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J (The Mad Vulcan)
Tournament Report - 1E Modern - Online Event (Mission to Talos IV)
2012-02-27 - 12:00 AM
CardassianBlack is White
Introduction
As this is the Golden Era, I really could have gone with any affiliation. However, I wanted to go with a pure affiliation and one that I had not played in a while. Using the Ferengi to draw and then another affiliation for mission solves is likely the best idea, but I opted for Cardassians with Cargo Runs for the draws in an attempt to gain a draw/quality free play advantage. I have to rely on speed as I can't hold up against engagements. The deck was built around the idea of Cargo Runs. I tried to get as many low range missions as I could since I will undoubtedly would also have to cross some opponent's missions. And since those are mostly from Premiere, I ran Plans of the Obsidian Order + Espionages. I probably should have run Terok Nor and Jerado (which is damned easy, but would need an Espionage: Cardie on Bajoran) but I mistakenly thought that using the plain Nor would allow me choices on where to put it.
Round 1RomulanNiall MatthewMW (+25)
My first game was vs. Niall and it was a blast. He was playing a full Romulan capture/interaction deck with a little Ferengi (namely GN Gint) for the draw engine. I made some mistakes on the mission phase, though I hadn't realized this until later. I had intended to place my Nor at either Cardassia or Bajor and built the spaceline to put all the small range missions alongside those. Then Niall pointed out (rightly) that the Nor can play at neither of those. As such, I didn't have as good of a Cargo run zone as I wanted and could not process Ore (I had to put it at Kressari Rendevous). The game started well enough. I played plenty of people and ships and so did Niall, he was building a fine fleet of D'deridex class warships, so I intended to go for speed. This worked out fine as he had used lots of seed slots and few dilemmas. While running Cargo, I would occasionally get stopped at one of my missions and in that case I'd use the moment to glance through the dilemmas. First, at Kressari where I lucked through a Lack of Preparation and then (unfortunatley for me) solved it on the first go for only 25 points. Next I blew through the dilemmas at Bajor only being stopped (by a few strength) with a Founder Secret. Niall made his first move on the next turn by starting his fleet across the spaceline into my territory so I made a solid move in Ops downloading a Breen CRM114 to my Arms dealer in the Cargo Bay which had a Weapons Locker. This allowed the Freighter at the Nor to bring it to Bajor and allow the solve. What's more, I only needed two dudes to solve Bajor; Enabrain Tain and Narik blew through the door with a Founder shaped lock using the Breen CRM114 such that the Mission Debriefing only stopped two. I then brought everyone else back to the relative safety oft he Nor. Niall killed Tain and blew up the orbiting Freighter. Meanwhile, his fleet only got larger as turns went on. I was sitting on 65 points (to nothing) and had a choice of two relatively close 35 point missions to go to next. One was Cardassia, which had the benefit of being a planet and having a Facility there (The Central Command) this meant that even if Niall eliminated my remaining ship, I could still restock an attempt and he would have to work hard to eliminate all of the people that I had in play. The other was Repair Mission, which had the Neutral Outpost. That reporting locale would be much more easily eliminated and any people attempting the mission would certainly be stopped by Mission Debriefing thereby allowing their ship to be lit up. However, I was concerned with wasting my time at Cardassia since I only had one copy of a single personnel who could solve it (Borad) having chosen to use the Espionage over the HQ: Secure Homeworld. Ultimately, I made my decision because of range. ALthough I was more than halfway through my deck I had not drawn any of the 3 copies of the Xepolite Freighter that I had in the deck and that was the only ship which could get from the Nor to the Neutral Outpost in one go. I figured that waiting any more time would just give Niall a bigger fleet (and it was scary enough, let me tell you.) So I decided to go after Cardassia Prime, but was concerned about Lack of Prep. I didn't want to redshirt Borad, but could only meet the mission requirements if he was there. I decided to risk it as Niall likely did have another copy of LoP, but it was rather unlikely that it was there. The first dilemma was Lack of Prep and that dropped me to 55 points and made it so I would certainly need two more missions rather than one to win. I.E. I wasn't going to win. The next turn I went after the mission with Borad anyway. I felt a 90% certainty that this mission would have the same combo as the neighboring Kressari Rendevous and that was Lack of Prep + Scout ENcounter + Extradition. That was a solid combo as it would allow Niall to capture Borad (the mission requirements) and lock me out of the mission. I decided to risk it because I needed two missions now and Borad had nothing better to do than wait in a Romulan holding cell. SO that is how it went down. So I was right back to were I started. Eying Repair mission and looking for a Xepolite Freighter. This time I got one and so I bust over there. I decided that I had not much of a chance of living beyond one attempt (due to