I held off on the Tribbles this game. Did not want to go there with a new player, and frankly figured I didn't need them. WRONG. David played his peeps hard and fast, beating me to the first solve before racing on to the end of the spaceline for his second. I was blocked at my first few missions -- at Vulcan by Dead End, then at Mars by Medical Crisis (as I recall) -- and didn't have Secure Homeworld yet, so couldn't go to Earth. My space missions were quite far away, and I knew by this point that I was never going to get all the way down there and back before David bagged the 100th point. So I slipped over to Host Metaphasic Shield Test, which he'd seeded between his outpost and my Mars station... and stole the crap out of it. It had some totally rubbish Chula/Clown combo underneath it, and I had something like 13 personnel attempting, including the entire Scotty/Spock/McCoy troika. Solved.

At this point, David realizes: (1) "Crap, I seeded that mission but lost track of it because Mars's Duck Blind and the two Darian Wallaces thereon got in the way!" and (2) "Wait... I have to solve a SPACE mission?" Apparently I either omitted a clear discussion of victory conditions or failed to emphasize it enough in our earlier training. David now had to race back down the spaceline to his only other space mission. Thing was, he had a couple ships out in just the right places -- earlier, a Ferengi Ambush had left some Ferengi on Mars, and he'd sent a shuttle out to pick them up. It was in range of his space mission, and he had another ship at his outpost that was just in range of his shuttle. And a big ol' crew o' Ferengi solvers two turns from his outpost.

Oh dear.

At this point, I got the whatever-I-needed to bust the whatever-the-wall-was at Vulcan. Probably biology or some such. Cleared it for 35 points. My Assimilated Vessel, activated very early in the game and doing exactly no damage to anyone, exited the spaceline, and I happily enjoyed those ten points. So now I'm at 85 points to David's 95. My turns over. His turn, he surveys the board and works out that, yes, his ships are in perfect position to shuttle him to his last mission, and he starts flying that way as fast as he can. In another game, he probably would have played Get It Done, and maybe the outcome would have been different (FULL DISCLOSURE: back before I realized it would make a huge difference, I advised David against using GID, because it was too much complexity for a beginner).

I finally had what I needed to bust through Mars's Dead End, but there were still dilemmas under it, and I did not have time for that crap. Needed to win THIS TURN. Then I realized that one of my bonus point gimmicks was sitting in my hand, ready to roll: I played Cetacean Institute from hand, downloaded George and Gracie (discarding Continuing Mission), played Temporal Vortex from hand for free, and took the Enterprise back in time to fetch me some whales. 15 points -- just enough to put me over the top.

I am pleased I was able to avoid my tradition of losing to my friends in their first tournament appearances... but this could easily have gone the other way. I hope we see more David at future tourneys!

BUT NOW I AM TALKING ABOUT REGIONALS INSTEAD OF THIS GAME. BACK ON COURSE.

I had fine draws, using lots of Mutation to make sure I got my Troika out early enough to make a difference. Jason had Ocular Implants out early, and I was terrified that he'd realize immediately that my dilemmas sucked and just attempt everything. But who would believe that anyone would show up to a real, live, sanctioned tournament with LITERALLY NOTHING but lame Chula and The Clown dilemmas (plus one lousy Assimilated Vessel)? So he didn't move fast. This puzzled me at the time, but, having been on the other side of that at Regionals, I get it: when you use Ocular Implants to uncover, say, Hanonian Land Eel, you know what you need to do to bust through it and you've got a pretty good idea of what else is in the combo, or at least what SORTS of things will be in the combo. When you flip an utterly generic and indiscriminate card like Chula: The Lights or Distracted By Thoughts Of Home, this tells you nothing at all, and that's somehow scarier than just not knowing. Combine that with a few copies of 1 Tribble (which I was WRONGLY using cumulatively, though I never managed to get more than 2 in a group together), and Jason was effectively slowed down.

Still, when he did attempt, it didn't last long, so I was still struggling to keep up. I redshirted some jerk (Spock? I had extras in my hand, anyway) into Mars, uncovering Ferengi Ingenuity. Jason promptly used Q The Ref to put Access Denied on it. I assumed the second half of that combo was Dejaren, meaning I needed minimum 5 computer skill to complete the mission, so I went to Vulcan and busted through that in fairly short order -- with 5 mission specialist points from Riva for 40 points. Then I headed to Mars, picked up some extra Computers from Data, and burst through Ferengi Ingenuity. Turned out that it was NOT Dejaren, but No Loose Ends, underneath. Could have been very, very bad for our heroes. My mission team cleared it, activating The Nexus, and then the Troika beamed in to solve for 40.

