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http://www.startrek.com/article/attack-wing-wave-17-i-r-w-vrax-expansion-pack

Vrax preview is up.

A big fat 'meh' from me. The ship ability is weak. Suran is ok, Velal not bad. Coordinated attack is a weaker version of Barrage of Fire. Tal@aura seems way too situational. Flanking attack is too expensive for a discard.

Super-disappointed at not getting a tech slot too! And still no Romulan with a free action

no.tech.slot...

Sad. Annoying.


everything else is a flat 'meh', with perhaps the exception of Tal-ura, who can swipe annoying trickponies from other ships, but is expensive and the 'only range 3' is a bit daft. I'll get it for the second valdore, but I won't be in a rush.

Looks like a totally forgettable ship pack. Disappointing.

I'll probably get it, as I'm itching to get another Valdore class Ship.

I had a dim view of this release until I realized something:

Romulan's have one of the best ships in the game: The Reman Warbird. How can any future Romulan ship compare to that beautiful, deadly predator of space? It can't. As far as the upgrades go, well, the Captains and Admirals will never be as good as Picard (9 from starter set) and Admiral Gul Dukat. And I'm OK with that, as their shouldn't be any captains or admirals THAT good in the game. I really, really think Picard in the starter set was a mistake, but that's for another discussion.

Crew Upgrades- It feels like all the possible effects crew can have on the game are already present. Any future crew upgrades will be a variant of what we already have.

Tech Upgrades- Again, all the tech in the game is already present in the game. It might be a different faction or something, but it's here, so all future tech will just be a variant of what we already have.

Weapon Upgrades- If Primary attack values were capped at say, 4 dice, then secondary weapons would totally be viable in this game. But they are not, and so most weapon upgrades are simply used to make a primary attack better.

Time Tokens- Great idea for crew and tech upgrades. Not very good for weapons. A non-Time Token Torp costs 2 actions and could be fired every other turn (1 action for Target Lock, 1 action to re-enable the Torp). A Time Token 3 Torp requires 1 action, and three end phases before you can fire it again. Two complete turns after the turn you fire it. So 1 action (Target Lock), and then two full turns, meaning every third turn. The Bridge Officer helps, but now you are paying MORE points for a secondary weapon that you will probably only fire 2-3 times during the whole game. Yes, I can see some builds where Time Tokens could be effective with a secondary weapon, but they are still a secondary weapon and few players actively take such weapons without some other reason (like a disable/discard to add +1 attack die to your Primary Attack). To make the Time Token secondary weapons more attractive, they should have upped the damage, conversions, or lowered the point costs of them.

To sum up, I really believe that we have seen the best the Big Four will get, and everything released from here on out will simply be re-hashed or slightly different.

I really hope they don't errata the previous weapons cards to need time tokens. Because a Yeager with Spock on it can fire torps every turn.

I actually like it. There is some potential there. The Vrax with Admiral Q could be fun. I don't have a problem with the time tokens, it all depends on the build.

Flanking Attack could be interesting on a small ship. There are plenty of things to boost it up, Valdor (Ship), Valdor (captain), Donatra

The Admiral is meh, Mendak is better for 1 point more, and Hiren is better for 2 points less. He could be useful if as a captain his ability doesn't cost an action, if it does I will probably only use him in big games where every ship needs a captain.

Suran is good, especially paired with Donatra.


Tal'Aura has potential and Centurion can let you use her twice. The range 3 is rough, but doesn't make it unplable. The fact that she ignores shields is a big boost.

The only card I am not too excited about is Coordinated Attack, but I would give it to Shinzon for the right situation.

As for no tech slot, I don't think it is that big of a deal. There are lots of things to add a tech in this game, in faction alone there is Valdor and T'Rul. If you play OPs there is the Fleet Captain until January plus plenty of out of faction stuff. That one Fed guy that came on the Pegasus is 2 points (3 for Roms) to add a tech. If you play casual the Fleet Captain isn't going away.

In all its a good ship.

Flanking attack has it uses, if put on a d'. Not sure I'd use it on the Valdore class.

Also for a mid level captain Suran is nice, but I think the romulans have better options.

This is pretty underwhelming.

As far as the admiral goes, if I wanted to use an action to get a free evade, I'd...evade? Then I'd still get to roll all my defense dice. Seriously, all he's useful for is the minor captain skill bump.

There are far better choices for mid level captains in faction.

Tal'aura might be useful...if she didn't cost 5 points, or if she was usable at more than just range three.

Coordinated strike, however, could be really good. I don't see anything in there that restricts the ships ability to fire in normal firing order, provided they haven't already attacked. Something like Salatrel firing at CS 10, Shinzon discarding coordinated strike to attack, then immediately attacking again at CS 9. Depending on build, that could be three 5-6 die attacks in a row.

spyguyyoda 657745 8010448 43fcb8fdb4f851d1854a8c55df0bd18d.jp wrote:
As far as the admiral goes, if I wanted to use an action to get a free evade, I'd...evade? Then I'd still get to roll all my defense dice. Seriously, all he's useful for is the minor captain skill bump.

There are far better choices for mid level captains in faction.

Tal'aura might be useful...if she didn't cost 5 points, or if she was usable at more than just range three.

Coordinated strike, however, could be really good. I don't see anything in there that restricts the ships ability to fire in normal firing order, provided they haven't already attacked. Something like Salatrel firing at CS 10, Shinzon discarding coordinated strike to attack, then immediately attacking again at CS 9. Depending on build, that could be three 5-6 die attacks in a row.

First off spyguyyoda welcome back to our little STAW subforum , its been a while.

You hit it righ on the head. The game designers just don't get it. This new admiral, the new shield upgrade with the E and a few others are just about worthless when you can just take an evade. If these things were free abilities that would be fine, but an evade is judt easier.

If WORF oks it Coordinated Attack will be cool for who ever is flying next to the Romulan Commander because he goes before everyone. You could get off 2 attacks before Picard has a chance to adjust his tunic

What you're missing about Velal is he works each time you defend. So that's worth an evade per attack, if more than one ship attacks you.

That is a good point :thumbsup : but they could have made it passive without it being over powered or given him Gul Evek's ability. But when compared to the card from the E an evade is better.