http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2014/01...orders-update/

Basically the attack wing crew wants to know if people like them before they make more. which is the antithesis of the heroclix crew.

It's interesting that they put this out like this. Have they gotten that many complaints about the Admiral's Orders already from Min/Maxers?

I saw one person over at BGG say they had banned United Force for being too powerful, but I think that's an outlier. Everyone else I've seen loves them.

Maybe since OP 5 got pushed back to February they thought they'd give it more time. It's fine with me, we haven't had a chance to play with them yet, but we will in February!

OP5 was always in Feb. OP4 was optioned for Dec/Jan due to the holidays.

I'm going to be upset if the AO get terminated due to complaints that they are "too powerful"

Just a bunch of crybaby Min/Maxers that don't want others to have useful tools if they too can't use them. I could be wrong on that, but that is what it seems to be the case.

I'm not so sure it's a "min/max-er" issue.

A player can play a pretty effective force in-faction. Both the Klinks and Roms have most of the tools they need to be seriously effective in faction-pure builds. The Dominion will likely be there next month as well.

As for Feds: they can be effective *if* you play them right. Feds are not designed, IMHO, for the "joust" we many times see in OP. They are the combo-faction that really requires the most skill to play as it's much easier to run Klinks and Roms and just rely on Offensive and Defensive "dice-fests" to win games.

Additionally, some of us ran our Month 4 in December. As such, we've not even had the chance to try these out locally. I think WK giving another month of playability to these is the right choice since there's no guarentee that the first batch saw wide-spread play. I know I'll be allowing them in Month 5 play.

Min/Maxers love the Admiral Orders. It gives them just the kind of problems they like to solve. How do I exploit 10 pts., a free re-roll every turn that can be used on a die that was already re- rolled, a free action from a ships action bar, and an extra attack or defense die on an uncloaked ship.

At the expense of being restricted to 2 ships that each must be pure faction. While I agree that min/maxers will find a way to abuse these, this is more a case of raising all ships equally rather than one particular (proverbial) ship.

Though in the end, they encourage pure faction ship play. So I guess the pure faction players are given a boost whereas the min/maxers are given the same boost, but now are restricted in one of two ways.

They were pretty potent in our group. Strike force I think was huge. I couldn't capitalize on it with the Ferengi, but united was huge as well.

Are admirals orders one per force? Or am I allowed to run united force and strike team? because that seems like a really potent combo.

Min/Maxers do not love or hate any environment.

They will, for better or worse, min/max to their utmost......if it's open building they they will put Picard/Kirk/DuKat on what ever ships they deem most beneficial for the given event.

If it's faction pure they will simply decide which faction is 'the best' and spam it like it's going out of style.

It's what they do.

And as long as I don't have to face the exact same (or even 90%) the same build week after week I'm fine with that.......but I prefer to play with some variety in my environment, ideally.



You are able to use all current Admiral's Orders if you fit the requirements, unless future Admiral's Orders list different restrictions.




I'm pro Admiral's Orders (based on the first installment)......I wouldn't even mind seeing a month of faction specific AOs (1 for each faction available at the time).

Our first OP event with the AOs did not see much variety. Everybody used UF and all but one used SF. We had bad weather and tied for our lowest turn out with Just 6 people. Four people, including myself, played Enterprise D/Excelsior. The consensus was that the AOs were too good not to play with.

Our next OP4 is Saturday. We have 9 registered, which is close to normal for us. I'll be curious to see if it gets better.

Honestly, the real issue here isn't really whether or not the AO's encourage variety in builds, its that min/maxers will always min/max. AO's are just another tool for the min/maxers. So now, instead of just figuring out the best value for 100pts, they also can figure out the best pure ship build at 110pts and compare that to their best 100pt build. Same with their best build vs their best 2 ship build. And finally compare all those with their best 2 ship non-cross faction build at 110pts. For min/maxers, the only thing AO's would do is potentially change the components of the 'most common' build. And really even then its just a shift and not a complete revamp. Ent-D will still be in just as many builds. As will Picard and/or Martok and/or Donatra.

