No F'in Space: The Return of the XLs

A title like that needs perhaps a little explanation alongside it!

With the demise of Eaglemoss, the halfway house that was Master Replicas and their "found" stock we have now come to a point where FanHome have picked up the gauntlet and taken on the Star Trek Starships Collection.

Focusing exclusively on the Kurtzman era (apparently with the exception of Discovery), the model series has chosen to skip the small scale vessels that marked out Eaglemoss' 180 edition series and instead focus on the mid-scale replicas that, ironically, were showcased by the Discovery collection. 

Due to size, storage, cost and the chances that my family will disown me if any more space is taken up by undisplayed, boxed spaceships I've had to be a bit more picky when it's come to the new FanHome line.

Rather than collect everything I've taken the decision to focus only on the XL ships meaning that the next review after this one is likely to be the Enterprise-G Constitution III. 

But for now let us crack open the box on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F. A veteran of Star Trek Online, the F has already received three regular sized editions thanks to Eaglemoss. First there were the two different paint schemes of the original giving collectors the chance to display their Odyssey Class ship in the STO colours or the more "realistic" greys of the TV and movies. As part of the later 20 issue STO line there was also the Yorktown Class upgrade players would be familiar with.

Picard's third season chose, wisely, to remain faithful to the original set up when it debuted the Enterprise-F as it was about to be retired effectively making the Yorktown subclass upgrade a "What If". It also played more to the "realistic" paintjob rather than the striking whites and blacks of the online craft.

It's a solid and logical choice to follow and gives collectors a truly stunning model that ticks all the boxes and makes these XL editions a must.

Heavily detailed, the Enterprise-F displays one impressive hallmark that sets FanHome above Eaglemoss - they can line things up.

The hull itself is covered with white and black window markings, RCS thruster emplacements and lifeboat hatches as well as the distinct charcoal grey striping along the centre line. All of these points are perfectly aligned to the hull features whereas previously some of these might have been off by a fraction. It easily outdoes the smaller original given the increase in scale and therefore ability to emphasise the surface features of the Odyssey Class.

Comprising of a metal upper primary hull and upper secondary hull as a single piece, the lower primary and the remainder of the Enterprise-F are moulded in plastic and there is no distinction in detail between the two sections. Back in the earlier Eaglemoss days the metalwork would have less precision in some of the finer shapes but here the intricacies of the model traverse both mediums. It feels complete with the best examples of where the painting alignment has nailed it being found on the underside.

Certainly around the charcoal segments of the saucer and on the lighter grey underbelly of the secondary hull the marking out of the lifeboat hatches is spot on and I don't think there's been a finer example to date. Around the lower sensor dome this is also evident with the light and dark edging perfectly in place.

Trailing right to the back, the F even has a decent level of detailing around the support craft which is docked in the tail end. Known as the Aquarius, this looks almost as if you could lift it right out of its dock. The recessing on it works perfectly and even highlights the hull features of this small vehicle.

While we're back here, the warp engines are nicely finished. Retaining the hallmark translucent bussard collectors and warp field grilles of the original collection, there's a definite sleek finish to the warp engines on the Enterprise-F. There is a little "give" in the thin engines so be cautious however they are meticulously completed with Starfleet pennants, RCS thrusters and the ship registry right on their end points. 

It would be amiss not to mention the unique "double neck" feature that makes the Odyssey Class really stand out. While the deflector dish is rather striking in its bronze paint. your eye is easily drawn to the negative space just above it. You can just make out the detailing on the top of the secondary hull even if it is shadowed by the overhanging primary hull and FanHome have certainly ticked an important box in not lazily ignoring this part given that it's almost hidden away.

The effect of the two connecting arms between the hulls is very satisfyingly created here and the larger scale emphasises how magnificent the effect is.

What I really, really appreciate with the Enterprise-F is the precision in the painting and marking up. It's a grand step above the sometimes haphazard finish of the Eaglemoss line and cements that the new holder of the licence is keen to manage quality control a bit more astutely. They got it right and it shows. Solid ship and one you've got to get.

