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Aggressive ship, I like it.


























Just no damned clue as to why it's been painted silver... ?

I like it, I'm glad it isn't a 5 attack fast ship like the Prometheus or E. It is a nice cross between the Galaxy and Nebula with a Klingon dial Someone on BGG that has the pack confirmed that both captains are admirals. Rapid reload it the instant fire button people want for the torpedoes. I will definitely get one.

One? How about 4? That's how I feel, I want four of these, Rapid Reload isn't unique either, TORPEDO BUILDS AWAY!!!

Federation Task Force on your highest skill captain, um maybe Picard , and you can have 3 ships fire torpedoes w/BS throw High Yields on and you can have a reroll too.

I had torp build with the Akorem when it came out, now I get to have some really nasty builds with feds. Finally

I am looking at purchasing at least two of these ships. Lack of a rear arc kinda sucks, but as pointed out- 2-3 of these with Photons and Rapid Reload make for an awesome Alpha Strike build.

Maybe throw in two of these and a Sutherland?

It doesn't have a rear Arc? ... ... ... ... ... ...WIZKIIIIIDDDSS!!!!!!

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
It doesn't have a rear Arc? ... ... ... ... ... ...WIZKIIIIIDDDSS!!!!!!

Well you could buy 4 Enterprise Es for Dorsal Phaser Arrays to go with your 4 Thunderchilds that is a lot of cash. I am not a big fan of the Sovereign Class, that is why I only have one Dorsal Phaser. I would like a second but was hoping one would come in this pack, guess I'll have to hold out and see if there is one in the Phoenix.

Someone on BGG pointed out and I agree that I wish they would have left out all the Dorsal weapon add ons and made 180 front and 90 backs the Fed thing in STAW. Though 360 doesn't always help I guess. I have only seen poor Enterprise D played a handful of times since Voyager was released.

See I love my romulans but comparing the Vrax to this..... This is not fair, I mean don't get me wrong the Prometheus was a great romulan release, why worry about janky release when romulan hijackers can just steal decent ships.


A little bitter but a great fed ship with captain Riker's action built in as a passive and insta refiring torps, though with Picard 9 and the enterprise E that's not new but a new way of doing it for generic ships. Great captains and some serious borg racism going on

If you are taking Admiral Hayes you may as well double up and take Clark Terrell on his ship because you are already flying in close formation.

This pack is so full of win...

**Disclaimer: I have NOT read WORF nor do I intend on spending a lot of my time researching rulings for this

The Thunderchild
OK, great ship. Love the stats. 4/3/5/3 gives it a lot of staying power. 2 agility on a big ship is full of win. Just look at the Reman Warbird to understand why. Throw a cloaking device on this ship and it's now rocking 6 defense dice in a faction that has a lot of conversions (crew, tech upgrades). I love the "free damage" aspect of it's ability, and that it's NOT an action. Will it ever be a deciding factor? Probably not. But it's not an attack, says nothing about arcs, and as it's not an attack, your opponent gets no defense against it. You don't get to convert or add dice to it, but still. It's a good ability.

Standard Evade, TL, Scan, and BS actions.

Last, the upgrades. 3 weapons, 1 crew. No tech (Boo!). I would have preferred two weapons, 1 tech 1 crew, but oh well. There are ways around this: Fleet Captains, crew cards that give extra crew, Systems Upgrade, etc. So it's not a bog deal, just means you'll need some creative workarounds for it. Me thinks Systems Upgrade will ALWAYS be used on this ship. The Feds have some awesome tech upgrades that you always want to use.

The Maneuver Dial has entirely too much red on it for my taste. It looks like a Nova class dial without the red reverse 1. Yeah, I'm not too keen on it. But we can make it work, right?

Captains
I've heard over at Facebook that Hayes is also an Admiral. If so... I think we may have the new Admiral everyone will be taking. Not playing Faction Pure? Mix in a little Donatra, or Martok, or Gowron and suddenly, you are throwing a LOT of attack dice. Could be fun!

