Challenge: Living in 2015

Recently there has been a lot of discussion both on the Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/StarTrekAttackWingCommunity/) and the BGG Board (https://boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/139771/star-trek-attack-wing) about how certain expansions (the Enterprise-E, Praetus, Negh'Var etc.) becoming difficult to find expansions. Someone also commented saying they have had a conversation with a Wizkids rep who suggested that old expansions like this would NOT be reprinted. Given that this is the case, newer players to ST:AW are having to make do without these expansions when fleet building. This gave me an idea for a challenge:

Using only the starter set, and the expansions, prize ships and reinforcement boosters from 2015, build a competitive fleet pure build to 120 points.

I've had a fiddle around with this, and the two fleets I have come up with are Federation and Romulan.

1. Federation:



U.S.S. Hathaway [U.S.S. Hathaway] (22)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Hathaway] (4)
Worf [U.S.S. Hathaway] (5)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Arsenal [U.S.S. Phoenix] (4)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Total (40)

U.S.S. Prometheus [U.S.S. Prometheus] (30)
Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)
Total (36)

Delta Flyer [Delta Flyer] (20)
Ronald Moore [U.S.S. Pegasus] (1)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Eric Motz [U.S.S. Pegasus] (2)
Immersion Shielding [Delta Flyer] (3)
Parametallic Hull Plating [Delta Flyer] (2)
Unimatrix Shielding [Delta Flyer] (5)
Arsenal [U.S.S. Phoenix] (4)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Total (44)

Fleet total: 120



The Prometheus is a ship that, on its own, is a pretty good ship. a Slashline of 5/1/4/5 is a good place to build from and it has an okay manoeuvre dial too. All I've done here is to put Picard on this ship from the starter to give it better action economy to make the most of the 5 PWV. At 36 points it is pretty cheap for what it can do, although suffers from poor coverage so will require a good pilot to make the most of it.

The Hathaway also benefits from good action economy, and its hull of 4 probably doesn't make the most of Hathaway Riker as captain. When it does benefit from Riker's ability, it will essentially be firing at 6 PWV with a front arc of 180. Hathaway Worf provides some survivability although the re-enabled needed to use him every turn makes it somewhat worse than it perhaps could be. If everything works as intended, it could have a 6 dice PWV attack with both TL and BS. It does lack some in Hull and Shields, but could easily be upgraded if needed with Systems Upgrade and Unimatrix Shielding - this build doesn't have the points for that though, since they are used up in the Delta Flyer.

The Flyer uses Moore to get access to BS and with the combination of Type 8 Phasers and Upgraded Phasers can have access to TL and BS for a turn at 5 PWV. Its low hull is made up for by having Parametallic Hull Plating, Unimatrix Shielding and a systems upgrade to finish out at a slashline of essentially 5/2/2/7. 

So three ships, all potentially with high quality on an attack, with some survivability and some survivability. All of the pieces needed for this build are relatively available, with the possible exception of needing two USS Hoods and Two USS Lakotas for the double Type 8 Phasers and Upgraded Phasers. The Build also doesn't really have any trouble dealing with either Fighters (2 sets of upgraded phasers) or Attack Cancellation (3 ships firing with 5 dice), but the Flier might struggle if faced with either Admiral Decker or Bioship Omega pilot. If this is the case, I'd suggest docking the Flier and transferring its tech over to the Prometheus. 

EDIT: I've gotten quite a lot of flack for running upgrades from two USS Hoods and two USS Lakotas, so I'm planning to re-do this list sans prize-ships. As it is though, using only releases from 2015, the above list stands.

All in all I think this is a pretty solid build, with a good amount of flexibility. 


2. Romulans



I.R.W. Haakona [I.R.W. Haakona] (30)
Taris [I.R.W. Haakona] (4)
Adm Mendak [I.R.W. Haakona] (4)
Romulan Security Officer [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Romulan Security Officer [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Romulan Security Officer [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Total (44)

I.R.W. Vrax [I.R.W. Vrax] (30)
Suran [I.R.W. Vrax] (4)
Tal Shiar [I.R.W. Belak] (5)
Romulan Helmsman [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Romulan Security Officer [I.R.W. Haakona] (2)
Total (43)

Prototype 01 [Prototype 01] (24)Gareb [Prototype 01] (0 overridden to 1)
Alidar Jarok [R.I.S. Talvath] (4 overridden to 0)
Counter Attack [Starter] (3)
Disruptor Beams [I.R.W. Haakona] (5)Total (33)

Fleet total: 120



Taris' Haakona starts the game of at CS 10 and PWV 5, as the game goes on you can use the RSOs to re-roll defence dice, then discard them with Taris' ability to fire in 360. Mendak's fleet action can be used to give these attacks quality, and the Ship's action can provide TL.

The Named Vrax is chosen solely for its extra shield (as I don't rate the named ability) with Suran providing some quality for the Vrax's attacks. Tal Shiar can be discarded for the BS token (more than the dial 'peeking' ability and the Helmsman and RSO help manoeivrebilty and survivability respectively. It's starting CS is 7, nothing to be laughed at and Suran's action can help to add dice quality even when TL isn't available. 

The Prototype has some teeth thanks to disruptor pulse and counter attack, but can also be used as a support ship to take Mendak's fleet action when needed. 

I do quite like this build, but I don't think it is as effective as the Federation one. You'll need the Reinforcement booster Belak and a couple of Haakona's to make this build, but neither of those pieces seem to be that difficult to come across. Some may also balk at having to purchase the Talveth for just the one card, in which case you could swap out Jarok for Toreth without having to change anything else. 


So, there are my two submissions, I'd love to see someone have a go at Klingons and Mirror Universe using their releases from this year. It seems Borg and Dominion would struggle to make anything given only this year's releases, but if anyone does come up with anything else, I'd be delighted to see it!


Happy New Year everyone, I'm Not Picard. 

A Blast from the Past! The Conclusion

So, after 9 posts and countless hours spent writing about Wave zero and the starter set, my blast from the past series is complete. In this post I will conclude that series by writing about how the factions stood after Wave Zero, and how things have improved since then.



The first point to make is that Dominion started off behind the curve of everyone else. The Kraxon and Gor Portas are okay ships, and certainly the Kraxon has improved as time has gone on, but as it stood after wave zero, the dominion were a ship down on everyone else and didn't have access to anything that really gave them an edge over the other factions. It wouldn't take long for them to catch up, certainly by wave 2 they were at least on par with the other factions, but as it stood after wave zero they were a little undergunned.



As for Romulans, the Apnex and Valdore were good wave zero releases, but the starter didn't have all that much to offer and the D'Deridex remains a ship that is somewhat underpowered in the game. I long for a time when the Romulan faction get access to a Type 8 Phasers type upgrade that allows the Warbird to get the same kind of firepower as its Valdore equivalent, because with 3 crew slots and a tech slot the Khazara is a good base to build combos onto. As it was though, the D'Deridex is still the Romulan ship that sees the least play for me. The Valdore and Scimitar (especially the scimitar) are just out and out better.



