Resistance is NOT futile!

Just a short post to say that I've finally won a game of Attack Wing which didn't involve my opponents softening each other up first.

Admittedly, I wasn't using Dominion ships, I was fielding my new Borg Sphere for the first time against one of Pete's new Species 8472 Bioships. Also, Pete had over-stacked his ship with a couple of inappropriate upgrades to match my points value. But a win is a win and I'm taking it.

As for the Borg, I think they've been designed for bigger games as some of their abilities are really quite scary and I'm pretty sure that my fully loaded Borg Sphere could probably give a fleet including all six of my Dominion ships a run for their money. The lateral movement  of the Sphere is also very powerful.

Giddy with victory I then played a scenario game with my Dominion ships against Wes' Klingons in which I had to protect four orbital platforms against a fleet twice the size of mine. Four turns later, the game was over. Normal service had been resumed... :(

"Ya cannee change the laws of the campaign, Captain!"

Actually, I can.

In our Attack Wing campaign, we've been finding the rules a bit too fiddly for a four player campaign. Keeping up with which ships, captains and crew were used in each individual game has become too much of a chore to keep up with. Therefore, I'm simplifying things in the following ways:

1) Instead of tracking fleets, players can use any of their available ships and crew.
2) Unique ships, captains and crew used in one game, are not available in the next game, as even at warp speed, they can't make it to the next battle in time.
3) Injured ships, captains and crew are not available for the next two games as they heal up or get refitted.
4) Destroyed ships, captains and crew are not available for the rest of the campaign.

With this in mind, this is the current state of play in terms of availability:

CAPTAINS
Unavailable for 1 game: Worf (K), Gowron (K), Kyle (F)
Unavailable for 2 games: Sar (D)
Unavailable for remainder of campaign: Gul Danar (D), Martok (K)

CREW
Unavailable for 1 game: Kerla (K), Alexander (K)

SHIPS
Unavailable for remainder of campaign: G'Roth (K)

And here's the current map:

As you can see, the Romulans and Klingons have been making hay with the Dominion and Federation still struggling to cope with their cloaking. Matt's Federation have managed two wins, but not succeeded in capturing a sector, whilst my lowly Dominion have still to win a campaign game. Both fleets have been reinforced, and hopefully the change in rules will make us feel more able to use our big hitters to even the gap a little.

If things are going to improve, it has to happen quickly as Pete's Romulans are within striking distance of their objective - to control more space than any two factions put together.

An Enterprising Opponent

Our next couple of games in our Star Trek: Attack Wing campaign were played over the weekend and saw Romulans defending against a Klingon invasion in a match up which will be hence forth known as a 'Cloak Off'. Meanwhile, my mighty Dominion fleet decided to have a go at expanding in a different direction and take on somebody they could actually see; the Federation.

As usual, my fleet consisted of three ships: Breen Battleship the 'Gor Portas' commanded by Thot Gor, a Jem'hadar Attack ship packing phased polaron beams (which ignore enemy shields) and a Cardassian Galor Class ship. I feel that I'm missing a ship as I'm still having to pack my ships with upgrades which feel surplus to requirements.

With Picard injured, the Federation fleet was led by the 'Enterprise' captained by Will Riker, a Miranda class ship with Clark Terrell in charge and a second Galaxy class ship packing an array of fiendish mines.

The beginning of the second turn, and everything seems to be going well...

Thing began well, with the Federation flying its two Galaxy class ships towards my fleet, whilst Clark Terrell took his ship around the back of the planet. Facing a divided enemy, the Dominion leaped forwards and poured photon torpedoes and polaron beams into the Federation fleet, knocking down the shields on one ship and putting early hull damage on the Enterprise. However, the Jem'hadar Attack Ship was engulfed in phaser fire and immediately put out of action.

