Mancave Monday – TCW Reinforcement Blind Boosters

Tonight was a very exciting time in the Mancave as some lovely goodies I had ordered arrived and just in the nick of time.

Given it was the first glimpse of the Star Trek Beyond trailer and the worldwide premier on Star Wars:The Force Awakens it seemed fitting that my 3 sets of Star Trek Attack Wing Reinforcement Blind Boosters for Temporal Cold War and my final outstanding Star Wars X-Wing Ship, Tantive IV, both arrived.

Some time ago David Montgomery of The ShipYard YouTube channel previewed the STAW Reinforcement Boosters and I shared links each day to his videos (links to the videos can be found below).  Over winter Wizkids will be running The Temporal Cold War OP Series (based off the Enterprise episodes).  Each month players will participate in a scenario and build a 90pt fleet using all standard build rules and formats (check with your venue and TO for further advice).  Each player will then receive a randomly assigned Blind Booster to build an additional 40pt ship from which must be used.

For all of you who follow here and either don’t use Facebook or The Hairy Gamers (and why not!?) I’m going to provide links to each of my comments and the videos.

The Hairy Gamers can be found at https://www.facebook.com/TheHairyGamers?ref=bookmarks you can find a brief write up of each Blind Booster by me on that page which links to the videos attached below.  I dont want to steal David’s thunder as he’s done some great work on behalf of the STAW Community so please, please, please go take a look at his YouTube Channel and Subscribe.

So far we have seen:

Romulans – IRW Belak –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg0B0ZhGp4k&feature=share

Species 8472 – Bioship Gamma – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eA8ZncHR-M

Dominion – Aldara – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUrcuygImY8&feature=youtu.be

Federation – USS Lakota – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiGCWpeTu9c

Mirror Universe – IKS Toh’Kaht – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pL_cR_ITeE

**Temporal Cold War OP 1 Prize** Xindi – Diaspora – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ2rK5AnXcw&feature=youtu.be

Klingon – IKS Buruk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xru6Ibq4Y0&feature=youtu.be

Bajoran – Interceptor 8 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGnDLFvD_p8&feature=youtu.be

Kazon – Nistrim Cullah – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8UwB9VWPk

Vulcan – Seleya – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajokBQPewa4&feature=youtu.be

Ferengi – Nunk’s Marauder – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TQLyAfarVQ

Now mine have arrived I can share some pictures of the ships and cards without stealing Davids thunder.

Star Trek FIRST LOOK: USS Hathaway for Attack Wing Wave 20

Our friends at StarTrek.com have an exclusive First Look at the Federation destroyer, the USS Hathaway for the upcoming Star Trek: Attack Wing — Wave 20.

The USS Hathaway, as seen in the TNG Episode Peak Performance was briefly recomissioned in 2365 and towed into orbit of Braslota IV in the Braslota system for a Starfleet battle simulation, in which Commander William T. Riker commanded the obsolete Hathaway against the state-of-the-art Galaxy-class USS Enterprise-D. Although the Hathaway ran on minimum power, had only a few shards of dilithium, and no antimatter fuel, Riker’s away team managed to reactivate the ship and place it in sufficient condition for simulated combat in only 48 hours.

The battle proceeded well and Riker was able to outwit Captain Jean-Luc Picard on several occassions. Unfortunately, the war games were interrupted by the intrusion of a Ferengi D’Kora-class starship, the Kreechta, whose DaiMon, Bractor, believed that the two starships were engaged in real combat. Thinking that the Hathaway must be of great value to be fighting against the Enterprise, the Ferengi demanded theHathaway’s immediate surrender after disabling the Enterprise.

Fortunately, the combined crews of the Enterprise and Hathaway formulated a plan in which it was made to appear as if the Enterprise destroyed the Hathaway to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. In reality, the Hathaway had merely made a split-second warp jump, thanks to the resourcefulness of Wesley Crusher, the instant before photon torpedoes, launched by the Enterprise, were detonated. Its potential prize destroyed, the Ferengi retreated. Following the exercise, the Hathaway was towed to the nearest starbase.

Source: Star Trek FIRST LOOK: USS Hathaway for Attack Wing Wave 20

Star Trek Sunday – Balance of Terror OP – USS Intrepid

USS Intrepid, Federation Constitution Class Starship

Stats – 3-1-4-3 Actions – Evade, Target Lock, Scan and Battleststaions

A Wing of Constitutions

USS Intrepid Base Plate

Constitution Base Plate

Constitution Maneuver Dial

USS Intrepid and Constitution Ship Cards and Maneuver Card

Admiral Decker (CS 2)

Generic Federation Captain (CS 1)

Elite Talent – Flag Officer

Crew or Weapon Upgrade – Astrogator

Secondary Weapon – Dual Phaser Banks

Crew Upgrade – Vulcan Engineer

Balance of Terror OP Resource – Sabotage

Morning Mancavers,

Today I will be walking you through the Monthly OP Event Kit “Balance of Terror” which is the second episodic OP Event Kit, after “Year of Hell” and fills the short 2 month gap between the OP Events “Q-Continuum” and”Temporal Cold War” for Wizkids Star Trek Attack Wing (STAW).