The Federation didn't start out as the all conquering powerhouse that they would later become, and suffered to start with from low PWV, bad manoeuvrability, or both. Picard 9 is a piece still used in almost all top tier fed builds, but outside of that from the starter, little remains in the best builds. The Enterprise (tinyprise) gave us some great crew who would be seen in build after build, but even now the sun seems to have set on Mr Spock, Hikaru Sulu and Montgomery Scott. Good pieces at the time though, and the Federation seemed healthy as the game began.



Klingons were the big winners from the starter and Wave zero, and had been set up as the attacking faction. High PWV, good captains, Drex - the Klingons had all they needed at the start and were the Faction to beat in competitive play right out of the gates. Things got even better for them with the release of the Ch'Tang as a prize ship after Dominion War OP2, and it wasn't until the downfall of cloak with the release of the Koranak that the crown started to slip from the klingons. I'd even go as far to say that the Klingons are, of the bigger factions, the one I see the least in OP play today.



All this leads me to the one big change; Cloaking. I can vividly remember the discussions on BGG about how cloak was overpowered and broken at the start of the game. The argument went something along the lines of this "+4 defence dice is just too many, how can anyone score a hit against cloakers? " well, as we found out when the Koranak was released, 5 dice with quality is enough to burn through cloaking and those 4 extra green dice come with a significant downside. With Federation ships now able to run 6-9 defence dice with quality and still have the use of their shields, it seems the age of "cloak is broken" is long over.

So there you have it, Wave Zero then and now, a testament to how the game changes and how some things, Picard 9 and Martok, will always be the best.

Many thanks for reading, if you did read it all, and even if you didn't, comments would be most appreciated.

I remain, resolutely, Not Picard.

A Blast from the Past!: The Starter Set

For those of you who are paying attention, I've been writing a series of posts doing retrospective reviews of wave zero, both to show how good they were at the time, and how good they have become in the 2 year intervening period since their release. On the Facebook group this week Herethere has been discussion of the relative strength of the ships available in the Starter Set, which has inspired me to consider the starter set's cards in a new light. Seeing as all that was available for the first two months of release of the game was the Starter set, Wave Zero and the first 2 prize ships, it makes sense to do a review of the Starter Set too (and possibly the first two prize ships too).



The starter set itself has a distinctly TNG feel to it, featuring three stalwarts of the Next Generation: the Enterprise-D, the Romulan D'Deridex class Warbird and the Vor'Cha class Attack Cruiser. As with all my reviews I'm writing mainly from a Faction Pure viewpoint, although I do sometimes consider cross faction abilities and synergies too. Please don't damn me for missing on the best cross-faction combo, since I don't regularly play cross-faction, I'm not as clued up on it as I am with Faction pure.



So, to the review itself:

Ships:



Enterprise-D/Galaxy Class

For a long time the Galaxy Class was the workhorse of Federation fleets, since its 4 PWV was higher than any subsequent release for the faction up to the USS Voyager (for reference, that's the Tinyprise, Reliant, Defiant, Excelsior and Equinox). The other thing that made the Enterprise-D a staple was its named ability, to fire at 360 with -1 attack dice. Up to the release of the Enterprise-E, with its Dorsal Phaser Array (so that's another 4 waves, Voyager, Enterprise-refit and NX-01, as well as those rarest of things, the wave-with-no-fed-releases) there wasn't really any way to get 360 fire for Federation outside of the E-D's named ability and Voyager's named ability. It does also have a 90/90 arc natively, so is a good way of maintaining coverage, with a simple torpedo upgrade (yeah, I know) the E-D can fire 90 forward and 90 rear at range 3 together with the other 180 degrees (90 left and right) being covered at range 2. All of this goes to make up for the horrendous dial that the E-D has, with no white turns to speak of. Although it does have 5 green manoeuvres, that go well with the Federation Elite Talent from this pack. The generic loses the 360, but thanks to Dorsal Phaser Array, can now be used to much the same effect (except without losing the red die) for an additional 5 points (which means that you essentially pay a weapon slot, a shield and 3 points to avoid losing a single red die, that you get back at range 1 anyway). Slots wise the E-D has 3 crew (good) 2 weapons (meh) and no tech. With so many ways in the game now to get additional tech slots, namely systems upgrade, which can go in one of those superfluous weapons slots, it becomes 3 Crew, 1 Weapon, 1 Tech without much effort. The Generic Galaxy loses a weapon, which isn't so much of a big deal.

Grades: Named B-, Generic C

IKH Maht'h'a/Vor'cha Class



With a stat line of 5/1/5/3(2) the Maht'h'a has a lot going for it straight out of the gate. With a standard cloaker action bar, the Vor'cha doesn't suffer too much from having a low shield value, and it has a dial to die for: 6 green manoeuvres, white hard 2 turns as well as a come about and hard 3 turns in red, it is relatively nimble for a ship of its capabilities. The named ability is one that you will use frequently, but won't set the world on fire (enemy ships lose 1 die at range 1 when attacking this ship). For slots it has 2 crew, 1 tech and 1 weapon, which is serviceable - the generic loses a crew slot, which is a shame but not impossible to get around.

Grades: Named B-, Generic B-

IRW Khazara/D'Deridex Class



The Red-Headed Step Sister of the starter set is the Romulan Warbird. With a slashline of 3/2/6/4(3) the firepower is lower than on the other ships in the starter set. This is offset somewhat by the named ability (+1 red die when firing whilst cloaked). The Slots are pretty good too, with 3 crew, 1 tech and 1 weapon. Dial-wise, the D'Deridex is pretty good, with the standard 4 green, white 2 and 3 hard turns and a red 1 reverse. Coverage is pretty bad, and is another big let down for this ship, as it only has a 90 forward arc. With new weapons upgrades like Disruptor Pulse and Disruptor beams, the Khazara gets better, since the named ability works on all attacks whilst cloaked, rather than just one. The tech slot is also a good place for either Interphase Generator (from the RIS Apnex) or Advanced Cloaking (from the Vorta Vor) so the Khazara has improved over time. Still not as good as either of the other ships in the release (The generic loses a shield and a crew slot).

Grades: Named C, Generic C-

Captains:



Jean-Luc Picard 9 is the best single card in the game. He offers action efficiency, high CS and can put BS on a non BS ship if used cross-faction. During the Borg Supremacy, he was often found piloting Borg Spheres, but even in faction he is a fantastic way to double up on actions for fantastic attack dice efficiency. There isn't much to say here, Picard is the best. Make it so.

Grade: A+

William T Riker is the other Federation Captain here, and his CS is a little lower at 6, with an action that allows you to counter attack. It isn't an action you'll use every turn, and as a card it has gotten worse as time has gone on, simply because taking William D Riker (the D denoting the ship he comes with) stops you from taking William H Riker (Hathaway) William P Riker (Pegasus) and William H Riker (Hood) all of whom are better.

