Thinking Outside the Box

I'm going to start this one with something I never thought I'd say...I've recently learned to play Pokemon . My oldest nephew had some cards with him when we all got together for family dinner over Thanksgiving. When I asked if he knew how to play he said "no." Thinking it a bit of a shame to have cards but not use them we downloaded the rules and gave it a go. I had to split the cards up into something resembling decks with almost no knowledge of the game, but we had a good time nonetheless. On Friday Knight Models announced their new "Sons of Batman" program (yep, SOBs) for the Batman Miniatures Game . I've been working towards getting enough models and scenery together to start demoing the game around my area soon anyway, so the timing of this announcement was almost perfect. I just have to take a few photos of my painted crews and submit the paperwork, and hopefully will get accepted into the program. Last weekend Lewis and I attended Fallcon...

While we are waiting for the next organized play kit to show up at Trilogy Games, a few of us got together yesterday to play some 100-pt games just for fun. I know, I know, playing a game without prizes or tournament support?! What were we thinking... I played a Mirror Universe fleet with two ships. Beardy & S miley Go For A Drive  (100pts) - Mirror Universe Galaxy Class w/ Riker & We Won't Go Back, Jennifer Sisko, Multi-Targeting Phaser Banks and Dorsal Weapons Array - ISS Defiant w/ Miles O'Brien & Rebellion, Ezri Tigan, Elim Garak and Quantum Torpedoes - Improved Shields Alex was playing a TOS-era fleet with Sulu on a flag-shipped Excelsior, Terrell on The Reliant and a generic Constitution class. The second round saw some heavy firepower tossed among the ships and it was looking like it would be a quick game. By the fourth round however most of the ships had passed beyond useful weapons range, although there was the odd torpedo fired off. Ezri picked...

Yesterday we played our final Organized Play  event of the year for Star Trek Attack Wing :    "The Tholian Web." Now you might wonder why we were playing a scenario from six months ago, so I'll explain. Back when this tournament was supposed to be run our shop didn't get the OP kit in time for me to hold the event. It did arrive later, but we had other kits for tournaments to run and I didn't want to be running a month behind for the rest of the year, so I opted to wait for an opportune moment. After "Resistance is Futile" OP2 it was looking very likely that we wouldn't be receiving the month 3 kit in time to hold that event before Christmas, so we played the Tholian Web scenario, but this time with a twist: we played 100-point lists but used the extra RiF boosters to add an extra 30 points of mayhem to the games. I'm happy to say that everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and we had an excellent turnout. There were a few Federatio...

Rather than posting multiple articles for each event I though I would consolidate them into a single article. Event 1 at Trilogy Games : - Bioship Alpha w/ Bioship Alpha Pilot and Energy Focusing Weapon - Romulan Science Vessel w/ Polarized Hull Plating - Romulan Scout Vessel w/ Donatra and Interphase Generator - Gavroche w/ Eddington and some other stuff We only had three players come for this event, including myself. I wanted to try out a build using Bioship Alpha and some smaller ships to see if I could make Energy Focusing Weapon work. It did and I was able to score 12 hits on a single attack. When time was called I had lost one small ship but lost out in terms of damage dealt. I didn't really care however, since I accomplished what I had wanted to do with EFW. Event 2 at Sentry Box : - Borg Tactical Cube w/ Tactical Drone 4 - Borg Sphere w/ Tactical Drone 6 - booster ship Other than the Soong (which I played as an Independent ship), I have not yet used a Borg ...

On Monday night I was able to play in another Collective OP1 event at Sentry Box . I was quite surprised to see a large jump in numbers. In the past few months we've had four or maybe five attendees, but this time we had eight players. I'll take credit for one of them, other than myself. But anyway. Independents With No Regard to Timelines (90pts) - S'Gorn w/ Khan Sing & Invaluable Advice, Joachim, Polarized Hull Plating and Positron Beam - Soong w/ Lore & Counter Attack, Bosus and Goval I got another copy of the Dominion ship and built a named version with Gul Damar, First Strike and Seskal on it. Sentry Box has always had full mixed faction fleets allowed, so there was a lot of faction mixing going on. My first match was against a Dominion attack ship, a fully loaded Breen Cruiser and the Romulan booster ship. I concentrated my fire on the Breen ship first to remove the energy dissipators from play. After that I was able to split my fire out between t...

