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Wife and I finally ordered the boxed set and some extra ships.

She is going dominion and will have: 2nd division cruiser, Koranak and Rav Lurst.

I am going Romulan and will have: the Scimitar, Valdore and the Warbird from the starter.

Hints and tips for starting out are appreciated.

The only advice I can offer is play, play, play and have fun. Avoid the Borg. Unless you have a great play group, avoid the Organized Play "tournaments". If you want to play in those, then, well, we need some more information to help you out first.

Ship pure? Fleet pure? Will you be using the Wizkids suggested Tournament Format (no more than 50 points on a ship, all fleets have to have at least two ships, etc.)? If there are no restrictions, then pick up two Borg Spheres, a Borg Tactical Cube, and the Borg Queen's ship. Use Picard and Donatra along with some of the Borg upgrades and win, win, win.

Home games, hopefully going to pull a few more players in. No borg ships allowed. Wife and I had been looking for something to introduce her to wargaming rather than 40k since it became insane.

Fleet pure, mostly, perhaps if we recreate some episodes or something might mix it up a bit.

Unsure on the rest. We are going to get a very large resin dominion battleship for wife's dominion and houserule it up. Also I'm going to be using the scimitar on occasion, so not sure about using the WK ruling. Might try something like 'minimum number of ships' or something, to mitigate against dreadnought building.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which ships should we start learning with? I figured the cardassian and the starter warbird?

Ild start with the Klingon and Romulan from start or Romulan and enterprise and swop it over so both get a go of each ship, just helps with the different ship actions, play the quick game few times to get basic then go for a few more rules before doing fleet building, some of the tournaments are fun depends on meta and how many are WAC players

40 point builds to start with the Koranok and the generic Warbird is good. That only leaves a 2 pt difference between the ships and the high attack of the Cardassian is balanced by the high hull of the Warbird.

We just had our first game,

I took the khazara, with Shinzon, Bochra, artificial quantum thingy. She took the Koranak with Dukat, Boheeka cloak and dorsal weapons.

We played on the dining table, at reasonably close quarters, she immediately zipped ahead 5 and shot me to hell before I could cloak. Took my shields down and gave me a warp core breach, reduced me to plodding at green 1s...

Thereafter proceeded to kick my arse across the Alpha quadrant... I'm so proud of how ruthless she got. Left the clone in a dead hulk drifting in space.

BEFORE you could cloak? What did you do with your first action that you didn't cloak?!

 emperorpenguin wrote:
BEFORE you could cloak? What did you do with your first action that you didn't cloak?!

She zipped forward, put target lock on me and that was not cancelled when I cloaked. With the amount of hits she got in over and above my poor cloaking defense roll, with no shields up... ended up taking 3 damage cards, one of which was warp core breach. Once that was done, with me limping around on green moves and her comfortably circling me using her wider front arc to pick me to death... Yeah, it was death of a thousand cuts!

The way it read "took my shields down" made it seem like you hadn't cloaked.
It's usually best with Romulans to move forward 1 on the first turn in order to cloak out of range of enemies. If you do so, even with a 5 forward you'll not be in range first turn

I mean, we did that right, yes?

If she's able to put target lock on me before I cloak, it isn't cancelled by me cloaking?


Also, after the second game, we realized we've been applying damage wrong, I was only adding critical damage rather than just hull damage on hits...


Which is why my scimitar WCB'd in the second game...

No, target lock is not cancelled by cloaking but she had to move and act first with Dukat, so should not have been within range to target lock you even with a 5 forward

 emperorpenguin wrote:
No, target lock is not cancelled by cloaking but she had to move and act first with Dukat, so should not have been within range to target lock you even with a 5 forward

Depends on the size of the dining room table

Ah of course, I forgot he was playing at home and it may not be the standard 3x3

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:

 emperorpenguin wrote:
No, target lock is not cancelled by cloaking but she had to move and act first with Dukat, so should not have been within range to target lock you even with a 5 forward

Depends on the size of the dining room table

emperorpenguin wrote:Ah of course, I forgot he was playing at home and it may not be the standard 3x3

Actually it's about 3ft wide... but being out first game, with cards and elbows, we started a lot closer than that... so she steamrollered straight over, got in my face with a target lock and smashed my poor ship to bits in short order thereafter... Crit = Warp Core Breach and then a slow picking me apart... She loved it!!!

