STAW: Tholian Web AAR

So...  Wound up playing at the Gopher last night...  My list was:

Resource: Federation Attack Fighters (20)

U.S.S Excelsior (26)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Tuvok (5)
Lojour (2)
Quantum Torpedoes (6)
The Doctor (3)
Ship SP: 53

USS Voyager (30)
James T. Kirk (6)
Cheat Death (3)
Pavel Chekov (3)
Antimatter Mines (5)
Ship SP: 47

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Went 1-2 but wound up getting the Tholian ship prize for 2nd place or Fellowship as I was voted the favorite opponent by all three of my opponents...  Not bad.  Game one Tim had a fairly similar list with the Defiant replacing my Voyager and his Voyager replacing my Excelsior.  He ran with the Transhasic Torpedoes which are Voyager only and a one shot.  The one shot IS 10 dice, but...  My Quantum Torpedoes could be fired every turn for a potential 9 hits, so I felt it was a better build.  Essentially, his T Torpedoes whiffed on the initial and only shot they had, and my 2 Skill 9 CPTs destroyed his ship before he could react.  My Torpedoes hit well and Kirk got to range 1, so...  His Defiant was cloaked trying to lay mines, but my own mines hit him the next turn and the Fighters finished off the ship.  The AM Mines are brutal against Cloaked ships...  So, it was a VERY quick game with both of us mostly just rushing to range and shooting it out.

Game 2 was my first encounter with the Borg...  Kevin made a nice 2 sphere list, and I have to admit it was fun playing against it.  My Torpedoes whiffed this time, and the Excelsior did not survive the experience as both Spheres hit it.  The Voyager lasted a bit longer and the Fighters were pretty good, but it was a losing battle at that point of course...  BIG mistake was forgetting that the Voyager's 360 firing arc is only range 1-2, so I lined up what I thought was a good shot that might have taken down one Sphere and...  Nope, no shot because it was range 3...  Oops...

Game 3 was against a Klingon build with 3 Vor Cha class Cruisers and Hideki Fighters.  The fighters should have been my first target as I did not realize they got big bonuses as long as they had taken no damage...  But 3 Cloaked 5 Attack ships with Battle Stations via "Defense Condition One" cards meant that there were a LOT of Offensive dice being thrown, and Cloaked they could not be locked on for Torpedoes...  My ships lasted a bit longer, but in the end, Lon played quite well and destroyed my fleet in pieces...  I DID severely damage a few of his ships, catching 2 in the AM Mines and just trying to shoot through the Cloaks...

What did I learn?  The firing the Torpedo every turn trick is "neat", but honestly I think I would modify my build.  Tuvok will be replaced with Spock.  5 points for the +1 dice on a Secondary weapon is not worth it I am thinking.  Spock would have turned my whiffed shots into a significant hit (I hit the Borg for all of 2 hits on my one Torpedo shot, the 3-4 BS I rolled would have been REALLY nice).  Scott was good, and I think he stays.  The AM Mines are awesome and they will I think become a more standard loadout.  Cheat Death was "Eh"...  Every fleet I lost to had multiple ships all pounding Kirk's ship, so he lived for a brief moment longer...

So, some adjustment on the builds I think, but overall I do think I did fairly well.  The Borg were REALLY powerful, but more so with the shrinking field, keeping at range I think I could deal with Faction Pure builds for now...  The Cube coming up might present a challenge...  The Klingon builds with the overwhelming number of Attack dice?  As it happened no one that I saw brought Romulans and Cloaked Mines...  Would have made it more interesting.  The Klingons are the one that I saw defeat the Borg with simple weight of fire.  Rush to range 1, some 25 or so dice being rolled before the Borg can fire?  Battle Stations and Target Locks for re-rolls, and conversion of BS results?  Pretty brutal and straightforward :-)...