Balance of Terror comes from the Original Series (TOS) timeline and is inspired by the TOS episode of the same name:-

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Balance_of_Terror_(episode)

It is the first time in Star Trek where we witness and experience the nefarious Romulans.

The Star Trek: Attack Wing Balance of Terror OP Kit includes everything a store needs to run an event supporting 10 players Including:

• 1 Tournament Instruction / Score Sheet here
• 1 Tournament Overview Sheet here
• 1 Fleet Build Sheet
• 10 Sabotage Participation Prize Cards
• 3 USS Intrepid / Constitution -class Starship Pre-Painted Plastic Ships
  • 1 Plastic base (with 2 Plastics Pegs)
  • 1 Maneuver Dial
  • 10 Cards (2 Ship, 1 Maneuver, 2 Captain, 1 Additional Rules, and 4 Upgrade Cards) 5 Token Sheets (4 Captain ID, 1 Ship, 5 Action, 1 Critical Hit, 1 Auxiliary Power, 1 Fleet Action, 1 admiral, 1 Disabled upgrade, and 3 Shield Tokens)

Source: http://wizkids.com/attackwing/star-trek-attack-wing-balance-of-terror-op/

Interestingly, in addition to the OP Event mission, which can be downloaded legally and free of charge via the link above, there are as usual a participation resource “Sabotage”. Players will receive the participation price regardless of their actual placement in the tournament.

This OP resource costs 5 fleet points and can be used a total of five times. When the game starts you place five Mission markers ontop of the Sabotage Resource. Each round a player may spend one of these tokens, to obtain one of the following four effects: if you are Attacking the enemy you can (1) force the Defending ship to re-roll 2 dice of your choice or (2) force the Defending ship to roll 1 less Defense dice.  You can also when Defending force the Attacking ship to, either (3) to roll 1 less Attack dice or (4) to re-roll 2 Attack dice of your choice.  This can already be very handy albeit a bit situational. The card is also very flexible. And for just 5 points, I don’t think it will become common in my builds but its fun and may see the odd use in casual play.

For those participating in the event the kit also contains three prize ships, the USS Intrepid, a Federation Constitution Class Starship.  One usually goes one to the tournament winner.  The other two vessels are often shared by the tournament hosts (or its trusted third party, which organized the tournament, the TO) and another player from the field of competitors who has embraced the spirit of the game or played thematically….well call this the Fellowship Prize.  As the Tournament Organiser (TO) and already having three of these ships I will be returning my Prize ship back into the pool.  So First and Second and Fellowship (Most Sporting) will each receive a prize.

The Wizkids official Event Site describes the kit as follows:

Star Trek: ATTACK WING BALANCE OF TERROR OP

While on a mission to investigate attacks against the outposts near the Romulan Neutral Zone, your fleet has discovered an enemy fleet heading back towards the neutral zone. You have your fleet follow the enemy into the Neutral Zone at a distance, mirroring Their every move. Even though any act of aggression would be Considered to act of war between your people, you decide to make your move and have your fleet attack. Will you outmaneuver and destroy your enemies?Or wants They outwit you and claim victory for Themselves?

The USS Intrepid was first seen in the TOS episode “The Immunity Syndrome” and is a Federation Starship. It is, as Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise was, a Constitution class and has a unqiue identifying feature. The entirity of Admiral Decker’s crew is composed exclusively of Vulcans!  A fact which this kit unfortunately does not do justice. As only a single Vulcan Crew card is included in this prise ship set.

So lets start with the ship itself, this ship model is a recycled sculpt also used for the USS Enterprise or Tinyprise from the initial “Wave 0” of the game. This is ok, given that the two ships are the same class of ship in game although the many reported issues with the engine nacelles detaching in transport for the USS Enterprise so you may see broken off engines.  I personally have never had an issue with this sculpt at all and including the ISS Avenger which also uses this sculpt own 9 of this sculpt now without issue.   As you can see, the Intrepid follows the recent trend for Federation ships that began to established over the last few waves to paint ships in Liberace-esque silvers. Silver is the new Federation Baby Blue. Following the silver Akira class USS Thunderchild, Nebula class USS Pheonix and Intrepid class USS Bellerophon we now also get a silver Constitution class.  Im not sure how I feel about this….Im not a huge fan of the Baby Blue colour but I dont see that the Silver which Wizkids are currently using is any better.  Its almost as if those guys at Wizkids have never actually watched an episode of Star trek ever.  When you see the paint jobs, the blatantly incorrect cards in some packs and the wrong ships being used for particular episodic events you have to question whether WK actually know or care any different.

The USS Intrepid has the usual stats ​​of its sister ship, the Constitution class USS Enterprise and costs, using the usual formula of doubling the total of all primary stats – 22 points for the Named Variant (game values ​​3-1-4-3) and 20 points for the Generic Constitution class.  It uses the standard Federation Action Bar of Evade, Target Lock, Scan and Battlestations.

As per all other version of the Constitution class this ship has a 180 degree front arc and no rear arc.  Its a very useful maneuver dial and will certainly help in keeping those enemy ships within the front arc.  1 Bank & 1 and 2 Fwd Greens. 2 & 3 Bank, 2 Hard and 3 & 4 Fwd Whites with 2 Reverse and Hard 3’s as Red.  No Come About at all.

