital ships, it shouldn't be begrudged too much. The named ability of the Kraxon is useful, as it allows you to siphon damage off from other ships, but not as useful as it once was thanks to the "may" ruling. As for slots, the named has Tech/Tech/Weapon/Crew, which is nice thanks to the two tech slots. In faction pure play, though, you really would like some better tech choices to go in those two slots, and in most cases I'd swap a tech for a crew (as you get on the Reklar). The generic loses a tech slot. Another downside to the Kraxon is that it has an action bar of Scan, TL and Evade. No Battlestations action really makes the ship less effective.

Grade: B-

Captains:

Gul Ranor is the higher CS captain from this expansion, but apart from his middling CS of 5, he has little to offer when compared to Gul Danar, the other captain from this pack. The only use I see for him is if you need to guarantee a first turn attack on an opponent (kill a shuttle before it docks, for example) then he may work, but otherwise I wouldn't run him, simply because the cost of taking his action (action/apt) removes much of the utility of doing so.

Grade: D-

Gul Danar has a low CS (3) but his ability is one that you can conceivably use every turn, allowing you to re-roll a blank red dice. Since his ability is prefixed with "when attacking" it goes to follow that if you are able to attack more than once per round, you get to use the ability multiple times. This has synergy with one of the upgrades in the pack, so I actually prefer Danar to Ranor. Danar is pretty cheap too, so you can use him as a third captain in a 3 ship fleet.

Grade: C+

Crew:
Glinn Telle is the only crew option in this pack, and his action is good, reducing one ship's incoming fire by 2 dice for the round, but expensive in both economical (Action/Discard) and cost terms (3SP). I have used him in the past, but don't see him as a card of use all that often.

Grade: D

Tech:
Antiproton Scan is a card that I see having some mileage, and as I said on Warp Core Breach, is one of a number of cards in faction that enhance the scan action. It works best against cloaking fleets and since you can't TL a cloaked ship, you'll probably be taking scan anyway, so scan away and then make use of the extra red die to make up for having no quality.

Grade: B-

EM Pulse offers a modified version of Glinn Telle. You get to impose -1 red and -1 green die on an enemy ship for the cost of an action/disable. At 4SP it is better than Glinn Telle's 3SP discard, it's almost a shame you can't use both in the same turn for -3 red dice! It still has limited utility though.

Grade: D+

Weapons:
Forwards weapon grid allows you to divide your attack between 2 different ships in your forward firing arc, which is great if you are facing fighters and synergises well with Gul Ranor. At 5 SP it is quite expensive, but doesn't require either of your targeted ships to be target locked. It is a disable though.

Grade: C

So in its totality this expansion doesn't bring anything fantastic to the table. The Kraxon's main utility is in using its ship ability to keep other, more important targets alive longer. My only build suggestion is the following:

Kraxon [Kraxon] (26)
Gul Ranor [Kraxon] (3)
Antiproton Scan [Kraxon] (4)
Forward Weapons Grid [Kraxon] (5)
Total (38)

Fleet total: 38

38 points is a lot to spend on what is essentially a support ship. Hang close to the rest of your fleet and bleed damage onto the Kraxon, when you face fighters you can use the forward weapons grid to knock a token or two off, and the Anti-proton scan gives you a use for the scan you'll be taking against cloakers. I'd almost suggest taking a scan action every turn, since you have Ranor for some quality anyway, then you are firing with 5 dice, a re-roll and a scan each turn against cloakers, 6 dice when using forward weapons grid. Not the most game breaking combination, but the best available from a pretty sub-par pack.


Thanks for reading, I'm not Picard.

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.

Hunting Season is Open

Star Trek is full of warrior races: Klingons became honourable at some point between TOS and TNG but remained a warrior race; Kazon were the overwhelmingly war-like race of the first 2 seasons of voyager; the Jem'Hadr were a race bred for war in season 3-7 of Deep Space Nine, the list goes on. One thing that was touched on in Deep Space Nine, and then expanded on in Voyager, was the idea of a hunter-race. The Deep Space Nine version appeared in one episode (Captive Pursuit) and was never mentioned again (the episode isn't well thought of amongst fans of DS9); but the Voyager version, the Hirogen, appeared in 9 episodes including the fantastic 2-parter "The Killing Game". (Sidenote: One thing that Voyager did very well was the two part episode, there are some fantastic episodes like Year of Hell as well as the end/opening of season double headers, like Scorpion and Equinox).

