[Takket]

Am I missing anything or does Founder Borath if I team him up with a Clone Machine to play him in multiple, basically let me force my opponent to discard two cards every turn?

Since he is a founder and a vorta playing him in multiple for free with The Great Link and Reward from the Founders Is pretty easy.

Yikes.

[Kaiser]

Am I missing anything or does Founder Borath if I team him up with a Clone Machine to play him in multiple, basically let me force my opponent to discard two cards every turn?

Since he is a founder and a vorta playing him in multiple for free with The Great Link and Reward from the Founders Is pretty easy.

Yikes.

Clone Machine still limits you to one additional copy per turn. Need to spam some Shah'Razads or Admirals Nechayev, too.

/edit: I really like the "discard from deck" callback to the original Founder Borath from 2E's Fractured Time set (which was also kind of AU-themed). Getting milled by Thomas Vorwerk's convoluted "Screwy Squirrel" Dominion/Ferengi discard machine was such a great example of how combining affiliations in a weird and unexpected makes the game(s) so much fun (after you've cursed at it for a good while )

[Ashigaru]

Is it just me or (barring that small rules supplement we were told about), does nothing actually PREVENT Founder Borath from using cards like Shape-Shift or Assume Identity (since I don't see anything in the Rulebook or Glossary that says you actually NEED the characteristic shape-shifter in order to use Morph cards, just that until now, all Founders were also shape-shifters)

[Johannes Mette]

1x FounderBorath = 2 discard per Turn

2x FounderBorath = 2 x 2 discard per Turn?

[KazonPADD]

It’s non-cumulative

[Johannes Mette]

boooo boooo boooo boooo boooo boooo boooo boooo

[Takket]

Am I missing anything or does Founder Borath if I team him up with a Clone Machine to play him in multiple, basically let me force my opponent to discard two cards every turn?

Since he is a founder and a vorta playing him in multiple for free with The Great Link and Reward from the Founders Is pretty easy.

Yikes.

Clone Machine still limits you to one additional copy per turn. Need to spam some Shah'Razads or Admirals Nechayev, too.

/edit: I really like the "discard from deck" callback to the original Founder Borath from 2E's Fractured Time set (which was also kind of AU-themed). Getting milled by Thomas Vorwerk's convoluted "Screwy Squirrel" Dominion/Ferengi discard machine was such a great example of how combining affiliations in a weird and unexpected makes the game(s) so much fun (after you've cursed at it for a good while )

Okay that is why I missed. Only one copy per turn from Clone Machine. So I can’t play two of him every turn to force discards. Gotta play some other person. Thanks.

[Takket]

Second question and i think this goes to the whole “start of control” thing, but when I play my first Founder Borath, his skill immediately takes effect and my opponent has to discard, right?

[Faithful Reader]

Second question and i think this goes to the whole “start of control” thing, but when I play my first Founder Borath, his skill immediately takes effect and my opponent has to discard, right?

Not quite. He has to be in play for his text to trigger and by the time he is in play, he cannot trigger because it is beyond that point. #notblue

I am presuming he is not present with himself for Dominion Hierarchy is out of that question, though he can be a Founder for another Vorta.

Also, can he provide two characteristics for the Dominion Battleship bonus?

Since he is a Founder and not a Shape-Shifter, can he morph per Shape-Shift et. al?

We gonna get a Q & A Thread anytime soon? Asking for Bob.

[Ashigaru]

Second question and i think this goes to the whole “start of control” thing, but when I play my first Founder Borath, his skill immediately takes effect and my opponent has to discard, right?

Not quite. He has to be in play for his text to trigger and by the time he is in play, he cannot trigger because it is beyond that point. #notblue

I am presuming he is not present with himself for Dominion Hierarchy is out of that question, though he can be a Founder for another Vorta.

Also, can he provide two characteristics for the Dominion Battleship bonus?

Since he is a Founder and not a Shape-Shifter, can he morph per Shape-Shift et. al?

We gonna get a Q & A Thread anytime soon? Asking for Bob.

I wouldn't be surprised if the rules supplement we were told about stated "morphing cards require that the personnel involved be shape-shifters" now that we have a Founder who isn't a Changeling.

And...this actually surprised me, but the Rulebook provides as follows (at 1.2.4, "Here" and "Present"):

"Each member of a crew or Away Team is present with every member of that crew or Away Team, including themselves." So...it does look like Founder Borath can be a two-man Dominion Hierarchy.

[Not_always_but_often]

On the other hand, who's to say that this alternate universe Borath isn't a shape shifter? Who knows what the Dominion programed the simulation with that we didn't get a chance to see?

[BCSWowbagger]

Since he is a founder and a vorta playing him in multiple for free with The Great Link and Reward from the Founders Is pretty easy.

Yikes.

I've never tested this guy, wasn't involved in his design in any way, and all I did was approve the rules text... but my first reaction is "meh."

Milling doesn't do anything unless your deck is exhausted during the game. Until then, all milling does is randomly discard cards, which is the equivalent of taking my deck and shuffling it, so that some randomly selected cards that I was about to draw instead end up at the bottom of my deck where I'm not going to draw them.

