Matthew Ting (Wedge772) |
Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event |
2015-05-11 - 12:00 AM |
Terran Empire |
Introduction |
I've played various flavours of Terran Empire before, but never gotten the Terran Empire Player achievement. Time to remedy that!
It was also a great opportunity to get some game practice in before Continentals, but the In The Zone banning halfway through really throws a lot of that out the window. |
|
Round 1 | | Mr.Sloan | FW (+65) |
A monstrous deck smelled of Borg, which made me start attempting missions a bit faster than I would have liked. Unfortunately this meant running into 4 and 5 card dilemma combos, which killed off more people than I would have liked. Christian wasn't having much luck with card draws with bought me some time, and I was able to solve the 2 Mirror planets fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I hadn't drawn a Hidden Fighter... and Temporal Shifting wasn't being helpful. Took a while to do that, only to hit Cytherians. This gave Christian time to get scout Qo'nos, but not before managing to STP my ship, playing a 2nd Hidden Fighter, and solving my space mission... putting me at 95pts.
Christian had put Post Garrison on one of my planets, so I smelled Undetected Beam-In. I was able to quadrant beam back and forth to that Badlands planet, attempt the mission, trigger the Undetected Beam-In, and then battle the 4 Assault Drones... with Kira Taban, for the final 5pts! |
|
|
Round 2 | | Daniel Matteson | FW (+25) |
Dan is packing Ent-E Feds + Bajoran Resistance, which is a very solid deck, and I was hopeful the Quantum Incursions combo would work well against it. He gets off a very good start with shifty eyes Geordi and a whole heap of free plays on turn 1, and I'm forced to General Quarters. Luckily he has trouble drawing into Bajorans, so it takes him a few turns to get Resistance Cell draws.
I manage to get Bajoran draws from turn 1, and manage to keep a steady flow of Temporal Shifting. However my draws are a bit strange, and somehow I never seem to draw any of the TOS personnel except McCoy. We each start attempting around the same time, Dan with the advantage of sneaky eyes, to get his first space mission pretty quick. I run into Dead End at Mine Dilithium, but manage to solve my homeworld on next turn for 40pts. I then head into the AQ to attempt another planet, hitting a Linguistic Legerdemain combo with a count-down of... too long. So that means I've cleared 3 missions, but only solved 1, and only sitting at 32 points (thanks THTF!).
On Dan's turn he goes for a space mission, and hits Quantum Incursions. He has no AU, no Empathy... and he gets through it on first attempt. Now the game is 75 - 32, which puts me In The Danger Zone.
My next turn I'm able to solve Find Hidden Base for 45, putting me at 77pts. I then attempt my first space mission, but the whole crew gets stopped by an Arsenal dilemma. Dan now needs to solve a planet for the win on his turn. First he attempts Insurrection, hits Edo Probe, and decides to abandon (luckily! If he continued he'd have the game). Instead he goes to another planet, and gets stopped by Odo's Cousin. Amazingly I get another turn!
So on last turn, I daisy chain some personnel, solve Mine Dilithium, and get myself in a position to send 3 ships into Kressari Rendezvous (exactly 12 personnel available). And I needed all 3... first ship is hit with Space Ghosts, 2nd ship goes to Cytherians, 3rd ship solves for the win. Ridiculously close, I thought it was all over the turn before. |
|
|
Round 3 | | Michael Van Breemen | FW (+95) |
Oh no, 3 dupe missions! And KMS on all the non-duped missions. This was going to be a tough game, for both of us. Unfortunately for Michael though, his deck had some issues due to building for achievements, which meant his personnel reported over 3 different locations (and couldn't all mix properly). This slowed him down a bit, and I was able to get a good start even going second.
My first mission attempt at Search For Rebels ended fairly badly, but at least I knew I needed to overcome Spatial Rift (one of the current batch of dilemmas on my "hate list" to tech against). MVB attempted a duped planet mission first, without a KMS, scoring 5pts to his own Plague Ship but being stopped by my Odo's Cousin. This gave me the opportunity to take the mission from under him on the next turn, with Dr McCoy nullifying his last dilemma, Medical Crisis (and choosing to stop a Science for 5pts to Odo's Cousin). On my next turn I'm able to go back and solve Search for Rebels, putting the score at 80 - 5.
This is where the game went even worse for MVB. He went for another planet, with KMS / Quantum Incursions, and kept getting bad rolls on Quantum Incursions. One attempt even ended when KMS grabbed the only Federation personnel in the team, needed to attempt the mission. The turn he finally got a QI roll which didn't require AU or Empathy, it required Physics... and KMS had chosen to grab his only Physics on that attempt. At the end he gave up and tried to go for the shared space mission, but was stopped there too.