Grade: C-



The Klingon Captain is the infamous fat klingon, Nu'Daq. Nu'Daq is only skill 5, but his ability is great on the Maht'h'a, as it allows one BS result to be converted to a hit. Based on probabilities (which are somewhat dodgy here) you should only roll 1 or 2 BS results per 5 dice attack from the Maht'h'a and since he doesn't cost an action, you can still take a TL for almost as good dice efficiency as you would get with TL and BS.

Grade: B-



Toreth is the Romulan captain in this pack, and she has a nice ability, converting a normal hit into a critical hit, and a good CS of 4. She doesn't blow me away, but she has good utility for 4 SP.

Grade: B

Crew:

Data was an early game staple, who could significantly improve the survivability of a boat like the E-D. Essentially Data transferred power from the weapons to the engines to allow for more evasion and as a thematic card, Data is brilliant. In terms of his ability in the game, it was good for all of a week, before the Tinyprise came into the game and gave us Sulu. Then, with the rise of Mag Charges, Data got better again, since Evade tokens work against MGCs and evade dice don't. I still think Data is useful, but has to be built around, and is somewhat situational.

Grade: B-

Worf is another card that was good until a better version came along. He allows you to re-roll all of the dice from your attack, a good ability although you have to re-roll all of your dice. I like this as a rubber dice ability, you have a terrible roll, and then you disable Worf to re-roll. It isn't an action, and since you won't need this ability every turn, you can re-enable the card whenever, rather than having to use phlox/Crusher or ERiker/Doctor to re-enable him every turn. He'll also come in handy when you need to guarantee a kill shot. Having said all of this, Chekov is better, if slightly different.

Grade: C-

Geordi is the weakest of the Federation crew upgrades in this pack as he is action sapping and doesn't prove 4 points worth. In addition to that, his other versions from the Big E and Hathaway are better.

Grade: D

Miles O'Brien is an Action/Discard  ganker, who only disables, but can be used on any upgrade. At 2 points he is somewhat interesting, and works against cloaked ships and ships with shields - he also has range 3. I think this is a good combo breaker, and having talked to David Montgomery about the subject, Combo Breaking is something that people need to fall back in love with as the Meta stands at the moment.

Grade: C+

The first Klingon crewman is Klag, an Action/Discard Teleporting Ganker that only works on crew. He's only a point, but with all the restrictions on him, I'll pass.

Grade: F

Konmel is a repair card that has some utility. He only works on shields (and thus requires you to be uncloaked) but there are no other restrictions. You don't have to be out of firing arc, you don't have to perform a green manoeuvre or be in range 1 of a friendly ship. As an action, heal a shield. Job Done.

Grade: C

Romulans have a card, Bochra, that does exactly the same as Klag. Read above to find out what I think.

Grade: F

The second Romulan crew upgrade in the pack is often overlooked. At 2SP and an Action (and disabled shield) for a single extra red die, N'Vek's ability doesn't seem that great, but since there is no expectation of firing with primary weapons, he has some utility as a secondary weapon boosting card if you can find a way of getting around his action cost. In cross faction play, certainly, you could potentially use ERiker/Phlox/Crusher to get the action for free each round, on a Borg Ship with Mag Charges, captained by Gul Macet or Lemec, with a fleet that included Donatra and Admiral Hayes, you could potentially get 7 dice Mag Charges...but that's a lot of points to spend for it. Overall, I think N'Vek has untapped potential, but as it stands right now, he needs too much investment to make him work.

Grade: D-

Tech:

No Federation tech in the starter, since the E-D doesn't have a tech slot, so first, the Klingons, who have two tech choices. The first is Tractor Beam, which I reviewed in the Negh'Var expansion review, so won't go into again here, the second is Advanced Weapon System, essentially allowing you to remain cloaked indefinitely, but at the cost of an action every round. For 5 points it is very expensive and action intensive. At the begginning of the game, when cloak was king, it was a worthwhile upgrade. Now, where PWVs are high enough to burn through cloak easily, I'd give it a miss.

Grade: D

The Romulan Tech offering is Artificial Quantum Singularity, which is okay, but expensive at 3 points. Problem is, scan as an action is so rare, that you'll rarely get much use out of this upgrade. As time has gone on, the competition for Tech Slots has gotten more and more fierce for Romulans especially. and if you take AQS over Interphase Generator or Advanced Cloaking, let alone Cloaked Mines, then you are doing something wrong!

Grade: D

Weapons:

I don't like non-tine token photon torpedoes, even if they do get a +1 when firing from a Vor'Cha class ship. So both the Federation and Klingon versions of Photons in this set will get a pass from me.

Grades: Klingons F/Federation F

Plasma torpedoes suffer from the same action economy problems as Photon Torpedoes, but the advantage here is that they don't lose out on the dice efficiency. Trouble is, I like the timed versions so much better, so I'll be passing on these too.

Grade: D-

Elite Talents:

The only elite talent in this pack is Engage, which has tremendous synergy with both Picard and the Enterprise D. It is an action, but that isn't as much of a problem with Picard, and it also requires a ship with a good set of green maneouvres, which the E-D has. This card is less effective than it was on first release because it is perhaps not as useful as Admiral Forrest's fleet action, but if you want to use your admiral slot for someone else, then Engage is a fairly good alternative.

Grade: C+

So there you have it, the final (or first) piece of the ST;AW puzzle, the starter set. I plan to do another blog post in the near future wrapping up my "Blast from the Past!" series, but for now, there you have it.

All comments welcome,

I'm not Picard!

A Blast from the Past! Wave Zero: USS Reliant

The Last of my wave zero reviews covers the almost (but not quite) dual faction release of the USS Reliant. The point of these reviews is to see both how good the cards are in a vacuum, but also how changes in the game since their release have changed their effectiveness.



Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is my favourite Star Trek film for a number of reasons: A set chewing performance from Ricardo Montalban as Khan for one, but also it was everything a Star Trek movie should be, character driven, with an internal theme (of revenge) and with twists that you don't see coming. Kirk, Spock and McCoy are at their finest here, in a film that both stands alone and starts a 3 film arc.

Ships: USS Reliant/Generic Miranda Class.

The Reliant itself comes with a 2/2/3/3 slash line, a 180 front arc and a 90 rear arc. The dial is also pretty impressive, with the only red manoeuvre being a 2 reverse. It has the standard 4 greens, but a 2 and a 3 white hard turn. With it's arcs and dial, it is a ship that is difficult to avoid. It has 2 crew and 1 weapon slot. The named ability is an attack boost of +1 at range 1 in addition to the normal +1, meaning it fires with 4 dice when in close. This ship has improved as time has gone on simply because of upgrades such as Type 8 phasers and Upgraded Phasers, as well as cross-faction weapons like Disruptor Pulse. At only 20 SP, it is a ship well worth checking out. The Generic loses the named ability. a shield and a crew slot, but works well as a torpedo boat, with timed torpedoes now a thing, it's better at that job than it was when first released.

