Coordinated Counterattack

by Kevin Jaeger, Player's Representative

23rd January 2009

Think back...how many times have you won a game because you were able to quickly cheat-in the necessary skills to either get by a particular dilemma about to kick you really hard or to complete a mission? Quite a few I'm sure.

Well, guess what?  The designers have finally decided that if you aren't going to get a job sir, then they are gonna kill your car.  The bums lose.  So it's time you put on some nicer clothes this weekday and get a job interview. No more relying on your woman to make the money.  Time to start putting a more varied selection of personnel into your deck, and certainly time to stop relying on others for help.  Pick yourself up by the bootstraps, man, and learn to do things for yourself.  From this point forward, you take the risk that Allen is gonna actually demand more than just some notes on his dance quintet.

"But K-Dawg, I don't know where to start.  How do I deal with this?"  Simple, ask yourself: What would Michael Westin do? (See: How do I break out of a Prison in, say, Turkmenistan? OR See also: How do I lose an Ex who is following me?)  You can ask him yourself but it may take some time for an answer.  Since you don't have months to try and deal with the release of Coordinated Counterattack, I'll just give you my advice:

Step 1: Try and utilize personnel with loads of skills.  If you can't bring the skills in on a moment's notice, then you better learn to bring them in from the get-go. It just so happens that Raise the Stakes is giving you several new personnel who help with this tremendously.
Step 2: Resist the urge to play with personnel who have a neat ability, but otherwise don't help you much.
Step 3: Gain Intelligence and plan ahead.
Step 4: If you can't plan ahead, beat the system.
Step 5: Call in the cavalry to neutralize your opponent's support.
Step 6: Keep your mission skill requirements tight.  Either by playing with missions that have the same or nearly-the-same skills, or by kickin' it New School

Follow this plan and you won't have as much to worry about as the guy who didn't come prepared.