[Borg King]

Specifically wondering if playing a Borg Scout Vessel with personnel aboard; do the personnel play for "free" or is it considered one card play action?

Trying to understand if this would break New Arrivals.

[Armus]

A card plays for free if another card says it does.

Since BSV's report with crew doesn't say free it's not a free play and thus doesn't break New Arrivals.

[MidnightLich]

A card plays for free if another card says it does.

Since BSV's report with crew doesn't say free it's not a free play and thus doesn't break New Arrivals.

This is correct. A play is only "free" is something specifically uses that word. Anything else is not a "free play" and doesn't break New Arrivals.

-crp

[Ensign Q]

Welcome to 1e, where things play for free but arent free plays

[BCSWowbagger]

Welcome to 1e, where things play for free but arent free plays

Really, this was an oversight by the Rules Committee when it approved New Arrivals, rather than a problem with the "for free" terminology in general.

In retrospect, we now know that

(1) cards entering play without using your normal card play but also not counting as "for free" is weird and unintuitive to a lot of players, and

(2) as a result, we would be answering this New Arrivals question on the boards every six months in perpetuity, and

(3) there are no other cards that care about this.

New Arrivals probably should have just said, "Discard incident if you play more than one personnel for free two personnel cards on any turn." (Or possibly, "more than one personnel by means that do not use your normal card play.")

That was N.A.'s intention, after all -- it was supposed to be a pretty sucky starter-deck / sealed-play card, and it only caught fire after release when people asked about report-with-crew and Rules ruled that that wasn't playing "for free."

In a perfect world, I'd reword New Arrivals today to eliminate these questions... but, of course, those unintended and unexpected corner cases now are the cornerstone of the card's modern usage. The card is very popular across all sorts of decks, particularly Battle Borg and Dominion Slaughter, and breaking the card would mean harming those decks pretty badly. Rules isn't in the business of breaking decks, so we're stuck in a bit of a hard place there.

(NOTE TO BALANCE: On the other hand, if you guys happen to be thinking, "Hey, we want to punch Battle Borg in the kneecaps, and making New Arrivals work more intuitively / as intended could be a nice way to do it," shoot me a PM and we'll talk. )

[Borg King]

Welcome to 1e, where things play for free but arent free plays

Really, this was an oversight by the Rules Committee when it approved New Arrivals, rather than a problem with the "for free" terminology in general.

In retrospect, we now know that

(1) cards entering play without using your normal card play but also not counting as "for free" is weird and unintuitive to a lot of players, and

(2) as a result, we would be answering this New Arrivals question on the boards every six months in perpetuity, and

(3) there are no other cards that care about this.

New Arrivals probably should have just said, "Discard incident if you play more than one personnel for free two personnel cards on any turn." (Or possibly, "more than one personnel by means that do not use your normal card play.")

That was N.A.'s intention, after all -- it was supposed to be a pretty sucky starter-deck / sealed-play card, and it only caught fire after release when people asked about report-with-crew and Rules ruled that that wasn't playing "for free."

In a perfect world, I'd reword New Arrivals today to eliminate these questions... but, of course, those unintended and unexpected corner cases now are the cornerstone of the card's modern usage. The card is very popular across all sorts of decks, particularly Battle Borg and Dominion Slaughter, and breaking the card would mean harming those decks pretty badly. Rules isn't in the business of breaking decks, so we're stuck in a bit of a hard place there.

(NOTE TO BALANCE: On the other hand, if you guys happen to be thinking, "Hey, we want to punch Battle Borg in the kneecaps, and making New Arrivals work more intuitively / as intended could be a nice way to do it," shoot me a PM and we'll talk. )

Now I'm curious; in what ways do battle Borg report personnel that isn't "for free" without Scout Vessel's or Probe ships? What's the work around to prevent breaking of New Arrivals?

[winterflames]

Downloads?

[Ensign Q]

downloads are already limited to 1 personnel. might just ban new arrivals right away then.

[AllenGould]

I always assumed the New Arrivals wording was intentional, so that stuff like Activate Subcommands still worked. (Or Cryosatellite, or any of the downloader-dilemmas...)

[Armus]

downloads are already limited to 1 personnel. might just ban new arrivals right away then.

Downloads are limited to 1 Action, not one personnel.

Turn 1:
Free Play a Borg
Play a Borg (Shades of Gray Queen?)
Download We are the Borg, download 2 Drones.
Download We are the Borg to table.
On opponent's turn, play Awaken, download a or drone.


Turn 2:
Persona Swap to First Contact Queen
Free play a Borg
Play a Borg (Counterpart?)
Play Awaken, download a Drone.

The above is an entirely plausible scenario which results in a staffed cube (of any flavor) on the line and rolling on Turn 2.

End of turn convert your 3 card draws (We Are the Borg, New Arrivals, End of Turn draw) into drones or other borg goodies to play next turn and/or draw for more awakens so you get another dude on your opponent's turn.

None of the above breaks New Arrivals.

[Ensign Q]

none of it seems a problem to me, because the only thing NA adds to the mix is an additional eot draw for the price of a seedcard. the ❖ drone freeplay already comes from they will be coming
in return, borg cant make any use of the other draw engines like duck blind or process ore. cant use AMS or ASP to jumpstart either

[WeAreBack]

(3) there are no other cards that care about this.

The other card that cares about free plays is Protect the Timeline.

[BCSWowbagger]

^ I stand corrected. Nuts!