The Racers, The Bruisers, The Constitutions and the (Headless) Horsemen: STAW Resource Rumble
This post concerns the game Star Trek Attack Wing (STAW.) Read more about it here.
One more STAW post before I beam back down to my day job. Yesterday, I talked about my fleet for the Resource Rumble OP (The Headless Horsemen.) What was fun was that all four fleets that played that day had a unique flavor.
The Headless Horsemen
My two ATR 4107s and two fighters were a weird contrast. The ATRs steer like a bathtub. They have a great 180 degree firing arc and pack a huge punch. But, they are big relatively slow targets. No defense. I added some upgrades to help, but basically they are a flying boat. If I can’t kill the opponent quick enough, I’ll be out of position and the opponent will whittle away at me like a pack of wolves taking down a bear. The fighters are the defenders. They can soak up a lot of damage. Their job was to protect the ATRs. They are manueverable, but again are not built for a long fight.
The Racers
Another fleet was a Federation fleet with a Voyager, a Prometheus and an Intrepid. These three ships, in addition to being Federation ships, all have the ability to move at max speed 6. And it’s a white manuever meaning they can fly across the board and still take Actions. My fight against the racers ended in a draw. We ended up rolling dice at the end to decide the winner. Although, if we could have gotten negative points for bad driving, my opponent would have won easily. I nearly flew my ships off the board because I couldn’t tell my left from my right in planning their turns.
The Constitutions
Constitution is a class of Federation starship. If you’ve seen the original Star Trek series (the one from the 1960’s) that ship is a Constitution class. One player loaded his fleet with four of them. The captains read like a who’s who of Star Trek lore: Spock, Sulu and Kirk. The fourth ship was captained by Matt Decker. In the series Capt Decker was kind of a Captain Ahab character. The Constitution class is a tough ship. I scored a couple of lucky hits. The battle went back and forth. I was down by a single point with 10 minutes to play. On the last play, I lost a fighter squadron but managed to kill another ship (Spock’s I think) and ended up winning by a single point.
The Bruisers
The most powerful ship in Star Trek Attack Wing is generally considered to be the Romulan Reman Warbird class. My son flew two of them. The generic version and the named ship, the Scimitar. He paired them with a D’deridex class. He rolled through the Racers without too much resistance in the first game, and in the second game completely destoyed, as in killed every single Constitution. The final game, had we played a third round would have seen my Headless Horsemen going up against the Bruisers. Time prevented that matchup. My son was declared the overall winner.
The Resources
The Resource Rumble OP is broken. As written, you have to pick at least one resource and pay for it out of your 130 SP fleet. The acknowledged winning strategy is to take Senior Staff as your only resource. It cost 0 SP. You then go attack your opponent and hope he spent a bunch on resources. We changed the rules. We decided that each player would bring 3 unique resources but didn’t have to pay for them. Then, when you discover a resource, you draw from the pool of your and your opponent’s undiscovered resourced. We also allowed retired resources. The results were what we hoped. Resources were a wildcard that wasn’t enough to tip the scales of the fight, but were enough to make it interesting.
I brought the Elite Attack Die, Auxiliary Power and the Cardasian Fighters that were a resource. In both fights, my opponents got my fighters. I pulled a fleet commander at one point. It boosted my Dreadnaught to a Captain Skill of 13. I also pulled Skilled Helmsman. Since my ship did not have a come-about manuever, it was a complete waste for me.
The important thing was that we actually stayed true to the spirit of the OP. It was a rumble that was heavily influenced by Resources.
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