Challenging the Pack: Universus and Lower Decks

Recent months have taken me away from writing for a variety of reasons however with the arrival of UVS' Universus card game there's a lot to talk about.

And while we await the arrival of Magic: The Gathering's new Star Trek line it's worth not forgetting another card-based entry into the sci-fi gaming market.

Launched at the end of 2024, the Lower Decks series has been fully utilised to create four new character packs which are ready to play straight out of the packaging. Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford are all here along with a full stack of cards meaning you're ready for combat straight away.

Each 60 card deck also comes with a foil wrapped 6 card booster pack which contains a random selection of alternative art and foil cards to supplement the packs.  For note, these seem to have dropped in price significantly in recent weeks at some retailers so now is the perfect time to grab the set.

At the centre of the packs are the character cards. Each of the Lower Decks characters has two options as their character plus a lenticular version of their "main" version. A Universus deck also comprises of Attack and Foundation cards with which to build and launch your attacks however the Challenger series also packs in two further card types with Asset and Action variants.

Each of the two character options is itself varied providing a trade off between hand size (number of cards you can have at your disposal) and health. More options means a lower health bar but that can all change depending on how you play out your rounds.

Each character will also have traits to enhance your defence or attacks as you move further into the game.

I'm not going to detail the rules of this because, honestly, they are a whole post in themselves and the videos online from Universus are far better at explaining the systems and dynamics of the game but I can say that there are multiple variations and possibilities that I'm only beginning to scratch the surface of.

The benefit is that you can mix and match across the ranges to provide better and more apt abilities to your characters. That said, I'm more than likely to stay Lower Decks pure. With four packs detailing each of the four main characters that offers 2 x 2 player games running at the same time. Each of those characters has their own tweaks and traits starting right back at their character cards.

These sets also come with a bonus blind booster pack which features alternative versions of some of the cards in the main deck. These might be foils or alternative artwork and can be tracked using the leaflet included that details all of available options. Across the four boosters of the four characters here I didn't get a duplicate which was lucky and added extra cards to each of the four basic packs.

The only thing I could grumble about here is that a search of the ol' internet turned up very little hopes of locating any more of the booster packs if you were determined to locate all of the variant cards.

One more point to note, unless you're a totally hardcore Universus player it's unlikely you will have purchased one of the table mats which provide health points and reminders for actions. In that case make sure you have a pencil and some paper to hand in order to keep track of your health points and potentially a few pointers on what order to complete actions. Unfortunately there are no instructions included for quick reference so if you do want to check a point you'll have to skip through one of the online vids to jog your memory.

While this isn't multi-player and therefore not a good one for group gatherings, it's a gem to play if you have a spare half hour to kill with a friend or sworn enemy. The variations in results, character combinations and choices certainly ensure that no two games will play out the same although I would say you do need to confirm a deck size limit especially if you happen to have added s few more options thanks to the blind boosters.

Whether of not it will survive the onslaught of the highly recognised Magic: The Gathering is a point I would rather not dwell on but given the size of that licence I tend to believe it will overshadow this entry into the Universus catalogue. A big shame yes, but with only these four packs in existence the lifetime of Lower Decks Challenger Series seems limited. Had there been further packs from Strange New Worlds or Picard for example it might have extended the interest but as of now I'm unfortunately convinced this will be it. 

Go out and grab a few packs or the full set while you can because it's still worth playing and an enjoyable way to delve into a bit of Lower Decks antics while you have the opportunity!

Update: Where You Been?

 It's been a fun ol' year to say the least and has resulted in a significant drop in content.

Always good to be honest and there it is.

So, what has happened?

Well, if we go back to March 2023 I was part of a team that set up a new chapter of the UK's Starfleet International (SFI) Region 20 called the USS Mercia. Growing a lot faster than expected, we became quite an active chapter in our first year with regular online and in person meets in the Midlands and out as far as Market Rasen and down to Stafford. 

With a membership that covers both the UK and into Europe the team have been working super hard to ensure we offer the best. Some of our membership have even been involved with SFI at the regional and international level through different auxiliary units such as Sciences, Medical and Tactical.