The ability of the named version is nice, not game breaking or meta changing but nice.  “When attacking a ship at Range 3, if there is a Scan Token beside your ship the Defending Ship rolls -2 Defense dice instead of -1”.  There have been certain scenarios when staying at Range 3 and “fed shuffling” could win your the event.  In those scenarios this ability would have been great.  Its a nice ability if you can use it.  Its a little situational but given that this ship is a little fragile you may want the additional defensive benefits of staying at Range 3 whilst making your attacks that little bit more potent.  The larger front arc will almost certainly help with this.  This will also work on Secondary Weapons!

So who do we have at the helm of the USS Intrepid….well none other than Commodore Matt Decker (the father of Captain Will Decker from the Enterprise Refit expansion!).  Sadly this is where things start to fall apart and Wizkids lack of caring or understanding of the Trek’verse begin to show.  The USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. This ship was crewed entirely byVulcans and was seen in the TOS episode “The Immunity Syndrome“.  Expanded canon described the Captain of the Intrepid as Satak.  In this pack we see Commodore Matt Decker, the captain of the USS Constitution which went toe to toe with “The Doomsday Machine” in the TOS episode of the same name.  So far Wizkids have the wrong ship attributed to the episodic OP (should have been the Enterprise) and the wrong captain (should have been Satak).  100% failure rate so far.

As there is no mechanic for using Commodores in STAW Matt Decker is listed as an Admiral which means we can use him as either an Admiral or a Captain.  The Admiral version costs 1 point and actually reduces the effectiveness of your captain but reducing his CS by 1.  A thoroughly thematic implementation of this guy!  As Captain he is a low CS2 captain.  Both versions bring an Elite Talent slot to the table which for the cost is pretty good and he also comes with an ability.  “Target a ship within Range 1 of your ship (including your ship).  Target ship gains +1 Attack die this round and suffers 1 damage to its Hull.”.  Its thematic of Matt decker and the episode he appeared in but again that wasn’t Balance of Terror.  Its an ok ability.

This ability poses a number of questions: Is it possible with Deckers Action to allow an enemy to target ship to get it on the one hand briefly to strengthen the attack value, but then to also damage as a result of the interaction?  If you were in the rear arc of a ship with no shot at you you may want to use this ability to directly apply damage to the Hull of that enemy ship.  This is a rather sneaky usage for this ability.  You could also use it against a an enemy ship at range 1 with a shot on you when you have Feedback Pulse from the Borg Sphere expansion that allows you to cancel all the damage and apply half of it rounded up aback at the enemy.  Nifty huh!  Keevan + Feedback Pulse + Admiral Matt Decker??

When does this deal damage effect occur? After application of the additional die or immediately?  I would be inclined to say that the damage dealt is directly linked to the triggering of the Action occurring.  Therefore indirectly this action allows the ability to destroy his own ship itself!

On the first point, I feel the wording of the card is clear. I will go with the wording of card that you Matt Decker’s action may also employ against enemy ships! An interpretation supported by the wording of another card in this set card, the Elite Talent Flag Officer because there is a clear distinction between the terms is friendly and enemy implied.
In this form, this action is a very exciting prospect to play with, as long as you survive its use!

The Elite Talent Flag Officer allows you to target a friendly ship within Range 1-2 and that ship can perform a free Action if you discard this Elite Talent.  Its a 4pt discard Elite Talent.  In my mind for a free Action the costs of this card are prohibitively high, 4pts and a discard??  The effect itself is quite nice, but there are simply better talents for the Federation out there or uses for those 4pts in a build.

Lets look at the Crew upgrades available in this pack.  As I mentioned earlier the Intrepid was crewed exclusively by Vulcans so you could reasonably expect a Vulcan Crew heavy expansion.  Again Wizkids have dropped the ball here as they have only provided one Vulcan Crew, the Vulcan Engineer.  The Vulcan Engineer is a 3pt Action.  He’s worded thusly “ACTION: If there are no enemt ships within Range 1-3 of your ship, repair one of your shield tokens.  You do not pay a faction penalty when assigning this upgrade to a Vulcan ship.”.  Its a nice ability, not sure I’ll use it as much as other repair cards of which the Federation has quite a few.  The penalty pure element is cool and another card to add to the lists for penalty pure events but as we play pure here I cant see him getting much use.

We also have another Crew upgrade in Astrogator.  It can be deployed as a Crew upgrade or a Secondary Weapon upgrade.  Its a 3pt Action discard which is never a nice to decision to make.  It says “ACTION: Discard this card to perform an additional non-red maneuver on your maneuver dial with a speed of 1 or 2.  This upgrade may only be purchased for a Constitution class ship and you may fill a Crew or Secondary Weapon Upgrade slot on your upgrade bar with this upgrade.  No ship may be equipped with more than 1 Astrogator upgrade”.  So you can perform a non-red speed 1 or 2 maneuver as an Action, it has its uses but sadly the timing of this card limits those interactions.  Had it been a discard after you move then it could have been used to remove a Auxiliary Token after a red manuever.  But as it is an Action you need an Action to use it.  Its nice for getting out of dodge or moving into a better firing position but would closing to R1 be better than using that Action for a Target Lock or Battlestations?  Im not sure.  Its a  nice thematic card as I recall its usage in another TOS episode.  There was a failed experiment with the M5 Multitronic Computers on all Constitution class starships in the TOS episode “The Ultimate Computer”.

