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Gordash wrote:
Ah, well, my advice would be- don't take Khan again in that situation- but you seemed to have figured that out already!

yeah attack pattern omega did go off once and a galacy blew up the next turn, but other than that I like my previous builds better

This is what I'm thinking of for OP4.

50pts

Enterprise D 28
Picard 6
Engage 3
Spock 5
Uhura 3
Antimatter Mines 5

Vorcha 26
Kirk 7
Engage 4
Corb Man 4
Tactical Officer 4

Command Tokens 5- Battlestations/Reroll Defense Dice/+1 Def/+1 Att/Evade

OR, you take out the Vorcha and sub in

Valdore 30
Toreth 4
Engage 4
Tactical officer 3

That leaves 4 pts left over for Sulu on the Valdore or on the D.

For OP4 at my FLGS, I am expecting to see more Cloaked Mines (they tested the waters with them last night) and maybe a few Keldon Class Cardassian ships. The winning fleet last night had two Captains with a nine skill.

I need to measure this but my intention is to start in a corner, do a 1 or 2 bank and try to get in range of the SFHQ token without the OWP having range on me. I would try to run across the field for a couple of turns without approaching my opponent giving me time to load up from my Sideboard:

Negh'Var Class
Generic Captain

Vor'Cha Class
Donatra

Vor'Cha Class
GenKhan

89 Points

Sideboard:
LE Martok
Defense Condition One
Barrage of Fire
Alexander

The first turn I would equip the Negh'Var with Martok.


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Gordash wrote:
This is what I'm thinking of for OP4.

50pts

Enterprise D 28
Picard 6
Engage 3
Spock 5
Uhura 3
Antimatter Mines 5

Vorcha 26
Kirk 7
Engage 4
Corb Man 4
Tactical Officer 4

Command Tokens 5- Battlestations/Reroll Defense Dice/+1 Def/+1 Att/Evade

OR, you take out the Vorcha and sub in

Valdore 30
Toreth 4
Engage 4
Tactical officer 3

That leaves 4 pts left over for Sulu on the Valdore or on the D.

I like your idea to engage the opponent's fleet quickly. Not sure how it would do though, I don't have enough experience with those kinds of fleets (or in general) to give you much feedback

Yeah, you have to be able to go last, so that your opponent can't mess around further with your movement. It's a toss up between Toreth and Kirk, or LE Martok and Kirk, but I'd be throwing away Martok's ability. If It's not Toreth, it'll be Kirk and I don't have access to GenKhan, or else that may have been a decent addition to the fleet.

I'd really rather be able to play with Gul Dukat now, but that'll be OP4.


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And you should try out the Engage build. It's a lot of fun.

Not talking OP here, just fun games of screwing with your friends, but what do you guys think about using either the romulan weapons array or ferengi missile launcher on a breen ship after the energy dissipater. The idea is mostly for action economy so you don't have to target lock, on that note cardassian weapons grid may not be a bad idea either. Any of you guys try anything like this?

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Not talking OP here, just fun games of screwing with your friends, but what do you guys think about using either the romulan weapons array or ferengi missile launcher on a breen ship after the energy dissipater. The idea is mostly for action economy so you don't have to target lock, on that note cardassian weapons grid may not be a bad idea either. Any of you guys try anything like this?

Interesting. Something I want to try one day:

Reliant
Khan
Joachim
Tac Officer
Ferengi Missiles

Kraxon
Donatra
Counter Attack

Command Tokens

And then another ship with either Martok.

Basic goal is use Battlestations and Target Lock with the Reliant to launch the Ferengi Missiles. Have the first attack increased by Donatra, a command token and range if possible. Use the target lock to re-roll twice with Tac Officer hoping to get as many criticals and battlestations as possible. Use Khan to change the battlestations to crits. Then any unblocked crits go directly to the hull bypassing shields. Then use Joachim to try to pick the double damage critical hits. All of this to take out a ship's hull while bypassing shields.

That sounds cool, I have never been sold on Joachim though. What were you thinking for the 3rd ship?

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
That sounds cool, I have never been sold on Joachim though. What were you thinking for the 3rd ship?

I don't know; I keep changing my mind... But with the stats of the 4th Division Battleship out now, I would definitely consider this tactic to counter that ship

csimian wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
That sounds cool, I have never been sold on Joachim though. What were you thinking for the 3rd ship?

I don't know; I keep changing my mind... But with the stats of the 4th Division Battleship out now, I would definitely consider this tactic to counter that ship

Yeah I saw it, that beast needs a Joachim or Attack Pattern Omega thrown at it. I don't think I am looking forward to that one.

I also saw the ship leaks. The Intrepid looks great. The 4th Wing battleship looks bonkers- although those tight formations already have a decent foil- the cloaked mine.

Changeling Martok on a 4th Wing battleship, giving out two actions per turn to surrounding vessels- it's NUTS.


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Also, don't expect the Dominion Battleship to be very maneuverable. It'll be fairly easy to flank it and start removing those shields. 4 hits/turn against agility 0 is going to stack pretty quickly.