the # of Romulan ships in play), so I through everything at it with everyone and left only a spare set of mission skills on the outpost. This is the opposite of what I should have done as I found a Pup + Abandon Ship! (Solid combo) and that allowed Niall to capture everyone and destroy my only ship in play on his next turn. The funny thing being that I still had the mission skills on the wo guys that were left staffing the Xepolite; Roga Danar had ENgineer and Computer SKill and Danar had Officer and ENgineer (giving him two engineer with the Engineering Kit). The only reason that I had failed to solve here was that Niall had revealed a seeded Access Denied. That was it for me. Niall finally went after some missions and took the time out to destroy the Neutral Outpost before I drew any new ships (no draw engines left without Cargo Runs and Ore Processing). My main goal here was to get lucky with a double deck out as what was left of my deck could never have pulled out three Engineer. I used the Plans of the OO plus Espionage cards to get a few extra draws to push for that. Niall hadn't started on doing any missions and we were pretty deep in. Plus, my dilemma combos had a very slim chance of locking him out. The first mission that he went to failed at that as he still had three Science and a Medical for the Scientific Method on his three copies of Vekor even after I had Sleeper Trap battled and Extradited his red shirted mooks. He was then stopped cold at the first dilemma (Dangerous Liason) at one space mission only because it was far from the majority of his personnel and ships and has an odd skill requirement. Neill had 4 space missions, but two could be stolen and were not worth many points while the other two could not and were. So I had put the best combos at the two better missions and random crap at the low point stealables (not that I any longer had something in play to steal them with). He then started throwing ships full of dudes at one of the better space combos and this worked in my favour. He had been eying those two missions for a while but never had the Officer x 2 to get through the Hazardous Dutys that lead off each. This time he through down and the Goraxus got slammed by an Orion Syndicate Bomb, the tactics killing two Scientists. Next he flew over a new ship and reattempted only to have Stellar Flare damage and stop the new ship (killing two more Scientists and leaving him with no Vekors) while accidently blowing up the Goraxus! (Stellar FLare hits all ships there. Man this combo is going to be a new regular in my arsenal if it continues to work this well.) Then Niall called time, which surprised me as I was still quite certain that he had it locked. All he needed was to solve one more mission before we both decked. I think Dr. Telek R'Mor was still alive to bust the Navugational Hazzards that was the only remaining dilemma there. But I'm not certain how many people were on Sela's flagship.
Round 2Diane HainFW (+100)
Diane was running Klingons and for some reason had chosen to run a few stealable missions. Two were universal and two had greater than 40 points, though one of each of those was a Klingon only mission. I managed to get a decent enough spaceline. I put my nor at Search for Survivors which was at the very far end (my end as it would be, Quo'nos was at the other end) and next to that was a 2 Range space mission for Diane(Investigate Alien Probe), a 3 range space mission for me (Study Cometary Cloud), Diane's Wormhole Negotaiations, my Cardassia Prime, and finally my Kressari Rendevous. Nothing to the left of that played into my game. Diane only had two space missions and both were in my Territory. I put the Neutral Outpost at Wormhole Negotiations so that I could cargo run across to missions in a single turn's range. That worked okay and I spent the early turns drawing into the deck and fetching various equipment. I had the idea that I might steal Wormhole Negotiations. I hadn't fake seeded it but felt strongly that I could bust my own dilemma combo (though strong) with proper fore knowledge. I would need 2X Officer, 2X Navigation, 2X Astrophysics, Transporter Skill, and Stellar Chartography to bust it. For the most part, those skills came easily but I didn't pull any Astrophysics and had only managed to get one treachery into play by about turn 4. So I decided not to mess around and Ops Downloaded them so that I could get to Wormhole Neg. first. I found that I did not have 2X Astro in the deck, I could pull Astro from my Q's Tent. But I decided to DL the Treachery instead. Tain got me one and then Garak two more. While I did that, I lined up my Xepolite freighter for the bog turn. Once I downloaded the last Treachery (Garak) I actually didn't need him as I had drawn the Jovis for the Kivas Fajo DL. But I got him anyway (love me some Garak), revealed my Plans of the OO to play a free Espionage: Cardieon Fed on the big point mission, and met everyone up at the Neutral Outpost. Then I put all but three personnel on the Xepolite Freighter that was there and flew it to Cardassia so it would be out of the way. The two Cardassian Officers (Jasad and Lemec) bust through Hazardous Duty, Lemec Supplied the Transporter Skill to get rid of the Orion Syndicate Bomb, and then they failed the Stellar Flare thereby stopping them and turning two of Diane's damage markers onto my ship. One killed Jasad (no points lost as he is an Officer) but the other bounced as I had no Security