Jolan Tru Article Series: Strategema's Bane

by Austin Chandler, Staff Writer

8th December 2009

Welcome to the Jolan Tru Article Series. The purpose of this series is to get various playing techniques, card combinations, and seeding combinations out to you, the players, and help you bring your inner Romulan to the game.

As you have seen in other articles I have written, I enjoy creating new card combos. When I prepare for a tournament, I go through all my cards trying to decide, "Should I use this card this time, and what can I use with it?" "Cookie cutter" decks are nice; however, we all know that sometimes you need a steak instead of a cookie.

So let's begin with one of the biggest counter cards in the game: Strategema. This is the card that shuts down battle decks due to "turtling." When making a battle fleet, many players just say, "I'm going to chase, or harass, or blockade, or engage cloak." Not many of them say, "I'm going to their homeworld to take them down there."

I felt the same way once. As a Dominion player, I gnash my teeth at Strategema. Bile rises up into my throat. I want to yell, “VICTORY IS LIFE!” but can’t since I feel like a kitten in front of a mastiff.

However, I overcame this fear and thought, “Well, what else can I do?” Here is what can be done. I put together some ideas I have used effectively in the past to stop people who turtle at their homeworld and run away when I want my personnel to interact with their personnel.

Warning: This is a not a simple concept to execute. You need to know the appropriate rules and cards that concern these concepts.

1. Your favorite non-Federation starship + Orbital Bombardment + an affiliation that matches the homeworld + Temporal Micro-Wormhole (or appropriate treaty). (Add Scanner Interference x2 to download Distortion Field and Atmospheric Ionization to enhance this combination.)

Here is the plan. Use your favorite ship. I find that the D’deridex Advanced is good. I also used the Scimitar recently. Having a member of the affiliation on board will prevent your ship being attacked at the homeworld.

You can now keep firing down onto the planet with Orbital Bombardment until all enemies are dead or you chase them off (which would be hard if you are able to download Distortion Field and Atmospheric Ionization). Atmospheric Ionization prevents beaming more than three people a turn from a planet and Distortion Field only allows transport up every other turn.

Be wary of a landed ship breaking this combination. It is always useful to keep a Memory Wipe in hand in case your opponent uses this strategy. You can also use Idea #2 or Idea #4 to counter this.

If they decide to just hide in the HQ then you can use the technique below OR you can go ahead and use Mission Debriefing and put a lot of walls at the homeworld mission. If the opponent gets stopped, then you can bombard their Away Team in hopes of killing important personnel.

2. Personnel matching affiliation of homeworld x2 + Transporter Inhibitors x2

Using this method, you can lock down the transporting capabilities of your opponent from his or her homeworld. Beam an affiliation member with transporter inhibitors into the HQ. Beam another pair to the planet. Instant lock.

NOTE: You need an away team of two on the planet in order to avoid being hurt by Thine Own Self or use a seeded capture to grab a one-man team. It never hurts to send more than one just in case.

3. Memory Wipe + your fleet.

Memory Wipe is a simple-to-use Event card. It plays on any ship and makes the ship and crew Non-Aligned. Once you do that, attack with your fleet and wipe out the vessel. For added hurt, make sure you have The Next Emanation to grab the unique personnel as they die.

4. Open Diplomatic Relations + VIP + personnel matching affiliation of homeworld + Transporter Inhibitors + opponent's ship + Commandeer Ship.

   If your opponent has a ship at the homeworld and you don’t have Memory Wipe, then you can just go aboard using a VIP and lock down the ship with Transport Inhibitors. The opponent cannot move while your VIP is on board, cannot attack because of the affiliation member, and cannot bring the ship back to hand using Space-Time Portal because Commandeer Ship is in play.

5. Opponent’s WEAPONS greater than 36 + Devidian Door OR a ship + Bashir Founder + Supernova

This is a very simple and effective way to hold back an armada. Use Bashir Founder to download the Supernova when opponent has WEAPONS greater than 36. This can hold off a fleet that is determined to chase you around, or is good for a surprise trick. Supernova is even better if your opponent has several ships in orbit at their homeworld.

I hope these ideas will help you the next time you get frustrated with Strategema and your opponent uses the homeworld as a massive shield. Until next time, Jolan Tru!

-djl-