With a never-ending schedule of HeroClix throughout the year it’s a special time for us Star Trek fans when a new Attack Wing release comes along from WizKids, and today we’re in luck to check out not one but two new cool items!  Continuing the lineup of Faction Packs are two very interesting sets, the first one capturing the fun of the classic Animated Series and the second bringing back the Borg in a big way.  We previewed some of the cards for these two sets and now we’ve got your in-depth look at the Star Trek Attack Wing The Animated Series Faction Pack and the Resistance Is Futile Borg Faction Pack!  Each one has four ships and all the materials you need to play them including captains and fun upgrades that are fully compatible with your existing Attack Wing expansions.

Along with the basic rundown of the components, these Faction Packs also share the same packaging, which we’ve seen now for a while.  In fact, Star Trek Attack Wing has kept the same design sensibilities from it’s very launch, with blue star field backgrounds, familiar Trek fonts and logos, the iconic Enterprise-D logo, and more.  Each new Faction Packs resembles the very first (and subsequent) Starter Set with a flat square box packed with goodies like four ships visible through a window slot.  Each set’s faction is clearly delineated by text as well as symbol/symbols.  The back of each box has a description of the relevant faction and its history along with a list of the pack’s contents and an upsell for the current Federation vs. Klingons Starter Set.

Inside each box you’ll find a tray containing the four ships, a stack of cards, a small bag with the base parts and dial centers, and two cardboard sheets containing all of the tokens the fleet needs.  There are four unique captains (one of which doubles as an Admiral for the Animated Series) for both, named and generic versions for all four ships, and lots of fun upgrades.  The punch-out sheets have the ship tiles, captain icons, maneuver dials, shield tokens, and unique tokens that match captains or upgrades with special abilities for ease in tracking what’s happening in the game.  As always all of the game materials look great from the colorful tokens to the sturdy cards featuring screenshots from the shows and films.  Notably, just like the single-ship expansions these packs come with Mission cards, giving you even more fun ways to expand your Attack Wing game experience.

Alright, now that we’ve gotten all of the similarities out of the way, let’s dive deeper and see just how different these two new Faction Packs are, starting with the Animated Series.  By the way, if you’ve never seen the 70s cartoon it’s pretty cool, with all of the original actors voicing their characters, new aliens, and lots of fun adventures.  Anyway, this set brings with it the usual four ship models, in this case one copy of the Constitution-class U.S.S. Enterprise and three copies of the Klingon/Romulan D7 class as the I.K.S. Devisor, I.K.S. Klothos, and I.R.W. Talon.  In the scheme of things these are all very affordable starships, ranging from the modest 14 point Devisor and Talon to the more robust 20 point Enterprise.  Notably, this is the least expensive version of the original Enterprise in the game to date, and it still has a fantastic special ability enabling it repair up to THREE Shields as an Action!  The D7s are also cheaper than previous versions of that craft with their own unique mechanics.  This is a good time to mention that ALL of the cards in this pack feature screenshots from the Animated Series and they look GLORIOUS.  You can practically see the vintage animation style in action!

When it comes to the models themselves, these are ships you’ve seen several times before if you’re a veteran Attack Wing player.  The D7 is just as majestic as it was when it debuted all those years ago, with its clear avian inspirations, elegant neck and forward module, powerful rear wings and nacelles, and the iconic feather-like details.  Previous models were rendered in brighter green, while all three of these new ones are a more subdued metallic dark silver with green accents.  Unfortunately, because they share the same exact mold even the Romulan D7 has the Klingon symbol on its underside, though you won’t see it very often.  Meanwhile, we’ve got the return of the tiny Constitution model, one of the Attack Wing vessels that makes correct scaling possible.  Previous versions of this ship have come in stark white with different colored accents as well as a metallic ship; this one offers something new with a shaded appearance and more painted details on its hull than ever before.

There’s at least one captain card for each ship, and they’re all pretty experienced.  Larus is the sole Romulan in the pack, with a 7 skill and the ability to add a Battle Stations token AND +1 attack dice in any round his ship performs a Sensor Echo action.  Klingons get Koloth, skill 7 who forces a target ship to disable a captain/Crew upgrade or take an Auxiliary Token, and Kor, skill 8 with a huge buff to his ship when it attacks while cloaked.  There are also two Federation captains!  Kirk is skill 8, and for an Action gives his ship a Scan or Battle Stations token AND lets a Crew upgrade perform its Action for free.  Lastly, Robert April, the original captain of the Enterprise, is skill 8 (9 when on a Constitution class ship) and has an Action that transfers all Time Tokens from a Crew upgrade to him while letting that Crew perform its Action for free.  April can also be played as a +2 Admiral with the same Action in a Fleet version.  Every one of these captains can equip an Elite Talent on his ship.

