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Played in a local tournament on Friday. 100 points, ship pure, and you had to declare a faction and one of your ships had to be from that faction. Custom scenarios in line with the Dominion Organized Play scenarios. Our group is just getting started with Attack Wing, and a lot of us don't have any of the OP stuff yet. I went Dominion and ran a Battleship and Battle Cruiser. Nothing really fancy, couple crew upgrades.

Then I faced a single ship Voyager build. OK, not that big of a deal, until I saw his cards. Admirals Orders to give him +10 SP, so he has a 110 point ship. All four Officer Resource cards from Collective OP 3. Picard, Tom Paris, Chekov, Elizabeth Shelby, Transphazic Torpedoes, Quantum Torprdoes, Needs of the Many elite talent, Alblative Armor, Transphasic Shields?... couple more cards that didn't come into play, but...

Not to bitch too much here, but out of the 14 players there, only 2 had ever seen some of those cards, much less played against them. Not even the Tournament Organizer was aware of them or how they where used. It was insane, and I really, really felt blind sided. The fact that he was using cards from OP's we hadn't even done yet, and OP prizes none of us had even seen, just really turned my stomach. Gave me a lot of heartburn. I had so many questions and had little understanding if he was even playing the cards right (he admitted after the game that he got them all off eBay and read about this Voyager build online- he "Net-Decked"). He basically always had a "free" target lock, battle stations, and evasive maneuvers every turn thanks to Picard and the Officer Resource cards. He was throwing 4-6 attack dice with re-rolls and multiple conversions, and 4-6 evasion dice with conversions and multiple rerolls. Aux Power tokens? Hah! Chekov enabled him to still maneuver and get rid of any AWP's and get all his actions.

It was a very frustrating experience, and he very easily won against me. It was like I had zero chance of winning at all. I think I took a couple shields off him and his Transphasic shields card, and that was it. What bothered me the most is that I hadn't even seen or heard of most of the cards on his ship, and facing it blindly in a tournament made it all the worse. I know of some combo's that would have shut him down, but it was just ridicules. He walked through all of his opponents in the three rounds and won. He wasn't a jerk or anything, but I just felt like he walked in as a Gunslinger with cards no one else had access to (or even knew existed yet!) and swept the tournament. I wasn't the only one with a bit of heartburn about it.

This is just one of the things that really brings me down about Star Trek Attack Wing- if you have the rare cards, the chances of you winning go up dramatically. Not fun. Not fun at all.

For what it's worth, generally speaking people do not see 'Admirals Orders' as a legitimate thing anymore. - As I understand it, they were only a temporary stopgap experiment by Wizkids that even, at the time they were released, were only legal in certain scenarios.

Additionally, though it was probably all legal, I believe the Officer Resource cards are all known to be in need of very heavy FAQing by Wizkids.

The fault is with the game and how it is marketed rather than the player in question.

Honestly it sounds like the problem is the TO.

First off Admirals orders were only intended to be used in January & February. They have always been at the TOs discretion, but even WK said they should be used "occasionally". Admirals orders are extremely broken and most players would agree they were not even necessary when they came out. The better TOs allowed their players to vote before using them.

Second the TO really shouldn't have allowed resources from the Collective in the Dominion War. It doesn't viloate any rules, but those scenarios were designed with a much smaller pool of ships and resources in mind.


The big thing a lot of people don't get is WK runs their tournaments differently than a lot of games. They basically put out the scenarios and materials, but leave it to the local TOs to restrict what works for their store. It is no different than 40K Tos that ban forge world. Wizkids wants stores and TOs to make OPs the most fun for players so they keep spending money.

Most places I have seen that re run the Dominion war only allow the resources that came out in that OP and then only in the order they came out. I haven't heard about anyone using Admirals orders in months. You guys should talk to you TO and let him know what kind on OP the players want. I hate to say it, but if he won't listen walk.

Your group/store should consider setting it's own inhouse rules.

I don't blame a guy for bringing all that he can bring when it's a wide open playing field. I've faced enough cheese in 40k and not had issue with it at open tourney.

It's a whole different ball game if you're setting rules and standards for yourself personally and then go to a tourney of some kind that's open field, you can't blame a guy for attending such a thing with a list intended to win.

The store's players and organizer should sit down and hammer out clear rules to abide by imo.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Your group/store should consider setting it's own inhouse rules.

I don't blame a guy for bringing all that he can bring when it's a wide open playing field. I've faced enough cheese in 40k and not had issue with it at open tourney.

