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Could anyone provide a breakdown of what's currently available for the Vulkans, including any personal thoughts on pros and cons? Please also cover any OP ships and cross factional cards for the vulkans and any other forces.

Yes I could. I don't have the new release, but they have a good breakdown of it here:
http://www.startrek.com/article/first-look-attack-wing-5-dkyr-expansion-pack

Edit: oops, that's for the D'kyr from wave 5. A good place to look if you're visual like me, though. Here's the Ni'var link: http://www.startrek.com/article/star-trek-attack-wings-wave-7-preview-nivar

I'll post up some thoughts/details shortly.


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Vulkan Captains:
Soval, CS 7 Action: Target a ship within range 1-2. Remove 1 Scan or Battlestations token from beside the target ship. Place an auxiliary power token beside your ship
Thoughts: Nice high CS, neat ability, but it has a really narrow application, IMO.

Vanik, CS 5 All your Vulcan and Federation Tech upgrades cost -2 SP.
Thoughts: Pretty much an auto-include at this point. May not be as useful later when more captains are out, but I'm a big fan.

Tavek, CS 3. Add 1 Crew upgrade slot to your upgrade bar.
Thoughts: useful when you're trying to create synergistic crew lists.


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Ships:

The new Ni'var is the same Class (Suurok) as the OP ship Ti'mur.

Ti'mur: Suurok class; 2 attack, 1 defense, 4 hull, 3 shields. Whenever you initiate an attack, you may disable one of your non-disabled tech upgrade to add +1 attack die. Actions: Evade, Target Lock, Scan, Battlestations
Thoughts: decent maneuverability. Can't turn around, but it does have a reverse maneuver. It has a 180 degree firing arc, which is always good.

Ni'var: Suurok class, same as above. Whenever you attack at range 3 and you have a scan token beside your ship, add +1 attack die.
Thoughts: Same pluses as above, but I quite like the synergy of scan + extra attack die. Both of these ships should always be taken with the Combat Vessel Variant upgrade unless you're trying to spam them.

D'kyr: D'kyr class: 3 attack, 1 defense, 5 hull, 4 shields. Whenever you initiate an attack against an enemy ship at range 3, gain +1 attack die. Same actions.
Thoughts: The beefy Vulcan ship. Also has a 180 arc. Also has a rear arc. Super useful.

Overall thoughts on ships: The Vulcan ships are really not much different than Fed ships. Similar maneuvers, similar statlines, similar attack arcs, etc. However, there are some really neat upgrades, IMO.


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Vulcan Elite captain upgrades:

Diplomacy (unique): Action: discard this card to target 1 enemy ship within range 1-3. Discard all tokens beside your ship and the target ship (besides Aux power tokens). Both your ship and the target ship cannot attack or be attacked this round.
Thoughts: Meh. Nice for getting rid of target locks or borg tractor beams, I suppose.

Vulcan High Command (Unique): Add 2 Upgrade slots to your upgrade bar. The additional upgrade slots may be either Crew or Tech upgrades. This upgrade may only be purchased for a Vulcan captain on a Vulcan ship. If the Vulcan Captain is ever removed from your ship, discard upgrades until all of your upgrades are supported by your ship's upgrade bar.
Thoughts: I'm a much bigger fan of this one. Neat synergy with Vanik.

Weapon upgrades:

Photonic Weapon: 4 die attack, range 2-3. Spend target lock and disable this card to perform this attack. You may reroll one of your blank results. You may fire this from your forward or rear firing arcs.
Thoughts; really nice on the D'kyr because of the rear arc and the extra attack die at range 3.

Aft Particle Beam: 3 die attack, range 1-3. Disable this card to perform this attack. You may only fire this weapon from your rear firing arc.
Thoughts. Really only useful since it's only 1 point.


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Tech upgrades:

Tractor Beam: If you are attacked at range 1, you may disable this card to force the attacking ship to re-roll up to 2 attack dice of your choice.
Thoughts; nice if someone gets multiple crits against you.

Sensor Grid: Action: discard this card to target one other friendly ship within range 1-3 of your ship. Place a Scan token and an Aux power token beside your ship and the target ship. If you do, every cloaked ship within range 1-2 of your ship must immediately flip its Cloak token to its red side.
Thoughts: Super useful against cloaked ships; especially since Romulans have access now to an advanced cloaking device.

Auxiliary Control Room: At any time, you may disable this card to remove 1 Aux power token from beside your ship.
Thoughts: Love it, but I think it's a bit expensive at 3 points.

Combat Vessel Variant (Unique: ugh): Your primary weapon and hull values are increased by 1. In addition, during the activation phase, if you reveal a straight 4 maneuver, you may perform a straight 5 instead. If you do, place an Aux power token beside your ship. This upgrade may only be purchased for a Suurok class ship.
Thoughts: Wish it wasn't unique. Fortunately, the version that comes with the Ni'var isn't. It also doesn't give you the option for a straight 5, so there's that.


OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Vulcan ships are an awful lot like Feds. Their upgrades make them quite a bit different. I wish there was a little bit more variation in captains, but it is what it is. I think the best bet you've got is to try and keep your opponent at rang 3 since you have several ships/abilities that get better at range three. That's in addition to the extra survivability of hanging out at that range.

Sorry, but I didn't feel like covering the Ni'var stuff, but I don't have it, so I haven't really put much thought into it yet. I do like that it comes with an Admiral.