Shanthi is a good captain for her points. Nice to see that occasionally Wizkids gets point right. I can't see using her in a main ship capacity, and her skill is a little low to use her cloak token ability offensively. All in all, Cloakers are going to accept the fact that they will have to flip the token over to attack, and next turn spend an action to re-enable the cloak. Shanthi's action doesn't really affect a cloaker's plan of attack except for those 1-2 Romulan builds that rely on Donnatra on the Romulan Science Vessel or Apex (?) that stays cloaked the entire game, and exists only for the bonus to other ships and as a mine layer for cloaked mines. That little ship has annoyed me to no end before.

Weapon Upgrades
No surprise here. They are Fed Photons with Time Tokens. See below for more comment on that...

Elite Talents
Persistence is a card that won't be easy to use. As you don't check for it's conditions until the Roll Attack Dice step, you won't have to waste it. Note that to satisfy it's base conditions, you check in the Roll Attack Dice step, NOT the Modify Attack Dice step. It feels more like a 3 point card, and might be good on a >4 attack die ship, but as I've always said, if you can't throw at least 6 attack dice in this game, then don't bother.

Intercept is not a card I'd put on the Thunderchild. No, I'd put it on a Tinyprise or NX-01 with lots of Defense to soak up the attack. Here's my little itty bitty ship flying along side my Dreadnaught of Destruction. Of course you are going to try and take out the DD. But hey, check it out! I have a "get out of jail free" card for when you throw 8 Attack Dice at me.

Federation Task Force is an interesting card. Most often, we see elite talents only affect the ship they on. This one gives you up to three "free" target locks for three different ships for 5 points and one action. Eh, it's a bit steep and it's a discard, so could be a good gimmick card for a Torpedo Alpha Strike build.

Rapid Reload
Could very well be the best card in this Wave if you are running Time Token weapons. Rapid Reload could allow you to shoot a secondary Time Token weapon every turn. Well, as long as you can re-enable Rapid Reload and get a Target Lock on a ship. While Picard can easily do this feat, other ships and other captains cannot. So this is a nice extra for those times when you can't take Picard. The only bad thing here is that it's a Federation Card, and when playing in Faction pure environments, well... this card should have been another faction. It's a good card for any weapon with Time Tokens, and as it looks like every secondary weapon from now on will use Time Tokens, this could become a must have card. Great price (2 points!), and could count as whatever upgrade you want/need, Don't forget those cards that give upgrade discounts either.

Summary
I really like this ship and expect to see it a lot. Maybe it'll take the place of the Defiant in a lot of builds. It's hard to say. Don't see it taking the Constitution's place, as it's all about the upgrade bar on those ships and the abilities crew gives them. All in all, just when I thought you couldn't carve another niche in the Fed's Starship line up, this little gem comes along. It's a good time to be a Federation player!

No rear arc, NO REAR ARC!!!!

Don't get me wrong this is a fantastic pack from what we know, but for a torp boat not having a rear arc sucks, it's the only reason I don't run the Yeager more.

But with this, high yield torpedoes, the Yeager, Enterprise E, Captain Spock, starter set Picard, Donatra. Torpedo Alpha Strike Super Team for the win.

I can already see how I can get 8 attack dice, with re-rolls and battle station on the E. Take the 6 dice photons that come with it, +1 from Donatra, +1 from doing Hayes fleet action, starter Picard does a battlestation and the ship next door gives you a target lock for re-rolls as the E doesn't need it to fire the torps. If you use fire at will you can shoot your primary at something as well. Have I missed anything?

If it had a rear arc I would be buying multiples, as it is will probably just get the one.
Also no tech slot hurts it, I know systems upgrade from the hood fixes that but relying on an OP prize ship isn't great. Especially if I don't win one in our local stores event next weekend!

It should have a rear arc, this is totally unacceptable... What good is modelling the aft torpedo launcher if you're not going to incorporate the rear arc?

Strictly speaking in game terms, this is a great ship. I won't argue that, not at all...

I will argue that this is so not true to the fluff.

The Akira class is a cruiser, not a battleship like the Galaxy or the Sovergein. Its firepower is good, as it is among the front runners of the new Federations combat ships. Agility two fits, but its hull should be a 3 or 4, and its shields should be a 4 or 5.

