Star Trek Attack Wing: Initial Impression

Epic

After months of ummms and aaahhs I've finally bought into Star Trek: Attack Wing (STAW), the spaceship combat game by WizKids.

Just as I did a brief overview of X-Wing by Fantasy Flight Games in my 'Initial Impression' article (see here), I wanted to do something similar for STAW. Having recently picked up a brand new second hand core box set from a local lad, I will do just that below. Read on and prosper....


Contents

Star Trek: Attack Wing core game contents

For the retail price of €36 you get 3 of the most iconic star ships from the Star Trek universe including:

• USS Enterprise/Galaxy class Federation ship;
• IKS Maht-H'a/Vorcha class Klingon ship; and
• IRW Khazara/D'deridex class Romulan ship.

You also get all the tokens and gaming accessories needed to play the game including:

• Attack and defense dice;
• Manoeuvre templates, dials and a range ruler;
• Quick starter rules pamphlet and full rule book;
• Ship, captains, upgrades and damage cards; and
• A boat load of tokens (including a freaking planet!)

Impressions

Now that's what I call a brick

I will come out here before I go on any further and say that I'm a big Star Trek fan. Star Wars is nice and all but it just doesn't have the same depth that you get with Star Trek. I'm probably influenced heavily by the fact that I grew up watching The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space 9 while the Star Wars movies were released well before my time. So I'm a Trekkie at heart.

With that out of the way I will tell you now that the reason I picked up X-Wing 4 months ago instead of STAW was for the same reason: the models.

I still remember walking into my FLGS back those months ago and having a good gawk at both starter boxes. My opinion would be the same if it were to happen today, the X-Wing models looks light years ahead of that of STAW.

I come from a of background WH40k and Games Workshop which meant that Fantasy Flight Games and WizKids were both companies that I knew nothing about. However in terms of initial impressions, X-Wing grabbed at me more than STAW did despite my love of Star Trek. This tells you right there how highly I rate the models/gaming pieces as part of a gaming system.

Anyway as luck would have it a friend of mine was willing to sell his second STAW core set at the fraction of the retail price and if there is something I love more than Star Trek then it has to be a bargain! 

The Rules

Having read the rules and examined the accessories it appears that the game shares the same core mechanics as X-Wing with a few very important differences. This is no surprise given that even the box set mentions that it uses the Flightpath system licensed from Fantasy Flight Games.

I still haven't played a proper game yet but given that I pretty much know how to play X-Wing, therefore I more or less know how STAW would play out by just reading the rules. I get the feel that the emphasis is more on how you deck out your ships as oppose to out manouevring your opponent. 

STAW ships comes with lots of slots for upgrade cards which can be crew members, weapon upgrades or tech upgrades. This of course is very Star Trek. If you watch any of the shows it pretty much boils down to the crew of the ship/space station speaking some techno-babble and saving the day with some ingenious solution just in the nick of time. STAW translates this quite well in the form of the abilities from all the upgrade cards you add to your ships. In particular I really like those crew cards that allow you to eliminate one of your opponents upgrade cards when their shields are down. Beaming a Klingon kill team over to the enemy ship for an assassination mission is pretty thematic. Qapla' mo fos!

Now I've heard some people say that they dislike STAW for using the Flightpath system as it was intended more for aerial dog-fights as oppose to large capital ship combat. I would agree if ships in Star Trek behaved like those from the likes of Battle Star Galactica or even 40K where the capital ships drift into weapons range of each other before unloading at their enemies with walls of munitions and fighters and bomber wings. This is not really the case with Star Trek. If you watch any of the shows, these ships are pretty damn nimble. I know this was done mainly to make the scenes dramatic. When you only have 2-3 ships shooting at each other they better be whizzing around your TV screens otherwise it would be a pretty boring fight scene. Either way the movement dials and templates portray the on screen antics of Star Trek ship combat pretty accurately in my opinion.

However the best thing about Flightpath for STAW is not because it's thematic or because it's true to the TV shows, but because it is a simple system. A 100 points game should still only take an hour compared to the dice fest of 40k or Fantasy that can take up to 2.5 hours or more.