Dominion will hit you hard and where it hurts. The real problem for D vs R is that Battleship and cruiser can throw down enough dice to often ignore your cloak and play the numbers game because they're so tough. Maneuvering is for R to take down D, getting into back arcs and sniping away. Not foolproof (yay Cardassian ships) but pretty effective (in my experience as a D player!).

Look out if you get her the Kraxon. It comes with an EM pulse that makes you -1 attack and -1 defense die each time it is used. If she puts that on a Keldon w/Dukat to give Battle Station it could be a rough day for you.


When you guys get in to a few more points get yourself a Science Vessel. The Meuon Feedback will make her think twice before moving those 5 straights and the Interphase Generator is perfect for your Warbird.

Update. Downloaded the BGG templates and 'GIMP', now to work out how to use it and start making some cards for home use.

Just an FYI,
If you make your own captain tokens by gluing a new picture over an old generic skill 1 use ship bases from newer ships. The newer bases from the release of the NX class forward have larger groves for the captain tokens, something to do with WK using the same bases for D&D from what imwas told. Older tokens will fall out of these bases, but customs fit just perfectly If you try to use older bases frommthe first few waves it rips up you customs.

Update: requesting suggestions.

We have our little fleets, I have scimitar, khazara and the valdore. She has the Koranak, the Gor Portas and the 2nd Division cruiser.

She started very strong, won the first few games and then, as I got into the game a bit, she's started losing badly to me and is becoming disheartened by it. I need to know what's out there for Dominion to upset my game, what ships should she get next to help out? Much of her frustration seems to come from not being able to target lock as so many things she has requires that, along with a feeling her ships don't 'gel' well unlike mine (I find my valdore and D'D tag team really well with a similar movement dial).


How can we give her the necessary tools to start hitting my little green ships harder? She's not a bad player for a beginner to wargaming, coming from a computer gaming background, she comes up with some very sneaky stuff (we had a 180pt game the other day, she totally fooled me into concentrating on the breen ship to avoid it's 'death ray' only to learn it was never on the breen ship, she'd put it on the cruiser and paid extra for it... that saw the valdore sink with all hands... ).

So, dominion players, what do you use against cloaked fleets? Romulan/klingon players, what do you fear in dominion fleets?

Hidekis. Lots of them. Well, 2 sets, anyway. They are bloody nasty and really competitive. Triple threat jem'hadar attack fighters has the benefit of being fluffy, fun and pretty nasty - very maneuverable, my Xwing chums tell me it's very like running ties. Dominion with maneuverability is horrid.

Get a second koranak, they are very scary, great double team. More generally Volley of torpedoes and Polaron beams - you want volume of dice at cloaks. I like Gelnon against the Romulans but maybe that's just me. Classics like Dukat/boheeka work like a dream, too.

That help any?

Yes and no, the weapons are an issue, you need target lock to use volley, I'm cloaked so no target lock.

Will definitely look into the fighters though, and the scarabs, I know she's quite disappointed in the breen ship's lack of kahunas and wants some mobile gap fillers to harry my cloaked ships.

I was eyeing Glinn Telle and the prevents-discard Weyon and considering a combo using them, possibly on a cardie ship for wide forward arc. Also Antiproton Scan, long range tachyon scan, tetryon emissions and EM pulse on the tech side of things to counter my cloaks and improve survival.