Generic: C+ Named: B

Captains:



Given the precedent set by the Robinson, I wonder if this had been released today would it have been a dual faction ship (Independent/Federation) or maybe even the named would be Independent and the Generic Federation. The reason that I say this is because it contains both Independent and Federation captains. Khan Singh is a CS 8 captain who allows you to use a BS token to convert BS results to crits rather than just normal hits. This is great for doing loads of damage and if Khan is on a ship with BS I see no reason he shouldn't take it every turn. He also makes it so that no other upgrade deployed to the ship has to take a faction penalty, so in penalty pure environments he helps to get great combos onto some ships. My one slight regret for this card is that he doesn't nullify the faction penalty on himself, so that in penalty and faction pure environments, he cannot be deployed to the USS Reliant he comes on. I would advise all Faction Pure venues to make an exception for Khan on the Reliant, or do as our venue does and allow Independent captains to be fielded to any ship, regardless of faction. Unfortunately, Khan's ability only works with the spending of a BS token so can't be combined with Mr Spock or Drex/N'garen for the same effect. He does work with a token granted from Admiral Mendak though.

Grade: B

The other captain in this pack is Clark Terrell. A good choice for swarm fleets, Terrell suffers from CS 2 and no ET slot. Not entirely useless though, and can be fun when combined with Donatra, Admiral Hayes and Gowron in a mixed swarm build.

Grade: C-

Crew:
Again, there is a split between Independent and Federation here. Joachim is the first Independent offering, for 4SP he allows you to draw 2 crit cards every time you inflict a crit to the opponent's hull. You don't inflict crits very often though, so his utility is limited...OR IS IT? Joachim has great synergy with Khan 8, since Khan vastly increases your chance of a critical hit. Not all Crits were created equal, so doubling up on crit cards could be an interesting ability...

Grade: B-

The Second independent offering is "Follower of Khan" a generic 1 point crew card. A teleporting ganker, this is useful discard fodder, a la Parem, Bochra or Klag, but otherwise isn't worth much,

Grade: D-

On the Federation side of the upgrade side, we have first commander Kyle. Kyle is a shield healing card that requires you to perform a green manoeuvre and reduce your attack dice by 2. That's a lot of conditions for a repair card and at 2 SP he is expensive for what he does when compared to other repair cards, most notable Glinn Daro, who for one point more doesn't reduce attack, isn't limited to shields and doesn't require a green manoeuvre. Even in faction, there is Montgomery Scott, who provides additional flexibility and Charles Tucker III who has greater flexibility and less of a restriction.

Grade: D-

The star crew card of this pack is Pavel Chekov, who allows you to remove an APT when performing a white manoeuvre. This card is gold when used on a ship like the Voyager, which requires APTs to fire in 360 and any non-tinyprise with either first officer or Jayneway, where you get APTs to double up on actions. This card has improved over time where the number of cards requiring APT removal has increased, and remains a staple in most Voyager builds.

Grade: B

No tech, so onto Weapons:

3 SP, 4A photons without time tokens? Pass.

Grade: F

Elite Talents:



I stab at Thee is perhaps the best (although Tasha Yar runs it close) card for making an opponent think twice about destroying your ship. ISAT gives you 3 attack dice at every enemy ship in range 1, which they then don't get to roll defence again. It's nice and when coupled with cheat death becomes somewhat fun, but it lacks the scary factor it once had and could result in 0 hits. I still like it though.

Grade: C

Superior Intellect suffers from being an Action/Discard that requires teleporting, but has potential as a combo-breaker for stealing. The fact that it can steal any upgrade makes it better than Crosis, but the fact you need to drop enemy shields first makes it worse. I'd still take it, but only as an additional fun aspect of a build, rather than the key to a build.

Grade: B-

So all in all a pretty fun expansion with some interesting cards, I'd happily buy a second and third, where I able to find them!


Some ideas for a Miranda Torpedo Swarm:

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)Photon Torpedoes [Starter] (5)Total (27)

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)Photon Torpedoes [Starter] (5)Total (29)

Miranda Class [U.S.S. Reliant] (18)Federation [U.S.S. Prometheus] (0)Rapid Reload [U.S.S. Thunderchild] (2)Photon Torpedoes [[U.S.S. Thunderchild] (5)Photon Torpedoes [U.S.S. Thunderchild] (5)Arsenal [U.S.S. Phoenix] (4)Total (34)

Fleet total: 90


So Spock take TL and re-enables torpedoes, Picard takes TL and Re-enables torpedoes, the third ship takes TL then uses time token torps and arsenal to ensure that they work every turn. Rapid Reload is there as a contingency.

The second list is a souped up Reliant:

U.S.S. Reliant [U.S.S. Reliant] (20)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)
Adm Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)
The Needs of the Many... [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (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)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (50)

Fleet total: 50

With Type 8 phasers and Upgraded Phasers the base attack value is 4, 6 at range 1. Spock means free TL and then ship action can be BS. The three shield upgrades add an extra 4 shields and if those shields go, discard TNOTM and B'elanna for 3 shields back. The extra movement provided by Forrest allows for range 1 as soon as possible, and will help to keep enemy ships in that arc of fire.

Comments are, as always, appreciated!

I'm Not Picard!

A Blast From the Past! Wave Zero: USS Enterprise

Star Trek Attack Wing is a game that is in almost constant shift. With each new wave the game re-invents itself. Whether or not you like the rapid release schedule that Wizkids has blessed/cursed us with, the game moves so quickly that it is often easy to forget old expansions in favour of new and shiny new releases.

So what I thought I would do, over a series of reviews of individual expansion, is go right back to the start and have a look at some old expansions to see what they still have to offer. Maybe some cards won't see much use, maybe some cards have been overlooked by the new releases and still have some uses even though they have been replaced (it's worth noting that some releases contain new and improved versions of old cards, but the advantage therein is that you can now take multiples of similar cards!).

To start with I thought I'd take a look at the ship that started it all, the USS Enterprise!

Ship:
USS Enterprise/Constitution class

The constitution class spaceframe has a slashline of 3/1/4/2 (3 shields on the named version) which means that it can be a pretty cheap fighter carrier craft. 3 attack isn't great but federation have couple of tricks for solving that particular problem: Type 8 Phasers and Upgraded Phasers. For just 5 points, the pillow-fisted USS Enterprise can become a 5 dice monster (well, not monster, but still, 5 dice is nice). What really makes the named Enterprise stand out is two fold: Its named ability, allowing actions to be taken regardless of the presence of an APT, and its available upgrade slots: an unmatched 4 crew, and 1 weapon. There are so many cards that synergise well with this ship it is untrue, but the two notable mentions are Kathryn Janeway, who allows you to double up on actions at the cost of an APT (so what!) and Enhanced Hull Plating, which allows you to take up to two Aux tokens to cancel hits. The 22 SP base cost and all of those available slots means that the USS Enterprise can be a great ship to build combos on, and makes it still a viable choice even in the modern metagame.

