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This post is a little basic philosophy behind Start Trek Attack Wing (STAW).

STAW has come a long way since it first came out. There was a time when the only way to throw more than 4 attack dice was with a secondary weapon. These days, we have ships with a base attack value of 6. 6! It's also very easy to bump those dice up. I've personally thrown 10 attack dice with a Jem'Hadar Battleship with little effort- and the ship was only in the low 50's range. I'm not advocating mono-builds here, far from it. However, the ability to throw not only a lot of attack dice, but being able to convert those dice into hits/crits is critical to success in STAW.

We keep getting more and more offensive firepower added with each wave. Maybe not raw attack dice, but in the form of free Battle Stations, Target Locks, and scan tokens. There are upgrade cards that allow you to fire secondary weapons multiple times without Target Locks or disabling them. Crew upgrades that disable opponents upgrades...

Meanwhile, defensive cards are few and far between, and there are few ships with more than 2 agility. I've managed to create a single Voyager build with 5-7 defense dice, but unless you can convert them, there are less evades on an evade die than hits on an attack die. Consider: Attack die has 3 hits, 1 crit, and 2 Battle Stations. The Defense Die has 3 evades and two Battle Stations. Unless you have a Battle Stations token next to your ship, well, you're more likely to take damage then evade. Now, you can place an evade token next to your ship guaranteeing one hit nullified, but it's not worth it with more than 3-4 defense dice vs. 5-6 attack dice. I could crunch a bunch of numbers, but in general, if you have less then 3-4 defense dice, you might consider an evade token, otherwise, you're better off with a Battle Stations token. You would think cloaking would be awesome adding +4 defensive dice, but again, you only have 3 possible evade faces on an evade die, vs. 4 damage faces on an attack die. And any damage will go straight though to your hull, and you take away hits with evades before crits. Anything that makes it through your cloak will HURT. But this isn't the point of this post- it's all about the attack dice.

If you have the choice between adding attack dice or adding something else, always take the attack dice. Attack > Everything. Unless that everything allows you to hit first, or ignore all the damage from a hit. Even then, such effects in the game are usually one time discards, and will at best buy you one more round. Next, Battle Stations or converting Battle Stations to hits. Target Locks- rerolling blanks or if you don't have a Battle Stations token. Finally, there are cards in all the factions that allow you to convert blanks into hits, or re-roll one attack die, or etc. converting whatever into hits.

A note about Battle Stations- probably the best action you can take for your ship. Helps with defense, helps with offense. Always try to get a Battle Stations token on your ship.

Example: Let's say you have managed to get a Target Lock and you have a Battle Stations token next to your ship. When you throw the dice, use the Target Lock to reroll the blanks. Keep the BS results. After the reroll, then use your Battle Stations to convert to hits. If you are worried about attacks back, remember a destroyed ship can't attack. Pretty obvious, I know, but I've seen players hold back on the Battle Stations for evade results when all they needed was 1-2 more hits to destroy a ship.

Live Long, and Prosper on the Battlefield!

I wonder, with this creep, if we'll see cloaking undergo an FAQ/alteration to up it's capability, or if we may see vessels for factions getting released with fleet wide actions or effects that can allow for more evade/defense.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I wonder, with this creep, if we'll see cloaking undergo an FAQ/alteration to up it's capability, or if we may see vessels for factions getting released with fleet wide actions or effects that can allow for more evade/defense.

I didn't play "back in the day" of a year ago, but I've talked to people that did, and cloaking was MONSTROUS (so they said). Most ships could only muster 4-5 primary attack dice, and remember, you can't Target Lock a cloaked ship. What people were running into where big ships (Valdore and D'Deridex with 6 defense dice) or big Klingon ships with only 4 defense dice, but 5-6 hull. If you weren't cloaked, you would at best do 1-2 damage, and they would do 4-5 damage back. From what I understand, the cloaking rules we have now are updated cloaking rules.

I like where cloaking is now- it helps a lot, but doesn't make your ship invulnerable. What I don't like is that a lot of the early ships seemed to have been made with cloaking in mind, and when you nullify that ability, the ship becomes sub-par. There are cards now that allow you to do all kinds of things to cloaked ships. Any buffs to cloaking or adding more agility/defensive dice to a ship would just promote that ship more over other, older ships without those upgrades and shift the balance around again. An upgrade card that allowed it would basically become a "must have" card (in much the same way that Tom Paris and Sulu are the go to cards for defensive dice).

