After shedding the bulk of my AW collection, I am still left with a decent showing, but more specialised, tighter and on theme.

I have stayed with the original points costs, deliberately avoiding the newer, cheaper ones, staying consistent. These new costs make older ships and builds obsolete, but I am not a gamer more than I am a simulation-ist, so “best buys” are of little interest if it means the ships that fit my vision become poor choices.

I have to admit, nothing puts me off more these days than a nerd-fest of gamers pulling apart any game purely from a win-loose perspective.

I am drawn to the elegance of the base system, the balance inherent in the early offerings and the “Trekki-ness” of the game. My X Wing collection often boils down to this also, using a heavily cut down 1e game, trying to hero both the system and the subject rather than chase competitive “perfection”.

I miss the Scimitar, Enterprise-E and some other bits, but have a solid representative set of the real core ships, the ships that defined the TNG and DS9 franchises*.

I went with a main flagship, support ship, something in a specialist-faction representative and an exotic where I could and it turned out to be both do-able and well balanced. This is sitting so well with me** that I have not been tempted by a few rare faction packs that have emerged recently***.

I need to remember, I sold more than half my collection in a move towards “de-gaming” my life, so lets not get carried away.

Federation

• Main; A Galaxy class Enterprise-D with two builds, one normal-defensive, the other one more of a combat refit from the Fed v Klingon starter I think.

• Specialist; A Nebula class, the T’Kumbra from the Vulcan faction pack. This is the tech heavy ship which also takes Vulcan upgrades making it even more “Spocky”. I also held onto two different “generic” cards for this one.

• Support; The Akira class war pony, Thunderchild, because it is a solid representative of the new order of warships and a good hardliner (and I love the name, inspired I assume from the War of the Worlds ship that valiantly sacrificed itself to save others).

• Exotic; A squadron of fighters, just because they are a different dynamic all together.

I have all the correct upgrades as well as any duplicates from other sets (2 different Picards, 4 Rikers etc), so each ship and the fleet as a whole is well served. This is probably the most balanced, flexible and upgrade powerful fleet, but lacking a real “hammer” ship, as it should be.

The Romulans

• Main; The D’Deridex class is represented by one ship, but the option of the Haakona or Khazara, which similar to the two Enterprise options, give me a defensive/Tech and offensive option.

• Support; The Valdore class Vrax. The Valdore had to go with the Scimitar and Ent-E and the Vrax should have also, but I was keen to keep one. I found when playing a movie based scenario, all three ships were too much for the Scimitar, so it will not be missed. The Valdore is more Klingon like, toothier but more fragile than the D’Deridex, almost a Klingon ship.

• Specialist; I kept a single Scout ship, the Vo, but also have cards for the Science vessel Apnex and have just ordered a cheap Talvath (again) for the six powerful tech upgrades I parted with. The Vo is the only agility three ship in this form of my game, with a free evade if not attacking and cloaking, so it is very hard to hit and the Apnex and Talvath are very cheap “one trick ponies” or distraction ships, both very different to each other. The top two are expensive ships, so these little fillers are ideal and allow access to all the funky Romulan tricks.

• Exotic; The little Scorpion fighters were limited to the last Movie (as is the Vrax), but I really like them and they add a Reman vibe.

The Romulans are the sneaky, elusive and tricky faction. I have plenty of upgrades, especially crew and captains including some surplus ones from other, earlier periods (cloaked mines). You will not know what is coming with these guys, which is part of their vibe.

The Dominion

• Main; 4th Division Battleship. The big bad of the Dominion.

• Support; 2nd Division Battle cruiser. I change the models for these two over because the B/C model is actually bigger than the B/S, which is……..B.S. Nobody cares or even knows and it looks better. The battleship is also faster, which suits the sleeker look of the B/C.

• Specialist; One 5th Wing Attack ship which does double duty as the Robinson in another set.

• Exotic; The Gor Portas Breen battle cruiser, with all its nasty tricks. What a militant bunch they are!

Fairly straight forward except for the Breen ship, this is a simple fleet that likes to run in numbers, hit hard, but can be brittle. Because I had a big fleet with lots of duplicates, they do not lack variety. I have a ton of upgrades for these, no Admiral, but a surplus of crew and Breen weapons.

The Cardassians

• Main; The Keldon class Koranak flagship.

• Support; The Kraxon representing the more common Galor class.

• Specialist; The Dreadnaught 4107 from Voyager. This was called out as an Alpha quadrant thing, so it follows they would be here. It also fits the brutal, merciless Cardassian feel.

