Consider the following Romulan "Hit-and-Run" ship in a 60 pt game:

>ÊT'rul        >ÊMedical Team    >ÊT'deret Command
>ÊTaibek       > Type 3 Cloak    >ÊTal Diann Engineer
>ÊAdm Jarok    >ÊElite Security  >ÊLife Support Engineer
>ÊField Agent  >ÊHeavy Security

Shields=7, Hull=7, Beam=7, Torps=6 (move=4,dmg=6)
Trans Range=1, Beam Range=1, Combat=19, Cmd=29

Wide variety of orders, type-3 cloak, strong security and also good away team.  Main tactic would be to use high cmd to defer to last, drop cloak and fire.  Next orders phase, do not defer, and raise cloak.  Repeat as necessary until opponant(s) are destroyed, have taken 2 or 3 of the same crit and blown up as a result, or have taken enough crits to soften them up for a less cowardly approach.  Most ships would go by way of multiple same crits.

The opponant would have to have a crew with "remove a crit" ability to survive this technique, so this would be an automatic winner against Klingon and Ferengi ships.  Klingons and Cardassians would eventually lose all bridge crew and engineering due to crits, softening them up for a direct attack.  Federation may be able to hold onto some bridge crew and restore tech via Dr Crusher and Industrial Replicator.  No ship could hold onto their "fire-fire" crew unless they were conceiled, and a smart Romulan player would not decloak for an extended assult unless those disks were hidden for that turn.

So, for a *prepared* Federation ship, (just one in the fleet... only one could have Laforge on board) it could be a draw.  For any other combination, this ship appears unbeatable.  The only other possible way to beat it is to have a ship with a higher command rating, but it's tough to beat 29 command in a 60pt eratta-respecting game...

Comments?

(this ship was referred to as "ultra-cheese" by a local player ;-)

- Nathan