Star Trek Attack Wing Thollian Web OP tonight

So, Excelsior loaded out with:

CPT Picard
Montgomery Scott
Quantum Torpedoes
And either:
Tuvok, Lojour and the Doctor for the ability to fire a Torpedo every turn…  Pretty good, and with Tuvok it has the potential of 9 hits.  Potential, but the odds are really not that good I think.

Or:
Spock, Navigational Deflector …  With the probably free Scan action, I get the Battlestations turned over to Hits for free and since I am bound I think to find a LOT of mines in some builds.  I give up the potential for that 9th hit, but I get more actual hits overall I think…  And overall I would say no to this build, but in this one specific event with the Thollian Web being what it is?

Both lack what I think might be the critical re-roll ability…  Moving from CPT Picard to say, Sisko gives me some re-roll ability but Skill 9 and the Free Action are really quite good…


Kind of weird, making one of the older style (TOS) ships essentially my Flagship, but I am finding it to be a pretty good ship overall…  The ability to one shot a lot of other “ships of the line” is really quite nice…  I am not so sure cloaking is dead, but there are now a fair number of things that can remove it…  The Voyager is quite nice as a solid ship but I think it lacks a bit for me to make it my main ship for a fleet build.  The Reliant and Miranda Class ships are good solid second line or support ships, but I am not convinced that the swarm is the way to win a timed event…  

I have a few builds in mind, but since the event is in a few hours....  Looks like the Fed Fighters and the combo of the Excelsior and Voyager being run by CPTs Picard and Kirk...  Simple enough and I DO like the Torpedo boat thing.  Next event will likely be a swarm thing.

Signed up for Gen Con, going Saturday and playing in at least one of these events there...  Looks like it will be fun :-)

Attack Wing and 7th is official for 40K...

My current builds are based more or less on the Excelsior loaded out with:

CPT Picard

Montgomery Scott

Quantum Torpedoes

And either:

Tuvok, Lojour and the Doctor for the ability to fire a Torpedo every turn…  Pretty good, and with Tuvok it has the potential of 9 hits.  Potential, but the odds are really not that good I think.

Or:

Spock, Navigational Deflector …  With the probably free Scan action, I get the Battlestations turned over to Hits for free and since I am bound I think to find a LOT of mines in some builds for this OP event.  I give up the potential for that 9^th hit, but I get more actual hits overall I think…  And overall I would say no to this build, but in this one specific event with the Thollian Web being what it is?  In general I would go with the first and add the Flagship for free target lock or evade and Worf for the re-rolls...  But then the ship comes to over 60 points..  Fun, yes...  Competitive against a top tier fleet?  I doubt it, or at least not more than once...  I surprised the first guy I played, getting 9 hits in with the re-rolls and Battlestations, but I would expect him to be aware of this going forward...  

Both lack what I think might be the critical re-roll ability…  Moving from CPT Picard to say, Sisko gives me some re-roll ability but Skill 9 and the Free Action are really quite good…

Kind of weird, making one of the older style (TOS) ships essentially my Flagship, but I am finding it to be a pretty good ship overall…  The ability to one shot a lot of other “ships of the line” is really quite nice…  I am not so sure cloaking is dead, but there are now a fair number of things that can remove it…  The Voyager is quite nice as a solid ship but I think it lacks a bit for me to make it my main ship for a fleet build.  The Reliant and Miranda Class ships are good solid second line or support ships, but I am not convinced that the swarm is the way to win a timed event…

Oh, and 7th Edition was unofficially announced by Jervis Johnson on YouTube...  "Eh" is the best responce I have for it at the moment.  Apparently it will be much like the 2nd edition box set with the little rule book, etc...  Surprisingly I do not need more frelling miniatures and would just want to buy the damn rulebook.  Saying that, I do NOT want another $80+ coffee table book.  Just send out the $20 paperback that I can fit into the luggage of my bike...  Or an electronic copy for my tablet/laptop...  The more I am hearing about the new edition and the changes, the more I am glad I am playing STAW and will likely sit out for a bit to see how it shakes out...