Personally I've also been running the regional magazine called The Runabout for the last two years, producing 8 editions containing news, reviews, fun articles and fiction from around the UK and Ireland. It's taken a lot of spare Trek time up but it's been amazingly rewarding resulting in the team winning two awards last year at the International Conference for Best Newsletter and also Best Cover - truly a fantastic accolade for a brilliant group who have worked tirelessly to produce a top quality read each quarter!

The USS Mercia also won the International Shakedown Chapter of the Year award at the same conference which was a monumental result and reflected the efforts the team had put in over 2023/24 to go from a new group to fully commissioned.

2024 saw the Mercia run an hour live broadcast in November raising £730 for Breast Cancer Now as well as being the host chapter for the SFI stand at Blackpool's Destination event in July. If you were there, hello! If you didn't find us or know we were there, I understand why!!!!!

While I  stepped back from The Runabout in November I decided to stand for the role of Regional Coordinator for Region 20 and was elected to the position on January 1st this year. It's an incredible opportunity and one I truly relish. Of course, lots of thoughts and ideas are spinning around at the moment and I will officially take on the role from March 1st this year. 

So this site might see a bit of an evolution. I'll still try and keep up with reviews and opinions but I'm also going to use it to document my journey as RC for Region 20 - who knows what's coming? Well, in fairness we know Destination is on the way in August and there will be a Regional Summit in May so there's two things I'll absolutely be covering!!!!

For now, I hope you're all good and well out there and I look forward to updating you all very, very soon.

LLAP

Clive

Into the Trek Universe: Section 31

 

Where to start on this one.

Firstly, it's not as bad as the slew of reviews have made fans believe. It's (and I've said this a few times today) not as great as it could have been but by no means is it absolutely horrific.

Originally planned as a full series, Section 31 was retooled into a 95 minute made-for-streaming movie following COVID-19, the writers' strike and also Michelle Yeoh winning an Oscar.

Major factors indeed which have led to the first Trek movie since Star Trek Beyond and the first to premiere outside of a cinema. The world has indeed changed since Beyond and this is definitely a sign of how Star Trek is attempting to fit into this new age and find, probably, a new audience.

Let's be honest, Star Trek fans aren't the youngsters they once were. The franchise is on the cusp of its 60th birthday and the recent Prodigy proved to be a bigger hit with the existing fanbase than attracting a new and younger audience. Kurtzman and co are about to try again with their young adult show, Academy but I fear the same result again.

But to Section 31 and to term it quickly, it's a fairly run of the mill action flick that is set in the Star Trek universe. Returning Michelle Yeoh as Terran Emperor Phillipa Georgiou, she is teamed with a group of Section 31 agents sent to track down a typically dangerous weapon.

As it turns out, Georgiou is more than familiar with the weapon, named Godsend, since she ordered its creation in the Mirror Universe. How inconvenient to run into it again during Star Trek's Lost Era.

Add in a bit of Georgiou backstory as to how she became Emperor and you have a fairly briskly paced and explosive hour and half to settle in for. But that's really about it. Section 31 is OK at best and disappointing at worst. It's not that its bland but something here just doesn't quite work. The movie is certainly an attempt to tell a story outside of the "norms" of Star Trek's Starfleet crew and starship combo but the nuances and subterfuge that made Section 31 so interesting in DS9 and Enterprise are long gone. Their activities are about as subtle as using a sledgehammer to open an envelope and we've diverged into areas of high tech and gunslinging rather than the shadowy manipulation and dealings that made Sloan such a great foil for the DS9 crew. Tailored more for the Fast and Furious audience, Section 31 is short and snappy with little to think about beyond the superficial action and pedestrian plot. Don't expect lengthy debates on the morality of the universe or one to ones that build on relationships because this is a very disposable cast.

Comprising of an Augment, a mech-suited soldier, a badly accented Irish robot piloted by a nano-being, a Chameloid and a Deltan, it's the perfect mismatch team accompanied by Starfleet observer Lt Rachel Garrett. The potential is great but just when you feel like it's getting going or there's another chance for Michelle Yeoh to perform some of her trademark martial arts work, someone drops an attempt at a joke or there's a humorous twist on a moment which just rips the heart out of the story and believability. In respect to the characters themselves there's very little if any form of development for them and Garrett's turn from "stick up her ass" scientist to embracing chaos is limited and rushed in seconds when it happens. 

