@Database MRRR100.guide @Author Ralf Schwate @$VER: MRRR100.guide 3.1 (21/01/98) @Index "STCCG:stccg.guide/INDEX" @Node MAIN "MRRR100.guide" @prev "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @next MRRR1 @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{" Major Rakal's Romulan Review " link "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR"} @{" Main " link "STCCG:stccg.guide/MAIN"} @endnode @Node MRRR1 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Taris" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #1@{ub} Aefvadh (be welcome) to the first of Major Rakal's Romulan Reviews. Part "card of the day," part "deck of the week," and part strategy guide, my reviews will cover individual cards, effective combos, deck ideas, mission selection, and general strategy, and will have a decidedly "green" slant--as in green-blooded and green-bordered. Yes, this series will focus on the forgotten affiliation, our friends the Romulans. Using my own ranking system, which considers supply and demand of skills within each affiliation, I'll cover not only Romulan but also non-aligned personnel, examining their relative usefulness in augmenting decks of different affiliations and recommending "Best Bets" for Rommie decks. The same for ships. But don't worry, there will be plenty of interest to the Klingons and Feds as well. For missions, I'll look at point/cost ratios, and how they vary between affiliations for multi-color ones. For dilemmas, artifacts, events, and interrupts, I'll compare the value of a card *to* each affiliation, and where appropriate, its value used *against* each affiliation. For my first review, I've selected one of the new QC Romulans, IMO the Most Valuable Personnel in a green deck right now. No, it's *not* Sirol, though he's close. The honors go to... @{b}TARIS@{ub} Rare Romulan personnel Integrity 6, Cunning 8, Strength 7, Command star OFFICER: Archaeology, MEDICAL, Music, Transporter Skill @{i}"Female subcommander. Captain of the Warbird Haakona. Investigated the Federation incursion of the Neutral Zone in the vicinity of Iconia."@{ui} She's about 2/3 of a Jean-Luc Picard. And for the Romulans, that's saying a *lot.* She has OFFICER, Archaeology, and Music in common with the good Captain. Navigation is replaced by Transporter Skill, likely to prove quite valuable to nullify Anti-Matter Pods, even if you never need it against beaming interferences. No Honor, but no Treachery either, so she can get an Integrity boost from D'Tan from a comfortable 6 to a highly-respectable 7. No Diplomacy or Leadership, either; but both are common enough amongst other Romulans, and Leadership is largely redundant to an OFFICER anyway. And these lacks are more than compensated for by her MEDICAL skill (second-listed, so immune to Tsiolkovsky Infection and Rascals). Finally, a Romulan doctor with other useful skills and decent stats! Until now we've had to get by with Takket (Exobiology, OK but that's all) and Vekor (slightly more useful with SCIENCE, Navigation, and almost useless Geology), the holographic Jera being virtually useless to the holodeck-deficient Romulans. Both are Firestorm and Thought Fire fuel without Lower Decks and D'Tan, as well as Hunter Gangs bait; Taris is immune to all three. And while she helps run the Genetronic Replicator (which she could do alone with a Medical Kit) and get you by so many planet dilemmas, she also makes a new cornerstone of the popular Romulan Archaeology deck. With the new Plague Planet mission you can do a six-planet deck with Archaeology at every one. But there's more. Romulans can now get a piece of the Ressikan Flute, which until now might as well have had a blue border. Add Galen (who also complements the Archaeology deck nicely) and maybe Amarie. Heck, Data's Body if you can get the head to go with it. Stir well. 10-20 points, *and* it keeps your Fed opponent from playing *his* Flute (not duplicatable). Want more? A big boost toward getting past Matriarchal Society for the predominantly male Romulans. With the same stats (+1 Strength) as Ocett and duplicating her OFFICER + Archaeology, Taris will probably displace her from a lot of decks where she was almost a necessity to augment the one useful universal and 3 unique females. And finally, one "skill" dictated not by Taris' card but by the Haakona's lore "Subcommander Taris' warbird," deemed close enough by Decipher to qualify her for Captain's Log benefits. And this card has a *green* border?? The Major's Combos: - Taris + Haakona + Captain's Log. 8-12-11 - The above + Major Rakal + Roga Danar + Ira Graves + Kurlan Naiskos. 24-36-33. Go get an outpost. Throw in Plasmadyne Relay + Bynars and anything bigger than a Scout Ship, and you can take out a Borg Ship. - Taris + Toreth + Mirasta Yale. Just for the heck of it. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR2 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Samaritian Snare" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #2@{ub} Aefvadh! Today let's take a look at a mission that looks like a real loser. @{b}SAMARITAN SNARE@{ub} Rare Space Mission Fed/Kli/Rom/Non, 15 points, Span 3 ENGINEER + Discard one Equipment card Federation must attempt mission if present. @{i}"Rhomboid Dronegar Sector: Respond to distress call from Pakled ship."@{ui} So what good is a 15 point mission? One that makes you discard something, and *anyone* can do it? And they had the nerve to make it rare! Well, that little line of text under the mission requirements gives it away: like the Pakleds, this is primarily a nuisance to the Federation. But there are other ways that good Imperial citizens of both types can use this. Read on. Obvious use: stall a Fed opponent. If they miscalculate and have to stop there, they *must* attempt the mission, facing dilemmas and Q-Flashes for a possible gain of only 15 points. I say possible, because a good Fed deck should have lots of ENGINEERs and MEDICALs, and isn't nearly as likely as Romulans or Klingons to be using typical equipment. To make it even more of a nuisance, leave an Anti-Matter Pod there. How to get them there: - Paxan "Wormhole" (relocate their ship if no android aboard; not so good since they probably have Data). - Real Wormholes (drop them right on it). - Subspace Warp Rift (they can choose between getting their ship damaged, or having to try the Snare). Requires strategic placement. - Gaps in Normal Space (choose between getting someone killed, or the Snare). Requires strategic placement. - Birth of "Junior" or Baryon Buildup to reduce their range till they can't get by without stopping. - Or how about a really simple one--park your non-Fed ship there and play a Hail as they try to get by. Dilemmas to Use: Anything that won't stop the crew, because if they get stopped they can leave on their next turn. Good candidates: Tarellian Plague Ship + REM Fatigue Hallucinations, Bendii Syndrome, Frame of Mind, The Higher...The Fewer (makes the mission even less worthwhile), Yuta, Nitrium Metal Parasites, Quantum Singularity Lifeforms (with a Romulan ship parked there). Or how about just a Borg Ship? A Q-Flash will also work if you're careful not to use Q-Continuum cards that stop the crew. Not-so-obvious uses for Imperial citizens: Your opponent is not likely to load this with tough dilemmas. Feds won't want to chance getting stuck facing their own hard dilemmas, or worse, a Q-Flash; and no one will think it's worthwhile to do much booby-trapping of a lousy 15-pointmission. And Romulan and Klingon opponents aren't likely to spend their time trying to "steal" it. Plan on an expendable equipment card in your deck. - "We are smart. We look for dilemmas. Dilemmas to get us points." Seed your own point dilemmas to make it worthwhile to do. Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease + Cosmic String Fragment + Nanites gives you a 40 point mission. Note that it has a yellow affiliation bar--your non-aligneds can do this one alone. - Easy mission for a Cryosatellite. Or, use it as a decoy. If your opponent reads this review and does load it with dilemmas, that's fewer dilemmas for the missions you *really* planned to do. The Major's Combos: - Samaritan Snare + a Fed opponent + Hail - Samaritan Snare + the listed point dilemmas Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR3 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Mandarin Bailiff" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #3@{ub} Aefvadh! How about something for your Q-Continuum? @{b}MANDARIN BAILIFF@{ub} Common Q Dilemma +/- X points Opponent takes one personnel present (random selection) into custody (as a captive) unless you "post bail" by transferring X points to opponent, where X = the number of [red dot] icons in that personnel's skill box. It's easy to think of dilemmas, events, and interrupts as affiliation- neutral as long as they don't say "If a Romulan ship is present..." or "Plays on a Klingon...". But the differences are often more subtle than that. Just how many of those little red dots can you expect to find on a random personnel card? Number of Personnel Number of dots Fed Kli Rom Non 1 25 16 7 6 2 24 14 15 14 3 20 4 9 8 4 6 8 2 11 5 5 2 1 1 6 1 0 0 1 __ __ __ __ 81 44 34 41 average dots 2.3 2.2 2.3 2.8 Hmmm. Aside from revealing the glaring discrepancies in numbers of available personnel, what does this tell us? That on average, a random affiliated personnel will have the same number of red dots regardless of affiliation. So much for statistics. The fact is, there's nothing random about the personnel you have in your deck (well, I *hope* that's not the way you chose them). Let's take a slightly different tack. The Feds have tons of personnel with 3 dots or less. This *doesn't* make it more likely that the Bailiff will pick one from a Fed Away Team, for the simple reason that most Fed decks above beginner level will be using no commons (except maybe Scotty) and few, if any, uncommons--bridge crew is the name of the game. And the high-dot Fed cards are concentrated in the rares. How many personnel with more than 3 dots does each affiliation have? Fed - 12 Kli - 10 Rom - 3 Add in the non-aligned personnel that are most likely to find use in each kind of deck (Fed, 6; Kli, 11; Rom, 10; my subjective evaluations and no, I'm not going to list them!) and you have totals of: Fed - 18 Kli - 21 Rom - 13 Note that no one would be using all of the "likely" high-dot non- aligneds for their affiliations; this is simply the maximum that they have to choose from. Conclusions: 1. The odds are much higher for a Romulan deck that the selected personnel will have 3 or fewer dots. First, the other affiliations simply have a lot more that they are likely to use. Second, with so many multi-skilled personnel, Feds can make a much "tighter" crew, less likely to be diluted with 2's and 3's (or even 1's) to cover needed skills as the Romulans and Klingons must do. 2. A Fed personnel is more likely to be a 5 or 6 (6 available, Klingons have 4, Romulans 3). 3. The more skills (usually, dots) each personnel has, the fewer personnel you are likely to have, the harder it will be to let one go as a captive, and the more likely that you will risk the points to bail them out. If you have a lot of personnel with only 2 skills, losing one isn't so critical. 4. Most likely point differential resulting from posting bail: Federation 8-12 points (4, 5, or 6 dots) Klingon 6-8 points (3 or 4 dots) Romulan 4-6 points (2 or 3 dots) Advantage: Romulan. Depending on who gets picked, it might not even be worth posting bail. Is there anyone who wouldn't post 12 points to get back Jean-Luc? The Major's Combos: - Mandarin Bailiff + Interrogation in Q's Tent: If they won't post bail, get some points anyway. - Mandarin Bailiff + Major Rakal: 3 Romulan skills, only 2 dots. :) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR4 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Dilemma Strategy, Part 1" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #4@{ub} Major Rakal's Romulan Review #4 Aefvadh! I've been seeing a lot of requests for dilemma combos. So today, instead of a card review, let's have a little change of pace with DILEMMA STRATEGY, PART 1 Dilemmas can be classified into a few major types by their effects. 1. Killers. May kill one, several, or all personnel; randomly, by opponent's choice, or by your choice. 2. Skill removers. Include dilemmas that directly drain skills, as well as those that stop, disable, take captive, or otherwise prevent the use of personnel without killing them (e.g., Love Interests). 3. "Wall" dilemmas. Require some combination of skills and/or attributes to get past. 4. Ship damage and destruction. 5. Point suckers. They drain your points and/or add to your opponent's score. 6. Miscellaneous. May delay mission attempts, cause you to lose cards, or have other nuisance effects. Most dilemmas are relatively ineffective if used alone, or without regard to effective combinations. Some have little effect if faced by large, highly-skilled Away Teams; the effects of others can be minimized by redshirting with expendable personnel. Since the main purpose of dilemmas is to prevent or delay your opponent from completing his missions, you need to combine dilemmas in such a way that either approach carries risks. One common strategy is to place killer and skill remover dilemmas first, followed by wall dilemmas. (When I refer to placement order for dilemmas, I am always referring to the order in which they will be encountered. So "place first" means seed last.) One example would be Female's Love Interest followed by Matriarchal Society; remove one female, hoping there will not be two left to get past the Matriarchal Society. Unfortunately, if your opponent did not have any females in the Away Team, the Female's Love Interest card is completely wasted. This strategy has other problems. Many of the killers and skill removers are not very selective. Armus - Skin of Evil will always kill one personnel (barring a well-manned Genetronic Replicator), but if that personnel was a common, universal, expendable redshirt, and the personnel with the skills to complete the mission are back on the ship waiting until it's safe to beam down, you haven't accomplished much. And dilemmas that kill a whole Away Team or a significant portion of it are more or less wasted if encountered by a 1- or 2-person team. A corollary to this strategy says that you should *not* place a wall dilemma at a mission with similar requirements. Don't place Impassable Door, for example, which requires Computer Skill to pass, at Sensitive Search, which requires Computer Skill + CUNNING>28, because your opponent will be certain to have Computer Skill present in order to do the mission. True, but will he want to risk that Computer Skill against killer dilemmas, or will he try to keep him safe on the ship? If you require him to bring in his Computer Skill in order to get past the Impassable Door, you may be able to eliminate him before completing the mission. So...use the reverse strategy. Simply place a wall dilemma first, to ensure a minimum of 2 or 3 personnel present, preferably valuable ones, to be killed or disabled by one or more followup dilemmas. For example, place Matriarchal Society first, and Female's Love Interest second. If the initial Away Team does not include two females, you have stalled your opponent for a while; just how long depends on how many females are in his deck. Once he gets past Matriarchal Society, he loses one female. Guaranteed. (With the remotely possible exception that this is the *only* planet mission on the spaceline.) For a finely-tuned Federation deck with a minimum of highly-skilled bridge crew for personnel, the loss of Beverly Crusher or Picard, or one of the Tasha Yars, can be a perfect setup for a final killer requiring MEDICAL + SECURITY, like Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease or Microvirus. Against Klingons, you may take out a critical MEDICAL (Vekma or Kahlest) or Kurak with her important Astrophysics. And against Romulans, you may get the even more critical Major Rakal (the Rommies' best bet for Empathy and Tal Shiar), Sela (Diplomacy), or Taris (MEDICAL). Follow up with any killers requiring MEDICAL or Empathy to overcome. There are lots of Planet wall dilemmas to choose from for your setup. Malfunctioning Door, Hidden Entrance, Hologram Ruse, and Alien Parasites are all virtually certain to get 4 or more personnel into place for the killers. Alien Labyrinth, Impassable Door, Matriarchal Society, Security Precautions, Portal Guard, Wind Dancer, and Zaldan may net you only one or two, but they're likely to be a higher quality one or two than your average redshirt team. What's that--you didn't know Alien Parasites was a wall dilemma? Look again. No "discard dilemma." If the Away Team has the Integrity, it also has a minimum of 4 personnel; if it doesn't, you get to play around with the team, and then the dilemma still doesn't go away. For Space-only wall dilemmas we have only one, both rare and relatively weak: Ancient Computer. But it is still likely to get some of your opponent's better personnel into position for the killers. In addition, you have a few Planet/Space dilemmas to choose from: Outpost Raid (if not at an outpost), Android Nightmares, Empathic Echo, and Thought Fire, all relatively weak as wall dilemmas, and my personal favorite, Shaka, When the Walls Fell. My next review will look more closely at Shaka, and the best ways to follow it up, including relative effectiveness against the three affiliations. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR5 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Shaka, when then walls fell" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #5@{ub} Aefvadh! Last time, I said my personal favorite wall dilemma was Shaka, When The Walls Fell. Let's take a look at why. @{b}SHAKA, WHEN THE WALLS FELL@{ub} Uncommon Dilemma, Planet or Space Must have 2 Diplomacy and CUNNING>30 to communicate and proceed. @{i}"'Shaka, when the walls fell," means inability to understand. The incomprehensible Tamarians spoke entirely in metaphors."@{ui} First, it's both Planet and Space. You'll *always* have a place to use it, and it works well in combination with a number of followup killers. Second, it virtually guarantees your opponent will have to bring in a minimum of 4 personnel to meet the CUNNING requirement. For Klingons, it's more likely to take 5 or 6. Romulans will have the easiest time with this with their high Cunning. Feds fall in between. Third, and most important, two of those personnel will have Diplomacy. Why is that so crucial? Because NO common, universal personnel, and NO holographic personnel, have Diplomacy. So with rare exceptions, you'll always get two uncommon or rare, unique personnel laying their lives on the line. Not only can this dilemma stall your opponent, he may just abandon the mission attempt rather than risk valuable personnel. The exceptions: Jean-Luc Picard, Dathon, Sarek, Riva, Pardek, and Ves Alkar each have Diplomacy x2. It's doubtful that you'll encounter Riva; Ves Alkar has to have at least one female Empath with him to have the Diplomacy x2, so you automatically have a second valuable personnel at risk; and the rest, especially Jean-Luc, would all be worthwhile kills. Dathon is a special case: because he nullifies Tamarian-related dilemmas, your opponent could pass this with Dathon alone. But then he'd be a sitting duck for the next dilemma, so he probably won't be alone. Now that you've got them there, what next? I recommend a minimum of two killers/disablers to follow. Remember that two of the personnel will be diplomats, who won't contribute much in the way of classifications or skills to overcoming other dilemmas; but your opponent will probably supply a minimum of one each MEDICAL, SECURITY, and SCIENCE to make up the required CUNNING>30. Notes on a few of the more useful dilemmas: - Hunter Gangs (P). Most effective against Romulans, then Klingons and Feds. - Chalnoth (P) and Nagilum (S). Precede with Interphasic Plasma Creatures to cut STRENGTH. - Ferengi Attack (P). Precede with IP Creatures and/or Brain Drain. - Zaldan (P). This one was *made* for Shaka because it targets Diplomats. Precede with something to excise a critical Treachery (for Romulans) or Exobiology (all affiliations). - Rascals (S). Targets uniques. Most will lose their Diplomacy. Few crews will have two unaffected MEDICAL *and* Biology left, especially Klingons. - Cardassian Trap (P/S). Targets uniques and gives you a captive. - Thought Fire (P/S). Requires the Traveler to trigger. Useless against Feds; kills most Klingon and Romulan universals (who see heavy use for MEDICAL and SECURITY), the Duras family, and many unique Romulans, plus many otherwise useful non-aligneds. Won't kill the diplomats, but can clean out MEDICAL and SECURITY for non-Feds. - Yuta (P/S). For best effect, memorize a few key "Yuta numbers" for Diplomats. Fed: 11 matches Picard, Deanna Troi (or Major Rakal), Rachel Garrett, and Riva; Sarek is 16, Riker 8, Worf 4. Klingon: Gowron and Kurn are 6, Gov. Worf 7, K'mpec 10. Romulan: Major Rakal and Sirol are 8, Sela 7, Pardek 6, Cmdr. Tomalak 5, Tomalak 4. Non-aligned: Dathon and Maques 11, Devinoni Ral 9, Evek 5. - Q-Flash (P/S). Fill your Q-Continuum with cards such as Incoming Message-The Continuum, The Higher...The Q-Er, Door-Net (they're not likely to have any Diplomacy in their hand by now), Penalty Box, Mandarin Bailiff, Jealous Amanda, His Honor The High Sheriff of Nottingham, Scottish Setter, and Pla-Net. The Major's Combos: (dilemmas should be encountered in the listed order) Space: - Shaka + Tarellian Plague Ship + Rascals - Shaka + Interphasic Plasma Creatures + Nagilum - Shaka + Two-Dimensional Creatures + Thought Fire Planet: - Shaka + IP Creatures + Chalnoth (or Ferengi Attack) + Zaldan - Shaka + Armus + Alien Abduction - Shaka + Male's Love Interest + Hunter Gangs - Shaka + Q-Flash + Male's Love Interest Either: - Shaka + Frame of Mind + Cardassian Trap - Shaka + Yuta + Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease - Shaka + Q-Flash + Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease Now where did the Diplomacy go that I needed for that mission? Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR6 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Looking fot ships in all the wrong places" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #6@{ub} Aefvadh! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. It's time to look at a few ships. But we're not going on a boring tour of the spacedocks; instead, we are going to go LOOKING FOR SHIPS IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES @{b}U.S.S. ENTERPRISE-C@{ub} @{i}"Predecessor of U.S.S. Enterprise-D. Famous for heroic action in Battle of Narendra III, where it also entered a temporal rift. Commanded by Rachel Garrett."@{ui} Rare Federation Ship, Ambassador Class Range 8, Weapons 7, Shields 8, AU Icon Staffing Requirements: 1 Command + 1 Staff + 1 AU icon personnel Enters play damaged at any location. Tractor Beam. @{b}I.K.C. T'ONG@{ub} @{i}"A Klingon sleeper ship from the 23rd century, an era when Klingons despised humans and attacked them on sight. Commanded by K'Temok."@{ui} Uncommon Klingon Ship, K'T'inga Class Range 5, Weapons 6, Shields 6 Staffing Requirements: 1 Command Cloaking Device. Reports at end of spaceline with up to 3 personnel. @{b}T'PAU@{ub} @{i}"Vulcan merchant vessel named for the only person to ever turn down a seat on the Federation Council. Stolen from Surplus Depot Zed-15 at Qualor II."@{ui} Uncommon Romulan Ship, Merchant Class Range 8, Weapons 7, Shields 6 Staffing Requirements: 1 Staff May report for duty at Qualor II. Tractor beam. Three ships, three affiliations, all have in common the ability--or requirement--to report somewhere other than (usually) an outpost. Sounds like that could be be useful, but is it? Enterprise-C seems, at first glance, to have a lot going for her. She can report to any location. Good for rescues, or for staffing from a Cryosatellite (Rachel Garrett, Beverly Picard, and Tasha Yar-Alternate give you OFFICER, ENGINEER, MEDICAL, and SECURITY; beam over a SCIENCE from the crew that just completed the mission and you have a nice secondary core crew), or with a Devidian Door/Ophidian Cane. Perhaps the most obvious advantage is those last four words in the lore; get Rachel Garrett aboard and you can get Captain's Log benefits. 8-10-11 isn't bad at all; for that matter, the base 8-7-8 is pretty respectable. Only one catch. This ship's base stats are actually only 5-7-8, due to the "damage" that you pay for the ability to report anywhere. So unless you forgo that ability and report her to the outpost, and THEN wait two full turns to repair the damage, she's not going anywhere very fast without either a Plasmadyne relay or an Exocomp aboard. Add to that the heavy three-staff requirement, including an AU icon, and the ship's own AU icon (requiring that you have an open AU Doorway), and the poor Enterprise-C doesn't look so inviting any more. You'll be better off with the non-AU Phoenix or Stargazer (plus a shield enhancer), both of which require only one Command and one Staff, and both of which are eligible for Captain's Log as well. The T'Ong, on the other hand, at first glance doesn't look so hot. Weapons and Shields are so-so--equal to a standard K'Vort--but the Range of 5 won't let it keep up with a K'Vort fleet, and it can't even be "repaired" to a higher Range like the Enterprise-C. It's highly susceptible to Baryon Buildups. It has no tractor beam for towing Garbage Scows. And instead of reporting anywhere, it's restricted to the ends of the spaceline. But look at the advantages: It's not AU. Staffing requirement is minimal. Damage won't *affect* its range. And most important, the ship is a mini-Red Alert. Four cards played for one turn, you don't need anything else in play first, and no AU restrictions on the personnel. Uses once in play? Aside from possible Love Interest rescues, let them join a K'Vort armada and beam or Devidian Door a Plasmadyne Relay aboard. And although K'Temok doesn't exist *yet*, chances are someday soon the T'Ong will get Captain's Log benefits too. That leaves the T'Pau. What can I say about this ship? She has decent stats, better than a Science Vessel, with minimal staffing required (one Staff star), so she could lead a Science Vessel armada. The mediocre shields are easily enhanced. She can tow Garbage Scows. And she can report at your outpost if you so desire. Which is a good thing, because for the life of me, I can't figure out why you would want to report her at Qualor II. Any Romulans you have there are either already on a ship, or in stasis and unable to beam aboard, and non-aligneds can't fly her. Besides that, no Captain's Log benefits are possible. If only this ship had been made universal, she would be the Romulans' answer to the K'Vorts. No dice, she's unique. Final analysis? Depends on what you're looking for (speed, battle ability, versatility, mission-solving), and of course, which affiliation you'd like to play, but all in all I'd rate the Enterprise-C and the T'Ong about equal in play value, though for very different reasons, with the T'Pau way behind. The Major's Combos: - Enterprise-C + (Rachel Garrett + Beverly Picard + Tasha Yar-Alt on a Cryosatellite) + Captain's Log - I.K.C. Tong + Plasmadyne Relay + a Klingon Commander - Taris + Haakona + Captain's Log Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar (c) 1997 Kathleen E. McCracken. All Rights Reserved. @EndNode @Node MRRR7 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Galen" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #7@{ub} Aefvadh! Looks like I've been neglecting personnel in my reviews, not having covered any since starting off with Taris. So let's take a look at a personnel card that *doesn't* have a green border, but sure looks like it should... @{b}GALEN@{ub} @{i}"Jean-Luc Picard went undercover in 2370 posing as a mercenary and artifact smuggler."@{ui} [The name "Jean-Luc Picard" is in boldface, indicating Picard and Galen are the same persona.] Rare Non-Aligned Personnel Integrity 5, Cunning 8, Strength 6, Command star SCIENCE: Archaeology, Computer Skill, Treachery, Leadership, Navigation, Music Does not work with Federation affiliation. Finally, a Picard with 6 skills for "the rest of us." How does he compare to Jean-Luc? His SCIENCE classification is much more useful than OFFICER to Romulans, who have hordes of OFFICERs and a dearth of SCIENCE (only one with Integrity >4), and with his skill of Leadership, he can lead a battle anyway. Besides Leadership, he retains his valuable skills of Archaeology, Navigation, and Music, while Computer Skill and Treachery replace Diplomacy x2 (plenty of Rommie Diplomats) and Honor (well, it would have been nice). He loses 4 points of Integrity, but is still safe from Firestorm, Thought Fire, and Hunter Gangs. (For now, you don't even have to worry about Bendii Syndrome draining his Integrity, since all Vulcans so far are Fed, and he won't work with them.) Galen's a perfect complement for Taris in a Romulan Archaeology- Treachery deck. Though these decks are popular because of the two Universals with these two skills, until Q-C we haven't had any green Archaeologists with other particularly useful skills (yes, Taul's SECURITY, but just how many of those do you need?). With D'Tan for an Integrity boost, you have enough Archaeology for even Hunt for DNA Program, with two Musics in case you want to drop a Ressikan Flute under one of those historical digs. Other uses? His Navigation is a big help for Anti-Matter Pod and FGC-47 Research, not to mention several space dilemmas. Music will get you by Crystalline Entity in a small ship, or the odd Wind Dancer. And if you want to throw Qualor II Rendezvous into your deck, he's one of the few Non-aligned personnel who will be just as useful for the rest of your deck as he will be on Qualor II. How does he stack up in a Klingon deck? Not as valuable here, because the Klingons have a greater supply vs. demand of all his skills except SCIENCE. And even with a higher demand for SCIENCE, Klingons have more *useful* SCIENCE than the Romulans--Kitrik, J'Ddan, Koroth, and Kurak all have other useful skills and most have high Integrity. On a preliminary version of a personnel rating scale that takes into account skill supply and demand within each affiliation, Galen rates 78 for the Romulans (where Taris is 86 and Sirol 77), and only 61 for the Klingons (compared to 70 for Kitrik and 60 for Governor Worf). Yes, Galen is definitely happiest as an honorary Romulan. And besides all that, it's a *much* better image of Patrick Stewart than the distorted closeup on J-L. The Major's Combos: - Galen + Taris + D'Tan + Taul. Get me a pick and shovel! Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR8 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Telak" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #8@{ub} Aefvadh! While we're on the subject of personnel, how about that new Security fella, @{b}TELAK@{ub} "Male bodyguard of Sela. Stationed on Romulus. Lieutenant operative in the Tal Shiar's new Android Research section." Uncommon Romulan Personnel Integrity 5, Cunning 6, Strength 9, Staff star SECURITY: Treachery, Tal Shiar, Cybernetics Our first unique Romulan SECURITY. Though one point less Cunning than his universal comrades Jaron and Taul, he makes up for it with that critical extra Integrity point that lets him escape Firestorms, and the even Cunning protects him from Hunter Gangs. He's still vulnerable to Thought Fire unless you augment his Cunning with a PADD or Yellow Alert (though the latter negates his Hunter Gangs immunity). SECURITY is a must for dilemmas (especially with the new Security Precautions), but it's not required for missions (with the sole exception of the 25-point Fed-Kli Hostage Situation just out in the new 2-Player Game), so you must make them do double duty through skills, not an easy job for the Rommies. Jaron is good only for Youth decks, unless you're fond of the 20-point Relief Mission. Taul is a staple in Archaeology decks. And that's all they're good for. Telak, on the other hand, now provides a crucial backup Tal Shiar for the good Major, making Quash Conspiracy less risky (not to mention possible using Uncommon personnel), as well as helping out as a leader for Romulan-Romulan attacks. Cybernetics (the only other source of which, for Romulans, is Ira Graves) will let you report Soong-type Androids, with their selectable classification, "for free". So although his skills are only good for one mission requirement, they're also useful in other ways. Bottom line: no Roga Danar, but a lot more useful than the other Rommie SECURITY, and only Uncommon. The Major's Combos: - Telak + Major Rakal + Quash Conspiracy Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar @EndNode @Node MRRR9 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/The Sheliak" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #9@{ub} Aefvadh! Time for another dilemma, and this is a nasty one. @{b}THE SHELIAK@{ub} Rare Dilemma, Planet Place at far end of spaceline. End of every turn, moves toward this mission (RANGE = 6). Upon arrival, destroys any outposts, stations and Away Teams present. Mission then = zero points. @{i}"A reclusive race of strict legalists that considers humanoids inferior. Life-form classification R-3. The 2255 Treaty of Armens ceded several planets to the Sheliak."@{ui} More relentless than the Borg Ship, The Sheliak at present cannot be stopped. Nothing nullifies it; a Q-Net can't stop it; it's not a ship so it can't be damaged or destroyed. Even if you somehow got the chance to rearrange the spaceline (if your opponent hit your Q dilemma) before it got to your mission, it won't singlemindedly continue in the same direction and off the end, like the Borg Ship; it always moves "toward this mission," and so would reverse direction if necessary. And it may move even faster than the Borg Ship, as its range of 6 will often let it move two missions instead of one every turn. Though it won't destroy ships or attack anything else along the way, it does two things a Borg Ship can't do: it destroys outposts and Away Teams, and it hoses the mission points if you fail to complete it before The Sheliak arrive. So your opponent turns up The Sheliak. If you were able to seed it at the center of the spaceline, it has to traverse six missions, which will take from three to six moves. Since it moves at the end of every turn, this could take up to two more of your opponent's turns after the current one. So you need to (1) keep him from completing the mission, and (2) keep him from leaving. Seed The Sheliak so it is encountered first, or if you prefer to be certain of tying up (and hopefully killing) a few personnel, put it after Shaka, When The Walls Fell or any other wall dilemma. Follow up The Sheliak (which doesn't stop the Away Team, so they have to continue) with another wall dilemma or other stopper (Alien Parasites, Hyper-Aging, Parallel Romance, Phased Matter, Worshiper, Chinese Finger Puzzle, Outpost Raid). Or maybe a Q-Flash, with a Q Continuum loaded with cards like The Higher...The Q-Er (experience even more Q cards), Go Back Whence Thou Camest (take his ship away), and His Honor, The High Sheriff of Nottingham (should he lose points, or take a chance on getting back a captive who may be promptly killed by The Sheliak? Use with Cardy Traps, Mandarin Bailiff, etc.). If you can't slow him down and despite your best efforts he completes the mission, you should at least try to keep him on the planet. You could Temporal Rift his ship, or tow it away with Ship Seizure if empty, or play a Particle Scattering Field on your own Tama and move it in. Two interlocking Distortion Fields will prevent him from beaming anyone out. Or you can use the simplest combo, and follow up The Sheliak with our old friend Q. Unless he's got more than 60 Integrity (and 2 Leadership), his Away Team is stopped and stranded on the planet--which you, of course, will relocate next to The Sheliak, which will move in when he ends his turn and destroy the Away Team and the mission points. It is imperative that you have Amanda Rogers in hand, in case he has Q2. I'd recommend one more dilemma or Q-Flash after Q, just in case he manages the Integrity (Feds might), or has more than one Q2; or in case he has seeded an artifact there, which he can still get later by completing the mission normally (he just won't get any points for the mission). The Major's Combos: - Against red-shirters: Shaka + The Sheliak + Q - Against massive Away Teams: The Sheliak + Q + Q-Flash - Just want to keep him from getting points? The Sheliak + The Higher... The Fewer + Edo Probe + Q - Don't have Q? Try Shaka + The Sheliak + Hyper-Aging + Temporal Rift Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR10 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Mot and the Major's Useless Romulan Review" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #10@{ub} Aefvadh! And welcome...to the Tal Shiar Barbershop. It seems that in recent weeks, complaints have been abnormally high about how supposedly inferior the Romulan affiliation is to the Klingons and Feds. We won't deny that they are under-developed in comparison (and we'd be more than happy to see a few green premium cards to go along with the blue and red ones in the 2-Player Games), but we'd say they are an even match in the hands of the right player. In fact, the thought struck Mot that the way people are talking about the Romulans, you'd think they were a "useless affiliation." Well, Mot loves debunking the "useless card" adage, so he decided to devote a Useless Card Review to Romulan superiority, which led, logically, to a proposal of collaboration with the Major. We herewith present the first joint venture of the Tal Shiar and the Barber's Guild, TEN THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN THEY LAUGH AT YOUR ROMULAN DECK STRENGTH AND CUNNING. On the average, the Romulans are every bit as strong as the Klingons. (In fact, if you remove Fek'lhr from the equation, Romulans are actually stronger!) They aren't lacking in CUNNING like the rather dim Klingons, however. In fact, more Romulans have a CUNNING of 8 or better than any other affiliation, at 55%. Klingons can only muster a pathetic 9%, and even the Feds barely top 37%. The list of cards requiring CUNNING or STRENGTH is quite extensive, far longer than INTEGRITY. (And that includes Shaka, When the Walls Fell.) Even Explore Typhone Expanse, with a requirement of CUNNING>50, takes on average only 7 Romulans, but 9 or 10 Klingons. Or, you can meet the alternative requirements with a lot fewer personnel; the Romulans have a lot of... EASY HIGH POINT MISSIONS. The Romulans have the only 40 point mission that can be completed by a single personnel (Quash Conspiracy), and two personnel capable of completing it (Telak, Major Rakal). What's more, they have more high point missions that can be completed by one or two personnel than any other affiliation: Covert Installation, Explore Typhone Expanse, Extraction, Investigate Raid, and Study Lonka Pulsar. Most of the high point missions for the other affiliations have requirements in STRENGTH, CUNNING or INTEGRITY, making it necessary to have a lot more personnel. Get to those missions quickly with... FAST SHIPS. Not one Romulan ship has a RANGE of less than 8. Compare this to the Federation, loaded with 6's and 7's. And many Romulan ships have a RANGE of 9 or better, but only the Enterprise and Future Enterprise manage this for the Feds. You can play missions with high ranges, and get around much faster than the average Federation opponent, or even a Klingon player using K'Vorts instead of Vor'chas. And to enhance your other ship stats, try... CAPTAIN'S LOG BENEFITS. The Romulans currently have five ships eligible for Captain's Log benefits, complete with the captains to match. (Devoras/Mendak, Haakona/Taris, Khazara/Toreth, Decius/Tomalak, Terix/Sirol) That's more than any other affiliation. The Klingons and the Federation only have four, and the Non-aligned personnel add only three more. You're likely to have at least two matching Romulan pairs in any Romulan deck you build, meaning it may be worth your while to include the Captain's Log. You don't have to go out of your way to get these benefits, as you might playing another affiliation. (When is the last time you played with Kargan or Benjamin Maxwell?) Now that you have your ships beefed up, try a little... ESPIONAGE. Only the Romulans have the ability to commit espionage on both the other affiliations. At the same time, they're immune to having it done to them. That means ultimately that ANY mission (except Qualor II) is fair game for them if you are willing to include the cards. Pick any one skill, and you'll easily find six missions for it if you think in terms of espionage. A deck that tightly focused on one or two skills will require fewer personnel, allowing room for the Espionage cards (and the Q2s or Rishon Uxbridges to protect them). Of course, with Espionage goes... TREACHERY. Even without Espionage, it's easy to build a tightly focused Romulan deck, and the easiest skill to focus on is Treachery. 41% of Romulans share this skill, which is required on 11 different Romulan missions. This gives a greater skill requirement overlap than any other affiliation. Even among those Honorable Klingons, only 36% have Honor-- and only 5 Klingon missions require it. You can easily build an all- Treachery Romulan deck. What's more, you can get this kind of focus using... ALL-COMMON PERSONNEL DECKS. The Romulans have 25 missions that can be done with all commons (the occasional non-aligned included, like Vekor for Navigation), 19 of them without holos. Only four are worth 25 points or less. 9 of the 25 require *only* Treachery, Archaeology, and Computer Skill, all of which are readily available with commons; in fact, Treachery/Archaeology decks seem to appear quite frequently. While the Klingons have 31 missions that could be done by all commons (29 without holos), there is no such skill overlap, and 7 are worth 25 points or less. (I'm not counting the use of K'chiQ here, because although she's common and universal, you can only use one in an Away Team or crew, and she's too susceptible to losing her man.) Feds have 24 missions that could be done by all commons, but 4 of those require the non-universal Scotty, so you have no backup for his crucial skills; and 8 are worth 25 points or less (two are only 15 each). Again, there is no particular skill overlap. An all-common deck means that a relative beginner with few cards can still make a viable Romulan deck. It would be virtually immune to Klim Dokachin, and with Lower Decks in play, not a single common Romulan will die in a Firestorm or Thought Fire. Who needs Thermal Deflectors? Of course, there are other dilemmas to consider, such as... QUANTUM SINGULARITY LIFEFORMS. This could be one of the worst cards for the Romulans. It's also one of the best, when you turn it against your opponent. Send a single personnel on a Science Vessel out to a space location where an opponent's ship (ideally one loaded with personnel) is parked. Attempt the mission there, releasing a Quantum Singularity Lifeforms you yourself seeded there. The presence of your Romulan warp core will put their entire crew into stasis. You can keep them there most of the game while you attempt missions with the rest of your personnel... or you can have an ENGINEER accompany an armada and "help them out" by releasing their ship, into a barrage of disruptor fire. And speaking of armadas, why not make it a... SCIENCE GREED ARMADA. Say "armada" and everyone thinks "Klingon". But you can also build a respectable Romulan Armada with--don't laugh!-- Science Vessels. With stats of 8-5-6 compared to the K'Vort's 8-6-6, they could use a little Bynars help, but have *no* staffing requirements; lead the fleet with an 8-7-6 single-staff-star T'Pau for flavor. How does this make them superior, you ask? Just man your little ships with Galathons, blow away your opponent's ships, and then hit them with Latinum Payoffs (since Gally has Greed and is also OFFICER for a battle leader). No one else has a universal Greedy OFFICER. Of course, all those Galathons are actually good for something else, too--the previously mentioned Treachery/Archaeology decks. And along with that, he's useful for... THE CHARYBDIS. Make artifact acquisition difficult for your opponent, while being almost certain to walk away with your own--and his too, if he has to leave them behind for lack of Archaeology. It's a particularly effective strategy against Feds, who have only 4 Archaeologists, all rare. Besides Galathon, the Romulans have the common Taul, who is virtually certain to be in most Romulan decks anyway, in multiple, for SECURITY, plus the uncommon D'Tan and rare Taris...and they can use Galen as well. There you have it, friends. What more reason could you need to switch to the not-so-useless affiliation? Jolan tru, Major Rakal Mot the Barber Tal Shiar Barbering Guild ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html and Mot's Useless Card Reviews at The Collective at http://www.jwp.bc.ca/collective/mot/useless.htm __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR11 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Romulan Ambush" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #11@{ub} Aefvadh! Working with Mot on our joint "Useless" review made me think, for some reason, of Romulan Ambush. Well, Mot said even he couldn't come up with a way to make this card useful. You know what? Neither can I. @{b}ROMULAN AMBUSH@{ub} Uncommon Interrupt Destroys opponent's ship with SHIELDS<6 present with your D'deridex- class ship. Crew killed, except one personnel (your choice) is made captive. @{i}"In 2367, Geordi LaForge was captured by a Romulan ship while piloting a shuttle to Risa. He was brainwashed into an assassination plot against Klingon Governor Vagh."@{ui} When I first saw this card, I thought, "Great! The Romulans finally have a 'special' card like all the Klingon 'specials'. About time. Destroy a ship, get a captive, do it on your opponent's turn, and your ship won't even be stopped. You can even destroy another Romulan without Tal Shiar around. What more could you want?" Mmm, how about a target? The D'deridex-class ship is no problem. It includes all the warbirds, including the universal, of course, which Romulans generally have no trouble staffing with so many command stars available. So, just find an opponent playing a ship with SHIELDS<6. Federation: Runabout (5) Type VI Shuttlecraft (2) U.S.S. Miranda (5) No one plays with a Shuttlecraft, unless they're playing Engage Shuttle Operations. In other words, no one plays with a Shuttlecraft. Why bother? The Runabout is 7-5-5 to the Shuttlecraft's 6-2-2, with the same no-staff-star requirement. No one plays with the Miranda, either; it's worse than a Runabout (6-5-5) and requires a staff star to boot. That leaves the Runabout. Occasionally used as a red-shirt vessel for space missions; not much of a loss to a Borg Ship, and temporarily expendable for a 15-point Cytherians trip with Mot (sorry, Mot!). Which means it also won't be much of a loss to your Ambush. And its single crewmember won't give you much "choice" of captive; almost certainly useless for Brainwash, and not likely to be redeemed for 10 Interrogation points, though he could garner you a few single points. Romulan: Scout Vessel (3) Pi (4) No one plays with a Scout Vessel, either generic (9-3-3) or the Scout- class Pi (9-4-4). Use a Science Vessel (8-5-6) instead. No staff stars need apply. Klingon: None. That's right. Every K'Vort is at least 6. Non-aligned: Yridian Shuttle (3) Zibalian Transport (4) No one plays with an Yridian Shuttle, unless they're playing Engage... haven't we been here before? I suppose a Klingon *might* use a Zibalian Transport if he was desperate for a no-staff ship. Well, that was exhilarating. Two vague possibilities for actual use, and either can be immunized against the Ambush with a simple Plasmadyne Relay. And there are currently *no* cards that drain SHIELDS. To top it off, four of the D'deridexes can destroy with a direct hit any of these ships except the Runabout and the Miranda (though you get no captive, must do it on your own turn, and will be stopped). So your possible targets are: 1. Beginning players who own almost no ships. 2. Players of Engage Shuttle Operations. 3. Fed space mission redshirters. Oh, and the concept isn't even true to the show; Geordi was taken captive, but his shuttle wasn't destroyed. The Major's Combos: - I think it's a pretty neat picture of the warbird, don't you? Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR12 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Vulcan Stone of Gol" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #12@{ub} Aefvadh! Let's investigate the uses of an artifact created by the Romulan's ancestors, the Vulcans, in their pre-Surak days. @{b}VULCAN STONE OF GOL@{ub} Rare Artifact Place in hand until played as an Event card. Kills everyone in an Away Team without Youth OR CUNNING>7. Discard artifact. @{i}"Ancient Vulcan telepathic weapon. Kills by magnifying aggressive and violent thoughts, but can be blocked by peaceful thoughts."@{ui} First, the limitations. It specifies an Away Team, so you can't use it on a ship's crew. And you must somehow get your opponent's Away Team stopped, because you can only play this on your own turn, barring a serendipitous Manheim's Dimensional Door temporal hiccup. Finally, its usefulness may be badly diminished by the presence of PADDs, Yellow Alert, or Lower Decks. Pluses: It can be used by Feds to kill without doing battle. It's possible to drain CUNNING selectively with Brain Drain, and across the board for Non-aligneds with the Humuhumu... fish card. Unlike some artifacts, this one is very affiliation-dependent for its effectiveness. How many personnel in each affiliation have CUNNING less than 8 and no Youth? (I didn't count holos since they would reactivate next turn anyway.) Federation: 40 personnel (49%) will be killed, nearly all uncommon or rare. Although many of the best bridge crew will survive (Picard, Geordi, Data, Beverly), you will lose Deanna Troi or Major Rakal (likely source of Empathy), both Tashas, and Worf (all your best SECURITY). Klingon: 35 personnel, a whopping 80%, of the dim-witted Klingons will be toast. This includes all but one common, and all SECURITY and MEDICAL save Divok. Lower Decks won't even save most of them. Of rare Klingons, Gov. Worf, Gowron, Kurak, and Kurn are among the dear departed. Good for some Death Yells, but not much else. Romulan: Ah, only *12* (35%) Romulans aren't bright enough or young enough to live. Although this includes all SECURITY and MEDICAL except Taris and the holo-Jera, Lower Decks (frequently used for a universal Integrity boost) or even Yellow Alert will save most of them. Among rare Romulans you will lose only the Tomalaks and Mendak; the much more useful women will all survive. Non-aligned: 17 (41%) will die, including Berlinghoff Rasmussen, Tarmin, Zon, and Mortal Q (great way to keep your opponent from playing Immortal Again to reopen his Q Continuum). But you can make it even worse by playing Humuhumunukunukuapua'a on the Away Team's location before playing the Gol Stone; it drains your opponent's non-aligneds of 4 CUNNING each, so the Stone will claim 83% of them (all but 7). In summary, best used against Klingons, and Non-Aligneds with a Humu fish; not as effective but still damaging to Federation; and much less effective against Romulans. Appropriate, considering its origin. Keep a Disruptor Overload around just in case your opponent favors PADDs, and a Q2 in case he tries to KU the Stone. Oh, and to stop the Away Team, try any wall dilemma. The Major's Combos: - Vulcan Stone of Gol + multiple Brain Drains + Humu fish Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR13 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Royale Casino - Craps" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #13@{ub} Aefvadh! Feel up to a little gambling? How about a game of... @{b}ROYALE CASINO: CRAPS@{ub} Uncommon Planet Dilemma, AU Icon, 7 Bonus Points Show a personnel from hand. If CUNNING = 7 or 11 OR opponent cannot match your number, win points. Otherwise, opponent wins points. @{i}"An away team from the U.S.S. Enterprise was trapped in the illusionary Hotel Royale until they won enough money in the casino to buy the bank and their way out."@{ui} Two ways to use this: for your opponent to encounter, or for yourself. Like last time's Vulcan Stone of Gol, this is another affiliation- dependent card, but this time we're looking for specific numbers instead of something "greater than" a cutoff. Let's see who fares best. Federation: 29 personnel, including 9 uncommons and 17 rares, have 7 or 11. Looks like they have a good chance of winning this one. Next most common number is 8. Klingon: Only 2 uncommons and 3 rares have 7, no 11's. The Klingons aren't likely to be able to pull one out of the hand. Most common numbers are 5 and 6. Romulan: 8 commons, 5 uncommons, and 3 rares beat the house. Although that's not as many possibilities as the Federation, it might be easier to hold back a duplicate common than for a Fed to hold back a bridge crew. Remember, it has to come from your hand. Next most common number is 8. Non-aligned: Only 3 commons and 4 uncommons win here with a 7 or 11 in your hand. Next most common number is, again, 8. But wait, there's one more winner, even though his CUNNING is 5 and this one you *don't* want in your hand. Mickey D., who "automatically wins Royale Casino sidegames, if present." That means he must be in the Away Team that encounters the dilemma. So how will each affiliation fare, encountering this dilemma unexpectedly? The Federation and Romulans both have excellent chances of winning, as long as they haven't Red Alert-ed all their personnel onto the table. The Klingons don't have much hope. Use this one offensively only against Klingons, or other opponents who normally use Red Alert. But it's imperative to be prepared by keeping a personnel in your hand with 8 CUNNING (dead easy for Feds or Rommies, a Klingon will need to hold a non-aligned), or a 5 and a 6 if playing against Klingons (easy for Feds and Klingons, hard for Rommies without a non-aligned), because if they don't have the requisite 7 or 11, you need to be able to match whatever they *can* produce. (If they have no personnel in hand, you win the points by default.) To play it for your own benefit, of course, you want to seed it last, so you will encounter it first. (Follow it up with a Sarjenka, so you can choose to be stopped for another 5 points and abort the mission attempt, if desired.) You can then either deliberately hold back a key CUNNING 7 personnel (feasible for Romulans and Feds), or do the simple thing, pull Mickey D. out of your Q's Tent and play him before you attempt the mission. BTW, since the personnel you show is not in play, his CUNNING is unaffected by PADDs, Lower Decks, or Yellow Alert. The Major's Combos: - Royale Casino: Craps + Mickey D. + Sarjenka + Parallax Arguers. 17 easy points is pretty cool, I think. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR14 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Major Rakal" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #14@{ub} Aefvadh! Here's a card I've had several requests for, so I guess it's time to do it. Though it's green-bordered, it also has a tinge of blue, and I seldom build a deck without it. That's right, none other than...NO, not Stefan DeSeve! None other than our very own... @{b}MAJOR RAKAL@{ub} Rare Romulan/Federation (Dual-Affiliation) Personnel Integrity 4, Cunning 8, Strength 4, Command star, AU icon V.I.P.: Romulan: Tal Shiar, Empathy, Treachery Federation: Empathy, Diplomacy, INTEGRITY +4, CUNNING -1 @{i}"Physically altered, Deanna Troi was coerced to completely assume the identity of a Tal Shiar major in the 2369 M'ret defection plot."@{ui} [The name "Deanna Troi" is *not* in boldface, though errata will soon be issued stating that it should be, indicating Rakal and Troi are the same persona.] This first dual-affiliation personnel was a great breakthrough for the Romulans, providing by far the most valuable personnel available to the Empire prior to the release of Taris and Sirol. Look at her advantages: - Empathy. Rommies no longer had to rely on a single available Empath, Devinoni Ral, unique and therefore unplayable in duplicate, to do the 40 point New Contact mission. The release of AU also made Empathy a critical skill for countering Thought Fire (devastating to Romulans) and Cardassian Trap. With Maques, she even provides hope of curing Frame of Mind. And it's her *second* listed skill, untouchable by Rascals or Tsiolkovsky Infection. Her Empathy alone makes her a virtual necessity in any Romulan deck. But she has plenty more to recommend her. - Treachery. Never can have enough of this for your basic Romulan Treachery deck. - Tal Shiar. A 40-point mission (Quash Conspiracy) she can complete on her own. Just keep the Major on a handy Scout or Science Vessel (preferably upline from the mission to avoid Borg Ship surprises) while your basic crew takes out the dilemmas. Then when they are unable to complete the mission, their attempt ends, move in the Major, and score 40. In addition, she can now serve as a battle leader if you have no other, and allow you to attack a Romulan opponent. - Female. With only 6 other Romulan females, two of which (Jera and Selok) are virtually useless, she's real handy for those Matriarchal Societies. - AU Icon. Put her on a Cryosatellite, use her to staff the Decius, complete Fissure Research. - VIP Classification. A great backup VIP for Diplomatic Conference, as you can use her for whichever affiliation you didn't already draw. - Even CUNNING. Immune to Hunter Gangs. - Dual Affiliation. She justifies seeding of an extra (Neutral) outpost for her potential Federation affiliation, and allows you to "espionage" Federation mission with the backup of non-aligned support personnel. Her only Romulan disadvantage is her Integrity of 4, leaving her vulnerable to Firestorms with no help available from D'Tan or Lower Decks. What about (heresy!) Federation decks? Well, in blue mode our Major is just a clone of Deanna Troi, with two exceptions: her classification is VIP instead of OFFICER (no big loss), and she has an AU icon. Which makes her an nice replacement for her alter ego, as the advantages listed above for these two features apply just as well to Federation use, including staffing for the AU-hungry Future Enterprise. And her dual affiliation again allows seeding of a Neutral Outpost, this time for potential green-ness, not to mention the possibility of otherwise impossible "espionage" of Romulan missions with non-aligned support crew! All in all, great for both affiliations, but with far more advantages accruing to the Romulans. Don't leave the Outpost without her. The Major's Combos: - Major Rakal + any of my decks Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR15 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Space" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #15@{ub} Aefvadh! I see I've been neglecting missions something awful. But instead of doing one that you can actually complete and get points for, I'm going to look at the peculiar little nothing mission... @{b}SPACE@{ub} @{i}"The final frontier...."