Tuesday 21 January 2014

The Koraga- Day One!


This is one of my favourite things that exist...
I'm four weeks away from being all caught up on the Attack Wing releases. At some point I'm going to slow down on the article front so that I don't burn out, but we're not there yet. I am going to mix it up a bit and start with the Klingon offering, which I think is quite good, but kinda flawed (a novel position in comparison to my previous reviews).
Here's the ship. 

I.K.S. Koraga (K'Vort Class)/Klingon Starship (K'Vort Class)
Front Firing Arc: 90° Rear Firing Arc: 90°
A: 4
E: 1
H: 5
S: 3 (2)
Each time you defend while Cloaked roll +1 defence die.
Actions: Evade, Target Lock, Cloak, Sensor Echo
Upgrades: Tech, Weapon, Crew, Crew
Points: 26 (24)

The attack is good, the hull is good and the shields are okay- you'll be cloaked most of the time so it's not so bad. The ship comes with a front firing arc and a rear firing arc which is quite good, and gives the Klingons a bit of an excuse to use those torpedoes. Cloak and sensor echo are always useful, and the Evade and Target Lock are standard on Klingon ships. It's essentially a smaller Vorcha, and that's not bad at all! For two more points the Vorcha has the all important 5 attacks, which makes it a much better ship. The movement dial is okay, and the upgrade slots are perfect. There's no need for too many tech or weapon upgrades, and two crew is about right for the ship. 

There's not too much to say actually. It's a klingon ship, and it's good. There you go. Review of the Koraga finished. 

BUT WAIT

I actually have a gripe with Wizkids on the Klingon Bird-of-Prey front. I don't get why this wasn't a small, 14 pt cloaker. You would think that a small Klingon attacker would have sold like crazy. With a stat line like the following

A: 3
E: 1
H: 2
S: 1

I think that would be something that would be worth running at 14 points. It would definitely be a glass cannon and wouldn't throw things off too much. it would make a great swarm, the ships could cloak, sensor echo, evade and target lock, and have a weapon slot and a crew slot. Done. Package it with a decent Worf captain, a Duras Sister and a Riker crew member and I think you have something that would have sold like CRAZY. I bought one Koraga, and have no intention of buying a second one. Obviously, I appreciate the fact that I don't have to spam things in Attack Wing; each list looks different from every other list (mostly). I am, however, left scratching my head at why they thought they needed two romulan science vessels and no small bird-of-prey option for the klingons. 

For future releases- push out a small Klingon ship. Everyone who plays this game has at least thought of playing that fleet. HECK, most people who play this game were thinking the Jem'Hadar ship was going to be small enough that we could have got a few in without breaking the bank. 

An additional awesome idea would be to put out a Bird-of-Prey with a TOS crew. Alternative Kirk, Spock etc., If anyone is listening from Wizkids, do that. I have a feeling it would sell very well. 

On a conceptual level, I don't think the Klingons needed a 24 pt ship. I absolutely think that they needed a small cloaking ship to compliment the large battlecruisers that are already part of the line. To be fair, the Klingons are a fantastic faction that are well designed- I just think they could have blown it out of the water with this one. 

Ah well, tomorrow Captains!

6 comments:

  1. Because the Ch'tang/B'Rel class is already the smaller Klingon Bird of Prey from the TOS Movies era. Also happens to be what the Duras sisters flew. The Koraga is K'Vort class and significantly larger with locked wings even though the same filming model (with fixed up wings) was reused. I wish WizKids had used a new mold & made it "wings up" like the K'vort should be. But the K'vort class is a much bigger Bird of Prey and it's Hull value reflects that

    Also, a 2 Hull cloaker with only 1 defense die (or 2 with the Koraga's ability) just wouldn't survive. See the Romulan Science Vessel. Without an upgrade like Interphase it dies too easily. At least the Vo starts with 3 Agility & gets an automatic Evade ability.

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  2. There's a "wings up" model in the pipeline for Chang's ride (which also means new Chang, yay) but it's a ways down the road yet. Maybe we'll get a proper TOS D7 and/or K'Tinga model while we're at it.

    The non-prize ship B'Rel (at 20 points) will also be along eventually, one hopes. I don't think a 14-point 3-attack cloaking ship (even with 2 hull) would be at all good for the game in terms of balance. Too strong with a bit of attack boost trickery thrown in, especially against non-cloakers. If we were going to see things like that we'd have had a preview in the Jem'Hadar attack ship, which has pretty clearly shown that "small combat ship" means ~20 points to WizKids, and cheaper ships are either specialist platforms for odd tasks (carrying tech, booster admirals) or have terrible durability issues (D7, Romulan BoP, Somraw) to balance their offense potential in swarms with booster tricks.

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  3. The Klingons unfortunately just stagnated since the beginning of the game. That's not to say that they never got anything good - there are good options in pretty much every expansion - but they never really moved beyond the "three Vor'chas" or two of them and a Kronos One, or something of that nature, Martok and Gowron, Drex, Drex2, etc. Everything good they got works for that particular build. Barrage of Fire folds right into that strategy. Captain Worf is great, and improves that fleet. I've seen Federation and Dominion go through huge shifts in the way they play. Romulans have gone through some big ones too (if the new two-ship Romulan fleets stick around). But Klingons haven't been able to produce anything better than what they already do. Their expansions just help do it a little bit better, usually with a card or two.

    It's a shame the Somraw still won't change the way Klingons play and they'll be stuck in the same spot they've always been in.

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  4. I don't disagree with you wrabbit, but I don't really see that the Klingons need a whole heck of a lot of improvement to begin with, but could use a different play style or two.

    I get that the K'Vort is the larger BOP (and the sizes of BOPs are a quagmire), but I'd rather they release this model as a small ship, instead of a ship just smaller than a Vor'Cha.

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  5. Perhaps better yet, how about another named Vor'cha in a pack, as well as a new Galaxy and D'deridex pack? Having them available outside the starters would be nice for people who want multiple generics, and another named ship of each certainly would not be a bad thing for variety's sake.

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  6. All of those ideas are great. The Galaxy as the Yamoto or that ship that got blown up by the Jem'Hadar would be fine.

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