It's a whole different ball game if you're setting rules and standards for yourself personally and then go to a tourney of some kind that's open field, you can't blame a guy for attending such a thing with a list intended to win.

The store's players and organizer should sit down and hammer out clear rules to abide by imo.

I agree with all of this; it's just something we, the "core group" of about 4 guys, just didn't see coming. Honestly, we thought it was just going to be the 4 of us, with maybe a couple more here and there just for kicks, and we wouldn't really have to make up house rules. Peer pressure and open dialogue between the four of us would mean fun games for us to play. Suddenly, we went from 5-6 players for the Dominion OP 1-3, to 17 at the last OP event, with more people jumping on the bandwagon. When the core group sat down, we decided on ship pure and by social convention, no Borg. None of us wanted to be "that guy". Sure, one of us would shop up with something new or different, but it was more a "Hey! Look at this! Isn't that awesome? Let's see how this plays out..." Suddenly, we now have at least six Borg players, and another guy just announced his intentions to get into the game and play Borg as well. People are showing up with cards and ships many of us have never seen before. It's taken some very fast adjustments to adapt to the rapidly changing situation.

I like that we have so many new players, but yeah, the core group needs to sit down and have a "Gamer's Conference" to figure out how w are going to handle our sudden, but welcomed growth.

You guys really need to talk to your TO and bring up your concerns. The better TOs follow the direction of their players. I am hearing more and more about TOs making changes to keep players from leaving. The most notable thingsI have seen across the boards are banning Borg, banning certain resources, playing fleet/ship pure. The number of places i see doing this is increasing more with each wave.

admirals orders have been removed from the game basically, even WK says they are at TO's discretion to be used..

fact is, he cheated, unless your TO specifically allowed multiple resources, he cannot take admirals orders + other resources he took, he can only take one


Automatically Appended Next Post:
talk to TO's though, they are supposed to cater the game to the local players,

for my events I am always happy to mod the scenarios or fleet building rules for players as they see fit,

so far everyones good with ship pure or fleet pur faction, we dont handicapp borg because they no longer need handicapping as lots of counter borg things have come out, and the sphere is their best ship still

easysauce 614082 71885resource. 38fc245cda24ddf971cefa95472e77c.png wrote:admirals orders have been removed from the game basically, even WK says they are at TO's discretion to be used..

fact is, he cheated, unless your TO specifically allowed multiple resources, he cannot take admirals orders + other resources he took, he can only take one

Admirals orders were never a resource. They are their own thing. Way back when they came out Andrew Parks even said in the Preliminary FAQ that you could use the extra points from United Force to pay for a resource. It was also ruled that Federation & Hideki fighters counted as a ship for Strike Force.

 easysauce wrote:
admirals orders have been removed from the game basically, even WK says they are at TO's discretion to be used..

fact is, he cheated, unless your TO specifically allowed multiple resources, he cannot take admirals orders + other resources he took, he can only take one


Automatically Appended Next Post:
talk to TO's though, they are supposed to cater the game to the local players,

for my events I am always happy to mod the scenarios or fleet building rules for players as they see fit,

so far everyones good with ship pure or fleet pur faction, we dont handicapp borg because they no longer need handicapping as lots of counter borg things have come out, and the sphere is their best ship still

Did he cheat? Those are very strong words. Prove it? Prove that he cheated. After all maybe he made a mistake.

Was a mistake made? Yes. Did it effect the game and tournament? Yes. Does it suck? Yes. Big Time. Did the person cheat? I think no.

To say someone cheated without facts is really treading on a thin line and is liable. Do you want to be called a cheater if you ever make a mistake in a game? As the OP said, he is new to the game. He checked the internet for how to make his list. With so much to learn, I should know getting into Star Trek Attack Wing, there is so much to learn, it's very easy to forget something, mix it up with other rules or what ever.

I don't think the person cheated. If anything, the player made a mistake and nobody corrected him. Does it suck? Yes it does. Did he really mean to cheat? I can't say, but I go with that he made a mistake unless it can be proven he willingly knew what he was doing was against game rules.

Davor wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
admirals orders have been removed from the game basically, even WK says they are at TO's discretion to be used..

fact is, he cheated, unless your TO specifically allowed multiple resources, he cannot take admirals orders + other resources he took, he can only take one


Automatically Appended Next Post:
talk to TO's though, they are supposed to cater the game to the local players,

for my events I am always happy to mod the scenarios or fleet building rules for players as they see fit,

so far everyones good with ship pure or fleet pur faction, we dont handicapp borg because they no longer need handicapping as lots of counter borg things have come out, and the sphere is their best ship still

Did he cheat? Those are very strong words. Prove it? Prove that he cheated. After all maybe he made a mistake.

Was a mistake made? Yes. Did it effect the game and tournament? Yes. Does it suck? Yes. Big Time. Did the person cheat? I think no.

To say someone cheated without facts is really treading on a thin line and is liable. Do you want to be called a cheater if you ever make a mistake in a game? As the OP said, he is new to the game. He checked the internet for how to make his list. With so much to learn, I should know getting into Star Trek Attack Wing, there is so much to learn, it's very easy to forget something, mix it up with other rules or what ever.

I don't think the person cheated. If anything, the player made a mistake and nobody corrected him. Does it suck? Yes it does. Did he really mean to cheat? I can't say, but I go with that he made a mistake unless it can be proven he willingly knew what he was doing was against game rules.

As far as I can see there was no cheating or mistakes, as long as the TO allowed the Admirals Orders. Orders are NOT a resource, so he can have both the Orders & the officers resource. The rules for the officers state you can take 1-4 of them as a single resource, and up to 2 may be attached to a crew member.

However if the TO was going to allow Admiral Orders, because this guy showed up with them he should have given the other players time to change their lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Also it sounds like the "transphazic shields" the original poster mentioned are either MULTI-ADAPTIVE SHIELDs or REINFORCE STRUCTURAL INTEGITY, both come in the USS Raven Collective OP2 prize ship.

Mr. S Baldrick- the TO knows as much about the game as the rest of the "Core Group". Out of the core group, we all wanted to play, not run events, so one of us "took a bullet" and became the "Tournament Organizer". In the beginning, he would actually play in the OP's (I can hear your gasp from here). It's been a learning process for all of us. And like I said, it was by social contract that we where running events. We thought it would never get this popular or that "Gunslingers" would show up (we live in a college town of about 30,000 people). It's a bit funny to me that so many people think that TO's are these omnipotent beings that bestow upon the players some kind of grace for playing Star Trek Attack Wing. What I have found from personal experience in playing at other venues (I travel a lot), is the exact opposite. Many, many times the TO doesn't even know how to play the game, and basically sets up the tables using the OP instructions, makes pairings, hands out stuff, then sells his/her OP ships on eBay.

Did the guy cheat? Nope. Admiral's Orders are NOT a resource, and they are available for download at the Wizkids website. It's printed very clearly on the Admiral's Orders Reference Card that they are NOT resources. In my mind, if Wizkids didn't like them, why are they still available from their website as a free download? As a side note, you can use any number of Admirals Orders (but not the same one) on your fleet as long as you meet all the qualifiers/conditions on the Admirals Orders card. Hmmm....

 Tamwulf wrote:
Mr. S Baldrick- the TO knows as much about the game as the rest of the "Core Group". Out of the core group, we all wanted to play, not run events, so one of us "took a bullet" and became the "Tournament Organizer". In the beginning, he would actually play in the OP's (I can hear your gasp from here). It's been a learning process for all of us. And like I said, it was by social contract that we where running events. We thought it would never get this popular or that "Gunslingers" would show up (we live in a college town of about 30,000 people). It's a bit funny to me that so many people think that TO's are these omnipotent beings that bestow upon the players some kind of grace for playing Star Trek Attack Wing. What I have found from personal experience in playing at other venues (I travel a lot), is the exact opposite. Many, many times the TO doesn't even know how to play the game, and basically sets up the tables using the OP instructions, makes pairings, hands out stuff, then sells his/her OP ships on eBay.

Did the guy cheat? Nope. Admiral's Orders are NOT a resource, and they are available for download at the Wizkids website. It's printed very clearly on the Admiral's Orders Reference Card that they are NOT resources. In my mind, if Wizkids didn't like them, why are they still available from their website as a free download? As a side note, you can use any number of Admirals Orders (but not the same one) on your fleet as long as you meet all the qualifiers/conditions on the Admirals Orders card. Hmmm....

I think you are confusing, me with another poster. If you read my posts above, I have twice stated that the player didn't do anything wrong. I know admirals orders are not a resource, as I explained above.

However TOs should have a slightly higher than basic understanding of the rules because they will be called upon to make decisions. If he wasn't familiar with the orders or the majority of players were not he shouldn't have allowed them to be used. At one of my venues the store owner jumped in and banned Admiral orders when they came out, because several new players had not even heard of them. None of us regulars (about 6) cared. We did have 3 "gunslingers" that were rather disappointed, one even left. Part of the TOs job is to see people are having fun, not just the gunslinger.

WK still has them on their website because they don't want to dictate how OPs are run, but want TOs to decide what works best for their group. They do however suggest that TOs use them "occasionally" and not in every OP. Even when they were released they released they were by the TOs discretion, not mandatory.

I understand that you guys may not have expected a huge serge in participants, it happens. To avoid this kind of thing in the future you guys should get with the TO and decide how you want your event to be run.

Also I think it is great when the TO plays. It's better than someone havings bye, as long as he can't get 2 prize ships.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Out of the core group, we all wanted to play, not run events, so one of us "took a bullet" and became the "Tournament Organizer". In the beginning, he would actually play in the OP's (I can hear your gasp from here). It's been a learning process for all of us. And like I said, it was by social contract that we where running events. We thought it would never get this popular or that "Gunslingers" would show up (we live in a college town of about 30,000 people).

Social contract? What does this mean?

Not sure how to take this. It almost seems like it's "we want you to play our way" and you are having a tantrum because you can't. Something is not right here. Something smells fishy. All I can say is, that you are in the wrong because when you are letting new people in, you didn't say that "we are a casual group, we don't have 'Gunslingers' and play for fun, not to outright win."

So if anything you need to take responsibly and not place it on strangers because we can only play by what we see in the rules provided by WizKids. If you let strangers play and not get to know them, then it's your responsibility to let them know how "your group" or "clique" play. This stranger has no idea that you guys "play for fun". Hell I would do the same thing. I go on the net to read how the game is played and all I see is how everyone, EVERYONE plays to win hard, so needs to come up with a list to do so. Even you admit this person is new and not sure how to play. Not like he is a person who needs to win with plastic toy air planes.

So stop placing blame on strangers, and look in the mirror and see what YOU could have done to prevent it. In this day and age where it's always someones else's fault, what could have you done to prevent this?After all as you say, it's "your group".

Sorry for rambling on, but lets turn this around. Here we have a person who is new to the game, seems to like it a lot, had done his research in trying to learn how to play and here we have some adults who want to play "house rules" and is upset that someone who is learning how to play, and is playing by the rules, is being treated like he is evil and did something wrong. So what does this make you?

Davor wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Out of the core group, we all wanted to play, not run events, so one of us "took a bullet" and became the "Tournament Organizer". In the beginning, he would actually play in the OP's (I can hear your gasp from here). It's been a learning process for all of us. And like I said, it was by social contract that we where running events. We thought it would never get this popular or that "Gunslingers" would show up (we live in a college town of about 30,000 people).

Social contract? What does this mean?

Not sure how to take this. It almost seems like it's "we want you to play our way" and you are having a tantrum because you can't. Something is not right here. Something smells fishy. All I can say is, that you are in the wrong because when you are letting new people in, you didn't say that "we are a casual group, we don't have 'Gunslingers' and play for fun, not to outright win."

So if anything you need to take responsibly and not place it on strangers because we can only play by what we see in the rules provided by WizKids. If you let strangers play and not get to know them, then it's your responsibility to let them know how "your group" or "clique" play. This stranger has no idea that you guys "play for fun". Hell I would do the same thing. I go on the net to read how the game is played and all I see is how everyone, EVERYONE plays to win hard, so needs to come up with a list to do so. Even you admit this person is new and not sure how to play. Not like he is a person who needs to win with plastic toy air planes.

So stop placing blame on strangers, and look in the mirror and see what YOU could have done to prevent it. In this day and age where it's always someones else's fault, what could have you done to prevent this?After all as you say, it's "your group".

Sorry for rambling on, but lets turn this around. Here we have a person who is new to the game, seems to like it a lot, had done his research in trying to learn how to play and here we have some adults who want to play "house rules" and is upset that someone who is learning how to play, and is playing by the rules, is being treated like he is evil and did something wrong. So what does this make you?

Well, I bear no ire towards you, but I'll break it down.

What is "Social Contract"- the idea that a group all plays by the same rules, either explicitly stated or implied. In this case, our "core group" all knew each other, and we all had the same level of experience with the game: Zero. But we are all gamers, so we read the rules, and we read some things online to make us all decide to not play Borg, and play ship pure. We wanted to play a fun, fast game. By that definition, we all frowned at and discouraged certain game play- like Conditional Surrender/Weyoun combos. This is the way we wanted to play the game. Every gaming group I've ever been in had some kind of "Social Contract"- whether is was formal House Rules, or just things players avoided, every group has them. No one in our core group was the "Win at all costs"/"Power Gamer" kind of player. Our "Core Group" was a group of adults in our 30's-40's, with full time jobs, families, and lots of commitments. We just wanted a game that required minimal preparation and maximum fun.

