Star Trek: Attack Wing

[sunnyside]

I ran accross this wargame (which is new to me) in my friendly local game store and picked up the starter box. It comes with all the templates, markers, and dice you need along with three ships. The ships aren't the best models you'll ever see, particularly from underneath, but they're alright. However as a wargame with these things on stands you're going to pretty much always be looking down on them.

Of course I'm lacking in opponents at the moment. It's a little tempting to try something here.

In terms of space wargaming my point of reference is Battlefleet Gothic FYI. Compared to that I appreciate that Attack Wing is "shrunk" with the ranges of everything being reduced and so you can play on a 3'x3' surface, which many card tables are, as opposed to needing a big table or four card tables to play games workshop stuff. The rules are much shorter and seem designed to be fast. The suggested point totals for games also mean that you'll tend to be fielding either a pair of tricked out ships or perhaps up to four cheap ones. Which probably also helps with speeds and keeps the ships feeling important individually.

I also appreciate that attack wing kept the idea that ships have a certain momentum and don't just move and pivot freely like an infantryman. The game handles with the move templates that will probably feel really restrictive, but I expect they'll speed up and simplify gameplay. Movement also features secretly putting all moves next to your ships upside down before anyone moves, which means you'll have to try and guess what your opponent does.

That said, since weapons mostly fire from a ships forward arc and there aren't massive area of effect weapons in the Trek universe I rather expect to see a lot of fleets moving slowly towards each other while firing and you just see whose phasers and photons win out. Although fleets that can cloak might try something else entirely. I think I'd be prone to stick a big planet in the middle of the playing field with asteroids or antimatter minefields strewn about just to force players to have to maneuver. Some of the missions might make things more dynamic as well.

That said, ships are highly customizable as you can spend points on captains, special crewmembers, elite skills, technology upgrades, and weapon upgrades all with various special effects, and you also get to deliver a range of different orders during one of the parts of the turn. So you can have a lot of experimentation without having to break the bank GW style, and it's possible even having two gunlines closing would make for an interesting game.

Anybody else ever try this game?