@{ui} Common Space Mission No Affiliation Icon, Universal icon, no points, Span X Counts as 1/2 card. May insert into spaceline. X = 3 + number of adjacent (universal icon) locations. Hmm. No affiliations, no requirements, no points. No wonder it only counts as half a card! So what can you do with it? First let's clarify its odd text a bit and talk about what you *can't* do with it. - "Counts as 1/2 card" means that you replace one normal mission from your deck with two of these. Those two count as one seed card out of the maximum of 30 you are allowed, and one card toward your 60-card deck. - "May insert into spaceline" means you aren't restricted, as you are with all other missions, to placing it on either end of the spaceline as it is created card by card. You can insert it between two missions already placed. - "Universal icon" means the same diamond-shaped array that appears on universal personnel and ships, and it has the same meaning here: you can have more than one of them in play at the same time, whereas normal missions must all be unique. There are two mission cards with the universal icon, Space and Nebula. - The span is variable, depending on how many of them you have in a row. A single Space has a span of 3. If a Space has one universal on one side, its span is 3+1=4. If it has a universal on both sides, its span is 3+2=5. To illustrate, in the following spaceline diagram, M is any normal mission, S is the universal space mission, and N is the Nebula mission (which has a fixed span of 4). The span of the Space and Nebula missions is indicated below each mission. M S M S S M S S S M S S S N S M M 3 4 4 4 5 4 4 5 5 4 4 - You can't place an affiliated outpost here (either seeded or built later), because they can only be placed at a location with a matching affiliation bar. You *can* place a Neutral Outpost here, because the Neutral Outpost has no affiliation and thus is exempt from needing a matching affiliation bar, and because you can seed it at any space location. - You can't "attempt" or "complete" this mission, because there are norequirements. There's nothing to complete. And while you *could* seed dilemmas or artifacts here, there is no way for anyone to encounter the dilemmas, and artifacts can only be retrieved by completing the mission, which can't be done. So, again, what *can* you do with it? First and most obvious use: as a space-filler (pun unavoidable) and stall tactic. Stick even two of these side by side between two of your opponent's missions, and you make it more difficult to get around by introducing an extra 8 span to pass. That's an extra turn for most ships. Put three in a row and you introduce 4+5+4=13 extra span. That will take a ship with Range 9 one extra turn; with Range 8 or less, at least two extra turns (possibly three, depending on the next span). This works best against the Federation, whose only ships with range greater than 8 are the USS Enterprise (9) and Future Enterprise (13). Klingons will not be hampered too much if they're playing Vor'chas, as the universal and most uniques have Range 9, but it can help keep those pesky K'vort armadas (mostly Range 8) at arm's length. On the other hand, Romulans don't have it so good with universal D'deridexes (8), but most of the uniques, and the universal Scout Vessels, have Range 9, which can give them an edge. The second use is not so obvious: the ultimate mission-stealing deck. Use 10 or 12 Space missions plus 1 or 0 real missions. Just keep inserting Space missions between your opponent's missions in rows of 4 or 5, isolating his missions into 3 pairs. If you use one real mission, try to put it off on one end of the spaceline, separated from your opponent's nearest pair by two Space missions. Chances are he will opt for one of the center pair for his outpost, as giving him the best shot at reaching either of the other pairs. But it's still going to be tough, as four Space in a row have spans 4+5+5+4=18, and will take three turns to get past even with a Range of 9. Keep a Disruptor Overload and a Baryon Buildup or two ready to get rid of Plasmadyne Relays and slow his ships even more. Now that you have your opponent effectively restricted to only two easily reached missions, you need to solve some yourself. Not that single one (available only to your affiliation) you placed at the end--it's going to be so loaded with dilemmas that you won't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. No, that one's a backup position for you to build an affiliated outpost, in case the Neutral you seed at a Space adjacent to your opponent's mission is destroyed, and he has none with your affiliation's icon. You will need an all-purpose generic mission-solving crew that can tackle a wide variety of missions (I'll go into the makeup of such a crew either in a later review or in a theme deck), with a lot of non-aligneds and dual-affiliates, and some espionage cards (with Palor Toffs) in case your opponent favors one-color missions. Also include some point dilemmas like Barclay's in your seed deck to beef up the point values of the missions you intend to solve. So how does this strategy stack up for the different affiliations? If you've read the article "Q-Factoids" recently posted on Decipher's siteby game designer Tom Braunlich, you may have noticed a cryptic reference to the Space mission having a subtle advantage for Romulans. That *might* be the stall tactic noted above, but it's hard to say they really have any advantage over the Klingons there. No, the real advantage comes with the mission-stealing. - Romulans can espionage both Federation and Klingon missions. - Feds can only espionage Klingons. They may be able to do Romulan missions with Major Rakal and non-aligneds, but that particular form of mission-stealing is still easier for Romulans, because it's tougher for Feds to come up with all the Treachery that so many Rommie missions need, while Romulans have plenty of the Diplomacy and Leadership required by so many Fed missions. - Klingons really have the worst of this; they can only espionage against Fed missions, and have no dual-affiliates (yet). Their one advantage is the skill-shifting K'chiQ, but they can still have only one at a mission site. Advantage: Romulan. The Major's Combos: - 10 Space + Rakal + NAs + Espionage Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR16 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/All you wanted to know about Dilemmas" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #16@{ub} Aefvadh! You may have noticed a little gap in my reviews (like about 3 weeks). But I hope you'll feel that what I have coming up was worth the wait. For the next couple of reviews, rather than review single cards, I'm going to tackle a topic that seems to generate at least half of the rules questions on the mailing list and BBS, namely, how dilemmas work. So without further ado, I present to you... @{b}EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT DILEMMAS*@{ub} *but were afraid to ask Does this dilemma stop the Away Team? Do I discard this dilemma or does it return under the mission? What happens if there's no ship present? And more. Dilemmas are one of the most important factors in the game, and one of the most confusing. The latest FAQ covers the "components" of dilemmas very concisely, but you may not have the FAQ handy, or may wonder how to translate this information into practical terms to explain how a particular dilemma works. In this review I will expand on the FAQ explanation and give more examples. Note: All of the following applies only to normal dilemmas, not to Q- icon dilemmas. However a dilemma is phrased, it all boils down to a few components: TRIGGERS CONDITIONS TARGETS EFFECTS CURES POINT VALUES which collectively determine how it works (what it does to you, whether it stops you, and how you dispose of it). A TRIGGER is something that must be present or in effect if the dilemma is going to do anything at all. In other words, something that "triggers" the dilemma. If it is explicitly stated, it will be at the beginning of the dilemma and usually starts with "If..." "If android present..." "If a Romulan ship present..." "If The Traveler: Transcendence is affecting you..." One exception to this "If" rule is Bendii Syndrome, which reads, "One Vulcan without Youth present..." Although this may appear to be a TARGET (the Vulcan is targeted to die), it is considered a TRIGGER because an affected Vulcan is necessary for the dilemma to have its effect on other personnel. The most common trigger that is not explicitly stated is a ship. If a dilemma's effects target the ship itself (and not the crew), then the ship is a trigger. If it explicitly says "Play (or place) on ship", then the ship is also a trigger, even if it actually affects the personnel. CONDITIONS are the most common dilemma component. They are the requirements that you must meet in order to avoid the dilemma's bad efefcts. They may include skills, attributes, specific personnel, equipment, or other elements that must be present at the dilemma site, or occasionally, an action you must take such as discarding something. They usually (but not always) include the word "unless," as in "Unless XXX is present, something bad happens." They include the requirements of so-called "wall dilemmas", where you must have certain skills, etc., to get past the dilemma and continue. "Unless INTEGRITY > 32..." "...unless SECURITY and MEDICAL present." "...Away Team must have Computer Skill present." "...unless...you bribe rebels...by discarding an Equipment card." When a dilemma has conditions, they must be overcome *when the dilemma is encountered* in order to avoid its effects. Bringing the necessary skills in later cannot undo a dilemma's effects, i.e., CONDITIONS may not be used as a CURE. TARGETS are personnel with specific characteristics that the dilemma can affect. If no personnel with that characteristic are present, no one will be affected, but the dilemma may have other consequences. "...two Away Team members with Diplomacy..." "All Away Team members with INTEGRITY < 5..." "...one unique, non-Cardassian personnel..." The presence or absence of specified TARGETS in the Away Team has no effect on discarding a dilemma or stopping the Away Team. They simply limit who may be affected. EFFECTS are, well, effects! They may only happen if you don't overcome the conditions of the dilemma, or they may be something that you cannot prevent. Effects may include killing or otherwise discarding one or more personnel (Yuta, Anaphasic Organism), diseases and other long-lasting effects that may or may not expire naturally or be curable later (Rascals, Birth of Junior, Parallel Romance), damage and destruction of ships (Null Space, Nitrium Metal Parasites), stalling of ships (Conundrum) or Away Teams (Alien Labyrinth), loss of points (The Higher...The Fewer), and other nasty consequences (Sheliak). CURES appear similar to CONDITIONS, but instead of preventing an immediate effect from taking place, a cure either puts an end to an ongoing effect, or prevents a "delayed effect" from taking place. A cure usually requires skills, attributes, or equipment that must be brought to the dilemma site or to the affected ship or personnel, or may be an action that you must take. The dilemma may say "cured by (or with)...", or "...until XXX present." "...until mission completed OR 3 Leadership present." "Cure with 3 Empathy present." "...unless 3 MEDICAL present OR ship returns to outpost first." The last example is from REM Fatigue Hallucinations and at first glance appears to be conditions rather than a cure. It would be more clear if it it read "...unless 3 MEDICAL present by then" [i.e., before the end of your third full turn]. POINT VALUES are indicated in a point box on the card. You may gain or lose points from a dilemma. If the dilemma doesn't state explicitly how you score the points (e.g., Sarjenka, The Higher...The Fewer), then you score them: -when you overcome a dilemma's conditions (e.g., Nagilum) -when you cure a dilemma (e.g., Hyper-Aging) If you don't overcome a dilemma's conditions or cure it as specified, you don't score the points. NULLIFIERS are one more thing that can affect what a dilemma does, but are almost never mentioned on the dilemma card itself. Many dilemmas may be nullified by the presence in the Away Team of a specific personnel, equipment, or artifact card; by the existence of an Event in play; or by playing an Interrupt card. Firestorm (nullified by Thermal Deflectors) Armus (nullified by Interphase Generator) Empathic Echo (nullified by Plexing, Mr. Homn, Madame Guinan) Whew! So, you may ask, how does all this let you figure how what to do with the danged dilemma once you turn it up? There are a few simple rules to follow. 1. If a required TRIGGER is not present, the dilemma is nullified and discarded immediately. It has no further effect. 2. If you nullify the dilemma with a NULLIFIER personnel, equipment, event, or interrupt, discard the dilemma immediately. It has no further effect. 3. The Away Team or crew is stopped only if a dilemma has CONDITIONS and you did not overcome them. 4. Discard the dilemma after following its instructions: - if it had no conditions and doesn't enter play - if it had conditions and you overcame them - if it says "discard dilemma" - when you cure a dilemma that enters play - when a dilemma that enters play expires or is destroyed If the dilemma carries bonus points, place it in the bonus point area when applicable rather than discarding it. 5. If it doesn't meet one of the criteria for discarding and doesn't enter play, it remains under the mission to be encountered again. In Review #17, I will present Major Rakal's 5-Step Guide to Dilemma Resolution, including a couple of detailed examples of how to "parse" a dilemma, and (drum roll!> provide a link to a table of "Dilemma Facts" on my website which lists in gory detail exactly how each dilemma is handled. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR17 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/5 Step Guide To Dilemma Resolution" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #17@{ub} Aefvadh! In my last review I described the components of dilemmas and gave a few simple rules for determining how each dilemma works. For those who are more comfortable with following a flow chart, here is... @{b}MAJOR RAKAL'S 5-STEP GUIDE TO DILEMMA RESOLUTION.@{ub} 1. Does the dilemma require a TRIGGER? NO: Go on to step 2. YES: Is the trigger present? YES: Go on to step 2. NO: Discard the dilemma. It has no effect. You must continue to the next dilemma. 2. Can you NULLIFY the dilemma with a personnel or equipment in your Away Team, with an Event that is in play, or by playing an Interrupt? NO: Go on to step 3. YES: Discard the dilemma. It has no effect. You must continue to the next dilemma. 3. Does the dilemma have CONDITIONS? NO: Carry out the instructions on the dilemma for its effects. Your Away Team is NOT stopped and must continue to the next dilemma (unless this dilemma prevents them from doing so). Go on to step 4. YES: Can you overcome the conditions? YES: Discard the dilemma (or place it in your bonus point area if it carries a point value). You must continue to the next dilemma. NO: Carry out the instructions on the dilemma for its effects. Your Away Team is stopped. Go on to step 4. 4. Did the dilemma "enter play" by playing on personnel, a ship, the table, or the spaceline; or does it have a lasting effect on personnel (usually equivalent to "playing on" the personnel)? NO: Go on to step 5. YES: Leave it in play until you cure it, it expires naturally, or it is destroyed. At that time, discard the dilemma (or place it in your bonus point area if it carries a point value). 5. Does it say "Discard dilemma"? YES: Discard the dilemma (or place it in your bonus point area if it carries a point value). NO: If the dilemma had conditions, replace it under the mission to be encountered again on the next mission attempt. Discard it when finally overcome. If it had no conditions, discard it. That's it. Well, almost. Keep in mind that... * The text of the dilemma may override some of these rules. For example, Chinese Finger Puzzle has no conditions, but states that it stops the Away Team. * A dilemma may have two possible sets of effects. You may make a choice (Edo Probe), or circumstances may dictate which set to follow (Outpost Raid). Once the set is chosen, ignore the other set of instructions. * Some dilemmas just don't fit this pattern. Simply do exactly what the card says. It's usually clear. Let's look at a few examples. NAUSICAANS "Three Nausicaans pick a fight. One Away Team member is killed (random selection) unless STRENGTH >44. Discard dilemma." 1. There is no trigger required to be present. 2. Nausicaans can be nullified by an Interphase Generator, or by Zon. If you have one of these cards in your Away Team, discard the dilemma and go on to the next one. If not, go on to step 3. 3. The dilemma has conditions: it takes effect "unless STRENGTH >44". Add the STRENGTHs in your Away Team, including modifiers such as Phasers. If the total is 45 or more, you overcame the dilemma; discard it, and go on to the next one. Your Away Team is not stopped. If you don't meet the conditions, select one personnel to be killed and discard him. The rest of the Away Team is stopped. 4. If you didn't overcome the dilemma, you must decide what to do with it. This dilemma does not enter play or have a long-term effect (well, I suppose death is a long-term effect, but we're talking about diseases and such here), so go to step 5. 5. It says "discard dilemma." Do it. You won't encounter this dilemma again. CHALNOTH (5 Bonus Points) "Kills one Away Team member (opponent's choice) unless 3 SECURITY OR STRENGTH>40 present. Discard dilemma." This works virtually the same as Nausicaans, except for the bonus points, so I will only discuss the differences. 2. Nullifiable by Interphase Generator. If nullified, you don't get the bonus points. 3. If you overcome the dilemma, place it in your bonus point area instead of discarding it. EMPATHIC ECHO (AU icon) "One personnel present with Empathy (random selection) is killed unless SECURITY and MEDICAL present." 1. No trigger is required. "One personnel present with Empathy" is a target; the dilemma kills one randomly-selected personnel, just like Nausicaans, but the personnel selection is limited to those with Empathy. 2. Could be nullified by Mr. Homn or Madame Guinan in the Away Team (if Madame G. hasn't already nullified an AU-icon card this turn), or by playing the Plexing interrupt. If so, discard the dilemma now. 3. The conditions are SECURITY and MEDICAL. If they are present, discard the dilemma and go on. What's that? It doesn't *say* "discard dilemma"? True, but you overcame the conditions, which always means you discard it. This bears repeating: IF YOU OVERCOME A DILEMMA WITH CONDITIONS, IT *ALWAYS* GOES AWAY. YOU NEVER ENCOUNTER IT AGAIN. Now, suppose you didn't overcome it. Separate your personnel with Empathy and randomly select one to die. If you have no personnel with Empathy present, no one dies. But what happens to the dilemma? Go on to steps 4 and 5 to see. 4. The dilemma does not enter play. Go on to step 5. 5. Aha! The dilemma does not say "discard dilemma," AND it had conditions. Put it back under the mission, where it will be encountered again by the next player to attempt the mission. In effect, this is not only a killer dilemma, but also a "wall" dilemma. Because it doesn't say you can discard it, you must have SECURITY + MEDICAL to get by it, whether it actually kills anyone or not. MAMAN PICARD (AU icon) "If this is a Federation ship, immediately transport it to any end of the spaceline (opponent's choice)." 1. The dilemma must be encountered by a Federation ship to trigger it. If you attempted from your outpost, or if the ship is non-Fed, discard the dilemma. 2. Madame Guinan could nullify this if she is aboard. If not... 3. It has no conditions. The ship is instantly transported to the end of the spaceline. The crew is not stopped, so the ship can move if it has RANGE remaining. 4. The dilemma did not enter play. It simply has its effect and is done. 5. It does not say "discard dilemma." BUT, it had no conditions, so you discard it anyway. CYTHERIANS (15 Bonus Points) "Place on ship. Ship must do nothing but travel to far end of spaceline at normal speed. When reached, discard dilemma. Score points." 1. It says "Place on ship," so a ship is required to trigger this dilemma. If you attempted the mission from your outpost, the trigger is not "present" (even if there is a ship there, the crew wasn't on it when it encountered the dilemma), so discard the dilemma and go on to the next. If you were aboard a ship, go on to step 2. 2. Nothing else can nullify Cytherians. 3. This dilemma has no conditions. It "just happens," and there is no combination of skills, etc., that you could have had there to prevent it. So your crew is not stopped and must begin their journey to the far end of the spaceline immediately, assuming the ship has any RANGE left. (They cannot go on to the next dilemma because the card overrides this.) 4. The dilemma enters play, on the ship. Reaching the end of the spaceline may be considered a "cure", so at that time you will place the dilemma in your bonus point area. The ship may then go about its business. If you'd rather not have to figure this out for every dilemma, just go to my webpage at the URL listed below for a concise table listing all current dilemmas and how they work. Because some of my readers on the mailing list may not have Internet access, I am also sending out the same information in two email text files which should be printable as tabular files if you display them in a monospaced font (like Courier). Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR18 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Tomek & K'Tesh" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #18@{ub} Aefvadh! Now that we've all recovered from my back-to-back dilemma reviews, I'd like to do a slightly different personnel review. It's not exclusively Romulan, but the cards are similar and easy to review together. Besides, this review is for a friend of mine, who hangs out on various BBSs, newsgroups, and chat rooms as either of the EEHPs (Emergency Engineering Holographic Programs), and actually plays with them, too (and beat me with them more than once, I fear). Hi, K'Tomek, here are *both* your alter egos... @{b}TOMEK@{ub} Common Romulan Personnel, universal Integrity 4, Cunning 7, Strength 6, Hologram icon ENGINEER: Astrophysics @{i}"Re-creation of a male Romulan. Alien entity assumed this body in 2369."@{ui} @{b}K'TESH@{ub} Common Klingon Personnel, universal Integrity 5, Cunning 5, Strength 6, Hologram icon ENGINEER: Stellar Cartography @{i}"Re-creation who assisted in the Age of Ascension ritual. Perfected current pain-stick design for ritual use."@{ui} These guys were somewhat frustrating in the premiere set. Both Romulans and Klingons were mighty short on ENGINEERS compared to the Feds, and one of each was a hologram, for crying out loud. And not a red or green holodeck in sight. Short of a Husnock Ship or a Treaty with Starfleet, the only way to play them was Holo-Projectors. And nothing so far makes them work on an outpost. With the advent of AU, things got a *little* better: each affiliation got an AU ship with a holodeck--and a hefty staffing requirement. Question is, are they worth it? One red dot in each skills box doesn't go very far. Can you get along without them? First, the Romulans: five green missions (including a 40- and a 45- pointer) require Astrophysics. Investigate "Shattered Space" even needs Astro x2. The only other Romulan Astrophysicist is the unique Mirok, with mediocre stats (lousy Integrity) but both SCIENCE and ENGINEER to recommend him. He needs a backup (especially if you're going to try Shattered Space), but from the start Dr. Reyga has been a lot easier to use than a holo (and better than Mirok to boot), or Jo'Bril; with QC you can also choose from Timicin (if you can time it right before he dies), Data's Body (if you can get the head), or Paul Manheim. If you want a universal ENGINEER, Palteth's Computer Skill is more generally useful. So not much real need for poor Tomek. Now, the Klingons: four red missions require Stellar Cartography, all 35 points or less. Two can be done alternatively with CUNNING alone--but CUNNING > 50 is tough for the Klingons, with their average CUNNING of only 5.5. What are your other choices for Stellar Cartography? Dr. Reyga. That's it. Except for a little addition in QC called K'chiQ. You can only have one K'chiQ aboard your ship, and you have to make sure she doesn't get caught without her warrior, and she needs an AU door (which means she can be stowed on a Cryosatellite)...but she can deliver the Stellar Cartography. You'll have to decide which is more trouble, the care and feeding of K'chiQ, or keeping the Holo-Projectors operational. So why might you want to use the EEHPs anyway? As redshirts, of course. Sure, holograms can get "killed" by dilemmas. But instead of going to your discard pile like normal personnel, they just deactivate back to the controlling ship, and pop up again, good as new, on your next turn. What's that, you say, Love Interests don't kill? Right, but try to send a holo to the far end of the spaceline and he "leaves the holodeck" so to speak...deactivated again. You don't have to go off and pick him up. And a few dilemmas they're outright immune to; if it affects DNA, holos (who don't have any) can just laugh at it. There are some wall dilemmas they can't get by, of course, notably Shaka. And you do have to watch out for ship-destroyers (about the only way to discard a holo). But you *can* send off one holo after another to encounter killers, and have them all come back to life next turn. If you're going to try to use holos, the Romulans have an edge. First, the other green holo is the surprisingly useful Jera (MEDICAL: Biology, Youth); using her too makes generating holos more worthwhile. The Klingons only have Fek'lhr (VIP: Honor, Treachery, 6-1-15), dim-witted and of much more limited use (maybe handy for Brute Force). Second, the Romulan holodeck-equipped ship, the Decius, with staffing requirements of CSA (and you probably are using the good Major so there's your AU icon), is a lot easier to use than the I.K.C. Fek'lhr which requires one more AU icon. The Major's Combos: - K'Tesh or Tomek and the 2-Player Game Introductory Rules. Oh, you wanted a *card* combo... - Tomeks + Jeras + Decius + Study Lonka Pulsar - lots of K'Teshes + Holo-Projectors + planet missions Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR19 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Manheim's Dimensional Doorway" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #19@{ub} Aefvadh! Today I'd like to *hic* review a card that has generated a lot of *hic* confusion and *hic* quite a few review requests. Thinking about how this *hic* card works always *hic* gives me a *hic* headache, or at the very least, a case of the hiccups... @{b}MANHEIM'S DIMENSIONAL DOOR: HOW IT WORKS@{ub} Rare Doorway AU Icon Plays on any planet. Affects all players. While in play, whenever any player has a card in hand matching one just played by his opponent, the Manheim Effect (a temporal "hiccup") may occur. Opponent's card is suspended while player shows matching card, returns it to hand and plays any card from hand as if played normally. (Not duplicatable.) Nullify with Anti-Matter Pod. First, a definition: when you "suspend" a card play, the card does not resolve until whatever suspended it is resolved. The suspended card is not in your hand--you are in the act of playing it, but it is not yet in play. Manheim's magic door has two basic uses. First, and simplest, you can use it to gain a "free" card play, often during your opponent's turn. You play Kivas Fajo, I show a Kivas Fajo from my hand and suspend yours, and then I play a personnel card to my outpost. You then proceed with your Kivas draw, while I now have an extra personnel in play, a nice bonus if I don't have a Red Alert out. Better yet, I could use my "free" card play to get out my Red Alert, which will then be ready to use on my turn. Or if what I really need is more cards in my hand, I can play the Kivas Fajo that I just showed, and have a better selection of cards to play when my turn comes. The second use is the one that can give you headaches. Instead of just getting in a free card play for yourself, you can play something that will actively interfere with the card that your opponent is attempting to play, by making that card play either illegal or useless. Card plays normally resolve "first in, first out", unless a card specifically modifies or nullifies the first card's effect. So when your opponent initiates an Away Team battle against you and plays Phaser Burns, it's normally too late for you to destroy the enabling disruptor with a Disruptor Overload. The Phaser Burns will resolve first, killing two of your personnel. Then the battle itself must resolve (you can't interrupt a battle action with a Disruptor Overload). After the battle is over, your Disruptor Overload will resolve. A bit too late. But if Manheim's Dimension Door is in play, you have a certain amount of "last in, first out" capability. Opponent initiates battle and plays Phaser Burns. If you can show Phaser Burns from your hand, then you can play your Disruptor Overload and take out his disruptor. Now his Phaser Burns play resumes and...oops! Without a disruptor present, Phaser Burnsis illegal, and he must return the card to his hand. The battle continues, but you still have your full complement to fight him. Other possible "hiccups" don't make the card play illegal, just useless. Opponent plays a single Rogue Borg on your ship in an attempt to stop you. Drat! You had Intruder Force Field in your hand but hadn't gotten to play it yet! No problem if you too have a Rogue Borg to show; now you play that Intruder Force Field, and his single Rogue Borg has no effect (unless he has two more to add to it). But it doesn't go back to his hand, because IFF doesn't make it illegal to play a single Rogue Borg, just ineffective. So the ineffective Borg goes to the discard pile. A "chain" of temporal hiccups may also occur. - You play Red Alert. -- I show Red Alert and play Major Rakal. --- You show Major Rakal and play Kivas Fajo. ---- I show Kivas Fajo and play Yellow Alert. ---- You don't have a Yellow Alert to show, so mine resolves. --- Your Kivas Fajo resolves and you draw three cards. -- My Major Rakal resolves and reports for duty. - Your Red Alert can no longer resolve because of my Yellow Alert. It returns to your hand and you can play another card instead (perhaps one of the three you drew with Kivas). You can maximize your opportunities to use the Manheim Effect by including cards in your deck that you're pretty sure your opponent will also use. Most players are likely to use some combination of Amanda Rogers, Kevin Uxbridge, Kivas Fajo, Red Alert, Traveler, and, since QC, Q's Tent. At the very least, these will almost certainly net you some free card plays. If you know your opponent and have an idea of his typical deck, you may be able to include some personnel cards that he's likely to use. For example, most Romulan and Klingon players tend to supplement their affiliated personnel with non-aligneds. Maques, Devinoni Ral, Roga Danar, Dr. Reyga, and Vekor turn up a lot. Romulan decks tend to have a certain Major for their prime Empath. Federation players will probably have all or most of the bridge crew. If you anticipate battle, be prepared with Phaser Burns and Anti-Matter Spread. There are a couple of ways to nullify MDD, one to close it, and one to enhance it. - To nullify it with an Anti-Matter Pod, you simply have an Away Team take the Pod (an Equipment card) to the planet where the Door is located. The Door is discarded, the Pod is not. If you're playing Federation, you can help protect your MDD by leaving Sonya Gomez on the planet; she has the skill of suspending Anti-Matter Pod effects. - Paul Manheim has a two-way skill; he can nullify an MDD where present, or he can double its effect (i.e., you get to play two cards during the hiccup). Either player's Paul Manheim can affect either player's Door. - You can close an MDD with a Revolving Door. No more temporal hiccups may occur until the MDD is reopened, with either Kevin Uxbridge or an Alternate Universe Door. One final note: since MDD is a Doorway card, it does not count as your card play when you play it on the planet, but you can only play it during your own turn. The Major's Combos: Too many interesting possibilities to list here! Instead, my next review will consist of nothing but Manheim's Dimensional Door uses. Jolan *hic* tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR20 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/The Many Uses of Manheim's Dimensional Doorway" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #20@{ub} Aefvadh! Now that I've gotten rid of those dratted hiccups, here's the combos I promised you... @{b}THE MANY USES OF MANHEIM'S DIMENSIONAL DOOR@{ub} Last time I discussed how the card works. I'm not going to repeat the card text here (check @{"Review #19" link MRRR19} if you missed it), but I will repeat the important definition of "suspend": when you "suspend" a card play, the card does not resolve until whatever suspended it is resolved. The suspended card is not in your hand--you are in the act of playing it, but it is not yet in play. Also, there are three possible resolutions for a suspended card: - If you make it illegal to play the suspended card, it goes back to the player's hand (because