Maybe the attack dice have become a little too powerful, but I kind of like things where they are now. You can easily play a 100 point game in an hour. Adding more defense dice would just prolong the match, and that can become just as frustrating as having your ship one shotted with 10 attack dice. I had a game last week with a Voyager Dreadnaught build, and he was throwing 5-7 defense dice with rerolls and conversions every turn. It was a very frustrating experience for me (more because he was using cards I'd never seen before). I was whittling him down, but time was called and he managed to finally get me in that last turn after a reckless "all or nothing" maneuver by me.

I'm sure some of the veteran STAW players could chime in here and give us some thoughts on the matter, but I kind of think that we are able to throw too many attack dice these days compared to defensive dice.

The next year will be pretty interesting to see where STAW goes. Will we see more power creep? Or will we see anemic ships, but awesome upgrades? Or powerful ships (Voyager, Borg) and anemic cards? Something I've mentioned to some of the guys in my meta is lets play a 100 point game where you spend no more than 30 points on a single ship (ship pure that is). The Borg would be an issue, but the Scout Cube only costs 22 points, so they could use that. Sorry Species 8472.

This really isn't anything new. The Klingons have had 2 ships with 5 attacks since day on. Dobatra and Gowron have been around since the beginning, same goes with Scotty & Nevek. Since October of last year we have had BARRAGE OF FIRE, I still remember the look on my opponents face the first time I one shoted an Enterprise D

Klingons were top dog at this for while now more factions are able to make these big die attacks. Federation has transphasic torpeadoes, Dominion has Volley of Torpedoes, Borg have 6 attacks base and can take the cutting beam. Romulans can get the Valdor up to a 7 which is a little behind, I think the Scimitar will change that.

The horror of a lot of these combos can be mitigated by not mixing factions. The really nasty part of a lot of these attacks comes from extra actions and dice manipulation. One you start crossing the streams and giving factions actions they don't normally have things get out of hand. Most factions do not have access to battle stations. You start throwing picard on things getting battle stations using flagships and attack buffs and things get crazy.

Now some factions can pull off thses big attacks without going outside, but they are usually a one time discard and have range restrictions. Good maneuvering and avoiding the joust can mitigate this.

Cloak has not changed at all they are the same rules since the begining. All that has changed is the consistent throwing of attacks with more dice than the cloaker has hull. Added to that a majority of the time the cloaker does not have the ability to manipulate defense dice.

A good deal of what you read on the Internet also has to do with OP play where not only do you have your opponent shooting at you there is usually an NPC throwing around attacks and in many cases you can't stop them. Out of the 6 Dominion war OP, 3 Collective, The Arena, and The Tholian Web there has only been 1 scenario where the board was not taking a direct action against you ship. The OP scenarios encourage huge die attacks, because you have to take out the other guy before he & the board take you out.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
What we need are some more defense modifiers. Klingons and Romulans need something to modify cloak rolls. Cardassian ships could use something to buff shields, Jem Hadar don't they have enough. Hopefully something Cardassian only is coming in the Reklar.

TOs might also want to start limiting certain combos, though faction pure helps with a lot of this. Most tournament games have build restrictions, AW should be no different, especially when highly sought after prizes are on the line. Magic, WH, 40K, X-Wing, and lots of others have tournament restrictions. There is enough stuff out that every faction can compete in house, except Ferengi & Kazon. Lets face it nobody is lining up to play them in an OP anyway. Though I did come in 2nd once with a Ferengi fleet.

I actually am pretty excited about playing Ferengi but I only have one ship...

For our OP events we've been running faction pure, but we've recently decided to allow a handful of limited allies (still ship pure). We decided that Ferengi will work for anyone who has money, so I'm gonna try it out in my dominion fleet (why? Because it will be fun. Not because it will be good. Though I probably should actually try to win one of these times...) Although I haven't really decided what faction I'm using this week. So maybe the Romulans will deign to use the Dakor as one of thier pawns this week.

-Spyguyyoda
That is what I have wanted to see from the beginning. An allies chart would have been much more preferable to an open faction mixing market.

