The Headless Horsemen (Star Trek Attack Wing)

This post is about the game Star Trek Attack Wing (STAW.) You can read more about it here.

I’ve played STAW for months. It’s a great game if you are a Star Trek fan. It’s a great game if you like tabletop miniatures. It has both.

It also has tournaments, called Organized Play, or OPs. Each has a special set of rules. Understanding the rules and understanding the capacity of the various ships can give you an advantage. I enjoy looking at those rules and figuring out how to take advantage of them.

But, not this time. This time I decided that I would go for the more fun experience. I did it by designing a fleet without any captains or crew. It’s kind of hard to do. Star Trek is all about the people. I decided to go with a ship called the Cardassian ATR-4107. In the show it was kind of a drone ship. I decided to go with the named ship, The Dreadnaught, and a generic version. I paired those with two fighter squadrons.

My fleet was definitely not optimized. My friendly local game store (FLGS) has a rule that all the ships in your fleet have to be from the same Star Trek faction. That’s called “Faction Pure.” Actually, we play “Penalty Pure.” That means you can use any card that would not trigger a cross faction penalty.

My ships didn’t violate the Faction Pure rule. But, it had another problem. And the problem is Card Packs. WizKids is the company behind STAW. They recently did a refresh of the game. As part of it, they introduced something called Card Packs. No model, just the cards for a ship and the base template. Combined with my existing ship, I now had two ship bases, but only a single model, single movement card and a single movement dial.

And that was the problem. Not just the problem with my fleet, the problem with Card Packs. I owned two ships. In fact, because the new Dreadnaught from the reboot is cheaper than the old one, I actually bought two card packs. So, now I own three copies of the ATR-4107.

I still only had one movement dial and one movement card. The rules of STAW require a player to have a valid base template (I had three) and a valid ship card (I had six, but could only use four because of rules about unique ship names) and the stickler, a valid movement dial. I had one.

Fortunately, my Tournament Organizer (TO) agreed that since the ATR 4107 and the Galore class used the same movement card, I could use a Galore movement dial. He didn’t have to. He could have excluded my second ship for violating the rules.

That’s the problem with Card Packs. I bought the same ship three times (twice using card packs) and I could only legally play one version of it. I actually ordered another copy of the old version of ATR 4107 just to have another movement dial. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive in time for the OP.

Despite the issues with the dials, we had a great time. In one final ironic twist, we decided to honor Jon Paul Steuer, an actor who played a Klingon named Alexander on Star Trek The Next Generation. Steuer passed away recently.

What made it ironic, is that I brought my versions of the Alexander card but couldn’t use it. Despite the agreement that we would waive the cost and the penalty for Alexander, mine was the only fleet who couldn’t use him. I built a fleet that didn’t have room for any captain or crew.

The Headless Horsemen.

Dreadnought [Dreadnought (card pack)] (29)
Shield Adaptation [Dreadnought (card pack)] (5)
Shroud [4th Division Battleship] (1)
Thoron Shock Emitter [Dreadnought (card pack)] (2)
Quantum Torpedoes [Dreadnought (card pack)] (3)
Total (40)

Cardassian ATR-4107 [Dreadnought (card pack)] (24)
Thoron Shock Emitter [Dreadnought (card pack)] (2)
Quantum Torpedoes [Dreadnought (card pack)] (3)
Plasma Pulse [Dreadnought (card pack)] (3)
Total (32)

1st Wave Attack Fighters [1st Wave Attack Fighters] (24)
Galor Class Phaser Banks [1st Wave Attack Fighters] (7)
Total (31)

Hideki Class Attack Squadron [1st Wave Attack Fighters] (20)
Galor Class Phaser Banks [1st Wave Attack Fighters] (7)
Total (27)

Fleet total: 130

Generated by Space Dock for iOS

http://spacedockapp.org

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. 

Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com

(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved