As we approach Autumn and Wave 19 for Wizkids Star Trek Attack Wing looms on the horizon the reveals and first looks begin to appear on StarTrek.com.
The first of the Wave 19 first looks is for the Federation Shuttlecraft, the Delta Flyer.
The Delta Flyer
The Delta Flyer was a specially designed Federation shuttlecraft constructed by the crew of the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant in 2375. The vessel was designed to handle environments that would be too hazardous for a standard shuttlecraft and to be slightly larger than the average shuttle, the crew having acknowledged that standard shuttles were of little use in the increasingly hostile and unexplored Delta Quadrant. The vessel was a blend of Starfleet and Borg technology, designed in collaboration between B’Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Tuvok, Harry Kim, and Seven of Nine. It featured a warp-streamlined tetraburnium alloy hull, retractable warp nacelles, parametallic hull plating, unimatrix shielding, and a Borg-inspired weapon system, including photonic missiles, most of which were Paris’ conceptions. For aesthetic reasons, Paris designed some of the flight controls to resemble those from the holodeck simulation of Captain Proton; when Tuvok complained, Paris explained that he wanted to feel the ship and that he was tired of tapping panels. But to Paris’ disappointment, the addition of dynametric tailfins was denied by Tuvok. Instead of having the usual two pilot stations, it had several command stations. The ship was first featured in the Voyager episode “Extreme Risk“.
Firstly, what a tough little vessel! This Shuttlecraft packs the punch of some TOS era ships and exceeds the capabilities of later era ships such as the Saber Class, Nova Class and Oberth Class ships already available to the Federation. In fact its not far off being as powerful as the Defiant Class ships. It has a great PWV of 3, a decent Evade of 2, a Hull value of 2 and Shields of 3. It follows the special rules associated to Shuttlecraft which were introduced with the Type 7 Shuttlecraft, the Sakharov. This means that the ship can only attack at Range 1-2, must only be included if a “capital ship” vessel of Hull 4 or more is included in your fleet, it can dock with larger vessels and cannot have weapon upgrades of 3 SP or more assigned to it.
Shuttlecraft Additional Rules Reference Cards
The Delta Flyer has some notable exceptions to these rules as befitting its unique status. Firstly as per its named ability you can deploy weapon upgrades of 4SP or less which gives you more options when using secondary weapons. It can also fire its primary weapon from its rear arc at -1 Attack Dice. Not a huge ability but it does offer some flexibility. With Evade, Target Lock and Scan actions on the Actions Bar this little ship can certainly make its limited attacks worthwhile.
To make those attacks count you will want to keep out of range then close quickly and unload at R1-2, the first of the Delta Flyer’s captains, Tom Paris, offers you that ability. With a CS of 4 and costing 2pts Tom allows you to convert a 3 Fwd manuever into a 4 Fwd maneuver at the cost of an Auxiliary Power Token and losing the ability to “dock”. If speed isnt your thing and you want some tactical flexibility then consider Tuvok, the second of the Delta Flyer’s captains. He’s a little more experienced with a CS of 5 but costs more at 3pts. Tuvok allows you to add another Tech Upgrade slot to your vessel AND reduces the cost of all your Tech Upgrades by -1pt. This will work great with upgrades like Specialized Shields or Enhanced Hull Plating to add greater evasiveness to this ship. Neither brings an Elite Talent slot to this pack.
Given Tuvoks ability to reduce the price of Tech upgrades you’d think this pack comes loaded with Tech and you’d be right! First up we have Parametallic Hull Plating which is a 2pt discard allowing you to cancel a Hit or Crit during the Compare Results Step. The second Tech option Immersion Shielding costs 3pts and adds another shield to your ship while providing protection against unexpected obstacles by granting a reroll of the attack dice if you overlap an obstacle. Lastly, Unimatrix Shielding adds another 2 shields to your ship while giving you the possibility of even greater protection against Borg attacks by disabling upto 2 active shields to cancel an equal number of Hits and Crits. You may only equip one of each of any of these upgrades to any Federation vessel and they cost +3pts for any non-Federation vessel, except Unimatrix Shielding which costs +5pts. There’s some seriously useful Tech available in this pack which will make a tough little ship even tougher. Looking good!
So what about Crew? Who do we have here? Well as collaborators in the process of building the Delta Flyer B’Elanna Torres, Harry Kim and Seven of Nine are all included and have new versions. How can they help?
Firstly B’Elanna Torres provides defensive options by allowing this ship to disable herself and an active shield to cancel one Hit or Crit during the Compare Results step. This is nice and thematic in this pack but when you combine her with some of the doctors available for the Federation on a big hitting ship with lots of shields then you really are cooking on gas. I can see B’Elanna getting lots of table time in combo’s like that! She’s 4pts but its a price im willing to pay for a great ability like that.
Harry Kim is another great defensive boost for the Federation. Sadly he is a 4pt Action disable but he allows you to place 2 Evade tokens beside your ship. You wont be able to perform an Evade action at all, even as a free Action but you still get to roll defense dice so 2 guaranteed evades instead of taking an Action to get 1. Nice. I’m sure there are some really rather dirty ways of abusing this card including other crew or captains that allow you to perform upgrades actions as Free Actions (and thus not disabling him) or by using upgrades that allow you to take double tokens etc. I’ll have a more detailed look once I’ve finished writing this. Both are greatly improved versions of their previous cards and I can see both being used in preference to their originals.
Lots of defensive options but what if you want to engage in combat. Seven of Nine allows you to disable herself during the Activation Phase to perform a free Battlestations action. Its important here to differentiate between taking tokens and performing actions. Seven performs a free Action which means this ship cannot perform that same action again in any way….it can however place Battlestations tokens. The rules state you cannot perform the same Action twice, even if it was a free Action.
Lastly we have those Secondary Weapon upgrades that will boost the offensive options of this ship. We have the 3pt Photonic Missiles which are Range 1-2 missiles, which, in addition to dealing damage, can also give any hit target an Auxiliary Power Token. This is always an awesome ability as forcing a ship to take an APT can really throw an opponents plans off. Finally, the power of Photon Torpedoes is made available for a shuttlecraft. Normally you wouldnt be able to equip such an upgrade to a Shuttlecraft due to the rules however the Delta Flyer can equip Secondary Weapons upgrades of 4pts or less. Additionally these torpedoes can be fired at Range 2-3 with 5 attack dice which means the Delta Flyer can fire a 5 dice attack at Range 3 from its Fwd or Rear arcs. Allowing such a powerful attack from such a tiny ship requires you to discard this upgrade rather than disable it, but this seems like a fair trade off for a shuttle. Both weapon upgrades can be fired from either the front or rear firing arc, giving you the flexibility to go head-to-head with an enemy or fire while on the run.
Wow! What a great little pack! I’m seriously excited by this vessel even with the limitations of Shuttlecraft. Its a small nippy craft with a great dial, nice stats and reasonable actions. The upgrades perform well and will see lots of use in other formats.
Were I to try and build this ship in the current Suggested Tournament Format of 50pts in a pure environment, out of cards just in this pack I’d probably do it as follows:-
Delta Flyer (20)
Tuvok (4)
B’Elanna Torres (4)
Harry Kim (3)
Photon Torpedoes (4)
Immersion Shielding (3)
Unimatrix Shielding (5)
Total (43)
So what do you think about the Delta Flyer? How would you run it using just the cards in this pack? Let me know and comment below.
Thanks for reading.
Jase
http://www.startrek.com/article/first-look-star-trek-attack-wing-wave-19-delta-flyer
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