If the faction penalty was double the cost of the card instread of one measly point we'd stop seeing Picard being whored out to every ship but his own (or Sulu, or Gul Dukat). It would put a big damper on cross faction shenanigans.

sarcastro01 wrote:
If the faction penalty was double the cost of the card instread of one measly point we'd stop seeing Picard being whored out to every ship but his own (or Sulu, or Gul Dukat). It would put a big damper on cross faction shenanigans.

It is daft and strikes me as lazy when there's only a point in it for cross factioning cards, yet other cards charge you 5 points for putting them on anything but their own ship.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

sarcastro01 wrote:
If the faction penalty was double the cost of the card instread of one measly point we'd stop seeing Picard being whored out to every ship but his own (or Sulu, or Gul Dukat). It would put a big damper on cross faction shenanigans.

It is daft and strikes me as lazy when there's only a point in it for cross factioning cards, yet other cards charge you 5 points for putting them on anything but their own ship.

The "+5" rule is actually relatively new. IIRC, it was the wave that had the Defiant in it where we first started seeing those. (Wave 3?)

I think it's because they realized (after a couple of waves) that some combinations of upgrades are just too good together. I would have preferred even something like 2 points extra per upgrade than just making a handful of upgrades cost five extra.

No it was in Wave 0 that it started with Varel on the Apnex and energy dissipators on the Gor Portas

And Defiant was Wave 1

If the designers didn't want to take the time to make an allies chart I think a stronger faction penalty would have worked just as well. I like the idea of +5 for captains and +3 for every thing else.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
If the designers didn't want to take the time to make an allies chart I think a stronger faction penalty would have worked just as well. I like the idea of +5 for captains and +3 for every thing else.

I don't like this at all. This would make one faction stronger than another faction, just because the Federation have so much more. More ships, more cards more options and stronger options than anyone else.

Why do the Romulans go without? They don't have a Scotty or Picard or Kirk in their Empire? Same for Klingons, Cardasians and heaven forbid the Borg. Just imagine what they have assimilate just at Wolf 359 (sorry if that is the wrong number). Hell shouldn't the Borg have a Picard since Locutus should have Picard's memories and knowledge of the Federation?

Now, I strongly disagree, it will only make factions popular and then it will basically be just Borg vs the Federation all the time then.

If you are going to make faction cards only or such high price points, then EVERY FACTION will need to have counter parts with slight uniqueness to each. So if Federation is going to have a Picard, then the Romulans, Klingons and what not need a Picard version as well.

Hey guys, this was more intended to be a tactics thread about how to go about upgrading ships for more offense then defense, not to debate the merits of increasing faction penalties or the designers intent.

Do you guys agree with me? Does attack Dice > Everything else? Or can you build a viable defensive build with somewhat common cards (not all OP cards) and still retain enough offensive capability to win the game?

I've faced a Voyager Defense Dreadnaught build, whose entire strategy was to kill one small ship, then run away for the rest of the game. It was filled with a lot of rare/OP cards, but functioned very well. We play ship pure, so I wonder if other factions can pull off something similar?

Davor wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
If the designers didn't want to take the time to make an allies chart I think a stronger faction penalty would have worked just as well. I like the idea of +5 for captains and +3 for every thing else.

I don't like this at all. This would make one faction stronger than another faction, just because the Federation have so much more. More ships, more cards more options and stronger options than anyone else.

Why do the Romulans go without? They don't have a Scotty or Picard or Kirk in their Empire? Same for Klingons, Cardasians and heaven forbid the Borg. Just imagine what they have assimilate just at Wolf 359 (sorry if that is the wrong number). Hell shouldn't the Borg have a Picard since Locutus should have Picard's memories and knowledge of the Federation?

Now, I strongly disagree, it will only make factions popular and then it will basically be just Borg vs the Federation all the time then.

If you are going to make faction cards only or such high price points, then EVERY FACTION will need to have counter parts with slight uniqueness to each. So if Federation is going to have a Picard, then the Romulans, Klingons and what not need a Picard version as well.

I strongly disagree. It is the exact opposite min the mixed faction world. In mixed faction environments you primarily see Picard flying Borg or Voyager dreadnoughts or to counter that Weyoun attack cancelation builds. Mixed faction only encourages 2-3 builds. GenCon proved this reports that came out showed 90% were some kind of Borg dread or weyoun dread. Increasing the faction penalty would mitigate this a lot.