• Exotic; The 1st Wave Hideki fighters, last of the three fighter types and quite strong, more like small line ships than fighters.

The other half of the Dominion alliance, these guys are fast, slightly unpredictable and reasonably cheap with a ton of upgrades. Very light on crew (or the need for many), but sporting the only alliance Admiral, the Dominion are over done the other way, so room to swap freely, as they did.

The combined Alliance fleet can field 220 pts in ships and 70 upgrade cards, even if they are a little unbalanced.

The Borg

• Main; The Octagon Queen Vessel in two forms like the Enterprise and D’Deridex, the options here are “legion”.

• Other; Sphere 4270, the work horse. I have a second, but have no room in the points cost for it.

• Specialist; The Tactical Cube 138, the closest thing I have to a mini-giant Borg cube. This one was very hard to track down coming through a clearance sale from California in the end and took a good month to arrive. The only medium base ship I have, it manages to add some menace.

Strongest in points and hard to beat, the Borg tend to be all about the ships, regeneration, Multi-directional movement and powerful, but expensive weapons. They are brooding punching bags with claws.

This faction was the only one I “held back” a little as it was mostly a Voyager-Delta Quadrant thing, so it is the strongest in points (168 in these ships alone) and 50 upgrade cards. I think I could easily field a 350pt fleet here, which matches any two others combined. The big issue here is the Queen is the only captain that can field the many elite talents, but that is how it is.

Species 8742

• All main/specialist; 3x Bio-ships, Alpha, Beta and I guess Gamma. Simple but very effective, especially in numbers. These are the second strongest faction and scare the Borg more than most as they are effectively immune to many Borg strengths and have some the Borg truly hate as well as regeneration.

I have all the upgrades from the Alpha and Beta variants (the buyer got a single ship, which is about all the other series ever met, but all the upgrades), so they are fully mean and dangerous even with the fewest ships and lowest upgrade count. This fleet tops 100 pts with only three ships (I kept the three that matched).

The Klingons

• Main; One Vor’Cha class the Maht-M’a “modern” cruiser

• Specialist; One B’Rel class “small” BOP the Rotaran.

• Support; One bigger K’Vort class BOP the Koraga.

• Exotic; One old warhorse K’Tinga class the T’Ong. This one gets around as a decent representative of the class and just kept popping up.

Nothing exotic, just solid ships with strong teeth and a plethora of crew and command choices. A sentimental favourite and decently balanced, its strength is in its “people”.

Each mini fleet has roughly 100+ pts of named ships, and about the same or more in upgrades.

Rules mods I have been pondering are;

1. Hidden upgrades (and captains) until revealed in play. Who are you fighting? You may even hide the identity of the captain until you decide to play their skill value for initiative (see below), so a cat and mouse game of rolls for initiative can play out then the big reveal of the captains identity (and skill).

2. Set dials then determine the actual order semi-randomly (+/- 1d6 rolling one negative one against a positive one) + Captain skill, or not-see above) for move and fire (maybe even separate rolls using two differently coloured die or trading off), which adds some much needed unpredictability to the game. Kirk is good at skill 9, but one point of difference over the otherwise brilliant Romulan commander (skill 8) should not always give him the edge, especially in small scenario driven games.

3. For some smaller sets (one ship TOS/TOM/Kelvin), all upgrades are available for their price, but a maximum point spend limit is imposed in-game, so the ship may field “X” points, but only have active upgrades equal to available Icons. The captain can call on a full choice of Elite upgrades, up to a points limit, but chose which to take as they go. This was particularly good for TOM/TOS fights, but even without most of those ships anymore :(, it fits their small fleet-limited option dynamic. It even extends to changing captains and suits generic ships well.

* I kept all of the Voyager and Enterprise series as well as a scattering of other ships, but these are the main head-to-head opponents.

**Attack Wing for me was always a tug-of-war between trying to keep up with all the OP’s and complete the collection (a better idea than a massive X Wing collection, but hindsight and all that) or just keep it sane and represent the game, which the above has done. I never appreciated Wizkids OP heavy offer, not having access to a community of players or retailers supporting them, but they did produce a game that is fun with a few ships and healthy upgrade options. Even the base set is plenty.

***Tal Shiar and Ships of the Line, that effectively give me back my Last movie themed set and transparent, cloaked Romulans! The T-S set is tempting, but apart from the transparent ships and a weapon upgradeable Tal Shiar (which took some confirming after the fandom entry for other scout ships was incorrect), there are few tech cards, repeats of several and Captains and crew and the balance of the whole is knocked off by too many ships with new, lower points costs. It all feels too much like a re-escalation that I am trying to avoid.