In terms of ST:AW, the Hirogen are represented by the Alpha Hunter expansion pack - a pack that has seen quite a lot of negative press, but one that I like a great deal.

Ship:
Alpha Hunter/Hirogen Warship.

The slashline of 4/2/3/4 is an interesting one - mainly because of the low hull value and slightly above average evade. when you consider that 4/1/3/3 is the slashline for a named B'rel, it isn't hard to draw comparisons with the Klingon fleet. The difference here is that it has the standard federation action bar (EM/TL/Sc/BS) as opposed to the Cloaker action bar (SE/Cl/TL/EM). This makes it better, since green dice are rightfully notoriously inconsistent, and 2 evade dice with BS conversions works out as only half an evade worse than a 5 dice cloaked evade roll with no quality, and you still have the use of those shields, can use BS as an attacking modifier and have access to scan for those minefield games. In addition, the usual advantage of having a cloaker's action bar, the ability to sensor echo, is countered in the case of the named alpha hunter with the ship's own named ability. Whilst limited to range 1, the ability to do a sensor echo as a free action, makes the Alpha Hunter a very manoeuvrable ship, with many of the advantages of a cloaked ship, whilst suffering few of the disadvantages. Having only 3 hull also gives opportunities to use some interesting in-faction tech, notably Improved Deflector Screens. Overall though, it's an expensive ship given how fragile it is.

Grade: B-

Captains:

Karr is truly one of the best independent faction captains. CS 8 is, in itself, a good starting point, but having 2 Elite Talent slots and a named ability that takes advantage of that high captain skill (Karr is one of few cards in the game with the ability to re-roll dice more than once) make Karr a fixture of independent builds. Effectively, Karr's named ability bumps the Alpha Hunter up to a slash line of 5/2/3/4, which is not to be sniffed at, and being on a 3 hull ship means he could benefit (in cross faction play at least) from Mirror Admiral Worf's additional activation phase attack. 

Grade: A-

Alpha Hirogen is another solid captain: CS6 is not to be sniffed at, he has a talent slot, and the named ability is one of the better named abilities (Converting a blank to a hit is the statistical equivalent of a re-roll on a 4 dice attack) - but what makes the Alpha Hirogen truly fantastic is his non-unique nature. If you fancy putting him on more than one ship, you can! Few 4 point captains are better, in any faction.

Grade: B

Crew:

The only crew in this pack is Turanj, who has some uses but isn't fantastic. Swapping a crew slot for a weapon slot is sometimes useful, but ultimately doesn't seem that worthwhile, particularly with the much better Sakonna in faction. The second part of the card is very situational, and almost forces you to play Turanj on a ship with a generic captain, so that you can make the captain switch at any point. 

Grade: C-

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes are pretty standard fare, and aren't even of the more useful timed variety.

Grade; D-

Subnucleonic Beam is an interesting card, that allows damage to have the additional effect of disabling crew. Unlike the much more expensive Thaleron Weapon, though, the crew are not discarded and the captain cannot be affected. For 5 points and a disable this card become too situational to use in OP play.

Grade: C

Tech:

Montanium Armor Plating is a much underused card, in the author's opinion. Having this 3 point upgrade on your ship gives you a 75% chance of avoiding an opponent's target lock, thus robbing them of both an action and dice efficiency. Often, people will say that if this is the case then they'll choose a BS action instead, but when you consider that this isn't an option for Borg, Cardassian Galor Class ships, Romulans and Klingons (in the majority of cases) the value of MAP goes up. It goes up further when you consider that it essentially stops people from using Transphasic Torpedoes, Chronoton Torpedoes and other Target Lock requiring secondary weapons. The second effect that MAP has is to allow you to remove a TL from beside your ship at the cost of an Action/disable. This means that, even if you fail the roll, you can remove the target lock in your own activation, should you activate after your opponent. 

Grade: A-

Sensor Network is less useful than MAP, and competes for a tech slot with other in-faction goodies, like Improved Deflector Screens. Dial peeking cards have some utility, and this one is better than most since it allows you to alter your own manoeuvre too, but a good pilot doesn't need them, and even a bad one only needs them situationally.

