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?

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

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.

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

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.

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

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.

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook 

Set a Course...For Home: Lost in the Delta Quadrant

With the arrival of the Delta Quadrant's Adversaries there had to be a pack designed to take them on.

Lost in the Delta Quadrant provides just those ingredients. New versions of USS Voyager, USS Equinox, Delta Flyer  and a brand new Raven. The latter is the first time this ship has been available in the main catalogue believe it or not!

What we didn't mention in the review for Adversaries... was that a lot of the cards included with both of these expansions do effectively retire a chunk of older Attack Wing content. The costs of cards have dropped, the new features make these a lot more appealing to select and being in a set means there's some form of theme running through the options.

Unusually here there are two Voyager card options as well as USS Nova and the Delta Flyer II but let's not get bogged down in the names because there's a lot packed into this set that needs unpicking.

Aside from the cost changes which make Voyager an extremely appealing ship choice, the range of captains is certainly an eye opener with most of them also having the ability to double up as crew. Chakotay - in much the same way as with Turanj in the Adversaries... pack can be flipped to take command if the captain is lost. Big bonus there which keeps your ship with some form of command skill if things do go a bit pear shaped.

But the biggest newcomers here are the Lower Decks and Night Shift cards in terms of crew and the revamping of craft with a hull value of two or less becoming Auxiliary Ships. These ships can only be part of a fleet if there is at least one ship in the party that has a hull value of four or more.

But yes, Lower Decks and Night Shift. The former means that two cards bearing that text can take up a single Crew slot on your ship roster as long as they are from the same faction. With Night Shift, the text on the card listed under that heading is in play when your opponent has the Initiative Token. There are six of the Lower Decks cards in this pack offering the chance to disable opponent upgrades, take Time Tokens when another upgrade would be hit and even providing Free Actions. Night Shift seems to be limited to two cards in the form of Harry Kim as a Captain and the Elite Action, Coffee, Black.

Personal thoughts on both of these new abilities is that it does provide the Federation faction with even more advantages with no hint that these new inclusions will be available for other factions in the future.  It also seems these new features have really split the fanbase for the game with several notes that it's changed the dynamics completely. I guess sometimes you do need to stir things up and hey, it's not as if you HAVE to use these new packs or their additional spins. My thoughts would be to run this and the Adversaries pack as a campaign combo using the Delta Quadrant missions included. Then the new rules are kept enclosed to these ships. IF Wizkids do produce some more sets and further the Lower Decks and Night Shift rules into those then all the better.

If new players are coming to the game with just a starter set and these packs then it's an even better deal to keep the game alive but that's just my own thoughts right now.

Some of the other cards in here are well worth a punt too. Seven of Nine allows use of the singular Borg upgrade buried in the set. The XO, pilot and CMO from Caretaker are all discards (well played once again, Wizkids). You can upgrade your ships defences with Ablative Armour, add weapons in the form of Transphasic or Gravametric Torpedoes. Changing speed can be made through Variable Geometry Pylons.  The Nova Class can benefit from Rechargeable Shield Emitters and even the Delta Flyer can pop some added Photonic Missiles.

The Raven does seem under represented here with nothing "anti-Borg" or able to slip past the odd Cube. Perhaps a missed opportunity not to double-side Magnus Hansen as a Borg drone? Nor are there any references to the creatures the Equinox used to speed up their voyage home. Erin Hansen interestingly can only be equipped to the Raven - which I also feel should apply to her husband!

Another point is that the symbol for the Luna Class turns up AGAIN on the Bio-Neural Circuitry card... surely this has to be a sign that the Titan is on the way? Otherwise, frankly what's the point.

Adversaries of the Delta Quadrant: Attack Wing Launches into 2024

Three new expansions line up for March and we'll be looking at each one in turn, starting with a new Independent pack that takes fans back to the adventures of one USS Voyager.

Cleverly utilising four already existing Attack Wing models, Wizkids have certainly packed out this release to the max with a storming 52 playable cards, six ship options and a campaign book (make sure you check under the box tray!).

