Jem'Hadar Attack Ship- Crew Review

There's nothing funny about these guys...

 Moving on with our reviews, we're going to take a gander at the Crew upgrades that come with the Jem Hadar Attack Ship. Not surprisingly, we're looking at actual Jem Hadar! Fluff wise, since there are so few crew on crew battles, the Jem Hadar are very difficult to represent effectively. Those of you who want to play Dominion are clearly drawn to the Jem Hadar, but I can imagine that they are somewhat underwhelming. This is part of the limitations of the game, and may be rectified at some point- but I wouldn't hold your breath. As it stands, they occupy the discard space, and I don't think that space is particularly good.

Toman'Torax (Dominion/5th Wing Patrol Ship Expansion)
Action: Target a ship at Range 1. Discard this card and 1 [Crew] Upgrade of your choice on the target ship (even if that ship is Cloaked or has Active Shields). This Upgrade may only be purchased for an Jem'hadar ship.
Cost: 5

First of all, you could very easily use Toman'Torax with Weyoun and have a ship that can strip crew off of other ships. If your local gaming group is filled with big fat ships with lots of crew, Toman and Weyoun could be a great counter to that strategy. He costs 5 points, but that's because you can use him even if the ship is cloaked and has shields. This is probably the best discard card, and makes the strategy moderately decent, even if you don't end up using him in combo with Weyoun. Toman isn't bad. I know, hell has frozen over. A discard card isn't bad. Of course, you have to be at range 1, but if you're not in a position to attack, or are in a position to land a pretty devastating strike, but are being hampered by Sulu- this is a card that is going to be great. Against some builds, however, you're going to struggle. This card is probably a pretty decent sideboard card, if you're using that particular upgrade. Toman definitely is as good as a discard card should be- I'm put off by its high cost, but can understand it given the presence of Weyoun. 

Omet'Iklan (Dominion/5th Wing Patrol Ship Expansion)
Whenever you attack with your Primary Weapon, you may convert 1 result into a [Hit] result. This Upgrade may only be purchased for an Jem'hadar ship.
Cost: 5

Omet is a very decent crew upgrade. The ability to turn a blank into a hit, or convert a battlestations into a hit so that you can save the token for your defense roll is something that you should consider including into your build. The three native attacks on the Attack Ship are a bit weak, but if you have the ability to make your roll more efficient, (see Spock on the Enterprise D) then you'll find that three attack dice can get the job done against a cloaked ship. There's not too much to say- he has a high cost, but the ability is very good, and you get to use it every single turn with no drawback. This is definitely one of the better straight dominion upgrades. 

Virak'Kara (Dominion/5th Wing Patrol Ship Expansion)
Action: Target a ship at Range 1. Disable this card and 1 [Crew] Upgrade of your choice on the target ship (even if that ship is Cloaked or has Active Shields). You may then use that Upgrade's Action (if any) as a free Action this round. This Upgrade may only be purchased for an Jem'hadar ship.
Cost: 5

Finally, we are left with Virak. This is a pretty unprecedented card. There's not a lot of comparison to be made with existing upgrades, except maybe superior intellect- which doesn't get a whole lot of play to begin with. You have to use it on a Jem Hadar ship, but Sulu and Spock and Scotty are still going to be pretty darn good on an attack ship. Whether or not you include this upgrade will be mostly dependent on what kinds of fleet you anticipate facing. I think I would still rather have Toman, but I can see how you could make the case for Virak. Both are pretty high on the threat meter- your opponent definately doesn't want to lose the stuff they paid for, but they most certainly don't want to have that stuff used against them!

For the most part, these are very good crew upgrades. They cost a lot, but they can have huge effects on the game. I think these cards are going to need a lot of playtesting to determine where they fit in best. They require an action, but Virak gets you a free action, and that free action could wind up being Sulu! With Weyoun, I think I'd want Toma over Virak, as I think the potential benefit of stripping crew is higher than just disabling the crew- but again, this will need some playtesting. They definitely require some out of the box thought- Let me know if you've run these guys to some success.

Jem Hadar Attack Ship Review- Captains

Weyoun, thinking of the Uhura/Weyoun Combo...

Today we are going to continue our review of the Jem Hadar Attack ship and take a look at the captains that were included in the expansion. They've been discussed quite a bit, and I think they have some neat practical applications, but it's very difficult to see how they can be both great AND efficient at what they do.