Did we fail to communicate and post these ideas/philosophy to the new players? Yes, we failed. After all, we were playing at the FLGS, and it's not like we can exclude any players that want to play. We honestly never thought it would become so popular (everyone plays either 40K or Warmachine/Hordes). On the contrary, we welcome new players.

This was a bitch thread, pure and simple. I wanted to vent some of my frustration about facing someone who went online, saw a Voyager Dreadnought build, then went to eBay and bought all the ships and cards for it, then showed up to play. Did I mention he had to borrow movement templates, my damage deck, and dice as he didn't have any? That his rulebook was on his iPad because he didn't buy a starter set? Did I also mention that all our events are basically "free" as long as you shop at the FLGS, and he doesn't (he buys everything on eBay). But that's not written down anywhere, so anyone can basically come and play. Did you see the title of the thread? "Ever Had One of Those Games?" My intention here was to share my frustration and vent some anger about being blindsided by a power gaming, win at all costs gamer that took advantage of the social convention and inexperience of our core group. Our bad for playing the game the way we wanted to and not write down or in some manner make others aware. I don't blame the guy at all- he is playing the game the way he thinks it should be played, and presumably, he is getting some kind of satisfaction or fun out of it. If anything, his enjoyment of the game is interfering with my enjoyment of the game as we both play it from dramatically different points of view.

At the end of the day, this is just a game of little toy star ships, and we play games to have fun. If we are not having fun, then why play? We are considering house rules and entrance fees, even though we really don't want to. All because of one player that took advantage of our situation. I'm 100% positive he did not do it out of malice or ill will towards the local STAW community. He simply saw a tournament, and decided he was going to show up with the best ship build he could afford and play to win with the lack of House Rules. We have one House Rule, or had I should say. We play ship pure. Now, we're considering adding written down house rules for each OP/.event. Every new play group undergoes this kind of growing pains. Not a big deal, it was quite the shock to all of us, that's all.

Sorry for rambling on, but lets turn this around. Here we have a person who is new to the game, seems to like it a lot, had done his research in trying to learn how to play and here we have some adults who want to play "house rules" and is upset that someone who is learning how to play, and is playing by the rules, is being treated like he is evil and did something wrong. So what does this make you?

This is pretty harsh, don't you think? It's just a game after all... I mean after the tournament, we still all shook hands and went out for a beer (well, those if us old enough to drink). If you read the last line of my bitching:

This is just one of the things that really brings me down about Star Trek Attack Wing- if you have the rare cards, the chances of you winning go up dramatically. Not fun. Not fun at all.

I still stand by that statement. Now that I've seen this Voyager Dreadnaught build, I won't be blind sided by it again. As a matter of fact, I look forward to playing this guy again, as he always seems to come up with cards and combo's most of us had never seen or heard of. If anything, he allows us to preview the new ships and cards. It was a negative play experience, but we are trying to turn it around to a more positive one.

No I don't believe you mentioned them. This changes things completely. I mean not buying the the box set, where you need the movement counters, yeah, this changes things completely. This is like 40K where you don't buy the rule book or have a codex. Yes Wizkids gives out the rules for free on the net, so understandable that he uses that, but not having dice, or templates is inexcusable. Yes he is TFG.

I wish that was said from the beginning. That changes everything completely. I take everything I said back.

Only advice I can say is if you guys are holding the tournament, make sure EVERYONE knows HOW it is supposed to play. This way you get your way of playing and everyone has an enjoyable experience.

Games are hard to get. If the person doesn't want to adapt to your play style then that is his loss. He won't be gaming anymore. Maybe you guys can have an event where anything goes once in a blue moon, if he concedes and would plays your way.

This way everyone is happy and sharpens your skills once in a blue moon as well.

Davor- Like I said, I have no ill will against you or this player.

It's funny you should mention the "anything goes" tournament- we're doing that one in a couple weeks.

We also have only one more OP before we close out the Dominion War, so we're not planning on changing a bunch of stuff yet. When we start the episodes and Borg OP's, yeah, we're making a lot of changes there.

Good discussions! I know it made me think about one or two things. See? Good things can come from a gripe post!