None of the characters are dislikeable but none of them are particularly memorable either, maybe with the exception of Garrett because we know the name. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that fans will know she becomes the captain of the ill-fated USS Enterprise-C, you'd never know what era of the Trek franchise this is set in. Garrett could be interchanged for any other Starfleet officer from any era and the story would still work. It's a terrible use of what should be an enthralling experience to see this time period but there's generic rock planet, space station with bar and dark ship interiors which give no real feel to the setting. 

That's really the problem here. It's just OK. The effects are OK, the ships are OK, the script is meh and the use of the Godsend is another "weapon-o-mass-destruction" that is a path so heavily trodden it's turned into a ditch. A shame in a big way and I did wonder how this would have played out over a full series as I can't imagine they wrote the whole thing off and started again. Maybe the characters would have received more time to flex their wings and allow us to care more about them and that's perhaps another fail here in that for the first time we have a brand new set of characters (bar two at a stretch) who are brought in for 95 minutes and that's it. Every Star Trek movie before this has utilised an existing set of characters and built on the audience's knowledge of them. Section 31 has not been afforded that luxury which means that you're only really invested in Georgiou to any degree but then Michelle Yeoh isn't given the greatest script to work with.

The door is left open for a sequel as you would expect but I can't see it getting a green light. I'm not even sure if it justifies a rewatch for a considerable time if ever and that's not something I wanted to say. Kudos though to Kurtzman and al for their balls to try something different which has definitely been a hallmark of their journey from Discovery's first episode to this moment. Each show has been different, each iteration has offered a new perspective and stretched the Star Trek franchise in new ways that the Berman era of the '80's and '90's never really dared to. That's one thing to applaud as they've never shied away from being unique. But Section 31 just doesn't seem to fit in aside from a vehicle to bring Michelle Yeoh back and round of Georgiou's story  bit more neatly than it was in Discovery. Maybe reaching too far outside the original vision of Star Trek has now been proven to be a move too much and that this isn't what fans signed up for.

The counter problem to that is, TV and film have moved on a lot since 1966, 1987 and even 2009. Production is a machine turning out content at an alarming rate and Kurtzman's factory has produced more Star Trek variants since 2017 than were made between 1966 and 2005. That's a frightening amount of diversity if not equalling the number of episodes across those original four decades.

As a diversion until Strange New Worlds' third season drops later this year, this will make do but I suspect it will be some time before another of these one-off movie projects drops given the reception to this entry to the franchise. 

How did it got for you? Is this the worst Trek ever or a sign of the franchise stretching its wings that little bit further into the universe rather than just Starfleet?

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In Review: Channel Open: A Woman's Trek

What was my expectation?

Perhaps hugely masculine but I thought this was a book about the characters and their appearances in the franchise.

I was very wrong and should be scolded for such an unusually closed opinion.

Open a Channel is likely to be seen as one of the most ground-breaking books in Star Trek literary history and rightly so.

Encompassing every generation from The Cage right up to Strange New Worlds, Nana Visitor has taken an incredible deep dive into the very foundations of not just the Star Trek franchise but the fabric of Hollywood across the last 60 years.

Insightful, funny and at some points incredibly dark and personal, A Woman’s Trek never fails to be brutally honest. The personal experiences of Visitor herself are laid very starkly open at times as is the treatment of women in the industry right back to the first sparks of Star Trek’s existence.

Including interviews with Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, Terry Farrell, Alice Krige, Nicole De Boer, Christina Chong, Tawny Newsome, Jeri Ryan and many many more, Visitor manages not only to capture the journeys of main cast actors but also recurring stars who graced the Star Trek franchise. It does feel as though every stone has been turned to provide the most complete picture of a female perspective to Star Trek ever.

While the interviews of original cast members such as Nichelle Nicholls and Grace Lee Whitney are gleaned from talks they gave before their passing, these are some of the more gut-wrenching sections of the book. Or at least you think so at the time. 

