STAR TREK: ATTACK WING: ATTACK ON DERNA.

Not having played Attack Wing for a while, and recently having acquired some Hideki Class and Federation fighters, I decided to put on a game for last Thursday.  

Starting positions from the Bajoran side.

 I used the 'blockade' scenario for inspiration. A Dominion battleship, controlled by Rick, had to deploy marines on the Bajoran moon Derna. It was escorted by three fighter groups. The Bajorans had two interceptors and support from a Federation Nova class science vesel and two fighter groups.

Bajoran interceptor and Federation fighters manage to get the battleship in their sights, but are blocked by Hideki fighters,

 The battleship moved relenlessly forward. The fighters cleared the way by taking out one of the interceptors and the Nova. The battleship had it's shields overwhelmed and some of the Dominion fighters took damage.

The Federation fighters find the battleship effectively screened by Dominion fighters.

 The other Bajoran interceptor was dispatched. The battleship carried on it's inevitable progress, but not without taking hits.

The remaining Federation fighters break through the screen to attack the battleship as it lands the first marines.

The battleship managed to get within range 1 to begin landing troops. By this time only one unit of Fedaration fighters was left. They managed to inflict some hull damage before being wiped out.

Mission accomplished, the battleship limps away after taking considerable damage.

The battleship managed to land three units of marines. It limped away, victorious, escorted by the two remaining groups of fighters.

This was a very attritional, but enjoyable game. I had designed the scenario and chosen the ships without really considering things from a gameplay point of view. This became apparent when the Hideki fighters destroyed the three larger Baj/Fed ships in two turns. Fighters have as much firepower as larger vessels; they have four damage steps, which means no matter how many hits they take from one source, they only lose one step. Of course, they can be countered by taking hits from more than one ship per turn.

The squad building rules restrict fighters to only one per force. We discussed other ways of reducing their power, from using three models to represent each fighter unit, to starting them with reduced damage steps. We may try these out in future games.