The Collective OP1 - First Contact

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.

In the first few turns the Borg ship wasn't much of a threat, and most ships in range taking the "Resist" action lost upgrades of their choice. Through the entire game the Borg only stole a few upgrades of mine...one of which was sadly Spock's quantum torpedoes.

I was very happy with the action economy of the Excelsior. Getting a free scan and target lock was great, and had I not lost my torpedoes I could have conceivably fired them every turn Valtane provides a little insurance on my ability to hit, and the scan reduces defence dice.

The Dominion ship proved to be a valuable addition, even though I wasn't able to use the ship's ability, or Ion Thrusters at all in my game. When time was called I'd lost a few upgrades to the Borg but had had no ships destroyed. My opponent was down to his battle cruiser at two hull.

Our fourth player had to leave so I ended up with the bye for the second round.