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Had my first proper game last night; I took a couple of pics:

So me in the corner with a Jem'hadar battleship under Dukat and Gor Portas (Breen Warship) uprated to Flagship status and full of Breen. Up against a tricked out Voyager and Equinox, 2 lots of Klingons, and a Romulan stealth swarm.

Mostly, the Klingons went after the Feds and I tried not to get outmaneuvered by Roms (one of our local TOs, metropolis).


Learned a lot, really enjoyed it, as did the other newb purple_snap (wearing the reverse flash T) playing Klingons.

We ended up piling into the Romulans, and a good time was had by all. The fact that in casual play locally folk stick to single faction adds to the enjoyment: it's clear there are some preposterous combos. Funnily, it reminds me of Warmahordes in some ways - it's almost a card game with models. However, the maneuver side of the game is really interesting, highly tactical, and very very entertaining. More will follow, I suspect.

Off the top of me head:
Sportsmanship, as voted by other players?
Rule of cool - unique/fluffy/unusual build or tactics
Re-Painting...

So, thinking about faction pure dominion build for Arena OP. I wonder about Dukat, Weyoun (7) and Cardassian (1) on 3 suicidal attack ships as a starting point; I was considering a triple galor threat but don't think it's viable for format. Wave 6 won't be legal, btw, and can't guarantee a Damar/3rd wing ship . This is just roughly, in my head for now, as am away from my toys. I know a triple threat Picard/Dukat/Khan would be scary but I'm determined (read: bloody stubborn) to stay pure. Initial thoughts? Is this a viable idea?

On further consideration, I came up with this list:
Jem'hadar Attack Ship 20
Weyoun 5
Phased Polaron 4*
Toman'Torax 4*
Kudak'Etan 4*

Jem'hadar Attack Ship 20
Thot Gor 4
Phased Polaron 4*
Suicide Attack 5

Jem'hadar Attack Ship 20
Luaran 2
Phased Polaron 4*
Ixtana'Rax 0*

Elite Attack Die 5

100 on the nose.
1 solid captain, 1 reasonable and 1 fair, a mix of ships with counter, sacrifice and aggression, and the elite die for captain battles too. On paper, at least, pretty happy with it. Thoughts?

I was thinking luaran's generally such a good buy, but I see where you're coming from - sod the upgrades, captain to the Max. That triple threat keldon is scary as. If i can get a 4th attack ship (or a 3rd fleet one, rather ) then i might go for broke there.Is it worth sticking the 1 pt breen captain in too, or take the fact that you're under the 100?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Being dumb.
Dukat C7 5sp
Weyoun c7 5sp
Thot Gor c7 5sp
Thot Pran c6 4sp

Yrah,that's vicious.

So I had a great night last night, using the 3 jemhadar ship build above against a weaponised sphere and fed fighters.

I got completely monstered by the borg, although it was a lot of fun and only narrowly went against me. I misjudged my suicide run on the borg sphere by 1mm so only managed to lay into with my polaron beam. Although between them 3 jemhadar attack ships seriously dented it, he toasted me. By his own admission though, it was seriously close and had he been running a drone based sphere I'd have also had him. The borg are scarily nasty, but not unstoppable if you approach them right - also, I hadn't specifically meta'd vs Borg, so was really happy with how I coped.

A follow up. I was looking again at the Rav Laerst. Is it me or is the EDW pretty nasty vs Borg? You could run something like:
Rav Laerst, EDW, Thor Gor
Breen Battleship, EDW, Sal
Jem'Hadar attack Ship, Suicide Attack, Thot Pran

For 100 pts? EDW's not magnificent ordinarily, I appreciate, but Borg ships are such a massive points sink that this could potentially be scary as.

Hmm. Well, I'm assuming that I can maneuver pretty effectively. I think that's always going to be a trade-off.

 easysauce wrote:

borg only can move at the 90's, once you learn how to take advantage of this and cut the 45 degree angles, it gets a lot easier to set up a guaranteed first pass. just have to have a way to cover your rear flank afterwards

Yup, hence the second Breen Warship

I had a further thought on the 4 captain jem'hadar attack ship arena build: Cruiser Dukat/Weyoun are both 8/5. So with Thots Gor and Pran that's 29 points of Captain

Sounds brilliant - must try that scenario!

That's hilarious, fluffy, and very very silly. Bit mean, but you're not doing it to go for the win, you're doing something interesting and thematic. Gorn is a solid stand-in for a Nausicaan

Just you talking about this, MrSBaldrick, has got me thinking about a pure Breen version (scampers off, cackling wildly)...

Further to that, I think the way to go might be with a Rav with dissipator and ion thrusters, and a loaded torpedo boat/flagship(K-Ind) Gor. Both dissipate to make targets of enemy ships, Rav dodges about, Gor lays a bit of damage (any works in your favour). That's the theory.
For 3, I wonder if a similar strategy but replacing the Gor Portas with a cloaking, dorsal keldon could work.

Agreed, hence the gunboat. I'm willing to roll with the ed losing utility as it'll have done it's job by then. Tbh I don't think I'd use the breen on two consecutive ops because it'd be spotted a mile of and dull to play.

Unfortunately, WizKids are notorious for terrible, terrible power creep.

I played a game of Arena tonight; I lost, but it was very close at every stage. I ran:
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship x4
Weyoun 8
Dukat 8
Thot Gor
Thor Pran
-99

He ran
Akorem
--Janeway
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
-Sisko
Bajoran Interceptor 5
-Kirk
Equinox
-Picard

So he was running the same list concept as me (by his own admission), with 9,9,8,6 against my 8,8,7,6.
It came down to a one wound advantage on the planet, which he won, and then lots of chasing around the board after reset where he tried to divided and conquer while I did bombing runs. He won - those extra tokens from Picard and Janeway clinching it - though none of his ships walked away unscathed. So, a good game, good fun, and an interesting match up. Reinforces my feeling that scenarios or massive battles are the way to play this game.

Our TO kindly provided us with left over OP resources (neither of us had made it to Arena, and these were our lists). He'd been to a collective 1 at the weekend, and we were discussing tactics - he suggested on top of my planned J'H Battle-tank, I take Hidekis so that the Borg always have a target and use them to effectively limit its movement. An interesting thought!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh - my opponent's list was 100 points. Winning all the ties because I was at 99 meant I survived an awful lot longer than I would have otherwise!

Here's my thoughts for collective op1:
4th Battleship 36
Weyoun6 4
Admiral Dukat 5
Omet'iklan 5
Photon Torpedoes 6
Photon Torpedoes 5
Shroud 1
Captured Intelligence 3
Hideki Squadron 20

85, 5 to spare.

Named ship for the extra hull but more importantly the slots. Weyoun6 and Shroud render you immune to assimilation from the BCT, the Hidekis are there to essentially run in and control the BCT's movement whilst the ship sits at range 3 and snipes away, with extra punch from Dukat, Omet'iklan and torpedoes.

Tempted to stick in the 1-2 Polaron for the remaining 5, but it also gives me wiggle room dependent on the blind ship.

All the blind ships fit nicely, the Raider's particularly great for this and the bug compliments by the Battleship.

Thoughts?