Firing arc should be 180 with a rear arc, should have a Red 5 straight, the 2 banks should be green.

The ships is a small, fast cruiser with a 360 firing arc and 6 torpedo launchers in the fluff... this barely does it justice...

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
It should have a rear arc, this is totally unacceptable... What good is modelling the aft torpedo launcher if you're not going to incorporate the rear arc?

I think what they do is only have the ships represent what was actually seen on screen instead of speculating from books or the various starship manuals. A perfect example is the studio model for the D'Deridex has aft disruptor banks, but they are never used on screen, so we don't get them on the ship. About all we saw Akira class ships doing on screen was fire straight ahead and blowing up, so that leaves WK in a bit of a pickle. Same thing goes for the Yeager, we only saw it fire straight ahead in First Contact. I don't think it kills the ship. It has 3 weapon slots after all. If you play faction pure there is Dorsal Phaser array. If you play mixed the Dorsal Weapons Array that came with the Prakesh would only be 3 points.

As for the 360 phasers I don't recall any ship other than Voyager firing a phaser shot directly aft. You see a lot of torpedoes and side ways phasers but we don't see a lot of aft firing. It would have been thematic to give the Feds 270 arc for primary weapons and 90 for aft secondaries but that would have made them really strong from the get go. Those kind of arcs plus the early days of Picard/Sulu would have been a disaster. Personally I think the game would be much better without all of the 360s that we have today.

With the vast amount of information available on these ships (memory Alpha, Beta, Wiki's, published ship construction manuals), there is no excuse for Wizkids NOT to do a little bit of research and find out that the Akira class ships had rear firing torps, or that the D'Drex had a rear arc as well, or any of a dozen other things that these ships don't have.

In looking at these ships, there is no reason that any Fed ship with a saucer section wouldn't have a 180 arc and a 90 rear arc. The Dominion Cardassian ships all have 180 arcs and they have a similar saucer section to the Federation ships, but I can't see how they would have rear arcs The Klingon Birds of Prey should be a 90 front and no rear, while the D6 and D7's should be 90 front and rear. Romulans... just have weird ships and it would have to be a case by case basis. Other ships would have to be a case by case as well.

This is just by me, as it's still a fun game as long as you forget about scale and certain ships not having abilities that they should. /shrug

Me thinks Wizkids never really expected this game to take off the way it did. They probably looked at their Heroclix Star Trek and it's poor sales, and thought "Well, we need to do something else with this IP or we'll loose a bunch of money!" They acquired the game mechanic license from FFG, and made the game. It was probably a rushed development, and even though it was initially planned out to Wave 4, I can totally see how there was no forethought placed into the game beyond Wave 4 nor anything beyond the Dominion OP. They have done a good job for the most part since then considering all the mistakes made earlier and the need for a new edition of the game.

But hey! This thread is about the Thunderchild!
USS Thunderchild (28)
Mr. Spock Capt (4)
Quantum Torps (6)
Dorsal Phaser Array (5)
Systems Upgrade (2)
Multi-adaptive Shields (5)
Rapid Reload (2)

I'd fly this ship! You could easily drop the Multi-Adaptive Shields, Dorsal Phaser Array, Quantum Torps, and even Systems Upgrade for say, Lojur, non-Time Token Photon Torps x2, and use High Yield Photon Torps resource to throw out Photon Torps every turn. I have the System Upgrade and Multi-adaptive Shields on there because I see a lot of Cloaked Mines in my meta.

I just have to say this,

Thunder, Thunder, THUNDERCHILD HO!


For some reason I really want to run this ship with the Sutherland .

I won't argue that its going to be a fun ship. I still will buy several, but the Akira has a very dear place in my heart from playing Star Trek Legacy on the 360, so I was mildly hurt and angry...

I agree that the massive number of 360 firing arcs is annoying, but the lack of consistent rear firing arcs and the fact that essentially ONLY the old Fed ships have 180 is annoying...