Oh, and There are going to be STAW events at Gencon this year!  Looking like we will be there Saturday, so I'll be trying to get a seat in one of the events being run there...  Should be interesting at least...

Star Trek Attack Wing next week...

So, with the Thollian Web OP being moved from this Sunday (Mother’s Day) to next Sunday…  J  I get to play without risking my amazing wife’s wrath for going out to play with my wee toys on that particular day… 

So, playing Federation I think…  My Klingons are REALLY good at maneuver and fire, hitting hard and moving away.  This particular scenario however being one that has a shrinking playable area as the Web closes, finally getting to a 12”x12” area.  I could I suppose go for the “kill them by Turn 3 hope with the Klingons, but killing 120 points of ships if they are not also rushing right at me might be problematic.  And the Cloaked Mines are going to be absolutely brutal to any ship relying on Cloaks and the defense bonus they grant.  As it will be “Ship Faction Pure”, I cannot put the Cloaking Mines onto a non Romulan ship, so that limits what I will potentially face I think.  The ONLY real defense against the CMs is either a Scan action or the Navigational Deflectors the Federation has…  Klingons and Romulans for the most part cannot Scan, so that would be one of the likely matchups that I think would go VERY poorly for the Cloaking Fleets. 

The other big problematic matchup would be the Borg.  Honestly I do not really have a particular plan for this or a realistic clue what to do having never actually faced them.  Big, expensive ships.  No real Defense, just hard to kill/damage.  And of course they have things that can take your upgrades and use them against you.  Ablative Shields being one of their upgrades for an additional 4 hits being eaten without actually damaging the Sphere…  10 points, and eats up one of their 2 “Borg” upgrades.  Good, I would think but nothing that would survive long against an equivalent ship.  Plus side for them is they get to keep their impressive Shields up (7 for the named ship, 6 for the generic) and the 7 Hull before being removed.  Can regenerate as well, so damage must be quick and fairly massive to kill them before their impressive attacks kill you…  They do also have a Feedback card that completely negates one attack…  Oh, and half of the damage rounded down hits the Attacker.  Only the Named Borg ship can carry it, so really only have to worry about it there I guess.  Defense against a nasty Alpha Strike, and would suck for my kitted out torpedo boat (USS Excelsior) if I hit them with the fully boosted Torpedoes for 8-9 hits…  Wouldn’t kill it outright, but guessing the follow-up attack from the Sphere would.  So, will I think have to change my fleet build, or at least be aware of this possibility.

Looking at either:

List Name:  Torpedoes Away!

Resource: Federation Attack Fighters (20)

U.S.S Excelsior (26)

Jean-Luc Picard (6)

Montgomery Scott (5)

Tuvok (5)

Lojour (2)

Quantum Torpedoes (6)

The Doctor (3)

Ship SP: 53

USS Voyager (30)

James T. Kirk (6)

Cheat Death (3)

Pavel Chekov (3)

Antimatter Mines (5)

Ship SP: 47

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder

http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Or:

List Name: Federation Swarm!

Resource: Federation Attack Fighters (20)

U.S.S. Reliant (20)

Rudolph Ransom (2)

Photon Torpedoes (3)

Ship SP: 25

USS Voyager (30)

Jean-Luc Picard (6)

Ship SP: 36

U.S.S Enterprise-D (28)

James T. Kirk (6)

Antimatter Mines (5)

Ship SP: 39

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder

http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

With the second build being one I am still mulling over the pieces…  NEED Chekov to run the Voyager at full effect, so that will definitely change and therefore be a target for the Borg Assimilation Tubes to steal him…  The Reliant I am also not sold on here for the cost…  Could I think bring a Klingon or Romulan ship as a dedicated Torpedo boat/minelayer…  So the second one is really just the first draft…

With either, I have the Voyager for its forward 6 move to get me close enough to the center to make the best placement of the Cloaked mines impossible for Turn 2…  Still will be possible to put one in the Web so I will have to be careful, but I will not be hitting them every damn turn.  The AM Mines might get swapped for the Navigational Deflectors, dunno…  The Defense bonus IS nice, but dropping the AM Mines onto a Cloaked ship has a decent chance to outright destroy the smaller ones…  Really only the bigger Romulan ships with their 6 Hull not in danger of outright death there.   So, overall the Offense is more powerful I think.