it hasn't actually made it into play yet). - If you just make the suspended card irrelevant to play, it's "wasted" and discarded. - The hiccup card may have no direct effect on the suspended card. And now, without further ado, the examples, ably demonstrated by players K'lutz and N'Trepid. (I leave it to you to figure out what affiliations they are playing.) Note that there are many intervening turns in this game, not shown here. I also take no responsibility for figuring out where N'Trepid got all those cards from (Traveler and lots of Kivas's, maybe?). ***** K'lutz plays a Q's Tent to access his Tent. N'Trepid counters by showing a Q's Tent...and slaps a Revolving Door on K'lutz's Tent. K'lutz can no longer access the Tent, and the Doorway card returns to his hand. Annoyed, K'lutz plays Red Alert. N'Trepid shows Red Alert and plays Yellow Alert. Red Alert is now illegal and returns to K'lutz's hand. He plays a Traveler instead. Over the next few turns, K'lutz collects cards in his hand with increasing frustration over his lack of a Red Alert, as he can only play them one at a time. Finally, however, he smiles and plays Kitrik (who has Cybernetics skill), then lays down one Soong-type Android, starts to pull another card from his hand... N'Trepid shows an STA, then hiccups with a Brain Drain on Kitrik, who loses all his skills for the rest of this turn. Without Cybernetics present, the STA is an illegal play; Kitrik used up his card play for the turn. Back to the hand! Next turn, however, Kitrik has his Cybernetics back, and K'lutz, after playing another unique personnel, once again plays an STA, confident that N'Trepid won't have another Brain Drain. N'Trepid shows the same STA and and this time plays Masaka Transformations, forcing K'lutz to place his handful of STAs on the bottom of his draw deck and replace with the random cards from the top of the deck. K'lutz finally attempts a mission (not at his outpost) and hits Firestorm. Because his team relies heavily on Lursa, B'Etor, and a Targ, he decides that a hasty retreat would be prudent, and plays Emergency Transporter Armbands to beam out. N'Trepid shows ETA and plays a Temporal Rift on K'lutz's ship. With no ship to beam to, ETA is illegal and returns to K'lutz's hand. The Duras sisters and the Targ get toasted, and the rest of the decimated Away Team goes on and gets stopped by a Holographic Ruse. N'Trepid now beams down with some Jarons, STAs, and a Galathon, and attacks K'lutz's stopped Away Team. With his ship still lost in that Rift and inaccessible with ETA, the now-panicking K'lutz (who does *not* think it is a good day to die, and with only Kitrik, a few non-aligneds and a Disruptor left in his Away Team) plays Phaser Burns instead. N'Trepid, not expecting such a display of resistance, unfortunately has no Disruptor Overload handy (see @{"Review #19" link MRRR19}). Thinking quickly, he shows a Phaser Burns anyway, and then plays Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. Suddenly K'lutz's non-aligneds are all STRENGTH -4, and N'Trepid's are mostly STRENGTH +4. The Phaser Burns still take effect and N'Trepid loses a Jaron and an STA, but the respective STRENGTH drain and enhancement ultimately loses the battle for K'lutz, and his Amarie gets killed. In retribution for Amarie (he has a Ressikan Flute under that mission), once his ship returns from the Temporal Rift, K'lutz beams up the remnants of his Away Team, initiates a ship battle against the Haakona, and plays Anti-Matter Spread. N'Trepid shows Anti-Matter Spread, and plays another Temporal Rift, this time on his own ship. Now K'lutz has nothing to attack. Anti-Matter Spread returns to his hand. Having no luck in battle, K'lutz retreats to his outpost and attempts to report Zon for duty. N'Trepid shows Zon and hiccups with a Wrong Door, moving the Revolving Door to K'lutz's Alternate Universe Door. With that Doorway closed, it is illegal to play an AU-icon personnel, so Zon returns to K'lutz's hand. K'lutz is now really steamed. Determined to play his Zon, he tries to Kevin Uxbridge that blasted Revolving Door. N'Trepid shows Kevin and plays Rishon Uxbridge on the Revolving Door, protecting it by making it illegal to play Kevin on it, and Kevin returns to the hand. (Before everyone rushes to tell me that the QC Rules Supplement says the Kevin targets Rishon instead, I'll just tell you that Q gave me this ruling. Kevin Uxbridge targets an Event card, not a location. K'lutz *could* redirect Kevin to Rishon, but he doesn't have to.) K'lutz urgently needs some personnel and plays Res-Q to get back Lursa. N'Trepid shows Res-Q, hiccups with Devidian Foragers, and puts Lursa and B'Etor out of play, leaving K'lutz with a lowly Targ and Amarie as his only choices. He chooses the Targ and ends his turn. N'Trepid now has a bit of bad luck. He audaciously attempts the space mission at K'lutz's outpost location from the Haakona and hits a Quantum Singularity Lifeforms, putting the ship and all his crew (not to mention K'lutz's) into stasis. As N'Trepid ponders his next move, a gloating K'lutz pulls out a Dead in Bed and prepares to choose one of N'Trepid's crew to die. N'Trepid smiles, shows a Dead in Bed, and hiccups with Emergency Transporter Armbands, removing the ship and crew from stasis and rendering Dead in Bed illegal. Now K'lutz is getting desperate. He plays Subspace Schism when N'Trepid draws his end-of-turn card. N'Trepid shows Subspace Schism and plays the card he just drew, reporting a personnel to his outpost. K'lutz's Subspace Schism now has no legal target, and returns to his hand. N'Trepid plays Palor Toff. Fearing that he's going to retrieve one of the hated Temporal Rifts, K'lutz plays Countermanda. But N'Trepid shows Countermanda, hiccups with a Res-Q, and grabs the Temporal Rift out of the discard pile. When K'lutz's Countermanda resolves, there's nothing left in the discard pile for him to put out of play except the Res-Q, the personnel he killed earlier with Phaser Burns, and a couple of dilemmas. Only a partial recovery for N'Trepid, but at least he got his Rift back. The hapless K'lutz now plays Plasma Fire on N'Trepid's ship. N'Trepid shows a Plasma Fire and then plays Thermal Deflectors. The Plasma Fire is not illegal, but it is immediately nullified when it resolves. On his next turn, N'Trepid plays a Tox Uthat (retrieved earlier from a mission) on the table, making K'lutz a bit nervous. He still has a Kevin Uxbridge in hand, but he can't decide whether to use it on the Tox (maybe N'Trepid doesn't have the Supernova yet), or to get rid of that miserable Revolving Door. When N'Trepid moves his ship away from K'lutz's outpost, K'lutz's anxiety level increases and he decides to go for the Tox. N'Trepid, of course, shows a Kevin, and hiccups with a Supernova that takes out K'lutz's outpost and sole ship and crew. ***** There are plenty of variations on the above examples. - Playing Thermal Deflectors as a hiccup card after Fire Sculptor, Phaser Burns, or Destroy Radioactive Garbage Scow will nullify the first two and protect your personnel from the effects of the third. - The Temporal Rift in response to Anti-Matter Spread could actually be played on either ship. The attacker can't continue the battle once his ship is Rifted. The Rift could also be played as a hiccup after almost any card played on a ship (Ship Seizure, Transwarp Conduit, Distortion of Space/Time Continuum), leaving no target. - Instead of Brain-Draining Cybernetics away, if your opponent is relying on Juliana Tainer, turn her off with an Off Switch instead to prevent free deployment of STAs. Or Brain Drain Mr. Homn to keep him from reporting an Empath to his location. - Use Fire Sculptor as a hiccup card after a Res-Q or Palor Toff, instead of Devidian Foragers. It only puts one card out of play instead of two, but if you get the one he needed most, it will do its trick. - And an all-purpose Interrupt-stopper: Goddess of Empathy. Show a duplicate of your opponent's interrupt (except Kevin or Q2) and hiccup with the Goddess. His interrupt is now illegal, as are all others until the end of your next turn (double-edged, because you can't play them either). The Major's Combos: - What, that wasn't enough??? ;-) Have fun figuring out your own devious uses for the magic door. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR21 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Garak" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #21@{ub} Aefvadh! While we're waiting for the final details of the Anthology preview cards to be officially released, let's take a look at the one card we've already seen. He has a completely new affiliation and a lovely bluish-purple border, both of which promise to complement Romulan green perfectly... @{b}GARAK@{ub} Rare Cardassian/Non-aligned (Dual Affiliation) Personnel, unique Integrity 7, Cunning 8, Strength 6, Staff Star, AU icon CIVILIAN: SECURITY, Computer Skill, Honor, May replace anyone randomly selected to die here. @{i}"Cardassian male. Virtual player in the Vorta scenario testing the resolve of Alpha Quadrant species. Risked his life in the defense of his comrades."@{ui} Garak's first notable feature is his unusual dual "affiliation"--something of a misnomer, as "non-aligned" is, by definition, not an affiliation. But it has the advantage of allowing the early introduction of a lone character from a new affiliation, who is also usable by any of the existing afiliations, and can even be used to augment an all NA Away team for Qualor II Rendezvous. And given Garak's exile from Cardassia, it's even a logical choice for his card (he would repatriate to Cardassia if he could, but is non-aligned by necessity), not just expedient for gameplay. When the DS9 expansions appear and the Cardassians arrive as a full-fledged affiliation, he will be just as usable as any full Cardassian. His NA icon will also allow his inclusion in other affiliation decks, switching him for Cardassian "espionage", just as a Federation deck can now use Major Rakal plus NAs to "espionage" against the Romulans. Since at the moment he can really only be used as non-aligned, how do Garak's skills shape up as advantages for the different affiliations? He's another dual-classification personnel, both ones that are badly under-represented among the Romulans and, to a lesser extent, the Klingons. Garak is the first non-aligned SECURITY genuinely worth using since Roga Danar. The Feds are already well-equipped with strongly-skilled SECURITY personnel and so benefit little from Garak, but he's a real boon to both Romulans (1 decent unique, 2 so-so universals) and Klingons (2 good uniques, two universals with only Honor as a skill). The Romulans have only two CIVILIANs (D'Tan and the fairly useless DeSeve), so gaining one that can double in such a crucial area as SECURITY is very important to tight deck-building. The Klingons already have 6 CIVILIANs, of which Kahlest, with MEDICAL skill, and K'chiQ, who can be given SECURITY, MEDICAL, or almost anything else, are probably more useful than Garak. Though the Federation has relatively few CIVILIANs, Lal (with her ability to double two other skills and her android capabilities) or Nikolai Rozhenko or Vash (with the rather uncommon--for Feds--Anthropology and Treachery) may be more useful. Computer Skill is uncommon among Klingons and therefore quite useful; Romulans usually have plenty, but can use him in a deck with a lot of redundant mission requirements. On the other hand, the Klingons hardly need his Honor, while that skill is solid gold to the Romulans. His built-in "Security Sacrifice" should help either of these affiliations, who gain the function of that card without taking up a card slot, always helpful for affiliations who have trouble building a tight deck. He would also be a good backup SECURITY for the Feds if you want to be able to sacrifice one and still keep Worf's and Tasha's other skills. How about stats? His INTEGRITY is as high as any Romulan's to date, and is even pretty good for a Klingon. CUNNING is high, excellent for the dullard Klingons and better than the average Romulan. STRENGTH is only moderate--it would be considered "good" only for the Feds--but Romulan and Klingon average STRENGTH is high enough that it won't hurt them, and the other stats more than make up for a lack here. His AU icon, as usual, benefits Klingons and Romulans the most (with only 3 native AUs each) and Feds little (they have 9). He'll be a welcome crewmember aboard either the Decius or the Fek'lhr. Garak finally gives the Klingons the ability to seed a Neutral Outpost (for his Cardassian affiliation) without wasting a card slot for an unusable personnel, as he will actually be used as non-aligned. Note that he gains nothing for the Feds and Rommies, if they are already using Rakal for that purpose; you are only allowed to substitute a Neutral Outpost for *one* affiliated outpost in the seed phase. On balance, I give the nod to the Romulans as having the most to gain from Garak, with the Klingons close behind. The Major's Combos: - Garak + Taris + Mirok + Major Rakal + Kurlan Naiskos - Garak + Dathon + Toreth + N'Vek + Wormhole Negotiations Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR22 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Dr. Teler R'Mor" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #22@{ub} Aefvadh! I've been waiting (im)patiently for the rest of the Anthology preview cards to be revealed, because I was eagerly anticipating the only *real* Romulan so far from Voyager (it's hard to count the ex-Borg Romulan; I didn't even notice his pointed ears). Well, he's here at last, and I'm not disappointed... @{b}DR. TELEK R'MOR@{ub} Rare Romulan Personnel, unique Integrity 7, Cunning 7, Strength 7, Command Star, AU icon SCIENCE: Astrophysics x2, Stellar Cartography, Honor, ENGINEER, May report directly to any ship. @{i}"Romulan Astrophysical Academy member on deep space duty in 2351. Beamed to the present via a micro-wormhole to the U.S.S. Voyager."@{ui} Finally, we're getting a respectable number of dual-classification Romulans, and the SCIENCE/ENGINEER combo is a very useful one. The Romulans have been very weak in ENGINEERs; with only one generally useful universal (I don't consider holos *generally* useful--sorry, Tomek), who has only one skill, and the SCIENCE/ENGINEER Mirok, in the premiere set, it's been necessary to supplement with non-aligneds (Roga Danar, Dr. Reyga) or else use Engineering Kits. With the addition of Sirol, and now Telek R'Mor, it is now possible to have adequate ENGINEER skill without kits, and two of them double up with the also very necessary SCIENCE. He can contribute to either or both shield enhancer cards. His most striking skills are, of course, the Astrophysics x2 and Stellar Cartography. There are six Romulan missions based on these skills, but until now it was somewhat problematic to build a deck around them, with the only reliable (i.e., non-holographic) and useful sources of Astrophysics being Dr. Reyga, Mirok, and Jo'Bril, with the last two being vulnerable to Thought Fire. (Timicin is really only useful to beef up the point value of the Fed/Klingon Test Mission, and Paul Manheim is too specialized to work well in a tight Romulan deck.) Choices for Stellar Cartography were even more limited: Dr. Reyga and the universal Tarus (who has no other skills). In particular, the very tempting 45-point Romulan-only Investigate "Shattered Space" was pretty hard to pull off. Now you can use Telek R'Mor as your "first-string" Astrophysicist/Stellar Cartographer, back him up with Mirok, Reyga, and a Tarus, and you'll have more than enough SCIENCE and ENGINEER skills to get past all those nasty ship-damaging and ship-stalling space dilemmas that require multiples of those skills (Menthar Booby Trap, Two-Dimensional Creatures, Nitrium Metal Parasites, Nanites, Ancient Computer...and the list goes on). You'll breeze through any of the six Astro/SC missions; R'Mor can even complete Shattered Space with the help of only Galen, Roga Danar or Nick Locarno. And don't forget the Romulans are masters of espionage. R'Mor is a great addition to an espionage deck because there are three Fed and three Klingon missions requiring Astro and/or SC that he could help with (three of them also require SCIENCE or ENGINEER). His remaining "normal" skill is not so normal for a Romulan: Honor! How about doing Wormhole Negotiations with Honor instead of Treachery? It's now feasible for the Romulans. And though R'Mor is primarily a space-oriented personnel, he would also come in very handy for completing Khitomer Research. As if that were not enough, he may be reported directly to any ship (note the "may"--you can report him normally if you wish). Not only could you send out your ship to do one of the simpler missions before he comes up, then just drop him aboard when you draw him, regardless of their location; you could report him aboard a ship under the influence of Quantum Singularity Lifeforms, Menthar Booby Trap (if one ENGINEER already aboard), or Two-Dimensional Creatures to cure any of them. Not quite a Devidian Door, but useful nonetheless. Of course, there's another way to report him, too. His AU icon lets him go in a Cryosatellite, where you could pick him up (perhaps with Garak and Commander Tomalak) after completing one of the simple missions with a "backup" Tarus, then go on the the high-point missions. The AU icon also makes him good for staffing the Decius (where you *could* back up his Astrophysics with a Tomek or two) and doubly useful for Fissure Research. How about his stats? INTEGRITY 7 is as high as any Romulan to date; CUNNING 7 slightly below average for a Romulan, but OK; and STRENGTH 7 is average for a Romulan. Finally, I have to speculate on whether there might even be a Captain's Log in Telek R'Mor's future. He commanded the science vessel Talvath in "Eye of the Needle"; I don't remember whether the ship was ever shown (I don't think so, but I don't have a tape of the episode), but surely the universal Science Vessel could be "doctored" to make it a 20-year-older model, and finally have a unique ship of that class. The Major's Combos: - Dr. Telek R'Mor + Roga Danar + Investigate "Shattered Space" - Dr. Telek R'Mor + Garak + Taris + Major Rakal + Kurlan Naiskos on Haakona Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR23 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Orb of Prophecy and Change" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #23@{ub} Aefvadh! Only one Anthology preview card is not a personnel; rather, an unusual artifact, the first to come from Deep Space Nine. A glimpse of the future, perhaps? @{b}ORB OF PROPHECY AND CHANGE@{ub} Rare Artifact Use as Equipment card. Once each turn, you may glance at the top card of your draw deck. Insert it anywhere within your draw deck if you wish. (Not duplicatable.) @{i}"Third of the nine mysterious energy vortices called Tears of the Prophets by the Bajorans. Grants visions of the future. Only Orb not stolen by the Cardassians during the occupation."@{ui} This acts a bit differently from other Artifacts. Because it used as an Equipment card, it goes immediately into the Away Team when earned at a completed mission. It doesn't have to be played from your hand later. But it doesn't have to be "present" at any particular location or with anyone or anything in order to be used. In effect, it *acts* like an Event that plays on the table and then "allows" its effect to occur. But since it doesn't play as an Event, it's immune to Kevin Uxbridge. However, it *is* vulnerable to a Disruptor Overload. You could afford it some protection by acquiring a Mona Lisa and keeping them together; this should deter Disruptor Overloads, as they would risk losing 25 points if it gets the wrong one. But there is a much simpler way to protect the Orb, at least for now: Disruptor Overloads play on a ship or on an Away Team. They do *not* play on an outpost. So...hustle your newly found Orb back to your outpost (if not already there), and leave it behind. The only way for your opponent to destroy it would be to destroy the outpost, so you might want to drop a Plasmadyne Relay or two there. Watch out for Vorgon Raiders, because they could steal it regardless of location. Because the Orb is non-duplicatable, if your opponent seeds one also and gets to his first, you're out of luck. When you complete your mission and recover the Orb, it has to be discarded, because there can't be two in play. Now, what is this Orb good for? Well, how many times have you wanted to take a peek at what you're going to draw next, wondering if you should just wait *one* more turn for a crucial personnel, ship, or interrupt to appear? Can you take a chance on a Devidian Door coming up next? The Orb of Prophecy and Change lets you do that. But more than that, if what you see *isn't* something you need or can use right now, it lets you bury it *anywhere* in your deck. If you will need it in a couple of turns, you can custom-place it to come up whenever you want it. If, on the other hand, you realize you have no use whatsoever for it in this game (say, an anti-Fed card and your opponentis playing Klingons), put it at the bottom of the deck. A particular use of this feature might be if you are affected by a Static Warp Bubble and are down to no cards in your hand. Check the top card before your draw; if it's one that you would not be able to, or do not want to, play on your next turn, but will want later, "delay" it by placing it further down so you won't be forced to discard it. The next card might be a similar situation, but you will have saved one card for later use. A particularly good use of this card is in conjunction with playing a Q's Tent for random retrieval. When you do this, not only do you not get a card draw this turn, but you place the Q's Tent on top of your draw deck, so you redraw it on your next turn. Maybe that's what you want, but what if you want a "real" card draw instead, and want to retrieve the Q's Tent later? Just put off glancing at the top card until after you've placed the Tent back on your draw deck. Then when you look at it, you get to bury it wherever you want, and your next card is a regular draw. Careful placement of the tent within your deck will let you space out its re-use at whatever intervals you desire. One warning: watch out for Subspace Schisms! If you don't bury a card after looking at it, your opponent can assume it's one you want to draw, and can force you to lose it with a Schism. The Major's Combos: - Orb of Prophecy and Change + Q's Tent (what else?) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR24 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Thomas Paris & Nick Locarno" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #24@{ub} Aefvadh! Although the good Dr. R'Mor is the only truly green-bordered preview card in the Anthology, there a couple more with definite green tinges. We've already looked at Garak; here's the other one, with a unique skill that was just made for the Rommies; and for comparison, I also present his unusual "twin" from the Q Continuum set, which somehow seems appropriate... @{b}THOMAS PARIS@{ub} Rare Non-aligned Personnel, unique Integrity 5, Cunning 6, Strength 7, Staff Star, AU icon CIVILIAN: Navigation x2, Transporter Skill, SECURITY, Treachery (may convert to Honor for rest of game). @{i}"Convicted traitor. Maquis sympathizer. Best pilot Harry Kim has ever seen. In an alternate reality, a bar fight cost Tom Paris his future aboard the U.S.S. Voyager."@{ui} @{b}NICK LOCARNO@{ub} Rare Non-aligned Personnel, unique Integrity 7, Cunning 8, Strength 7, Command Star CIVILIAN: Navigation x2, Computer Skill, Leadership, Youth, Transporter Skill. Does not work with Federation affiliation. @{i}"Natural leader kicked out of Starfleet Academy after the Nova Squadron accident and cover-up of 2368."@{ui} Similarities first. Both non-aligned, but only Tom is universally usable, as Nick doesn't play well with Feds. Both CIVILIANS, good for Colony decks or Kurlan Naiskos, especially needed by Romulans and Klingons. They are the only personnel providing a compact Navigation x2 for red or green decks, very important especially to Romulans, who have no universal and only 5 unique personnel with Navigation, while Klingons have 2 universals and 6 uniques. (The Feds have Gibson, who is universal to boot, plus lots of personnel with single Navigation.) Why is Navigation so important? Well, there are dilemmas that require it, and FGC-47 Research is tedious to get past without the span reduction provided by Navigation; and they act as protection against Anti-Matter Pod damage; Nav x3 is heavy requirement to meet without a Nav x2 aboard. Of course, they also both have Transporter Skill, which can nullify the Pod entirely, but you may want to just keep from getting damaged yourself, while leaving the Pod in place to menace your opponent. Sonya Gomez can suspend the Pod's effect for Feds. Transporter Skill has other uses, too, helping you past beaming obstructions. Again, this is of less value to the Feds, who have Lefler and Scotty with Transporter Skill. Now let's look at their differences. Nick, who can't work with Feds, has Computer Skill (useful to Klingons, Romulans have plenty), Youth (same situation), and Leadership (both affiliations have plenty). He's not AU, so while he doesn't require that open AU Door to come into play, he also can't be stuffed in a Cryosatellite or used to provide AU icon staffing or mission requirements. Tom, however, has much more potential, even for Feds. His SECURITY skill makes him highly useful to both Klingons and Romulans who are short on that classification. And Treachery works for everyone--the Feds have very few at all; the Klingons have J'Ddan and the Duras family, all with very low Integrity (2-4), where Tom's is just passable at 5; and while the Romulans have lots of Treachery, the more the merrier in a green "Treachery" deck. Or, if your Romulans actually need Honor (Khitomer Research, anyone?), switch him to Honorable mode. That trick isn't very useful to Klingons, however, who are brimming over with Honor already, but aren't known for "Honor" decks. Although his stats are lower than Nick's, they're still usable, and he can go in a Cryosatellite. To rank them on comparative usability, we find-- Thomas Paris: Best for Romulans, good for Klingons, OK for Feds Nick Locarno: Good for Klingons (though not up to Tom's level), so-so for Romulans, unusable by Feds The Major's Combos: - Thomas Paris + Nick Locarno + Sela + FGC-47 Research = 30 points + Span of 2 Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR25 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Q-Continuum Side Decks" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #25@{ub} Aefvadh! The most important, and most confusing, new concept introduced in the Q Continuum expansion was that of side decks. Let's attempt to unravel the most confusing side deck so far, a bundle of dilemma-like cards with some very un-dilemma-like features... @{b}Q CONTINUUM SIDE DECKS@{ub} (Note: this entire discussion deals only with Q-icon Events, Interrupts, and Dilemmas, and ignores the Q's Planet mission. Although it has a Q-icon, and may be included in a Q-Continuum side deck, it does not work like the other Q-icon cards and has a totally different purpose. I'll review it separately, later.) In your Q Continuum expansion packs, you will find cards labelled Interrupt, Event, or Dilemma--but they don't look like like normal Interrupts, Events, or Dilemmas. Instead of the distinctive Event and Interrupt icons, or the planet/space icons of a normal Dilemma, they all have green "Q" icons, and they all have a black background. In addition, the text of these Events and Interrupts is decidedly peculiar when compared to normal Events and Interrupts that you might play from your hand; they don't sound like anything you would want to play (why would you want to give your opponent points?)