THE EXCELSIOR IS THE UNDISPUTED QUEEN OF THE BATTLEFIELD in the old FASA Trek game system.  Only the super-heavy ships from the TNG Officer's Manual have a chance against the Excelsior, but if we exclude TNG-era vessels it is almost impossible for any single Klingon or Romulan ship to tackle the Excelsior one-on-one.  Even the impressive Klingon L-24 battleship is not quite up to par, and only once or twice have I ever managed to beat an Excelsior with an L-24; and then it took a lot of lucky shots.  Otherwise, the Excelsior is the thug of Starfleet: massive, awesomely powerful, capable of clobbering multiple smaller opponents.
     Artistically, I must admit, it took years for the Excelsior design to grow on me.  (click here for original FASA artwork.)  When I first saw Star Trek III I was horrified by the lines of the Excelsior, when compared to the Enterprise.  Yeah, there was the standard saucer-and-dorsal thing with the secondary hull and the warp nacelles, but everything was so curvy.  Curves everywhere.  Curved everything.  I don't think it was until Star Trek VI came out and the true apparent size of the ship became apparent that I started to get turned on to the design.  Now I love it, and consider it to be a very classy looking thing.  So much so that I built my own paper-and-glue model of it in 1995, which was a pretty massive project in and of itself.
     I have listed three different versions of the Excelsior below, the first two being from the UFP Ship Recognition Manual and the third being from the TNG Officer's Manual.
     What never made sense to me about the Mark III model is how it's not much better than the Mark II.  Indeed, in some ways it is worse  off than the Mark II.  The only thing better about the Mark III is it has more power, while the downside is that it actually has less superstructure than the Mark II.  Also, if the two manuals are right, only 40 of the Excelsior ships were ever built!  This clearly makes no sense at all when we consider how ubiquitous these ships have become by the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  By my reckoning there ought to several hundred  of these ships in service by the time of Picard and the Enterprise-D, if not many more.
     Getting back to game play, different scenarios may be appropriate depending on which era the melee is going to take place in.  A scenario in the time of Kirk and Spock would certainly ..\..\klingons\ktinga\ktinga.htmlonly involve one Excelsior vessel at the most, since these ships are exceedingly rare and exceedingly powerful.  For limited play I suggest pitting one Excelsior against three later-model Klingon D-7 ships, or against a Klingon L-24 and an older-model D-7.  The Romulan Z-1 Nova ship is even worse off, so you could try one Excelsior versus a Z-1 and two or three smaller Romulan ships.  Any way you slice it, for a player to beat the Excelsior it's going to take numbers.  If you expand the melee to fleet-level proportions, I have always found it fun to build a 'carrier group' of ships comprised of an Excelsior accompanied by two cruisers, two frigates, and four destroyers.  Face this bunch off against a numerically-superior fleet of Klingon or Romulan ships, numbering 3 cruisers, 3 frigates, 3 destroyers, and 3 escorts.  The Romulans and Klingons have numbers, but the Federation has firepower, and it all comes down to which player can use his or her advantage to the best effect.  Such a massive fleet-level engagement takes days to complete, but can be a hell of a lot of fun.
     For TNG-era scenarios the Excelsior has ceased to become such an advanced brute and is now more of an aged workhorse.  The advanced Klingon, Ferengi, and Romulan designs of the TNG-era kick butt on the old outdated Excelsior, so now it is time to reverse things: pit two or three Excelsiors against a single Ferengi Marauder or Klingon KDF-2 or Romulan D'Deridex.  It is now the Excelsior that needs numbers to match the advanced firepower and heavy armor of the TNG-era enemy, making for interesting game play.

          — BRT