Tuesday 10 December 2013

Cardy Scum! Dominion Week pt 2- Kraxon Upgrades

 
I really do like this joke...


Today I'll look at the some of the upgrades on the Galor and give my initial opinion on them. 

Gul Ranor is pretty useful if you want to go in a straight line. I think it's obviously worse than just equpping a useful captain with Engage, but sure, I can see Ranor's use. I've never seen him played competitively, but that's not saying too much! Stats below!

Gul Ranor (Dominion/Kraxon Expansion) 
Captain Skill: 5
Action: Perform an additional 1 [STRAIGHT] or 2 [STRAIGHT] maneuver. Place an Auxiliary Power Token next to your ship.
Cost: 3
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

Captain skill 5 is nothing to write home about, and I would have liked to have seen an Elite Talent on him, but if you take him, you'll be using his action as often as possible to get the most out of unreturned fire from a 180 degree firing arc. He's a bit of a one trick pony, but it actually isn't a bad trick. He's made for a 180 arc though, so don't go throwing him on a non-Galor. His cost is actually quite nice for what he does. The token is not that big of a deal, since you'll be using a green maneuver next turn anyway to get rid of it. Overall, a decent captain to have in your toolbox, but I would have rather seen him have a free Engage, and I don't actually think that would have been overpowered- since there are so few ways to get extra actions outside of captains. 

Next up, Gul Danar. Is Danar decent? Sure! I get the feeling that the Dominion really is meant to be played as a swarm. The initial ships certainly don't lead one to that conclusion, but knowing where the line goes, I think these captains were designed to be cheap things to throw into a 4-5 ship build. 

Gul Danar (Dominion/Kraxon Expansion) 
Captain Skill: 3
When attacking, you may re-roll 1 blank result.
Cost: 2
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

There isn't too much to be said here. Passive rerolls are never bad, and are actually decent when you're not looking for too much out of your ship. Gul Danar, which also rarely seen, would be fine in a bit fleet, adding a bit more aggression to one of the bit players. 

Glinn Telle is a card, in my opinion, misdesigned. I would have preferred that Glinn Telle do something with shields or with scan. Given that the Kraxon is going to be scanning and taking hits quite often, it would have been cool to have scan affect your shields in some ways. Alas, we are left with the current version, which is mostly useless.

Glinn Telle (Dominion/Kraxon Expansion)
Action: Discard this card to target 1 ship in your forward firing arc at Range 1-3. That ship rolls 2 less attack dice this round.
Cost: 3

There are going to be times when Glinn is really going to make a difference. Those times will be relatively few and far between, and there is not too much incentive to keep him around, given the fragility of these Dominion ships. You can only shield shenanigans for so long before someone just forges ahead and blows up your Kraxon. Glinn Telle may be putting off the inevitable, but it should probably be a disable, and cost 4 points. One use cards have to be good to give them consideration. They have to provide either decent insurance against something happening (uhura) or a big boost to attacks (once more into the breach). Glinn doesn't do enough to justify the high price of using the ability. 

Tomorrow, Tech and Weapons.

7 comments:

  1. Just so you know, I find most of your pic amusing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glinn Telle's still a terrible crew upgrade, but he's probably intended for use with Weyoun, who can disable himself to prevent the Glin from discarding. Why the designers think -2 attack dice on one enemy ship at the cost an action and disabling a skill 6 captain is worth as much as (say) Sulu's effect is a mystery. If you could throw him away whenever an attack was declared on your ship he might be worth the point cost, but as an action, even if it was a free one, not so much.

    I've never found Gul Ranor to work particularly well on Galors, since using his action to duck out of arc often leaves the enemy on your tail in a turn or two, and once they're behind you getting them off is awfully difficult. He fits fairly well on a Breen, sprinting in to range 1 to fire the Energy Dissipator, and that's even better now that the Dorsal Weapon Array is available to help make up for cruddy Breen firing arcs. Depending on how the movement dial looks, he might also have a spot on the J'H battleship to give it a speed boost - but skill 5 is awfully low for a 36 point ship, and a better captain with Engage would probably be a much better choice.

    Gul Danar's only real failing is his lousy skill, which makes it hard for him to live long enough to actually get a shot off. His text is actually pretty strong, adding a hit to a volley more often than not with most of the existing Dominion ships. For a passive that's quite good, but it has the side effect of putting a bullseye on whatever ship he's on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I want to comment on those Wave 0 awards. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You will have to wait until Monday!

      Delete
    2. Because if you caught them, they were only up for a minute before I reverted them back to draft!

      Delete
    3. Apparently Feedly is just that fast.

      Delete