On my side, I just needed to solve space for the win. I was having trouble drawing into Hidden Fighters, which meant Emergent Lifeform and Cytherians bought MVB those last few turns. Eventually I got another ship into the AQ, to solve my cleared space mission. |
|
|
Round 4 | | Kenneth Tufts | TT (0) |
Looking at scores going into this game, Ken's opponents had only scored a grand total of 9pts in 3 rounds... this smelled of interaction lockout, and here it was: Kazon!
With a homeworld and landed ships I knew I had a good chance at this, but speed was key. Turn 1 I attempted my homeworld to make sure it was a Dead End (only 1 dilemma). Turn 2 I was attempting an AQ planet, clearing down to a Medical Crisis. Turn 3 I'm attempting at my other AQ planet, clearing down to a Garbage Scow on the mission. That's 3 missions ready for the taking on turn 3, things are looking good! Meanwhile, Ken is having trouble drawing into a Wormhole to leave the Delta Quadrant. But this is where he makes the game changing play, Kevin'ing Establish Landing Protocols. Without that, I can't Hidden Fighter for a Tractor Beam, locking out that mission. It also leaves the Bajoran Interceptor as my only usable ship in AQ, but taking off / landing once per turn leaves me hugely vulnerable.
Since Ken is having a hard time leaving the DQ, he decides to attempt Liberation... and walks through bad dilemmas I placed there since neither of us assumed that mission would be attempted. I'm able to go back and solve my first cleared mission for 35, leaving score at 35 - 35.
Unfortunately this is where the score stayed for the rest of the game. I figured I could grab Oof to make it 35 - 30, but for some reason it's not in this deck (oof!). Ken finally came to the Mirror Quadrant to commandeer ISS Enterprise and blow up my outpost, but it didn't really matter. I'm doing my best to try to draw into Dig to get Establish Landing Protocols back, but it never happens.
Eventually Ken goes to the AQ, and hits Edo Probe at his first mission, and decides to abandon. This turns out to be a key decision, as he would have easily walked through the mission. His 2nd mission attempt finds Dead End.
With time running out, he finally attempts a space mission, but Quantum Incursions denies him twice and it's time.
I'm happy with the best tournament result I've ever had against Ken... but later realise I could have used Art of Diplomacy to kill Kira Taban, which would have given me a 40 - 35 MW. Turns out this is the forgotten play that would have won the tournament for me. Doh! |
|
|
Round 5 | | Niall Matthew | FW (+40) |
Given the terror that Ken has been inflicting on this tournament, and the fact that I'd been the only one to escape unscathed, Niall assumes I'm also packing Kazon. Much to his surprise, we have a pleasant game of solving missions instead :)
Niall goes first, and we both have abysmal opening hands. I opt to Masaka on my first turn, only playing Dr McCoy and a free phaser. That slows down Bajoran Resistance to turn 2. The first Temporal Shifting I drew I played against Niall, but I think that was a mistake as it took me too long to draw into another one. My first mission attempt was at Mine Dilithium, which I'm able to clear down to a Linguistic Legerdemain (4 turn countdown). Unfortunately I lost Dr McCoy to A Fast Ship, and I could guess why: Niall was planning to battle Hippocratic Oath people for points (10pts with Jem'Hadar Strike Force, 5pts with Victory Is Life). Combined with a self-seeded Cytherians, he could get enough points for a 2 mission win. To confirm this, I sent in a crew with no Medical to find a Hippocratic Oath at Search For Rebels, I was right.
Niall starts attempting his space mission, and is stopped by Spatial Rift. He manages to find the Astrophysics next turn to clear the mission (except Kobayashi) and go on a Cytherians trip, which delays the solve for a turn. Meantime I'm trying to draw into another Dr McCoy, or a Hidden Fighter to start clearing out an Alpha Quadrant mission. Seeing neither, I decide I can't wait any longer and get through the Medical Crisis combo... only to be short 1 Leadership to solve as Shakaar found love. At this point I could solve the mission with Professor Sisko for 30, but I decide to wait it out for 40 points with mission specialists. Niall solves his mission, and kills the Medical in Gamma Quadrant, putting him at 60.
Next turn the Linguistic countdown expires, so I solve for 30, and then finally play a Hidden Fighter to start clearing out Kressari Rendezvous. I send a 5 person redhsirt crew, comprising mainly high integrity Diplomacy peeps... and they get through a Gomtuu combo to unexpectedly solve! In The Zone puts me at 55 (5 from an earlier Plague Ship), and I can solve the cleared Search For Rebels for 40 next turn.
Niall tries to battle my Delta Flyer, but it gets STPed to hand to prevent him scoring 10more points. This put him out of range to attempt the Alpha Quad planet mission, which would have been hard for him anyway with Quantum Incursions. On my turn I try to draw into Kira Taban (not forgetting that trick this tournament!) but no luck. Solving Search For Rebels puts me at 95... so I decide to hunt for a 2nd Plague Ship, which I find at Find Hidden Base for the win! |
|
|
Closing Thoughts |
The deck is really, really good, but I suspect that banning In The Zone is going to be a negative. |
|