Aid Legendary Civilization

by James "RedDwarf" Hoskin, Staff Writer

18th April 2008

Let's face it, an Alpha Quadrant 35-point planet mission that requires four skills and Cunning>34 to complete isn’t really going to jump out at you and make you want to use it in a deck. These days, with almost 150 missions to choose from, a mission needs something to make it stand out from the crowd if it is ever to be taken out of the binder. Fortunately, Aid Legendary Civilization has that certain something to make even [insert name of any obnoxious TV talent show judge here] praise it.

When you complete this mission, you can place up to 12 total cost of your personnel beneath their owners’ decks. Each of your opponents must then place their personnel with at least the same total cost beneath their owner’s decks.

Unlike Survey New World, this game text only works after you have completed the mission. This means that you will only get one such use in each game you play, so you have to think carefully about when is the right time. If you complete Aid Legendary Civilization first, the potential for de-staffing your opponent’s ship is greater – especially if he or she is out attempting missions and only has one ship. However, you could wait until later in the game to complete this mission, thereby limiting the number of personnel your opponent can use for mission attempts each turn. There are pros and cons for each strategy, so the best decision will probably be to stay flexible and make the decision during the game.

The best personnel to place under your deck will either be those with a "When you play this personnel..." ability or those whose cost can be reduced when they are played. As the mission requires Biology and Diplomacy, Jean-Luc Picard (Vintner) and Alexander Rozhenko (K’mtar) both fall into the former category. Other options are the various personnel that allow you to download events/interrupts/ships, draw cards, increase attributes and look at dilemmas (to name but a few.) The best choice though, will be for Terok Nor players. By placing your Dissident personnel under your deck, you can get twice as many discards out of Jake Sisko (Reporter Behind the Lines).

Once The Undiscovered Country releases, only the Maquis and The Original Series affiliations will not have a personnel who can play for reduced cost. They needn’t worry though, as all non-Borg affiliations have access to one of the best reduced cost personnel in the game: Julian Bashir (Rebel Captain). Don’t forget that, for the purposes of this mission, cost refers to printed cost. It doesn’t matter how many counters you used to play a personnel, only what is printed on the card counts.

Final thought: If you’re worried about facing this mission, you could always add What You Leave Behind to your deck. No matter which personnel you place under your deck, you can get two of them back the following turn.