Tournaments | trekcc

Paddy Tye (KazonPADD)
Tournament Report - 1E - British National
2013-11-16 - 12:00 PM
The Old Red Whistle Theft
Introduction
I am Lazy. Fact. I did not (in the whole month between Worlds and Nationals) get around to building another deck. Despite getting up at 4 a.m. to build something new, I ended up just tweaking my old deck from Worlds. An extra Death Yell (was previously "outside the game") and an extra Loss of Orbital Stability as a Danny "Daisy-chain" Nuttall counter and fodder to make Anij use up her special skill (I doubted he would quit using Son'a - and was correct!). But the field at Nationals was full of really strong players, so having a deck I knew well probably worked out best for me!

Round 1	Stuart Marsh	MW (+60)View opponent's Report View original Report
Games against Stu are guaranteed to be interactive! When the draw was announced, Niall just text me the words "Sucks to be you!" - but in actuality it didn't turn out too bad, but that was mostly due to luck! Niall often talks about needing a "Stuart Side Deck" to counter his interactive style of play but it turned out the best counter was already in my deck: Battle! Stu got the ball rolling by moving two ships into the Alpha quadrant - thinking that I could stop at least one using a Loss of Orbital Stability as it passed a planet, I thought I was safe to move to one of Stu's missions next door in readiness for "Expand the Empire". Pants - it turns out you can't do that! (Apologies to Julius at Worlds, looks like we played that wrong, but it did result in an awesome battle and you won the game anyway). So, Stu's 2 ships fired a direct hit! Ouch! However, his tactics were mostly Energy Dampener based and they only did 95% Hull damage! Lucky escape! I managed to pull off the Arbiter / Death Yell / K'Nera trick to score 20 points from killing Korris (RRRROOOOAAAARRRR). At this point Stu switched to infiltration and sent in Martok Founder. Gowron avoided "Death by Martok" - although Kahless did peg it and score 5 points (RRROOOAAAARRRRR) in the process. Ship battles ensued and I managed to cripple his 2-ship mega-boosted mini-fleet, losing at least one more Honor personnel in the process (RRRROOOOAAARRRRR; 5 points). Martok then Issued some Secret Orders and sent me off to attempt a mission - but the mission in question, Stu had muddled the order of his dilemmas so I hit Friendly Fire then Personal Duty! With a cleared mission sat there, I picked up an easy solve next turn and blew up the ship he was chasing me with (more Glorious Battle) and ended up with a Modified Win, 60-0. Vengeance for his victory over me at Regionals!
Paddy was playing legitimate Klingon TNG. He got off to the normal cracking start with lists of free plays and Officer exchange draws. By turn two I was in the alpha quadrant. paddy made a mistake by moving his IKS Bortas to a space mission. I moved my Breen ship from the Wormhole to the mission, paddy thought he could play a loss of orbital stability on my ship as it warpped by a planet mission but you can't so my ship got off a shot at his and landed 2xEnergy dampeners on him. He managed to get a second ship to rescue his personnel the Arbiter of Succession for 10 and used K'nera, No way Out and death yells to accumulate 35 points I then got out my Q's tent and the Martok founder, then used an Q's tent to get Dial Matrok for Murder (strike 1 - I forgot that Martok founder downloaded it!). I then targeted Gowron and Khaless in battle and killed Khaless (strike 2 - it says up to 2 personnel can be targeted so I should have targeted only Gowron, and I then would have scored 10 points to take his Arbiter of Succession). There then followed a series of bloody space battles which left me with a single ship and 2 personnel and him with one ship with a few personnel. I then used issue secret orders to send his ship to attempt a mission in the hopes of destroying him, but I had misseeded ( strike 3- I put Friendly Fire before Personal Duty.). Paddy solves that mission and the time was called so the final score way 60-0. Great game but it had taken me a while to get the hang of my deck. (we also played Breen Energy Dampener wrong for the entire game... It is only discarded at the end of the opponents next term the opponent being the person who played the card, as the target is who reads the bottom of the tactic...)

