The second in the series of Wave 19 reveals by StarTrek.com for WizKidsStar Trek Attack Wing sees the Klingons get some love. The IKS Rotarran, a B’Rel class Bird-Of-Prey, is added to the arsenal for all Klingon players fleets. Taken from the DS9 episodes “By Infernos Light”, “Soldiers of the Empire”, “Blaze of Glory” and “A Call to Arms” the recurring IKS Rotarran was a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that was in service with the Klingon Defense Force in the late 24th century. The Rotarran served with distinction during the Dominion War, with General Martok using the vessel as his flagship. It had developed an unfair reputation as a ‘cursed’ ship whose crew had all been dishonoured. In late-2373, General Martok was assigned command of the Rotarran by the Klingon High Council and dispatched to locate the missing IKS B’Moth. Joining him as his first officer was Lieutenant Commander Worf and Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax as science officer. Both were serving on detached duty from Starfleet at the time. Plotting course for the last known position of the B’Moth, the Rotarran was forced to circumnavigate the Tong Beak Nebula in order to avoid the Jem’Hadar. Martok’s wish to avoid a fight struck a sour chord with his weary crew. On the way, Martok reviewed his crew’s personnel reports, which included remarks such as: “Dishonorable conduct,” “lack of respect,” “dereliction of duty,” “inattention to orders,” “unmotivated,” and “insufficiently aggressive.” This did not go over well with Martok nor Worf, Martok likening the report to a prison record. Together they vowed to restore honor to the Rotarran and make it a ship worthy of the Empire.
http://www.startrek.com/article/first-look-i-k-s-rotarran-for-attack-wing-wave-19
The “IKS Rotarran” is a standard B’Rel Bird-of-Prey with the named version having stats of 4-1-3-3. It comes with 2 Crew, 1 Secondary Weapon and 1 Tech upgrade slots on its bar and Actions of Evade, Target Lock, Cloak and Sensor Echo. At first the Rotarran sought to “avoid conflict” with the Jem’Hadar. This is reflected in the Rotarran’s special ability that, as an action, allows the ship to perform a second maneuver on the maneuver dial with a speed of 1 or 2. After taking that action, the Rotarran gets an Auxiliary Token and cannot attack this turn. This is nicely thematic and whilst reflecting the defensive nature of the ship it also can be used to bank or turn into arc and fire upon an unsuspecting ship that it normally wouldnt be able to attack. I like this ability as it is very Klingon and in keeping with this expansions theme. The Named version comes in at 22 points whilst the generic loses a shield and costs 20pts.
Obviously it would be remiss of Wizkids to not include another version of Martok in this expansion given his link to this ship and we are not disappointed. “Martok is a CS7 Captain costing 4pts who comes ready to equip with an Elite Talent. As an ability Martok can reduce the cost of all other Klingon upgrades by -1pt. Additionally, when attacking, Martok allows the player to take an action to roll 2 less attack dice to add 1 hit result to his roll, if all upgrades on this ship are Klingon, you roll only one less attack die to gain 1 hit result instead. If you have the Action economy to use this ability then this can really help you, especially in the faction pure environment and its nice to see Wizkids acknowledging faction purity even if unofficially.
So Martok can bring an Elite Talent to his ship but what options do we have here? Well this ship has not one, not two but three Elite Talents! “The Day is Ours!” is a 4pt discard allowing a player to add one critical hit result to the roll during the Roll Attack Dice Step but only if it is equipped to a Klingon Ship with a Klingon Captain. This is ok and may see some usage between Martok, the Torpedo upgrade (which I’ll cover later) and this you might be hitting for at least 2 Crits and a guaranteed hit.
“Alert Status One” is another discard action costing 3pts in order to place a battle stations token next to your ship. Not sure how I feel about this in honesty…….3pts to take a BS? Its a significantly weaker version of Defence Condition One but for 4pts I could take the Action Crew Drex or N’Garen who are better BS converters.
Finally, “Supreme Commander” is another 5pts Action discard that allows the player to give another friendly ship within range 1-3 a free action from its action bar. If the targeted ship was a Klingon ship it may perform ANY action…….not sure what this means but if it means as read then potentially Klingon ships could take Battlestation, Scan or even Regenerate Actions. That could make for some very interesting combinations.