So in case you skipped that wall of text, STAW rules are good and not just a cheap clone of X-Wing. You can tell there was a lot of thought put into it by the designers. I even suspect one of my favourite rule from X-Wing, the Tie Phantom cloaking, was 'ahem' inspired by the cloaking and sensor echo mechanic from STAW.

The Models

 At first glance the models are pretty damn awful. The Romulan D'deridex ship has a huge mold line running down the front, the Federation Galaxy class ship is waaaaay out of scale while someone hit the Klingon Vorcha ship with an ugly bat, several times.

However if you are a hobbyist and willing to take some time into a repaint, these ships are not half bad. The details first appears to be lacking but this is mainly due to the horrific paint jobs. Each ship actually has oodles of detail and are very accurate compared to the models used in the TV shows. After repainting mine I have to say that I'm actually pretty impressed.

The Galaxy Class

The Vorcha Class

The D'deridex Class

However something that still really bothers me is the scale. If you've seen any of the shows or movies you'll know that the ships in this set are all over the shop. Very disappointing.

The Accessories

A pretty mixed bag in terms of quality

For the most part, the cardboard card stock used for the accessories in STAW are identical to X-Wing. However someone at WizKids decided that the same material should also be used for the ship,  captain, upgrade and damage cards. Not such a good idea.

The cards also depict screen captures from the TV shows which means that most of the 'art' on the cards are barely there because most of them are so dark and exacerbated by the low quality print material of the cards themselves.

Compared to X-Wing, the accessories in STAW core set in general looks to be of lower quality. Even the shapes of the tokens looks simpler with basic ovals and triangles. It just lacks that final finish that Fantasy Flight seems to put into all their products. Perhaps this is to keep costs down so that WizKids can afford to sell it at the same price point as its Star Wars competitor.

The Verdict

As you may have gathered from my rambling above, I see both pros and cons in this game just from my initial impression of it. However from the initial glance this game does appear to be a genuinely good game. Models are good (with a bit of TLC), the rules are streamlined just like X-Wing but with the added bonus of missions that actually appears to be decent, there are loads of factions to choose from and competitive play seems to be supported.

I'm going to give this game an initial verdict based on my initial impression of the core box set. I will provide an update verdict down the line once I've got properly stuck in.

From a scale of "Expendable Red Shirt" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "The Tribbles" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "Vulcan Mind Meld!" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).

It's Vulcan Mind Meld!

Again this is only an initial impression but this game definitely has potential to go where no one has gone before.....

Alright that's all I got for this week. Stay tuned and remember to set your phasers to stun :D

ARTFX BISHOUJO - Star Wars: Mara Jade Statue Review

I'm a collector.

Always have been always will be. Despite this I've never been a collector of action figures or statues in general. I prefer miniatures because of the opportunity it offers in terms of hobby and painting. I can really go to town with customising my miniatures. This is not the case with action figures or statues.

However I've recently acquired something pretty special that I will showcase today:


ARTFX Bishoujo - Star Wars: Mara Jade Statue

ARTFX Bishoujo is a line of soft vinyl statues produced by a Japanese company called Kotobukiya. Kotobukiya are famed for making some very pretty female sculpts and the one they did for Mara Jade is no exception.


The Character

Mara Jade is a character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU). A former "Emperor's Hand" who later married Luke Skywalker.

The statue is based on the artwork from Shunya Yamashita:

As you will see below the final product is a very accurate representation of this artwork.

The Packaging

The statue comes in a very nice premium looking black box. The statue is encased in clear plastic packaging. Pretty standard stuff. The important thing was that it traveled all the way from Japan and there were no visible damage to the statue. So the packaging did its job!


The Statue

The statue is a 1/7 scale easy assembly kit. The arms and accessories came separate from the body. It was all push fit stuff so very easy to put together.

Accessories includes two light sabers, goggles and an optional cape. The statue comes with a clear base with two inserts. One Imperial and one rebels to show her allegiances. Pretty neat.

The sculpt itself is absolutely stunning. The pose is both commanding and seductive. Mara sport a skintight body suit which help accentuate all her curves and boy is there a lot of curves! Like all of Kotobukiya's Bishoujo's line, Mara oozes serious sex appeal.

Mara also comes equip with some pretty cool gear. The light saber and the gun on her hips gives the impression she is ready to kick some serious Sith ass and the flowing cape together with her wind-blown hair provides some very nice dynamics to the statue.

