June Errata

by Matthew Zinno, 1E Errata Team Leader

5th June 2017

The Errata Team has been hard at work on more cards in need of fixes. This month, three cards come off the ban list, and some others are being altered as well. And although we're choosing to release these changes (all effective immediately) in the middle of Regionals season, we believe that none of these changes are likely to break any existing OTF decks. (One or two might actually be the basis for new ones!)

Revolving Door, which can close a doorway, was banned because of its obvious lockout capabilities. Some decks would get ruined if they couldn't access their Q's Tent; others evaporate if they can no longer play cards. The new version reduces the lockout by giving any player a simple way to revolve the card and reopen the door. It's not free, costing a small amount of resources, but generally available. Revolving Door is also removed from the text on Strategema, which prevented it from being played since before the existence of the ban list.  

War Council seemed to be an attempt to make more like a "real" affiliation, giving them a free-play facility (like a headquarters) and a stat boost (like HQ: War Room). The trouble was, because of the way that mixes with any affiliation, War Council got splashed into decks which already had a headquarters (or some other free-report mechanism like Vidiian Sodality), forming an early version of the concept now popularly called "free report salad". With this new version, we have taken away stacking by making 's mixing abilities behave like other affiliations. Another advantage to -based decks (seen with Sunad in the TNG Block) has been battle, as the rules allow them to freely attack anyone. We felt that retaining that ability in a new archetype might still be too abusive, so they also gain what are now called "standard attack restrictions". When using War Council, can still battle like most affiliations, but not to attack any force that contains a card.  

Temporal Wake was added to the ban list because it could be played offensively to deprive a player of his ship and all its crew (much like Wormhole which has seen its own errata). An expendable ship -- say, Raptor One -- could be flown to the location of your opponent's main solver, then sent time traveling with Temporal Vortex or Wormhole, and Temporal Wake could force the opponent's ship to join them on the field trip. If the opponent's deck is unprepared for being stranded like that, they might be out of the game. The new text eliminates this situation, as now the target must be your own ship. It can still be used defensively -- if your opponent is headed to Montana to Stop First Contact, or to K-7 to kill Kirk, you can follow them to oppose their plans.  

Two cards from the 50th Anniversary expansion had unusual text which was caught late in the proofreading process, and these are fixed here. Battle of Sector 001 had text on the opponent's side which provided a "may" option, but the wording did not make it clear who actually was to make that choice. The Inner Light was accidentally made riskier than intended, by saying that anyone can attempt the mission -- text which frequently appears on missions, but facing a particular player. On an objective card, this wording opened the 40-point mission Investigate Alien Probe to attempts by any affiliation of either player. The intent was only to widen the affiliations for the owner, and so that text has been replaced with the standard text used by Objectives to do this.  

Finally, the Rules Team recently noticed a problem with four of the personnel cards which were reprinted in Homefront II. The reprints in this set were given alternate images, many of them were given new lore (though careful to preserve game-relevant factors like characteristics, and 6th-Rule references). But since then, newer cards have made more aspects of lore become relevant to gameplay. In particular, the more recent card Dramatis Personae has made all personnel card titles in lore relevant, and some of the reprints had indeed had changes in this regard. With this errata release, the lore of the HF2 reprints of Teero Anaydis, Founder Leader, and Admiral Janeway are set back to match the original printings. We were going to do the same for Ambassador Sarek, but his property logo (and image) had actually changed along with his lore, and ST3 lore wouldn't really fit with his ST6 logo and image. So instead, he was slightly changed to have a new special download, replacing the old one. His HF2 incarnation is no longer a reprint, but a new version of the Ambassador Sarek persona.  

We hope you enjoy these new versions of the cards. Big thanks to the other members of the Errata Team, plus everyone else involved, which includes Charlie and Art and Playtesting and Rules and Maelwys -- and Creative, who shortened the lore for a card whose text box had grown.

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