Again, as is the standard format for STAW organised play events, this is a three round tournament based on the infamous "Battle of Wolf-359", as shown in the ST:TNG episode "Best of both Worlds (parts 1&2)" and mentioned numerous times throughout TNG, DS9 and Voyager, as well as the Star Trek movies.
The Fleet Build.
As per the previous month, the fleet points available for this month are the same, 90 points of whatever you want, plus 30 points to be constructed from whatever you find in your random booster pack.
The booster pack ships are identical to last month , with all the major factions being represented in some way, except for the Borg themselves.
The Scenario
Unlike Month #1, this scenario is designed as a co-op type game, as players cannot attack each other, but may attack a single Borg cube, which spends the entire game stationary on one side of the play area, while both players ships deploy on the opposite edge.
Before deployment, both players deploy 3 "debris" tokens (although I spent all day calling them scrap tokens) anywhere on the board so long as they are not within range 1 of the cube or the edge of the deployment area. Players then deploy their ships in ascending command value order.
The objective of this scenario is to inflict as much damage by any means to the Cube (the cube itself cannot be destroyed or affected by any adverse game effects), whilst at the same time ensuring your own ships do not get blown up when the Borg decide to swat you down like flies.
Play continues as normal, however at the end of each turn, the Cube will make a series of attacks, which increase in severity as the number of ships on the board decrease until one hour has passed, or all ships in play are destroyed, whichever happens first.
The scenario winner is decided by which player has inflicted the most damage after the game ends.
Opinion
As the tournament is a co-op scenario, the normal 1v1 type play does not apply, so in the course of three rounds I played the following:-
Round 1 - Federation (me) & "Rogue" Borg/Klingon
Round 2 - Federation & Federation/Romulan
Round 3 - Federation & "Rogue" Borg/Maquis
Final placing - 3rd.
I was quite lucky that my blind booster contained another Sabre class ship, this allowed me to play a "pure" Federation fleet and thus get priority for movement and combat, although it is a shame that the Sabre class ship has numerous flaws in its game impact, such as only having a forward fire arc, and the "vanilla" ship not benefiting from the USS Yeagers awesome ability to continuously fire its photon torpedoes without having to disable them. As this ship is meant to fill the niche in the Federation fleet for a "missile cruiser" it seems odd that Wizkids would hamstring it by requiring you to spend your ships action for the turn on either attaining the target lock you need to fire, or reactivating your torpedoes...an errata for this ship is sorely needed.
Anyways, this months scenario was much more enjoyable, being as that it was not hideously unbalanced in favour of grey area exploiting combos, made worse by having items and crew members nicked off your ships.
The name of the game this month was to bring as much firepower to bear as possible, which anyone can do without the need for owning an extensive number of prize/rare ships and prize/promo crew and equipment cards.
I was rather surprised not to see some Klingon fleets, being as they can usually be counted on to carry some big guns, but alas it seemed that their place had been taken by the Borg tactical cube, with its high firepower and ability to shrug off damage, but at a high cost the Borg players tended to only field a single well equipped cube or a cheap cube with backup from a sphere.
Final Thoughts
A much better scenario all round that allowed for a decent and less frustrating level of play.
The prize for winning (the USS Raven) is a little lackluster but has some decent equipment cards.
The participation freebie in the form of the fleet captain resource is pretty sweet, and certainly has numerous possibilities open to its use.
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