The Arsenal: Divided

by Austin Chandler, Staff Writer

12th April 2011

Echo Papa 607 is one of the all-time classic equipment cards that I recommend to players due to its role as an equipment card that goes into battle for you instead of being a support card for that battle. Seeing more cards from that episode in the new Shades of Gray set brings to mind the power of the Arsenal of Minos. One of those cards, The Arsenal: Divided, proves its worth as an excellent way to force an opponent to take "just one more turn" to solve a mission.

The Arsenal: Divided falls into the same realm as Phased Matter or The Arsenal: Separated. However it gives us two important differences.

1. Unlike Phased Matter it targets unique personnel. Unique personnel are the bane of anyone’s dilemma piles.
2. It's a space dilemma. We finally have a way to weed out unique personnel in space. Once the unique personnel are divided up, the opponent gets to select which stack continues and which stack is stopped. To get past, the ship must still be staffed and have INTEGRITY>27 remaining.

The Integrity selection makes this a powerful weapon, particularly against non-Federation/non-Honor-based Klingon decks. Integrity can be in rather short supply, often with unique personnel providing the extra punch it takes to reach those magic numbers.

In order to make The Arsenal: Divided effective in your dilemma combo you need to pick the right dilemmas to go with it. Here are three things you should keep in mind.

1. Reduce attributes among a significant number of personnel that might be at that location.
Example: The Clown: Bitter Medicine is an excellent dilemma that can reduce attributes by 2 against a named skill. Integrity, as I mentioned above, is highly prized and can be a burden to meet. I also find that Dal’Rok is an excellent dilemma to place after The Clown: Bitter Medicine since the -2 to attributes gives you a good solid chance that Dal’Rok won’t be nullified.
2. Place a filter before it to allow this card to be an effective wall.
Example: The Arsenal: Separated will make your opponent have to go through two dilemmas that will stop many of his unique personnel on board. Visions of Voyager being slaughtered because Janeway got stopped along with the rest of her bridge crew dance in my mind.
3. Set up your opponent for a major hurting with a nasty killing dilemma combo.
Example: Maglock before this dilemma can typically bring unique Officers running to help get past this dilemma. With the right cards afterwards to cause death and mayhem, you can eliminate some unique personnel. Throw in a Klingon Painstik and you will make sure that personnel will not be reporting again.

This dilemma continues the idea of holding off your opponent for "just one more turn." Sometimes we need that one extra turn to unfold a trap, a devious setup, or to clear one more mission – and this dilemma definitely does that in spades.