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
It should have a rear arc, this is totally unacceptable... What good is modelling the aft torpedo launcher if you're not going to incorporate the rear arc?

I think what they do is only have the ships represent what was actually seen on screen instead of speculating from books or the various starship manuals. A perfect example is the studio model for the D'Deridex has aft disruptor banks, but they are never used on screen, so we don't get them on the ship. About all we saw Akira class ships doing on screen was fire straight ahead and blowing up, so that leaves WK in a bit of a pickle. Same thing goes for the Yeager, we only saw it fire straight ahead in First Contact. I don't think it kills the ship. It has 3 weapon slots after all. If you play faction pure there is Dorsal Phaser array. If you play mixed the Dorsal Weapons Array that came with the Prakesh would only be 3 points.

As for the 360 phasers I don't recall any ship other than Voyager firing a phaser shot directly aft. You see a lot of torpedoes and side ways phasers but we don't see a lot of aft firing. It would have been thematic to give the Feds 270 arc for primary weapons and 90 for aft secondaries but that would have made them really strong from the get go. Those kind of arcs plus the early days of Picard/Sulu would have been a disaster. Personally I think the game would be much better without all of the 360s that we have today.

Actually, regarding the Yeager, i'm pretty sure we saw a few Saber classes firing to the rear in DS9's battle scenes. As well as the Akira. It fired to the side and rear a couple of times I think on screen in DS9.

It is also shown firing directly to the side in every gaming resource. Tamwulf is right: with the information on each ships abilities readily available after a simple Google search, it is totally unacceptable to have these issues.

From the pics of the Thunderchild cards it looks as if it is firing forward.

There are other resources out there, but WK may not have the license to them. Things may have changed, but back when the game first came out Andrew Parks said that they only had rights to make things from the TV shows and Movies up to Nemesis. He also said that every card had to go to CBS for approval before it could be printed. So things like books and video games are outside of the WK license. Now I believe the license does include scripts which is where they get some of the crew and ship names.


How they snuck The Avatar of Tomed past CBS I'll never no, but I guess when you are William Shatner you get whatever the you want

I suppose that makes sense... Its just saddening for me to see stuff not represented the way I feel it should. but, that's the problem with making anything for rather large Fan base... SOMEONE is going to be butthurt. this time its me, next time, maybe some one else.

The game still plays well, could be better, but it could be ALOT worse.

Memory Alpha *is* everything on screen in TV and movies, Akira is seen on screen firing rear in places, you just have to look for it. I'm pretty sure Memory Alpha says the Akira's torpedo pod fires rear.

Memory alpha is an independent site not owned by CBS. The also take information from a lot of coffee table books that go over ship design.

So... We should blame CBS for the inaccuracy?

I don't think inaccuracy is the correct word. In trek only what appeared in the shows and movies are canon. None of the books or video games are canon so they can kinda do their own thing. The books can't even agree on what class Riker's USS Titan is. One series says its a Prometheus and another says it is its own class. Does that make one inaccurate, no its fiction. There is no inaccuracy, it just may not be canon and hence not covered under the License.

Yes, but it doesn't change the fact that we *have* seen the Saber and Akira firing in multiple directions not just forward on screen.

I won't say your wrong, but I don't recall any scenes that show that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm sure it's not all of the on screen footage of the Akira, but this guy has a good compilation of on screen canon.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFywcNmO0YI)

If it is all, I actually give WK some props for making an expansion out of less than a min of on screen time. I didn't see any shots of it firing backwards.

I think its dumb that CBS isn't allowing them to pull from CBS backed games (like Star Trek Legacy). I mean, the CBS logo is on the product, nearly every ship from the game has appeared in the shows, and it would have made Wizk!ds job soooo much easier.

 Corpsman913 wrote:
I think its dumb that CBS isn't allowing them to pull from CBS backed games (like Star Trek Legacy). I mean, the CBS logo is on the product, nearly every ship from the game has appeared in the shows, and it would have made Wizk!ds job soooo much easier.

CBS may not have 100% rights to this, Bethesda Softworks may have joint creative rights, i'm no expert just my guess.