Last card to look at is the Secondary Weapon upgrade Dual Phaser Banks.  Its a 3pt disable upgrade which adds +1 to your Primary Weapon Attack.  It may not sound much but when you cosnider this now makes a Constitution class as punchy as a Galaxy class starship or hit even harder than a Romulan D’deridex class Warbird.  Sadly the Dual Phaser banks upgrade may only be equipped on Federation ships are used and cost another 3 pts cost if they were a vessel type other than said Constitution wants to play class. As with other similar upgrades you may only ever equip one of these upgrades to your ship.

However, this card is absolutely worth its points and a real steal of an upgrade. As the Primary Weapon attack  is boosted, you can stack this upgrade with others than boost your Primary Attack or Attack dice.  You can also use your best maneuvers to – used at the right moment – get two additional attack dice (1 for Range 1 and 1 for this card). Since you get to keep the card after use also, the ability is often performable over and over again. I personally like that, especially since I do not like disposable cards. Its too bad that cards like this will become available only via tournament play to the players.

So let me know what you think.

The Delta Flyer – Star Trek Attack Wing First Look

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

Star Trek Attack Wing Updates

Recently David Montgomery, of The Shipyard YouTube channel, has been revealing the latest Blind Booster ships for the forthcoming OP events in Wizkids Star Trek Attack Wing.  I’ve been sharing these YouTube videos and providing comments via The Hairy Gamers Facebook page.  For all of you who follow here and either don’t use Facebook or The Hairy Gamers (and why not!?) I’m going to provide links to each of my comments and the videos.

The Hairy Gamers can be found at https://www.facebook.com/TheHairyGamers?ref=bookmarks you can find a brief write up of each Blind Booster by me on that page which links to the videos attached below.  I dont want to steal David’s thunder as he’s done some great work on behalf of the STAW Community so please, please, please go take a look at his YouTube Channel and Subscribe.

So far we have seen:

Romulans – IRW Belak –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg0B0ZhGp4k&feature=share

Species 8472 – Bioship Gamma – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eA8ZncHR-M

Dominion – Aldara – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUrcuygImY8&feature=youtu.be

Federation – USS Lakota – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiGCWpeTu9c

Mirror Universe – IKS Toh’Kaht – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pL_cR_ITeE

**Temporal Cold War OP 1 Prize** Xindi – Diaspora – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ2rK5AnXcw&feature=youtu.be

Klingon – IKS Buruk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xru6Ibq4Y0&feature=youtu.be

Bajoran – Interceptor 8 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGnDLFvD_p8&feature=youtu.be

Kazon – Nistrim Cullah – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8UwB9VWPk

Vulcan – Seleya – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajokBQPewa4&feature=youtu.be

Ferengi – Nunk’s Marauder – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TQLyAfarVQ

**Edit** So thats its folks…all ten Blind Boosters have been revealed and should start to become available from the end of October onwards and will last about a year, starting with the Temporal Cold War OP Series.

Trek Tuesday – USS Bellerophon

Sorry its been a while since I last posted, its been crazy at work and Ive only just had a chance to grab some Jase time.  Even now I have the kids here as its summer holidays

That doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening.

Today I received my copies of the USS Bellerophon, the prize for the Voyager episodic OP Event “Year of Hell”.  The USS Bellerophon (NCC-74705) was a 24th century Federation Intrepid-class starship operated by Starfleet. Under the command of Admiral William Ross, the Bellerophon transported Federation delegates to Romulus for a conference on Dominion War issues in 2375 as seen in the DS9 episode “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges“.

This is the second Intrepid class vessel seen in Wizkids Star Trek Attack Wing, the first being USS Voyager after which the Voyager series is named.  It is also only the second time an Intrepid class vessel is seen in Star Trek and the only time it happens outside of the Voyager series.

USS Bellerophon, Federation Intrepid Class Starship

Stats – 4-2-4-5 Actions – Evade, Target Lock, Scan and Battlestations

A Wing of Intrepids

Lets start with the model itself….well its the same sculpt as USS Voyager but sadly has the horrible silver paintjob of the NX-Class.  It could certainly do with some toning down with either a wash or just a general repaint to take that horrible shine off it.

USS Bellerophon Base Plate

Intrepid Base Plate

Intrepid Maneuver Dial

USS Bellerophon and Intrepid Ship Cards and Maneuver Card

The USS Bellerophon has standard Intrepid class stats of 4-2-4-5 (for the named version) and 4-2-4-4 (for the generic).  The Maneuver dial is the standard set of maneuvers for a ship of this class and does not have any Red maneuvers at all which is all kinda of awesome.  With stats of 4-2-4-5 the named version is 30pts and the generic comes with one less shield and no ability for 28pts.  Unlike its class mate USS Voyager the upgrade slots available on this ship do not include 3 Crew, 1 Weapon and 1 Tech.  The Bellerophon has 2 Crew, 2 Weapons and 1 Tech.  This makes the vessel more of a warship than Voyager although Voyager has been used previously as the basis for many a Fednought build.