Grade: B-

Captains:
James T. Kirk is skill 9. I often choose captains entirely based on their CS, so having a skill 9 option (one of very few base CS9 cards in the game, in a club with Shinzon, Picard 9, Locutus, Borg Queen 9 and Martok 9) is in itself an advantage. His named ability is okay (having 2 elite talents face down for 3 SP each) but given that elite talents themselves aren't all that game breaking (with a few notable exceptions) and being limited to Fed talents only, makes it situational at best. Most frequently I've seen him deployed with double Cheat Death, which makes his ship more survivable, but isn't perhaps the best use of points.

Grade: B-

Christopher Pike is a card that I love, because of its combo building potential. When coupled with Indy fleet captain klingon, Pike allows you to take crew at -2 SP, which in the 50/3 meta can make things really interesting. That being said, with Fleet Captains about to go to the great resource retirement home in the sky, his utility is limited somewhat.

Grade: C

Crew:

Hikaru Sulu is still a staple in defence focused builds. He isn't action friendly, but having an extra 2 agility and getting a free BS conversion can significantly improve the survivability of a ship, especially when coupled with his near twin, Hood Riker. Still useful.

Grade: B-

Mr Spock now competes with Captain Spock for a place in most builds, but his ability, basically allowing you to take BS and Scan every turn, is nothing to be sniffed at. He synergises particularly well with the USS Enterprise since that scan action can be taken every turn regardless of the APT by the ship. I like to run Spock with Valtane on the Enterprise with Janeway in command. This gives you great dice quality (2 re-roll, BS conversions and 2 scan tokens) without having to worry about APTs.

Grade: B-

Montgomery Scott is a utility piece that can be used either to heal or create extra damage potential. When coupled with Type 8 and Upgraded Phasers, Scott can boost primary weapon attacks to 7 per turn, at the cost of some survivability. There are a lot of attack boosting card available now though, so he isn't perhaps as useful as he once was.

Grade: B-

Nyota Uhura offers a CTRL+Z action in that you can change your manoeuvre at the cost of a discard. A good helmsman should never need to use a card like this, and at 3 points she is expensive. I literally have never seen her used.

Grade: D-

Leonard McCoy is another discard, this time to allow you to take a crew action for free. Useful in some circumstances, McCoy suffers from being expensive, but still has some utility. Honestly, there are now much better options for extra actions, namely in the shape of William 'E' Riker, but since Riker is so in demand, McCoy can be a reasonable substitute if you are desperate.

Grade: D+

Weapons:

Photon Torpedoes - Nothing to see here, move along.

Grade: F

Elite Talents:

Cheat Death is the obvious stand out here, 5 points (or 3 under Kirk) is a hefty price to pay for a discard, but if it keeps your ship alive at the key point of the game, it's a cost worth paying. I like taking Cheat Death as my free ET with Fleet Captains, when I have no better option, but with Fleet Captains facing retirement, it isn't that fantastic an option anymore.

Grade: B-

Corbomite Maneuver is fun, and often a great alternative to a second cheat death to hide under Kirk, but it is situational, and it costs you the ability to attack. I have used it to blunt the effectiveness of an alpha strike, but it is highly situational

Grade: C

Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver is good for playing the turn after Corbomite Maneuver to turn around and target that Klingon fleet that just flew past you, synergises well with the Enterprise since the APT doesn't rob you of an action, but is so situational and expensive (5SP and discard) that it will rarely see play.

Grade: D+

I have two builds that I like to run with the USS Enterprise, the first is a little janky:

U.S.S. Enterprise [U.S.S. Enterprise] (22)
Christopher Pike [U.S.S. Enterprise] (4)
Fleet Captain: Independent (Klingon) [Fleet Captain Resource] (5)
Cheat Death [U.S.S. Enterprise] (0)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (4)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (49)

Fleet total: 49

This is a very annoying ship to deal with since it just doesn't die easily. Unfortunately it doesn't have much life left since Fleet Captains disappear soon (I'm annoyed about that, can you tell?)

The Second is more traditional:

U.S.S. Enterprise [U.S.S. Enterprise] (22)
Kathryn Janeway [U.S.S. Voyager] (5)
B'Elanna Torres [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Dmitri Valtane [U.S.S. Excelsior] (3)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise] (5)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (4)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (50)

Fleet total: 50

You'll need a lot of APT tokens for this one, but it has some survivability for a ship that pumps out 5 attack dice a turn on a 180 arc, with pretty good quality too - BS Conversions and Re-rolls on two dice, with the scan tokens to drop an opponents defence. I know you can do more than this with officer cards, but not using a resource makes this version future proof.

Having done these builds, it did give me an idea for a full 120 build:

U.S.S. Enterprise [U.S.S. Enterprise] (22)
Kathryn Janeway [U.S.S. Voyager] (5)
B'Elanna Torres [U.S.S. Voyager] (3)
Dmitri Valtane [U.S.S. Excelsior] (2)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise] (4)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (4)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (47)

U.S.S. Intrepid [U.S.S. Intrepid] (22)
Christopher Pike [U.S.S. Enterprise] (4)
Adm Matt Decker [U.S.S. Intrepid] (1)
Fleet Captain: Independent (Klingon) [Fleet Captain Resource] (5)
Cheat Death [U.S.S. Enterprise] (0)
Eric Motz [U.S.S. Pegasus] (0)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Redshirt [Red Shirt Crew] (2)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Enhanced Hull Plating [Enterprise NX-01] (4)
Type 8 Phaser Array [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Upgraded Phasers [U.S.S. Lakota] (3)
Total (49)

Fighter Squadron 6 [Fighter Squadron 6] (24)
Total (24)

Fleet total: 120

So in summation, there are still some interesting things to be done with this particular wave zero expansion, I'd be interested to hear other people's ideas about how to build the USS Enterprise almost 21 waves later...


...and I'm still not Picard (or GenKhan)

Why I Love the Enterprise NX-01

A while ago I wrote a post about why I loved the Reklar expansion and I wrote another post where I lamented the lack of internal synergy in the USS Voyager expansion.

The Enterprise Nx-01 expansion is a middling expansion in terms of card utility. It does have some brilliant cards, like Phlox and Enhanced Hull Plating, but in general the ship and cards are not at the level of the Enterprise-E, Hathaway or Delta Flyer (it speaks volumes that two of those expansions are A) Recent and B) unavailable in the UK for another couple of months). All that being said, I am a big fan of the Enterprise NX-01 expansion because it has that thing I always look for in terms of expansions: Internal Synergy.

Voyager is a fantastic ship and there are some good (not great) cards in the expansion, but I rarely see Voyager run at OPs with a majority of its upgrades from its own expansion. The Reklar, on the other hand, is not the most fantastic ship (the Koronak is better) but on the two occasions I've run it at an OP, I've run it with almost all of the cards that came from that very same expansion (Most often I'll use Gul Madred, Gul Lemec and Aft Weapons Array, with Breen Aide or Boheeka as the lone out of expansion upgrade). The NX-01 can be run as a competitive ship using the majority of the cards from its own expansion.

Enterprise NX-01 16sp
"You may equip the Enhanced Hull Plating (tech) upgrade to your ship for free even if it exceeds your ship's restrictions".

