Star Trek Attack Wing IRW Haakona Romulan Warbird unboxing

The IRW Haakona was a Romulan D'deridex-class warbird that was in service with the Romulan military in the mid-24th century.

In 2365, Subcommander Taris was the commanding officer of this ship. In that year, the Haakona covertly downloaded logs from USS Yamato and then followed the USS Enterprise-D to the planet Iconia. However, the warbird had acquired the same malevolent Iconian software transmission in the download as the Enterprise-D, and was experiencing similar system malfunctions, which Taris blamed on Starfleet sabotage. Nevertheless, on the warnings from the Enterprise-D the Haakona destroyed an Iconian probe before it could make a scan, prolonging its survival.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard escaped from the surface of Iconia onto the Haakona using an Iconian gateway, and was shortly after beamed back to the Enterprise-D. By that time, the program had activated the Haakona's self-destruct sequence. The Enterprise-D transmitted instructions on neutralizing the Iconian program to the Haakona before its departure, saving the Romulan vessel.

Now is this a good pack? its the first D`deridex we have seen since the one in the starter, so lets dive in.

You get of course the usual slab of tokens with the ship, and cards.

 The Haakona is a nimble ship for her size, with out a come about, but she does have a reverse.  Of course the Generic D`deridex is included, and the named Haakona.  Her ability is you get plus one attack dice for each other Romulan ship in your fleet to a max of plus 4.  So the bigger your fleet the more powerful she is.  For captains we have Taris, who is 4 points for skill 5.  She has a a passive ability to allow you to fire 360 degrees at the cost of discarding a crewman.  Useful in a pinch.  We have Mendak who comes in captain or Admiral form.  skill  6 for 4 points, his actions allows his ship or a ship in range 1-2 to take a battle stations action which is excellent considering no Romulan ships have them. He will be very useful for all Romulan fleets.  Lastly a 2 skill Centurion, for only 1 point, he allows to re-roll a battlestations on attack.  For only a point he is a bargain.

 For crew we get 3 copies of Romulan security officer.  For each one on aship it increases your captain skill by plus 1, so if you have all 3 on your ship it increases your skill by plus 3.  They also have another ability, you can disable them when defending to re-roll a blank defence dice.  A really useful card for 2 points.  Romulan helmsman lets you disable him when you do a red manoeuvre and let it count as a white manoeuvre.  He can provide a nasty surprise if your opponent expects you have an auxiliary power.  The last crew is the Romulan sub Lieutenant.  You can discard him to target a ship to disable its shields.
The ship really shines in its upgrades,

For weapon upgrades we get regular plasma torpedoes.  The Disruptor pulse is a great weapon, only attack 3, but it allows you to attack ALL enemy ships in range and arc, so you can lay down lots of fire.  Disruptor beams is another solid weapon, 5 attack, and you roll  dice for each point of damage the target suffers.  If you roll a hit or a crit you add another damage. So potentially you can do 6 damage with the attack.  The elite talent in the pack is Make them see us.  A wall of text, but basically a ramming attack that can potentially damage your own ship, but you roll as many defence dice as is the difference in captain skill.  So if you have a high captain skill you can smash into lower skilled ships and damage them whilst having a chance to save against it.

 The mission is contagion, it looks another fun one as always,  missions really make this game.  It does include the extra rules card explaining how admirals work.

Now the ship itself, its the same model that is in the starter set, but then since I love the look of the D`deridex class I am happy with that.

 A very detailed model.

 a couple of touch ups, and a wash would really bring this ship up to a great standard.

All in all this is a MUST have pack for Romulan players, so Olivia is very very pleased with it!  The fact it has a girl captain as well is just the icing for her!