The Cardassian ship tried to add fire to proceedings and aided the Gor Portas in taking down the Galaxy class ship. However, in return the Gor Portas was mined, torpedoed and phasered into submission, leaving the Galor class ship outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. It's one advantage of a 180 degree fire arc was worthless against a Miranda (180 degree also) and the Enterprise (360 degree) so I was left with no option but to run and hope I could turn quickly enough to return fire.

"Quick, turn around before space ends!"

I  did managed to separate the enemy ships by flying round the planet and traded shots with the Miranda, knocking down its shields. However, the Galor was left severely weakened and unable to match the Federation's maneuverability, was eventually cornered and destroyed.

I managed to avoid losing any unique cards for the campaign, but both the Gor Portas and Thot Gor we injured, and as I was attacking I didn't lose territory. However the addition of new ships to the Dominion fleet can't come quickly enough for me. I made a couple of mistakes by not going after the Miranda earlier, or concentrating my fire in the early exchanges, but I still feel over-matched by all three opponents.

Meanwhile, on the other side of space, the Martok led his Klingon fleet into Romulan space and promptly wished he hadn't as a generic Romulan fleet demonstrated the art of concentrating fire and systematically pounded one Klingon ship after another into dust.

This looks like the Romulans are surrounded, however,
those target locks tell a slightly different story.

With attacks proving fiendishly difficult to pull off for no significant reason, there's been little movement on the map. This campaign could last for some time at this rate.

Unless people start attacking me that is...







Klingon Fleet 1 - I.K.S. Kronos One, Chang ("Once more unto the breech"), Kerla

Klingon Fleet 2 - I.K.S. Gr'Oth, Martok
Federation Fleet 1 - U.S.S. Enterprise D, Jean-Luc Picard, Will Riker, Clark Terrell

Federation Fleet 2 - Generic

Romulan Fleet 1 - Donatra

Romulan Fleet 2 - Mirok, N'Vek
Romulan Fleet 3 - Generic

Dominion Fleet 1 - Kraxon, Gul Ranor

Dominion Fleet 2 - Glinn Telle
Dominion Fleet 3 - Gor Portas (injured), Thot Gor (injured), Luaran

"To boldly go where no campaign has gone before..."

I mentioned recently that we'd been playing a bit of Star Trek: Attack Wing, a Wizkids game based on the same design mechanics of the excellent X-Wing from Fantasy Flight. Although broadly similar there are a few significant differences between the games which makes for a significantly different game experience:

• Instead of being dogfights between individual fighters, this game focuses on battleships and so tends to have less maneuverability but more firepower.
• Captains (instead of pilots), crew and upgrades are interchangeable between the ships and even the different factions leading to more fleet tailoring (mixing factions is not something we're that keen on, but it is possible).
• Being Star Trek, there are more factions available than just Rebel/Empire, so currently you can get Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Dominion ships, and Bajoran and Independent crew. The planned releases include the Borg, Kazon, Species 8472 and Vulcans,
• The games makes more use of scenarios, drawing on the films and TV series' for inspiration, and each ship comes with a new scenario.
• The miniatures are not in scale with each other and aren't as nicely painted as the X-Wing miniatures (this is probably the major negative of the game).

As this is a Wizkids game there is a heavy emphasis on tournaments with a well supported organised play schedule with limited edition resources, terrain and ships as prizes. This is great for those who like the cut and thrust of tournaments and finely tailored fleets, however for those of us who don't have the time, temperament or money required for preparing for these kind of events it leaves you needing to find a different form of motivation to prevent this game becoming a bit repetitive (which is the only downside of X-Wing).

Hence the campaign...

Pete, Wes and Matt have all acquired the starter set and have swapped between them to begin fleets for the Romulans, Klingons and Federation respectively. Which left me playing catch up and buying ships from the Dominion faction which features a mismatched collection of Cardassian, Jem'hadar and Breen ships. I have to confess that many years ago I stopped watching Deep Space Nine before the Dominion War stuff happened, so I'm not entirely clear on who these people are. I was also a touch disappointed when beginning to search the internet about Dominion tactics to discover that the general consensus was something along the lines of: "the Dominion SUCK!!!"

