-Scott Rubin

So far this week we’ve shared previews for upcoming Star Trek Attack Wing Wave 4 Card Packs and contents from the Kelvin Timeline Mirror Universe Faction Pack.  Today we’ve got the final installment of this batch with cards from the other new big box, the Independent “A Motley Fleet” set.  With the wealth of different species and factions contained within the overall heading of “Independent,” this set gives you fun new options for the Maquis, Andorians, Vidiians, and the truly unique in the case of the Dauntless encountered by Voyager.

Our focus is going to be on the Vidiians, a tragic race brought to the brink of extinction by a horrific disease known as the Phage.  Thanks to their advanced technology and science the Vidiians prey upon others, harvesting their organs and performing disturbing experiments on their bodies.  Joining the Motley Fleet set to lead the charge is the Vidiian Captain, a 3 point Independent captain with 4 Skill, the ability to include an Elite Talent upgrade on his ship, and a sweet special ability: in your Planning Phase the captain can disable a Crew upgrade on a nearby enemy ship!

Speaking of Elite Talents, one included in this set is the Vidiian Sodality that costs 1 point and can only be equipped to a Vidiian Battle Cruiser with a Vidiian Captain.  With the Sodality in place the Vidiian ship gets a token (with a mysterious new symbol?) every time it disables or discards an enemy Crew upgrade.  In return, those tokens can be removed to prevent Crew upgrades or the Captain from being discarded from your Vidiian vessel!  For 1 point that’s a great deal, and lots of Vidiian upgrades have Crew-targeting abilities to trigger this effect.

For example, also serving in the Motley Fleet is Motura, a 2 point Independent Crew upgrade card.  As an action this Phage-suffering Vidiian can be discarded to eliminate a Crew upgrade on a nearby enemy vessel.  In addition, your ship can perform a maneuver of 3 speed or less, though at the cost of not attacking this turn.  That’s really handy if you wouldn’t be in a position to attack anyway, or if that bonus move could get you out of the line of fire.

The Vidiians also get some heavy firepower in this set with the Hypothermic Charge, a 4 point Independent Weapon upgrade for Vidiian Battle Cruisers.  Effective at Range 1-2, the Charge rolls 3 attack dice and is assigned 2 Time Tokens when fired.  This brutal weapon ignores Shields on the defending ship, and if the target has no active Shields you can choose to re-roll any/all of your attack dice!

The Motley Fleet Independent Faction Pack doesn’t just have ships, captains, and upgrades, but also bonus content for your games like the Tensions Rise mission.  In it no fewer than FOUR players go head to head in a crowded battlefield, trying to score Victory Points by destroying enemy vessels with a countdown clock of Mission Tokens counting down to zero!

We hope you’ve been enjoying these previews of upcoming Star Trek Attack Wing sets, both the Wave 4 Card Packs and Faction Packs for both the Independents (A Motley Fleet) and Mirror Universe (Kelvin Timeline).  As always, check out WizKids.com for rules download and all the info on Star Trek Attack Wing.

-Scott Rubin

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