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http://www.startrek.com/article/first-look-scorpion-4-attack-squadron-for-attack-wing

So, I have mixed feelings about these guys...

While 5 tokens is a lot (and fits with the overall theme of the Romulans being tougher to kill, but sometimes lacking in firepower), I am mildly annoyed by the fact that they start with a max firepower of 4, and receive no boosts from anyone else. The special ability is nice, especially if the Maneuver dial for the Scorpions is similar to the Peregrine (Fed) fighters.

As we expected, there is a way for the fighters to cloak, granting the +4 defense dice to a fighter squadron is VERY Nice. It is also balanced by limiting their speed to 1.

Hidden Formation is also nice, though I doubt it will see a lot of play, since it combines with Cloaked Fighters to cost a hefty 9 points, and the second aspect of the card seems VERY conditional.

Covering Fire is identical to the federation upgrade, so no real surprise there, and the same with Support Ship.

Focused strike is both great, and terrible, because the 5 point cost for t AND it's a discard, really limits the availability of the card.

Torpedo attack is only useful for the Rear Arc, as its a 4 dice attack with 3 time tokens and limited to range 1-2... for 4 points.

Reconnaissance is a double penalty card, and might not even be worth it in the end. It gives you a scan token for an action and a aux token... so yeah.

Thrusters is disappointing to me personally, though I strongly feel some are going to disagree. a 3 point upgrade, it is a discard to add +1 maneuver speed, but only if your cloaked.

A lot of this may change once we see the maneuver dials, but right now, I am luke warm to this release.

The maneuver card is at the bottom of the preview, it doesn't get better They don't even have 1 turns, WTF. They are smaller than Hidekies, there is no reason that they should have such a bad dial.

For competitive play they are a huge disappointment, they just don't have the firepower of the other fighters. Unfortunately we don't see the generic fighter in the pic. If they follow the pattern of the other fighters that would mean the generic only starts with 4 attacks. I am hoping that the Romulan fighter shtick will be that the generics have 5 tokens, but we'll have to see.


Now for bigger casual games, 400+ points they will be lots of fun. I'll probably end up with 3 or 4.

They're no tougher to kill than any other fighters, the named versions always get 5 tokens.

And there's no rear arc in the picture

These are awful. I'm gutted because I have been so looking forward to them. My group is very fighter heavy, these are no good compared to fed or hidekis

I may run out and pick them up tomorrow. I'll wait until I see the generic before I decide if they are utter disappointments.

Cloaking fighters means what, exactly? You spend an action, reduce your speed to 1's while cloaked, and as noted, they don't have a hard 1 turn. OK, and you disable a shield. So an enemy ship shoots at your fighters, and you roll some evade dice. It doesn't matter how much damage a fighter stack takes, you only lose one stick! So what's the point of cloaking? No target lock? Again, what's the point? The most amount of sticks a fighter stack can lose from one attack is one stick! So to give my fighters cloaking and the sensor echo action costs me +9 SP... for a total of 33 points for Fighters! that. Oh yeah, and don't forget, you have to disable shields to cloak... so what happens when I remove the first cloaked fighter stick? Are those shields disabled as well? Or does the fighter lose it's cloaking because it now has active shields? Or does it stay cloaked AND has a shield? This cloaking makes no sense for fighters!


Only 4 attack dice is just... OK. I'm just gonna say it. WTF is this? I expected something totally different, but given Wizkids recent track record, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There really is nothing in this pack that makes sense. Why would I ever put a scan token on a fighter? Much less spend an action for it and gain an aux token. Isn't the main use of a scan token to negate the bonus evade die at range three? THESE ARE FIGHTERS LIMITED TO RANGE TWO! Oh wait, I get it. It's for mines, so I can pretty much make my fighters useless and cloaked and maybe not take any damage from mines. /disgust

Not even going to comment on the rest of the garbage in this wave.

I'm trying to be positive here, but I see nothing to be positive about. Giant pile of poo by Wizkids.

The writer of the previews seems to be under the impression that a scan token reduces cloaked mine attack dice.


"So with all this power at their fingertips, what do Attack Squadrons fear? Answer: Cloaked Mines. Scorpion 4 has this problem solved with the help of the Reconnaissance Squadron Upgrade."


