My Attack Wing “craft” session has finished. I have run out of need, ideas and more importantly, cards to pirate for my sets.
The last boxed set arrived, fittingly an original starter I got from Wizkids for $20 usd. This surprised me with two cards I did not realise I had sold off and lots of fillers. The ships were old paint schemes, which in two cases would require a re-paint. This went in an unusual direction (see below).
The very last ship and I really got lucky here, was a print damaged Sao Paulo Defiant class (which I replaced), so I still had the bad card and the temptation to use it.
Name? I was really limited.
The Independent was favourite (same vibe as Defiant), but the only cards I had were Marquis generic captains and the font was way too big. The one copy I did have was on a re-purposed ISS Enterprise and I cannot remember where it came from. It refused to move after a little poking and I even damaged it slightly, (many do come off, but some are committed).
The Gorn had a surplus Disruptor Barrage card, so Disruptor was in the mix, but then I stumbled on a lone and unlikely missed Nistrim Raider, so U.S.S. Raider was born. I needed to extend the grey top banner a little as the name was shorter, but all good, done that before.
The ship text had two options left*, one from an original Delta Flyer I, which read “weapon upgrades up to 4 SP may be used” plus a “-1 attack in rear fire arc” option, the other was the NX Enterprise’s “Free Hull Plating”. I was loath to use the Plating card even though it fit the theme, as I only had 2 for the NX period and a re-named NX, the USS Federation had taken up the free hull plating option (I still needed one for the Enterprise).
The first option was chosen, but the first bit stumped me. In theme it was acceptable as I had added a weapon slot to the Raider, but it is only small so a limit fit and there were plenty of sub 5pt options, but then I remembered the “Experimental Torpedo Bay” card, which allows you to “hide” a Torpedo card (any cost) under that 2 pt upgrade.
The DS9 period got a little attention, but the TOS and TNG Battle scales did also. The Dominion was a marriage of an Enterprise-D card and a Dominion Dreadnaught on another Galaxy, but let’s assume it was named before the war. The other half of the Dreadnaught card was a good fit on the flagship Prometheus class, Ni’Var means “of two worlds” in Vulcan and the USS Hunter was a neat inclusion.
I then realised I only had one Enterprise re-fit, but if I used it, I could not use my Ent-B card, so the USS Spectre, a weapon heavy war ship was created out of an excess Akira class card I had been hanging onto (thought it might be a second Mirror universe Constitution class).
Before this lucky collision of scarce resources, my project was Borg started.
My Borg offer is a little thin. I did not buy the big Cube, then let my scout the Soong and a Sphere go in my purge. I found myself re-buying a cheap Soong vessel to get some depth, then a couple of OP sets with a Scout cube each (one re-named), so a little better, but not ideal.
I missed the Assimilated ships box**, but I did have an excess of Klingon K’Vort, Vor’Cha, Romulan D’Deridex and Fed Galaxy and Akira ships, most in old or alternate colour schemes, so a grey/green repaint is booked and their cards have been…..assimilated.
They have better shields, usually by 2 values, increased primary by one usually, a Borg action bar and suitable ship ability if necessary. This means three ships lost cloaking, but I figured the Borg would have assimilated and used that tech if it suited them, so maybe the added shields and regeneration draw too much power for their massive ships, or more likely they do not see the need to hide.
Points were adjusted in line with other Borg ships and suddenly my fleet of Borg is quite large (11 ships total).
Other excess ships are scattered through my sets, but the Klingons needed a lot of variety, so rule 1* was applied with vigour.
The Klingons needed some fillers. Somraw means “Muscle”, so appearing in a few periods makes sense. The Gornar was an excess Gornarus, Ves Batlh is a ceremonial sword, so again commonly used, Mulan came from…Romulan, but feels right for Klingons who also have the Ning’Tao. The Gath’Oth was made from my very last Gal Gath’Thong Romulan BOP and Gr’oth Klingon D-7. Easier to pronounce than some Klingon names.
This is obviously never going to float in a competitive space, but it was never meant to. It is merely a way of turning unwanted repeat cards into something useful.
*Rule 1 of cut and paste is no repeats in the same era or set.
**Ironically my X-Wing and Armada collection caused me problems keeping up with my AW set. It’s ironic because I originally got into AW to avoid those two.