Monday 25 November 2013

The Klingon Attack Build


WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS??? Did they just want to save on makeup?

Today I want to take a look at the building blocks of the Klingon Attack Build, what it absolutely requires and the engine that makes it go. In my estimation, there's no real "essential" quality to the build, other than a very high average number of attack dice per ship, and cloak across all ships- the ships should be Klingon, but you could include a Valdore and not necessarily stray too far from the general build.
The build is based around a modified alpha attack- you want to aggressively take control of the game- YOUR strategy will be the one that needs to be countered, YOUR strategy will be the one that needs to be dealt with. If you tend towards a defensive or cautious play style, the Klingon Attack Build may not be for you. You are completely committed to offence, and you should generally take every action available to push that agenda- If you start playing defense or start altering your play style in the face of aggression, you are playing like a human and you've probably lost. 

First of all, you're going to want some Klingon ships. If you play Attack Wing competitively, or if you just play it for fun, you should go out and buy the Neg'Var. It is a fantastic ship, and the upgrades provide most of the moving parts for the build in the way of captains. Your attack build may not include the named ship, or even the generic ship, but you should have it as an option. 

You'll also want to include one or more of the Vor'cha. You don't need the named version- do not pay for defensive upgrades when you could use those points towards offensive upgrades. You need to pump every available upgrade point into upgrades that increase your offensive power- your defense will be taken care of by the innate cloak ability of your ships. 

My preferred Klingon Attack Build has two unnamed Vorchas, and one unnamed Neg'Var (Mainly because I wouldn't want to buy three starter sets to get my hands on a third Vor'cha). This puts us at 80 pts- which lines up nicely with an original maxim of mine- ensure that about 75% to 80% of your list is rooted in ship points. 

You have 20 pts left over, and you're going to need some captains. You'll want to consider any captain that gives multiple attack buffs out to ships. Since you're taking all Klingon ships, Gowron is an easy candidate. 

Gowron (Klingon/NeghVah Expansion)
Captain Skill: 7
Action: All other friendly Klingon ships within Range 1-2 of your ship gain +1 attack die this round.
Cost: 4
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

Gowron takes up an action, and as I said above, you're going to rely upon cloak to keep your ships alive. You'll need Martok to ensure that Gowron can keep his cloak up every turn AND buff all of your ships. 

Martok (Klingon/NeghVah Expansion)
Captain Skill: 8
After you move, choose 1 friendly ship within Range 1-2 whose Captain has a lower Skill than Martok's. The chosed ship may immediately perform 1 free Action.
Cost: 5
Elite Talent Upgrades: 1

So you've got Martok and Gowron, and now have 11 pts left. At this point, I think you have to add in Donatra, even though some of the purists will stick up your nose at this. She's a romulan captain with one of the best abilities in the game- We're going to want maximum attack dice, and there's no better way to get 2 extra attack dice per turn without spending an action. She's going to run you 5 points. 

6 points left, and not a whole heck of a lot else to do. At this point, you can consider adding in Drex on Martok's ship, but he takes an action- it'll work really well on the first pass, but after that you'll be cloaking almost every turn and probably won't be able to take Drex. 

Perhaps you should take 4 of those points and add in Cloaked Mines on either Donatra or Gowron's Vorcha. Not a bad tactic, especially if your opponent commits to a joust. You could take Advanced Weapon system on the Neg'Var, but it costs a lot of points and will probably see 1-2 uses throughout the entire game. 

at 94 points, you have a build that can put out 19 shots per turn onto one target. Deploy in a TRIANGLE- that way you have overlapping arcs of fire. Don't deploy in the middle of the board- deploy on an edge, or across from your opponent if they have low skill captains and were forced to go first. Remember to prioritize targets properly- if you team up on one target, it SHOULD die. Try out the build, use a few different things with the remaining 6 points and let me know how you usually run the build.

5 comments:

  1. Nice write up. I think this is the best build for newer players. It's very strong and easy to play. The only down side is that this list is grouped and suffers from cloaked mines badly and has a hard time moving around tokens.

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  2. Thanks. At my 8 player tourney in Toronto there were no cloaked mines, but OP3 was taken by a 4 ship federation build that was very torpedo dependent. I didn't end up playing against it, but it had two defiants, a miranda and a TOS enterprise.

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    1. @Gordash, what store in Toronto have you been playing at? I jsut got into STAW and am looking for other players.

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    2. 401 Games. There are two tournaments a month.

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  3. I wonder if the Klingon Flagship resource card might not be a better buy than Donatra once it's available? It costs 10 of your 11 points, which really restricts your captain choice for the third ship, but it adds a net 3 dice, makes one ship much tougher, adds action efficiency (free cloak!), and it stays in faction - which gives you an extra 10 points worth of upgrades (not, sadly, captains) and other upgrades if you use the United Force orders card. Good way to find the points to use Martok's elite slot, add Drex to the flagship (because free cloak is awesome), or pull other shenanigans that the build can't manage without the orders card.

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