If it is just you and your wife, i would stear clear of Hidekies they are with the borg. The Kraxon comes with some nice stuff for cloaking ships. EM Pulse to make a ship -1 attack and -1 defense die. Anti Proton Scan, if you have a scan token beisdenyour shil you get +1 attack against a ship with no active shields. Keldon with Dukat and Antin Proton scan

Also has she triped cloaking her Keldon?

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
If it is just you and your wife, i would stear clear of Hidekies they are with the borg. The Kraxon comes with some nice stuff for cloaking ships. EM Pulse to make a ship -1 attack and -1 defense die. Anti Proton Scan, if you have a scan token beisdenyour shil you get +1 attack against a ship with no active shields. Keldon with Dukat and Antin Proton scan

Also has she triped cloaking her Keldon?

If the hidekis are that tough, I might let her have a set to use, just to improve her game. I really don't mind getting my ass handed to me so long as she enjoys the game.

she was cloaking her keldon early on, but the double action required to use it (start: cloak, attack - decloak and disable card, to recloak, 2 turns, one to reactivate the card as an action, the second to use the card as an action...) seeing my 'natural' cloaks, she considered it a wasted effort.

If it is just you and the wife or playing among friends get the resource Hidekies first. Since the retail ones came out you can pick up the resources dirt cheap on ebay around $5-8 last I saw.

Dominion have several ways to insure dice quality; Dukat and Boheeka alone can turn a 5-6 dice attack into nearly all hits. Start adding in Breen Aides and/or Omet'iklan and you can practically guarantee all hits. You can convert all battlestations to hits, and then by using battlestations with Dukat and Scan as your free actions you can convert 3 blanks to hits. Throw them on a Dominion Battlecruiser and they'll stay around for awhile.

Another fun trick is to use the Dominion Fleet Captain Resource on a ship with Tetryon Emissions. Every turn you re-enable Tetryon emissions and as a free action use it with the Fleet Captain power. +3 defense dice against all attacks every turn. It's almost like cloaking except you still have your shields.

 GrandHarrier wrote:
Dominion have several ways to insure dice quality; Dukat and Boheeka alone can turn a 5-6 dice attack into nearly all hits. Start adding in Breen Aides and/or Omet'iklan and you can practically guarantee all hits. You can convert all battlestations to hits, and then by using battlestations with Dukat and Scan as your free actions you can convert 3 blanks to hits. Throw them on a Dominion Battlecruiser and they'll stay around for awhile.

Another fun trick is to use the Dominion Fleet Captain Resource on a ship with Tetryon Emissions. Every turn you re-enable Tetryon emissions and as a free action use it with the Fleet Captain power. +3 defense dice against all attacks every turn. It's almost like cloaking except you still have your shields.

I sometimes run the latter on a keldon with Luaran. Cheap, and your opponent assumes it's a cloak until too late. That, the former and tooled up Hidekis should come in pretty much dead on 120.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
If it is just you and your wife, i would stear clear of Hidekies they are with the borg. The Kraxon comes with some nice stuff for cloaking ships. EM Pulse to make a ship -1 attack and -1 defense die. Anti Proton Scan, if you have a scan token beisdenyour shil you get +1 attack against a ship with no active shields. Keldon with Dukat and Antin Proton scan

Also has she triped cloaking her Keldon?

If the hidekis are that tough, I might let her have a set to use, just to improve her game. I really don't mind getting my ass handed to me so long as she enjoys the game.

she was cloaking her keldon early on, but the double action required to use it (start: cloak, attack - decloak and disable card, to recloak, 2 turns, one to reactivate the card as an action, the second to use the card as an action...) seeing my 'natural' cloaks, she considered it a wasted effort.

Ind Fed flagship card on Dukats ship, Trager or Koranak, allows for better action economy. I normally put Gul Evek on a Keldon with cloaking dice. I can continously recloak every turn except when breaking formation (distance restriction from flagship). Because they are flying bricks you'll eventually have to break formation to turn.