Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13) Tournament Report - 2E - Rura Penthe Regional 2014-06-14 - 11:00 AM So, we're going up to KHANada, eh? What's that all aboot, eh? Introduction "Can I cook or can't I?," to quote an intelligent scientist. It would appear that I do pretty well at baking a cake with fresh, new ingredients. No stale, outdated, historically retroactive items presumably. In other words, what's new can work, in the right hands and in a warm, welcoming open-minded environment. Ian, Chris, and I headed up to Canada, not in the numbers that I'd have liked to have been (Bri was unavailable due to personal reasons; Kevin O'Neill from the Cities had gotten Friday and Sunday off from work, but, was unsuccessful in getting a coworker to pick up his Saturday shift, so that parade was rained on; and I hadn't heard back from Robert Peterson, also of that area), so instead of 6 we were half that. Kyle Schewe (the other Canadian player still in Winnipeg proper) had been a maybe, as he was getting back into town from an out-of-town trip, must not have made it back before 11 as we didn't see him all day (I shall have my revenge from last year...oh well, 'Revenge is a dish best served cold' as one deliciously, or is that feverishly?, despotic tyrant was once quoted as saying. Guess I'll have to adopt that philosophy. Heh heh. Anyhoo, onto the reports... Round 1 Ian Parmenter FW (+30) Ian ran Ferengi. I will hold my tongue as he may make tweaks to his deck for a pending tourney. My FW, 100-70. Round 2 Chris Volk FW (+5) Cardie capture. This game was epic. Chris's 'Cardy capture' as he has named it is often a bitch to have to deal with, certainly. It's the fairly rare exception that my decks against it have fared positively and this was another challenge for the ages. Chris, I will not dispute in any way/shape/form no way no how, should have assuredly had the victory here. By no small good luck/ fortune on my part which I graciously thank the gaming deities for, by all means. I knew, as is his standard operating procedure to get the six requisite Cardies into play so he could subsequently play Evek AoCJ, and conduct a hopefully (for him) successful triple capture. To start the game, I used my HR d/l for Khan Bold Man and CAV, FS's discard of a ship in this instance to d/l TRIH, simultaneously. I played both and got one of the Khanians (Otto or McPherson) into play as well. A couple more turns, got a few more into play. I was also sitting with, I believe, my two Tackings in hand and one of the interrupts, so I had to do some drawing to acquire more playable peeps. What happens? I draw an event, draw another event, draw a ship. Great. Next turn, Chris gets his sixth Cardie into play and I know the following turn, Evek's hitting the table, yay! NOT. I draw an event, another ship, and an equipment. Fan-freaking-tastic. Would have been two possible turns of Evek Fizzle. So, sure enough, Evek hits the table and what did I have as the top three cards of my deck? Another equipment, Khan G-E Nemesis, and Raakin, I believe it was. So, only one captive to start for him as I already commanded Khan. Whew. (Mostly) Dodged a bullet there. Unbelievable! but, whew. Sigh of relief. I attempt CAV, FS what looked to be three times getting stopped up and Chris only nabbed Otto (per my choice of Prisoner of the Exile, what with another Otto in my hand by this point). Did I mention one of those events in my hand was my lone copy of Rescue Captives? Well, it was. I debated for a turn or two before playing it. Wondering if I can hold out and save it for more than two captives, as I have no way to recursion it, but, do have Skalaar in the deck as a possible Augment/mutant gene-alteree, and hope Chris doesn't plop down a Prison Compound before I snag them back. He doesn't, as he mentioned post-game that he had gotten too greedy and was wanting more captives to net more points, either 10 or 15 points from the one card play, if I had to guess, of course. My saving grace. Well, I use Joaquin to bring in the U.S.S. Reliant, Part of One Big Happy Fleet (very thematically I might add) as I can boost its' range to necessary Empire-forging hopping distances to traverse our soon to be 'Hell throughout the Cosmos' Great Khanate expansionist plans and we jaunt to Genesis. I beam down the team of 11 or 12 peeps, use Marla to slither off with Khan's