My Attack Wing collection, rather than shrinking, is growing with the bargains available at the moment. This is it for the game I feel. Wizkids are releasing their boxed sets, but most are simply rehashing old ships with new cards and annoyingly new paint jobs (pick one and stick to it guys!). Expensive way to continue for someone with a decent set now and they are selling through quickly, seemingly never to return.
Looking at the periods and scale mix limits I have imposed on the ships I have, the question has to be I guess, can they stand on their own or are they a little too thin to be viable. The reality that quickly becomes apparent is, each period needs a fully evolved fleet with as many options as you can find to fill them out. One of each ship will often not make the grade here. I am a great fan of the depth of AW for one on one ship battles, but this is by no means Star Fleet Battles. One on one fights quickly grow tiresome, so 100pt fleets minimum need to be addressed. In the earlier periods, this is often not as easy as it looks. It takes 5 Tholian vessels to get even close to that figure.
Lets see what I have to offer. My collection is not exhaustive, because I was slack or unaware and missed some.
The first, because it has to be, is;
The original TV series or TOS
The Federation has up to 4 Constitution class ships (1 is the ISS Enterprise, but they can be played either way), the famous crew and several support cast. The ships are physically small but powerful, the upgrades even more so and the crew dominates as they should. This period has some very powerful elite talents, good enough to warrant the purchase of the relatively weak ship for tournament play, but when limited to their own universe, they are real game breakers. The Federation seem to be the strongest and most advanced, not the soft or defensive minded option like later periods.
The Gorn. I have 4 Gorn ships and the extra card pack. The ship is cheap enough (especially if you accept the adjusted point values in the Gorn card expansion) and it is not rubbish with the best shields in TOS at 3 and 3 attack and the array of upgrades rivals the Federation.
The Tholians have 5 ships for balance and it seems to fit. Webs are a pain to play against in most periods, especially in scenario games, but in TOS they are brutal. Five ships weaving webs in this set are a bit like playing against an electrified Chinese puzzle, as long as there is a point and a plan to it.
The Klingons also have 4 ships, all D-7’s. The old enemy are here in force. Sans ridges and roughness, they are a wall of simple but tough aggression, if maybe a little more cunning and quaint than later on.
I have some re-painting to do, getting a few D-7’s into dull grey for the Klingons (or lighter grey for the Roms) and the two Constitution class into off white, but the Romulans are covered.
The Romulans have 5 ships, with the nasty oddity that is a cloaking Klingon D-7 (x2) and their own Bird of Prey (3). Because of the hard limit of 4 actions for any ship, they are less battle oriented, but are tricky and complicated, and they do pack the Plasma torpedo. They are as mysterious and dangerous as they were in the shows. The Romulan D-7 is arguably the Federations’ biggest threat if well used.
The ISS can have two ships and their upgrades can be wild cards in a game where the enemy is expecting squeaky clean Feds. Maybe 2 Feds vs 2 ISS would be interesting, with some allies for fun.
With the exception of the ISS, each faction can play a balanced 80-100pt list and each has their defined “thing”. If only generic ships are used, there are enough to spread a selection of their upgrades through a fleet, but if named ships are used, pretty much all the upgrade options can be used and squads reach closer to 100-120 pts. Even allied fleets can be fielded for less than 200pts.
The Original Movies or TOM
This hasless width in factions, but is deeper within them, pitting the Federation against only Khan and the Klingons with D-7’s and Birds of Prey. The Klingons now have cloaking and Khan could conceivably be fielded on any ship and take on, or ally with, either enemy. This set screams scenario play to me.
The Federation has more choice here. The Excelsior class (3), refit or original Constitution (3), a Miranda, Constellation and an Oberth (The Oberth card expansion back-dates the ship to the periods’ Grissom).
The Klingons, now with cloaking, can take on the roles of both the Romulans and their brutal, war-like selves with a choice of newer Birds of Prey and older but slighly better than the previous K’T’inga D-7’s. With cloaking they are tricky and mean and they have the hardest hitting ships. This is where the Klingon theme of fragile, but agile and “toothy” ships starts to show through.
Khan Sing. Hypotheticals abound here. What if Khan captured an Excelsior class or a BoP? Changs’ BoP with Khan at the helm and torpedoes while cloaked? He can even fight Klingons or what about Khan on the Enterprise vs Kirk on the Miranda? Fun times. In the non-tournament world, this is a rare case of acceptable cross-polinating*.
For this period, a few other elite upgrades have been added from the TOS and later (from a huge surplus) and the house rule of all upgrades are hidden until used. This adds back in the cat-and-mouse feel of the movies and beef’s up the slender games. I also like the multiple card captain/crew “flip” option like the Kelvin set and even the “buy them as you use them” upgrade point pool house rule.