With no other captains to review lets look at crew upgrades starting off with yet another version of Worf. “First Officer Worf” provides a +1 bonus to your captain skill, which increases to +3 if you have a Klingon Captain. Simulating the near mutiny on Rotarran if your captain is ever disabled or discarded, Worf becomes the new captain with a skill level of 5. Worfs special ability to boost a Klingon captain cannot be used on himself so no shenanigans there although it does in theory allow the Klingons to now deploy a captain with CS of 14 (Ch’Tang Martok (9) + Admiral Gorkon (+1) + Klingon Fleet Captain (+2) + Rotarran Worf (+3) = 14).
Next up is Jadzia Dax who joined Worf on leave from Starfleet to serve as Science Officer aboard the Rotarran. “Jadzia Dax” allows you to spend a scan token to convert 1 battle stations result on your die into a hit or evade result. This is really in keeping with the idea of turning the tide of battle and thematically Klingon. Considered to be one of their own, Jadzia Dax does not pay a faction penalty when assigned to a Klingon ship so gets added to the list of options we can use when considering Penalty Pure fleet lists. At a hefty price of 5 points and given that the only Klingon ship with a Scan Action is the Somraw this may be an upgrade you simply cant afford to build around or include. You will almost certainly need to use upgrades and other crew to acquire Scan tokens. Not sure she’ll see much play as a Klingon crew so its a good job she has a Federation icon.
This expansion is very crew heavy. the ship itself only has two slots and we’ve already seen two crew but there are three more included to boost the options available to you. First up we’ll look at “Leskit” the helmsman of the Rotarran, who allows you to convert a red maneuver into a green maneuver. If your ship is cloaked when you do this, you can perform a sensor echo as a free action. Hes a 3pt discard crew but I like this ability! Given the way Klingons joust and come about to hit you again the ability to swap a red come about for a green come about is amazing! No Auxiliary Power Tokens for doing so…..is this worth 3pts? Yes I personally think so. I can see this upgrade seeing table time in many Klingon fleets.
“Tavana” the ships Engineering officer allows you to repair 1 shield token by disabling himself. If your ship is cloaked you may also repair one damage to your hull but you roll -2 attack dice on all attacks this round. If you’re out of arc this is a decent enough ability. The fact you can repair Shields and Hull at the cost of a reduced attack is nice, sure its situational but it could really save you if needed. Considering this is the usual 5pt Klingon crew upgrade the fact he is only a disable puts him above current options of Bu’Kah (4pt discard to repair 2 to hull if you performed a green maneuver) and Konmel (3 pt Action, not cloaked and repair 1 shield). The ability to reuse Tavana and remain cloaked elevates him in my opinion.
Finally the Weapons Officer, “Kornan” allows the player to take an action to place a target lock on an enemy ship within range 1-3 and then perform another action on the ships action bar as a free action but not the Target Lock Action. Ok thats nice but thats where it ends, he is a 5pt Action Discard….c’mon Wizkids, give the pastyheaded rageoholics some love!!!! Im disappointed by this.
So we have 5 crew for 2 slots. What about Secondary Weapon options in this pack? The Rotarran packs a punch with a new “Photon Torpedoes” that utilizes the new Time Token mechanic. Instead of disabling the weapon when it fires the players places 3 time tokens on the card. During the end phase one time token is removed. When no time tokens remain on the card the weapon is ready to fire again. This is a standard Range 2-3 5 Attack Dice torpedo that allows you to convert 1 Battlestations result into a Critical result. If combined with an all Klingon crew and Captain Martok then you could roll 4 dice and get 1 autohit plus the BS to Crit conversion. Meh…….I’d rather a boost to a B’Rel firing as that precedent has been set on Negh/Var and Vor’Cha classes.
Oddly whilst this ship comes equipped with a Tech slot no Tech upgrades seem to be included in the pack. More unseen upgrades may be included but StarTrek.com are usually pretty good and would have revealed it. Such a shame.
So having reviewed everything Im going to try and build a Faction Pure vessel from this expansion built to Wizkids Suggested Rules Format limits of 50pts:-
IKS Rotarran – 22pts
Martok – 4pts
The Day Is Ours! – 3pts (4pts overridden to 3pts by Martok)
Worf – 1pt (2pts overridden to 1pt by Martok)
Leskit – 2pts (3pts overridden to 2pts by Martok)
Photon Torpedos – 4pts (5pts overridden to 4pts by Martok)
Total – 36pts
What do you think about how I built this ship? How would you build it? Go take a look and let me know….comment below.
#LLAP #qapla
talesfromthemancave 