The Dominion Logo - Interplanetary Branding

This campaign might hurt...

Using the map from Star Trek online, I've used a variation of the Flames of War Firestorm rules for the campaign. Broadly speaking, games are played as and when, with a dice roll to determine who is attacking to capture the enemy territory. The defender has the option of choosing a scenario for the game and if the territory being attacked contains a space station, the scenario is 'Destroy the Space Station' from one of the Klingon ship packs.

Fleets can be created by using any available cards for your own faction (we've ruled that the Bajorans are part of the Federation in case Matt manages to get his hands on the Defiant and Kira Nerys), but once unique cards are used they are committed to a fleet in a particular territory until you specifically withdraw them the next time you use that fleet.

After a battle, if the attacker wins, the capture the attacked territory and the defender must retreat to a neighboring territory. If the defender wins, the attacker goes back to where they came from. If the retreating side cannot move to an adjacent territory, the entire fleet counts as destroyed. Any unique ships, captains or crew destroyed in the game  must roll an attack dice, on a damage result they are injured and cannot be used in the fleet's next engagement, on a critical result, they are gone from the campaign.

And that's pretty much it...

Each faction has a different goal:

• The Federation, must control all of Federation space and all other space station territories.
• The Dominion, must control more territory than any two other factions.
• The Romulans, must control more territory than any two other factions.
• The Klingons, must deliver the killing blow to an enemy faction.

Yesterday, we played our first games:

Game 1 - Dominon vs Romulan

The Dominion attacked the Romulan home world (you can attack via Nebula or Star Clusters, but count as cut off if you lose) and despite initially out flying the cloaked War Birds, an ill judged suicide attack by a Jem'hadar Attack Ship achieved nothing and left the Dominion severely out-gunned. The Romulans finally got their act together and blew the Dominion ships back to Cardassian space. To add injury to insult, Gul Danar, one of the Cardassian captains was killed.

Imagine this with miniatures...

Game 2 - Federation vs Klingon

With their eyes on the prize the Federation went after space stations in the Alderbaran Sector. Although able to to avoid the guns of the space station, the Federation's flagship was funneled into the powerful phasers of the Chang's Klingon fleet. Jean-Luc Picard was injured in the engagement, but the Enterprise made it to safety.

"Run away!"

Game 3 - Romulan vs Federation

Brimming with confidence the Romulans took advantage of the Federations reversal against the Klingons, crossed the Neutral Zone and attacked the Argelius Sector. A scratched together fleet of little known Galaxy class ships flown by captains of little repute managed to swamp the Romulan fleet and crippled their ships, killing Captain Tomalak in the process.

"You called for reinforcements?"

Game 4 - Klingon vs Dominion

Feeling the call of battle in his blood, Chang took his fleet deep into Breen space and caught the Dominion by surprise. Blasting clean through the hastily assembled fleet they pushed the Dominion forces back into Cardassian space without suffering any losses.

"Cry Havok! And let slip the dogs of war!"

After those games, the situation looks like this:

Klingon Fleet 1 - I.K.S. Kronos One, Chang ("Once more unto the breech"), Kerla

Federation Fleet 1 - U.S.S. Enterprise D, Jean-Luc Picard (injured), Clark Terrell

Federation Fleet 2 - Nobody of Any Importance

Romulan Fleet 1 - Donatra

Romulan Fleet 2 - Mirok, N'Vek

Dominion Fleet 1 - Kraxon, Gul Ranor

Dominion Fleet 2 - Glinn Telle

Overall, it's been a fun start to the campaign. I've discovered that I have to find some way of dealing with cloaked ships if I'm not to be utterly destroyed. Matt's discovered that bog standard ships with unnamed captains can be effective as a swarm. Pete's learned that not going to cloak early can cost him. Wes has discovered that Klingons are filth!

"I'll get you next time you pasty-headed and pointy-eared,
cowardly-cloaking, more uniformly appearing fleets!"