Cloaked Mines!!!

Not the best picture- Apologies!

Let's dive right into the big baddy of the Attack Wing Metagame - CAPTAIN SAR!

Ha. Nope. It's Cloaked Mines.

Okay, we need to talk first about the Attack Wing metagame and how it has evolved so far. It won't be long, because the game hasn't really been out for very long.

In the beginning, there was Wave 0, and missions were good. You opened the TOS Enterprise and played the Kobiyashi Maru... and the Federation Lost, and the Klingons won... and all was flavourful and good. Everyone was happy with the Mutara Nebula. Sure, there were those who played an X-wing style deathmatch, but most people saw the possibilities of the missions and wanted to explore. Things were good at the beginning.

Enter the first Organized Play Event. I may revisit OP1, but I think a lot has already been written on the subject, and I don't know of a lot of you that are still playing OP1. OP1 was an odd duck. Most people who were playtesting OP1 found that destroying Deep Space Nine was a fantastic tactic, opening up the playing field for maneuvering your ships to be able to destroy your opponent's ships- who may have just been caught off guard by a now destroyed deep space nine. Those who explored this idea all kind of came up with their build. In OP1, most ships were good, and player skill played a HUGE part in winning (because most players at OP events were new players, and those who had some experience with x-wing were at a great advantage).

OP events are one aspect of the competitive metagame, and OP2 was a pretty terrible way to follow up the fun of OP1. See, OP2 restricted movement. In a game of Attack Wing with restricted movement, the game becomes a joust. Sure, YOUR game may not have been a joust, but that's not the majority of games that were happening in OP2. This led to the proliferation of the Klingon Attack Build. Some people played OP2 with Wave 1 ships, but the big game changer, cloaked mines, didn't really have much opportunity to shine in OP2, what with the restricted movement. I can elaborate on this further, if any of you need me to do so.

Okay, so the impact of Wave 1 didn't really rear its ugly head until OP3. These things work together to create different metagames. The Wave 0 OP1 tournament had a different metagame than the Wave 0 OP2 tournament, which had a slightly different metagame than the Wave 1 OP2 tournmament. Scenarios play a big part in the metagame.

So Wave 1 OP3 is a big kettle of fish, and part of the issue is that the movement phase is so open, and into that gaping movement chasm steps the Cloaked Mine.

Cloaked Mines (Romulan/I.R.W. Praetus Expansion)
During the Planning Phase, you may discard this card to place a Minefield Token within Range 2 of your Ship (in any direction) but not within Range 2 of an enemy ship. If an enemy ship passes within Range 1 of the token, roll 3 attack dice (-1 if the target ship immediately performs a [Sensor] Action). Any [Hit] or [Critical] damages the target ship as normal. The affected ship does not roll any defense dice.
Cost: 3

Okay. First of all, cloaked mines have a number of FAQ rulings that can be found here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1031156/st-aw-preliminary-faq

Those are important because it's easy to think that you get hit twice in overlapping fields, but you don't. How they work is somewhat counter intuitive, so read up on that FAQ and understand it before you play against or with cloaked mines. Don't get caught by an unscrupulous opponent.

There are some people that think these things are overpowered. I think they are very efficient for what they do and that makes them very good, possibly overpowered. I've argued on various forums that they are not overpowered, but I can see the argument on the other side. There are ways to avoid minefields, and your maneuvering will be a very large factor in your success against a cloaked Minefield.

What's the maximum number of Mines that could be used in a game?

10 Mines. You take 5 Bird of Preys and throw 10 mines on them. That's a 100pt list. I think that's ridiculous and runs into a lot of problems, but god bless you, you could run it. Of course, you'd need to buy 10 copies of the Bird of Prey. For the most part, you don't want your mine fields to overlap, because you lose out on surface area for your mine field. I'm not too keen on doing the math tonight, but a 10 mine minefield will likely cover about half of the standard play area.

My issue with the above list is that you're paying 30 pts for, at the most, 3 attack dice per ship per turn for every ship in the minefield. Your ships are quite terrible, and will go down to a stiff breeze. Your strategy is entirely apparent- you intend on staying in the minefield. Your ships won't be in formation, because you'll need to lay the field down asap. You'll likely have the minefield down before your opponent can get to you, but there's a lot of game left to play now, and your ships aren't in formation. You'll be losing a ship per turn, and it's simply a game of cat and mouse. It'll be a very hard game, but it'll be winnable for a non-cloaked mines fleet.

10 Mines, 5 Bird of Preys is not an I Win button. The smaller the mine field, the more difficult it gets for your ships to stay entirely within the field. That opens up your ships to attacks at range 2 and 3. Is 5 Mines an I Win button? I still don't think so- if your opponent's plan is to create a linked minefield and stay in that minefield, he's limiting his movement to a very small area and you should be able to stay on the periphery and take pot-shots.

All of this is subject to time limits, but if your opponent is committed to either winning or tie-ing, perhaps you should consider the same kind of strategy. 

The thing to remember is that the cloaked mine shifts the metagame. In OP2, Klingon Attack Builds were tight formation, heavy attack, all cloaked and all business. Cloaked mines wreck that build. That isn't to say that the Klingon Attack Build is dead- because it isn't, but there needs to be more attention paid to the right time to cloak and the wrong time to cloak, when to move into the minefield, and when to avoid it.

I'll revisit the topic at a later date because this article is pretty long as is. Let me know if you think they're OP and give me some reasons!