Okay I know the Burlust Warlords are essentially Klingons, or even ORKS, but seriously what the hell.
First off, they apparently spend their pre-FTL time constructing a massive armada of their ugly red warships. The instant they get the tech, they glue it on, and BAM they have significantly more fleet strength than the rest of the system *combined*.
Not even counting the Warlord's personal longship, a behemoth that can withstand months of sustained fire and single-handedly danmaku an entire battlefield.
The instant they escaped their atmosphere, I challenged that thing to to a duel (they absolutely will not join you until you've slain one of their prime warlords). They didn't even have basic laser technology, and yet the damn thing just launched SO MANY ROCK(ets). Each hit nearly shattered my shields, too, even when I gave them full power. But I learned its pattern, and was outmaneuvering it...
It switched firing patterns while I was mid-maneuver, hitting me with a javelin-like projectile which pierced my shields and one-hit my hull. After like 100 turns (my Evuck flagship didn't have any weapon to counter their armor (scattergun doesn't count)). HOW THOUGH
Anyway I eventually finished rebuilding, came back and won. Fast forward a few months and I'm trying to whittle down their fleet so they'll join the Federation. And their ships are just *so dumb*. One of their flagships can only shoot straight ahead. One of the destroyers basically doesn't shoot, it's just a blob of armor.
And there are just so many of them. Particularly their fighters. I was using a precursor energy-nova to keep the projectiles back for just a second, trying to bring my shields back up, and a swarm of fighters flew right in and fired their torpedoes point-blank. AAAAAGH
Even the Thoraxians (hivemind xenomorphs) aren't this dangerous! I shudder to think what would happen if they had *any technology to speak of*. Oh and they're amazing at ground combat too, obviously.
The Last Federation