Tournaments | trekcc

Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser)
Tournament Report - 1E - British National
2013-11-16 - 12:00 PM
Yet another cask of Romulan Ale
Introduction
Off to Manchester! I still had my TNG Romulan/Android with me, though, I changed some of the dilemmas, mostly just to try out some new things. (Thanks to Matt Ting for giving me some advice on this!) The ratings list pre-tournament had me as 6th of 12, which sounded rather flattering. Apart from having tons of fun, mainly I was hoping for three things - play as many new players as possible, learn things about 1E from more experienced players, and maybe going 2-2.

Round 1	Andy Taylor	FW (-65)
New player! Andy suffered a bit from the limited range of his Mercenary ship, as the spaceline layout meant the first ship he had in play could only move one mission each turn, so grabbing the right people to bust through my dilemmas required a few trips back and forth. I had a pretty good draw and was able to keep my engine running, but I still needed to cycle through almost my entire deck until I found the second Geology to finally get through the Captain's Holiday that had nailed one of my planet missions. Andy eventually completed one mission, but couldn't clear another one before I got my third. FW, 110-35.


Round 2	Peter Ludwig	MW (+40)
New player! Peter played TNG Ferengi with DS9 and tons of Androids (he had printed a vast supply of androids - some of them of the clearly female variety - with the classifications you needed and was happy to share them with me), and during the early turns, he dropped a ship almost every turn, so I eventually moved my fleet to "my side" of my spaceline and operated from the remote outpost there. It was pointed out to me that part of my space dilemma combo did not work as intended (The Clown: Bitter Medicine into Maglock), as only people with OFFICER skill but not OFF classification would be affected by the attribute reduction, so Peter cleared that first dilemma early. However, the The Clown: Beneath The Mask turned out to be surprisingly effective and locked space for a long time. In the end, it came down to one very lucky random selection on my part. Peter attempted another space where I had Gomtuu Shock Wave and Kobayashi, and he only had Diplomacy (double dose) on Dathon. He attempted with lots of spare bodies, but I 1-in-15 picked Dathon for the Kobayashi. Finally, all those long, gruelling hours of practicing random selections paid off... Neither of us completed a third mission before time was called, so I escaped with the MW, 90-80.


Round 3	Kevin Jackson	FL (-8)
New player! Oh shoot, shared missions...the bane of my 1E existence...and a whopping FOUR of them! I think so far I've lost almost every game with shared missions, and this one would be no different. Kev had Insurrection and two HQs at Romulus for lots of free plays, but at one point his play engine had some trouble, and he was down to a single card play and draw for a couple of turns. I used the time to breeze through two missions, but suffered crucial point loss to keep me at 92 points. I tried to work my way through one of the shared missions, cleared out all the dilemmas (main crew being stopped by the last one), but unfortunately I misread a card (Mission Fatigue) and thought it would stop one person when a mission attempt begins (similar to the Kobayashi I was using), so didn't attempt with my bare minimum solving crew. All I would have needed to do was say "I attempt that mission again" and would have won this game, but here my lack of experience really hurt. From then on it was all downhill - Kev flew in, "stole" the now-cleared mission, and then worked his way through two others. Well played, sir! FL, 92-102.


Round 4	Danny Nuttall	FL (-70)View opponent's Report View original Report
New player! I had had a brief look at Danny's Worlds deck, but hadn't seen it in action yet, so this was an impressive demonstration of the sheer speed of this well-oiled machine. I probably should have seeded my missions differently and tried to put some more space between Insurrection and Bajor, but I still shy away from that, because I assume most people know which dilemmas they can use to lock me out from missions, so I prefer to have easy access to as many of my missions as possible. Anyway, I was probably at least one turn slower as far as personnel played are concerned, as I had wasted the early Q the Ref on General Quarters and hadn't realized I couldn't get enough draws from Continuing Mission to get my usual starting routine going. It didn't help either that at one point I had pretty much a dead hand - almost exclusively cards that all required the regular card play, but that I didn't want to handshake away either because I needed them (ships, for example). Danny on the other hand Leeta in play by turn 2, I think, and generated enough early bonus points from Dabo, so the Dead End at Insurrection soon was irrelevant, and with the double turn he quickly cleared a third mission after that. I had only managed to score one mission, though it was a bit of consolation that on my next turn, I had the pieces in play to complete two more missions for 100 points (not accounting for In the Zone, of course). FL, 30-120(?). Danny provided useful advice on things like timing issue both during and after the game, and was another standout example of a community that is always welcoming to new/less experienced players and willing to share the wisdom.
A new player! Das Kaiser is sehr gut, ja? The European champion was my last opponent of the day but, like last year, I entered the last round knowing that no-one could overtake me on points now. Yahoo! The round brought a few firsts for me with this Bajoran deck. My opening hand was the first at nationals to lack a Resistance personnel. After a KFC, still nothing. However, a Mutation finally gave me what I needed to ensure the draw engine would get going from the 1st turn, as always. The extra cards and Mutation allowed me to set up two huge drops on turn 1 and 2. Coupled with the Kaiser's terrible turn 2 Handshake (I think he drew into very few free plays and a bunch of ships) I had the upper hand. Johannes had done his howework and seeded 3 x Kobayashi Maru Scenarios (still one of my fave cards) at my most frequently attempted missions, so another first came in the form of going for completely different missions to normal. For the first time in 4 tournaments, I actually went for Clash at Chintoka! And I solved it too! Despite a KMS hovering above Insurrection, I also went for that as I had so many personnel. A few expendable troops had made their way to the second dilemma, but were stopped by Medical Crisis. With Dr McCoy in hand, I had that one covered next turn (unless I lost out to a 1-in-13 random draw to KMS). Leeta's dabo points and subsequent jiggles had taken my points total over the 50-mark, so the Dead End at Insurrection was null and void and all the bonuses of Collect Metaphasic Particles took any remaining hope away from Das Kaiser. Still, it was a good game, Johannes did well with the plays he could make and on another Handshake it would have been a closer contest. We had time to discuss some finer strategy points, timing of cards and downloads and the Kaiser's impressive start to life as a 1e player.

Closing Thoughts
Four new players, lots of things learned, even record that put me in the top half, brilliant day all in all!