Kind of a running theme with the whole game if you look at it.  Many of the ships have the ability to throw 5+ Attack dice with even the weakest throwing 2 (3 at range 1)…  Most ships have only a single Agility to dodge for the 1 Defense die.  More agile ships have 2 and of course Cloak grants +4 and Range 3 for Primary Weapons grant another +1…  So, I HAVE had a Klingon ship throwing 7 Defense dice and dodged a lot of incoming fire.  That is very much the exception.  And now there are things that either outright remove Cloaks or ignore them to worry about…  But essentially, Offense FAR outweighs Defense in this game in general.  Why the Klingons were the more powerful faction for a bit there hitting harder and not really relying on many tricks.  Now I think the Borg are that obviously powerful faction.  Only one ship at the moment, so hard really to say, but given the fictional universe and their place in it…  Guessing they will be a difficult one to face.  So, I am mostly focusing on more offensive minded Federation builds myself, seems to be working well enough for me…

New 40K edition "eh", Star Trek and Motorcycles...

So…  New edition of 40K coming out after 2 years.  Not sure if it is “7^th” or “6.5” or “6^th revised”, and frankly it does not matter to me.  I think I can sum up my thoughts in a single word: “Disappointing”.  Now, I am reserving final judgment of course, but for the most part my 40K stuff is going back into storage I think.  A shame, overall the game is actually quite good and the new books were balanced and decent…  I say overall because there were the few “WTF” moment things that just make the game completely broken if and only if people play those broken things.  Problem being, it really only takes one or a small number of folks taking the “optimized” lists and units to break it for everyone.  And of course when there is money on the table in the form of prize support, etc. then you really have to be prepared for the most broken things to be fielded.  We’ve seen the Allies hit and really break the game through the USR interactions with Battle Brothers as well as breaking the FOC (“Force Org Chart”, I’ll keep using those silly military acronyms) allowing many armies to field the bare minimum “Troops” and “HQ” and focus on fielding the 4+ “Heavy”, “Fast Attack” or “Elite” depending on where the actual power units in your Army lie.   Looking at my Space Marine book, it is a fun army, and the book overall is pretty well balanced.  The “Troops” selections however are at best lackluster though.  Tactical Marines are “eh”, and in this 6^th ed environment expensive casualties.  With SO many things specializing in essentially killing Marines these days the lack of that particular ability means that they start at a disadvantage.  Seems a bit odd that Marines would go into battle with the majority of their people armed with weapons that are ineffective against themselves.  I can bring the lads in a Rhino or Drop Pod, but of course those are easy to kill for First Blood or Kill Points in those missions.  So…  I have yet to field a Tactical Marine as a Crimson Fist or Dark Angel.  Scouts are Scouts…  Cheap, but craptastic.  If I HAVE to field Troops I will likely spend the minimum to field things that can actually kill things, so Scouts I guess…  So, on one hand I CAN field things like massed Centurion Devastators and Sternguard like I do now, without paying the “tax” of 2 squads of Scouts…  So, overall the Army gets no worse than it was I guess…  Just not better really.  And the game itself gets far less interesting.  How many Wraith Lords can I fit into a list if I am not concerned about anything else?  10?  And really how many other armies can deal with that?  Or perhaps an all Flier list?