The further into this book you get, you realise that it’s not consigned to the past and was going on in many different ways both verbal and physical for decades. The thing is, it didn’t and it hasn’t. While the towards the end of the book and into the Kurtzman era it’s certainly not prevalent, the male/female equality of the industry still seems out of balance although a million trillion light years from where it was. The “casting couch” is a thing of the past as is the need to be “f**kable” as it’s termed several times. Visitor aso encounters (it seems) quite a bit of hostility and caution when interviewing indicating the hold around TV and film that continues to protect some of its more grimy secrets and views.

This is also a pretty heavy book not just in content but in weight. More a coffee table volume than a paperback novel, A Woman’s Trek covers every aspect and angles, even taking the time to include Jennifer Lien’s Kes even though the actress has distanced herself from media due to ongoing personal challenges.

Maybe the disappointment here is the choice by Marina Sirtis not to be involved with the project in any way. Is this an indication she is becoming tired of Star Trek or the industry as a whole? Perhaps it's not right to speculate but given the prominence of Deanna Troi in The Next Generation and how that character was sold in the first few years, it’s a voice that is distinctively missing from the book.

Jeri Ryan’s insights are as close as we may get to Sirtis’ outlook with her playing two very different sides of Seven of Nine through Voyager and then Picard. While not devoid of the brains that Sirtis often notes happened before she regained a uniform, Ryan is more than aware of what her Voyager version of the character was doing for the series and how it came to move away from that necessity in later seasons.

Discovery, Strange New Worlds and Picard have certainly not had to deal with that visual “requirement” rather focusing on strong, independent female roles that have been key to all those live action shows in different ways and been played as absolute equals among the ensemble.

Interesting too is how some of the actors were almost pigeonholed into certain types of roles with Linda Park especially calling that out in terms of the underused Hoshi Sato or Roxann Dawson finding that she was being funnelled into Latin American roles that she had no desire to play. In that latter instance Torres gave her the opening which has seen her flourish into an in-demand director so Star Trek has certainly offered options even if it was a fight to get there as both she and Gates McFadden relay.

It’s very easy to recommend this book to any fan. Certainly a reflection of the current times as well as the uneven, shoddy and downright horrible history that has dogged female representation in the TV and film industry. While this focuses absolutely on Star Trek it’s easy to transpose the opinions and experiences of those involved here to other shows and movies. Truly an inspiring read and a book that will without doubt alter your views on STar Trek’s importance to diversity, inclusion and equality.

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Ascendancy: Reloaded

Now let's be clear. This isn't a new game but it is one that has stood the test of Star Trek time extremely well.

Originally launched back in 2017, Star Trek Ascendancy pushed past the ship-to-ship combat of Wizkids Attack Wing and ventured into new and unexplored territory. Quite literally in fact. But why should we still be interested in this when there's Into the Unknown out there and GFN's own Away Missions? If you want galaxy building why not dip into Infinite on your PC?

Because this one is all about tactics and empire building that's physically on your table and brings fans together in one place to play and chat Trek. Magnificent.

It's a bigger galactic picture and offers varied gameplay versus those now established tabletop and digital experiences. This is going to take some time, a lot of thinking and a shuttlebay full of patience to manage so buckle in for a good long afternoon of gaming.

With a base game box that is packed to the gills with tokens, playing pieces, control panels, planets, space lanes, hazards and a rule book that covered every scenario, it's a Trek fan's dream. Players could start from their homeworld and expand out across the galaxy, discovering new worlds, new civilisations and boldly... ok... you get the picture.

Crucially Ascendancy has evolved through the last seven years of its life, adding in player expansion packs for the Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Andorians and Breen as well as two substantial game expansions with Borg Assimilation and The Dominion War. In comparison to Away Missions this is more galaxy spanning and fleet based rather than a set of characters on a single board so the two aren't competing for the same space.

As we head towards the end of 2024 I pulled out the box and got ready for a steady session on the table because Gale Force Nine (GFN) are set to release a single box which will contain everything produced to date as well as some new and exciting content. Definitely a great sign for the game after seven years!

