Neela and the Battling Assassins

by James Hoskin, Staff Writer

4th August 2009

Neela (Misguided Activist) is a unique, two-cost Bajoran. She has a Deep Space 9 reporting icon, a staffing icon, three skills and no attribute higher than a six. If the list ended there, this article would be very short. Fortunately, she does have another trick up her sleeve: Neela is an assassin. She wasn't a very good assassin in the television show, but we'll ignore that and any other shortcomings she might have. Instead, let's just focus on building a deck to kill assassinate personnel until they are really dead. Mwahahaha.

The basic deck strategy is a simple one: complete two easy missions and get the remainder of the 100 points required to win the game through combat. Oh, and since we're going with an assassin theme, you also get to kill a few personnel along the way.

Even though assassins form the heart of this deck, there are only four playable personnel (Neela, Trazko, Retaya and The Albino) in the deck with that particular keyword. They are aided by Martia (Duplicitous Chameloid), who can gain one skill and a keyword from a personnel present, but that is it. With just ten potential assassins in a deck of 48 cards, you should be drawing one approximately every five cards. This means that you should be able to get three into play within the first few turns. "Why three?" you ask? Well, Assassin Team is a planet dilemma that can kill a personnel of your choice and then stop the attempt, but only if you command three personnel with the Assassin. keyword. Simples.

Once your opponent's personnel have been stopped by your dilemmas at a planet mission, you can make your opponent quake at the sight of your, er, six-strength Bajorans. That may not sound very scary, but just wait until you use Just Like Old Times to begin combat involving Shakaar Edon (Resistance Leader) and up to three copies of the Bajoran Phaser Pistol. All of a sudden, most of your Bajorans will have up to eleven Strength. That is easily enough to intimidate even the biggest Jem'Hadar, and should be more than enough to ensure that you win the combat. Just Like Old Times awards fifteen points if you win, and you can score an additional five points from Day Kannu (Field Colonel) if he is involved. Furthermore, if Kurn (Bajoran Security Officer) is also involved, you can force your opponent to discard a random card from hand for each Bat'leth present, before returning him to hand to kill an opponent's personnel as well. To round things off, you might have one or two assassins left over (making sure that three are left behind to ensure Assassin Team can be used the following turn) for a couple of extra kills.

It would be nice to use two copies of Just Like Old Times in the same turn, but it shouldn't matter if you can't. There are several planet dilemmas in this dilemma pile that can stop attempts by themselves to make sure you have another opportunity to begin combat. Arena can be used to single out one of your opponent's personnel so that you can attack them with ease. You can also score up to fifteen additional points by discarding hand weapons when you complete Kressari Rendezvous (try not to do this until you have finished using the hand-weapons in combat!), and if absolutely necessary you can complete a third mission for the extra points you need.

Aside from mentioning that over half of the dilemmas in the dilemma pile can kill personnel, the final piece of the offensive puzzle is Strategic Superiority. This space dilemma requires 3 Diplomacy or Weapons>8, and when failed, it randomly stops one personnel before forcing your opponent to kill a number of personnel who have a total cost equal to or greater than the number of General personnel you command. There are only four personnel with the General keyword in the deck - Krim (Thoughtful Tactician) and three copies of the non-unique Hazar - but even one stop and one kill is a bargain from a three-cost dilemma. Don't forget that Martia (Duplicitous Chameloid) can gain a keyword as well, so once you have three other assassins in play, you can use her order to bolster your number of General personnel.

All that remains to talk about now is your mission attempts. The main strategy is the oldest strategy in the book - keep throwing personnel at the mission until you complete it. Escape and Odo (Wayward Link) will be very useful in preventing personnel from being killed. If your opponent has any sort of anti-weenie dilemmas in his or her pile, you are going to need them both. Skills can be gained by using Natural Instincts and Shady Resources, while attributes can be gained by using Dark Secrets. The missions should be relatively easy to complete with minimal personnel, though, so don't focus too much energy on overcoming dilemmas - just think about how to assassinate more of your opponent's personnel on the following turn.

Final Thought: Event destruction was something of an afterthought with this deck. Only having two ways to destroy an event (with Interphasic Effects) isn't the wisest of choices. The best recommendation would be to just ignore your opponent's events (if you can) and think about assassinating even more personnel instead.

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-djl-

This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:

• Bajoran Player
• Unbroken I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• No Crutches II

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 27 Space 7 (26%) Cost 2 3 Cost 3 4 Planet 9 (33%) Cost 2 2 Cost 3 1 Cost 4 4 Cost 5 2 Dual 11 (41%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 3 Cost 3 3 Cost 4 4 Total Dilemma Deck cost 83

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 48 Equipment 5 (10%) Cost 0 2 Cost 1 3 Event 5 (10%) Cost 0 2 Cost 1 3 Interrupt 5 (10%) Personnel 29 (60%) Cost 2 19 Cost 3 10 Ship 4 (8%) Cost 5 2 Cost 7 2 Total Draw Deck cost 98

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 1 3 3 Anthropology 0 0 Archaeology 0 0 Astrometrics 1 7 7 Biology 0 4 2 6 Diplomacy 0 2 2 Engineer 1 5 5 Exobiology 0 4 4 Geology 0 3 3 Honor 1 5 5 Intelligence 0 0 Law 0 3 3 Leadership 1 9 2 11 Medical 0 4 2 6 Navigation 1 7 7 Officer 1 9 9 Physics 1 3 3 Programming 0 7 7 Science 0 4 4 Security 1 9 9 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 2 9 9 Treachery 2 6 6 12 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 12 41.38 % Staff Star 15 51.72 % Faction Icons Deep Space Nine 8 27.59 % Terok Nor 1 3.45 % Temporal Icons Past 2 6.90 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Assassin 8 Assault 3 Bajoran Resistance 9 Commander: Talnot 1 Consume: 1 2 Consume: 3 1 Dissident 1 General 4 Hand Weapon 5 Pah-wraith 1 Region: Bajor System 2 Region: Cardassia System 2 Shape-shifter 3 Thief 2