Last night we played our "First Contact" OP event at Trilogy Games . I have a bunch of expansions that I've not yet used, so I wanted to start working through the backlog of those. It's been a while since I played Federation, and the new Enterprise had some good looking stuff in it. "Mostly" Movie-TOS Federation (90pts): - USS Excelsior w/ Spock & Attack Pattern Omega, Valtane and Quantum Torpedoes - USS Enterprise (refit) w/ Kirk (8) & Disobey Orders, Worf, McCoy, Lojur and Photon Torpedoes - Command Tokens I ended up with the Dominion booster pack and kitted it out with: - 3rd Wing Attack Ship w/ Gul Damar & First Strike, Ion Thrusters and Photon Torpedoes I was matched up against a Dominion battleship/Koranak fleet that had a Maquis Raider booster pack and a loaded up side-board. My opponent set up the raider and Koranak on opposite ends of his starting area. I set up all of my ships in formation opposite the raider. ...

Second OP "The Arena" event at Sentry Box . This time we had four players total, three of them being the same folks from last week's event at Trilogy. Shane's fleet was a three-ship Federation list using the new Spock captain card. Lewis was playing Romulans and Bill was also playing Federation (as per usual). Me, once again I did the unexpected (or perhaps just foolish) and took a pure 100pt Bajoran fleet. Yeah you heard me: Bajorans ! Here's the list if you can't read the text in the photo: - Akorem w/ Kira & Militia, Li Nalas and Neela - Bajoran Scout Ship w/ Tahna Los and Feedback Pulse - Interceptor 5 w/ Hazar & Blockade - Bajoran Interceptor w/ Lenaris Holem and Phaser Strike So I bet you're wondering how it went aren't you? Well, it went almost exactly as you would expect. Round 1 was against Shane and amazingly I won the captain's battle. I mixed up two of his ships however and ended up focusing my fire on the wrong ...

Last night I ran the Star Trek: Attack Wing OP event "The Arena" at Trilogy Games . With the prospect of huge amounts of Borg firepower in the space battle, and the knowing value of high captain skill on the planet, building a fleet list that I would enjoy playing proved to be quite the challenge. As I generally prefer to play pure faction, I decided to bring a Klingon fleet. I knew that in all likelihood I'd be outmatched on the planet by the likes of Kirk, Picard and Gul Dukat. The Klingons always love a good up-close-and-personal fight however, so off we went. Klingons-in-the-Arena  (100pts) - Vor'cha class w/ Chang and Klag - K'T'Inga class w/ Koloth - B'Rel class w/ Martok (8-skill) - IKS Somraw w/ generic captain My plan was relatively simple: spend the first few turns moving three of the ships towards the planet and trying to keep it between myself and my opponent. In the first round Martok would grant a captain an extra action to cloak,...

Tholian Web A few weeks ago I posted up my planned fleet list for the "Tholian Web" event. When I found out that my regular venue wasn't able to get the kit I resigned myself to not getting to try the fleet list. If you want a quick recap, it was two Bajoran scouts, a Defiant-class and some Federation fighters. The full list and my thoughts about it can be found  here . Pleasantly enough, I had a chance to run this fleet at Sentry Box's event last Monday! The first match put me up against a two-ship Federation build that made quick work of my Bajoran ships. The Defiant class survived long enough to take out Picard's ship, and with time called, my fighters took out the second ship with just enough damage to take down its last remaining hull point. The second match was against a fully loaded Voyager clocking in at 98 points. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the build. It had some good tools and those 10-dice torpedoes are scary. However, the attack us...

"The Dominion War" has concluded and people are ramping up for "The Collective." In the meantime there are still battles to be fought. The current OP event is a one-off based on the original series episode "The Tholian Web." I've already played through the scenario once and had a good idea of what to expect. We were supposed to play our scenario a few days ago at Trilogy Games  but were unable to get the event kit. I had wanted to use my new Bajoran scout ships and Federation fighters in an event, which led me to the following list: Bajoran/Federation (100pts): - Akorem w/ Kira Nerys & Blockade, Day Kannu and Li Nalas (30pts) - Bajoran Scout Ship w/ Tahna Los & I Am Kohn-Ma and secret  (25pts) - Defiant class w/ Clark Terell and Positron Beam (25pts) - Federation Attack Fighters (20pts) I didn't expect this list to accomplish a lot, except buzzing around my opponents like insects. With Terell and Kira I'd have t...