! What gives? To understand Q-icon cards, there are two basic things you need to know: - Q-icon cards can come into play in *only* one way: from a Q-Continuum side deck. They may not be put in your play deck and played from the hand like normal interrupts and events; they may not be seeded under missions like normal dilemmas; they may not be placed in a Q's Tent. - Q-icon cards, regardless of their card type, act more or less like "dilemmas" that your *opponent* has to face. Unlike dilemmas, though, they do not "stop" the crew or Away Team if not overcome (unless the card says so). To make a Q-Continuum side deck, select as many cards with the Q-icon as you want, including as many duplicates as you want. No other cards can go into the Q-Continuum side deck. These cards are in addition to the 60 cards in your normal play deck. Shuffle the side deck and place it face down on the table. Now what? You have to have some method of accessing the side deck; it's done with the... @{b}Q-FLASH@{ub} Common Doorway "Place one atop Q-Continuum side deck during the seed phase. Q-Continuum is now open and in play. OR Seed under any mission like a dilemma. Any crew or Away Team encountering this Q-Flash must experience X cards from opponent's Q-Continuum, where X = the number of personnel present. OR Stock in deck and play to nullify one Q icon card." While it may sound as though the three uses of this card are unrelated,the first two must be used in tandem. You must include in the seed portion of your 60-card deck *at least* two Q-Flash doorways. Seed one of them on top of the side deck at the beginning of the seed phase. This "activates" (opens) your Q-Continuum. If that doorway is closed during the game (e.g., by a Revolving Door), no more cards may come out of the Q-Continuum until it is reopened. Any further Q-Flash doorways in your seed deck are seeded under missions (either planet or space), like dilemmas. You may seed only one under each mission. If a second Q-Flash is discovered at a mission (i.e., if both you and your opponent seeded one there), the second is discarded, just as duplicate dilemmas at a single mission are discarded. Note that they are doorways, not dilemmas; Q-Flashes may not be discarded by Senior Staff Meeting or the Q dilemma, and the Q-Flash itself may not be nullified by Q2. When your opponent attempts a mission and encounters a Q-Flash, count the number of personnel present in his crew or Away Team. He must now face that many cards from your Q-Continuum. Draw cards from your Q-Continuum one at a time. Your opponent should read each card (it must be read from his point of view, just like a dilemma) and resolve it before going on to the next. If the same card comes up more than once during a single Q-Flash, the duplicates are discarded, and are *not* replaced with more. Example: there are 6 personnel in the Away Team, and you draw the following cards: Amanda's Parents, Frigid, *Amanda's Parents, Mandarin Bailiff, *Mandarin Bailiff, Penalty Box. The starred cards are discarded without effect, and no more cards are drawn. A few miscellaneous points to keep in mind: - There is *no* way for you to encounter the cards in your own Q-Continuum. A player *always* faces cards from his opponent's Q-Continuum when an Away Team or crew he controls encounters a Q-Flash. For example, if you control your opponent's Away Team with Alien Parasites, and the Away Team hits a Q-Flash, you face cards from your opponent's Q-Continuum. - If the entire crew/Away Team gets killed, relocated, captured, stopped, or otherwise put out of commission so there is no one to continue, the Q-Flash ends (draw no more cards). - When a Q-icon card is discarded, it goes to its owner's discard pile (not to the player encountering the Q-Flash) as usual, unless the card says otherwise (i.e., Gift of the Tormentor). - Some Q-icon Event cards say "play on (something) until any Q-Flash." This means that the Event is discarded when any player encounters a seeded Q-Flash, or plays a Q-Flash from his hand for any reason. If these cards all act like little "dilemmas", and can't be played from the hand, you may wonder why some of them are labelled as Events or Interrupts. One word: nullifiers. While a few of the cards say that they may be nullified by one card or another, or that they may *not* be nullified, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that most of them may be nullified by the standards: Amanda, Kevin, and Q2. Yes, a Q-icon Interrupt doesn't just "play as an Interrupt"; it *is* an Interrupt. In addition, remember the last use of the Q-Flash doorway. - Amanda Rogers may nullify a Q-icon Interrupt. As with any other Interrupt, it must be "just played"--that is, must have just come into play during a Q-Flash. Once you have started to resolve the Interrupt, it's too late to play Amanda. - Kevin Uxbridge may nullify a Q-icon Event. As with other Events, it may be played immediately, or later to nullify a Q-icon Event that plays on the table or elsewhere. And don't forget Kevin Uxbridge: Convergence, which can nullify Events, including Q-icon Events, that are located anywhere on the spaceline (but not those played on the table). - Q2, in addition to countering Amanda and Kevin, may nullify any "Q-related dilemma." You can't get much more "Q-related" than a Q-icon dilemma. (But Q-Flashes may not be nullified by Q2; they are doorways, even though they are seeded like dilemmas and have "Q" in the title.) - Q-Flash doorways may be included in your draw deck and played to nullify any Q-icon card. Note that, while *you* could nullify a Q-icon card that your opponent encounters, with Amanda, Kevin, or Q2, you could not immediately nullify it with a Q-Flash, because you may only play a doorway from your hand on your own turn. Any of these nullifiers may be overridden by the card text (e.g., "may only be nullified by..." means the standard nullifier won't work; some "may not be nullified" by anything). Also, some cards may specify additional ways to nullify that card; "may be nullified by..." means the standard cards work as well. No combos today, but I do have a table of "Q-Continuum Card Facts" on my website (URL listed below). Unlike normal dilemmas, Q-icon cards can't be interpreted with a flowchart. They're all different, so you just have to follow the card text, which unfortunately isn't always crystal-clear. The table lists all Q-icon cards with full game text; card type and bonus points (if any); ways to nullify each card; and an expanded version of the game text, interpreting in detail how the card works and when you discard it, with examples where I felt they would be helpful. Keep the following in mind: - The card interpretations tell you how to apply the card to yourself, if you encounter a Q-Flash and face the cards from your opponent's Q-Continuum. - The normal dilemma rules for stopping, discarding, and leaving on the mission do not apply to Q-icon cards. A Q-icon card stops the Away Team only if the card says it does. Q-icon cards are never left on the mission unless the card says it should be. In general, a Q-icon card is discarded when the card says to do so. I'll send out a text version of the table on the mailing list for those who don't have web access. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR26 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #26@{ub} Aefvadh! If you find, as Captain Janeway did, that time paradoxes make you head ache, better get out the aspirin, because today's card is guaranteed to generate paradoxes galore... @{b}SAMUEL CLEMENS' POCKETWATCH@{ub} Rare Artifact, AU Icon Place in hand until played as an Interrupt card. One action that must happen on your next turn (such as your card draw), happens now instead. @{i}"This 19th century watch was discovered in a cave along with Data's head in 2369. After returning to the past, Clemens left the watch again to maintain the timeline."@{ui} This seems simple enough. You get to move up to this turn (which might be your turn or your opponent's turn) something that must, under normal circumstances, happen on your next turn. The key word here is "must." There are lots of things that *could* happen on your next turn, but only a few that *must* happen. If it's optional, you can't use the Pocketwatch to advance it. If it's mandatory, or "scheduled" to happen, you can do it now with the Pocketwatch. What are some things that *must* happen on your next turn? They fall into a few categories. 1. Your end-of-turn card draw is not optional. Unless some other card prevents it, or the game ends first, when you end your next turn you will be required to draw a card from your deck. If you use the Pocketwatch to do it now, you don't get a card draw at the end of your next turn. It has already happened. Now, if you happen to play a Q's Tent at the beginning of your next turn, you don't get to draw a card at the end of that turn. Darn shame. ;-) 2. Two inexorable dilemmas, the Borg Ship and The Sheliak, must move at the end of *every* turn (of both players). If it is now your turn and you play SCP, that movement occurs now. Either dilemma would also move at the end of *this* turn, and again at the end of your opponent's turn, but of course will not move at the end of your next turn. A related case is Rogue Borg Mercenaries. They battle a ship's personnel at the start of every turn, so you could move up the battle that must happen on your next turn. 3. Some dilemmas or events require you to move a ship in pursuit of some goal, to the exclusion of other actions. Cytherians, Conundrum, and Incoming Messages fall in this category. SCP will allow you to make next turn's required movement now. As with the Borg Ship, if you make the movement now, it will be in addition to the movement you were required to make for this turn, and you will not be able to move that ship on your next turn, because you have already used next turn's RANGE. Thus, you would generally want to accelerate such a required movement only if it allows you to resolve the dilemma or Incoming Message on this turn,not just to get closer to resolution. 4. Several dilemmas, events, and interrupts resolve with some action at the end of a specified number of turns. If one of those countdown resolutions is scheduled to happen on your next turn, you can make it happen now. This includes Coalescent Organism (it might be advantageous to let the affected personnel die now rather than later), Temporal Rift, Time Travel Pod, and Anti-Time Anomaly. There are many more that fall in this category (e.g., Hyper-Aging, Nitrium Metal Parasites, Plasma Fire, Warp Core Breach, Isabella), but I can't think of a good reason why you would want to accelerate their resolution, since they will destroy your ship or kill your personnel. If you can think of a reason, though, you can do it. Two points to note here: - You can *only* accelerate the actual resolution of such cards, not the "countdown" itself; for example, if this is the third full turn that your ship is stuck in a 5-turn Time Travel Pod, you can't play SCP and say that it's one turn closer to resolution. No action occurs during the countdown, only at the time of resolution. - You can't accelerate the resolution of dilemmas that stop personnel in order to unstop them. For one thing, normal "unstopping" is not considered an action. For another, "stopping" lasts through the end of the turn on which the personnel were stopped (or through the end of the later specified turn). They become unstopped at the beginning of *the* next turn, which is normally your opponent's turn (not "your" next turn). 5. Similar to the last category is the repair of a ship, or removal of a Baryon Buildup. If the ship is scheduled to be completely repaired at the end of your next turn (either at an outpost or with an Exocomp aboard), or to have the Baryon Buildup removed at the beginning of your next turn (i.e., you have returned to the outpost and evacuated the ship), you can finish it off now with SCP. Again, you can't accelerate being "half-repaired", just the final repair. 6. In addition to the obvious card draw, there are several other specific actions that you might be required to take on your next turn as a result of a card in play (usually an event). - Interrogation. Interrogating your captive is not optional. Moving up a 1-point gain may seem trivial, but under the right circumstances, it could win you a game. If you lose one measly point to The Higher...The Fewer and then find yourself at 99, with one card left in your draw deck, that 1 point would make the difference between a full (2-point) and a timed (1-point) tournament win. - Distortion Field. Getting next turn's card flip now could get your Away Team off a planet one turn early. - Colony. You have an unopposed Away Team at the Colony now. They would have to score points from the Colony at the beginning of your next turn. Move up the scoring "action" to now with SCP. Could give you a win. Or if not, now that you've scored the points, you can take your Away Team elsewhere and maybe attempt another mission. - Telepathic Alien Kidnappers. Get in an extra chance to make your opponent discard a card before his next turn. - Static Warp Bubble. If you are affected by this, you must discard a card each turn...unless, of course, you have no cards in your hand todiscard. Suppose the only card you have left is SCP. You can discard it...or you can play it, moving up your forced discard from next turn. Guess what? You have no card left to discard. And now you have to make *this* turn's forced discard...and you have no card left to discard. Darn shame. Draw your card to end this turn. On your next turn, you don't have to discard, even if you don't play the card you just drew...because you already moved that discard up. - Showing a Devidian Door. If you have it in hand, show it now and avoid potential problems, such as the possibility of having to discard it because of a Static Warp Bubble or Telepathic Alien Kidnappers. What sort of things *can't* you do with the Pocketwatch? Anything that is optional. You aren't required to play a card on your turn, so you can't move up your card play. You aren't required to move a ship (unless you are affected by one of the cards in category 3), so you can't extend your ship RANGE by using your RANGE from next turn. You aren't required to beam an Away Team anywhere, so you can't, for example, beam up your Away Team during your opponent's turn (to avoid being attacked). You may note that some of the suggested uses of the Pocketwatch introduce some interesting time paradoxes. For example, you can move up your card draw, and then on your next turn, play a Q's Tent, so you are no longer eligible for the card draw you already took. Your Away Team can leave the Colony where you moved up the point-scoring, and by your next turn no longer be there to score the points they already scored. You could make your required move for Cytherians and score its points, and then before your next turn, your opponent could destroy your ship, so it wouldn't have been able to finish the dilemma if you had waited. However, you don't need to worry about these paradoxes (after all, they don't seem to worry about them in the Star Trek plots ;-) ). The rule for what you can do is simple: if you are "currently scheduled" to do something next turn, you can do it now instead. Even if something happens afterwards that would have prevented it, it doesn't matter. The action has already occurred. This review wouldn't be complete without an assessment of the value of Samuel Clemens Pocketwatch. It's pretty weak, as artifacts go. If you want extra card draws, The Traveler is a better, longer-lasting, and cheaper bet. If you want to extend your ship RANGE, Distortion of Space/Time Continuum or Transwarp Conduit is better. A Spacedock will get your ships repaired more quickly, and Amanda Rogers and Kevin Uxbridge are certainly better for getting rid of unwanted Interrupts and Events. But when you consider that it can be used for a variety of possible purposes, you can see that its value lies in its versatility rather than in raw power. Still, I'd have to think long and hard about using a deck slot for the Pocketwatch instead of a Betazoid Gift Box or a Kurlan Naiskos, or even a good solid dilemma. [Thanks to Puff the Magic Dragon for raising some interesting questions and ideas about what will and won't work.] The Major's Combos: - SCP plus Q's Tent. Get double duty out of your "no card draw" penalty. - SCP plus...the subject of my next review. No, it's not something mentioned in this article. :-) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR27 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/End Transmission" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #27@{ub} Aefvadh! Last time I discussed a card that lets you do something early. Here's a complementary card that lets you do something (maybe several somethings) late... @{b}END TRANSMISSION@{ub} Common Interrupt Play to immediately end your turn, delaying until the end of your next turn everything which must happen at the end of this turn, including card draws. @{i}"Subspace communications are sometimes abruptly terminated by the transmitter."@{ui} Here is the flip side of Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch. Instead of moving up an action that would be more convenient for you to do now, you get to put off something, or several things, that would be inconvenient right now. Note that, although this is an interrupt, it may only be played on your own turn, because that is all you can affect. You can't play this to affect your opponent. Once again we're looking at actions that *must* occur, with the added restriction that they must occur at the *end* of your turn (not sometime during your turn). What actions are included, and excluded, now? 1. Your end-of-turn card draw(s). The most likely reason you would want to delay this is that it will run out your deck, and you aren't ready to do that yet. Another turn may get you to 100 points to win the game. However, because you are delaying *all* end-of-turn actions, this may simply be a side effect of something else you want to delay. To minimize the effect of an unwanted card draw delay, you could play a Q's Tent on this turn, getting a card from your Tent and thus negating your card draw anyway. 2. The movement of the Borg Ship and The Sheliak. If your ship is stopped or out of Range, or your Away Team is stuck on a planet, and you aren't going to be able to get out in time, you can delay one or both of these nasties. Be careful how you time this; don't forget that either dilemma will still move at the end of your opponent's turn, and then two movements must occur at the end of your next turn. So if your opponent got you with the dreaded Sheliak-Q combination and The Sheliak are now sitting next door, End Transmission won't save your Away Team, or the mission. Rogue Borg Mercenaries aren't covered by End Transmission, because they battle at the start of every turn. 3. Required-ship-movement cards (Cytherians, Conundrum, and Incoming Messages) aren't affected by End Transmission. The movement occurs sometime during the turn, and is not required to wait until the end. 4. Many dilemmas, events, and interrupts that resolve with some action at the end of a specified number of turns can be usefully delayed for one full turn. For example, you can put off a death by Coalescent Organism, Hyper-Aging resolution, or ship destruction by Nitrium Metal Parasites for one more turn. As with the Pocketwatch's acceleration, you can only delay the actual resolution of such cards, not the "countdown" itself. 5. You *could* delay the repair of a ship, though I doubt that you would want to. Just remember that if you play End Transmission for some other reason, when a ship repair is scheduled to be finished, you *will* delay its repair also. 6. End Transmission does not apply to most of the other miscellaneous actions discussed with the Pocketwatch, because most of them don't occur at the end of your turn. That includes Interrogation, the Distortion Field card flip, scoring Colony points, Telepathic Alien Kidnappers guess, and showing a Devidian Door. However, Static Warp Bubble discard does occur at the end of the turn, so you could delay that, remembering that you will have to discard two cards at the end of your next turn. Most of the uses of End Transmission are simply to delay some bad effect, to give you one more turn before everybody gets killed or your only ship explodes, in which to score points, move your ship, or bring in a cure for some disease. There is no reason why you couldn't play another one on that next turn, to give yourself another reprieve. There are a few other ways to do some of the things this card can do, in one form or another. To unstop a ship and move it out of harm's way, you could use a Distortion of Space/Time Continuum. Or you can play Hugh to negate the attack of a Borg Ship. To keep from running out your deck, you can just play a Q's Tent. But many of the effects (especially dilemmas) cannot be stopped by any other means once set in motion. So End Transmission has considerable versatility, and might be a worthy card for your Q's Tent. And what about the mystery combo promised last time? Actually, there are two. The Major's Combos: - Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch plus End Transmission. You have something that you really want to delay, like the resolution of a killer dilemma. But you also really need your card play this turn (maybe you are desperate for a MEDICAL to cure the dilemma). Play the Pocketwatch and take next turn's card draw now. Then play End Transmission, delaying the dilemma resolution, and this turn's card draw, to next turn. - End Transmission plus Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch. The scenario, courtesy of Jason "Q" Winter: You have one card left in your draw deck. Your opponent is ahead 80-75. You play End Transmission. On his turn, he attempts a mission and hits The Higher...The Fewer, losing 8 points. Before the next dilemma, you play SCP to run out your deck. You win, 75-72 ;-) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR28 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/The Ins and Outs of Outposts, Part 1" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #28@{ub} Aefvadh! After a long hiatus (and no, I *wasn't* on vacation the whole time!), I'm going to talk about the most mundane of card types. They're common, they're boring, there are only four of them so far, you're required to have at least one in your deck (maybe more), and they seem to generate more questions than anything else except maybe dilemmas. Let's look at... @{b}THE INS AND OUTS OF OUTPOSTS, PART 1: HOW MANY?@{ub} ROMULAN (KLINGON, FEDERATION) OUTPOST "Romulus is one of the two homeworlds for the Romulans. The Romulan Star Empire establishes outposts throughout its territory." "The Klingon Homeworld is Qo'noS. The Klingon Empire establishes outposts throughout its territory." "Earth is a member of the United Federation of Planets. The Federation establishes outposts throughout its territory." Common Outpost, Shields 32 (R, K) or 30 (F) Seed one if playing Romulan (Klingon, Federation) OR build later at any location where a Romulan (Klingon, Federation) ENGINEER is present. NEUTRAL OUTPOST "A common space station design used by many races for research or trade. Personnel and ships from all affiliations are frequent visitors at such facilities." Common Outpost, Shields 24 Seed one at any Space location OR build later at a Space location where any ENGINEER is present. No repairs here. To understand the correct use of outposts, it's not enough to just read the cards. Outposts are such a basic part of the game that many of the rules governing their use are in the rulebook, back in the early pages that no one ever refers to. In addition, the Neutral Outpost did not exist in the premiere set, so a few rules had to be modified and clarified in the FAQ when it appeared. Let's go back to basics, starting with: 1. How many outposts MAY you SEED, and of what affiliation? THE most asked question about outposts. Two simple rules, and you must satisfy both: - You may seed one outpost for each affiliation you control. "Non-aligned" is not an affiliation, so an outpost may not be seeded based on non-aligned personnel in your deck. - You may seed a maximum of one of each type of outpost, that is, one Romulan, one Federation, one Klingon, one Neutral. A Neutral Outpost maybe substituted for any one affiliated outpost. However, it is still Neutral and may be used by any affiliation; it does not "become" Romulan if it is substituted for a Romulan Outpost. So, if you are playing Romulan, you may seed one outpost, either Romulan or Neutral. If you are playing Romulan and Federation, you may seed two outposts, in one of the following combinations: 1 Romulan, 1 Federation 1 Romulan, 1 Neutral 1 Neutral, 1 Federation You are not required to seed the maximum number of outposts; in fact, you may seed no outposts at all if you have another way to play personnel. Remember, these restrictions apply only to *seeding* outposts--placing them during the seed phase. You may *build* as many outposts as you wish, of any appropriate affiliation, during the game; building an outpost counts as your card play. 2. How many outposts MUST you include in your deck? The opposite side of the first question, and becoming more frequently asked as affiliations proliferate. One rule here: - You MUST include at least one outpost in your deck for each affiliation you decide to control. So if you play Romulan, Klingon, and Federation, with or without treaties, you must include at least three outposts in your deck. They don't have to be seeded; they can be in your draw deck, and you are not required ever to build them. 3. What does it mean to "control an affiliation"? You control an affiliation by including at least one non-outpost card (personnel or ship) of that affiliation in your 60-card deck. Cards in a side deck do not count, but seeded personnel (e.g., in a Cryosatellite, or Mirasta Yale) do. 4. How do dual-affiliation personnel fit into this equation? That depends on whether you want to maximize your seeded outposts, or minimize the number of slots taken by outposts in your deck. Depending on your strategy, you may want to do either. Regardless, here's what you do: - Before the seed phase begins, decide on an affiliation for each personnel in your deck. (For single-affiliation personnel, obviously you have no choice.) Based on the affiliations selected: - You MAY seed one outpost for each affiliation. (You may seed fewer.) - You MUST include one outpost in your deck for each affiliation. (You may include more.) Important: The affiliation you select for a personnel at this time has NO bearing on what affiliation you assign them when you report them for duty, or how you may use them during the game. Here are some examples of how many outposts I must include, and how many I may seed, if my deck contains *only* the listed personnel. - Tomalak and Roga Danar. I must include at least one outpost in my deck. I may seed one outpost (R or N). Roga Danar has no affiliation and neither requires that I include an outpost for him, nor allows me to seed a second outpost. - Tomalak and Major Rakal. If I decide Major Rakal is Romulan at seed time, I must include one outpost in my deck, and I may seed one outpost (R or N). Major Rakal may still be switched to Federation mode during the game if I wish. If I decide Major Rakal is Federation at seed time, I must include two outposts in my deck, and may seed up to two outposts (R+F, R+N, or F+N). Major Rakal may still be reported for duty as a Romulan, at either a Romulan or Neutral Outpost. - Tomalak, Major Rakal, and Garak. If the affiliations are: R R C seed max of 2 (must be R+N) R F C 3 (must be R+F+N) R R N 1 (R) R F N 2 (R+F, R+N, or F+N) (The outpost seeded for a Cardassian Garak must be a Neutral Outpost at this time, because there are no Cardassian Outposts yet. A non-aligned Garak does not allow seeding an outpost.) - Major Rakal. I may seed only one outpost, regardless of the affiliation I choose. She must be one or the other at any given time; she cannot be both at once. - Tomalak, Gowron, Jean-Luc Picard, and Roga Danar. I must include at least three outposts in my deck, and may seed a maximum of three. - Tomalak, Gowron, Jean-Luc Picard, and Garak. I MUST include at least three outposts in my deck (if Garak is non-aligned at seed time), but I MAY seed a maximum of four (if Garak is Cardassian at seed time). - Tomalak, Gowron, Jean-Luc Picard, Garak, and Quark Son of Keldar. For now, same as the last example: at least three required (if Garak =N and Quark SOK =K), but my maximum seed is still four--because there are only four outpost types available and seeding of two Neutral Outposts is not allowed. When either Cardassian or Ferengi Outposts become available, I could seed five. - Gul Dukat and Garak. OK, I'm extrapolating here; Gul Dukat doesn't exist yet in the game, but let's assume the first version of our favorite Gul is pure Cardassian affiliation (not C/N like Garak), and that by then a Cardassian Outpost is available (both good bets). I may seed ONE outpost, either Cardassian or Neutral. But, you say, Garak is dual-affiliation; why doesn't he permit the second outpost like Makor Rakal does for the Romulans? Because in Garak's case, "dual affiliation"is a bit of a misnomer. His second "affiliation" is not an affiliation; it's non-aligned. So with just these two personnel, you still have only one affiliation in your deck. In Part 2, I'll look at other common outpost questions, including where you can establish them, where they are located, how their Shields work, and what you can do at a Neutral Outpost. The Major's Combos: - I think there were quite enough combos back there. :-) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR29 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/The Ins and Outs of Outposts: Part 2" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #29@{ub} Aefvadh! Now that we've figured out how many of the blasted things we MAY seed and how many we MUST include in our decks, we can move on to... @{b}THE INS AND OUTS OF OUTPOSTS, PART 2: EVERYTHING ELSE@{ub} First, a repeat of the important card text, minus the lore, just for quick reference: ROMULAN (KLINGON, FEDERATION) OUTPOST Common Outpost, Shields 32 (R, K) or 30 (F) Seed one if playing Romulan (Klingon, Federation) OR build later at any location where a Romulan (Klingon, Federation) ENGINEER is present. NEUTRAL OUTPOST Common Outpost, Shields 24 Seed one at any Space location OR build later at a Space location where any ENGINEER is present. No repairs here. BTW, I've had some questions about the source of the "must include" outpost rule. It's at the bottom of page 6 in the original rulebook. Now on to the questions. 1. Where can you establish an outpost? Affiliated outposts may be established either at space or planet locations. But the mission must have a matching affiliation icon. You can't place a Romulan Outpost at a Klingon-only mission. Neutral Outposts may be established only at space locations, but that can be *any* space mission. Because a Neutral Outpost has no affiliation icon, the mission obviously cannot and does not have to have a matching icon, and in fact you may place a Neutral Outpost at one of the universal Space or Nebula mission cards. But beware: crew or ships at an outpost at a universal Nebula will have to face a dilemma (if any are there) if your opponent scores points. You may establish an outpost either at your own mission or one of your opponent's, as long as it has an appropriate affiliation icon. More than one outpost may be placed at the same mission location, either two of your own or yours and your opponent's. These placement restrictions apply both to seeded outposts and those built later. 2. Where are outposts located? Not as straightforward as it may seem. Although it is commonly thought that an outpost at a planet mission location is located *on* the planet, (especially considering that the images on all the affiliated outpostsshow planetary scenes), it just isn't so. The most recent FAQs have defined outposts as being located in space, whether they are at a space or planet mission location. The implications of this definition are that (1) to get your Away Team to a planet mission from an outpost, they must beam (or land a shuttle); and (2) ships can be docked at the outpost, so personnel do *not* have to beam to get from the outpost to a ship. 3. How do outpost shields work? Outpost shields have two functions. First, they protect the outpost itself from destruction by attacking ships, similar to the manner in which ship shields protect a ship; but unlike a ship, an outpost cannot be "damaged" or "repaired." If an attacking force targets an outpost with total Weapons that are greater than the outpost's Shields, the outpost is destroyed, along with all personnel and equipment aboard. (It does not require more than double the Shields, as a ship does.) If the attacking Weapons are less than or equal to the outpost's Shields, the attack has no effect other than "stopping" all cards involved (including the outpost itself). Outpost shields may be enhanced by Plasmadyne Relays, but not by Nutational or Metaphasic Shields, which are limited to ships. The second function of outpost shields is to protect ships docked at the outpost, by extending 50% of the outpost shields to each docked ship. A Romulan ship with Shields of 8 docked at a Romulan Outpost will gain 16 Shields from the outpost for a total effective Shields of 24. Any number of docked ships may be protected in this way, without reducing the outpost's own shield protection. If for some reason you don't want a ship to be protected while at an outpost, you may declare the ship not docked and "outside the shields." If you have two outposts at a mission location, you must choose which outpost each ship is docked at; a ship cannot be protected by the shields of two outposts at once. An affiliated outpost may protect only ships of that affiliation and non-aligned ships, unless a treaty is in force. A Neutral Outpost may protect both non-aligned and affiliated ships. An outpost may protect only ships belonging to the outpost's owner. 