Upgrade cards really let you customize your fleet, and this pack gives you a lot of them.  There are no fewer than nine Crew upgrades (two Klingon, one Romulan, one Independent, and five Starfleet) including the first Star Trek Attack Wing appearances of Arex, M’Ress, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, and the Vendorian Spy!  Mudd is notable in that he has the ability to apply Love Crystals to Crew upgrades on an enemy ship that hinder a second card when the first is disabled, discarded, or given Time Tokens.  There’s one Elite Talent each for the Klingons and Federation, the former Worthy Opponent letting your damaged ship essentially nullify one incoming attack and the latter Legacy of the Name giving you a bonus free action for Battle Stations or Evade (or any Action Bar feature on a ship named Enterprise).  Finally, there are brutal weapons including the Federation Full Power Phaser Barrage, two copies of the Klingon Magnetic Pulse, and the Disruptor Blast usable by Klingons or Romulans.  The Animated Series pack rounds out with two missions: the Practical Joker pitting the Enterprise against two Romulan D7s with added randomized mechanics, and Assault on Caleb IV in which Kor attempts to destroy a Federation outpost!

Now we switch over to one of the scariest alien factions in all of Star Trek, the Borg.  There are a lot of ways WizKids could’ve gone with a Borg Faction Pack, and I’m super excited about the direction they went with this one.  Rather than providing four “standard” Borg ships with their attendant captains and upgrades, Resistance Is Futile gives players the modest 22 point Scout 609 cube that can heal its allies and the massive 40 point Sphere 634 that can spend a Scan token to eliminate helpful tokens from an enemy.  Then there’s the 30 point Assimilation Target Prime, a Borg-ified Enterprise-D from a parallel universe that can equip any faction cards with -1 SP cost on Tech, and the 34 point assimilated U.S.S. Voyager that can perform a free Target Lock after a green maneuver!  The latter two are dual-faction ships, Prime playable with Borg and Mirror Universe and Voyager with Borg and Federation.

The models in this Borg pack are pretty rad, with all four featuring metallic paint jobs.  The small cube and gigantic sphere come in a dark greenish hue (with additional bright green accents on the sphere), and like all Borg vessels are absolutely covered in complex texture and technological details.  The Intrepid and Galaxy class Federation ships, meanwhile, are resplendent in bright silver with lots of additional colors on sensors, bridge modules, engines, and more.  Best of all, there are patches of Borg infection graphics added to both ships!

Even the most fearsome ships need good captains, and here the Borg are more than ready with four unique commanding officers.  The Operations Drone starts with 6 Drone Tokens (and thus a 6 skill), and can spend one of those Drones to put an Auxiliary Power token on a nearby enemy.  Locutus (Borg-only) is 9 skill, starts with 9 Drone Tokens, lets his ship equip two extra Crew upgrades, AND removes the faction penalty for Crew upgrades.  Kathryn Janeway is a cross-faction captain who starts with 8 Drone Tokens/skill and who lets her ship copy the action of a nearby enemy for free while also applying an Auxiliary Power token on that enemy.  Finally, the Borg Queen gets a new version with 9 skill and 9 Drone Tokens; she automatically has the abilities of ALL captains in your fleet that use Drone Tokens!  The latter three captains can equip an Elite Talent upgrade.

Speaking of Elite Talents, the three in this pack are all Borg; Root Command lets you choose an enemy’s target one time, Ocular Implants tacks a free Battle Stations action onto every Target Lock its ship performs, and Collective Consciousness lets its ship’s captain skill be shared among your entire fleet (within range).  There are five Crew upgrades, three mono-faction Borg with Three of Nine, Seven of Nine, and Crosis who buffs his captain, then both B’Elanna Torres and Tuvok rocking the dual Borg/Federation factions.  Similarly, the Advanced Proton Beam is only for cyborgs while the devastating Bio-Molecular Torpedo that can do big damage AND hinder the crew of an enemy is Borg/Federation.  Five Borg upgrades range from the ally-healing Distribution Nodes to the Borg Multi-Adaptive Shields that reduce all incoming damage (while its ship has at least one Active Shield), along with Interlink Transceiver, Assimilation Tubules, and Technological Distinctiveness.  Lastly the Integrated Borg Technology Tech upgrade is a faction penalty-free upgrade that lets a ship equip one Borg upgrade.  Finally, the inter-faction Uneasy Alliance mission is a race against time in two parts. 

I’ve been playing Star Trek Attack Wing since it first debuted, and I’ve been saying for a while that Faction Packs are probably the best addition WizKids has made to the game.  These box sets (retailing for only $30 MSRP) give you a full fleet in a box or the ability to mix and match your current ships, captains, and upgrades with a ton of new components.  Now, these two new ones are even more unique than a lot of the Faction Packs we’ve seen thus far.  The Animated Series set brings to life a sometimes-forgotten corner of the Star Trek universe and one that almost never gets translated into game form.  It also provides Federation, Klingon, and Romulan forces with affordable ships and fun game assets. 

Meanwhile, the Resistance Is Futile pack is all about brute power, but also the ability to cross faction lines with Borg elements for Federation, Mirror Universe, and beyond.  If you play any of the above named factions, or are at all interested in them, I highly recommend these Faction Packs.  Or pick them up to get your friends in the game with powerful, out of the box ships and fleets!  Both the Animated Series and Borg Resistance Is Futile Faction Packs are available now wherever you buy your Star Trek Attack Wing.

Review and photos by Scott Rubin

Review samples courtesy of WizKids Games

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