The recently-released set of expansions brings us the USS Voyager, as well as the first ships for the Borg, Kazon and Species 8472. With my preference for playing pure fleets, I thought I'd take a quick look at what this means for players like me. I'll focus on the 90-point build suggested for "The Collective" organized play events. The Borg Let's start with the Borg, as I feel they'll likely be the new favourite of a lot of players. The named sphere clocks in at 40 points. If you add all of the goodies that come in the box with it you end up with the following 80 point list: Borg Sphere 4270 w/ - Tactical Drone - Borg Ablative Hull Armor - Borg Tractor Beam - Seven of Nine - Feedback Pulse - Cutting Beam If you add a flagship or another 10-point resource you have a very maneuverable monster to add your 30-point booster contents to. If your venue is still allowing Admiral's Orders (which I hope it isn't) you have even more options. You ...

I was able to play in two Month 6 events of the "Dominion War" organized play series for Star Trek: Attack Wing  last month. I was a distant second for a DS9 model at the venue I host at, and had no chance of winning at the other. I simply hadn't been able to go to enough tournaments at the second event to garner enough points. All that is in the past however, as the Borg are coming! Oddly enough, the preview for the first Borg expansion didn't show up on Wizkids  website like all the previous ones, but rather on startrek.com. If you want to read the whole preview for the expansion click here . The sphere is a pricey ship points-wise, and seems pretty powerful, but I think the Borg should be powerful. They're the f-ing Borg ! Yeah, still sounds Swedish, but these are nasty cybernetic swedes that you don't want to hang out with! Anyway, I wasn't I regular watcher of "Voyager" so I don't think I ever saw the sphere on TV, just the litt...

What seems like a long, long time ago...I received some of these 6'x4' mats for my birthday (nope, not last year's). They're really good looking but the size makes them difficult to paint in my house. The only way I can do that is to put both of my large folding tables out together, push most of the living room furniture out of the way and try not to get paint on the floor. I've got my Broken Blacktop mat about halfway done...but that's not what I'm here to talk about today. A few days ago I stopped in at Trilogy  with the intent of picking up a  Gale Force 9 mat for playing Star Trek: Attack Wing  on. They were supposed to have gotten some in stock, and I was happy to find that the rumours were true. Looking around the shop a little more I saw that they had a "Scourged Forest" 2'x3' Zuzzy  mat. I have a 6'x4' one, but since I've been playing a lot of Strange Aeons  lately and all of my home-built scenery is of the grass-and-...

Last night we played our Star Trek: Attack Wing  month 6 Dominion War event at Trilogy Games . After a quieter month 4 and 5 we returned to a full six-player group to close out the series. I had double-checked all of the previous month results to make sure that there were no mistakes, but before we got started I opted to keep those standings hidden, in order to add a little drama to the event. The truth is there was one player way out front, and I was the only player with a chance to catch him. For that to have happened however he would have had to lose all three rounds, and I would have to win all of mine and I knew that just wasn't going to happen. All that aside, the turnout was very good and I think everyone had a great time. I played a revised Dominion list, which I had come up with the day before to play against Teri in a preview game of the upcoming "Tholian Web" scenario. You'll have to keep an eye her YouTube channel for that video, and while you're ...

Man oh man I sooooo don't need to buy any new stuff, but I keep doing it anyway. On the plus side, I've actually been playing a bunch of my games. Played my 2nd round exhibition match for our new Dreadball league. It was the Etherian Horde vs. the Broadstreet Bullies. Another game that went into OT, another win for me. I just can't earn enough cash to buy a seventh player, so I opted for another coaching die. Not a great investment, but it feels better than just having cash as part of my roster. Wrapping up a week of work before the Family Day weekend, I wrangled some co-workers into a lunch-time game of Lords of Waterdeep . They all really enjoyed it, and I only won by 3 points! I'm looking forward to getting that game on the table again. During the long weekend had the first game of AT-43 using my Cogs army box and a few boosters. We played 3000 points against Karmans. I'm considering adding a few more squads to my army, because having so many heroes in th...