The named ability is rather nifty as any damage nullification ability is.  In a world where Magnometric Guided Charges and other shield ignoring weapons are commonplace those shields wont be taking much damage so to be able to disable 2 Active Shields to cancel an attackers Hit is a nice ability to have.  What this ship doesn’t have is that nice 360 arc shot that Named Voyager has.  So you may find yourself utilising the extra weapon slots on this vessel to add torpedoes to protect that rear of your hull.

Admiral Ross (CS6)

Generic Federation Captain (CS1)

As per the DS9 episode where this vessel first appeared Admiral William Ross captains the USS Bellerophon.  We are treated to two versions of Ross, the Admiral who adds +2 to any captain he supports and the CS6 Captain.  Both versions bring an Elite Talent slot to the table and the Action is good when jousting with an enemy vessel.  it requires the enemy vessel to be in your forward arc and to attack your ship.  Ideally you’d not want to be attacked as you’d have flanked and come into the rear arc of the enemy but if you do go toe to toe with the enemy Ross will be there to help.  Sadly no further captains are included except the generic Federation included in every Federation ship.  I’d have liked to have seen another captain but I can understand why one isn’t included.

Secondary Weapon – Tricobalt Device

Crew Upgrade – Luther Sloan

Elite Talent – Section 31

Tech Upgrade – Variable Geometry Plyons

This prize ship isn’t really stocked to the gills with upgrades and extras.  It only includes 1 Crew, 1 Secondary Weapon, 1 Tech Upgrade and 1 Elite Talent.  Thankfully two of them are related to my all time favourite character ever….Luther Sloan, so that’s where we’ll start.  Luther Sloan, the clandestine operative from Section 31, the dark side of Starfleet, makes an appearance.  Due to his nature and lack of accountability to the Federation he is listed as an Independant Crew upgrade.  His knowledge of the enemy is what he brings to your fleet.  He can change his ships maneuver after assessing upto 3 enemy ships maneuver dials and then disappear as if he were never there.  I’d have loved him to be a disable but he’s a discard.  Not too expensive either clocking in at 3pts.  Given the episode in which this ship appears I would have expected a Julian Bashir crew card but no sign of DS9’s beloved genetically enhanced doctor.

Sloan also brings with him the Elite Talent Section 31 which allows the captain it is assigned to to perform the effects of spending a Battlestations, Evade or Target Lock token as if the ship had one.  For 3pts this discardable ET will give your ship the cutting edge it needs in Attack or Defence.  The ability to spend a Target Lock or BS on an attack from a ship that doesn’t natively have that Action is great!  I can see this being used in Romulan fleets for the BS it grants.

Lets fill those weapon slots on the Bellerophon…..to do this we have Tricobalt Device.  Its a nice weapon to have with a decent range of 2-3 and sadly can only be fired from the forward arc.  Nothing game breaking there.  Its a 6 attack dice and is Intrepid class only…..boo.  It would have been nice to see some standard Torpedoes that this ship could use from its rear arc but again nothing there.

Lastly we have our Tech upgrade Variable Geometry Pylons.  Its another Intrepid only upgrade and clocks in at 5pts.  This would be bad enough for me to seriously consider not using it but it gets worse, it also costs you your ships Action for that round.  To me this is too big a price to pay for the limited ability it grants.  This upgrade allows you to increase or decrease your speed by 1 if you disable it before you move.  Im not 100% about this upgrade…….I like that it is disable only but its cost and limited use really make me consider consigning it to the folder forever.

All in all this is a somewhat disappointing prize ship.  The only redeeming features are the Section 31 cards in Luther Sloan and Section 31.  I might use Admiral Ross from time to time but the weapon is a bit meh and the Tech upgrade is hardly worth pulling out the folder.

Its just not that great.  The ship will see use especially in those Fednought builds.

Dont take my word for it, go play and grab one yourself.  Let me know what you think

Jase

Mancave update

Apologies to everyone in Mancave-land as I haven’t posted in about a week a lot has happened.  Firstly its been the birthday of two important people in my life in the last week.  Last weekend it was my youngest daughter, Phoebe’s, birthday and this weekend just gone it was my better half, Lucy’s birthday.  Happy birthday ladies!

So what has been going on then?  Well firstly after nearly two years of waiting my copies of AvP:The Hunt Begins finally arrived in the Mancave following a haphazard and uncommunicative Kickstarter.  I’ve enjoyed limited success with Kickstarters and to be honest this entire experience has left a rather bitter aftertaste for me.  I’ve watched as “limited edition Kickstarter exclusive” copies of a game I and many other have funded and made possible made their way to retailers before we’d even been given a sniff of the game….so much for our Limited edition copies eh?   Everything that made our game exclusive is now anything but.  Regardless of that fact my two copies eventually arrived…only 9 days after I could have walked into a FLGS and bought it cheaper.  I’ll do a full review some other time as I’ve now punched all the card elements and started assembling models from one of my copies.  The other copy I gave to Hairy Gamer and long term geek-mance Tris who is still waiting to receive any semblance of notification for his AvP Kickstarter.