As far as stats go, the 2-3-3-0 remains incredibly fragile and nothing to ever invest heavily into points wise, but the ship's ability is essentially worth 4 points so as a support ship, it's a pretty good spaceframe for a support ship. Certainly, until the advent of shuttles, it was the cheapest Federation ship, and can happily be fielded with just a captain and admiral as a support vessel to fill out the last 20sp in a 50/3 meta. NOTE: I suggest the NX-01 piloted by Clark Terrell ably assisted by Admiral Hayes for the attack and defence bonus that would offer, but it doesn't fit with my internal synergy brief, so more on that in a later post!

Captains:
Jonathan Archer, J. Hayes, Admiral Maxwell Forrest
Hayes is the only real dud here, since his ability damages the already weak hull of the NX-01. Archer has fantastic synergy with the ship and Forrest is one of the best admirals currently available in the game. Both work well on an NX-01 build. Archer has synergy with the ship because he adds an extra crew slot, which is fantastically useful for the disable-for-ability upgrades that the ship has in an abundance. Those extra two crew slots are great to put crew on the ship that you can then disable for Archer's own ability, and 2 red dice, suddenly becomes 4 red dice.

Elite Talents:
Tactical Alert
Essentially a 2 point discard that allows you to convert a BS action into a Target Lock (when attacking) or a one-use re-roll on Defence. It is more useful that you might think, primarily for use on offence, and becomes better when you consider the potential meta-altering power of Hathaway Worf.

Tech:
Enhanced Hull Plating
One of the best tech upgrades available in the game, or it was before the may ruling. I still think it is a good upgrade, although not quite the superstar it used to be. If you are getting it for free (which the NX-01 Enterprise itself does) then go for it.

Weapons:
Aft-Phase Cannon, Photonic Torpedoes
Both aren't great, but aft-phase cannon is an interesting way of improving your coverage (and adding an extra attack dice for your rear arc, bizarrely). They stand out in this pack because they give you cheap discard fodder for Malcolm Reed's Abilities...

Crew:
Malcolm Reed, Charles Tucker III, Hoshi Sato, T'Pol, Travis Mayweather, Phlox
6 crew for 4 slots (with Archer) means that some choices have to be made. Reed and Tucher both have interesting abilities in their own right, whilst Phlox is ever so useful for combo-building. Sato is okay, but situational and T'pol is a scan enhancer in a faction of great scan enhancers. Mayweather is cheap, and adds some manoeuvrability to a ship that already has pretty great options in that area.

So, why do I love the NX-01? Let me show you...

Enterprise NX-01 [16]
- Jonathan Archer 5 (Captain) [3]
- - Tactical Alert [2]
- - Phlox [2]
- Maxwell Forrest (Admiral) [3]
- Aft Phase Cannon [2]
- Malcolm Reed [3]
- William T. Riker [5]
- Charles Tucker III [3]
- Seven of Nine [4]
- Enhanced Hull Plating [0]
Ship Total: 43 SP

Fleet Total: 43 SP

On turn one, you move, then disable Riker to grant Archer his action for free. Archer then disables Tucker and Seven with his action. Reed disables to discard Aft-Phase Cannon and then the ship performs a Battle Station Action. That gives you 6 attack dice with quality (either BS or TL depending on whether you want to discard Tactical Alert or not).

The next activation, you disable Phlox to re-enable everything else, then disable Riker to activate Archer's action. Seven disables to give BS then Archer can disable Reed and Tucker (since Reed's utility is significantly reduced by this stage) and take a TL action as the ship's action. 4 dice with fantastic quality.

If you are still alive by this stage, your next turn's ship action is to re-enable Phlox, who almost instantaneously disables to clear the disabled tokens from everyone else. Then you disable seven for a BS, mainly for defence.

The next turn you may wish to use Tucker to heal, or Forrest to get out of arc, or re-enable phlox again. To be honest if you've survived this long, then you are doing pretty well.

I like the expansion because so much of it works together to provide for an interesting, if not an amazingly competitive ship - with only a flavour of out of expansion cards (seven of nine and William 'E' Riker in this example).

So that's it for this time, I'm happy to take comments and criticism, and as always...


I'm not Picard.

I'm not Picard, what if you are not Picard too?

It is a truth universally acknowledge, that a Federation player with a good fleet must be in want of Picard.

I recently asked a question on the ST:AW Facebook group in order to try and discern what the best single card in the game was, my choice was Picard 9. Picard 9 provides high CS, and great action economy all in the same 6 point package. The trouble is, once you get past Picard 9, in fleet pure play at least, you have to choose a second captain.

...and the truth is, the second best federation captain after Picard 9, is Picard 8. I love Picard 8, and probably make more use of him than Picard 9. Picard 8 is one of the most thematic cards in the game, and I often start muttering "call me Ishmael..." under my breath as I write his name down on my fleet roster. I really wish that Picard 8 WAS Picard 9, and that Kirk 9 had Picard 9's ability. As it is, both Kirk's have mediocre abilities, whilst all three Picards have top tier abilities.

Anyway, I digress, the whole point of this post was to discuss where to go next once you have a Picard as a captain on one of your three ships, and I suggest that your next port of call be "Picard-lite"; Mr Spock. Spock is CS6 rather than 9 and doesn't have access to the all-important BS action for free (which is why I'd rate Spock behind Dukat 7) but he allows you to do the same sort of thing as Picard, and with a few Upgrades (Pegasus Riker, Disobey Orders, HESS) he can do the same thing as Picard.

But what if you want to be different to Picard rather than a pale imitation of him? After Picards and Spock, the next captain I'd go for would be Sisko 6, from the defiant expansion. The single re-roll might not seem much, but being as it can be used on defence as well as offence, it's a pretty neat trick to have in your back pocket.

Following up swiftly behind Sisko, with an inexplicable CS of 8 (because Sisko never lost his entire ship to a race of people who thought that water was a rare commodity, did he?) is Kathryn Janeway. Janeway's ability to double up on actions goes really well with both the Enterprise (TOS) and Crew Spock and Valtane. She makes for some pretty nice combos, and can really help out with those hard to kill cloaked ships.

Next up is Jonathan Archer: Archer's named ability lends itself towards a ship with lots of crew that disable, and it isn't out of the question for Archer's ship to be swinging 8 dice a turn with BS and re-rolls at CS 9.

My last choice for top 5 federation captains who aren't picard is probably a little more controversial, as I'd go for Robert DeSoto. DeSoto lends himself to defensive builds, as he has a re-roll for each crew on the ship, up to 3. Not gamebreaking, and his low CS lets him down somewhat, but he's a reasonable choice for the 5th best captain in the fleet.

So that's what I'd do if you too are not Picard.


TOP FEDERATION CAPTAINS (that aren't Picard):
1. Spock
2. Sisko
3. Janeway
4. Archer
5. DeSoto

As always, ideas are appreciated, thanks for reading!

Ol' Reliable

The very first ship I ever used in the game, was the Enterprise-D. I'd grown up on TNG and having that oversized saucer staring out of the box at me was one of the reasons I picked up ST:AW over X-Wing.