Yes, you can say “Only Bound lists” or some other House rules, but really that is not an acceptable solution I think…  Good for small, local groups, yes…  But when you game outside of your local group?  A Tournament perhaps?  Killing off that scene does seem a priority for GW, but is it a good thing?  I think it is perhaps best if I simply step back and wait at this point.  My wife would agree that I have too many miniatures already, perhaps she is right.  I never really got rid of any of the 40K armies I had over the years, and with the pace they have released things in the current era I have not been keeping up with the books as I had in the past.  SO many rule changes and additions with what seems to be little regard to balance or play testing.  2++ re-rollable saves, D Weapons ignoring everything, etc…  Kind of makes even bothering to show up to play a game seem somewhat pointless… 

Eh, I have my Star Trek Attack Wing game now…  Looks like it will be a good one overall.  Think I have it more or less figured out now…  My 2 ship Federation build overpowered a fairly nasty Dominion/Romulan list in a Thollian Web test run last night…  The Torpedoes when run correctly are REALLY powerful.  USS Excelsior with CPT Picard, Spock, Scott, Lojour, the Doctor and just regular Photon torpedoes as I do not have the Defiant (yet) for the Quantum Torpedoes…  Still, hit a Cardassian ship for 8 damage in the opening salvo, destroying it completely…  Not everything went as expected in the test, but it was a REALLY good start.  And proof that as I progressed from losing my first game badly, to almost even the second game and a very narrow loss my third game to consistently winning since…  My learning curve seems about right for normal, and the locals were probably right that I’ll do fine with this game.  Inherited a few X-wing things as well, and might play a few games there as the local store has several events related to that…

Otherwise, ancient motorcycle running really well.  Still need to fix and straighten out the title for the Magna to sell it…  The Silverwing I will be selling as well, but as it is my working bike now…  Well, it works well enough for in town, etc…  REALLY wanting to get an older Goldwing to replace the 2 bikes I have now, so early to mid 80’s before they became more “luxury” vehicles than motorcycles…  I’ve heard them called “flying couches” and it seems an apt name for some of the really decked out ones…  I want something simple and reliable…  The Goldwing would allow me to stretch my legs enough to ride comfortably for longer distances and the real luggage would be less limiting than the current ones I have…  Those nagging old injuries are more a problem as I get old, so the bigger but slower bike I think would be better for me than the racing bike the Magna really is…

Star Trek Attack Wing... Thollian Web mental exercise...

So, looking at the “deck building” exercise for the Star Trek Attack Wing event Sunday.  Unfortunate that it is also Mother’s Day, so like the Easter event…  Well J…  Fun building a fleet at least. 

Looking at the scenario, I see 2 realistic possibilities:  Either a quick win or die joust or a long drawn out spiral as the web closes on the play area and the more maneuverable fleet with things like Cloaked Mines and the like seem like they’ll do well.  So, if I chose the first I would run a Klingon fleet of 2-3 ships and just do the berserker rush and hope for the best.  Too many things these days can avoid or survive that for a turn or two, so I think that something else will be the way to go.  My Federation fleet has some good survivability and if I build it right I can fire Torpedoes every turn for a fair amount of damage as things close in around us…  Maneuver and survive long enough to kill them or just kill more of them as time expires on the round.  Feds ARE pretty good at surviving, and while they are not quite up to Klingon levels of damage dealing…  Well, built right I think they can throw out enough damage to wear out others. 

Since we’re playing semi faction pure with the ships having to be faction pure rather than a whole fleet I think that is another advantage for the Feds.  Having 2 Skill 9 Captains I can almost guarantee moving last and shooting first every turn.  The Borg get less scary when I look at them not being able to run Jean Luc Picard for his free actions and Skill 9.  Still pretty darn powerful and because they maneuver on a very different “dial”, not really all that sure how to counter that other than hit them hard and often.  Ships I am looking at are:

USS Voyager:  360 fire arc for the primary weapon if I need it, powerful shields, fast…  Quantum Torpedoes have the potential for 7 dice.  Good solid ship.  Concerns me that it would be a really good second ship or something other than a Torpedo boat…