"Adding the Scan Action to your choice of possible actions will help greatly when trying to hit a cloaked ship or when you run into cloaked mines. "



This is from the Halik Raider

"Surat allows you to use an action to place a Scan Token beside your ship. Gaining a scan action is very valuable if you are going up against mines or cloaked ships. "


From what I understand WK writes these and sends them to startrek.com. It makes me wonder if there is a change in the FAQ coming. Currently only a scan action and NOT a scan token reduce cloaked mines.



Oh someone on BGG confirmed the generic fighters only have 3 attacks, WTF!, that is just terrible. So even if you want the generics to have 4 attacks you have to take that Torpedo Attack, which is pretty bad. 4 attacks, every 3 turns, and have to waste a TL.


This is bad WK just bad.

meh!

... Where are they getting these stats? WHERE?!? Scorpions are Smaller, dodgier, and pack a harder punch than Peregrines, but are about the same in toughness as the Hidekis. I could see a fire power 6 for the top token, agility 1, Hull 1, 0 shields. but I was willing to let it slide initially due to the (admittedly mistaken) thought that they had extra staying power in a fight.

And after looking at their dial, the Thrusters are EVEN MORE of a disappointment... In what situation would you want to increase your speed after doing a green maneuver when you can simply perform a white maneuver instead? Aside from moving 1 faster after clearing an aux token, in which case, its still a 3 point upgrade that I could spend elsewhere.

These upgrades aren't like ship upgrades where you can send them to another ship... this is it, these fighters are all that they can deploy on. What a disappointment...

I am choosing to look at them from a different angle, their points value, which fits them into lists nicely for me. That elusive low 20s points value that we were missing in Romulans. And for that, they'll likely see use in my lists.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am choosing to look at them from a different angle, their points value, which fits them into lists nicely for me. That elusive low 20s points value that we were missing in Romulans. And for that, they'll likely see use in my lists.

I hope you are looking at them from a fleet pure or faction pure perspective, because Hideki Fighters are still the best, followed by the Feds for the same amount of points.

I wasn't looking for an OP Fighter stack. What I was kinda hoping for was a different kind of cloaking that allowed them to be un-targetable while cloaked, but they couldn't attack either (all the power for the weapons is shunt to the cloaking field). Then, give them an upgrade card that adds +2-3 attack dice when the Fighters attack a model outside it's fire arc.

They could have had only 2-3 sticks instead of 4-5 sticks that the current stacks have. Three attack dice with no way to buff them up or convert dice beyond a target lock (yuck) is pretty useless in a "open" format. The benchmark for any ship is 4+ dice with conversions. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't be taking that ship.

Very disappointed in another missed opportunity by Wizkids. It's like they don't care/just don't get it.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I am choosing to look at them from a different angle, their points value, which fits them into lists nicely for me. That elusive low 20s points value that we were missing in Romulans. And for that, they'll likely see use in my lists.

I think they will be a lot of fun in casual play. In games where every defensive upgrade isn't on one ship, they will do fine. If your still playing Romulans vs your wife's Dominion then Scorpions should work well. With the exception of the Attack Ship and the Breen, Dominion ships have very low defense values. Scorpions will have an edge on that Battleship

I will be using them in our ongoing Romulan vs Fed campaign. Though I will probably always take the torpedo upgrade, then the generics can have 4 dice at least every 3 turns




For OPs they just won't have the firepower, but with the new blinds and 90 point builds I think we will see less fighters anyway.

I can agree with that. The Fighters aren't great for competitive play, but thematically, they are what ALL of the fighters should have been; pesky, hard to destroy quickly, but not horrible dreadnaughts...

From a fleet pure perspective, both for my home play and for those out there playing in fleet pure environments, they're a good option at their points in certain circumstances for the Romulans. They suffered because Wizkids is constantly playing catchup with it's own mistakes, it makes the previous fighters far too strong, then releases blinds with fighter breaking stuff and releases these fighters toned down.

I can't get too worked up about it, because I appreciated them toning down the borg, but it's still a pain that they didn't make these fighters measure up to the dominion ones.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, are we sure they didn't just photograph them with the generic stats face up?

The article stated that the Named ones had firepower 4. If these stick with the same form as the others, the Generics will be one stand less, with one firepower less...

If the other fighters had started this way, with this low of firepower, it would have been amazing.