4. What can and can't you do at affiliated and Neutral Outposts? At an affiliated outpost, you can report for duty ships and personnel of that affiliation, and non-aligned ships and personnel. Damaged ships of that affiliation only (*not* non-aligned) may be repaired there by keeping them at the outpost for two full turns. If an appropriate treaty is in effect, personnel and ships of the other affiliation in the treaty may also report there, and their ships may be repaired there. The only way to repair non-aligned ships at any outpost is to play a Spacedock event on the outpost. At a Neutral Outpost, you may report for duty personnel and ships of any affiliation, and non-aligned. However, personnel of different affiliations may not be present aboard the Neutral Outpost at the sametime without a treaty. No ship repairs at all may be done at a Neutral Outpost, unless a Spacedock event is played on the outpost. 5. How do you attempt a mission from an outpost? A space mission may be attempted from the outpost just as you attempt it from a ship: the entire crew aboard the outpost is involved in the mission attempt and vulnerable to dilemmas. You cannot segregate part of the crew so they are not part of the attempt. Any dilemma which "plays on ship" (e.g., Tsiolkovsky Infection), or whose effect is on the ship itself rather than on the crew (e.g., Null Space) is nullified and discarded if encountered by a crew attempting the mission from the outpost. A ship docked at the outpost will not be affected if its crew is not attempting the mission. A planet mission cannot actually be attempted "from the outpost" because an Away Team must always beam to the planet for the mission attempt. However, they may beam from the outpost rather than from the ship. This is an important distinction for the Alien Parasites dilemma, because a Parasites-infested Away Team that beamed from the outpost cannot take over a ship even if it is docked at the outpost. The Outpost Raid dilemma has its "If at your outpost" effect if your outpost is *located* at the mission site, regardless of whether you attempted it from, or beamed to the planet from, the outpost or a ship. The Major's Combos: - Neutral Outpost + Spacedock (mundane but utilitarian) - Any outpost + Gul Madred + Interrogation = extra points - Your opponent's outpost + Outpost Raid = a double kill, your choice Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR30 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Tallera" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #30@{ub} Aefvadh! They promised us something for the Romulans in Fajo, and here she is... @{b}TALLERA@{ub} Romulan/Federation/Non-aligned Personnel, unique, Limited Edition, (Fajo Collection) Integrity 3, Cunning 7, Strength 7, Command Star SECURITY: Computer Skill, SCIENCE, Mindmeld, Leadership, Treachery Does not work with [Federation] affiliation personnel. @{i}"Female Romulan mercenary. In reality a physically altered Vulcan isolationist seeking the Stone of Gol."@{ui} Not *quite* the "six-skilled Romulan" that we've been hearing persistent rumors of, but she *is* the first triple-affiliation personnel (granting that "affiliation" is a misnomer for Non-aligned, as with Garak). Her Non-aligned icon lets her work with the Klingons, as well as the upcoming Cardassians, or anyone else--except of course the Feds. Now, what good is her Federation icon, if she can't work with Feds? Well, note that her restriction box reads just a little bit different than those of Galen or Nick Locarno; while they won't work with Federation *affiliation*, Tallera won't work with Federation affiliation *personnel*. That means that, like Major Rakal, she could fly a Federation ship, and more important, attempt a Federation mission, with appropriate NA support crew. Of course, she also enables the seeding of a second outpost like the other dual-affiliates. With Tallera, the Romulans add another dual-classification personnel to the fold. The combination of SECURITY and SCIENCE is an odd one, but might prove useful: many dilemmas require either MEDICAL + SCIENCE or MEDICAL + SECURITY to pass, with Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease requiring all three. So a single MEDICAL with Tallera can pass a considerable number of killer dilemmas. And she enables a couple of unique Kurlan Naiskos combos (see below). Her other skills, for the most part, are nothing spectacular. Computer Skill and Treachery are common enough among Romulans and Non-aligned (though to be sure they are required by plenty of Romulan missions), and Leadership is mainly useful in allowing her to lead in battle. But her remaining skill is so far unique outside of the blue cards. Yes, Tallera finally brings "Mindmeld for the rest of us." Now I'll have to work up a Mindmeld strategy for the Romulans, something I've never been able to even consider before. (Let's see, she can gain Treachery from almost any Rommie...) And oh, yes, she overcomes Interphasic Plasma Creatures, too. Her attributes, unfortunately, are pretty lackluster. She's a sitting duck for Firestorm, Thought Fire, and Hunter Gangs, and a STRENGTH of 7 isn't great for a Romulan. (An interesting side note: the Vulcan Stone of Gol would kill Tallera, Narik, and Vekor (all CUNNING 7), while sparing Galen (8).) Ironically, her NA icon actually makes her more useful to the Klingons than to the Romulans. They gain access to Mindmeld, and now have someone they can use to "espionage" both Federation and Romulan missions, while Tallera adds nothing there that the Romulans don't already have. And the Klingons have more need for Treachery and Computer Skill than do the Rommies. The Major's Combos: - Tallera + Taris + Major Rakal + Kareen Brianon + Decius + Kurlan Naiskos - Tallera + Ja'rod + Kurn + K'chiQ (with MEDICAL skill) + IKC Feh'lhr + Kurlan Naiskos - Tallera + Galen + Baran + Narik + Vekor + Mercenary Ship (just for the heck of it; but I count at least 11 missions this team could do, though a couple will need a Mindmeld, and several more if you add Roga Danar) Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR31 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Personnel Rating System" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #31@{ub} Aefvadh! Way back in Review #1, I promised to look at Romulan and non- aligned personnel, including comparisons using my own rating system. Alert readers may have noticed that the rating system hasn't yet materialized. For those who have been breathlessly awaiting its advent (as well as the other 99% of you), you need hold your breath no longer. Without further ado, I present... @{b}MAJOR RAKAL'S STCCG PERSONNEL RATING SYSTEM@{ub} (@{"The Ratings" link "STCCG:romreview.guide/RATINGS"} We all have opinions on whether one personnel is better than another. For a long time, Data was considered by many to be "the best" personnel in the game. Jean-Luc Picard had his fans as well. Now that the other affiliations have acquired better personnel, some think that Mogh or Dr. Telek R'Mor are strong contenders for "the best". But these are subjective opinions at best, and heavily dependent on your preferred affiliation and strategies. I wanted to develop a more objective method of determining the relative values of different personnel. Not surprisingly, the ratings include the attributes, skills, and other features (e.g., command stars, AU icons, species, etc.) of each personnel. Attributes This was the simplest part of the ratings to calculate. CUNNING and STRENGTH points count directly as rating points, while INTEGRITY points are weighted twice as heavily. Attributes of I6-C8-S7 would thus be worth 27 ratings points (2x6 + 8 + 7). I double-weighted the INTEGRITY because it is the most difficult attribute to enhance. CUNNING and STRENGTH are easily enhanced with PADDs, Phasers, and Disruptors, Yellow Alert, and Lower Decks, while INTEGRITY is enhanced only by Lower Decks and no equipment. INTEGRITY points are thus more valuable because there are so few ways to compensate for their lack. INTEGRITY is also the only attribute for which an *individual* lack will get a personnel killed by a dilemma (Firestorm); dilemmas requiring CUNNING or STRENGTH depend on an Away Team total, so individual lacks can be compensated for by sheer numbers. Regular Skills While I originally planned to use skill values derived from both supply and demand for skills, I eventually settled on demand-based skill values. I consider that the demand for a skill is an effective measure of the skill's value; if MEDICAL skill is called for 28 times to overcome dilemmas or solve missions, it is almost 5 times as valuable as Exobiology, which is called for only 6 times. The supply of each skill, on the other hand, is irrelevant to determining the skill's value; just because Taris added one to the supply of MEDICAL personnel does not make the skill any less valuable to Takket. Furthermore, a given skill may be more or less valuable to different affiliations, depending on the relative demand for that skill within each affiliation. Treachery, for example, is needed in 25 instances for Romulans, making it twice as valuable to them as to the Federation, who need it in only 11 instances. Why should Federation personnel be valued for a Treachery skill that they have relatively little use for--they can't solve Romulan-only missions! (The differences in demand come mostly from mission requirements.) Accordingly, I have determined for each skill a value for each affiliation. Non-aligned personnel have three ratings, one for their value to each of the three main affiliations. The demand (i.e., the value) for each regular skill (including classifications) was determined by counting the number of times the skill is called for as a mission requirement, dilemma condition or cure, or other use. For example, Expose Covert Supply requires Treachery x3 + Navigation; this generates a demand of 3 for Treachery and 1 for Navigation. Zaldan can be overcome by Treachery x2, among other possible conditions, so it generates a demand of 2 for Treachery. The Charybdis requires the presence of Archaeology to acquire artifacts, generating a demand of 1 for Archaeology. If a skill has negative consequences in a particular situation, such as Empathy which is selected to be killed by Empathic Echo, it has a demand of -1. Only missions with matching affiliation icons were counted in determining the demand/value for each affiliation. Special Skills and Restrictions Mission and dilemma requirements naming a specific personnel (such as Gowron) were considered special skills, rather than as a "demand". I assigned values to special skills and restrictions mostly subjectively and somewhat arbitrarily. The ability to nullify a specific dilemma (or being named as part of the conditions to overcome a dilemma) was worth 5 points. Being named as a mission requirement was worth 10 or 15 rating points, depending on whether the named personnel could solve the mission alone or required additional skills and attributes, and on the point value of the mission. Bonus points for use of a personnel were generally converted into rating points, e.g., Samuel Clemens' bonus points are worth 10 rating points. A skill that enhances attributes of other personnel is worth the number of attribute points gained by a typical Away Team of 6, with an INTEGRITY boost being doubled as in the initial calculation of attribute points. If the skill enhances a specific second personnel (or if a specific personnel must be present for the first to be enhanced himself), the points were divided between the two personnel. Other special skills and restrictions not covered here were assigned values based on my subjective evaluation of their usefulness. Quasi-Skills Certain features of personnel may be considered quasi-skills, and the demand calculated in much the same way as regular skills, though some of the "demands" are implied rather than explicitly stated, or may simply represent an advantage. Quasi-skills include AU icons (required for Fissure Research and seeding in a Cryosatellite), gender (females required to pass Matriarchal Society, but a drawback for Female's Love Interest), and species and affiliation (Cardassians are immune to Cardassian Trap; Klingons are affected by a number of special cards; androids are required to pass some dilemmas, immune to several more, and targeted by still others). Holograms, non-aligned affiliation, and universal icons fall in this category, but my value assignments in these cases were partly based on objective demand (e.g., hologram immunity to DNA-related dilemmas) and partly subjective, for their versatility and restrictions which are not easily quantifiable. Multi-affiliation personnel are a special case. They are assigned a rating value normally for each separate affiliation, with a 10-point bonus for the versatility granted by multiple affiliations. The Ratings The actual current personnel ratings, including all personnel released to date through First Anthology (plus Tallera), will be found in a separate document entitled Major Rakal's Personnel Ratings. Personnel in each affiliation are listed in descending order of rating, with non- aligned personnel included in each affiliation's listing, as their values to the affiliations differ. In addition, the non-aligned personnel are listed in alphabetical order with all three affiliation ratings for comparison. Finally, a listing of skills and quasi-skills and their demand values for each affiliation is included at the end. Special skills and restrictions are not included because of their large number and variability. So how do these (mostly) objective ratings compare to your subjective opinions? You'll have to decide that for yourself, but here are some of my impressions. First, much to my surprise, Sirol (139) came out on top of the Romulans, with Dr. Telek R'Mor (120) trailing by a full 19 points. This is due to the fact that Sirol's Diplomacy, Treachery, and Navigation are in greater demand than R'Mor's Honor, Astrophysics x2, or Stellar Cartography. Major Rakal (82) comes in 6th among the Romulans themselves, behind Sela and even Pardek, and only 20th if you include non-aligneds. Tal Shiar may be a handy skill for solving Quash Conspiracy or attacking other Romulans, but overall the demand is very low, while Diplomacy is in high demand even for Romulans. In the Federation, Geordi (152) edges out Data (147) with his double ENGINEER skill, and Rachel Garrett has the edge over Jean-Luc, again from her highly valued ENGINEER skill and her AU icon. Major Rakal in Federation mode is almost equal at 80 to her Romulan mode, and much better than her persona, Deanna Troi (69). Over in the Klingon Empire, Governor Worf (151) is right up there with Geordi, with Mogh (133) the second-ranking Klingon. Dathon is the only non-aligned in the overall top 10, appearing twice at 133 for the Klingons and 128 for the Feds. It's interesting to note that only 7 of the top 20 personnel in the Federation list are non-aligned, while they account for 12 of the Klingons' top 20 and 14 of the Romulans'. Just an indication of how crucial non-aligned personnel may be to Romulan and Klingon decks. Of course, I've finished this just about in time for First Contact to make the entire system obsolete. It remains to be seen just how the Borg will fit into this system; if they don't solve missions, there must be some other demand for their skills (whatever they may be) to which I can assign a value. Warnings! First, any rating system is inherently arbitrary. I made a number of assumptions in designing this system, the biggest being that "demand" for a skill for solving a missions is worth the same as "demand" for overcoming dilemmas, leading in battle, or enabling an interrupt or equipment card. You may not agree with this, and indeed the balance may change when the battle enhancement expansion appears, for example, or even for the Borg. But it will have to do for now. Second, please keep in mind that these ratings are based largely on overall demand for specific skills within each affiliation, and that much of the demand for certain skills comes from mission requirements. The actual value of a personnel in your deck depends a great deal on the missions that you choose to play. Dr. Telek R'Mor ranks very high among the Romulans, but his strength is largely for selected space missions; if you play a Treachery/Archaeology planet deck, he will be virtually useless. And while Geordi and Data are valuable for their ENGINEER skill because the Federation has many missions requiring that skill, they will be considerably less useful in a Diplomacy deck. Third, remember that assigning values to special skills is not exactly a scientific process. You may disagree heartily with my assessment of the value of such skills. If you find a particular personnel's skills to be valuable to you with your choice of deck design and strategy, and with the opponents you regularly face, then my rating is irrelevant to you. Use what works for you. Finally, please do not ask me to justify or explain individual personnel ratings, or the value of special or quasi-skills. (I'm not positive I can justify all of them even to myself. ;-) ) Up to a dozen or more individual factors enter into a single personnel rating, some of which may not be immediately evident because they are not on the personnel card. For example, Ba'el gets a small bonus because she can score double points at a Colony built before mission completion by Gi'ral and Tokath; Mortal Q can be killed by Calamarain or nullified by Immortal Again (two negative "demands"); several rather obscure personnel get a Captain's Log bonus. And many of the special and quasi-skill values are at least partly subjective, for want of any better way to establish value. Not to mention that I may have simply overlooked an obscure demand here and there, though the effect should be minimal. Acknowledgements The weighting factor for the INTEGRITY attribute was inspired by Mark Sidloi's ship rating system, which also incorporates weighting factors for RANGE, WEAPONS, and SHIELDS based on their ease of enhancement. The basic system of determining demand for a regular skill, including "negative demand", is based on the system used by Wesley Crusher (Helge Blohmer) for his Personnel Evaluation System. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR32 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Sisters of Duras" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #32@{ub} Aefvadh! All indications were that there was another great Romulan card lurking in the Fajo Collection, and it seems lurking may be just the word, because it turns out to be those treacherous... @{b}SISTERS OF DURAS@{ub} Romulan/Klingon Personnel, unique, Limited Edition (Fajo Collection) Integrity 2+2, Cunning 8+8, Strength 8+7, Staff Star/Staff Star Lursa: V.I.P.: Treachery, Leadership, Geology, Greed B'Etor: V.I.P.: Treachery, Physics, Youth, Greed Do not work with Klingons who have Honor. @{i}"@{b}Lursa@{ub} and @{b}B'Etor@{ub}, like their father before them, collaborated with the Romulan Star Empire."@{ui} ["Lursa" and "B'Etor" are in bold-faced type, indicating they are personas of the separate sisters.] Yes, our newest Romulans are Klingons! And in a neat twist, you get two personnel for the card-draw and card-play price of one. How do they stack up to their separate personas? Almost identical; the Command stars on the separate "ladies" are downgraded to Staff stars here (so you'll need another Command star to fly a capital ship with them), and B'Etor loses Leadership (not to worry, Lursa still has hers so they can lead in battle). The separates have no restriction on what Klingons they can work with. Everything else is the same. Now, where Tallera actually may be more useful to the Klingons than the Romulans (without even possessing a Klingon icon), these bad Sisters are more useful to the Romulans than to their own countrymen. An excellent fit for a Romulan Treachery deck, the Sisters fill the "keynote skill x2" gap for the Romulans at last: whereas the Feds have always had a Diplomacy x2 (Picard and others), and the Klingons have had two Honor x2 since AU and the Two-Player Game (Governor Worf and Mogh), until now the Romulans have had no Treachery x2 to make Wormhole Negotiations a snap. Sure, the two Treachery are on two personnel, but it's still only one card. In addition, they enable a lovely Romulan strategy for a certain high-point mission (see The Major's Combos). For the Klingons, on the other hand, they will have much more limited use, simply because of that restriction box: "Do not work with Klingons who have Honor." That doesn't leave them all that many options for support crew; brother Duras, daddy Ja'rod, nephew Toral, and a few others, but all the big hitters for the Klingons have Honor. They will, of course, allow the seeding of an extra outpost, and they could espionage Romulan missions with NA support, but unless this or a pure Klingon Treachery deck is what you have in mind, you'll probably want to forgo that card advantage and use the old Lursa and B'Etor in your Klingon deck. Make no mistake, there will be some disadvantages even for the Romulans. Oh, they can pass Matriarchal Society alone, and have exceptional CUNNING and STRENGTH for a single card (but even together they can't survive a Firestorm--now that's *bad*). But, since it seems likely that anything that happens to one sister will have to happen to the other (you certainly can't discard only *one* of them), a killer dilemma or a Female's Love Interest will lose both of them for you. But all in all, a cool card, and one that I'll be happy to play in my Romulan decks. Tentatively I will assign them values in my Personnel Rating System of 111 for Klingon use, and 134 for Romulan use. (This compares to 62 for Lursa and 80 for B'Etor for a total of 142 for the separate sisters, Klingon use only of course.) The rating is tentative because I want to give more thought to the advantages and disadvantages of this cool 2-in- 1 combination; it's going to take time to investigate all the implications. But basically, I treated the card as a "super personnel" with one VIP classification (since so far two VIPs are never required, the second is redundant and without value), two Staff stars (which *are* useful), and with skills of Treachery x2, Greed x2, Leadership, Geology, Physics, and Youth...and guess what, there's our 6-skilled Romulan, at last. The Major's Combos: - Sisters of Duras + Major Rakal + Sela + Maques + Diplomatic Conference. One outpost required, no waiting. :) - Sisters of Duras + I Am Not A Merry Man (they sure aren't). Q-icon nullification for the Romulans! Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR33 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Lore" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #33@{ub} Aefvadh! Well, Wesley beat me to this one last night (how'd you get those ratings so fast, Wes? :-) ) while I was writing up my favorite Fajo card (Sisters of Duras), but I still just have to review him, because he's yet another that's so perfect for the Romulans... @{b}LORE@{ub} Non-aligned Personnel, unique, Limited Edition (Fajo Collection) Integrity 1, Cunning 13, Strength 12, Command Star, Nemesis Icon CIVILIAN: ENGINEER, Computer Skill, Treachery x2, SECURITY, Transporter Skill, Leadership, Doubles all Rogue Borg and Crystalline Entities in play. Does not work with [Federation] affiliation. @{i}"Evil Soong-type android. Data's "elder brother.""@{ui} Lore really should almost have a green border. With his Treachery x2, he'll make the perfect companion for the Sisters of Duras to complete Wormhole Negotiations, and with a Disruptor they'll make short work of Strategic Diversion, too. He even takes on Zaldan alone. His CUNNING of 13, the highest in the game, and STRENGTH of 12, matching Data's, give a great boost to a compact Away Team in getting past dilemmas like Shaka, Ferengi Attack, Hidden Entrance, and Nausicaans, as well as for solving a number of missions with CUNNING requirements. Unfortunately, like so many Romulans, his odd CUNNING leaves him vulnerable to Hunter Gangs, and his stunningly low INTEGRITY of 1 makes him instant Firestorm fuel (though his CUNNING will get him through Thought Fire). The first triple-classification personnel, Lore will provide an alternative, backup, and/or supplement to the much-used Roga Danar SECURITY-ENGINEER combo, with a CIVILIAN thrown in for good measure for Colony points. Like Roga, he can lead an Away Team battle; with any luck, there will be more uses for Transporter Skill in future expansions. His most interesting skill is the special one of doubling Rogue Borg and Crystalline Entities. Although this skill has yet to be explained fully, it seems fairly obvious that he must double the STRENGTH of Rogue Borg Mercenaries (as Crosis does), though he's a two-edged sword because he doubles not only your Rogue Borg but your opponent's as well. Because Crystalline Entity already kills the entire crew or Away Team, the only features that can be doubled are the conditions, and the points. Until now I have tended to ignore Crystalline Entity, because while its planet requirements are not bad (a slightly scaled-down Barclay's), the space conditions of SHIELDS >6 (or Music) meant it wouldn't get much outside of K'Vorts. Lore will make it worthwhile to get Crystalline Entity back out of the binder, by raising the space requirement to SHIELDS >12 and making this deadly to most crews not at an outpost (and it's such a neat fit with the storyline, too). Again, a double-edged sword that should do a lot to encourage the use of Plasmadyne Relays and/or Metaphasic or Nutational Shields. What else? He's an android, immune to the usual DNA-related dilemmas and vulnerable to the usual android-hosers, reportable for free under Cybernetics skill and considerably more useful than a generic STA. He can't choose his classification, but when you've got three of them already, you don't need to. While he can't work with the Feds (who have plenty of androids already), he'll be quite happy with the Klingons, giving them a much-needed ENGINEER, CUNNING the likes of which they have never seen, and a very useful source of Treachery with no restrictions on who he can work with, such as the Sisters of Duras have. One liability if you're playing opponents who like Q Continuum side decks: with 7 red-dot skill icons, if he's selected for a Mandarin Bailiff, it'll cost you a 14-point differential (+7 to your opponent, -7 to you) to bail him out. My tentative personnel rating for Lore is--are you ready for this?--159 for Klingon use, and a whopping 175 for Romulan use! Yes, Lore just blew the top off my rating scale, piling up points for the coveted ENGINEER and SECURITY and the Treachery x2, as well as his phenomenal CUNNING and STRENGTH. Of course, he's worth 0 for Federation use, as his restriction box won't let him work with a Fed crew (though I might reconsider that, as he could be the basis for a separate all-NA marauder team that would allow you to battle). These ratings are tentative until we find out what the Nemesis icon is going to mean; it sounds as though it may be a disadvantage, so for now I assigned it -5. When the Fajo rules are released I'll reevaluate. The Major's Combos: - Lore + Sisters of Duras = Wormhole Negotiations - Lore + Roga Danar + a few STAs = one frightening battle-specific Away Team Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR34 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/First Thoughts on First Contact" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #34@{ub} Aefvadh! With the release of the First Contact Rules Supplement and two of the card images, everyone's attention, focused for weeks on the Fajo Collection, has suddenly turned to First Contact. And well it might, for even a cursory examination of the rules supplement verifies the tag to its opening paragraph...THIS CHANGES EVERTHING. Although it's impossible to predict, before seeing the cards themselves, all the implications of the sweeping rules changes, new card types, and other new features that will come with this set, I have decided to make this review the first in a series examining those implications. This time out, I'll just give an overview of my... @{b}FIRST THOUGHTS ON FIRST CONTACT@{ub} Breathtaking. Mind-boggling. Wow... Oh, you want me to get a little more specific? OK, here goes. Unlimited Deck Size Who hasn't wanted this? If you want to use a Cryo or a lot of doorways, and still have room for enough dilemmas to put a damper on your opponent's mission-solving abilities, you've probably been using every one of your 30 seed card slots already, leaving a bare 30 for your draw deck. And let me tell you, that's *cramped.