The paint job is top notch. Her boots has a nice shine to it, almost leather like. Her hair has a very nice shade of red and the paint job on her face is second to none.


Verdict

For a guy that's not that into statues or figurines, I'm seriously impressed with Mara Jade. Kotobukiya has done everything right here, sculpt is fantastic, paint job is superb, pose is cool, light saber is purple and I haven't even mention dat ass!

And here's my verdict from a scale of "The Prequal Trilogy" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "Leia Cinnamon Bun Hairdo" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).

Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!

Nuff said.

Hope you enjoyed the brief review. I will have more nerdy product reviews in future so stay tuned.

More photos with the alternate light saber and cape below:

X-Wing: Initial Impression

Pew pew pew!

Not entirely sure why but I have only recently noticed the existence of X-Wing, the Star Wars space combat game by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). Considering it came out way back in 2012 and appears to be insanely popular to the point that some of their products are continually out of stock, it has completely flew past me (...get it? Oh never mind :P).

I picked up the X-Wing core box game, purely on impulse, a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing in my FLGS. Here is my impression of the product.

Contents

X-Wing core game contents

For the retail price of €36 you get 1 Rebel X-Wing, 2 Imperial TIE Fighters and all the bits and bobs that you need to play the game. It may not be apparent on the pic above but this game uses a lot of tokens and gaming accessories.

Here is a brief summary of what's in the box:

• 3 Pre-painted and fully assembled miniatures;
• Attack and defense dice;
• Manoeuvre templates, dials and a range ruler;
• Quick starter rules pamphlet and full rule book;
• Ship, upgrades and damage cards; and
• A boat load of tokens

Impressions

Managed to encourage my GF to be my opponent to test the rules and she promptly shot my X-Wing down without breaking a sweat!

The first thing that caught my attention were the miniatures. For pre-paints these ships look fantastic. They are a bit above table top quality but due to the details of the sculpts and the use of washes they look really really good.

The second thing that I noticed was how simple the rules are. There is a 4 page quick starter rule pamphlet that can get you started in minutes and a 27 page rule book with the full rules that you can probably digest in 15 mins.

The third thing that grabbed me was the Flight Path system. Very simple but also ingenious. The system does a good job of emulating  the WW I/WW II style combat that Star Wars aerial battles are based on. No measuring tape needed which also eliminates dodgy players making dodgy moves during the manouevre phase. This automatically encourages a competitive feel to the game as there is less scope for 'gaming the system'.

Finally, the last thing that impressed me were the ship cards. Ships are generic i.e. a TIE fighter is a TIE fighter with 2 attacks, 3 defense and 3 hull points. However, you can customise your ships via pilot cards and upgrade cards (if applicable for that ship). So you can have a generic cheap and cheery 'Academy Pilot' to pilot your TIE fighter in a nasty Imperial Swarm or you can have a named pilot such as 'Night Beast' or 'Mauler Mithel' with their own special rules in a more L33t squadron.

The combination of all of the above results in a game that feels like a table top/board game/card game hybrid.

Did I mention there were loads of tokens?

It is worth mentioning that this game is not only ready to play out of the box but is also fully self-contained. You can have pretty good games with just the 3 ships included in the box. However like all miniature games, you will eventually want to expand to give yourself more options. Standard X-Wing games are at 100 points which can contain as little as 3 ships.

Verdict

You don't need the Force to sense that I'm well impressed with this game. Since writing this I've already expanded my collection to the point that I can play 100 points of either faction. So I'm definitely putting my money where my mouth is!

The only negatives that I can see so far is that 1) paint jobs on the models can be a mix bag 2) having only 2 factions can get a bit boring and 3) the expansions are pretty expensive considering you only get one gaming piece for €15. However this is balanced by the fact that you only need a few models to be able to game with it.

I'm going to give this game an initial verdict based on my initial impression of the core box set. I will probably post an update to this as I get more games in and attend a tournament or two.

With that in mind here is my verdict from a scale of "The Prequal Trilogy" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "Leia Cinnamon Bun Hairdo" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).

Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!

I'm not even a Star Wars fan but I think this game is really really good. X-Wing is basically wargame 'lite' which could be a gateway that introduces tabletop gaming to those people that normally would not be into wargaming.