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Oh, totally forgot crew.

Really, the only one to add is Koss. When Koss is on your ship, none of your other upgrades can be affected by your opponents.
Thoughts; Really good if you play against someone who likes to mess with your upgrades (and Vulcans like their upgrades).

Combat Variant is unique ...

facepalm

This game can be so hard to like sometimes.

The Combat Variant on the Ti'Mur is Unique.

The Combat Variant on the Ni'Var is not.

I really like the Vulcans. Good summary from spyguyoda

Don't underestimate how good Auxiliary Control Room is, that'll allow you to pull off two reverse or two hard turns or a full about via skilled helmsman

If you don't have a "come about" on your dial skilled helmsman gives you 2 aux tokens.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
If you don't have a "come about" on your dial skilled helmsman gives you 2 aux tokens.

Auxiliary Control Room is not unique, so you could have two of them on your ship (either the Ti'Mur with it's two tech upgrades or you can add T'Pol (from the NX-01 pack). or a Vulcan High Command to add another Tech Upgrade. 6 points to get ride of two Aux tokens though.

Why no love for the Vulcan Commandos? Great way to put some hurt on an enemy ship. If a ship is cloaked, and the cloak token is flipped over to it's red side, is it still considered cloaked? I know it still gets the evade dice. I'm asking so that I could use one Vulcan ship with Sensor Grid to flip the tokens over, then use the Vulcan Commandos from another ship on the target ship with a red cloak token. Muroc has a similar ability. If the red cloak token makes them stay red... ah well. The VC's still have some uses.

I like the Vulcan ships and the upgrades they bring.

With all of the Vulcan ships having a 180 front and the D'Kyr have a 90 rear I wouldn't wast a resource on skilled helmsman. It's not bad, but with a 180 you can usually keep someone in arc with a hard turn or reverse, then you only need one control room

As for the commandos, they are nice but fall victim to the same problem as Klingon boarding party. Your shields and the other guys have to be down. Unlike the Klingons they don't have something like projeted stasis field to help get it off. They are handy but will require timing. I would take one on each ship for 3 pts and maybe 2 w/Sopek. It is great that the ship comes with 3.

I think they'll be a welcome addition to my Romulan fleet.

Now, to work out how to give em all cloaks...

I wouldn't go for skilled helmsman myself, but just saying you COULD

As for commandos, yet to get the Ni'Var over here so not had a chance to try it but I'm thinking in combination with Muroc you could get shields down and then have a very nasty shot at an enemy

I wonder if the Scimitar will have Reman commandos?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I wonder if the Scimitar will have Reman commandos?

I REALLY hope so!

And the Viceroy - I want Ron Perlman so I can randomly utter "War, War Never Changes" during games!

 emperorpenguin wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I wonder if the Scimitar will have Reman commandos?

I REALLY hope so!

And the Viceroy - I want Ron Perlman so I can randomly utter "War, War Never Changes" during games!

It's pronounced Viceron Perlreman.

Whelp, found out that as long as a ship has a cloaked token on/near it, red or green, it's still considered cloaked (you just get to target lock a cloaked ship that has a token on the base).

So much for that Vulcan Commando idea!

Koss (Text ability is basically none of your upgrades can be affected by your opponents) is way, way under cost for what he does, and he nullifies all those "Silver Bullet" builds that negate all your upgrades. He's also another anti-Borg card. No Assimilation Tubules for you! I would expect Koss to become a key feature on many ships in the future.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Whelp, found out that as long as a ship has a cloaked token on/near it, red or green, it's still considered cloaked (you just get to target lock a cloaked ship that has a token on the base).

So much for that Vulcan Commando idea!

Koss (Text ability is basically none of your upgrades can be affected by your opponents) is way, way under cost for what he does, and he nullifies all those "Silver Bullet" builds that negate all your upgrades. He's also another anti-Borg card. No Assimilation Tubules for you! I would expect Koss to become a key feature on many ships in the future.

None of your 'other' upgrades can be affected. So the borg or whatever have to remove him first, as his ability does not protect him only others.

Dear God... look at the size of those ears!!!

Might want to adjust the image size before posting... LOL

And OK, they have to take out Koss first. That's one more turn of getting all your upgrades.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Dear God... look at the size of those ears!!!

Might want to adjust the image size before posting... LOL

And OK, they have to take out Koss first. That's one more turn of getting all your upgrades.

? My screen auto adjusts that image.


Also, he's a layer of ablative armor rather than a win-all card, so the points seem relatively appropriate, he's a good card but not broken...

Unless there comes a second card that does likewise and they can circlejerk protection on each other to infinity and beyond.

Hey Vulcan fans. I found this on BGG, this is on of the blind packs for the Resistance is Futile OP.



More vulcans, hurray

Solok is a federation captain from DS9 era... No duel faction even?? Very odd.

Yeah I thought Solok was odd too, he was so arrogant about being a Vulcan I am ok with it. I have a Nebula all set up for him with all Vulcan crew.

She's heavy on the defense and light on attack, the photonic weapons array having rear firing looks good. I can't really read the rest.

For a 22nd century ship I think 3 attacks with 4 attack die secondary is good.

I'm very tempted to start a Vulcan fleet.
I don't think I'd be using them in OP events but for fun with friends I like the look of them, they have a nice flavour to them.

Looking forward to adding that to my Vulcan fleet, I like the defensive abilities it has