Star Trek Attack Wing - Set Phasers to Fun

With MICUP, GLWL, and 40k Ora Recentes all finished, I got to work on a side hobby project for my Star Trek Attack Wing ships.    I first played ST:AW at GenCon last year and felt it was OK but the introduction left me a bit underwhelmed.   It is certainly comparable in play to XWing from Fantasy Flight but with some significant differences.   Both games have targeted a group of people that just want a table top game without the hobby side.   Fortunately I gave the game a second chance and really enjoyed playing in the Dominion War Organized six month campaign event that recently ended.

ST:AW offers a lot more options in faction choices as well as unique list building options over XWing.   Unfortunately, WizKids did not put as much effort into their pre-painted models as FFG did.    However, the ship models are highly detailed and with some simple painting techniques can be made to look quite good.

There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube for repainting the ST:AW ships.    I got to work on my Federation ships first to get past the stock baby-blue paint scheme.

Surprise! there are plenty of Star Trek photos to be found on the internet.   I found that a mix of GW Astronomican grey and Administratum grey would work the the new base coat.

I prepped the models using some blue tape on the flight stands and got to work with a new base coat using my airbrush.   I did not bother re priming the models to avoid hiding details.

I used a light grey mix for the new base paint and did a watered down wash with Secret Weapon miniatures soft body black shade.   I then dry brushed the models again with a light grey and then started on the details.

Painting the ships windows was the only really slow part.    I got all the Federation ships I own done in a couple of nights work.

I like how the captains pictures snap into the flight stands to show their ratings.

The USS Sutherland and Federation Fighter Squadron were exclusives from Organized Play events.

Very happy with the improvements made on these ships over their stock paint jobs.    They look even better when on my Gale Force 9 star map.

As far as list building goes, standard games are 100 points.   That roughly translates into three ships with good/decent captains with a few options.   Every ship comes with a mission card so there are a lot of cool scenarios to try.

Trekkies will forever debate who was the better captain, but in ST:AW Picard is generally considered the best captain in the game.   Free actions are awesome and hard to come by.

Here is a 100 point list I made.   It is probably too defensive orientated but good for dealing with scenarios and cloaking/alpha strike builds.

                            USS Enterprise D (28), Picard (6), Data (3), Photon Torpedoes (5)
                            USS Miranda Class (18), Terrel (1), Photon Torpedoes (3)
                            USS Defiant (24), Sisko (4), Sulu (3), Antimatter mines (5)

I plan on getting the Klingon ships painted up next.   Wizkids must have had a batch of ugly green-metallic paint they wanted to get rid off for them.

Thanks for reading!