Saturday 7 December 2013

Apnex Upgrades!!

 
Something about Muons!


Today I'll go over the Tech Upgrades in the RIS Apnex expansion, including the Muon Token and the Interphase Generator. One of these tech upgrades is very good, and the other is very middle of the road. 

The Muon Feedback Wave works as follows:


Muon Feedback Wave (Romulan/RIS Apnex Expansion)
Action: Discard this card to place a Muon Token beside a ship at Range 1. This upgrade may only be purchased for a Romulan Science Vessel
Cost: 4


The Muon Token explanation is found below:

Muon Token (for the Tech: Muon Feedback Wave from the Romulan/RIS Apnex Expansion)
A ship with a Muon Token assigned to it follows these special rules:

1. A Muon Token stays with a ship until it is removed.

2. During the Activation Phase, after the ship moves, the ship takes damage to its Hull equal to the number of its current Maneuver -1. The type of Maneuver does not matter, just the number.

3. After the ship performs a Green or White Maneuver, it can spend an action to remove the Muon Token.


A few things spring to the mind the first time you take a look at this thing. It's really too bad that this is a Discard ability. I understand that a Muon Token is a pretty terrible token to have beside your ship, but I'm of the opinion that it is a bit obvious when it's coming, and you should be able to avoid taking any damage from it. That being said, you'll be restricting what your opponent can do in the movement phase, which is never a bad thing. The fact that the Muon token sticks around makes it that much better. 

I've used Muon Tokens a few times, and once an opponent gets used to them, their usefulness plummets. You'll club some baby seals, but you won't get much long term use out of the things. I think these things need a revamp, as they aren't really seeing much play. I'd probably take out the discard, and put in that it requires a target, instead of just hitting all ships in an AOE. That would certainly increase the usefulness of the science vessel, and you probably still wouldn't see more than 1 taking up space in lists. 

I'm rarely interested in this upgrade, but have found it to be decent when I play draft. 

The below is something a bit better, and definitely raises some eyebrows:

Interphase Generator (Romulan/RIS Apnex Expansion)
When defending while you are Cloaked, you may discard this card after all the dice have been rolled to reduce the damage from a single attack to exactly 1 [DAMAGE].
Cost: 3

To be honest, I would never put this on a science vessel. I would prefer to equip this onto a Klingon ship. The only other Romulan ship that it would be worth equipping onto would be the Warbird, and I honestly don't see too many of them or have too much love for them right now. If they had a rear arc, I think they'd be pretty fantastic, but as it stands, the Warbird needs some love. On a Klingon ship, this thing is bonkers. If you can find room for three in a 3 ship Klingon list, I think it is a decent investment. On the science vessel, however, you want something offensive in your tech slot, and this just keeps the ship alive- which is great and all, but what's it going to do? Probably nothing. 


Captain Mirok is actually not bad. Mirok gives you a fairly rare ability for cheap- it can repair shields without having to deactivate attacks to do so. Here's the profile:


Mirok (Romulan/RIS Apnex) 
Captain Skill: 4
After you move, if at least one friendly ship is within Range 1 of your ship, repair 1 damage to your Hull or Shields.
Cost: 2
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

A relatively cheap captain that works well if you're running some smaller ships. It also repairs hull points, which is also very rare. This card could work well in a swarm build with a Valdore at the centre, or on a Dominion ship such as to Kraxon, surrounded by Jem'Hadar attack ships. I would run this upgrade in lists with a large centre ship, and multiple small ships, to increase the chances that there will always be a ship within range 1 of yours. You want this ability to go off, so it'll need to be on a ship that can weather the initial attacks. Very good captain with a nice passive ability. 


Next week- The Dominion Wave 0 reviews. Following that, I'll start in on Wave 1, and by the end of January should be on to Wave 2, at which point we'll be looking ahead to Wave 3! I expect that by the time Wave 4 hits i'll be all caught up lol!

4 comments:

  1. Why do you think Muon Feedback Wave applies a token to all ships in an AoE? It says "...beside a ship at range 1" not "...all ships..." and there's only the one token. Have I missed errata?

    That said, I think MFW is more effective as a threat than anything. As long as you've got one available that could be applied to a ship, that ship will think twice about plotting any high-speed moves. Restricting maneuver is probably a greater effect than the actual damage will be. It's also more effective with anything that can prevent you from taking actions, either through forced collisions or Ferengi EMPs or Positron Beams stacking aux power tokens.

    Whether it's worth the points is still debatable, but part of that's because tech slots are rare, and often better filled with Cloaked mines.

    Interphase Generator is awesome for bigger cloaked ships, and as you pointed out, the Klingons currently use it better than the Romulans really do. If only the Valdores had a tech slot. :( Still, this is probably the best card in the pack for many people - not Cloaked Mine levels (and it competes with them for slot space) but close.

    I find Mirok works incredibly well with Kraxon, especially if you also use Konmel on the ship and just concentrate on keeping that shield bubble up. 34 points is a decent price to pay for refreshing 2 shields that cover any friendly ship within range 1 almost every turn. The Keldons will probably help that some - they give Dominion another ship with similar maneuver to stay in formation, better offense, and a real need for that kind of fleetwide defensive buffing.

    OTOH, it's hard not to go with Donatra instead, or Terrell for those on a budget. Using Kraxon really commits everything everything to staying within range 1 as much as you dare.

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  2. Ill change the article. Good catch. Ill also change the font up. Holy moly!

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    1. Happens to everyone. I did a whole post with my text set to match the background one time. :)

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  3. I think that the Apnex is a very good pack. As you've mentioned not only is the ship a good little annoyance-boat, but the other cards that come with it have some good utility in a Romulan fleet. It does seem to be a growing pattern however that the cards packed with a ship aren't necessarily the best ones to use on that ship.

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