Friday 31 January 2014

List Building Interlude Part 2

Today I'll continue my build request for OP5. To reiterate- Admiral's orders are in effect, the person generally plays Klingon lists, and OP5 has OWPs that are going to shoot at range 1-2, and can be blown up. 
I think we want 3 Klingon Ships, and we're going to want then to be completely faction pure, as we'll be using the Admiral's orders to get us 10 extra upgrade points. I obviously think that Vor'Cha is a fantastic ship, and I'm going to include two of them in the list. The Negh'Var is also a great ship for weathering a beating, so I'm going to include the Neg'Var as well. That brings us to a pretty standard 1 Neg'Var, 2 Vor'Cha build. 

The Klingon Flagship upgrade is something that I think we're going to want to put onto the Neg'Var, to ensure that it gets a free cloak action every turn, and every other ship makes their attack extra efficient. Here it is. 

Klingon
Attack: +1
Agility: +1
Hull: +1
Shields: 0
When attacking, all other friendly Klingon Ships within Range 1-2 of your Flagship may convert 1 blank result into 1 [Hit] result.
Action: Cloak
Upgrades: Crew, Tech

The upgrade costs 10 points. Remembering that we have 110 points to play around with, we are now at 90 points and have 20 points of Klingon upgrades left. 

For the Captain slot of the Neg'Var, we'll be looking at either LE Martok, or regular Martok. LE Martok will bring the attacks of both ships up to 6, but it'll cost you your action. You'll get a free cloaking action with the flagship upgrade, so LE Martok's usual downside is lessened. That being said, count me a sucker for regular old Martok. His ability to give another ship a free action is great. All of the other Klingon captains will be lower skill, and so it'll work on all of the Klingon ships. I'm going to use regular old Martok in this list. He costs 5 points. 15 points left!

Obviously, in any Klingon Attack Build, you're going to want Gowron. He's such a great combo with regular Martok. He costs 4 points. 11 points left!

The third captain is going to be a toss up between Nu'Daq or Worf, and if someone has the numbers on these bad boys, that would be greatly appreciated. Consider these 3 points up in the air. 8 points left. 

From here on out, we have to decide what we want to do with those final 8 points. I have a few ideas which I'll list below:

Once More Unto the Breach-5 pts- you would equip this onto the Neg'Var and get two attacks at 5 attack each. I'm not too fond of this plan, as you cannot modify the attacks, and the consistency is rather low. 

Double Drex- 8 points- I much prefer the Drex option on a ship with Picard or Dukat. I'm not sure that they would be all that great in this build given that actions are going to be at a premium. There is definitely an argument to be made here. 

Barrage of Fire- 5 pts- I don't like it, never have, but it could be good with two stacked ships just for the sheer weight of dice. When all stacked together, you'd be looking at about 12 attacks, which is pretty crazy. Unfortunately, it makes the final 3 points not as good. 

I really want to get the most out of every upgrade available, and the Klingon offerings at 3 points are pretty weak. Alexander is an option, but as Rich as pointed out previously, he's great on paper and not necessarily going to activate a whole lot throughout the game. 

I would also consider playing around with the Captains, as Martok may not be best on the Neg'Var. You may want to consider putting Worf on the Neg'Var, so that you can reroll blanks. I think that is how I will finalize this provisional list. In addition, Martok gets to shoot from a pretty buffed out ship. 

So the initial list looks something like this:
Admirals Orders- United Force
Resource- Klingon Flagship 10pts, attached to Neg'Var

Neg'Var 28pts
Worf 3pts
Drex 4pts

Vor'Cha 26pts
Gowron 4pts

Vor'Cha 26pts
Martok 5pts
N'Garen 4pts

Total- 110 points

And there you go. Your total attack dice possible (range 1), will be 21 attacks. I'm iffy on Worf on the Neg'Var over the Vor'Cha, and am iffy on whether only one Drex is needed. Let me know what you think.

