Yes, I Know... The Borg

by Daniel Matteson, Director of Communications

7th February 2023

When we first set out to design the expansion that would become Nemesis, we knew that the movie Star Trek: Nemesis would obviously get the most attention, as it was the film that had been the least represented of all of the first ten films. However, this set was also intended to cover the other three Star Trek: The Next Generation films - Generations, First Contact, and Insurrection. With First Contact very well covered already between the First Contact, Enhanced First Contact, and Resistance is Futile expansions, we originally weren't sure we were going to be able to find much more material from the popular eighth film.

As it happens, we managed to find quite a few new card ideas from First Contact. You may have seen a few already, and there a few more to be revealed with the full set release. However, today I want to focus on two in particular.

Engage the Borg

One tool a number of players felt the game was missing was a card that would allow Federation cards from all four The Next Generation movies to be able to interact together, while still having access to a competitive play engine. Continuing Mission decks allow the use of the entire The Next Generation series and the movie Generations, but no movies beyond that. On the other hand, Federation Flagship: Relaunched allows (mostly) personnel from First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis to work together.

However, even Federation Flagship: Relaunched had a few holdouts, as with this in play, you could only play personnel with the Enterprise-E icon or the First Contact expansion icon. This covered almost everyone but left out a couple of key personnel, such as Kathryn Janeway and Matthew Dougherty.

We feel that Engage the Borg was the card design that does the best job of handling both of these problems. Engage the Borg seeds on table and grants the First Contact expansion icon to all your non- personnel from any of the four TNG movies.This means that for an extra seed slot, you can finally run Janeway and Dougherty in your Federation Flagship: Relaunched deck - and can even throw James T. Kirk in there!

As an additional bonus, Engage the Borg also gives you an additional 5 bonus points whenever you destroy a Borg Ship dilemma or a ship card in battle. This is a minor addition that fits in well with the flavor of the card.

Seventeen of Seventeen

Almost from day one, when looking at First Contact inclusions, I knew I wanted to make a Borg persona of Hawk. My original design of this card was actually called Hawk (I assumed Creative would work out an appropriate card title and lore) and had Navigation x2, SECURITY, and a skill allowing him to download Environmental Suit in place of a card draw.

Hawk got even better as design work continued, first changing the download to a special download, then allowing him to report to any U.S.S. Enterprise-E, and giving your U.S.S. Enterprise-E a big attribute boost if he is aboard. The Borg Enterprise-E is not played as often as the larger Borg cubes, so perhaps Hawk will entice this ship to make a comeback? Finally, Hawk was given the Borg designation Seventeen of Seventeen - the Pursuit Drone.

There you have it. A new Federation anti-Borg tech and a brand new Borg drone for First Contact fans. I hope you enjoy these cards, and we look forward to showing you the rest of the expansion!

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