Lieutenant, Joaquin, conduct a little nooky on the side and behind Khan's back to get my free draw, thereby protecting the loss of him from any dilemma save the possibility of a Bad End (which I pray is not in my opponent's deck) and luck out on that note, as it seems. The rest start attempting with Roga Danar in the team, Chris tries his hand at various dilemma capture (Cardassian Processing, Prisoner of the Exile, The Moon's a Window to Heaven et al). Roga gets randomly selected. Bounced back to top of deck. [boy, am I glad Evek has already been played] and thus I fail. Next turn, I draw Roga for the second time this game. It wouldn't be the last, believe me. I replay him, and draw enough to fuel the Reliant to go pick him up (amongst another peep or two, iirc) and fly back to Genesis. Make attempt #2. Chris throws more capture dilemmas at me. He randomly selects....Roga. Back on top. Next turn, I draw the Subhadar for the third time this game. Nope, check it, still not last time. Get enough to go pick him up yet again and back to GP. Try attempt #3. More capure attempts. Oh look, who is it? For the third time, my token Angosian. I kid u not! Freakingly unbelievable good luck on my part, most assuredly. So, by this time, I have enough under to attempt the mission with 6 or 7 and not sweat any capture as the next and final attempt, expectantly, he can only draw/spend one in dilemmas. Had to bide my time and go for the (hopeful) walkthrough next turn. So, what do I do, but draw Roga for the FOURTH TIME this game. I do some away team rearranging sending those not needed up to prep the ship for orbital departure. I attempt without initially picking up my brig-breakout artist. and Chris top decks Secret Identity. Flops it at me. He picks Bashir RC, and I search my deck, revealing... Arik Soong. Soong does his shenanigans, turning SI into essentially a 'single stop' dilemma, allowing me to keep Bashir and I nab GP. I beam up all my completing peeps, fly to pick up Roga and another one or two, I think, and boost the enginery to move to SBS. Then, blow up Genesis and lose Arik, oh well, he served his purpose. I start on SBS. Chris stops me up. At this point, Chris had gotten a space and then gets his planet. He goes to start on his third mission, the second planet in the Union. I hold him off. I work again on SBS. He held me up. Chris tried again at his mission for the win. got it...and realized he's at 95 points! (I've already played RC on a previous turn to get Otto and Raakin back by this time.) Without any captives sitting in his very empty brig. Gaaaaah...for him, but, YES! (Data fist pump) for me. Time is called. Chris had started the game. I get my final turn. And decide to bully the hell, literally, heh heh, out of SBS. I send 16. He gets 11. Throws five my way. I slog through them. While I had augmented Hajur early game, thereby putting the use of my fave slave girl in doubt, I had to use a Tacking to nuke my own Augmentation so I was able to augment Navaar a couple turns earlier, and am able to dance around the dilemmas with one event to spare (I had six in play at this juncture). I have enough skill redundancy (or ability to skill cheat with my favorite Orion lass) that I only have to survive the attrition levels. Sure, enough, I do just that, with at least five (if not six) peeps left to complete the mission and wrest victory away from the spoonheads grasp. My FW, 100-95. Round 3 I.C. FW (+100) TOS Battle. but, not TK battle, as I understood it, per Ivo's own admission. I was aware of the general purpose of Ivo's deck for this event. Though, truth be told, he originally had planned for Non-Aligned battle, not TOS battle. I knew Khan was my best choice against either of these flavors of destruction, as sure, go ahead and blow up my damn ship. As long as everybody's planetside, I won't lose a single crewmember, and I'll just use Joaqin to resurrect the ship in question, if/as necessary, or bring the other option into play. Ha. I guess Ivo made the mistaken presumption in 2E that you only needed two damage markers on a ship to blow it up, which he found out otherwise in his first game against Chris, and that cost him. But, as it was his learning lesson, he made the proper course corrections here. Opening hand I drew Khan BM, and was second turn player. So I used HR's d/l for Marla. Started my free draws (once per turn) as of