One of the criminal mistakes I seem to make is to boldly declare, 'This blog will be about X!' Then, after a couple of posts about X, I discover that I'm not actually as widely-read or experienced on the subject as I'd like, and it becomes difficult to maintain. The inevitable fatigue sets in and I simply stop posting. This is something I'd like to avoid, except to try to update regularly with something interesting. I've posted before with little snippets of who I am, and I'm sure it doesn't take much of a logical leap to intuit that this is likely to be a soap box for anything of typically nerdy or geeky - italicised due to widely differing opinion on the strict definition of either term - that interests me.
Doctor Who. Star Trek. Warhammer 40,000. Choose Your Own Adventure books. Y'know, the sort of thing that having in your school pack about fifteen years ago would have earned you a thump and a confidence-shattering nickname for your trouble. The sort of stuff that, try as I might to grow up, I simply can't shake an interest for! I'm rapidly approaching thirty (30) years of age and I still regularly carry a sonic screwdriver with me in the left interior pocket of any suit jacket I happen to be wearing. I think that sets the tone for just what I'm likely to take an interest in week to week and post about.
I don't have anything in the soap box to get up and incite unrest with immediately, though, except to share a little something that's caught my imagination recently and I think deserves a little more exposure. Star Trek: Attack Wing is the WizKids entry into the Flight Path game system, following in the ion wake of X-Wing Miniatures. I don't think anybody who's played X-Wing hasn't been immediately caught by the quality of the pre-painted miniatures and the incredible depth of the game. It's one of those which is easy to pick up and, remarkably, not even particularly difficult to master. The number of synergies, tactics and combinations possible with a constantly expanding product range makes it a great one to pick up and start with.
Star Trek: Attack Wing (STAW for short) is a slightly different beast. The ships of the Federation by their very nature aren't as nimble as their cousins from the Rebel Alliance; a Galaxy-class vessel isn't going to fit down the Death Star trench any time soon. It differs from X-Wing largely in a couple of neat mechanics which are a little hard to explain without having a copy of the game out to show off, but the most notable of these is captains and crew. Captains determine the 'initiative' of your vessel - how quickly it reacts and in what order things happen during a game turn - and named captains have special abilities that further enhance how a particular ship works during the game. Crew play a similar part, adding or buffing skills and abilities along with weaponry options. You can, of course, take the U.S.S. Enterprise-D with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in command and Geordi La Forge, Data and Worf assisting. Or you can put Picard aboard the U.S.S. Reliant with his crew, matching wits against the eternally dangerous Khan Noonien Singh aboard the Enterprise.
Personally, I love the way the game works, and in particular I adore the ability to swap captains around, pitting fantasy match-ups against one another. Through a couple of minor alterations in the game mechanics the ships in STAW simply feel like capital ships; the Galaxy is daddy's little fatty coming about in wide, loping circles, where the Miranda has that sharp, nimble turn rate that makes it feel like a light destroyer in a game made for bigger kids. This is all to say nothing of the ships of other species, the ability to cloak, so on and so forth.
Where X-Wing has STAW over the figurative barrel is in the quality of the ship miniatures themselves. Fantasy Flight has a well-deserved reputation for quality in their game pieces, and their tiny toy space vessels are no different in that respect. They're remarkable, straight out of the packaging. STAW is a licenced WizKids product, and as they already make Star Trek ships and figures, a lot of the sculpts are simply re-used and they quite simply aren't up to scratch compared to X-Wing's offerings. Luckily, I happen to have a handful of brushes and paints around to spruce them up and sweep those little issues aside.
On the left is the Miranda as she came straight out of the blister packaging. The right is what happens when she's had a little time and attention with a brush! Now, before anybody gets up in arms about accuracy, I'd just like to point out that the ship can also be used to represent a generic Miranda class as well as the U.S.S. Reliant, so I didn't have the luxury of just making it look picture perfect to the coolest starship ever to grace the silver screen. The models themselves are cool, but they're just not painted in any way that makes you feel suitably grand about putting them down on the table to play with. I'll post a few more as I finish off my little collection.
There's the post, though. Consider this a teaser trailer, if you will, or a glimpse at what else might come! As ever, comments are welcome, and if there's something of particular interest that you'd like to know more about, feel free to let me know. I'll likely keep coming back to painting miniatures - it's something I can talk on at length - but I'll do my best to break it up occasionally with fart jokes and popcorn-tossing movie reviews.
Until next time!
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