Also the only actions on the 4th division's bar are target lock, battle stations and scan. So unless they have Dukot or Picard they can't' even evade. I am sure the thing turns like a limo ina parking garage, if you stay out of its arc you can pepper it to death.

OP3: Siege of AR-558
There are three battles in this video batrep. Here they are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCfgWVs_jBs&feature=youtu.be

What is the best way of dealing with a mine laying romulan build?

I have been getting a lot of practise in recently, but its been mostly against federation players, where i am winning most of my games by the simple virtue that my klingon build is throwing far more attack dice than they can deal with.
Now, though, I have started playing my local big romulan player with his mine laying scout vessel and two tooled up valdores and he is absolutely demolishing me every time we play.

What is the best way for a klingon player to deal with mines?

 whitehorn wrote:
I have started playing my local big romulan player with his mine laying scout vessel and two tooled up valdores and he is absolutely demolishing me every time we play.

What is the best way for a klingon player to deal with mines?

I definately do NOT recommend flying through the mine-affected area! I've had the mine-player roll two hits and a crit so even with shields up I'm being critted with warp core breaches!

 DeathwingCrusader wrote:
OP3: Siege of AR-558
There are three battles in this video batrep. Here they are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCfgWVs_jBs&feature=youtu.be

Dude, that's a tough one. Thanks for showing the video. Mines are a to deal with.


-whitehorn

I jave found that for 1 or 2 mines careful maneuvering or simply pushing through with shields up is the best way to deal with them. Once you get past them however just try and avoid that part of the board. Remember once they put down the template you are allowed to change your dial. That being said there isn't much anyone can do against 3+ though. There are things like Konmel and Secondary Shield Emitters that help. One thing that helps is to keep play testing against it.

Hopefully next month mines will not be so prevalent, due to the fact that everyone will be having some new and very useful toys coming. Plus if OP4  follows the pattern the planetary defense platforms should count as ships so between them and your fleet there will be limited room to drop mines.


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So I went to my 3rd OP3 last night. I finally came out on top. I went 3-0 with 9 battle points, taking the planet in all 3 games. This time I stuckmto my original plan, focus on the enemy first. I only paid attention to the planet if no one was in my firing arc. Once I got my opponents down to one ship i started loading up the planet with troops and used one of my ships to chase them. For me this strategy worked best, and it pais off




So that is one OP coming in 1st, one 2nd, and one dead last. But now my Romulan fleet has some more muscle.


"Wesley slowly back us out of the neutral zone"



I am hoping to put all of those Warbirds to good use. Over the holidays my friend and I are planning to try a 500 point game. It will be either Romulans vs Federation or Romulans vs Klingons. I'll keep you guys posted and we'll try and take some pics.

What list did you take to win? I've got mine tonight and I'm still trying to figure out whether to play Kirk in a Vorcha or Toreth in a Valdore, but I'm leaning more towards the Valdore at this point.

This is the list

Ent D
Picard
Engage
Uhura
Spock
Ant-Mines

Valdore
Toreth
Engage
Tactical officer

Command Tokens

Any thoughts on what I should spend that last 4 points on? Im leaning towards McCoy on the Ent-D to back up Uhura.

I went back to my action economy klingons, pretty much what I had in my 1st OP3.

4 points is tough in that list. You have no tech slots so all of those options are out. 3 pt photons is not a bad option for the D. Gives you a decent range 3 threat as you are turning. Another option would be nevek for the valdor. If you get in behind someone go to shields and hit them with 6 attacks on the valdor. Use the other 2 for starter set obrian, being able to disable a mine before it drops or BoF could be useful.

Action Economy Klingons are soooo good. I won't be too miffed if I don't get a copy of the ship, so I'm taking it easy on bringing the klingons again. If I take McCoy, i'll be able to Uhura twice to get out of a bad situation with the D.

In the abstract, how much would you pay to be able to change your movement dial AFTER you've seen all of your opponent's moves, in an engage build, AND do that twice? I'm thinking that that card would be pretty nuts.

McCoy will not work on Uhura. She is a discard not an action. McCoy allows a crew to perform their ACTION as a free action. Uhura is is just discarded and then you get the ability to change the dial. What you are proposing will only work with Wayoun as captain, but he can not take Engage.

I looked it up just after I posted and you are correct. There goes that idea! That 4 points is KILLING me.

Well if there is nothing else you really need then take a red shirt. They are basically like giving your ship an extra hull point. A little pricy but if there is nothing else you need why not.

I think I'm going to take a Red Shirt on the Enterprise. It's a bit too many eggs in one basket, but it'll be a good chance to see for myself if there's any merit to a big capital ship strategy in a competitive environment. I'd much prefer to have an Excelsior over the Valdore, but we'll see how it goes.

Personally I am not a big fan of the 2 ship build. But you have picked 2 of the best to build around.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Personally I am not a big fan of the 2 ship build. But you have picked 2 of the best to build around.