At this point, I have 80 points and no space mission. Jason's got 70 points or so. I know this is coming to an end -- I fully expect him to attempt his outpost mission, and I'm hoping to betsy that I have SOMETHING there to slow him down for a turn while I figure out a plan. Sure, there's a space mission in range of the Enterprise, but it's going to get hit by The Nexus next turn, and then I'll be out of...

...luck. Aha. I have Soran in my hand. I'm going to play him, fly the Enterprise straight into the Nexus, and score my Soran Nexus points. That puts me at 100 points. Then I can go to Earth, where HQ:Secure Homeworld is already out, and complete it for a total of 140 points. I say aloud, "Well, Jason, I'm going to go do something completely insane." If I recall -- and he should feel free to correct me on this -- he responded: "Please!"

I had no inkling he was planning something equally insane. Accomplishing your own outpost mission is for chumps, apparently. He had Enabran Tain on the board and -- he now revealed! -- Pants of the Tal Shiar on the table as a Hidden Agenda. (Yes, I call it that now.) He downloads an Espionage card and FLIES RIGHT OVER TO MY HEADQUARTERS TO ATTEMPT. CRAP ON A CRAPSTICK, GENTS.

I have no clue what's under there, because I haven't got around to actually attempting it or anything, but I know Tain must be stopped at all costs. He could solve the mission alone if left alive, and I am pretty sure he has at most one Obsidian Order other than Tain. This supposition proved accurate when Jason encountered his own Brief Romance (part of a male/female combo), and I called "Male." It came down to Jean-Luc, Geordi, and Tain. This selection would decide the game.

Well, I got lucky. Jason's Away Team couldn't complete Earth, and, more importantly, were treated to the rather delicious mental image of Enbaran Tain, the hardened murderer who runs the Cardassian secret police, abandoning his duties for days on end so he can have picnic lunches with some human lover and make out with her after.

There were no other dilemmas under Earth, so, on my turn, as soon as the Nexus ate my Enterprise and Soran, I used the gametext to go straight to Earth and easily solved for the 140 point win. This was probably the most exciting game I've played since returning to the game.

To be perfectly honest, I don't remember too many details about this game from MY side of the board. Most of the emotional energy in this game was focused on the tribbles. I vaguely recall having trouble drawing to a Spock. I think I drew literally every Scotty in my deck, plus three McCoys, before Spock deigned to grace me with his presence. Nothing freakishly improbable (see my regionals report for the FREAKISHLY improbable), but a bit of a bother. I do remember that my Assimilated Vessel didn't work (it launched too late in the game), and that I again failed to complete a space mission. I remember that Matt FINALLY hit one of my Q-Flashes (first all night), and that I managed to put Q's Fantasy Women on Deputy Worf (scored no points there, except style points), and that Pla-Net and Mandarin Baliff were adequate vengeance for his Hazardous Duty against me. (Quandary didn't work -- my dilemmas never caused kills, so there were no peeps in his discards.) Finally, I remember that my final desperate flail for the Full Win was sort of dumb: I had 80 points to Matt's... 61? 81? Thereabouts. Anyway, with time already called, I threw the Enterprise into The Nexus right after I played a Galaxy to Test Mission II, thinking, "Hey, I'll just send my Nexus peeps there and hope I can bust through the dilemmas in one turn!" Except, of course, the Nexus can't send you to a space mission. Poots. So I got my 20 points for Soran, but had nowhere else to go -- I had 100 points, couldn't do a space mission, and didn't have another 40-point planet left. Not sure I had any better options.

Matt had some cool stuff going on with Starry Night to get City of B'Hala, but I'll leave it to his report to explain all that.

Oh, and Matt has insisted that, if I ever feel the need to play Tribbles in a 1E deck ever again (outside a regional), I should please call him so he knows not to come. However, I would like to point out that this insistence applies ONLY TO ME. He hasn't mentioned it to anyone else. I consider that an open door -- an invitation, even -- to EVERYONE playing Storage Compartment Door at the Fargo regional in two weeks. :P

Speaking of which, this evening earned me a fairly shocking number of achievements, including my very first gold achievement -- "Second, Close That Storage Compartment Door." Thank you to the anonymous Tribbles benefactor who made this possible. You know who you are.