Monday saw the monthly Imperial Assault campaign swing into action again.  Dave returned to the fold to pick up his sniper and get his kill on.  Recently we had enjoyed moderate success in the campaign picking up a few close but hard fought wins.  This session our objective was to attack and deactivate a secret Imperial Research Facility and achieve this within 5 game turns.  The Facility was heavily fortified with armoured doors and Stormtroopers defending it.  With no idea what was within we had to clear any resistance to us from outside and get through it as fast as possible.  To be honest we were not expecting success and thought Alan, our GM, may have some nasty surprises in store for us inside.  By the end of turn one our organised teamwork had allowed us to kill five Stormtroopers and Stun and destroy the Probe Droid guarding the door.  Next turn we blasted through the door and my smuggler stressed herself to race through the structure and see what was lying in wait.  Everything was going to plan as everything Alan deployed got very quickly destroyed by our Soldier with his Havoc shots.  Everything happened so fast I didn’t even get a chance to take pictures and for that I apologise again.  We were outrageously successful this month and I’m sure that next month Alan’s Imperial’s will come back stronger and nastier.  With only 3 sessions left until the end of the campaign I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed participating in it and will hopefully run one of my own once this is finished.  Dave Baxter and I were also chatting about the skirmish variant of the game so with any luck you may see some reports of that on the Mancave as things progress.  Watch this space!

Other things have been going on though…..it seems like pretty much everything I do is sponsored by the letter T.  So much like Sesame Street todays update will be sponsored by the letter T.

T stands for TIE-Advanced.  This week saw me finally get my dirty Imperial hands on Darth Vader in his TIE-Advanced for my Star Wars X-Wing collection.  I’ve been after a TIE-Advanced for a while as it was one of the few ships I was missing plus with the Imperial Raider inbound in August it was going to improve the Imperial Navy.  I may even get to use it next week in the NAGA X-Wing League match I have scheduled with Brent Jay on Wednesday.

T also stands for Terminator:Genisys.  Recently I deboxed and reviewed this game by RiverHorse Games in a blog post but hadn’t up until last night had the chance to do much more to it.  During the May trip to Salute 2015 Hairy Gamer Tris and I watched in awe as Warlord Games ran a competition to see who could assemble the Terminator Endoskeleton miniature from this game in the fastest time.  I don’t know what the final timings were but people were able to assemble these snip and clip miniatures in about 40-50 seconds each.  Armed with my snips, some files and a camera I set about assembling the 10 Terminator Endoskeletons, 5 Crawlers, 16 Resistance soldiers and 1 Limited Edition white metal Kyle Reese (athough it should be resin) in their varied configurations.  Sadly only 2 variants of the Terminators are supplied but the Resistance have a reasonable amount of customization with 4 different poses and 6 different weapon options.  .  I wasn’t really trying hard to do it quickly but a little under an hour later I had a full set of assembled miniatures that I was happy with and could game with.  I must admit that they were very easy to assemble and get to grips with.  Once assembled they do have the look of little green Army men about them.  They aren’t without their issues (some of the faces look a little like Nuclear disaster victims) and its nothing that a spot of glue here and there and maybe some green stuff filler cant fix but for a first pass they will certainly do.  Next will be to get some paint onto them.  I imagine painting Terminators will be as easy as painting Xeno’s from AvP and Resistance fighters will be similar to USCM Marines from AvP.  I can use similar techniques and styles for both although I imagine the results will be very different.  I posted pictures of my progress on my Facebook page last night.

Lastly, my final T stands for Trek.  Tonight I managed to debox my last few ships – two copies each of the Federation USS Prometheus, Klingon IKS Ning’Tao and Bajoran Ratosha from Wave 15 of Wizkids Star Trek Attack Wing.  I had previously previewed these ships on Mancave so all that is left for me to do is post some pictures and total up the damage.  I would post the same pics in this blog post but for some reason WordPress is being a bit funny with me so I may use links instead:-

Bajoran Scout Ship, Ratosha.

Klingon B’rel Bird Of Prey, IKS Ning’Tao.

Federation Prometheus class, USS Prometheus.

I find myself sitting on 287 ships now including at least 2 of every ship (some as many as 4 and one 15!!!) and 3 of every prize and Limited Edition release available.  I have 21 ships awaiting purchase of a new storage cabinet/display case so they can be put away properly.  So a little trip to Ikea may be required this weekend to buy another Detolf Display Case although I have been trying to source some spare shelves to mod my existing units.

Mancave Monday – Star Trek Goodies

Yeah yeah I know…..I said I wouldn’t post again this week, well that was until I got home and found some awesome Star Trek Attack Wing goodies waiting for me.  What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men and all that?

Well when I got home this evening it was my intention to put together some Star Wars Armada stuff but waiting for me was an awesome package….my Sakharov, a Type 7 Shuttlecraft from the episodic OP event “Peak Performance” and my USS Hood, Excelsior class Federation Starship from the Q-Continuum Month 1 OP event “Encounter at Farpoint“.

The Sakharov, Federation Type 7 Shuttlecraft.

Stats – 1-2-2-2 Actions – Evade and Scan.

A swarm of Type 7 Shuttlecraft.

Sakharov Base Plate.

Type 7 Shuttlecraft Base Plate.

Type 7 Shuttlecraft Maneuver Dial.

Sakharov and Type 7 Shuttlecraft Ship Cards and Maneuver Card.

Captain Data (CS3) and Generic Federation Captain.

Elite Talent – Computer Analysis. Crew Upgrade – Sirna Kolrami.

Tech Upgrades – Escape Transporter and Warp Drive.

