J (The Mad Vulcan) Tournament Report - 2E Standard 2011-07-09 - 04:00 PM Pencil in Glorious Battle for Each Day This Week Introduction The second tournament in the triple header at John Kalmen's new apartment. I had to bag out on the third, which I had a deck for but it was certainly the weakest. This deck is not as good as the one used in Tournament 1, but the dilemma pile is better, IMO. Round 1 John Kalmen MW (+65) This game went heavily in my favour from the beginning. John was playing a very interactive Romulan deck with Psychological Pressure. Not sure if he was playing that card the old way or the new way, but it didn't have much chance of winning so I didn't mess with the ruling (old way, more likely). His Romulan deck was quite good, but like mine it is far better and preventing the opponent from getting a FW that actually winning. Unless of coarse, the tournament has no timed rounds. I had time to build and we fought each other for various benefits. I got bonus points which fueled an At What Cost and put me at 5 and put a couple dilemmas under Wormhole Negotiations, John snagged a few captives. I started attempting WN but had little luck. Big John ran Stripped Down and Parallel Course to keep the number of dilemmas under the mission down to 2-3 consistently for the whole game. He also parked a D'deridex ship there to fuck with me and that worked quite well. I ended up battling to get dilemmas under Brute Force and then hoping over there to solve it in one go. That was fortunate as there was not yet an opposing ship there. Star of the hour being Worf, The Strongest Heart who could unstop dudes to help the mission walk. Back at WN with every person I had in the deck, I attempted to pull out all the stops and do the required discarding to bust through in one mighty go, but barely failed. Then I was locked out since I only had 2 cards left in hand to discard and those were necessary to even attempt. I ended up moving on to my next space mission and then switching back and forth based on where the D'deridex was. this cost dilemmas under, but I had no chance of getting through with one parked outside. Ultimately, I had no chance of losing, however as John only began solving missions very late and had little success. This game was absolutely mine because I had no deck left and John was down to about 6 cards in his. It was only a matter of turns until he would be forced to deck out and holding him out of his missions before that would be easy. Round 2 Seraph117 TT (0) This game went very poorly for me at the start and very well later. Francis was playing speed and I only managed to hold him at Caretaker's for one or two attempts, then I made the mistake of throwing a Final Adventure, which does very little against Voyager. Francis pushed rather easily through his second mission (also space) all the while I wasn't even ready to leave home! It wasn't until the planet mission when things turned in my favour. I made a solid dilemma play (though risky) by tossing Inequitable Exchange in front of Unfair Terms. This allowed me to grab one of his 3 cost 4 dudes for my brig and then a shot at 3 kills. That worked in my favour and I pulled 3 cost 2 personnel. Next I flew over and started battle thereby killing a dude and Ferocity for another leaving poor francis with a whole lot of nothing on the board. As he rebuilt, I attempted missions. Later when Francis did get another go, Sylvia added 3 more dudes to my brig. Time was called with Francis at 2 space missions and me with 5 points on the board (from ship battle, another 5 having been used on At What Cost?) I had only one turn left, so I made a really good move, which in retrospect could have been better. I had all of my deck out on the table or in hand. All people and ships at Wormhole Negotiations attempting. I chose the 3 least useful guys and sent them over to Voyager to net my 10 points from battle and then through everyone else at WN. With Worf's help I busted it putting me at 60 points and tying the game. But here's the real kicker that I should have planned better for. I had seen the tie as the best case scenario as it would put me into a final confrontation with Andy. Still I had range on my ship and two dilemmas under Brute Force. So I flew there, did more Worfing to walk through the mission witheveryone I started with for the completion..... except I was 1 security short of the requirements. It seems that I chose wrong when building the team for space battle by sending away most of the Security (not needed for WN) in order to keep multiples of the required skills for that mission, only I never needed multiples for that mission. Having completed Brute Force would have put me at 100. Since I had gone first, Francis had another go at his mission, which I held him out of. One more turn and I'm sure I would have had Brute Force as there were 4 dilemmas under and I could have brought over the extra security. Round 3 Deathbymonkeys FL (-15) In the game against Francis, I was at a disadvantage as my missions had a total value less than his. The same was true against Andy. (Francis = 200, Andy = 180, J = 165). This meant that 3 cards in my dilemma pile were worthless; Well Prepared Defenses because it seems that mine were not well prepared enough. Andy started out faster than me but oddly went to his planet mission first. I wasn't fortunate to draw the one Necessary Execution in my Dilemma Pile, but spent a couple of his attempts giving him only one card under as it was a high point mission. Given the high range on his Defiant, Andy had little issues returning home to get more people and coming back for bigger attempts each turn. This worked in my favour as I gave him a solid stack of dilemmas and wiped out many of the Away Team members. Then I flew over and battled him on the planet to ensure that he was destaffed. This move required Andy to spend a number of turns rebuilding, including playing another ship (this was his patented all Defiant class deck) and staffing the monstrocity. Meanwhile I had played rather poorly on my side. Given that the Defiant's shields were far too high for one K'Vort class ship to overtake (even with inherent weapons boosts), I needed Kurn to allow me to double team it (insert causal reference to your mom here.) While I waited to draw a second ship I decided to attempt my space mission and get a dilemma or two under. this was a bad call as Andy was playing a kill pile and eliminated my Kurn. I did get through my Space mission and Planet mission, though while waiting for Andy to bring out a reasonable sized ship. My elimination of his staffing on the Defiant did just that and he played the Mirror Defiant. So there was me at 85 and needing two successful battles to win. Trouble being the Rotarran was at Brute Force with the crew that just completed it and the Hegh'ta was alone at home. I needed these two ships (and only these two could do it) in order to defeat the Defiant. But I would only be able to do one battle on the next turn (by flying the Rotarran home and switching to the Hegh'tawhile leaving a crew on the Rotarran.) This would allow Andy a turn to retreat it back to home. I felt that I would need 2 turns to pull off the necessary Engagements. Andy completed the planet mission with ease as it now had tons of dilemmas under and went to Space. I through light at space (3 dilemmas) in order to ensure dilemmas drawn on his next attempt and that worked in his favour as he sklated through for the FW. In retrospect, I should have hit him hard and then just burned an Endangered. but oh well, hid sight is 20-20 and I honestly thought that those 3 dilemmas would work.