Round 2	Meinhard S. Rohr	FW (+56)
DAS STEFAN! Having travelled over from Germany (returning the favour from Worlds one month prior, at which we didn't actually manage to play each other, just drink together) many traditions carried on seemingly uninterrupted! First off, he offered me a beer (DAS BEER!) and of course it would be rude to refuse such a kind offer! Much shouting of "DAS QAPLA!" also occurred, especially when he realised I was playing the Death Yell deck from Worlds that he had literally heard in use throughout Worlds by myself and Niall! Anyway, Stefan was playing Romulan Hero of the Empire with a Double HQ and Time Locations for free reports. But that also meant the dreaded Tribbles (DAS TRIBBLES)! Clearly he was going for a two mission win, so dilemma placement was key. I picked what I thought would be a likely location for mission specialist points and popped a Ferengi Infestation / The Higher The Fewer / Dead End under it. Stefan got off to a flying start by drawing into Barry Waddle (no Nor download required) and had the tribble Bomb ticking down on turn 1! I got my Arbiter / Yell / K'Nera points running, knowing I'd need as many points as possible to avoid having to do 4 missions! It was also a race to get through 3 missions now, so I ploughed on as quickly as I was able. Furry little blighters soon proved to be the pain in the arse they have the reputation of being! After a lot of moving tribbles, random stops, and beaming of tribbles, I completed 2 missions and got up to 80 points thanks to mission specialists, Death Yells, and fortunately not hitting any point loss dilemmas! Stefan had used mission specialists and Hero of the Empire to boost Secret Salvage up to 50 points but my damage dilemmas had slowed him down a lot, and it was now a race for a final mission each. I got caught by Linguistic Legerdemain at Explore Black Cluster II - SCHEISSE! 2 turns to wait to solve. Stefan attempted Salvage Borg Ship - and hit my Ferengi Infestation / The Higher The Fewer / Dead End Combo - it pushed him back to 44 points. Even the potential 5 point bonus from the War Games sat on one of my ships wouldn't help - he would need to to a third mission. This made waiting out the countdown a much safer prospect and sure enough, a short while later (after much tribble trouble and relocation efforts) I breezed in for the solve and the Full Win. 100-44. A very mentally challenging and hard fought victory. DAS TRIBBLES? DAS QAPLA!


Round 3	Danny Nuttall	FL (-55)View opponent's Report View original Report
When I sat down I old Danny "I'm lubed up ready for you". Not a bad description of any match against this guy! His Bajoran/Son'a deck is a beast. You HAVE to seed Dead End at Insurrection to stop him using that double turn, leaving him clear to plough through the Bajor Region and pick up the 100 points to win. And Spaceline set up is key. I got 1 mission either side of Insurrection and then he pulled Bajor. Game lost at that point really - with Bajor and Baku so close together I stood no chance of being able to slow him down enough. I knew I needed to get my Arbiter Combo pulled off quick, with Anij looming like a black cloud! So I seeded my Outpost at his Clash at Chin'Toka - that would kick-start Expand the Empire, and I could miss out on K'Nera points and focus on higher point missions. All I needed to do was ensure I drew a Death Yell. I didn't. SCHEISSE. And if I flipped it anyway and just got an Arbiter on it's own then I couldn't even Masaka for a Death Yell. Screw it, Plan B - get a ship and sit at 2 of Danny's locations, pull it off on turn 3 and Defend Homeworld for K'Nera so I could get the full 20 points. Turn 1 - no Anij. Good start. Turn 2 - no Anij. I made my move - got the Bortas and a Plasmadyne relay to move to Boreth; Losta picked up a Lower Decks AND a Hidden Fighter (the Cha'Joh) then I deposited a Vekma on Insurrection, cloaked my ships and lay in wait. Turn 3 - HE FECKING PLAYS ANIJ! If the Spaceline set up hadn't lost me the game, this had! I got him to spend one of her twice per game usage on cancelling a Loss of Orbital Stability, but come my turn he inevitably sent Arbiter to the top of my deck. I'd gone for it anyway, hoping he'd forget the ability to download Juggler - but of course he didn't! Arbiter was now lost in the nether-regions of my deck somewhere. Drat. Managed to get through Reported Activity for 35 points (plus a few bonus points), which is more than I did against him at Nationals last year. Danny swept through the Bajor region solving and avoiding dilemmas easily. His best combo had to be Dr McCoy downloading "I'm a Doctor Not a Bartender", swapping Guinan for Kes, downloading the Gift and moving away to cancel the mission attempt and avoid what would have been 4 kills! Anyway, congrats on the win Mr Nuttall. That Deck is the dogs bollocks... except against 12 Space Borg! ;-)
After a very complicated game with some huge twists and turns against Niall, the following round against Paddy was more straight forward. Paddy was nationals runner-up in both 2011 and 2012 and his great showing at worlds, with the same TNG Klingon deck no less, is testimony to the high standard he plays at; I'm always cautious against Paddy and feel like I need to be on top form to win Anij was again my woman of the match. I think I got her out on turn 3, waiting a turn to play her in order to ensure I could collect her from the Baku planet and protect her from Paddy's nearby forces. She would go on to prevent a Loss of Orbital Stability (apparently this is anti-Nuttall's Daisy Chain from wasting an entire turn for me and, more critically, it stopped Paddy getting bonus points from Arbiter. I then managed to use The Juggler so that Paddy's draw from Continuing Mission didn't bring it right back. Paddy made some good crew decisions which allowed him to solve a planet mission, but he was already behind and I had 'scouted' some dilemmas at two further missions. During one such attempt, I finally got to use Ken-tech in order to avoid my ship getting a Cytherians slapped on it. Sure, I could have used The Gift to score 15 points, but the far end of the spaceline was a LONG way away and I had attempted with a very large crew. Instead, I reattempted on the following turn with 4 less important personnel, drew out Cytherians, and then sent in another small crew to get battered by The Cloud. That left a single dilemma at the space mission and although Paddy scored some points in his final turn, I finished the job to win with some room to spare.