Factiln pure als eliminates the problem. Faction pure sees much more diversity among fleets. In faction pure you might actually see Kirk or Sisko in a fed fleet or Toreth on a Romulan fleet. In mixed faxtion you see the same 4-5 captains.

Each faction has its own weaknesses and strengnths. Feds have good captains and crew, but depending more on actions and secondary weapons. Klingons have high attacks and attack modification but are a little short on defense. Romulans are great at attack mitigation and maneuverability, but they have lower primary weapons. Dominion are jacks of all trades, but minus Dukat have some weaker captains.

Mixing factions all the time takes out all the weaknesses. Without weaknesses to exploit people jus look to add attack dice and the you wind up with picard on picard. Borg on Borg is the most boring game you will ever play

Just because the Feds have a Picards doesn't mean everyone needs one. In faction pure each of the major factions has an ability to get a leg up on the others. Every faction doesn't need everything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
Hey guys, this was more intended to be a tactics thread about how to go about upgrading ships for more offense then defense, not to debate the merits of increasing faction penalties or the designers intent.

Do you guys agree with me? Does attack Dice > Everything else? Or can you build a viable defensive build with somewhat common cards (not all OP cards) and still retain enough offensive capability to win the game?

I've faced a Voyager Defense Dreadnaught build, whose entire strategy was to kill one small ship, then run away for the rest of the game. It was filled with a lot of rare/OP cards, but functioned very well. We play ship pure, so I wonder if other factions can pull off something similar?

The voyager dreadnought is a strong build, but it is dependent on a few things.

Multiple actions are key to that ship. If you can force it to bump or give it aux tokens it can is a beached whale. It is also depenant on crew.

Anything that messes with crew will hurt. I am not talking borg either. Klingons and Romulans have each had cheap crew snatchers since the game came out. Some thing a lot of Voyager players forget is their shields go down when they activate that armour. Most of the cheap crew snatchers require shields to be down. They activate that armour and boom, snatch off Paris or Scotty. When I have a Klingon Boarding Party I love for them to activate that thing.

The Voyager dread is also dependant on expensive transphasic torpedoes. However it still needs a target lock. Anything that keeps a fleet cloaked, advanced cloaking, advanced weapon system. Circle it and keep pot shoting. Without torpedoes it is a 4 attack ship that gives itself aux tokens. It doesn't have a come about don't be afraid to hit and run.

Cloak mines, cloaked mines, cloaked mines! Toss some out there, it won't get any defense against them. If the want to scan you are costing them another action and you can still cause a point or 2 of damage. I find more often that cloaked mines just make people make bad moves. "Oh I will avoid the mines... oh wait now I messed up my shot"

Anything that messes with its attacks, interphase generator, varel w/a couple centurions, PROJECTED STASIS FIELD. I beat two Voyager/Enterprise D builds in the Tholian Web with a loaded Khazara and a Preatus. Khazara had flagship, 2 interphase generators, Varel, and 2 centurions, along with decoy. Destroyed voyager each time, and the D in one game. The other game the D flew into the web with 2 hull left. I played a guy in a none OP tournament with a loaded voyager flagship I shot off his hull armour turn 2, turn 3 stasis field and 2 Vorchas into the side made quick work of 5 naked hull even with paris/sulu.

Get one of your buddies to play test with and find out what works for you, but each of main factions have the tools.

 Tamwulf wrote:

Do you guys agree with me? Does attack Dice > Everything else? Or can you build a viable defensive build with somewhat common cards (not all OP cards) and still retain enough offensive capability to win the game?

I've built a decent-ish Romulan defensive build. Relies on Varel, Centurion, Selok, Decoy, Interphase Generator


But I agree, offence trumps defence in this game

Won't comment no more on about faction pure, will leave that for another thread.

I agree, while I am getting into STAW, from what I can see for now, is the more Attack Dice you have, the easier it is for you to play. From what I gather there is more buffs to attack than there is for defence.

In my gaming group the two most successful fleets are Borg and Klingons, followed by Dominion.
It's not coincidence that they chuck the most attack dice with the most modifiers

I always try to have 1-2 defensive abilities on my ships, but ATM offense always wins out.
The main thing missing is ways to re-roll defensive dice, I suppose the worry is cloaked ships would become all powerful again, but then with the amount builds able to throw out 8-10 attack dice they are currently a liability.