In my OP3 I did not see anyone use a 2 ship build. Most common was 3 and I had a 4 ship build. Depending on how others do (and how many rounds and players there are), you may not be able to win the tourney w/o controlling the planet once.

I've done some calculations for OP4. There is a very small space where you can target the SFHQ token w/o being shot by the PDTs. Getting there is so difficult that I no longer think it is viable.

My new build is the following:

USS Defiant
Picard
Quantum Torpedoes
Scotty
Lojur
Cheat Death

IKS Maht-H'A
LE Martok
Dorsal Weapons Array
Interphase Generator
Konmel

Command Tokens (will include a Scan)

99 points

I will have two 9 skill level captains. This may make it so I can react to my opponent's ship placement. They might even place all of their fleet first. I figure this is a nice little bonus.

My general strategy is to start out going straight toward the planet using FWD 1's on the first turn. Both ships will use an Evade as their action and fire at SFHQ. The next turn I will try to move the opposite direction my opponent is going with a 1 Bank. Actions could be to repair shields as needed. When I do have the opportunity, and only one or two PDTs target me, I will use the Dorsal Weapons Array to fire at SFHQ; then use a turn or two to repair shields.

When I do engage the other fleet, I intend to have one turn at Range 2-3. I hope to fire first. I use Scotty to bump up the Quantum Torpedoes, Battlestations, and Target Lock (Picard/Command Token) to to some serious damage on the way in. The next turn I try to fly past so I get them in my rear arcs from both ships. Then fly away and repair/reload.

I have the Cheat Death and the Interphase Generator to help stop a One-shot against my ships.

Thoughts?

I've been very reticent about using the Defiant in a two ship strategy. I don't think it's hearty enough to work without a third ship. I'd also say that you need Sulu on the Defiant if you want to make those hull and shield points last as long as possible.

I'd take a look at the Excelsior as I think it will probably perform better in a two ship build.

I also don't necessarily like the Quantum Torpedo/Scotty strategy as it relies upon your opponent not being cloaked on first engagement. If you're looking to use Torpedoes, I think you have to plan to use them on your escape from fracas, after your opponent has dropped their cloak to shoot and you can aquire a target lock. In the first few turns, you'll need some defence on your Defiant or it's going to get shot up.

I think the scotty quantum torpedo idea will be much better on an excelsior class rather than the defiant. I would also rethink the dorsal weapons array. Just go with a negvar, or if firing backwards is really a concern take the koraga and 5 shot torpedoes.

Two ship builds have really struggled in my local meta. I don't think I have seen many do well at all.
Most of the two ship players have added a cheap buffing ship into their list somewhere.

Terrell captaining a Miranda is the usual buff in my area.

Two ship builds have generally struggled in my meta as well, but it's been mostly because of the way they are built.

My general experience with the two ship build is that both ships should be reasonably independent, and beefy, but not built with redundant upgrades- this includes multiple action crew, and multiple action tech/weapon cards. Two ship builds are bad because redundant upgrades effectively reduce your per turn list pt total. I generally build towards a very efficient per turn list pt total.

If you look at my build above, the Enterprise D hopes to stay out of arcs using Engage, and then Scanning to get Spock buffs. You should be able to lay on hits and weather any storm for several turns. The second ship will sensor echo out of arcs as its action and either save the cloak for the subsequent turn if it cannot fire, or it will target lock and get some use out of the tactical officer. Aside from my Uhura Insurance Policy and my Red Shirt (a questionable upgrade to begin with!), the build does not have very many point redundancies, which means that if I'm able to take actions, I should get a 90pt/turn efficiency.

Secondly, you should not play these ships in formation, so as to be able to use creative movements and Engage. Non-squandroned ships' movements are harder to predict than squadroned ships. My list is specifically tailored to combat against the growing tide of Romulan and Klingon Attack Builds.

Against a cloaked mine build, well, we're all struggling right now, but tailoring towards scan certainly goes a long way to mitigate some of that noise.

I would prefer the Valdore to be an Excelsior, but that'll have to wait. I chose the valdore because of the high hull and movement dial, which can be exploited quite nicely with Engage. It was a toss up between the Valdore and the Vorcha, but ultimately I thought the Valdore is more resilient.

3 ship Klingon/Romulan attack builds are so good because they can bring almost 100pts to bear on the opponent per turn, if built properly. They have to stay in formation for this to work, which makes such builds predictable. If one moves off from the others to mitigate your movement, well, I think they're playing into the two ship player's hands. So the Attack player is generally quite predictable in the movement phase, which is offset by the absolute awesomeness of their attack phase.

I've seen an enterprise d and defiant two ship fleet work well, but they have to be played defensively. The moment you go on the offensive with the defiant and lose the cloak the game is basically over.
He used the defiant to absorb damage and buff, while the enterprise dealt it out.

Downside was the list just didn't have the raw attack dice to take ships out quick enough.

I'm not a big fan of the Excellsior's movement dial. And I intend to be maneuverable for OP4. I could replace the Defiant with the Valdore. In fact Valdore + Green Movement + Scotty + Dorsal Weapons = 6 attack with 360 degree arc....