-Review and photos by Scott Rubin

Since the release of the first Card Packs and then with the 2017 Federation vs. Klingon Starter Set, WizKids has truly revitalized the Star Trek Attack Wing game, and they’re by no means done yet.  The end of 2018 is seeing a slew of new releases designed to give you more options than ever to build and play your existing fleets AND to add new things to them.  We’re going to take a look at several new products, starting today with the Wave 4 Card Packs: Federation Attack Squadron and Hirogen Warship!  If you’re still not familiar with the game (and if you’re a Trek fan you should be), you need a Starter to play and then you can build your fleets via single-ship, non-blind expansion packs.  Each expansion comes with game elements to play the ship as a unique vessel or as a generic ship of its class, as well as a variety of upgrades in the form of Captains, Elite Talents, Tech, Weapons, Crew, etc.  Because of the way you accumulate these cards and tokens, on the one hand it’s never a bad thing to get duplicates of expansions so you can equip cool upgrades to multiple ships, while on the other it can get expensive to do so.  That’s just one of the cool things about these Card Packs – they’re much cheaper since there’s no ship, just the tokens and cards to play a ship you already have in a different way with more options for your fleets!  Let’s dive in to these two new ones and see what they bring to the table.

As you can see, the Card Packs themselves look a lot like the standard single-ship expansion packs, only smaller.  The packaging consists of a sleek bubble on card format with the usual blue and black space background, WizKids, Star Trek, and Attack Wing logos, etc.  At the bottom of each bubble is an insert declaring which ship the cards belong to, and you can always see the named vessel’s (or one of them) card inside. 

Meanwhile, the back of each Card Pack has a description of the ship from the show or movie in which it appeared, a list of the included contents, and a reference for which ship expansion pack you’ll need to get the most out of it.  For example, to run the Hirogen Hunting Vessel that’s included in the Hirogen Warship Card Pack you’ll need the previously released Alpha Hunter expansion pack from Wave 11 for the ship model and its maneuver dial.  Now, you can use other elements from the pack interchangeably as normal in the game with other ships (Captain cards and Upgrades), but to run the actual ships you’ll need to have the models from another source.

Each Card Pack contains at least one new ship token (the tile that goes on the base) and cards to field either one or more new unique vessels or a ship class that already exists in the game.  The Federation Attack Squadron pack offers the unique Fighter Squadron 1 and Fighter Squadron 3 (each with their own distinct special abilities), and the Hirogen Warship the Hirogen Hunting Vessel as seen in Star Trek: Voyager.  As is standard with Attack Wing expansions the named vessels have a leg up on their generic counterparts, usually with a special ability and one more shield, though they also cost more points.

In these packs, the Hirogen Starship generic is an exact copy of the one included in the Alpha Hunter pack and the Fighter Attack Squadron is the same as the one that came with the previous expansion.  Meanwhile, thanks to the new cost formulas the Hirogen unique vessel is fewer points!  The new Hirogen Hunting Vessel is only 22 points while the previous Alpha Hunter was 26 for the same stats, upgrade options, and action bar (though of course the special abilities are different).  Of course, all of the content in these packs have the new streamlined language, clear icons and symbols, etc., that have made the recent revamp of the game so great.

The standard Hirogen Starship is a sturdy, agile little ship with good tactical flexibility.  For four points more at 22 the Hirogen Hunting Vessel has 4 shields instead of 3, can equip an additional Weapon upgrade, and has the special ability that when the ship makes an attack that deals no damage it gets a free Battle Stations token AND performs a Target Lock!  Unique captain Hirogen Hunter (counts as “Hirogen Captain”) is skill 5 with the ability to use the Tractor Beam upgrade as a free action, while captain Idrin (also a “Hirogen Captain”) is skill 3 and can strip Disable or Time tokens from his ship’s Tech and Weapon upgrades in exchange for Time tokens on himself.  Two Elite talents let you focus your Hirogen ship on different tactics with The Lone Hunt granting a permanent +1 Attack die when no allies are nearby and Relics letting you generate Mission tokens from successful attacks that can be spent to perform free actions.  Helpful Beta Hirogen Crew upgrade buffs his captain AND doubles any Scan action his ship performs, while the defensive Donik prevents his vessel from being targeted by any Weapon upgrades fired through a Secondary Arc! 

The only Weapon upgrade in this pack is the Subnucleonic Beams, a devastating close attack rolling 4 dice and disabling Crew upgrades for each uncancelled hit or crit hit (max 3).  Stealth Mode gives a ship the ability to use Sensor Echo without being cloaked, while the Tractor Beam (used perfectly with Hirogen Hunter) is an action that forces a nearby enemy ship to treat white maneuvers as red and green as white for one round!  Lastly, this pack comes with the “?” upgrade Optronic Data Core, a shared Independent/Federation card that can fill either a Tech or Weapon slot and lets you get more use out of another “?” upgrade on the same ship.  This will be particularly useful on Federation ships with things like Automated Distress Beacon or Computer Core.

If you’re looking for something even smaller and more maneuverable, the Federation Attack Squadron pack offers a lot of options.  There are two cards for the basic, generic version at 20 points, or you can upgrade to either of the 24 point uniques with one higher starting attack, one more Attack Squadron token, an additional upgrade slot, and a special ability; Fighter Squadron 1 can re-equip discarded upgrades and Fighter Squadron 3 can Sensor Echo without being cloaked!  Attack Squadrons can only mount Squadron upgrades, and this pack comes with eight of them.  Lead Squadron increases a unit’s potency by adding an additional upgrade slot, Battle Stations to its action bar, AND +2 to its Captain Skill, while Anti-Squadron Barrage is perfect for targeting pesky enemy Squadrons. 

There are three “Flanking” upgrades with Attack Omega giving a +3 attack dice boost to a nearby Capital Ship ally, Maneuver Epsilon letting the Squadron use a free Sensor Echo, and Maneuver Delta that lets the unit rotate 180 degrees after moving in exchange for an Auxiliary Power Token.  Lastly, there are three Defensive Maneuvers featuring Theta giving this Squadron and all nearby Capital Ships an Evade token, Beta that sacrifices the Squadron’s tokens for a Capital Ship ally to cancel hits while defending, and Alpha that turns the Squadron into a portable obstruction for friendly ships!

Both of these Wave 4 Card Packs are available now, and can be purchased wherever you normally buy your Star Trek Attack Wing products for an MSRP of $10 each.  For longtime players who already have the Hirogen and Federation Attack Squadron ships these are simply must-buys, as they let you field those vessels in all new (and in some cases more effective) ways.  And if you’re a Federation or Independent faction player you should also check them out, see if they offer options that would fit in with your play style.  All in all, the Card Packs are doing a great job adding more value and playability to the game and to other products you may already have bought, which is always a nice thing. 

Stay tuned next week as we continue our look at the latest and greatest Star Trek Attack Wing items, featuring a couple of new Faction Packs!

New to Star Trek Attack Wing and want more information?  Head over to WizKids.com for the lowdown!

Review and photos by Scott Rubin

Review samples courtesy of WizKids Games

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