Grade: C

Elite Talents:

Full reverse is a lovely cheap talent that allows you to swap your own manoeuvre with a 1 or 2 reverse as a white manoeuvre. Whilst only situationally useful, being able to pull a trick like this can really alter the game in your favour if triggered at the right time.

Grade; B

Intercept Course is a little too expensive for what it is, but having a BS action as a free action is useful, and a more reliable use for the card than it's manoeuvre changing ability - which is situational. 

Grade: C+

Stalking mode may be the best card in the entire pack. One of few cards that has a continuous effect upon the entire game, it can be used to lower an opponent's CS and gain an additional attack dice when targeting said ship. Combined with Karr's ability to gain a dice when attacking an opponent with a lower CS, this could boost the attacking power of the Alpha Hunter to 6 dice a turn - nothing to be sniffed at! This is a fantastic hard counter to builds that rely on high CS to alpha strike an opponent, and when deployed to the same ship as Karr, it makes CS 9 captains worried.

Grade: A

So, if I'm building a fleet based on the Alpha Hunter (and faction pure Independent) I might consider something like the following:

Alpha Hunter [Alpha Hunter] (26)

Karr [Alpha Hunter] (5)Full Reverse [Alpha Hunter] (2)Stalking Mode [Alpha Hunter] (5)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (45)

Hirogen Warship [Alpha Hunter] (24)Hirogen [Alpha Hunter] (0)Turanj [Alpha Hunter] (3)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (34)

Hirogen Warship [Alpha Hunter] (24)Alpha Hirogen [Alpha Hunter] (4)Intercept Course [Alpha Hunter] (4)Improved Deflector Screens [Gornarus] (4)Monotanium Armor Plating [Alpha Hunter] (3)Total (39)

Fleet total: 118 with 2 points to use as you feel fit.

As always, I'd be pleased to hear people's thoughts,

I'm still not Picard though.

Coping with change

I first started playing this game back between Wave 1 & 2. Seeing as we are now expecting previews for Wave 19 any day, I've seen the game change a lot!

Recently we've had prize ships, 3 new ships a month, and reinforcement boosters, so there are lots of new ships to deal with. I love this paradigm, it gives me lots of new cards to play with and lots of combos to think about. I know this isn't a view universally shared, and some people struggle to buy all the new ships and use them effectively.

Part of the reason that I like the speed of release is that I'm in the lucky position of being able to buy one of each of the new ships each month, but I think another part of it is playing fleet pure. 

The store I play in has an odd set of house rules (no 50/3 or retired resources, penalty pure with cards like mirror soval and Khan 8 allowing independent faction cards only to be deployed to any ship without penalty) and it is my choice to almost exclusively play Fleet Pure, but it does help to deal with change. 

For each OP I first decide on a faction to play, then I build a fleet to fit with that OP scenario. This really limits the number of cards I have to consider for each event (usually the chosen faction plus independent) I don't really like OXP (I've never used it) but this also helps. Most of the time I play federation, so I have the greatest familiarity with those cards. All this means that each wave gives me only 1 or 2 new ships to consider when fleet building, and when I do switch factions, I have the ships from preceding waves to consider afresh. It's almost like I get a wave entirely of one faction to consider in my builds!

The other thing that helps to deal with change is that I have a set build for each faction, and my first way of looking at new ships is to consider how their upgrades fit into my standard build. With Klingons, for example, my standard build is 3 high quality high attack vor'chas and with each new wave I'm looking for upgrades that help to make that build better. Over time I've swapped Gowron for Kargan and then Kor 8, since those cards have helped to make the fleet better at what it does well.

Playing fleet pure also limits the number of intermix combinations that I have to consider with new expansions. Which means that I can deal with new expansions more effectively and  see how to use them quicker. This makes every new expansion wave or prize ship a n exciting time for me where I don't get quickly overwhelmed.

I'm not criticising people for a second who play mixed and I understand that for many people, finding the stand out upgrades in each expansion is an important factor in deciding whether or not to purchase an upgrade, but my method of dealing with change leaves me excited for each wave, each preview and each prize without feeling overwhelmed!