Additional Rules Card – Shuttlecrafts.

“Peak Performance” OP Resource – Master Strategist.

USS Hood, Excelsior Class Federation Starship.

Stats – 3-1-5-4 Actions – Evade, Target Lock, Scan and Battlestations.

A wing of Excelsior class Starships.

USS Hood Base Plate.

Excelsior Class Base Plate.

Excelsior Class Maneuver Dial.

USS Hood and Excelsior Class Ship Cards and Maneuver Card.

Captain Robert DeSoto (CS4) and Generic Federation Captain.

Crew Upgrade – William T Riker. Tech Upgrade – Tachyon Detection Grid.

Upgrade – Systems Upgrade. Secondary Weapon – Type 8 Phaser Array.

“Q-Continuum: Encounter at Farpoint” OP Resource – Evasive Maneuvers.

Q-Continuum OP Event Cards pt1 – Honoured Judge and Incredible Power.

Q-Continuum OP Event Cards pt2 – Very Advanced and A Powerful Mind.

These ships have been available at OP Events in the states for a while now and we’re just beginning to see them appear over here in the UK.  My FLGS, Youngs Hobbies, will be hosting an event in the future to enable players to win these ships.  I’ll probably end up volunteering as TO for those events and possibly playing if we need an extra player.  Already owning 3 of each I wont be taking prizes if I do.

I’m a very happy geek this evening.  Just finished watching WWE – Payback and now preparing to watch Game of Thrones whilst I was preparing these pictures and writing this blog entry.

Both ships have already been reviewed elsewhere so Im not going to reinvent the wheel by doing it again.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Guess I ought to go to Ikea and buy another Display Case as I have too many ships for the current ones.  What a nice problem to have eh? #firstworldgeekproblems

Enjoy and let me know what you think by adding a comment.

Star Trek Attack Wing: The Collective OP3 “The Battle for Sector 001”

Today I participated and volunteered at a local stores Star trek Attack Wing Tournament in Coventry.  Young’s Hobbies were running The Collective OP Month 3 event “The Battle for Sector 001”.  Scott Young runs the tourney and Im there as rules support/TO.

There was quite a good mix of abilities and experiences of the players, only Scott, Daniel Ryan, Ashton Batchelor and I had played in all the other events in this OP Series so far.  My biggest competition could not attend so the path was clear for me to win the series overall.  As a TO and volunteer I dont take prizes or payment in any way and I actually pay the same as they players so I run competitive fleets.

I had a number of options to run in todays tournament…..I had…Federation/Dominion with Officer Exchange Program (OEP) using Intrepids and a reliant, Klingon Pure with Vor’Cha and K’Vort, Klingon/Romulan OEP with Vor’Cha, Dominion/Indepednent, Klingon/Independent, Klingon Pure 2 with only Vor’Cha, Breen Pure, Romulan Pure using Interphase Generators, Federation Pure with Fighters, Independent Pure with Lores Meat Gringer, Mirror Universe/Independent OEP using Negh’Var and Assimilation Target Prime, Kling Pure 3 using Changs BoP and Torpedos, Dominion Pure with Triple Keldons & Fighters, Romulan/Federation OEP and Dom Pure with assimilated Galor.

Armed with enough ships to sink a battleship Hairy Gamer Tris and I set off for Youngs Hobbies.

Tris took the following:-

Chang’s Bird-of-Prey (22)
Chang (4)
Surrender as Ordered (4)
Kunivas (2)
Photon Torpedoes (5)
Ship SP: 37

Vor’cha Class (26)
Martok (5)
Klingon Flagship (10)
Defense Condition One (5)
Drex (4)
Ship SP: 40

Vor’cha Class (26)
Nu’Daq (3)
N’Garen (4)
Ship SP: 33

Total Build SP: 120

I went with:-

Resource: Hideki Class Attack Fighters (20)

Cardassian Keldon Class (24)
Gul Dukat (5)
Ship SP: 29

Cardassian Keldon Class (24)
Luaran (2)
Boheeka (0)
Ship SP: 26

Cardassian Keldon Class (24)
Sar (1)
Ship SP: 25

Dominion Attack Fighters (20)
Ship SP: 20

Both builds dropped a lot of attack dice but Tris’ relied on getting good defence from Cloak and moving free actions around from Martok to Nu’Daq and Chang.  Mine was relying on my fighters soaking up some damage and hitting hard and fast.

The other players fielded fleets as follows and I’ll post a comment for each fleet below:-

Scott Young – Mirror Universe

Ashton Batchelor & Daniel Ryan – Federation

Aaron James – Borg

A hard fought afternoon was undertaken and eventually I was declared the not only the winner of the event with 3 wins out of 3 with an almost perfect record but the winner of the series with 8 wins out of 9 and a total of 29 out of a possible 33 Battle Points overall.