What Strike Force does is makes aggressive builds even more so. The extra action granted, along with the +1 attack die once per round, scream first strike. Now Picard's ship will have base attack dice +2 for Miles (or whatever crew it is that gives the +2 attack dice; Ship's action), Target Lock (Picard's free action), Battle Stations (free action from SF), declare the +1 attack die from SF, and Sulu (if you have Martok on another ship). Oh and you can still use one resource.

UF on the other hand is more limiting. Again, though, it doesn't change min/maxers, rather it is another tool for them. But for a player like me, who tends to stay in faction anyways, its a bonus for doing what I was already doing. Another 10pts on my last OP event could have meant the Gor Portas with the torpedoes and/or Energy Disappator instead of the 5th Wing Patrol ship. Or maybe I drop a few upgrades to include the Gor Portas or generic patrol ship. Having 2 Patrol ships plus the Kraxon and Koranak means I can sacrifice one of them (with Suicide Attack) and still have a 3 ship fleet. Its a huge difference with zero downside for me. The min/maxer, however, will need to weigh the inability to cross faction upgrades.

One final note. The OP events are actually a pretty bad litmus test for variety in terms of overall effectiveness/value of fleets. Each OP event brings a factor into the game that is not there otherwise. So really saying that OP 2 builds were vastly different from OP 3 builds doesn't mean much in terms of whether or not AO's were in play. If we really wanted to test the effects of AO's on the meta, we'd need to have a series of tournaments where there were no special scenarios. If by the end of the 4th or 5th tournament, you are seeing cross faction 3 ship builds, then the AO's had no effect. I'd wager that we'd more than likely see a set 3-4 different 3 ship cross faction builds, a set 4-5 2 ship cross faction builds and a set 4-5 pure ship builds. With an overlap on the 2 ship and pure ship builds. So I'm guessing a total of 11-14 different builds. Its still better than the 5-6 different builds we'd see without the AO's, though. But again, this is just my guess. Ymmv.

Min/max players will build the best fleet they can with the available tools. In Heroclix, United Force is very similar in its effect to the Nova Corp ATA. Did that ATA make a splash in the meta environment? No, because the restrictions on using it outweighed the benefit. Same as attack wing.

This was the order we finished.

1. 2 ship Federation Excelsior/Enterprise D

2. 2 ship Federation Excelsior/Enterprise D

3. 2 ship Enterprise D/Koranak

4. 2 ship Federation Excelsior/Enterprise D

5. 3 ship Klingon Faction Pure Vor'Cha/Vor'Cha/Koraga

6. 2 ship Federation Excelsior/Enterprise D

As you can see not much Variety. There were slight variations in the 2 ship Fed builds as players tweaked their builds seeking advantage, but they were all essentially the same build. The Fed/Dom build played a similar style to the 2 ship Fed lists. Only the 3 ship Klingon list played differently from the rest of the field. I played 2 games against 2 ship fed lists and the Fed/Dom player. All 3 games played out virtually the same.

I assure you our OP events prior to the AOs saw a much wider distribution on fleet construction. I'll see if I can get at least the ships from my previous OP to show the distribution. Of course the builds will be different because the scenario was different. My point is there was much more variety. I think we had 8 or 9 players and I think the top 6 were.

1. Ch'Tang/Vor'Cha/Preatus

2. Ch'Tang/TOL Enterprise

3. Valdore/P.W.B Aj'rmr/RSV

4. Khazara/P.W.B. Aj'rmr

5. Enterprise D/Defiant/RSV

6. Vor'Cha/Vor'Cha/RSV

Some of these might not be exact it's been over 6 weeks. Three of them are because one of them is mine and I played against 2 of them. There was also a Valdore/Vor'Cha/Enterprise D that I can be certain of because that guy borrowed my ships in order to play. The other list I played against was Galaxy Class/defiant/Reliant. As you can see way more variety than the previous list.