Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event 2022-10-10 - 12:00 AM Lasses with Glasses, Droids on Roids Introduction All-planet Neutral Zone. TOS Rommies with Taking Charge/Prepare Landing Party for the Classic Tricorder/Classic Communicator seemed like a good choice against Space Lab Regula 1-boosted Science/Virus dilemmas I expected to see. No particular plan for Dominion. Round 1 Maggie Geppert FW (+100) vs. Movie Feds We duplicated Genesis Planet over in her territory. I encountered Prawns at both the planets I wanted to do, which, together with Space Lab Regula's random stops could have been ugly, but with some good guys like Spock and Rayna out early, and three different ships that can download people, I was able to power through Covid Installation quickly. Made a huge blunder when I wasted the GGT download to bring in the missing ENGINEER for the mission requirements, not realizing that all my Treachery guys had also been stopped. That meant I couldn't acquire The Genesis Device that turn and had to wait another turn before I could complete Investigate Decaying Radiation for double points. Dilemmas seen: P1: *Raging T'Pol - Prawns (*Nanobiogenic Fugitives - *Difficult Disposal) - *Ancient Computer & *Microvirus P2: (misseed) - Prawns (*Morphogenic Virus) - *Subspace Fracture P3: Nuclear Wessels - *No Loose Ends - I Hate You FW, 100-0. Round 2 Mathew McCalpin FW (+100) vs. Sybok/TNG Borg/rainbow leaders The spaceline layout worked in my favour, with the duplicated Hostage Crisis right in the middle of five Neutral Zone planets and therefore separated from Mathew's remaining missions (including a NZ space and his other reporting spot, Foster New Collective). Like Maggie, he had Spacelab Regula One for extra stops. I went for the two planets on the far end, and was hoping Sybok wouldn't come out proselytizing right away. Test for Weakness was done on t3 for 15 points, with 5 more from GUYS, and I jumped into the first attempt: at Covid Installation: *Unscientific Method (lucky escape without a kill!) - *Ancient Computer and Microvirus - *Computer Weapon and *Hyper-Aging. The Computer Weapon hit me completely by surprise, and I lost my second copy of Prepare Landing Party, a Going to the Top that I forgot to play on Mathew's turn, and a ship from hand. But at least the mission was set up for the easy solve next turn, or so I thought. I went in with full skill redundancy to deal with the random Spacelab stop, but Mathew had a Double Dumbass ready for an extra stop. Luckily, I still had enough to deal with the dilemma and acquire the Genesis Device. at Investigate Decaying Radiation: Prawns fetched *No Loose Ends (which cost me my Battle Cruiser download to find a third SCIENCE) and The Vengeance Factor, which in turn grabbed Microvirus and The Gatherers, which stopped me. After those, next turn it was *Dangerous Liaisons and Temptations of the Flesh. I didn't have the missions skills after those stops, so stopped at my own Sarjenka to make sure I would get to 140 even if a Remember the Alamo took out my SECURITY Preserver Obelisk guy. Mathew didn't seem to have best of draws and couldn't use his play/download engines to full effect. He was also slowed down by having his Sybok/J'Onn travel from the Planet of Galactic Peace over to his other locations to team up with the other guys. FW, 100-0. Round 3 Michael Van Breemen FW (+18) vs. Dominion With some nice draw mechanics, Michael churned out personnel relentlessly (free Vorta, free Founder, free intern, free trader, free bar denizen) and attempted big at his GQ space, completing it on the first try thanks to the Shapeshift-SD grabbing Bashir Founder to blank my Cloud. Myself, I found the Genesis Device blocked by a Dead End, but eventually worked through Investigate Decaying Radiation (Close Call - Chula: The Game - Eminian?) to be on 75 points after that one mission. Michael had enough Treachery to work the combo at the GQ planet, then moved to the AQ for the win, where Shuttle Crash stopped him due to lack of Navigation. I completed Iconia Investigation (Spatial Rift - Berserk Changeling?), then was stopped at Strategic Diversion by a Bij, which I couldn't remove due to lack of RANGE. Michael brought in Morn for the Navigation he needed to beat Shuttle Crash, but I prevented him from picking up the skill with a timely LoOS. I then reattempted Dead-Ended Covid Installation, lost my redshirt to Misinterpreted History, but beat it and the Rules of Obedience that followed with the remaining guys. Lots of poor plays here, I forgot to dl more objectives with Taking Charge, to leave enough gold stars to trigger GttT early, to trigger GUYS. FW, 100-82. Round 4 Brian Sykes FW (+100) vs. Dominion/Cardassian/Son'a As usual, I blew up the outpost on t2 with the lizard for 15 points, but ran into a Lack of Prep at Iconia to set me back to only 5 points. After getting rid of LoP, Dead End denied me my Genesis Device, so it was going to be three missions. Brian lost three to M-113/LOL Yichu at Cardassia, was stopped. Myself, I beat Rules of Obedience - Mind Probes - Linguistic at IDR thanks to the GGT download (Telman!), took my 5 Sarjenka points, and sent it back to Brian. He made the great call to tackle the Eminian he had seen that started off my Linguistic combo at IMA with six universals, and walked right through, but didn't get the missions skills over to solve it. On my turn, I completed IDR to put me on 71 (35 from the mission, 5 from PLP, 20 from Preserver Obelisk thanks to PO:M and the communicator), completed the now-accessible Iconia with another PLP for 40 (111 total now), then had Alice peek at the first dilemma under Strategic Diversion. It was TOTF, so I STP-dropped a Battle Cruiser, got through the TOTF, but lost the ship to the "God" that followed. Still had enough RANGE on one my other ships to bring in the mission skills to finish the mission and get to 141. FW, 100-0. Closing Thoughts I encountered a grand total of 1 mis-seeded dilemma in four games. Not bad, I was hoping for more, though, so dropping the Genesis slots in favour of other stuff (Benefactor, Duck Blind, Risk, etc.) and simply doing space/planet works just as well. TOS is still super strong in any flavour. While I like the different bonus point engines a lot, I feel that the Obelisk is too good with universals, especially ones that are absolutely playable anyway. I think PLP is in the right place and offers interesting choices, but the extra text on TNZ (it would be worth a seed slot for just the extra draw and the RANGE bonus) usually comes down to "Rommies start the game with 15 points" - which means the world in Dead End Land. But mostly I feel it's the two braindead free reports on The Final Frontier (not even limited to something like, I don't know, "at least (or: no more than) one of them unique (or: universal)" or "only matching guys for free" or whatever) that make TFF-TOS much more than just "beginner friendly".