BRAD'S COMMENTS:  The original concept for the Anton is pretty cool in my opinion; that being a TOS-era model of ship along the lines of the USS Reliant  (first seen in Star Trek II) and which would be "refitted" in the same fashion as the USS Enterprise  to become a whole new ship, known as the Reliant class.  This was back when FASA did not know that there would be no such thing as the Enterprise class cruiser or Reliant class cruiser, merely a Constitution Refit model and the Miranda/Soyuz models.
        My only major beef about the Anton's design, as it appears in the book, is the fact that the saucer dish is yet another carbon-copy off the Constitution Refit, but the nacelles are clearly TOS-era nacelles!  They should have made the dish a TOS-era looking dish and kept the design aesthetics in line with all TOS-era Federation vessels from that time.  For some weird reason they did not, either forgetting or just not caring.  Humph!  Since this web site is my pet project, I decided I would make the extra effort that was not made at FASA, and re-do the Anton cruiser so that it looks like it should  have looked originally.  I cut and cropped pieces off of the Constitution class that I scanned in from the old Star Fleet Technical Manual and pasted them over the original ship as scanned in from the FASA manual.  A little cleaning up, and voila, the Anton as she was supposed to look, right down to the TOS-era saucer and everything.  (see my rendition of the Anton above, or Neale Davidson's version below.)
        In game play, the Anton does okay so long as the ship is not faced with torpedo-armed opponents.  Square this ship off against opponents from a similar era, lacking beam weapons, and the Anton performs pretty well, mainly thanks to the strong superstructure and decent engines.  The older-model Klingon D-7 cruisers make very good opponents for the Anton, since each class is using only beam weapons and each class has a similar amount of superstructure and power output.  The Anton also does well against older Romulan cruisers.  The shields could really use some help, but other than that there is not much to whine about.
        I have enjoyed using this vessel as a companion to the sister Constitution class, with one Constitution entering a hostile area accompanied by one or two Antons.  The Constitution has the torpedoes to do the lion's share of the damage, while the Antons can act as distractions, zooming in to deliver phaser blows and absorbing enemy fire while the Constitution can chuck torpedoes into the fray.  You'll probably lose at least one Anton, but the ship is sturdy enough to act as a buffer between the Constitution and the enemy, allowing the Federation player to (usually) win the day.

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