7 comments:

  1. That's not a valid list. The Admiral's Orders say those extra 10 points must be spent on Upgrades only. Not Ships, Captains, or Resources. You've only spent 8 points on Upgrades: Drex & N'Garen and 102 points on everything else.
    Also, I'm pretty sure Worf is better than Nu'Daq. Take him every time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my goodness, you're correct. I suppose to make it a valid list, you could change the Neg'Var to another Vor'Cha to get down to 108 points.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, to get to 100 points and 8 points of Upgrades. The two are separate things. And you could still add another 2 point Upgrade, if you can find a decent Klingon one.
      I could probably build a valid list but it'd be easier with the tools I have at home. And other than having to buy a 3rd Starter Set, there's nothing wrong with a 3 Vor'cha build!

      Delete
  3. This is what happens when you write articles late at night.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Worf should be on the flagship, no doubt. The other ships convert one blank to a hit because of the flag text, so his reroll mechanic is much less useful on them. I don't see how you expect to get much mileage out of N'Garen with Martok-8 unless you somehow expect to survive without recloaking that ship every turn - which seems unlikely at best.

    Switching the Negh'var to a Vor'cha fixes the point value issue. If I were going to run under the stated restrictions I'd drop N'Garen and spend the 6 free points on Secondary Shield Emitters for the flagship and (if you have two SSEs) Martok's Vor'cha - alternately, SSE on flagship and Alexander on Martok. Being able to recover shields (albeit poorly) can be a lifesaver if you lose them all after a collision, and the flagship is the most important element in the fleet. Martok is the second most vital element (since Gowron barely functions at all without him) and will draw fire early in most cases, so Alex will probably earn his points there if he ever does - and Martok's ride has the most effective buff and earliest shooting in the fleet, so it gets the most out of action-free battle stations.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, and after five test games, the OWPs are a non-factor. I've seen them fire only twice in all those games. They delay the game quite a bit as ships crawl forward killing whichever ones are inconveniently placed, and they restrict movement a little in the turning stage after the first pass, but that's about all they do. If your opponent is a ninny they might try sprinting forward and eating shots to engage sooner, in which case you should just laugh and kill him.

    It's also not terribly hard to clear space to drop Cloaked Mines, although getting out more than 2 of them is difficult. Still something to be wary of, since they can force you into OWPs that would otherwise have never gotten a shot.

    The delay issue is probably significant in timed events, and it tends to favor 2-ship builds. They don't find themselves losing points as early as 3+ ship fleets do, and it can be very hard to catch up on kills as the clock ticks down.

    My own current plan for OP5 is a 2-ship crossfaction Hero Build, which has gone undefeated in seven games now. Sadly, we aren't using AOs, but if we were, the fleet would look like this:

    Strike Force AO (5)

    Negh'var (30)
    Klingon Flagship (10)
    Picard (7)*
    Scotty (6)*
    Spock (6)*

    Vor'cha-class (26)
    Gul Dukat (6)*
    Sulu (4)*

    100 points

    Strike Force lets both ships cloak as free actions, both Scotty and Sulu are running every turn, and our attack die conversion rate is staggering thanks to Picard's scan, Dukat's battle stations, and the Klingon flagship effect on the Vor'cha shots. I'm "only" throwing a max of 13 dice beyond range 1, but mine are achieving 75% plus hits rate and they're clumped so I can expect 6 hits (against -1 agility, no less) and 4-5 hits at once, which is more than adequate for cracking cloaks. I also fire early, well ahead of any fleet relying on the usual suspects (eg Gowron, Donatra, or Worf) - which can easily generate a kill before the return shot goes off.

    I'll be rolling 6 agility dice or 7 with Sulu conversions, which is respectable. Couple that with the ability to shift to defensive tactics by taking evade for free with both captains if need be and it's a very tough force, extremely difficult to earn points off of with any speed. Play for the long game, advance slowly and carefully avoiding collision threats, and kill a ship or two early and you will almost certainly wind up ahead when time is called even if you don't manage a wipeout.

    Also, keep an eye out for opportunities to run one ship or the other sans cloak for a turn - the extra die from Strike Force can be a big help, but you can't use it if both hulls are cloaked. Dukat is the most likely candidate for this trick - if not cloaking he can run both evade (or target lock if you're in no danger) and battle stations for free with Sulu giving him a solid 3 dice agility. He's also far more expendable, although unable to repair shields like the Negh'Var is.

    Without the AO, I'll drop Sulu and run Interphase Generators on both ships. Actually slightly tougher that way in the short term, and more resistant to the odd fluke roll.

    ReplyDelete