Round 4	Niall Matthew	FW (+65)
NIALL! In... A MIRROR MATCH! DEATH YELL VS DEATH YELL! We had 4 shared missions in the middle of the Spaceline and 1 planet and 1 space each on either end. I used a shared mission to get my Arbiter out and played before Niall (sacrificing the 5 extra K'Nera points in favour of speed to pull off the combo before Niall did as Arbiter is not duplicatable)! I started plowing through space and hit a classic Niall combo: Altonian Brain Teaser (no mission specialist points here then), Chula: The Chandra and Linguistic Legerdemain - resulting in a 3 turn lock-out. At this point, I used the Yorkshireman's flat cap that Danny had given me earlier in the day as a countdown marker - twisting the peak of the cap to "position 3" ie 90 degrees to the right. Niall also attempted Space. After 2 damages in a row (Subspace Shockwave and The Cloud) he expected a third damage combined with wall, so probably Gomtuu. Diplomats loaded, including Gowron, he went to try and clear the last dilemma and solve. Emergent Lifeform hit and I flew him away. He could have beamed down to the planet I moved him to but overlooked that option, and cloaked instead. Countdown hat moves to Position 2 (backwards). I then utterly screwed him. Having used a return to hand earlier on the Cha'Joh, and no holodeck available, on his next turn I could move him and strand him at Seize Freighter. Which is in the Neutral Zone Region. I downloaded Wake of The Borg. A string of obscenities followed, before Niall admitted I had rogered him good and proper with that move. I proceeded to work on clearing a shared planet (Reported Activity) hitting my own Love/Scow (Go on Niall, attack my Vekma, she's got Honor, what's the worst I could do? He declined and denied me 5 Death Yell points; meanwhile 2 Zegov's I had left on the ship towed the scow away). Reattempting, Niall reduced my Strength with The Clown: Bitter Medicine, I tripped my own Ferengi Ingenuity (un-enhanced by Access Denied to stop Konmel), lost a few people to Neural Parasites (DEATH YELL TIME!) and then was stopped by my Dejaren. I downloaded Data to Hand ready for the next turn. I moved Niall into the Neutral Zone at the start of his turn and his ship blew up (with Gowron on board - losing him a reporting mechanism) at the end of the turn courtesy of Wake of the Borg. Amazed that I actually managed to pull off that trick! Countdown hat moved to position 1 (90 degrees to the left). I carried on with my planet mission, using Suna to boost Data to Computer Skill x3 (in case Niall tried to enhance Dejaren). Passing that, I hit Hanonian Land Eel - Niall had named Biology With Clown Bitter Medicine to reduce Data (and any B'Somgh's) so I didn't have enough strength! On Niall's next turn he completed his cleared space mission but couldn't get past Ferengi Infestation at the planet he then attempted. The Countdown hat then moved to position zero (peak pointing front and centre) and Linguistic Legerdemain vanished. I came back and cleared Hanonian Land Eel and solved with mission specialists. Then next turn picked up the cleared space mission for the win. 100-35. Always fun to play against Niall - and my 3rd Nationals victory over him. I reckon in 2014 he will be seeking his KLINGON RIGHT OF VENGEANCE!


Closing Thoughts
Very happy with 3rd place given the strength of the competition and my low level of effort in advance! Any tournament with victories over Stu, Stefan and Niall is always a performance to be happy with! Brilliant day and great to see Nationals getting bigger year-on-year! Congrats to Danny and Kev on their 1st and 2nd places!