So let's just refresh on the systems as we unpack the plethora of equipment.

In the original starter box players could choose from the Federation, Romulans or Klingons with each faction offering different tactics. For instance the Klingons can't run from a fight and the Federation will never try and take over an established civilisation by force. These factors and others come into play when you reach out from your starting planet and influence how you interact with your discoveries.

It's also an incredibly organic game because of how the stack of worlds may be played as they are "found" and each of these will only have a certain number of pathways that can be connected to it. As they are revealed by exiting the space lanes with your ship or fleet, each new destination will have some form of action to complete via the Exploration card that is turned when you "arrive".. It may be to make contact with an existing species, it could be to colonise an empty rock or worse, it might be to try and avoid a dangerous nebula or other such hazard lurking in the depths of space.  New planets to colonise will offer space to acquire additional Production, Culture and Resource nodes that can be used in the Building Phase of each round to enhance your existing facilities from ships to bases to completing research.

No two games will ever be the same but just make sure you're ready for a long haul because GFN expect that for every player on the board there's at least an hour of game time (three players, three hours). Each round of the game sees players Build (chips, assets etc), Command (exploring, combat) and Maintain (assessing victory qualifiers and collecting resources) but don't forget to keep an eye on where your adversaries are up to!

If you're not looking for that kind of commitment then there is also a one player option that was introduced as part of the Borg pack. More on that shortly.

Ultimately the aim of each player is to reach Five Ascendancy points which can be acquired by collecting and trading in your Culture tokens. In the case of the Federation should you flip over a Civilisation card when exploring a new world that will immediately give you a Culture token! Each level of Ascendancy unlocks new abilities so you can run more projects and fleets with each increase.

One of the things that I levelled against this game back in the day was that it focused heavily on TNG and TOS without much care for Voyager or Deep Space Nine. In terms of the latter, some of that has been accomplished with one of the two larger supplements which includes the Bajoran wormhole and the Gamma Quadrant. There is still to be anything forthcoming from the Delta Quadrant however!

But back to the main game for now and it can play out a few ways. Boundaries can be set and some players may choose to try and avoid other major races, instead choosing to cultivate new worlds and build up resources with which they can upgrade weapons, fleets and abilities while others may be looking for a fight. That's the genius of Ascendancy in that it can play out however you want it to.  Each journey along a space lane opens up a new and unknown challenge. You'll never (probably!) get through the entire planet stack (Exploration deck) in a game so there's always going to be a variation from the off. Nor is it a given that the Federation moves first each time so you never know what order events will unfold or who will have that key tactical advantage. Uncovering a planet might be a good thing but it could also draw the attentions of an opponent keen to expand their resources of a particular type or simply add some territory to their sector of the board. GFN includes sets of ships to represent fleets in the box but players can supplement further with different ships, starbases and dice packs if they so wish although some of these are now verging on rare to impossible to locate (especially the Defiant pieces).

Players can also be defeated if their homeworld is captured by an opposing force. The neat thing that the Dominion War expansion pack does is allow a conquered people to turn into a resistance force so that you're not left sitting out the rest of the game. 

The Borg expansion does add in a feature which makes it impossible to avoid the Collective as they will spawn and head directly for the nearest opponent. In a one player game that's a given and with their "AI" ability it actually becomes more of a challenge to see how long you can last out rather than attempting to defeat them which is near impossible.

As with Attack Wing before it, the Borg dynamic is naturally overpowered and almost invincible meaning that any true attempt to defeat them would likely require at least two if not three or more players hounding their cubes until the bitter end. There's a ton of new content in the Borg packs beyond the ships such as additional/expanded rules, new nodes and tokens. For me this has become something of a go to where I can try out different factions against the Collective to see which is most effective. So far the results are not promising!

One thing that frustrated me was how fast the Borg could come out of the gate and be on top of your home system. Best case three turns, worst case two - the margin was that fine. However, by a bit of YouTube research and just thinking more about strategy it's actually quite straight forward to elongate the game - just make sure that any pathways into your territory are completely used up. For example if a planet has four space lane options, use all of them to connect it into your network. This is where the additional resources and the built ships really come into play as otherwise players wouldn't stand a chance to build any form of defence.

