Attack Wing, Oh How I've Missed Thee

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 times already I put together a Dominion, mostly Cardassian fleet instead.

Cardassian Fleet (98pts):

- Koranak w/ Gul Dukat, Boheeka, Cloaking Device and Dorsal Weapons Array
- Kraxon w/ Gul Danar, Sar and Tetryon Emmissions
- Keldon class w/ Gul Evek, Glinne Telle, Cloaking Device and Dorsal Weapons Array
- Admiral's Order - United Force

The game went pretty long, and I was the first to lose a ship. My Keldon has picked up two mission tokens from the nearest objective marker and had taken some damage from the Romulans, including a critical hit. I had opted not to fire on a Federation ship the previous turn in order to keep my cloak active. Any collision would cause me damage. Poor maneuvering caused my ships to all bunch together while I was heading off to pick up the second token...the first kill of the game and I had done it to myself!

I few rounds later saw the Enterprise destroyed by my two remaining ships and Donatra's Valdore had picked up her second token. Shane had suffered terrible luck trying to pick up his first token and had thus split his force. We both decided to try stopping Donatra from beaming down to the planet with her prize.

Dropping her shields the Valdore beamed her captain down to the planet and was left vulnerable to both of my remaining ships. With only a few hull left the Valdore was vaporized. Lewis and Shane were both left with only one ship (the Excelsior being kept together by O'Brien and large amounts of gum and duct tape I think). The Khazara was in a little better shape and my Kraxon was down to 1 hull. The Koranak had only suffered minor shield damage.

We could have played it out to determine a victor, but were about a half hour over time and called it. I think I would have lost even with my two ships because I simply wasn't in a good position to turn around. I'd have lost the Kraxon in the next turn and my only hope was a dorsal weapons array to take out one of the two opposing ships. It was good fun nonetheless and we all took home a prize USS Sutherland along with a set of flagship cards.

I'll cover my thoughts on the OP4 prize items in an upcoming post.

Addendum

I thought I'd add some brief thoughts about the Cardassian ships after my first real use of them. To start with, the Keldon class ship adds some much needed firepower to the Dominion's ranks. Having that great 5-dice primary attack, puts them on par with most Klingon ships there. Having to pay extra for the cloaking devices does make them more costly, and they are definitely not as maneuverable as the Klingon or Romulan ships. You do have to treat the cloak upgrades with care. They require so many actions to re-enable, which means you'll likely only get their benefit once or twice in a game. Use them wisely!

I just realized I had two captains on the Kraxon. What a cheater I am! *hangs his head in shame*

I think the only card I didn't use at all was Glinn Telle but he was an addition to fill the free ten points granted by my Admiral's Order. I would drop him from the list without reservation, which would give me a total of five points to add an elite attack die or some command tokens. The once-per-round re-roll from the AO was also highly useful and I used it to full advantage.

The generic Keldon class didn't make much use of his cloak or dorsal weapons array due to the scenario eating up that captain's actions. In a kill-em-all game they're definitely keepers. Gul Dukat was very effective and I used his free battle stations / evade every round. Being able to do that for free allowed me to keep my dorsal weapons array enabled much more frequently.

I didn't use the Kraxon or Koranak ship abilities, but again I chalk that up more to the scenario we were playing than that they're not useful. Those Tetryon Emissions coupled with Sar were extremely useful keeping the Kraxon alive in the case that I did need to siphon damage off of my other ships.

I'd happily play this list again. It has good attack strength and some good staying power. I think all it's really missing is a way to repair shields. Maneuvering is key with this fleet though, because it'll be very tough to shake someone once they get behind you. Keep those Dorsal Weapons Arrays ready.