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.