So to that Dominion pack and that's an entirely different twist again. Adding in the Dominion as their own faction there is the chance to use Changelings as infiltrators onto opponent worlds and also to battle through a campaign loosely tuned into the Deep Space Nine saga.

This is a real step upon the multiplayer concept with the Dominion faction starting on the other side of the Bajoran Wormhole and having to make their way into the Alpha Quadrant as part of the initial setup. Of course they could just fly around the Gamma Quadrant but at some point trouble will come calling.

The nice piece here is that the Gamma Quadrant systems can ONLY be used on that side of the wormhole and there's some familiar planets in there for the Karemma, Dosi and of course the Great Link. 

The problem with the Dominion War campaign is that four players are needed to form two alliances consisting of four already developed and explored worlds (ready for conquering). That's a lot of people to get together and at least a four hour play time both of which I would personally struggle with but may suit other gamers perfectly. I expect that in this case I may field the Dominion as a faction against the Borg or in a smaller 2/3 player scenario perhaps even without the wormhole piece.

Ascendancy is a superb, detailed and in depth Star Trek game that does require some time and patience to get the most out of it. If you want quick and straight forward pick up some Fluxx cards or head for your copy of Away Missions but for a real test of your metal this is the game to do it. Will you try and conquer from the Gamma Quadrant? Dominate from the off with the Klingons? Offer peaceful co-existence via the Federation or watch your foes be assimilated by the Borg? You make the calls!

Star Trek Ascendancy is available NOW from retailers stocking Gale Force Nine. Prices (for expansions) start from around £25 ranging to around £75 for the base game set.

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You're Indestructible...GOLD

Ten years? Seriously? A decade of Attack Wing?

Two starter sets, 30 waves of individual ships, prize events, faction packs, a total rehacking of the points system... and that's just the scant surface moments I can recall from those times.

Now to commemorate the event we have These are the Voyages. Fortunately not a pack that focuses on the final episode of Enterprise but instead one that honours the legendary starship name.

Containing five golden models, this new pack includes the NX, Constitution refit, Excelsior, Galaxy and Sovereign Classes plus 115 new and updated options to outfit them.

Each of the classes can either be fielded as the Enterprise in its different registry guises or an alternative ship from including the NX-02 Columbia, USS Excelsior, USS Atlas or USS Galaxy. It also marks the first retail appearance of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A.

Some of the ships, such as the Enterprise-D have seen modifications to their existing cards and a significant number are now superseded by the contents of These are the Voyages.

As ship models go, there are no real surprises since these are repaints of the existing craft from older waves. My Constitution refit though does have horribly wonky nacelles which will require a bit of work to straighten out. That and the saucer is bent. 

Captain options are extensive with all possibilities including Styles, Harriman and Jellico included, each with their own neat twists to add. Crew options are exhaustive too with every canonical crew represented in almost every single way and that includes Porthos.

The pack also continues the new updates of Lower Decks, First Officer and Night Shift although the latter of those three only appears on a couple of cards.

That 115 card stack is something that might never make its way into your main card haul though because nestled into the bottom of the box is a brand new campaign that pits Enterprises of all generations against thew Q Continuum and some equally obnoxious foes. Taking it in turns to select a ship, captain and upgrades, players take on the Crystalline Entity, the Borg Queen's ship or the hard-as-nails Doomsday Machine in a battle for survival and bragging rights.

There are some "obvious" choices to go for such as the E or the D but the A, B, refit and NX-01 aren't without their advantages since a smaller ship score allows for more upgrades and a thoroughly packed out starship. 

These Are the Voyages is a very unique set though and one that players/collectors may not want to directly add into their big box of cards. The Q scenario actually turns this more into a set to have available for  one off game occasionally “stealing” cards from it to supplement an existing fleet.  It also shows that there is still life in the game after a decade. New features abound, there is still some expansive thinking as to how to keep the game alive and with Into the Unknown requiring a re-mortgage or the sale of a kidney you can understand why players are choosing to remain firmly in the Attack Wing stable.

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