So the point of this post is to try to get the most out of the Ol' Reliable Enterprise-D.

First, some rules:

1. The Enterprise-D must be captained by either Jean-Luc Picard, William T. Riker or (should a card appear in future) Edward Jellico.

2. Only crew that appeared on the enterprise at some point during the run of TNG or the movie Generations may be used. This includes Montgomery Scott, Mr Spock and Leonard McCoy.

3. Given the Enterprise is the 'Best Ship in the Fleet' any federation Tech or Weapons may be used freely, as long as it doesn't pay a penalty for either faction or ship (i.e. Unimatrix Shielding is ok, but regenerative shielding isn't)

4. The D never skewed towards Offence or Defence, so try to avoid making a glass cannon or brick.

5. It should make no use of resources, and should be limited to 50 points.

Here's my own entry:

U.S.S. Enterprise-D [Starter] (28)

Jean-Luc Picard [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)

Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise] (5)

William T. Riker [U.S.S. Hood] (3)

Elizabeth Shelby [U.S.S. Yeager] (2)

High Energy Sensor Sweep [U.S.S. Sutherland] (5)

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

Total (50)

Fleet total: 50

That's a free scan for Spock every turn, a  TL or Evade from the ship, 3-4 Defence dice with re-roll(s) and a BS conversion. Quality 360 offence, passable defence and 2 actions a turn, makes me feel like running the Big-D all over again!

Thoughts and comments are appreciated,

Still not Picard tho :-(

A Challenge: Beat this ship!

I have a challenge for you all...

My venue does not retire resources. It does not enforce the 50/3 limits. It does run Ship Pure (not fleet pure) I'm convinced that the following ship can not be beaten... Your challenge is to prove otherwise!

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

Flagship: Independent (Romulan) [Flagship Resource] (10)

Jean-Luc Picard [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)

Adm Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)

Computer Analysis [Sakharov] (4)

Ilia [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)

Hikaru Sulu [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (3)

Pavel Chekov [U.S.S. Reliant] (3)

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

Tom Paris [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)

Elizabeth Shelby [U.S.S. Yeager] (2)

Multi-adaptive Shields [U.S.S. Raven] (5)

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

Total (80)

Fleet total: 80

Generated by Space Dock for iOS

http://spacedockapp.org

So using the same restrictions, let's see if anyone can come up with something that could reliably beat Evader-Voyager.

Edit: to make it into a full 120 fleet...

U.S.S. Voyager [U.S.S. Voyager] (30)
Flagship: Independent (Romulan) [Flagship Resource] (10)
Jean-Luc Picard [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)
Adm Maxwell Forrest [Enterprise NX-01] (3)
Computer Analysis [Sakharov] (4)
Ilia [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)
Hikaru Sulu [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (3)
Pavel Chekov [U.S.S. Reliant] (3)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)
Tom Paris [U.S.S. Voyager] (4)
Elizabeth Shelby [U.S.S. Yeager] (2)
Multi-adaptive Shields [U.S.S. Raven] (5)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Transphasic Torpedoes [U.S.S. Voyager] (10)
Transphasic Torpedoes [U.S.S. Voyager] (10)
Total (100)

Federation Attack Squadron [Fighter Squadron 6] (20)
Total (20)

Fleet total: 120

Generated by Space Dock for iOS
http://spacedockapp.org

Federation List Idea #4785

Again, inspired by Stuart Marsh's excellent Federation Ship Yard post, a Federation Fleet for your delectation:

U.S.S. Equinox [U.S.S. Equinox] (20)
Kor [I.K.S. Ning'tao] (3)
Cheat Death [U.S.S. Enterprise] (5)
William T. Riker [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (5)
Phlox [Enterprise NX-01] (2)
Beverly Crusher [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (3)
Systems Upgrade [U.S.S. Hood] (2)
Total (40)

Prometheus Class [U.S.S. Prometheus] (28)
Jean-Luc Picard [Starter] (6)
Dorsal Phaser Array [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (6)
Total (40)

Sovereign Class [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (30)
Mr. Spock [U.S.S. Enterprise (Refit)] (4)
Dorsal Phaser Array [U.S.S. Enterprise-E] (6)
Total (40)

Officer Exchange Program (0)

Fleet total: 120

\The Prometheus and Sovereign hit hard whilst the Equinox acts as a damage magnet. Fly the three ships in formation and then activate Kor's ability and the Equinox's ability to force an opponent to fire at you, with the two big hitters concentrating fire to destroy threats. Cheat Death means that you get *at least* two ships firing at the Equinox before it goes down, meaning they aren't firing at either of the ships you really care about. In this build CS doesn't matter quite so much.

Any comments welcome, as always!

D

The power of…err….6: Why defence is broken and how to fix it.

There were many reasons why the Borg were so good for so long -the high PWV at 360 degrees, the best manoeuvre dials in the game, their high hull and shields- but perhaps the most significant of their advantages could actually be seen as a disadvantage –their low agility.

“Hold on Dave; that makes no sense, why would you want them to have low evade?!” I hear you cry. The answer is perhaps one of the less spoken about truths of ST:AW – Defence sucks. A single green evade dice has 3 evade side, 3 blanks and 2 Battle Stations. A 37.5% chance of rolling an ‘evade’ compared to a 50% chance of rolling a hit (or crit) on an attack dice. Added to this simple statistical fact is a cavalcade of additional unfortunate facts that make defence a much more costly investment to get right than attacking.

Let’s take federation as an example (since it is by far and away the easiest faction to min-max in fleet pure), 5 attack dice with both TL and BS is easy done - Prometheus, Captain Spock, job done…Picard, Sovereign as an alternative, or additional ship with the same benefits - even when paying for the extra captain and the costly 5 PWV space-frame, you can still manage it on a budget (32 points). Dominion can do it even cheaper (Keldon and Dukat – 29 Points), even Klingons manage similar (Kargan, Vor’cha and Drex – 34). Target Lock re-rolls and BS conversions are about 94% efficiency, meaning that more often than not, you’ll be hitting with 5 out of 5 shots.

Defence, by comparison, is much more expensive, to get up to 5 dice you are having to either cloak (and that comes with it a whole heap of issues that I’ll go into another time) or rely on upgrades. No ship currently available in the game has an agility value higher than 3 – and even then they are invariably low hull/shield ships like the NX-01, Bajoran Interceptor or RIS Vo (combined hit points of 3, 3 and 4 respectively). The most survivable 3 evade ship in the game at the moment is the Prototype 01/Romulan Drone ship, and even then it has only 6 hit points. So to get up to 5 (or better 6) defence dice you are spending points that you could have spent elsewhere – unless you are a cloaker.

