With September here we finally have the arrival of Wave 26 of the WizKid’s game, Star Trek Attack Wing. Though the other two ships in this wave are just repaints of two popular ships, the Enterprise-B is a whole new expansion. Hit the jump to see what we think.First off, the cards.
We have the generic captain, and the named Captain, John Harriman. The flavor behind it is that Harriman is a fresh captain who hasn’t quite earned his stripes, which explains why he’s only a rank 2 and costs 1. If you’re looking for a low cost captain, there are worse alternatives. His power allows you to get a evasive action and receive auxiliary power token. It’s a steep cost for something the ship can do as it’s own action, but I suppose if you’re looking to make your ship as hard to hit as possible, than this is going to be a go to card (especially when paired with something that removed Aux power tokens like Pavel Chekov (USS Reliant). Demora Sulu gives you the ability to execute another maneuver after you receive damage. It’s a card that can get you out of a tight spot, but can’t think of a reason why I would use it.
The ship itself runs like the Excelsior except for the ships power. It does have a rear firing arc and a 180 degree forward firing arc (like all the other 23rd century Federation vessels), but would be better in a nimble build than the Excelsior given it’s ability to exchange a scan, battle stations, or target lock token for an evasive maneuver during the combat phase. Combined with 5 hull and 4 shields, this ship would make an excellent tank, if it weren’t for it’s underwhelming primary attack (but that can be fixed by other cards in the expansion). Now for the reason you would want to buy this expansion (you know, unless you’re compulsively wanting to buy anything with the name Enterprise on it), the tech cards.
Resonance burst lets you remove a token off another ship (specifically battle stations, evasion, scan, or target lock), but more importantly it lets you bring a ship out of cloak. It is a discard after use, however, and costs five, so it’s great for a support ship, but I’d rather have Geordi La Forge (Enterprise-E) before I’d load up this card. Next is Full Reverse, which lets you add one speed to your backup maneuver. Personally, I’m throwing this onto a ship without a rear firing arc, so when a ship comes into position behind me, I can throw in the reverse and come up behind them, and especially at only a 2 cost, it’s worth it. Deflect Control allows you to repair shields (which os fantastic) as an action. You can keep the card and repair one or discard it and reactivate 3 disabled shields (I shouldn’t have to explain why this is awesome). Holo-Communicator lets you borrow (presumably a better) captain’s power for your own. It only applies to friendly ships, and they have to be in range 1-2, and it has to be an action. This one in particular would go great with Hayes, Shanthi (Thunderchild) , and Kirk (Enterprise Refit) as the captain of the friendly ship. Then as the weapon upgrade we get Improved Phasers. I really enjoy the flavor of this, because in the episode the Lakota appears (DS9, “Paradise Lost”) a comment is made about how they’re packing a lot of power for a Excelsior class. The model used in that episode was the Enterprise-B mode as both ships were refits of the class. This card bumps the primary weapon value up to a 4 (same as a Galaxy Class for reference), but you can only use it every other turn due to the time counter. In most cases I’d rather equip photon torpedoes, but if you have a play style that puts you into range one, this card would be great for buffing your attack combined with the range one bonus (taking your primary attack from 3 to a 5 for the Enterprise-B).
Now for the model. Man, if this isn’t three steps forward two steps back. WizKids has been revamping the terrible paint jobs that these beautiful models have have been tarnished with for the past few waves.
The problem is that while other ships have been getting the glossy metallic finish, they’ve also been getting addition detail in both the paint and on the model. The Enterprise-B just traded the flat blue-gray for metallic gray and they called it a day. Not only is there no additional detail to speak of, but they didn’t even bother to put the refit ridges around the deflector dish.
Where I have a problem with this is how good the others look.
Overall, it’s a great expansion for the tech, if even the model and captain are lackluster.