USS Excelsior:  Torpedo boat.  The big dice attack every turn.  Lojour, Torpedo, Tuvok, Spock, Picard and the Doctor hologram all combine nicely allowing for a Scan, Target Lock and the Doctor clearing all of the other disabled crew cards to keep up the rate of fire.  180 degree front arc, 90 degree rear arc gives me almost 360 degree coverage…  Still over 50 points for a ship that is good, but…  OTOH, with Montgomery Scott I can have 8 dice for a potential 9 hit attack…  No re-rolls or Battlestations  without that action somehow, but still that many dice should generate a hefty hit…  Could assign Spock over there with Flagship…

USS Defiant:  Secondary ship, maneuverable, can have a cloaking device, the Antimatter mines are brutal up close as they are an attack…  Still, it is a fairly small ship for the 45 or so points I’d need to kit it out to fight fairly defensively…

Federation Fighters vs. Flagship:  As I can have only the one Resource…  Flagship is 10 points to give 3 +1’s to stats and probably a free action along with some bonus from the text on the card in terms of an action.  The Fighters are tough as they cannot ever really take more than a single Damage from any attack.  Fed fighters have Shields and potential Evade tokens, so they’ll need to be hit for at least 3 to have a good chance of taking that Damage point…  Likely more…  Not too fast, but maneuverable and can throw out a lot of damage, so liking the Fighters at 20 points…

USS Reliant/Miranda Class:  Cheap Torpedo boat, can throw out a decent amount of damage in close if it comes to that.  Maneuverable and not bad for the price…  That however is the issue…  Even the named ship has only 3 Shields and 3 Hull, so one strong attack could potentially take out the 20-30 point ship putting the opponent ahead in a timed event…  Thinking that the swarm mentality will NOT work here as the smaller builds can kill enough to get ahead on points and run out the clock as it were...

Might see if I can either fit in the Excelsior as the Torpedo Boat, Voyager as the backup and either Fighters or Flagship and REALLY equip the ships well…  Hope for the best without an “oops I lose” dice roll…  Neat mental exercise at least…

Star Trek Attack Wing initial thoughts

So, now that I have a fair number of games in, I think I have a really good handle on the Klingons at least.  Have seen some really good builds in Dominion, Romulan and Klingon flavors...  The Federation I have been unimpressed with so far, but I'm building some fleets in that area, so I hope that they work out the way I think they will...

Have yet to face a Borg build.  I think the Klingons are in a pretty good place playing "pure" fleets against the Borg.  They have the Stasis field card, generally good but not one shot/one kill offensive power and a few other tricks.  I think the Klingon Boarding Party is one that was not used much before that will be brutal against some of the Borg/hero ship builds.  Martok and Gowron make for good support Captains and Chang seems like another one to mess with "hero" builds...  Disabled Captains going to Skill one and potentially messing with the Ship's actions.  At the very least it forces the disabled CPT to spend an action to re-enable if he is a higher Skill than Chang...  If a lower skill, then it potentially gives me more opportunity to destroy the ship before the now Skill one CPT can fire...  Seeing CPT Picard a LOT in many builds, having him disabled means that he at the very least loses the free action he provides, and it makes the target a Lot more predictable.  Concussive charges as well getting rid of tokens like say Ablative Armor or Borg Armor?  Have to check if those are tokens...

Hoping to get into one or more of the Tholian Web OPs...  Assuming the Gopher is running it next Month, but I know of a place in Indy running it...  Might be a day trip on the bike...  Have to admit I am FAR more interested in the Borg arc OP.  Wondering if the things like the Flagship and Fighters are going to be allowed going forward...  REALLY powerful Resources there, and with the rumor of Wizkids going to 120-150 points?  Well, they look even better...

But in any case, looking at running the Excelsior and ?...  Picard, perhaps Kahn?  Looking at what I have, the Enterprise-D, Voyager, Reliant?  Have the Fighters and Flagship cards too...  I can build some decent things I think, not sure it will be better than my Klingon ones though...  Different, will try to get in some games with them to learn how to use Battlestations, Scanning, etc...  Pretty sure I have Cloaking and Sensor Echo down...  Lookig for the OP2 prize pack for the Symon (?) card...  The 3 Sensor Echo is just huge, and I think it will be something to watch for...