First up, we'll take a look at the heavyweight- Weyoun

Weyoun (Dominion/5th Wing Patrol Ship Expansion) 
Captain Skill: 6
Disable Weyoun to prevent 1 of your [Crew] Upgrades from being disabled or discarded this round.
Cost: 4
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

Weyoun has a very unique ability. He disables to allow one of your crew upgrades to do their thing without having to be disabled or discarded. That's a pretty powerful ability. Most of the time, the disable/discard modifier is applied to a card because their ability would be too good without having some kind of drawback. In the case of the disable drawback, it's that you'll need to spend an action to re-equip the card, and then you can use it at your leisure again. The discard stipulation is reserved for those situations in which it would be (mostly) insane for you to use the card over and over again. I look at Uhura as one of the cards that, if given the ability to stick around, would be game shattering. The ability to completely dominate the movement phase is practically as good as waving a bit "I win" sign in front of your opponent- which is why you have to discard Uhura when you use her. That being said, is Weyoun good enough to turn Uhura into something that would absolutely dominate?

Possibly. You'd have to make sure that you're spending your action to keep Weyoun up and able to keep Uhura from discarding- so you're going to be down an action. That being said, there are plenty of ways to get free actions in the game currently, with lvl8 Martok and Flagships, you should be able to reliably get the extra action you need to take advantage of Weyoun's drawback. Because it comes up so rarely, I'm a bit rusty on whether disabling Weyoun would cause your ship to revert to the lowest skill possible, so someone will have to fill us in on that. 

There are dozens of practical applications for Weyoun, I'm just not sure that they get better than Uhura. Of course, I haven't played a whole ton of games, but Uhura is the same cost as Engage, and is hands down a better card. This is one of the better applications, and you should seriously consider her inclusion in a list looking to take advantage of Weyoun's ability. Furthermore, I think you should equip your biggest, baddest ship with this combo, as getting out of and still getting to fire is going to make your opponent HATE this combo. On paper, this is pretty nuts. I haven't really tested it, but I think it's probably pretty nuts in game as well. 

Finally, we have the other Dominion Captain. 

Luaran (Dominion/5th Wing Patrol Ship Expansion) 
Captain Skill: 3
One of your Dominion Upgrades costs -2 Squadron Points.
Cost: 2
Elite Talent Upgrades: 0

Ugh. I don't know- she's a free lvl 3 captain. it's not bad, if you're playing it tight and need an extra few skills. She should be auto include if you're looking to run a ship, an unnamed captain and a dominion upgrade. That's about all I can say about this card. 

Tomorrow, we'll look at the crew.

5th Wing Patrol Ship Review

Watch out, moderately bland ships incoming...

Today, I'm going to look at the 5th Wing Patrol Ship. I think this ship could have been better, but I still think it's a pretty great ship. Let's get right to the stats.

5th Wing Patrol Ship (Jem'Hadar Attack Ship)/ Dominion Starship (Jem'Hadar Attack Ship)
Front Firing Arc: 90° Rear Firing Arc: NA
A: 3
E: 2
H: 3
S: 3(2)
Action: When attacking this round , gain +1 attack die. When defending this round, roll 1 less defence die.
Actions: Evasive Maneuvers, Target Lock, Sensors, Battle Stations
Upgrades: Tech, Weapons, Weapons, Crew
Points: 22 (20)

I would have preferred if it had two's across the board. That would have brought it in at 16 points, making it a very decent swarm ship. I think we would have seen quite a few Dominion swarms as a result. Instead, we got this middle of the road hybrid that doesn't fit in to either the large ship camp, or the small ship camp. That leaves the 5th Wing Patrol Ship looking for an identity that it does not easily find.

The action is not particularly impressive at all. I don't think it makes up for the two points, and instead, you'll be really looking to get some mileage out of that shield for the two points. I don't think this particular ability should have been an action and instead should have been a once per turn ability, but then, I'm not designing the game- or playtesting!

Otherwise, the movement dial is decent, but not great. I don't get why the most nimble of these ships don't have much better movement dials. It probably has to do with the large ships having movement dials that are way too good. I have a feeling that going forward this will get worked out, but these ships from the initial line are all out of whack. The Valdore shouldn't have a better dial than the Attack Ship.

The actions are fine, battlestations is always good. The upgrade bar is what makes this ship shine. You should be looking at tooling out these ships with an upgrade or two, as they will not get the job done on their own. This is the problem that I referenced at the beginning. In order to make these ships competitively viable, they need some beefing up, but then you'll probably bring them to about 30ish points, and at that point, you have to ask yourself why you aren't just running Klingons or Romulans? If you're self limiting to the Dominion then fine, but I still think that there are better Dominion options at this point.

We'll look at some of the upgrades as we progress through the week, but I just don't think this ship does what the Dominion needs this ship to do.