I'd be interested to hear the process that other players go through when considering which expansions to buy and how to use the upgrades therein.

As always, I'm not Picard.

Why the USS Voyager isn't so great...

In my last post I discussed why I liked the Reklar expansion so much, today I'm writing about an expansion that i'm not so enamoured with - The USS Voyager.

Don't get me wrong here - Voyager is a great ship, and some of the uppgrades regularly see play in my competitive Federation pure builds, but it doesn't work together as well as some other expansions do.

Let's start with Voyager itself: The ship has a really good stat split 4-2-4-5 for 30 points and a decent named ability - allowing fire at range 1-2 in 360 degrees at the cost of an APT. It is perhaps the standout federation ship and certainly when it was first released it went straight into most Federation builds, mainly paired with the Enterprise-D from the starter set to give two ships with 360 fire. The problem with the expansion is not the ship itself - it is the way that the expansions work (or don't as the case may be) work with it.

The first culprit for this is Janeway. Janeway has a good CS (8) and a good ability allowing duplication of tokens for the cost of an APT; it just doesn't seem to work so well with Voyager itself. If you are using Voyager's 360 ability then you are going to have an APT next to the ship when you come to moving, if you perform a green manoeuvre to get rid of the APT, which is difficult to do with voyager's lack of a green 1 straight, then use Janeway's ability, you'll still have an APT next to you - making it all the more difficult to use the 360 fire when it comes to attacking. Essentially, with Janeway on Voyager you are making a choice of whether or not to take an action the turn after if you expect to be firing using the ship's named ability. That kind of foresight is a tricky and risky thing to attempt, since actions can so often be the difference between victory or death. Janeway has fantastic synergy with the USS Enterprise from wave 0 - where an action can be taken regardless of the presence of an APT - but not so great with Voyager's limited green manouevres and APT-giving ship named ability.

All of this would be fine if Voyager came with a way to remove APTs, like Chekov, Refit Scotty or a federation version of Power Grid - but it doesn't. Of all the crew that come with Voyager the only one that really sees much play for me on Voyager itself is Tom Paris. Of the other crew upgrades in the pack, The Doctor sees some play, although never on Voyager and B'elanna Torres sees play infrequently - the others (Harry Kim, Seven of Nine and Tuvok) I have never seen used in an OP. 

There is some synerrgy there though: Both Seven of Nine's ability and Harry Kim's ability are action discards, meaning that unless you use an action in alternate turns to re-enable them, you'll be left with multiple crew to re-enable at some point and The Doctor will show his worth. Trouble here is that if that is the case, you are almost better off using Leonard McCoy from the Enterprise Refit - who renables 2 crew upgrades as an action and costs a point less than the Doctor. 

Another example of some in-pack synergy is Chakotay. Chakotay allows you to perform 2 actions listed on a crew upgrade simultaneousl at the cost of having to disable him. Not a bad ability to pair with the Doctor's ability since you could disable Chakotay to perform the actions listed on Seven and Harry in turn one, use the Doctor to re-enable both of them in turn two then renable Chakotay in turn 3 so that the whole merry-go-round could be started again in turn 4. Having read that you probably think it isn't that great and that would be because it isn't really all that great. Harry Kim is one of the worst repair upgrades in the game (only allowing you to repair one shield at the cost of an action disable - compare to Trip in faction and Glinn Daro out of faction to truly see how terrible that is) and Seven is situational at best. As I've also said above, The Doctor could easily be replaced in this sequence by McCoy or Phlox.

As for the tech upgrades, Ablative Generator is a double edged sword, whilst you get extra hull, it costs you your shields making the ship vulnerable to gankers and critical hits and an action. There isn't anything in the pack that either mitigates that or provides you with an extra bonus for using it. Bio-neural circuitry is good but expensive and situational. Bio-neural circuitry could have been great if it had been a way of dealing with APTs, and would have made the whole pack mesh together better without sacrificing theme.

Weapons are your standard fair, and whilst I love Transphasic torpedoes (I have been known to take two copies!) and they do have some synergy with Tuvok (an extra attack dice at the cost of a disable) he is an expensive upgrade to use in order to improve your damage output potential by 10%.