Public Service Announcement

If this article piqued your curiosity, check out FFG's tutorial videos here:

I'm currently looking for opponents to play against so if you live in Dublin, Ireland and would like a game drop me a line at fullmetalvoiddragon@gmail.com.

Live long and prosper!....

New White Dwarf Magazine Impressions

I picked up GW's new White Dwarf magazine a couple of weeks back out of pure curiosity. I'm not a collector of hobby magazines in general but I do have a small collection of White Dwarf magazines that I purchased when I was a nerdy teen first starting out in the hobby.

So when I heard that White Dwarf was getting revamped (again) I thought I'll get one to see if I'm missing anything.

I picked up Issue 4 on 22 Feb 14 which focuses on the recently released Imperial Knights. Here's my impression of the product.

Contents

White Dwarf is now a weekly magazine that can only be picked up at a GW store (for €3.20). I assume this was done to coincide with GW's new strategy of weekly releases.

The magazine has 32 pages broken down broadly as follows:

Page 1: Opening Salvo (Editor's intro) and table of contents;

Pages 2-13: New Releases - Imperial Knights, a couple of digital supplements and Black Library books;

Pages 14-17: Imperial Knights - info on the fluff of the Imperial Knights and their creation by the Studio team;

Pages 18-21: Paint Splatter - brief painting tutorial for two Imperial Knight houses: Terryn and Raven;

Pages 22-23: Sprues and Glue - some tips for assembling the Imperial Knight;

Pages 24-27: The Rules - some teaser rules for the Knight Paladin and Knight Errant;

Pages 28-32: The Week in White Dwarf - random stuff

Impressions

I'm no Sherlock but it is pretty obvious the magazine was designed as a platform to promote the current week's new releases (or in this case pre-release).

Of the magazine's 32 pages, 26 pages is devoted to covering the week's big release: the Imperial Knights. The coverage is pretty comprehensive as it gives us lots of pretty pictures to drool over, some fluff to give us a feel for the new faction, some ''behind the scenes" commentary by the creators of the Knights, some hobby tips to give you ideas and lastly some teaser rules to wet your appetite. The last bit really surprised me as I have not seen rules in a White Dwarf in a long long time. I call it teaser as they don't actually give you enough to field any Knights. You'll still have to buy the Codex to do that.

The magazine does feel really short as you can go through it in 15 mins. However I do feel there is a good balance of photos and content. With the focus on the big release of the week there is a lack of contents on other areas of the hobby. However this is clearly what they were going for as each issue will target a specific portion of their market i.e. 40K Imperial players for this issue, Fantasy Dwarf players for the previous issue and so on.

Given that I was interested in learning more about Imperial Knights, this magazine was a satisfying read. In particular, I really enjoy the interviews with the original creators: Jervis Johnson and Jes Goodwin and their take on the new Imperial Knights.

The rules section is a bit weak in that it is not functional i.e. you can't play the unit with the rules printed. However the intent is clearly to give potential buyers a glimpse into what the unit can do i.e. Superheavy, D weapon chainsword and Ion Shield. Oh baby.

The last section is a hodgepodge of random stuff which I found a very entertaining read. The Codex Apocrypha gives some wiki like descriptions of in-universe terms relating to the current week release. In this case Adeptus Mechanicus techno babble such as scrap code and Lingua-Technis. A funny take on readers letters in Ask Grombrindal (i.e. the White Dwarf) and my favourite Gaze of the Inquisition where the White Dwarf team speculate about some 40K mysteries including who they think is the "giant of a man clad in baroque power armour" referred to in Trazyn the Infinite background. Adam Troke argues it is the Primarch Vulkan. Man I love all that fluffy shit.

Verdict

Like a lot of hobbyist I get a bit nostalgic when talking about White Dwarf. However I think the mentality of "everything was better in my day" tends to introduce too much negative bias. With that in mind, here is my verdict from a scale of "Pyrovore" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "Bolter" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "2++" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).

2++

This is a short magazine that wouldn't appeal to everyone. I myself will not be picking this up every week. However if there is a release you are really interested in, a copy of the new weekly White Dwarf is not a bad way to spend your hard earned €3.20.