Flagship card set (Participation Prize) - Four double-sided cards and a black flagship base. Let me just say that I love the flagship resource cards. The faction-specific ones are pretty good, but I'm most excited about the generic ones. Essentially each faction now has five extra options to round out a fleet with. Got a great list but just need that little bit of extra attack, one more tech slot or another defence die? These cards can really help you out. The included black base is nice, but the cards...oh man the cards are what you want. So many great options. USS Sutherland (Grand Prize) Of all the prize ships so far this was the one I wanted the most. I love the Ch'Tang and its accompanying collection of cards, but I think I like the package that is the Sutherland more. First off, I think this is the best painted Federation ship released for the game so far. The yellow applications on the hull are very clean and well placed, and there is a ton of detailing on t...

We played our month 4 organized play "Dominion War" event at Trilogy Gaming Club  last night. I have to say I was really disappointed to have only two other players in attendance, especially after having to go through all of December without an event due to the holiday break. Needless to say I was looking forward to playing some games of Attack Wing! Lewis and Shane line up their fleets (Romulan and Federation respectively) for the first game. It was a relatively short affair with the two-ship Federation fleet being highly outmaneuvered and outgunned. We opted to play a three player game afterward so as not to leave anyone sitting out for a lengthy stretch and selected one of the scenarios from the rule book. Although "The Chase" was written with each player controlling a single 40-point ship in mind we decided to play 100-point fleets to make it more interesting. Since I had planned to play a Romulan list for the tournament, and I've played Klingons several...

We had brutal, brutal weather here yesterday. The temperature dropped throughout the day while we got hammered with even more snow starting about nine in the morning. By supper time several of the main routes around the city were closed due to accidents. My trip to the shop was uneventful, but took longer than I'd expected. I was also the only person to show up. I can certainly understand not wanting to brave the weather and road conditions to go out and play a game. I'd have encouraged folks not to come for their own safety, had I known what I was getting into before I got in my own car. On the plus side however, I did pick up wave 2, and had a quick look over the OP4 kit. When I finally arrived home I sat down to open up my new toys. Sitting next to my little Christmas tree it felt a little like an early Christmas present. A present I had to pay for, but still fun nonetheless! The first ship I opened was the USS Excelsior . On first glance I don't think that Captain...

After playing in two tournaments for the Star Trek: Attack Wing OP3 last week, this week feels like a bit of a letdown. All the wave 2 previews have been released. The OP4 prizes have been spoiled. Now most of the players are simply awaiting the arrival of wave 2 in their local stores or in their mailboxes if they ordered online. And the next tournament seems far, far away. Wizkids Dominion War  tournaments have been a lot of fun through the first three months. With the various winter holidays and new year coming up OP4 is slated to run through Dec/Jan, which means fewer events. I know of one shop that is running theirs in December but it's on a day I can't attend. Another has scheduled theirs for mid-January. The shop I'll be running at hasn't gotten back to be to confirm if my suggested date is acceptable. December is a busy time for most folks, so I can understand. I'm quite looking forward to wave 2, which is sort of ironic actually because I've not use...

Just a quick follow-up to my post earlier this week after playing in my second OP3 event of the "Dominion War." With my Klingon fleet not performing as well as I'd hoped I decided to make some modifications for my second event by shuffling captains around to get access to another action. I replaced the 9-skill Martok with the 8-skill one, and swapped Nu'Daq out for Gowron. Not a surprise to anyone who plays Klingons, and also fairly reminiscent of the fleet I used in OP2. The first game was against our resident Romulan player with two Valdores and two science vessels packing cloaked mines. I was much more careful about my ships flying in formation in this event and was largely able to avoid the mines he dropped on either side of the planet. We fought over the planet but I was again hampered by my dice, although it was much closer. Martok's barrage of fire damaged Donatra's Valdore down to no shields and one hull, but her return volley punched through his...