So how does one boost their defensive abilities? The first way is to increase the volume of the dice being rolled and (bearing in mind my earlier post on the need for a 4/4, or as close to it, split on hull and shields) often the ships that you are using as a base aren’t going to have a defence that is that high. Let’s take the Cardassian Galor class as a base, since the 3 named versions (Trager, Reklar and Kraxon) have 4 hull and 4 shields, you are looking for a way to increase the number of dice that you are rolling on defence. The most obvious choice in faction is Amat’Igan, who gives you an extra defence dice and helps you to protect other, potentially more important, crew. Shove Amat’Igan onto your ship and you have reached a mighty 2 green dice. That, as should be obvious by now, isn’t going to really make any difference, and the second (and expensive) option to boost defence using an upgrade is Cloaking Device, which lowers your shields thus reducing your durability to 4. There is another option in faction though – Tetryon Emissions. There are massive issues with this (it is an action/disable and takes a valuable tech slot) but putting it onto your Named Galor will boost your evade, along with Amat’Igan to 5. There is also Sar, a Breen Captain who, in faction, will increase that total up to the all-important 6. The Dominion faction fleet captain resource will add 2 to your CS (bringing Sar up to a *mighty* 4) and allow you to take Tetryon Emissions as a free action each turn (you can use your ship’s action to re-enable it each turn if needs be). So there you have it, a 4-6-4-4 ship; and all for 38 points. That’s 9 points more than Dukat’s 5 attack dice with TL and BS from earlier – and it is nowhere near as worth the points.

Perhaps more than attacking, defence relies upon quality rather than numbers. Let’s take that last ship and then change the captain from Sar to Gul Evek. Gul Evek’s (passive) ability is to re-roll blank defence dice each time. This takes the 6 dice that Sar’s ship had, reduces them by 1 and allows re-rolls. This means that on those 5 dice you are likely to have around 2 blank dice, when re-rolled, they are more likely to produce an extra evade result rather than the extra dice without a re-roll. Sar’s ship averages 2.25 evade results (for sake of ease let’s call that 2) whereas Evek’s ship, with the re-rolls, averages 2.625 evade results (again, for ease, let’s call that 3). Fewer dice with better quality results in better results.

Taking this paradigm a little further, let’s imagine that instead of tetryon emissions and Dominion Fleet captain, you take the ship action of the Reklar. This allows you to roll one additional defence dice and to place a BS token beside the ship. With Evek as captain and Amat’igan on board, this ship only rolls 3 dice, rather than the 6 that Sar’s ship in the above example was rolling. The difference here, is that you get a BS conversion on one of the occasions that you defend. This averages out at 2.8 evades a turn. Sar’s ship was 38 points, the Reklar with Gul Evek and Amat’Igan is 31 points. You save 6 points and get a better return in terms of defence, and you can still use your resource elsewhere. The problem that this version creates, is that it can only spend the BS token once, and once it has gone, the ship’s evade drops down to an average of 1.55.

So perhaps the Reklar isn’t the answer, but BS conversions certainly seem to help. Another thing that helps with defence is any ability that helps to cancel opposing attack dice. This can range from cancelling an entire attack (Feedback Pulse, Varel and Conditional Surrender) to reducing the effectiveness of an attack without cancelling it entirely (Improved Deflector Screens, the ship ability of the Trager or Bellerophon). Abilities like this are key to surviving in ST:AW. A single, automatically cancelled Red Dice is the statistical equivalent of 3 extra Green Dice (and so is an evade token too, although it can only be used once). The Trager, for Dominion, has an ability whereby it can cancel one hit or Crit result by disabling a shield. This does reduce the 4/4 shield/hull approach from its optimum value, but is essentially the same as having rolled an extra 3 Green Dice once a turn. Even with only Amat’Igan and Evek on it, taking an ‘evade’ action, the Trager averages out at 2.25 evade results if it is only defending against one attack a turn.

The truth is, throughout this little thought experiment, nothing really offers a concrete answer to the problem of defence. Even when stacking as many dice as possible, with conversion and cancellation, you are going to struggle to come out unscathed from a 4 dice attack with quality, since most of the time this will mean that you are suffering 4 points of damage. That’s why the 4/4 standard is so important; the defence just helps you to survive even longer.

That is unless you consider the Federation, who do defence better than anyone.

U.S.S. Defiant                                                                 2

Jean-Luc Picard (Enterprise E)                                     +1

Cheat Death

Independent Fleet Captain (Klingon)

Elizabeth Shelby                                                            Re-Roll (Re-rolls and +1 vs. Borg)

Hikaru Sulu                                                                    +2, 1 BS Conversion

William T. Riker (Hood)                 +1, 1 BS Conversion (+2, 2 BS Conversion w/DA Captain)

Multi Adaptive Shields                                                  +1 (Defence vs. Mines)

Specialized Shields                                                         Re-Roll

Systems Upgrade

This ship rolls a mighty 7 green dice, with 2 BS Conversions and a minimum of 2 Re-rolls. The efficiency that this provides means that you are averaging out at around 6(!) successful Evade dice per turn against non-borg, and 7 vs. the Big Bad Borg themselves (although not so big or bad at the moment, I’ll post about that later). That’s worth the investment of points itself, since the ship comes out at 50 points with all of those upgrades on it. Add in Cheat Death, for when it all goes wrong, and systems upgrade for a reasonable 3/5 damage balance and you have an extremely survivable ship, that causes almost no damage to you opponent!

Therein lies the crux of the problem: Any ship with reasonable defence upgrades, within the 50 Point limit, will struggle to also maintain a reasonable damage output, especially if BS tokens are spent on defence rather than offence. So how does one ‘solve’ the problem of defence? It’s a relatively straight forward answer – The best defence is a good offence.

The best way of ensuring the lengthy survival of your own ships is to kill your opponent’s ships before he gets chance to fire back. With federation this is easy (I’ll take Picard 9, Kirk 9 and fighters please) and with Dominion it is also relatively easy done (Dukat + Madred, Weyoun 8 and Fleet Captain) it’s also becoming easier for Klingons (Old Kor and Martok). Manouevre into position, fire your 4+ dice of modified goodness onto an enemy ship and then don’t worry about defence since you have destroyed the enemy ship.

So this bring me back to the start of this (now particularly long) diatribe – the Borg. The Borg have high primary weapon value, high hull and shields (in some case doubling the 4/4 balance) and no agility. This means that the Borg’s ship cost is not paying 2 extra points for an ultimately superfluous stat. Before the Borg errata, Borg were the absolute masters at manoeuvring into a position where they would suffer no return fire and could make the most of their high PWV (admittedly Borg do not, in fleet pure play at least, benefit from both TL and BS, so that 6 dice primary attack is only likely to average out at 4.5 hits assuming a Target Lock). With the Borg Queen and Locutus, the Borg have access to two high CS captains, meaning that they can also do the tactic described above, manoeuvre into position, concentrate fire and avoid return fire.

So to summarise my main points about defence here I’ll say the following:

1.      Defence is an expensive stat to boost,

2.      Efficiency is almost always better than extra green dice,

3.      A good offence is the best defence,

4.      High hull and shields are better than high agility.

As always comments are most welcome, and I’m sure that there are dodgy maths in there somewhere,

I’m still not Picard,

D