So, another STAW event coming up Monday at the Gopher and
X-Wing in a few weeks for the final event of the Fall League at Titan…
Will probably run Federation or Romulan in STAW, guess I’ll
pick up the Romulan fighters… For
Romulans,
List Name
Resource: Fleet Captain Independent (Dominion) (5)
Scimitar (38)
Salatrel (3)
Interphase Generator (2)
Polarized Hull Plating (1)
Ship SP: 44
I.R.W. Avatar of Tomed (34)
Mirok (2)
FleetCaptain (0)
Cloaked Mines (2)
Ship SP: 38
Scorpion 4 (24)
Cloaked Fighters (4)
Hidden Formation (5)
Ship SP: 33
Total Build SP: 120
Generated by STAW Builder
Just need to pick the free Elite Talent I guess…
Feds I am not done with:
List Name
U.S.S Thunderchild (28)
Jean-Luc Picard - Tech (5)
William T. Riker (3)
System Upgrade (2)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 43
U.S.S Excelsior (26)
Mr. Spock (4)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Dmitri Valtane (3)
Quantum Torpedoes (6)
Ship SP: 44
Fighter Squadron 6 (24)
Ship SP: 24
Total Build SP: 111
Generated by STAW Builder
So, a few more things to add… Systems upgrades and the like I guess…
Have to admit that the more I play them both, the more I
like X-Wing over STAW. STAW does allow a
LOT more mixing and matching, has a LOT more cards, factions and ships…
All of which can for the most part be deployed ala carte and you can
play your all-stars or “dream team”. The
problems I have with that and the game itself is that there is absolutely NO
balancing of abilities to point cost.
Jean Luc Picard’s first card in the base set the standard for the most
OP CPT card giving an awesome ability to whatever ship he is deployed on, free
action (extra action) to get a Battle Station, Target Lock, Evade or Scan
whether or not the ship to which he is deployed can actually DO any of those
actions. And for the same cost as any
other skill 9 CPT… So, at their heyday,
there were a LOT of Borg ships being captained by JLP, getting around the lack
of several of the actions he provided, more actions to their uber ships and a
skill 9 CPT… For +1 point over deploying
it to a Federation ship? Silly NOT to
take it if you have the points… The ship
points are the same way, the formula is simply: add all of the stat numbers and
multiply by 2. For most ships, the “named”
version has +1 shield, so is 2 points more expensive than the generic one. Gets abilities and usually additional upgrade
slots for free. Mind, in a lot of cases,
the abilities are “meh” at best, but comparing the iconic Galaxy Class
Federation cruiser to the Enterprise-D?
The Enterprise gets a 360° firing arc (limited to range 2, and starting
at 3 Dice). The Excelsior gets a free
Scan action (if there are no enemy ships at Range 1)… So, again, kind of silly NOT to take the
named versions if you have the points…
Exception for me being the Klingons with their ships being cloaked a
lot, so the extra Shield is useless and a lot of the abilities there are less
useful overall. Typically my Klingon
fleets are maximum attack dice on fragile ships for the “win big or die in
battle”… Then you get to some of the
silliness like Fighters and Cloaked mines…
So many long rants out there, so I’ll not add another. Just say that the best point to damage ratio
I have used in about any game is the Cloaked Mines at 3 points. And with the right resources, even less… I typically use the “Fleet Captain” to add
slots to ships and reduce the point costs.
Silly, but…
Compare this to X-Wing….
Everything is well balanced, Pilots are limited to the ships they fly… Yes, Crew cards can go to the ships that HAVE
crew slots within their own Faction, but there is no crossing that line. I have heard the game described somewhat despairingly
as “Yahtzee in Space”, but do not agree in any way… Yes, this year’s World Championship game
hinged on a single turn where the #2 player rolled 5 blanks for his Defense
roll and lost his ship to that damage combined with the killing blow late in
the turn. The contention was I think
that it all hinged on that one roll… Of
course, STAW has the same thing magnified with the ability to trivially get 10+
Dice attacks with loads of quality (fixing, either via conversions or rerolls,
etc.) where the Defense roll is “less relevant”. Joe’s Dominion fleet usually has at least one
BB, BC or heavy cruiser set to come in and alpha strike for the say 8-10
guaranteed hits. My cloaked Klingon ship
can roll its 4-7 Defense dice, but no shields while cloaked usually means that
at least 4-6 are going through no matter what I roll. With Romulans I can buy time with some tricky
cards like Interphase Generator to just take 1 Damage… Once.
Then I’d best have that ship dead before he lines up another shot
because Joe’s setup is NOT a one-time thing.
So, not Yahtzee but a game won in the build with certain things just
being THAT much more powerful and unbalanced.
X-Wing does have the “rock-paper-scissors effect” with a few powerful
build types, but there is not one that beats everything else.
J Kind of why I am in the “paint my army” mode
for Warmachine… my current main force is
Rhullic, so Dwarves and Ogres… Amusing,
but definitely NOT OP in any way. Yes,
still have Cygnar and Circle armies, but looking at those I am more concerned
that they are a lot more powerful and easily OP in some builds/ways… I’d much rather lose a fun game than win with
an overpowering list… Why I stopped
playing Circle in 1st edition.
Had a squad of Wolf Riders who were able to ignore coherency, could
attack, kill something then move and attack again… Stopping only when they failed to kill
something. So this small squad with a
few buffs and bonuses could table an opponent in a single turn if they brought
Light Infantry which was a fairly common thing back then… Was unlikely to kill the other Caster which
ends the game immediately, but they usually cleared 50-75% of the force in one
turn setting up the killing attack… Yes,
these things don’t happen in 2nd edition, but it left a very bad
impression for me, so I’ve avoided that force since. “Rumor” has them working on the 3rd
edition of the game, and as I see the things played, it is looking a lot like
it was at the end of 1st edition…
So, I’ll just get my lads painted up I guess and see what happens in a
few months…
Looking at running this for X-Wing:
EadenYPoe (100)
|
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing
|
31
|
|
Veteran Instincts
|
1
|
|
R5-P9
|
3
|
|
Autothrusters
|
2
|
|
Ship Total: 37
|
|
|
|
|
Eaden Vrill — YT-2400
|
32
|
|
Intelligence Agent
|
1
|
|
Anti-Pursuit Lasers
|
2
|
|
Ship Total: 35
|
|
|
|
|
Gray Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing
|
20
|
|
Twin Laser Turret
|
6
|
|
R3-A2
|
2
|
|
BTL-A4 Y-Wing
|
0
|
|
Ship Total: 28
|
|
|
|
So, Stress will be a thing for me to throw out there… Not 100% sold on the Intel Agent and APL on
the YT-2400, but it is amusing to get in among things and see what bumps me for
immediate damage… 360° firing arc, large
base and a maneuverable ship… Likely to
die of course, but should do damage on the way.
The Grey Squadron over the Gold for PS 4 and shooting before the mass of
PS 1-2 stuff people are bringing, and to be less vulnerable to Predator and the
like… Poe, either keep as is or swap the
VI and R5-P9 for R2-D2 and get the Regeneration effect on the reveal of a
Green, so even if bumped or the Stress is piled on, I can still get Shields
back… Limits it a lot though, I REALLY
like the focus on him in any case, so… Amusingly
staying with the Y-Wing, my favorite ship from the early Star Wars stuff, the
YT-2400, the first ship my wife got me last year and an X-Wing… Not what I thought I’d end up with, but it
might work at least against the things I expect to see…
