Gaila (Arms Dealer)

by Johannes Klarhauser, Staff Writer

8th April 2008

In Second Edition, the opportunity to spend more than the usual seven counters per turn, and thus to be able to draw and play more cards than your opponent, is one of the most powerful abilities. While other affiliations have to lose points in order to use perennial favourite At What Cost?, the Ferengi have alternative ways to increase the number of counters they can spend.

After new versions of Nog and Rom in What You Leave Behind, The Undiscovered Country brings us another member of Quark's family: Cousin Gaila (you know, the one with his own moon) joins the lines of the Ferengi, and his experience as a dubious arms dealer opens up yet another opportunity to spend additional counters.

If you have an equipment beneath your Ferenginar, Gaila allows you to discard it at the start of your turn to spend four additional counters – that's more than half a turn's worth! To set up this ability, you will have to get cards beneath your headquarters. Cards like Kol, Zek (The Grand Nagus) and Quark's Advice all help you get cards beneath your Ferenginar; Ishka (Moogie) and Rom (Professional Soldier) in turn help you to exchange non-equipment cards under Ferenginar with equipment cards from the top of your deck or your hand. Have a good look through the Ferengi support cards, you might be surprised to find out how many aspects of the game an orange deck can manipulate and control!

Although Gaila is an arms dealer, the most elegant way to trigger his gametext is probably using a non-Hand Weapon equipment: Ferengi Computer prevents a personnel from being stopped at the cost of placing itself beneath Ferenginar; preventing a stop is already a great ability in itself, and can mean the difference between completing a mission and failing the attempt. With Gaila in play, however, you can convert those used Ferengi Computers into four additional counters on subsequent turns.

Apart from his gametext, Gaila is a solid addition to many decks. While the attributes of 3-5-5 and the staple skills of Acquisition and Treachery can be found on several other personnel, his Command icon is extremely valuable for the Ferengi, as is the Programming skill (be sure to check back soon to find out why!). The remaining skills, Geology and Physics, are already useful for many missions, and with Breaking the Ice and We'll Never Know around, they will be more important than ever before. For a cost of two counters, Gaila is certainly a bargain.