So, like, fine, mill away. There's already 10-20 cards in my deck I'm not going to draw anyway, so all your milling is doing is giving me more information about what's left in my draw deck.

[Winner of Borg]

Milling doesn't do anything unless your deck is exhausted during the game. Until then, all milling does is randomly discard cards, which is the equivalent of taking my deck and shuffling it, so that some randomly selected cards that I was about to draw instead end up at the bottom of my deck where I'm not going to draw them.

don't forget that it also has a random chance to remove download targets from a deck that didn't expect to randomly lose cards. (think dial-a-skill personnel, borg objectives, ships, or whatever else you can normally download whenever you need it, but couldn't all fit in your tent...)

my guess would be that milling as a strategy won't currently be worth investing too much in, because at a max of two cards per turn it shouldn't be strong enough to tilt games or lock out opponents (unless your local mates all play very minimized decks), plus there are already decent counters that are worth playing in some decks anyway (Palor Toff, Nanoprobe Resuscitation, Kirk's Reading Glasses, Two of Nine, ...).
on the other hand, milling as a side effect of playing cards you're gonna play anyway has the potential to, occasionally, randomly, really hurt some unprepared opponents. not an effect that i would have chosen to add to 1E?

[Takket]

Since he is a founder and a vorta playing him in multiple for free with The Great Link and Reward from the Founders Is pretty easy.

Yikes.

I've never tested this guy, wasn't involved in his design in any way, and all I did was approve the rules text... but my first reaction is "meh."

Milling doesn't do anything unless your deck is exhausted during the game. Until then, all milling does is randomly discard cards, which is the equivalent of taking my deck and shuffling it, so that some randomly selected cards that I was about to draw instead end up at the bottom of my deck where I'm not going to draw them.

So, like, fine, mill away. There's already 10-20 cards in my deck I'm not going to draw anyway, so all your milling is doing is giving me more information about what's left in my draw deck.

well, i was thinking you could drop Borath three times (NCP+Reward from founders+Great link) and be forcing three discards a turn (but clone machine doesn't allow that). This is only useful if you can shape-shift him to get other founders in play. otherwise you are stuck with 10 copies of the same guy and good luck ever passing a dilemma.

There is a ❖ Jem'Hadar but again, if you play him for free once a turn using some birthing chamber/young jem'hadar stuff, you still end up with 10 copies of the same guy and.... that's not good for you dilemma busting plans.

I think the value of trying to clone Founder Borath every turn would be in some resource denial deck. Immediately thought of the deck Slaby played at Kaiserfest. Obviously that was Borg but most of those cards work for anyone. Discarding a card a turn doesn't hurt too bad but team it up with your hand being drained at the same time and you are bound to start losing key things.

[Winner of Borg]

I think the value of trying to clone Founder Borath every turn would be in some resource denial deck. Immediately thought of the deck Slaby played at Kaiserfest. Obviously that was Borg but most of those cards work for anyone. Discarding a card a turn doesn't hurt too bad but team it up with your hand being drained at the same time and you are bound to start losing key things.

i can see how hand card denial and draw deck milling *feel* adjacent, but (within a realistic number of turns, say 6-10) they really aren't. for resource denial you'll want several mechanics that, while not necessarily achieving the same effect, overlap in *what* they deny. (as already mentioned, Founder Borath isn't cumulative, so only stacking copies of him won't do enough, you're still throttled to 2 mills per turn.)

the point of hand card denial is to limit, and eventually prevent, the playing of cards. as James lined out, for most opponents, a card not drawn / still in the deck isn't much different from a random card milled. that's why Klim Dokachin works wonders for the Nightmare deck, but milling wouldn't synergize much, they will simply draw the next card instead. (it might help a bit against very small Nor-based decks, slowly shrinking their download pool? but that's very specific for such a heavy investment...)

the most important threshold in hand card denial by far is between 1 and 0 hand cards at the start of your opponent's turn. if the average deck gets to keep 1 random hand card, between Process Ore effects at start of turn, side effect draws from personnel plays, and explicit drawing cards like KFC, that will often mean 2-3 personnel played that turn. thus, a hand card denial deck really shouldn't divert too many resources from the main goal of keeping the hand completely empty.

there might be a bit more synergy with more targetted forms of skill denial? (in other words, watch what your opponent needs, and what your milling hits, and try to get rid of more of the intersection.) cards like Tantalus Field and Organ Theft come to mind? and lots of opponent's choice dilemmas... but it would still be awfully random what exactly you'll get to deny.
or you could try to create a specific skill need with your dilemmas, but then, instead of responding to what your milling hits in multiple, you'd again just hope to randomly hit what you want to deny - which, once more, isn't too different from not drawing those cards. so the synergy would only be against download-heavy decks.

i'm not quite seeing the point of milling 2 cards per turn as a strategy. (although, depending on the deck i'm playing, every card milled might still make me cringe and dread what download target *might* be hit... perhaps that's the whole point of the design. making the game more unpleasant for certain kinds of decks?)