This week's STAW game...

So, got in another STAW game last night, ran:

IKW Kronos One (K’Tinga class) with Martok

IKW Koraga (K’vort class) with Worf, Advanced Weapons and Photon Torpedoes

IRW Praetus (Bird of Prey class) with CPT, Nuclear Warhead and Cloaked Mines

Joe ran a 3 ship Fed fleet with:

NCC-1701 Enterprise with Kirk, cheat death and I stab at thee, Spock, Scotty and ?

Defiant with CPT Sisko and ?

Reliant with defensive bonus CPT, Positron Beam and ?

No torpedoes though…  That was one thing he noted as a “Feds NEED Torpedoes”.

What did I learn?  The mine layer was mostly useless as a “let’s add it into a Fleet” sort of upgrade.  It’s mines were there and DID deny a huge chunk of the field as he avoided it, but I can put them on a Klingon or Federation ship for 4 points instead of the 3 for the Romulans and not wind up with a 20+ point useless ship that will be an easy kill.  That being the problem in a timed event, grabbing the early point lead then just keeping alive to run out the clock with 45 minute rounds.  So, at 100 points it is looking more like 2 good ships, loaded out with decent crew and weapons are the way to go.  Alternately, going for a swarm of cheap crappy ships might work or the one Uber ship, but I think that 2-3 is the balanced approach.  One ship leads too much to the “oops I lose” on a bad roll or falling prey to some trick or combo that works on a single ship…  Having a few of those combos, I think that getting them to hit will be pretty bad for a single ship build.  The swarms do not concern me so much as I tend toward the more “aggressive” builds with the theory of the best Defense being a solid Attack.  Well, works well enough for my Klingons at least.  The Federation ships I am looking at running tend more toward the “Warship” end than the “Science Vessel, now with weapons”, but even so I agree with Joe’s assessment that additional weapons are needed.  Being able to Sensor Echo and keep the Kronos One at range 3 for the -1 Attack Die bonus with the +1 Defense Die for a Primary Weapon meant that more often than not when the Feds even bothered to shoot at the cloaked K’tinga class ship, he would roll only 2 dice and I would have 7 for Defense.  The odds are heavily in my favor for this, so I had no problem doing the ancient Klingon Saber Dance and cutting away his shields a little at a time before closing in for the kill.  Not to say that the Feds had bad ships overall, just that once they killed off the Praetus, he was in trouble trying to take down either of my main ships.  The Koraga did take some damage even while cloaked but even so, by that point the Defiant was destroyed and the other two ships had only 3 Hull between them, no shields.

So, going forward…  Not a lot coming out for the Romulans or Klingons frankly as wizkids releases are looking more like everything for the “Voyager” series…  Well, and a LOT of Borg stuff.  So, best learn how to fight the Borg/Bioships with the Klingons and Federation.  Feds looking like the focus of the “story arc”, so guess I’d better learn how to fly those ships…  Several Vlucan ships, wondering if they’ll be Federation, being one fo the founding races and all…  Also, still have not used an elite talent, so might need to learn about those :-)  And I think learning to play non cloaking ships like most of the Federations one will be good for me to do.  I think I have a pretty good handle on the movement of the Cloaked Klingon ones at least.  They are really quite powerful with the Sensor Echo action...