When i started writing this i was convinced that there was no synergy to be seen in the Voyager expansion, and having written about it I know see that there is some synergy in the pack - the trouble is that it they aren't very beneficial synergies and other packs offer cards that give better synergies with the things in the voyager pack.

U.S.S. Voyager [U.S.S. Voyager] (30)

Chakotay [U.S.S. Voyager] (3)

Seven of Nine [U.S.S. Voyager] (5)

Harry Kim [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)

The Doctor [U.S.S. Voyager] (3)

Bio-Neural Circuitry [U.S.S. Voyager] (5)

Total (50)

Fleet total: 50

The alternative - but similar - is...

U.S.S. Voyager [U.S.S. Voyager] (30)

Benjamin Sisko [U.S.S. Defiant] (4)

Seven of Nine [U.S.S. Voyager] (5)

Leonard McCoy [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (2)

William T. Riker [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)

Charles Tucker III [Enterprise NX-01] (3)

Total (49)

Fleet total: 49

Why I love the Reklar

I can't really write another breakout review for dominion but I love the Reklar so much that it deserves its own post. The reason I love the Reklar so much is because of the internal synergies in the pack. All the best expansions come with great internal synergy and one day I'll run a fleet just made up of expansions from one retail pack.

Anyway, on to the Reklar!

The Reklar itself is a Galor class starship, same as the Kraxon (and Trager) before it. The problem with both of those ships was lack of the Battle Stations action on their action bars, making them less effective at firing at cloakers and less flexible having to rely upon Target Lock for dice quality. The main advantage held by the Reklar over the Kraxon (Trager and Generic Galor) is that its ship action is like a "Battle Stations Plus!" action. Not only that, but should you feel so inclined (that is to say should Gul Dukat happen to be commanding the Reklar) then you could even have 2 BS tokens beside the ship AND gain +1 to your defence rolls. Whilst the stat split 4-1-4-4 is perhaps not as worthwhile as the Koronak's 5-1-4-3, the movement dial on the Galor class is, in my opinion, superior to the movement dial on the Keldon - I like to have as many options as possible to move at speed 1, and whilst the 4 banks are useful in certain situations, the Keldon loses its 1 banks.

Another reason for loving the Reklar is the combination of Captain and Admiral presented by Lemec and Madred. In general for Dominion the Keldon class is better than the Galor for two reasons: +1 PWV and BS on the action bar. The Reklar already has one of these problems solved with the ship's action, the second is solved by a combination of Madred, Lemec and (sometimes) Corak. Lemec allows you to roll an additional attack dice when attacking a ship whose captain has a lower skill number. Lemec himself is only skill 4, but Madred adds 2 to that and Corak potentially another 3 for a combined skill of 9! Most captains in the game (if not built for high captain skill) have a lower skill than 9. The one drawback here (which is easily solved if you don't follow faction purity) is that Corak costs an action whereas his federation equivalent, Nyota Uhura, is merely a disable (although she only give +2 not +3). Madred's ability, other than adding 2 to the captain skill, is to potentially kill off other captains. I see it like this: If Lemec+Madred are higher than the captains you intend to target for most of the game then you don't use Madred's ability (well, you might want to anyway if there is a particularly juicy target, just gives you the flexibility not to have to) and if there is a captain with a higher skill than Lemec then you can use Madred's ability to remove that higher captain from the game and gain the +1. Once the captain is gone, the captain skill drops to 1 and you get the Lemec bonus all the time.

The final thing I love about the Reklar is the Aft-Weapons Array. 4 dice for firing outside of the front arc at range 1-3 for the cost of a disable? Yes please! This is something that the Dominion faction have access to that the Federation don't - 360 degree firing at range 3 - and with 4 dice and BS, it can be potentially devastating! Also bear in mind that it works with Lemec, so you can have it at 5 dice - 5 dice 360 at Range 3? Almost the borg of old!

As I said at the start of this post, it is not necessarily how powerful an expansion is that causes me to like it - certainly both the Haakona and Koronak are powerful expansions that helped their faction immensely - the easiest way to make me like an expansion is to make it have really good internal synergy. When I can build a ship using only the upgrades from the pack it came with then I feel like it has been a good, well built and thought-out expansion. The Reklar is just that -