Enterprise
One of my favourites, which like lovers of Voyager puts me in a minority, this period brings us a range of early antagonists, some flavourful, emerging favourites and the Xindi as a whole universe of hurt. The ships are generally well scaled, look great and are factionally flavoured. None are super fast, but agility is high and lower point costs balance these generally weaker ships offensively and defensively.
Terran (not the Federation yet). Three ships (1 ISS version). I am not a huge fan of the choices Wizkids made, such as obvious captain choices missed, but there is enough to crew all three ships for early fleet actions. A lack of shields is off-set by top of the period agility and some awesome crew. Their role is quite different to the TOS dynamic. The NX curiously has the same base stats as an X Wing Tie fighter (2-3-3-0) even with a similar dial (except speed, but even better turns), but unlike the Tie it can take a huge array of upgrades, especially as the Enterprise, which make for a different style of game and unique Fed style ship. I would assume, three Tie Fighters would be needed to beat the fully crewed Enterprise.
I do have two more of the bigger Vulcan ships coming, but I think these may be used as alternate, later period Vulcans for the TOS set (reasonable?), as they unbalance my fleet and are guess what….. painted differently.
Andorian. Two cruisers makes for a decent showing, three would have been better (Motley Fleet expansion would be ideal, but all gone). Stronger individually than the Terrans, the Andorian ships make useful allies or lethal enemies.
Vulcan. The Vulcans get 4 ships and the strongest single fleet outside of the combined Xindi, with 2 smaller Suurok and 2 (or 4) bigger D’Kyr. As tough as the Andorians, the Vulcans fatten out an allied fleet against the Xindi or can take on any others in the period on their own.
Xindi. I missed the Weapon Zero expansion, but have 2 Reptilian, 3 Insectoid and 2 Aquatic ships, which makes for a powerful and varied fleet (with the Aquatic standing out as the one really poorly scaled ship in this range, more a fish bowl than a lake). Hypothetically, they can also fight amongst themselves, but either way, they add the bulk the period needs and each feels quite different to the others.
No Weapon Zero, but still a match for any other allied faction.
Romulans. My fleet for the mysterious early Romulans is actually quite big. Two Drones with card expansion (like the show) and 2 BoP, again, like the show. Drones take the prize as the best ships made by Wizkids and it is a truly scary beast. Competitive even in later periods, it is just a harbinger of doom in this period. The upgrades available are many and the fleet, if fielded all at once, is very tough. Early Cloaking, Drone manoeuvring and good captains mean this small fleet can even give the Xindi a scare.
Decent fleets, lots of diversity for the Romulans, but a bit thin for the Klingons.
Klingons. Like the Romulans, the Klingons probably get a bigger fleet than their very occassional appearances in the series deserve, but after picking up the bonus card expansion, it became possible to field 4 ships with a choice of applications. They are also dirt cheap and relatively weak, so several are needed to make a decent showing.
ISS. The mirror universe can be fielded with all three NX ships if Terran dials and a base token are used, so a full “we hate the universe” alternative game is possible. Archer vs Archer is also tempting, maybe with alternate allied fleets or Borg/8742/Tholians (as was). Either way, a little fun. The mirrior universe fleets are often a bit of a waste as they are never fleshed out (and often can’t be), but they are a good way of getting some card variety, scenario ideas and cheap ships (they are universally unpopular, so are ofetn on clearance) and I usually throw in a few other MU upgrades just for fun.
Hypotheticals. Technically the Tholians did make an appearance, but in the ISS universe. That aside, I find it very plausible to let the time travelling Borg, Dimension traversing Species 8472 and the enigmatic Tholians into this period. The Tholians can field their whole 5 ship fleet, the others should be limited to single ship “first contact” scenarios, or small representative fleets against entire allied fleets, but as a decent replacement to the Weapon Zero option, my single Borg Tac Cube or even a single sphere can be a “Weapon Zero” like fleet killer.
Kelvin Timeline
This is a tough one.
2 Federation ships, 2 Klingons with mostly hypothetical crew, the options are limited, but if you like the new movies (I do) and the massive, gorgeous ships (I do) and the double sided cards (I do and have house ruled multi purchases of various crew and captains to be used similarly), then there is some hope.
I have added to the upgrade options just a little, to help with depth and a little cross-over theming. A good introductory game option. Like the Enterprise series, I wish they would add a little more to this (The Romulan mining vessel as a huge ship, Kralls’ mining drone ships, the massive Vengence and a Khan option, maybe even the little Klingon patrol ships), but I doubt there will be anything coming and to honest even as I write this I cannot see many realistically balanced scenarios playing out.
A Kelvin Enterprise vs Borg campaign might be fun.
*In a faction limited environment, chances to share, on a very limited basis, Captains or upgrades in non-canon combinations is limited, but in some scenarios, allied fleets may share, such as Terran-Andorian and Terran-Vulcan vs Xindi, Federation-Romulan-Klingon in the Dominion War etc.