1 – Jason 29 (Admiral)

2 – Daniel Ryan 17 (Vice Admiral)

3 – Ashton Batchelor 16 (Rear Admiral)

4 – Daniel “Orky Dan” Thomas 15 (Commodore)

5 – Scott Young 12 (Fleet Captain)

6 – Andy McGarry 11 (Captain)

=7 – Tris Taylor 10 (Commander)

=7 – Anthony Marsden 10 (Commander)

=9 – Nigel Thomas 6 (Lieutenant)

=9 – Aaron James 6 (Lieutenant)

11 – Kevin Roberts 5 (Ensign)

=12 – Owen Cartwright 4 (Ensign JG)

=12 – Nic Harbut 4 (Ensign JG)

We had to have a roll off to see who won between Ashton and Tris as both fleets were wiped out by the Borg Cube Token and neither player scored enough damage to beat it.  This was missed during the tourney as we scored it as a Tie.  So I rolled for each on their behalf and and recorded the results.  In the end it was Tris who scored 1 Battlestation on 5 dice and Ashton who got 3.  That game went to Ashton.

Tris Taylor’s Roll Off Video

Ashton Batchelor’s Roll Off Video

STAW Feds vs Cardassians @ NAGA (06-05-15)

It was good to get back into the geek saddle tonight and catch up with the guys at NAGA again.  It was also good to see new members coming along and getting involved.

I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing as I had nothing explicitly planned.  When I arrived everyone seemed to be busy and there were a couple of offers, to join a boardgame involving zombies or play Josh at Attack Wing.  I took Josh’s offer and threw together something quick and dirty to take him on.  I went with a 100pt Triple Enterprise build:-

USS Enterprise-E (32)
Mr. Spock (4)
Ship SP: 36

U.S.S Enterprise-D (28)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Ship SP: 34

U.S.S Enterprise (22)
Kathryn Janeway (5)
Pavel Chekov (3)
Ship SP: 30

I’d never played this and wasn’t really sure how it would fare against what I thought might be a tried and tested Dominion build run by Josh:

Reklar (26)
Sar (1)
Amat’Igan (3)
Ship SP: 30

Assimilated Vessel 64758 (30)
Gul Dukat (6)
Ship SP: 36

Cardassian Galor Class (28)
Gul Macet (3)
Aft Weapons Array (4)
Ship SP: 35

Sadly we never grabbed any pictures but early rounds both sides traded strikes against one another and I attempted to alpha-strike the Reklar with a barrage of attacks from my Enterprises.  Due to the ridiculous amount of defense dice it had all I managed to do was strip it of its shields.  Josh was planning on doing the same as his trio of Cardassian ships focus fired Spock’s Enterprise-E into tiny shards of debris.  First blood to the Cardassians!

With the two fleets having now passed one another it was time to come about.  Josh had an Aft Weapons Array so carried the ability to fire 360 from Gul Macets Assimilated Galor.  Rather than miss an opportunity I reversed my Enterprise D and Picard used the ships ability to fire first hoping to damage the Cardassian vessel.  It would seem both the dice gods and superior planning build wise were with Josh as the Enterprises attack was largely ineffective and left it vulnerable to a return attack.  This opportunity was duly taken and more shields were stripped from Picards ship.

As both fleets slowly turned only the 180 degree front arc ships had any sort of shot on one another and Janeway with her double Battlestation tokens became the hero of my day as despite low attack dice she managed to reduce both of Josh’s other two ships to zero shields.  Dukats Assimiliated Vessel applied more hurt to Picard who couldn;t return fire as more shields were taken from the Enterprise D and some hull damage.

With only two of Josh’s ships able to fire I needed to dispatch one of his vessels this round or it could see the end of the Enterprise.  Focus firing on Dukats lead vessel the combined firepower of both Enterprises was sufficient enough to remove the Cardassian ship but at a great cost.  Josh had Target Locks on Picards Enterprise and Battlestations so this next round of firing would determine if I stood a chance or not to recover.  Given I only had a single evade dice the odds were not favourable.  Everything was dependant on Josh fluffing multiple rolls.  Josh rolled excellently, as he had been all night and hit the big ship five times.   I couldn’t achieve any roll that would save my ship so Picard crashed and burnt leaving Janeway to take the fight to the spoonheaded Cardassians.

Even with initiative it was a daunting task.  I couldn’t follow his ship as it had a Aft Weapons Array and with their 180 degree arcs they had double coverage on Janeways Tinyprise.  I figured it was a guts or glory move to try and get close and destroy Gul Macets rearward firing Galor.  If I could remove that I may stand a slim chance.  I maneuvered in to position, took a double Battlestations action, one for offence and one for defence.  It was all or nothing.  I had four dice and needed three hits.  The roll was ok, two hits and two BS.  I converted the Battlestations into hits.  I’d done everything I could.  Now yet again I was relying on Josh to roll badly.  One evade dice and a BS token on his ship.  Anything but an Evade would see the ship destroyed.  Josh rolled……..a Battlestations!!!!!  AAaaarrgghhhh……his vessel was saved and left Janeways ship facing two attacks with no shields left.  As was expected both lower skill Cardassian captains brought weapons to bear and fired.  Gul Macet rolled a huge 6 dice from close but couldnt finish the job scoring 3 hits after I’d negated one with a converted BS roll of my Defence die.  Sar was left and took the shot destroying the sole remaining Hull point.

A good game was had despite the loss.  I learnt lessons and had a good time.  Well played Josh!  I really like that build!

We chatted and chewed the fat about running a campaign which may see the light later in the year.  Who knows.  It was good to play again and now I need to concentrate on building a fleet for Young’s Hobbies The Collective OP3 event on Sunday.