first turn. Yeah! His TOS weenies got out ahead of me, naturally, but, I made him slog his way through his Advanced Battle Simulation with no completion all game. My Chula Gamesmanship worked fairly well, though surprisingly it wasn't due to oodles of chula follow-ups, more the luck or programmed/dial-a-dilemma tech from Not Easily Avoided, thanks to Ian's abuse of said card in our first few (3 or so) CC-era years. I had included one The Seen and the Unseen for Ivo here, having expected him to play the aforementioned NA deck (and the NEA was meant for grabbing TSatU ad infinitum.) Had also included one Moral Choice expecting Chris to play his Cadets, but, he admitted that was 'earlier in the week' misdirection. Good one. After the first [Chula: The] Game on ABS, hit him with maybe two more Chula's. Got functional work out of NEA and the random standard draw w/o NEA at times. So, with Ivo's fleet of four TOS ships, knew if I went to PII, it'd be my death. Therefore, I avoided that mission like the plague. I mean, come on, we like to Burn IN HELL (thanks to Navaar), but, we prefer it to be our version of Hell. Not somebody else's. I got CAV, FS in two attempts, iirc, and then had to draw, draw, draw, to get my first copy of Joaquin in order to launch the empire to glory. Did so and brought the Delta Flyer, Rebuilt Hot Rod into placement, and told Ivo he could play with my Rod. Heh heh heh. Chose to go to SBS first and nab it, what with the lower Cunning requirement than GP. I sent all peeps down, had Marla slink off with Joaquin here, again behind Khan's back, to protect him from death and possible capture, if any. Attempted with the rest. Got it in two or three attempts, while leaving my ship empty. He came over in waves next turn, having played three P cards in succession that turn and blew up my Rod. Boy, he didn't play with it long, but, he sure played with it hard. Awwww. me so sad, truly. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! My next turn, I resurrected the 'Rod' via Joaquin. (Ivo took it as a small victory as he wanted to blow up ships all day and I think Ian danced around such destruction by going planet-planet-space, iinm.???) I get the mission eventually, and then head to Genesis. Got that in two attempts, I believe, and could've let every one of my peeps in play burn in hell for super style points, but, Khan and the unstopped wanted to party shipboard, so they beamed up, leaving only the four or five who'd gotten stopped on the solving attempt, to burn in galactic Hades, when I converted the planet to cosmic dust/reverted protomatter and claim victory again for Mr. K.N. Singh and his followers. Go the Great Khan Empire! My FW, 100-0. Closing Thoughts The shop we played at was awesome. Their staff was highly accomodating and very friendly. Ivo has plans to try to develop a group of players for both editions there and I wish him the best of good luck in that regard. Maybe we'll be up there more often in the months and years ahead. Each of us earned a $10 gift certificate which I used, in part to acquire The Big Bang Theory 'Sheldon in Spock uniform' (making the Live Long and Prosper salute handsign) bobble head, spending $10 in Canadian cool plastic currency as the difference needed. He is now on my desk and will make an appearance at Paradox next weekend. I enjoy playing the Khan deck. CC, do not be afraid to continue to develop new affiliations and new decktypes. Makes the game infinitely fun and diversity rich moreso. So, on that note, I thank Nick Y., James H., and Will H. for their work on this ever so cool set. Players gonna play, and haters gonna hate, never the twain shall meet eye to eye. I await a few more Khan (and/or GE) peeps to help flesh out the deck even more. One peep I'd like to see, not a specific name personnel, but, the ability on a (hopefully non-unique) peep, of all things, would be something along the likes of "When you play this personnel, if you command To Rule In Hell and have completed Ceti Alpha V, you may download a ship and place it at your completed planet mission. That ship now becomes [NA.]" ??? It would greatly help the deck to be able to get a second, or even third, or fourth ship into play, if and as necessary. Just like every other deck that can already play an unlimited number of ships. Please? Thanks for listening. And continue putting out such fun cards. Thanks, CC.