* By the time you include a minimal crew to cover your missions and dilemmas (13-14), a ship or two, 3-4 Q's Tents, a couple of Kivases, a minimum of the omnipotent trio of counters (you know you're going to need them!), and a few Palors, there is just no room for something to enhance a theme, an equipment card, an Interrogation, a Thine Own Self... all the nifty cards that you look at time and again when deck-building and say, "I think I'll put one of these in", and then find there's no room once again. No more! Now you can use those 30 seed slots, and still put everything you want in your draw deck. Want to build a deck that lets you have everything to solve your missions, but also add a theme of "don't let your opponent reuse cards"? You now have room for a few Fire Sculptors, Devidian Foragers, and Countermandas, without sacrificing your missions. Want to build a capture deck? In addition to a few Cardie Traps among your dilemmas, throw in Madred (maybe in your Tent) and some Thine Own Selfs, Interrogations, and Brainwashes. Tired of losing your Empaths to Yuta, just before a Thought Fire or Cardie Trap? You have space for a bunch of Wolf interrupts! Just watch out that you don't try to do *everything* in one deck. Before you know it, your draw deck will be so huge that you won't be able to draw the cards you need when you need them. If you need 3 or 4 Q's Tents in a 30-card draw deck now to make sure you get one early, you'll probably need 6 or 7 in a 60-card draw deck. The new "downloading" promises to make obtaining some cards on demand easier, but at what cost? We don't know yet, and it certainly won't apply to everything. No Duplication of Unique Missions If this rule had been in effect for the World Championships, one very interesting match I played against Chris "Morgan Bateson" Swearingen would have been very different, though no less interesting. Our mission decks were identical--all 6. We would have ended up with only 6 unique missions between us to actually attempt, plus between 6-12 non-attemptable universal missions. This rule will strongly encourage use of the more obscure missions, which will translate to lower point, mostly single affiliation, missions. No longer will you have two Pegasus Searches, two Hunt for DNA Programs, or two Wormhole Negotiations to choose from; you'll have only one. Who will get to it first? If it's the whole basis of your strategy, you may be in trouble. Seeding and Reuse of Artifacts Finally, the long-time tournament rule restricting artifacts to one per player per mission has been made the standard for all play. This is good. Solving an easy outpost planet mission for 3 artifacts is definitely abusive; what chance do I have after you acquire a Horga'hn, Betazoid Gift Box, and a Kurlan Naiskos? Not much. Artifacts are supposed to be "rare objects", according to the original rulebook, with "immense powers". Doesn't sound like something you'd expect to find three of on one planet, does it? Note especially that if you illegally seed more than one at a location, *all* of them are considered misseeds and must be placed out-of-play. You don't get to keep even one. Another new ruling states that a discarded or nullified artifact cannot be brought back into play unless it is reseeded (Q's Planet) and re-earned. This presumably will replace the current tournament ruling that "discarded after use" artifacts such as the Gift Box are placed out-of-play. The reason for that ruling was largely to prevent endless reuse of the Gift Box through repeated Palor-ing. But it didn't go far enough, because it allowed a nullified artifact, such as the powerful Horga'hn or Ressikan Flute, to be Palor-ed and immediately replayed. The new ruling neatly takes care of both problems at once, essentially allowing you to retrieve *one* artifact *once*, if you have Q's Planet and can solve it before your opponent does. A good curb on the unbalancing power of artifacts. Unused Seed Cards Seed cards unused at the end of the seed phase have always been intended to go out-of-play (not to the discard pile), to prevent retrieval of unearned artifacts or a pool of nasty dilemmas to place under Q's Planet. Unfortunately, that was never written down anywhere official, and had to be extrapolated from the rule that misseeds go out-of-play. Now it's official. Seeding Outposts Well, I guess I have to revise my review on outposts. Just when we got it all settled how many you *can* seed and *must* stock, they've changed the rules on us. :-) But it's a heck of a lot simpler now. Anyone can seed one Neutral Outpost, in addition to one affiliated outpost for each affiliation you're playing. Or you can seed (or include in your deck) fewer, or none at all. Whatever suits you. Simple and fair. Winning the Game No more premature deck draw-out wins! If you've ever been blind-sided by an opponent grabbing a quick mission and then drawing out his deck before you could score more than a few points, you'll appreciate this one. There is no longer any advantage to a quick draw-out, because the game won't end till your opponent also draws out. With unlimited deck size, that could be a while. Meanwhile, you'll have to play with the cards you have. Of course, the unlimited (and variable) deck size made this necessary. Downloading Sounds intriguing. I'll reserve further comment until we see just what can be downloaded, and how that can be triggered. Battle Enhancements Well, folks, anyone who knows the Major at all knows that she's pretty lukewarm on battle. Other than noting that the new personnel battles sound a lot more interesting (if you like battle) and a lot more dangerous (you can lose considerably more than one personnel), and that it's nice to see the rules for attacking, leaders, and retaliation clarified and simplified, I'm really not the one to review battle rules. Maybe if they provide more capturing mechanisms tied to battle (in the battle expansion), it'll pique my interest. New Bridge Crew and Persona Replacement Considering how often the Major plays Feds (what, never?...well, hardly ever), this is another "ho-hum" for me. Persona replacement is likely to be fairly useless for the Romulans, too, unless they come up with a few green personas, which seems fairly unlikely--there aren't enough Rommies as it is, and most were seen only once; where will they get personas from? Regions of Space Again, the implications are unclear. I'll pass until we see how the concept is used. Hidden Agendas This sounds like something with definite possibilities for the Romulans. Who better to have a hidden agenda? But we still don't know what they might be. Countdown Icons I think I'll hire a bookkeeper to keep track of when to move the Borg Ship dilemma and The Sheliak, when to flip Aldea, what the RANGE is now on my Birth of Junior-ed ship, how far along the Anti-Time Anomalies and Temporal Rifts are, what K'chiQ's skill is this turn, how close my ships are to being repaired, and now, when the countdown icons should be turned... Objective Cards and Probing This is apparently the main method the Borg have for scoring points. But we are promised some that are usable by other affiliations. Again, I'll have to reserve judgment until we see them. The probing mechanism introduces some randomness into certain card effects, and if the real objectives are anything like the hypothetical example, you may be encouraged to include certain card types in your deck just for the icons. Timeline Disruption This appears to be a major Feddie hoser. However, Romulans and Klingons can get hurt, too, because we rely so much on non-aligned personnel, several of whom are human (Galen could really hurt), and Sela, one of the better Romulans, is half human. Fortunately, Major Rakal is protected by her AU icon. Captain's Log This card now relies on "matching commanders", which can be from personnel lore OR ship's lore. At this point, this has no effect on the Romulans, as their capital ships are all CL-eligible under the old rule anyway. But it will enable a few new combos for the Klingons, and will make the Fed fans *very* happy--not to mention Q, who will no longer have to answer the question, "Why doesn't Jean-Luc Picard get CL for the Enterprise?". The Borg Clearly this topic deserves an article or two or three all to itself. At this point, I'll just say that it appears that Decipher has done a bang-up job of working out how this new affiliation is going to work. Their single-mindedness has become a requirement for an "objective" (only one at a time allowed); they don't do missions, just as we would expect, but they still have to face dilemmas via "scouting" (this is crucial; if all your dilemmas were useless when confronted with a Borg opponent, it would be a gamebreaker), and while some dilemmas will apparently be ignored by the Borg (Matriarchal Society, Love Interests), it would appear that others may be pretty nasty to an affiliation required to start scouting with a redshirt (Alien Parasites). There are apparently quite a number of drones with different skills, alleviating some concerns that the Borg might be pretty boring, with only 3 or 4 generic drones. They have some super-powerful ships (8-24-24 sounds pretty intimidating; I think I'll stock up on Plasmadyne Relays, Nutational and Metaphasic Shields, and Bynars, thank you) with the negatives of a 7-personnel staffing requirement, a 45-point bounty, and the necessity to have an objective in play that will allow them to attack. I would have to say that it sounds like they have worked very hard at making the Borg powerful, scary, but balanced. The Major's Combos: - First Contact + any affiliation. There's something here for everyone, whether you want to play Borg or not. I think we're going to find it was well worth the wait. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR35 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Borg Objectives" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #35@{ub} Due to the untimely deletion of posts from the 29th and 30th (necessary because of the size of the board), I am reposting my review on Borg Objectives. Just one note of correction: I stated in my initial post that you didn't *have* to play the objective (which has a Hidden Agenda icon in this case) face down. That was incorrect; if a card has a Hidden Agenda icon, you *must* play it (or seed it, if it is seedable) face down. However, you may turn it face up at any time (after the seed phase), so in this case you would play it face down and immediately turn it over, if that was the effect you wanted. If you have a Hidden Agenda that you seed during the seed phase, you must wait until the seed phase is over before you may activate it. My apologies for any confusion, and thanks to Bill Martinson for pointing out this oversight to me. Major Rakal's Romulan Review #35 11/29/97 (Initial Post) 12/02/97 (Revised) Aefvadh! For the second in my series on First Contact, let's take a look at the major new card type introduced in the expansion, Objectives. Since most of the objectives are clearly Borg-oriented (anything that starts "Assimilate..."), let's specifically examine the workings of... @{b}BORG OBJECTIVES@{ub} The Borg don't attempt missions. This is logical; it's difficult to picture the Borg assisting in quelling a plague, or conducting diplomatic negotiations. While other affiliations earn points by solving missions, the Borg earn points by completing objectives. A Borg objective represents a goal, such as assimilating a planet or a ship, or establishing a transwarp gateway at a space location. The most crucial feature of Borg objectives to keep in mind is that the Borg essentially cannot do anything without a "motivating" objective. They normally cannot attack, or beam to a planet or to an opponent's ship unless their current objective permits them to do so. (There are exceptions, such as counterattacking against a suicidal opponent who attacks first, or if a specific card allows or requires it, such as an Iconian Gateway, or the Conundrum dilemma.) For other affiliations, solving a mission requires announcing the mission attempt by a crew or Away Team, encountering and resolving any dilemmas or Q-Flashes seeded there, followed by completion of the mission and scoring its points by bringing the necessary skills to the mission. The Borg follow an analogous process: playing an objective card and naming its target, scouting the location or ship by encountering and resolving dilemmas and Q-flashes, and finally completing the objective (and scoring points if applicable) by probing for an outcome. Let's look at each part of this process, illustrating it with the one Borg objective we have seen so far, which, judging by hints and examples in the rules, is likely to be quite typical. (Some objectives may not include all features of this one.) Although the card text may look straightforward, parts of the process are defined in the rules and may not be obvious from reading the card alone. Also, the different parts of the process are dispersed among various sections of the rules, under "Objectives", "Probing", "Scouting", and more; here I will bring them all together in one place. @{b}ASSIMILATE PLANET@{ub} Objective, 25 points [Borg Use Only], [Hidden Agenda] Plays on table. Target an unassimilated planet on spaceline (except a homeworld) with a point box showing at least 35 points. Your Borg may scout that planet. If you have Borg at that spaceline location, you may probe: [Com], [Def]: Assimilated. Place on planet. May download one Objective card. Establishing Your Objective The first step is to play the objective card on the table. This counts as your normal card play, and it must be played before you execute orders, like an Event card. Because this objective has a Hidden Agenda icon, you must play it face down on the table; it will be inactive until you turn it face up, at which time it becomes your "current objective." As a Borg player, you may have only one current objective at a time, representing the single-mindedness of the Borg collective. When you play the card face up (or turn it up), if it requires you to target something, you must do so immediately, announcing your selected target to your opponent. In this case, you must target a planet on the spaceline (i.e., not a time location, which is not part of the spaceline) that has not already been assimilated. Furthermore, it may not be a homeworld (defined in the rules; so far these include Earth, Romulus, and Qo'noS), and it must have a point box with at least 35 points. The mission may belong to you or to your opponent, and it may be solved or unsolved when you target it. Once you have established your objective, you cannot simply discard it to play a different one, unless another card allows you to do this. It remains your objective until you complete it, until it is nullified, or until the target is removed from play or somehow becomes invalid (in which case you discard the objective). For example, if the planet you targeted with Assimilate Planet was pulled into a Black Hole or assimilated by a Borg opponent before you completed the objective, you would discard the objective. Scouting the Target Once you have announced your target, you may continue to the next step specified on the objective card. In the case of Assimilate Planet, the objective gives you permission to "scout" the target planet. Scouting represents "overcoming resistance and gathering data", and as with attempting missions, involves overcoming dilemmas and Q-Flashes. (For the rest of this review, when I refer to dilemmas, I am including Q-Flashes.) Scouting follows a rigid protocol, defined in the rules, depending on whether you are scouting a planet, a space location, or an enemy ship. Unlike other affiliations, the Borg are required to "red shirt" dilemmas on a planet. You must beam down one lone "scout", as the Borg sent a single scout to the Enterprise in the episode Q Who. Now you may begin turning up dilemmas, just as you do for a normal mission attempt. If the scout is killed, stopped, or otherwise unable to continue, you may beam down another single scout to continue. There are a few things to keep in mind as your scouts encounter dilemmas. First, they are *not* "attempting the mission." If a dilemma refers to a mission attempt, that part of the dilemma is probably not applicable to the Borg. For example, Alien Abduction is "cured" by completing the mission OR 3 Leadership. Since the Borg will never complete the mission, they would need 3 Leadership to get the alien-abducted Borg back. Second, "Gender is irrelevant." The Borg are unaffected by Love Interests or Parallel Romance, for example. Third, "Bonus points are irrelevant" (to the Borg, that is). If your Borg overcome Microvirus, they do not earn the 5 bonus points. Just discard the dilemma. However, if they encounter something that would give points to their non-Borg opponent (such as Lemon-Aid), the opponent scores normally. You may be wondering how the Borg can ever overcome a "wall" dilemma such as Hologram Ruse (requires INTEGRITY >30 + CUNNING >30), if they are required to send down one scout at a time to encounter it. Every scout will be stopped! What you can do is send down enough individual scouts to supply the required conditions. Each of them will be stopped for the rest of this turn, but on your next turn, now that you have them all there, they can continue scouting together and overcome the dilemma. Of course, like any other Away Team, they must then continue to the next dilemma; they can't "abort" a scouting attempt when they aren't stopped, any more than a regular Away Team can abort a mission attempt. If they become stopped again, you may split them up into separate Away Teams on your next turn. Scouting a space location works the same way (encountering dilemmas), except that the entire crew of a ship is involved in scouting, just as in a mission attempt. Enemy ships are scouted by beaming over a single scout to do whatever is allowed by the objective card. If that scout is stopped or killed, you may beam over another, and so on, as when scouting a planet. When there are no dilemmas left at the location (or when you have Borg aboard an enemy ship at the end of your turn), you have completed scouting. Important: If scouting is directed on an objective, you *must* complete scouting before you can continue with the objective's instructions. This will not be part of the card text, but rather is part of the rules. Assimilate Planet says, "Your Borg may scout that planet. If you have Borg at that spaceline location, you may probe." This may sound like it is only required to have Borg there in order to probe, but you must complete scouting first. Keep in mind the similarity to mission attempts. A mission may require Geology to solve the mission, but just bringing Geology to the mission doesn't solve it and score points if you haven't yet encountered and resolved all the dilemmas. Resolving any dilemmas present is an inherent part of the mission-solving process, even though it doesn't say this on the mission card. Likewise, it is an inherent part of the objective-completion process (if the objective mentions scouting). Probing for the Objective's Outcome Once you have completed scouting, you are ready to probe for an outcome to your objective, starting on your next turn. You may not probe for that objective on the same turn you completed scouting, or on the same turn that you participated in any battles at that location (including your opponent's previous turn). The objective may also have other conditions you must fulfill before probing; Assimilate Planet requires you to have Borg "at that spaceline location." In other words, your Borg may beam back to their ship, but at least one Borg must remain on a ship or on the planet at that location--you can't just take them all elsewhere in anticipation of your next objective. At the end of your turn (the next turn after completing scouting, that is), just before your card draw, turn over and look at the top card of your draw deck. This is your "probe card." Look on the probe card for an icon that matches one of the icons in the objective's probe list. Assimilate Planet has only one outcome listed, which requires either a blue Borg Communication subcommand icon or a red Borg Defense subcommand icon to appear on the probe card. If one of the required icons appears on the probe card (on a Borg Cube, for example, or a Borg drone), replace the probe card on your draw deck, and do what the objective says: First, place the objective card on the planet, which is now assimilated. You score the 25 points for the objective. Then, if you wish, you may download one Objective card and put it in play. Once you placed the objective on the assimilated planet, it is no longer your current objective; this outcome allows you to get your next objective into play immediately. (Of course, you might already have a Hidden Agenda objective face down on the table, in which case you may not wish to download another one.) However, if the probe card is Amanda Rogers, for example, the probe is unsuccessful, because the subcommand icons do not appear on Amanda Rogers. Replace the probe card on your draw deck. You may probe again on your next turn. Note that you will normally draw the probe card as your card draw immediately after you are done probing (unless you download from your draw deck as part of the outcome, in which case you must shuffle the deck). Some objectives may have more than one possible outcome. For example, an Event or Interrupt icon may trigger outcome #1, while an Alternate Universe icon might trigger outcome #2. If the probe card in such a case was an Alternate Universe Interrupt card (e.g., Brain Drain), then you would execute the outcome whose icon appears first in the probe list, in this case, outcome #1. Note in the rules the consequences of a successful assimilation for Assimilate Planet. The mission may no longer be attempted or scored by your opponent (though if he already scored it, he keeps the points). Seeded artifacts are placed on the planet to be acquired later by a Survey Drone or by non-Borg personnel; and any opposing personnel, equipment, and landed ships (not those in orbit) on the planet, as well as opposing stations and outposts, are assimilated also. In summary, the Borg complete objectives by: 1. Playing an objective card and selecting its target 2. Scouting the target planet, space location, or ship (if so directed on the objective) to resolve all dilemmas and Q-Flashes present 3. Probing for one of the listed outcomes on the objective card and carrying out the instructions for that outcome Next time, I'll look a little more closely at the objective Assimilate Planet itself, and talk about strategies in using it. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR36 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Assimilate Planet" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #36@{ub} Aefvadh! As I promised last time, here is a more in-depth look at the first Borg objective that has been revealed. "Where's the Romulan viewpoint?," you may ask. After all, this is a Borg Use Only objective. Well, for one thing, even the most dedicated Romulan may decide to take a Delta Quadrant holiday and check out the new affiliation. For another, by examining how the Borg may use this objective, we can find ways for your Romulans (and all of the other affiliations) to fight back, when the Borg try to... @{b}ASSIMILATE PLANET@{ub} Objective, common, 25 points [Borg Use Only], [Hidden Agenda] Plays on table. Target an unassimilated planet on spaceline (except a homeworld) with a point box showing at least 35 points. Your Borg may scout that planet. If you have Borg at that spaceline location, you may probe: [Com], [Def]: Assimilated. Place on planet. May download one Objective card. The first thing to keep in mind about the Borg is that your old strategy of playing Romulan-only missions, to cut down the possibility of mission-stealing, is useless against the Borg, to whom affiliation icons are quite irrelevant. They're never going to attempt your missions or their own, so they don't give a hoot what icons are on your missions. On the other hand, they're *very* interested in the point value of those planet missions, because anything less than 35 points is (conceptually) too low-level technologically for them to want to assimilate. So while previously you may have tried to fill your spaceline with 35- and 40-pont missions (or higher) in hopes of a two-mission win (with some bonus points here and there), now that the Borg have found the Alpha Quadrant you may well want to reconsider the attractiveness of those 30- and (gasp!) 25-pointers, formerly disdained as mere chicken feed. Covert Rescue, Plunder Site, Strategic Diversion, Excavation, and even Relief Mission, plus others, will all be safe from assimilation. If your Borg opponent has based his strategy on assimilating planets, you will have forced him to rely only on assimilating his own. This has several advantages. First, you severely limit the choices he has for planets to assimilate; he may have to go a lot further to reach enough of them to score 100 points. His missions will be harder to scout, because he won't know what dilemmas you have seeded, while at yours he knows exactly what dilemmas he has placed (maybe Edo Probes or Love Interests that will have no effect on him). And because you can't attempt and solve a planet mission once it has been assimilated, you want to prevent him from "stealing" your missions by assimilation, leaving you nothing to solve. Sure, it's going to be a slower victory for you to do three 30-point missions with some bonus points on the side, but it's better than having your New Contact and Hunt for DNAProgram scooped up by the Borg, who couldn't care less about the difficulty of the mission requirements. Now that you have cornered the Borg into scouting their own missions, how about dilemmas? There are all kinds of nasty planet dilemmas out there. We're not going to know just how easy or difficult it will be for the Borg to pass various dilemmas until we see what skills the drones and the Borg Queen have, and how other cards in the set may enhance the Borg abilities, but there are a few things we do know already. Gender-related dilemmas will be ignored by the Borg, so Love Interests, Matriarchal Society, Parallel Romance, and Anaphasic Organism won't do much for you. The same goes for android-hosers. Points-related dilemmas are irrelevant also, so heavy reliance on point-suckers like The Higher...The Fewer, Punishment Zone, and Edo Probe will get you nowhere. And the Borg are forced to red-shirt, so one-shot killers, especially ones with no conditions like Armus or Hunter Gangs, should easily pick off a scout or two. Finally, once the Borg player manages to finish scouting the target planet, he still has to probe his draw deck until he comes up with a card showing either a blue (Communication) or red (Defense) subcommand icon. He can't probe on the turn that he completed scouting, but has to wait till the end of his next turn. Furthermore, he must keep at least one Borg at that spaceline location through the turn that he probes. And most important, perhaps, he can't probe if his Borg participate in any battles at the target planet location during that turn, *or* on his opponent's immediately prior turn. This gives you one way to delay his assimilation of the planet: you can attack his Borg at that location during your intervening turn. Risky? Very, because he will then be free to counterattack any of your forces still at that location on his turn. If he is using a Borg Cube ship, this may be suicidal, but it may be worth considering if you can attack with an expendable ship and crew while your main crew works on a mission elsewhere. If you are the Borg player, planning an Assimilate Planet strategy, make sure you supply your own assimilation fodder in the form of 35-point or higher planet missions, just in case your opponent read this and brought in all 30's or less. You don't particularly care what the affiliations or requirements are for yourself, so you might as well make them exotic enough that they won't be likely to tempt your opponent to try to solve them himself. If your opponent did use higher point planets, don't tip your hand immediately by playing the objective and immediately targeting one of his planets. A bad draw may delay you from getting to the planet with enough drones to begin scouting, and meanwhile he may either attempt and complete the mission and get his points and artifact before you can assimilate it (though this does save you the trouble of encountering your own dilemmas, it is advantageous to you to prevent him from scoring the mission in the first place), or he may simply avoid confrontation with you by diverting to a different mission--and once you have targeted a mission, you can't switch to a different one. So if your objective card comes up early, simply play it face down--it does have the Hidden Agenda icon--and let your opponent wonder what your strategy will be.When you are ready to start scouting, only then do you have to turn the card up and name a target. (My statement in Review #35 that you are not required to play the Hidden Agenda face down was incorrect. You *must* play a Hidden Agenda face down. However, you may turn it over and activate it immediately, or later.) A few words about probing. Remember that the probe icon may appear anywhere on the probe card, in any context. The most obvious place you might expect to find the subcommand icons would be on a Borg drone's card, and if you have lots of spare drones in your deck, probably 2 out of 3 of them will have one of the needed icons. All subcommand icons also also appear on the Borg Cube, so a few cubes in your deck are also a useful source. However, if you have to get out a lot of drones and ships to work with, you may deplete your deck of these icon sources. Fortunately, there is one card with the very icons you need, which you will almost certainly have more of in your deck if your strategy is to assimilate planets: the objective card itself, Assimilate Planet. The Major's Combos: - My array of 30-point missions + your deck full of Assimilate planet objectives. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR37 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Ready Room Door" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #37@{ub} Aefvadh! First Contact is just full of interesting new concepts. This time, it's a doorway card that is literally just that, a doorway. The captain has something to say, so open up the... @{b}READY ROOM DOOR@{ub} Doorway, uncommon Once per turn, plays to download to one of your ships its matching commander (draw no cards this turn) OR to download one Captain's Order (Captain's Log, Lower Decks, Yellow Alert, Senior Staff Meeting or any card so marked). After use, discard doorway; place it atop your draw deck; or place it atop one of your Captain's Order events to protect that event from nullification. At last, we find out what that mysterious new term "Captain's Order" means, seen so far on the Assign Mission Specialists objective and the Mission Debriefing event. And a powerful concept it is. When the Captain wants something done, he walks out of his ready room, gives the order and, presto! It's carried out. Too many times, I've tried to include Captain's Log in my decks, especially since the appearance of Sirol, Taris, and the Terix in QC provided the Romulans with *five* matching Captain's Log sets. But I don't remember ever getting it to work. I could get the ship, but not the captain, or vice versa. Or I couldn't turn up the Captain's Log itself. Even Q's Tent wasn't much help, because I needed enough other contingency cards there that I couldn't afford to load it with CL and a couple of matching captain-ship sets (and CL isn't so attractive with only one ship to benefit). And then there was the dismal prospect of a Kevin zapping my hard-won Captain's Log before I could benefit from it. Now...no problem. Put a couple of ships in your Tent where you can pull them early, and a couple more in your deck, plus all the matching commanders and a load of Ready Room Doors. Tent your ships, download the commanders, then download Captain's Log *and* protect it from nullification. Quick armada. Or how about Lower Decks? Romulan decks tend to use quite a few universals, just because they have only one each unique MEDICAL and SECURITY, as well as the fact that you can base an Archaeology-Treachery deck around Taul and Galathon. These guys badly need the INTEGRITY +2, if nothing else. Now you can be pretty sure of getting Lower Decks in place and protected early enough to do some good. (BTW, the Klingons will be well served by this ploy to boost their dim-witted commons' CUNNING to reasonable levels, and the Feds will benefit most from the STRENGTH. Something for everyone here.) Now, of course, a lot of universals have only one skill, making them semi-useless...wait a minute, making them *Mission Specialists*! So not only can you boost their stats with a downloaded Lower Decks, you can download the Assign Mission Specialists objective, which in turn lets you download the mission specialists themselves. It won't work for Taul and Galathon, but Palteth, Selok, and Takket are all fair game. Choose your missions to fit their single skills, and reap 5-point bonuses every time they help solve a mission with those skills. One problem shared by many Romulan personnel, including most of the universals, is odd CUNNING. Hunter Gangs has a better than average chance of decimating a Romulan Away Team. So download a Yellow Alert, to increase their CUNNING by 1 to an even number. It will prevent your opponent from using Red Alert, and while it does the same to you, with all those downloadable personnel you probably won't miss it. Doing a space deck? Download a Senior Staff Meeting for each mission, to get rid of the first dilemma. This one's not an event so it can't be protected by the doorway, so you'll want to have Q2 handy. Beware of Revolving Doors! While they don't affect the playing of the doorway from your hand (Wrong Doors are the hazard there), if you're protecting a Captain's Order event with a Ready Room Door, that door can be "closed" by a Revolving Door like any other doorway. When it's closed its game text is inactive, so the underlying event can be Kevined, discarding both the event and the Ready Room Door. Door-Net can do the same thing, but you choose where to put a Door-Net. It will probably be easier to get along with a closed AU Door or Q's Tent for a while than to leave your precious Captain's Order vulnerable. Now, I'm just waiting to see what other Captain's Orders will surface. The Major's Combos: - Ready Room Door x3 + Captain's Log + Taris + Haakona + Sirol + Terix. What Romulan deck *doesn't* include Taris and Sirol anyway? - Ready Room Door + Assign Mission Specialists + Parem + Selok. Kick- start your Treachery deck. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR38 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Patrol Neutral Zone" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #38@{ub} 12/14/97 Aefvadh! First Contact doesn't include many missions, no doubt because of the narrow focus of the movie. But the two that have been shown, both universals, take on a particular importance with the new rule on replacement of duplicated unique missions with universal ones. The previous universal missions have been non-attemptable and pointless (as opposed to useless); if we were restricted to those for our substitutes, it would be possible to have a spaceline containing only 6 attemptable missions, narrowing your options considerably. But now we have two universal missions that can be solved for points, and by far the one with the greatest potential is... @{b}PATROL NEUTRAL ZONE@{ub} Uncommon Space Mission, universal Fed/Rom, 10X points, Span 5 Leadership + No opposing ships in Neutral Zone X= number of Neutral Zone locations in play @{i}"Nebula at Neutral Zone: Prevent incursions along border of Federation/Romulan Neutral Zone."@{ui} This initially unassuming mission can provide a real bonanza, particularly for a Romulan player. Because it's universal, you can seed more than one, and the more you seed, the more each one is worth. The only skill required is Leadership, and the Romulans have plenty of that. This strategy is most useful to the Romulans, because they have the advantage of already having three unique, Romulan-only missions located "in the Neutral Zone," two of them planets. They can build an all-Neutral Zone section of the spaceline without running afoul of Balancing Act, with four missions worth 60 points each, and still have a couple of standard "backup" missions in case they can't get rid of an opposing ship. Because the new "Regions of Space" rule specifies that all missions located "in the Neutral Zone" must be seeded adjacent to each other, a compact, easy to reach mission-solving zone is all but guaranteed (your opponent's *Space could intervene). The Federation, in contrast, has no other Neutral Zone missions, and must either rely on six Patrol Neutral Zones (risky, because of both inherent Federation difficulties in eliminating opposition, and the danger of heavy penalties from Balancing Act), or else play two unrelated planet missions, making the PNZs worth only 40 points each, and with the planet missions possibly located far away from the Neutral Zone. The catch, of course, is the requirement that you must have no opposing ships in the Neutral Zone in order to complete the mission. Your opponent only has to park a ship--even a cloaked one--at any one of the Neutral Zone locations to prevent you from completing any Patrol Neutral Zones. You have a several options to force it to leave or eliminate it. Because PNZ is a "Nebula at Neutral Zone", you could play Isabella on the ship to destroy it, if the parking space is one of the PNZs and there is no Youth aboard (or at least make it leave to pick up a Youth, long enough for you to complete the mission). An Incoming Message for the appropriate affiliation should also suffice to get the opponent out of your hair long enough to complete a mission. Wormhole it away as it starts to move toward the Neutral Zone, toward the wrong end of the spaceline. A Temporal Rift will probably make it disappear long enough for you to complete *two* PNZs and win. If your opponent is incautious enough to leave the ship empty, play a Ship Seizure and haul it away. A Warp Core Breach will also come in handy if he didn't want to tie up an ENGINEER on patrol duty, though it will cost you a card play. And how about mining the space locations with Anti-Matter Pods? Just keep plenty of Navigation aboard your own ships. Then there is the straightforward approach of attacking and destroying the offending ship. Be prepared with La Forge Maneuver or Tachyon Detection Grid to force decloaking so you can attack. Although Tachyon Detection Grid requires you have four ships in play, unlike La Forge Maneuver (which can only expose a cloaked ship if the next action is an attack on the ship) it can also be used to enable playing Isabella or Incoming Message, which cannot be played on a cloaked ship. And you may find it very useful to have all those ships in play, because you can send three of them to destroy the intruder while the fourth remains at the dilemma-cleared mission with a Leadership personnel, unstopped and waiting to score those 60 points. Federation options are much more limited, as they cannot normally attack. A Husnock or two and a totally non-aligned crew will get around that restriction, as will Incoming Message: Attack Authorization coupled with Treachery aboard. The non-attack methods will of course work also. The universal nature of Patrol Neutral Zone also makes it very useful substitute for a duplicate unique mission. If you're playing Romulan or Federation, it will be worth at least 10 points more than *Space or *Nebula; and even if you're playing Klingon, its point box can at least save you from tripping a Balancing Act penalty if one of your two unique space missions is the duplicate. The Major's Combos: - Patrol Neutral Zone x4 + Covert Installation + Iconia Investigation: four missions worth 60 points each. - Patrol Neutral Zone + Assign Mission Specialists + Tallus: make that 65 points each. - Patrol Neutral Zone + Sisters of Duras + non-aligned support crew: even the Klingons can get in on this strategy. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR39 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Ooby Dooby" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #39@{ub} Aefvadh! Although I am a well-known fan of wall dilemmas like Ancient Computer and Shaka, followed by personnel eliminators like Cardassian Trap, once in a while something a little different will strike my fancy. And it has been struck, by what may well be the most "different" dilemma yet... @{b}OOBY DOOBY@{ub} Dilemma, Planet or Space, Rare @{i}"Well, you wiggle to the left, you wiggle to the right; you do the Ooby Dooby with all your might; Ooby Dooby; Ooby Dooby; Ooby Dooby Ooby Dooby, Dooby Dooby doo wah, doo wah, doo wah."@{ui} Draw one card for each non-android Youth present, then discard one card for each Music present. All Youth, Music and Zefram Cochrane present are "stopped." Another example of the "filter" dilemma described in the card extra for Blended, Ooby Dooby has no conditions, so it stops only Youth, Music, and Zefram Cochrane (who certainly must have neither). What kind of decks will this be good against? Flute decks: They'll have lots of Music (Data, Juliana Tainer, Picard, Riker, and multiple McKnights or Obarakehs), so will have to discard lots of cards if they use those personnel to attempt their missions. Of course, if they use McKnights, they'll get to draw some too. Android decks: They won't get to draw cards for the android Youth (though they may not have to discard many either), and all will be stopped because every android except Lore has either Youth or Music. Borg decks: Yes, that's right, Borg decks. The ones that use Locutus of Borg and an Interlink Drone to share skills. Because the sharing is not optional--if you have the Interlink Drone in the hive and [Com] drones with any Away Team or on all ships, they all automatically possess all the regular skills in the hive--having Locutus around to provide diplomacy and an automatically assimilated counterpart may prove a liability in facing Ooby Dooby. The trick is to seed it after a wall dilemma that can be overcome by skill sharing and enough drones. If the Borg player gets past the wall dilemma this way instead of using an Adapt: Negate Obstruction, all the Borg he sent down will have Locutus's shared Music skill, causing the player to discard that many cards and stopping them all again. But this is also a dilemma you can profitably seed under your own mission. Think of it as a Sarjenka that gives you card draws instead of points. Seed this last, encounter it with an Away Team or crew consisting entirely of non-android, non-Musical Youth (an easy task for Romulans, with Sela, D'Tan, Varel, Jaron, and others; just keep Taris out of this one), and get free card draws without expending a card play on Kivas Fajo-Collector (and it's not nullifiable). Without Music, you won't have to discard anything, and with everyone stopped, you needn't worry about continuing the mission attempt with an otherwise unsuitable Away Team. Just don't play a Q's Tent first on the turn you try this, or you won't be able to draw your cards. For once, you can be happy that the Romulans are so deficient in Music! The Major's Combos: - Ooby Dooby + Investigate Legend: As long as you need all that Youth in your deck, why not get some free card draws from them? - Ooby Dooby + Wind Dancer: Stop the Youth and Music, then (with few exceptions) stop everyone else. - Ooby Dooby + Security Precautions: You thought your androids would get you past this easily. Guess again. - Ooby Dooby + Crystalline Entity (in space) + Lore: Only the Borg might survive this one. - Shaka + Ooby Dooby + opponent's Locutus: 5-6 discards. And for Federation players only (who said the Romulan Reviews were of no interest to you Feds?): - Ooby Dooby + Assign Mission Specialists x2 + Calloway, Giusti, Linda Larson, and Simon Tarses: Download your Youth, then draw 4 extra cards. - Ooby Dooby + McKnight x6: Exchange a bad hand for something new. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR40 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/First Contact Dilemmas" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #40@{ub} Aefvadh! I know a lot of people have been waiting for me to update my dilemma facts list for the new dilemmas in First Contact (and one from Fajo). Although I haven't gotten the two lists integrated yet--and that may take a while--I have produced a separate listing of the dilemmas for my website, in the same format as the previous table. A few explanations are in order, so here is what you need to know about... @{b}FIRST CONTACT DILEMMAS@{ub} There are a few new twists in some of the new dilemmas. A number of them are so-called "filter" dilemmas, which filter out and stop (or kill) certain classes of personnel, while forcing others to continue. While not totally new (Chinese Finger Puzzle and Parallel Romance are examples of filters), there are many more in FC than we have seen before. Blended, Don't Call Me Ahab, Shot In The Back, and Strict Dress Code are all filters. In general, filters will *not* say "discard dilemma", because under the general dilemma rules, they don't need to; if there are no conditions, the dilemma will always be discarded (as long as it doesn't enter play). And because there are no conditions, the rest of the Away Team (other than the specified targets) is not stopped and must continue. (Blended is actually a combination of a wall dilemma and a filter; you *must* bring certain personnel to the mission to get past it, and then those targets are stopped while the others must continue.) Two dilemmas, Scout Encounter and Undetected Beam-In, have no direct effect on the Away Team or crew, but instead allow the opponent to download a scout ship and crew, or Borg drones or Rogue Borg. Undetected Beam-In provides an exception to the rule that dilemmas only affect the ship and crew, or Away Team, that encounters the dilemma, because the download is "to this location," which may include other ships (of either player), an outpost, or the planet (if any). Again, with no conditions, these dilemmas do not stop and are automatically discarded after use. Balancing Act is designed to promote balance between planet and space missions, and thus has no effect whatsoever on the atempting Away Team or crew. If you choose to play with mostly planet or mostly space missions, you risk losing 50 points each time one of these dilemmas is triggered by either player. A 4-2 split is safe (barring Supernovas or Black Holes), but 5-1 and 6-0 are not. The penalty affects Borg players as well as non-Borg. Dead End is a wall dilemma with three twists. First, the "conditions" to pass it are not skills or personnel; the only condition is that you already have at least 50 points. If you do, you discard it and proceed. The second twist comes into play if you don't have 50 points: not only are you stopped, but the dilemma is placed on top of the mission and stays there indefinitely, preventing anyone with less than 50 points from attempting the mission (though Borg may scout). The third twist is its "unique" designation. Fortunately, its uniqueness prevents you from reaching a Dead End at *all* your missions; any subsequent ones encountered that were seeded by the same player are discarded. My First Raygun even relies on a probe to determine its outcome. If your deck is full of Events, Interrupts, Alternate Universe icon cards, or Enterprise-E personnel, you run a high risk of getting a personnel killed. The lesser penalty, if no probe icons are encountered, is that one personnel is stopped. The other burning question about dilemmas is how they affect the Borg. I'm still investigating this question, and will publish my results when they are ready, but for now remember that most dilemmas affect the Borg just as they affect anyone else. A few exceptions: € Gender-related text has no effect (e.g., Love Interests). Such dilemmas would be discarded. € If the dilemma refers specifically to a mission attempt, that text has no meaning to the Borg, because they don't attempt missions. Edo Probe, for example, would be discarded. € Bonus points have no meaning to the Borg, but play the dilemma out normally otherwise. If they meet the conditions for Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease, the dilemma is discarded; they do not earn the points. Royale Casino sidegames might win or lose points for the opponent, but not for the Borg. The Higher...The Fewer would simply be discarded. € The Borg Queen is neither unique nor universal, so she cannot be trapped in a Cardassian Trap or Rascal-ized. € The Borg may pass dilemmas they have encountered on a previous turn with Adapt: Negate Obstruction. For the listing of First Contact dilemmas, go to my website (URL listed below). I will also mail it as two text files to the discussion mailing list. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR41 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #41@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR42 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Assimilating Homeworlds for Fun and Profit, Part I" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #42@{ub} Major Rakal's Romulan Review #42 01/04/98 Aefvadh! A few reviews back, we looked at Assimilate Planet, a 25-point Borg objective that can wreak havoc on your mission-solving plans if the Borg get to your missions first. This time we'll look at the first part of another Borg strategy, one that involves (usually) the combination of two objectives, nets the Borg anywhere from 40 to 70 points, and can effectively eliminate you from the game. Sounds nasty, doesn't it? Come along and observe the Borg strategy of... @{b}ASSIMILATING HOMEWORLDS FOR FUN AND PROFIT: PART 1@{ub} Before you can assimilate a homeworld, first you need a "counterpart." A counterpart is a male of the affiliation whose homeworld you wish to assimilate. You can't just assimilate him as a drone in the ordinary way (with a Talon Drone); he must be assimilated according to the Assimilate Counterpart objective. @{b}ASSIMILATE COUNTERPART@{ub} Objective, uncommon [Borg Use Only], [Hidden Agenda] Plays on table. Target an opponent's unique male personnel. Your Borg may beam to and battle target's crew or Away Team. One of your Borg who engages target in combat may abduct target. If target is occupying an Assimilation Table, you may probe: [Com],[Nav],[Def]: Assimilated as a counterpart. Place on target. Worth 5 points per [skill dot] while objective on target. Like most Borg objectives, this one is a Hidden Agenda, so you play it face down and turn it up only when you wish to activate it. In this case, there are two excellent reasons why you may not wish--or be able to--turn it up immediately. First, when you activate it, you must immediately target your opponent's unique male personnel; and if you want to assimilate a homeworld, it must be an affiliated personnel matching a homeworld on the spaceline. If he has no unique males in play, you cannot activate this objective. Second, it is to your advantage not to tip your hand to your opponent as to whom you want to target--or even that you plan to abduct a counterpart--until you have maneuvered to a position where you can engage him in battle. If you tell him your intentions too early, he may endeavour to get that personnel killed by a dilemma (if the target is killed at any time, your objective must be discarded), or alternatively, to abandon him, making it easy for you to abduct him but possibly thwarting your plans to inflict battle damage on him. Once you have targeted the prospective counterpart, your objective allows you to beam any number of drones (you aren't scouting) to the target's location (you must have a Transport Drone to let you beam through his SHIELDS, if he is on a ship or outpost) and initiate battle with his crew or Away Team. You will want a large enough Away Team to guarantee that the counterpart will have to face one of your Borg in personal combat; otherwise, you cannot abduct him and risk having him killed at the end of the battle. The moment one of your Borg engages the target in combat, he may abduct him, removing the target and the escort from the battle, and if possible, beaming back to the Borg ship, where they will be stopped. Finish off the personnel battle, and everyone else will be stopped. After you have abducted the target, your Borg no longer have any motivation for battling the opponent unless he counterattacks on his turn. You will probably want to beam your Borg back to your ship on your following turn. Next you place the abducted target on an Assimilation Table, a Borg Only equipment card that you could have aboard your ship, though you may prefer to have it on your outpost in the Delta Quadrant. The relevant game text says "Holds one personnel (occupant killed if table destroyed)." Aboard your ship, it could be destroyed by an untimely Disruptor Overload, killing the counterpart you just abducted. To make it easy to get your Assimilation Table, have a Procurement Drone, who may download Borg Only equipment cards. Once the target is on the Assimilation Table, you can start to probe to complete the objective. The probe requirements are liberal: any one of the subcommand icons, anywhere on the probe card, means a successful probe. When the probe is successful, place the objective card on the target to indicate that he has been assimilated as a counterpart. The objective is worth 5 points for each red skill dot icon on the counterpart, but only while the objective is on the counterpart; if he is killed or you turn him into a drone with He Will Make An Excellent Drone, you lose the points. Your new counterpart has all three subcommand icons in place of his previous staff icon, his STRENGTH increases by 3, and he retains his normal INTEGRITY and CUNNING. He also keeps his gender, species, and lore, but otherwise is transformed as a drone would be. Sounds like a lot of trouble? If you have Locutus of Borg, he is already an "assimilated counterpart" (according to his lore) and may be used to assimilate the Federation homeworld, Earth. If your intention is to disrupt the timeline, that may be the easiest way to acquire your counterpart, eliminating one step from that lengthy procedure (which I will look at in a later review). But Locutus does not give you points like Assimilate Counterpart does; and if your opponent is not playing Federation, and you want to cause him the maximum grief by assimilating his homeworld, you'll have to assimilate one of his personnel for your counterpart. How do you select a counterpart target? Obviously, he must match the affiliation of the homeworld you want to assimilate. If he has more than one affiliation icon, you may use that counterpart to assimilate both homeworlds. So far, that strategy is limited to Stefan DeSeve, with whom you could assimilate both Earth and Romulus. The other considerations are his skills (might as well get someone with skills useful to your hive) and the number of skill dot icons he has (5 points each). Suppose you are playing one of the traditional affiliations and meet a Borg opponent who is bent on assimilating one of your personnel as a counterpart. What are your defenses? - Use female, universal, and non-aligned personnel. - If you know his intentions, stay away from him and don't get the target caught in a stopped Away Team. Cloak your ship. - Use the target as a red shirt and get him killed by a dilemma. With his named target dead, your opponent will be forced to discard his objective and play another. He can't just choose another target. - When he beams aboard your ship, use Launch Portal to help the target escape. - If he engages you in combat, play Prepare Assault Teams and hope that he chooses the wrong team to engage. - Cancel the battle by sacrificing a hologram with I'm A Doctor, Not A Doorstop. - If the target is engaged and abducted, play Mercy Kill to kill the target and again, discard his objective. - On your turn, after the personnel battle, move away from his ship (with his stopped Borg still aboard), perhaps depriving him of adequate staffing to move a Borg Cube. - If he keeps his assimilation table aboard his ship to avoid a trip back to his outpost, destroy it with a Disruptor Overload. Next time, we'll look at part 2 of the strategy, the Assimilate Homeworld objective. Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR43 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/Assimating Homeworlds for Fun and Profit, Part 2" @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #43@{ub} Aefvadh! Last time, we examined Assimilate Counterpart, the necessary preliminary step to assimilating a homeworld. Now let's move on to the second step in... @{b}ASSIMILATING HOMEWORLDS FOR FUN AND PROFIT: PART 2@{ub} So you've got yourself a counterpart, either the pre-assimilated Locutus of Borg, or one of your opponent's personnel, transformed with Assimilate Counterpart. That's one of the targets you will need in order to assimilate a homeworld. The other target is, of course, the homeworld itself. Let's look at the objective: @{b}ASSIMILATE HOMEWORLD@{ub} Objective, rare, 40 points [Borg Use Only], [Hidden Agenda] Plays on table. Target both an unassimilated homeworld on spaceline and your matching counterpart. Your Borg may scout that homeworld. If your counterpart is at that spaceline location, you may probe: [Com]: Assimilated. Place on homeworld. Cards of that affiliation (except [AU] cards) may not report to any outpost for rest of game. This looks very much like Assimilate Planet, except that it's worth an extra 15 points, and may target only the very planets that Assimilate Planet must ignore: homeworlds. What is a homeworld? It is a planet mission whose location is designated in its lore as being the homeworld to a specific affiliation. So far, there are homeworld missions corresponding to each of the three fully-realized affiliations. - Cloaked Mission: @{i}"Romulus: Secretly escort covert operatives to the Romulan homeworld."@{ui} - Expose Covert Supply: @{i}"Qo'noS: Uncover covert supply lines supporting rebels on the Klingon Homeworld."@{ui} - Espionage Mission: @{i}"Earth: Infiltrate Starfleet Headquarters and compile an intelligence dossier on this Federation homeworld."@{ui} Note that homeworld missions are not normally attemptable by that homeworld's affiliation (except perhaps by Espionage or some other workaround). The Romulan homeworld is a mission that only Klingons can attempt; the Klingon homeworld is a mission that only Romulans can attempt; and the Federation homeworld is a mission that can be attempted by anyone *except* the Federation. The practical result of this is that your opponent will rarely, if ever, include his homeworld mission among his own mission cards. Therefore, if you plan to assimilate your opponent's homeworld, you will have to include the homeworlds in your own missions, and you can never count on your opponent to clean the dilemmas out for you. Once you have your counterpart, play the Assimilate Homeworld objective as your card play. Assimilate Counterpart does not allow you to download your next objective, like Assimilate Planet does, so you either have to draw it normally, retrieve it from Q's Tent, or, if you have the Borg Queen in play, go through a two-step download: use the Queen's skill to download A Change of Plans at the end of the turn when you assimilate the counterpart, then use A Change of Plans at the start of your next turn to download the Assimilate Homeworld objective. When you play Assimilate Homeworld and activate it, you name the homeworld that matches your counterpart's former affiliation. As noted in the last review, with a multi-affiliation counterpart, you could select any of the matching homeworlds. Now you may scout that homeworld. Scouting proceeds exactly as for Assimilate Planet; you may send down one scout at a time to encounter dilemmas and Q-Flashes, sending another as each one gets stopped, killed, etc. Be extremely careful with risking your counterpart; if he is killed, your objective must be discarded. When all dilemmas and Q-Flashes are eliminated, scouting is complete. On your next turn, if your counterpart is present at the homeworld location (he may be aboard your ship) and assuming you have not battled at that location in the meantime, you may begin to probe for a successful outcome. The probe requirement is more stringent for Assimilate Homeworld: *only* a [Com] subcommand icon will do. However, as it appears on most of the Borg objectives, on Borg Cubes, and on a third of the drones, it should not be too difficult to get. When your probe is successful, place the objective on the homeworld to mark it assimilated and to score the 40 points. The final effect of the objective is the one most devastating to your opponent: he may not report *any* cards of that affiliation, except those with an [AU] icon, to any outpost for the remainder of the game. He will be limited to the personnel and ships he already has in play, plus any [AU] or non-aligned cards he may have in his deck. He may also use a Devidian Door to bring a personnel into play aboard a ship or on a planet. This restriction should hamper him enough to allow you to complete one or two more objectives to reach 100 points. One advantage to using Locutus of Borg as your counterpart--even if your opponent is already playing Federation--is that you should be able to assimilate Earth much earlier in the game, before your opponent has time to get most of his personnel and ships in play. You aren't strictly limited to assimilating only one homeworld, either. A multi-affiliation counterpart would allow you to assimilate both homeworlds in succession. Or, in a more timeconsuming process, you can turn your counterpart into a drone with He Will Make An Excellent Drone, assimilate another one, and assimilate a second homeworld. This works best against a non-Federation opponent, where you use Locutus of Borg first to assimilate Earth, turn him into a drone, then assimilate another counterpart who will be worth points to you while you assimilate his homeworld. But Assimilate Homeworld doesn't have to be the end of this strategy, especially if your opponent is playing Federation. It's only the preludeto the even nastier strategy of timeline disruption...next time, right here in the Romulan Reviews. The Major's Combos: - Assimilate Homeworld + Revolving Door on opponent's AU Door: Hope you have lots of non-aligned personnel. - Assimilate Homeworld + all three homeworlds: You're prepared for three-quarters of your opponents. -- Jolan tru, Major Rakal Tal Shiar ******************************************************************* Visit Major Rakal's Romulan ST:CCG Home Page at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kem5/Rakal.html __________---------o---------______ /~~ ____=========/~ ~~~~~~----___ /' // || /' __----~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~~\ /' O~ /'| ]~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~\ ) o| |//~~~__/'_/ ]__|____________/________________/___ __/ |/~~~/___/========_ \ ______----~~~ | _-~ ~~---------------~~~~~~ `~ Kathy McCracken (kem5@cornell.edu) Decipher ST:CCG Ambassador for Central New York ******************************************************************* @EndNode @Node MRRR44 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #44@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR45 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #45@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR46 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #46@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR47 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #47@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR48 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #48@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR49 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #49@{ub} @EndNode @Node MRRR50 "STCCG.guide/Major Rakal's Romulan Review/ " @TOC "STCCG:romreview.guide/MRRR" @{u}@{b}@{fg highlight}Major Rakal's Romulan Review@{fg text}@{ub}@{uu} @{b}Major Rakal's Romulan Review #50@{ub} @EndNode