The ship options comprise of the Alpha Hunter and Relic Stalker for the Hirogen, the Fina Prime and Honatta Prime for the Vidiians, the Antares Shadow Numiri patrol ship and the Nasari Nerada. 

The Hirogen, Vidiian and Numiri ships are pretty evenly matched in terms of their basic stats although the Antares Shadow does suffer from not having the Scan ability.  Previously seen in the game as the Bajoran troopship, it's features here in the Delta Quadrant make it significantly more playable especially with the chance to pick off weaker targets with added firepower. The Nasari ship... well, that's a Romulan Science Vessel backwards - just as it was in the show!

But each has its own twists. The Alpha Hunter can Sensor Echo after every move, the Relic Stalker can gain a Battlestations if it's in range of an enemy ship after moving. For once it feels as though the adversaries might have a better and more productive run with some genuinely effective Actions.

Even the significantly lower scored Nerada can kick back if it gets up close to an opponent. 

As for captains, the pack takes its lead from right across the spectrum of Voyager's journey. Alongside those expected faces of the Hirogen and Vidiians are Iden from Flesh and Blood, Dala from Live fast and Prosper and the Vaadwaur Gaul from Dragon's Teeth. Iden, the Bajoran hologram, is the highest priced here at a full 10 points for a skill of 10 although his cost reduces if you equip other "?" upgrades to his ship. The downside is that he's only really effective against other Independent ships or ones with "?" upgrades onboard. A personal favourite in here has to be the new version of Karr that sees the Hirogen built to pick off weaker captains as well as being able to re-roll dice on attacks. 

But where I really feel this pack excels is in its choice of subject matter and then into the abilities. Choosing to dive into the holographic crew from Flesh and Blood was a bold move but with the chance to use them as either Crew OR Tech upgrades it opens up the dynamics of your ships. Just playing about with these cards I initially thought of using the Relic Stalker but then contemplated switching it out for the Antares Shadow. Why? Because by using the hologram crew upgrades Iden became cheaper to attach as a captain.

But dig even further into the cards and there are some new and intriguing features plugged in to add a new layer to Attack Wing. Faux Janeway aka Dala utilises a new Reputation Permanent Effect which (if I read the rather convoluted phrasing correctly) makes any game effects hit it as though it's on the enemy fleet ie the ones who gave it the token. I'll have to play around with this a bit more to totally understand it in play.

Kurros also has one of these nifty new abilities. He can place a Bounty Permanent Effect on an opponent allowing the theft of a unique Crew upgrade. For the rest of the game attacks at the BPE ship gain an additional damage point if a blank or Battle Stations is rolled. 

These two new inclusions do turn up the heat a bit with more peril for players encountering them and maybe even a faster ways to a defeat. Interestingly enough, this pack looks more to causing operational restrictions on an opponent than physical points damage. Check out the Vidiians for one as they are all about disabling Crew while the Tech cards tend to lean more towards repair and consolidation of your fleet. It's certainly a different dynamic to play with instead of just a continuous pummelling of weapons fire. 

The adversaries do play to their character traits in that sense  so the Hirogen do still cater for pure assault while there are more "intelligent" ways to battle and demoralise your enemy. Take away their upgrades, reduce them to a shell and then move in for the final kill or in some respects, let them do it to themselves!

Also in the box players will find the new Delta Quadrant Campaign. Duplicated in the Lost in the Delta Quadrant set, this new series of missions offers a host of scenarios to recreate Voyager's journey home. Ok, you could do this with any ship and any auxiliary craft but let's be honest, most players are going to want to follow it with Voyager and the Delta Flyer. Having the chance to complete each mission and reset does mean you're not trying to keep track of progress too much (well played Wizkids for the series nods in the booklet). It also makes players want to try as the Delta Master since this pack is a lot of fun with new things to try and a campaign that caters for both sides almost equally.

Would I consider playing out a Delta Quadrant fleet? After this pack, the answer is a resounding YES.

Enjoyed this article? Why not like and share to spread the word!

Like our page on Facebook