or Computer Skill (I think it was). The main attempting foce then returned and showed that Morn and Toran had the Stellar and Nav x 2 together to bust the Nav Hazards. Then all the notorious Cardassian Treachery negotiated for rights to a wormhole. Diane decided to go to her first mission, which was Batleth Tournament were she found that I had seeded my Extradition and Sleeper Trap combo in the wrong order thereby making the Extradition do nothing. But the Sleeping Cardassians stopped her 4 man away team and even managed to kill Kurak (who had the Science needed for the final dilemma.) I sent everyone except morn and Narik to attempt Search for Survivors, since I wanted Morn to do the final cargo run for me (Science Kit had yet to be run) and I wanted to keep my specialist out of the action in case things got ugly. this worked poorly for me as Diane had a Computer Skill drain combo there. Ferengi Infestation (enhanced by Access Denied)picked off Garak and his father Enabrain, and then I was one Computer Skill short of No Loose Ends (enhanced by Access Denied) which Narik could have supplied. Since I did have both the Medical Kit and the Engineering Kit, the dilemma killed all Medical, Engineer, and Officer! But I wasn't sitting too bad. Diane was very far away and didn't have the range that my ships did. Garak and Tain ha the necessary 3X Computer Skill to solve the mission (enhanced by Access Denied) if they managed to survive for 3 turns but I was down the Officer (none left in play.) So again I turned to the Ops Download, picking up two Officer and grabbing ones with Computer Skill where possible just in case Garak and his pa met an untimely end. This allowed me to solve once Garak had finally outsmarted the Ferengi. Meanwhile Diane was dumbfounded by the Scientific Method, having not the skills to pass it. I think she took a look at one other dilemma at another mission and also didn't like that. Immediately after solving SfS, I sent a Red Shirt attempt out to see what was at Study Commetary Cloud. Luckily, it didn't have the Science Kit onboard as Morn had just run it to the cargo bay to collect his payment; the first dilemma was Unscientific Method. I had the Cunning but no Scientists and could deduce what the last dilemma was. The middle dilemma was a Hippocratic Oath which borrow my Makbar over to SfS (as she is much brighter than the average Cardie). But of coarse, they were stopped by the Scientific Method. So here Diane had a good chance to lock me out for a bit. If she could destroy the attempting ship she would get my Medical Kit and Engineering Kit, and I would need the former to come up with the requirements for Scientific Method. However, she didn't make it over as none of her ships had sufficient range. On my final turn, I play Legate Damar as my card play. Morn's valiant late game Cargo Run had net me the Legate as a draw and so I didn't need to Ops Download for him. Then they met up on the nearest freighter with Morn bringing the Science Kit, and picked up Narik and Borad along the way to help solve the mission.
Round 3BorgJon CarterFW (+73)View opponent's Report
In Round 3, I played Jon which is always a blast. Seeding the spaceline was tricky but at least I remembered to line up Search for Survivors for the Nor and cargo runs which for the first time in this tournament allowed me to both Run Cargo and Process Ore. Jon was running a couple big point Klingon space missions and I was wishing that I had an Espionage: Cardassian on Klingon in the deck. Then he put Kronos rather near my Search for Survivors, which scared the hell out of me. Klingon battle after barely surviving Romulan battle. He was playing Borg. Well played, Jon, well played. Luckily I had chosen to put all 4 card dilemma combos under the missions closest to and including Kronos while the only 3 card combo was at the farthest mission from Kronos. That played well vs. Borg. Also, I'm not running Dead End I had the first turn and I Ops downloaded Morn, as in both preceeding games, to get the Cargo Runs going. I had manged to pull 2X Xepolite Freighter in my opening hand which were very useful even though I needed two turns worth of range to cross the Cargo Run span. I could manipulate two ships and alternate between drawing and Ops downloading over each pair of turns. But it wasn't until turn two that I started Morn on his run as he needed help staffing the ship. On Jon's side, he got out Seven of Nine, The Queen, and Gowron of Borg in the first two turns. The latter greatly explained his choice of all Klingon missions. While doing an initial cargo run using Gold Pressed Latinum, I brought my mission specialists back to the Nor and then they staffed the second Xepolite Freighter so that I could daisy chain the runs. On my second cargo run, I stopped by Cardassia to buy a Medical Kit with Morn's Gold Pressed Latinum and grabbed all of the personnel who played for free there over the course of the first few turns. Then I sent them at Bajor and found a Founder Secret. Once the second run was complete, I dumped managed to grab Benil and Weapons Locker in the draws and after making them my subsequent card plays also tossed a free BreenCRM114 to the Cargo Bay. But while I was building that all up, I sent the remaining personnel on Morn's third cargo run so that they could team up to attempt Kressari Rendevous. By this time, Jon moved to the Alpha Quadrant and flew to Seek Life Form in the hope (I think) that I had fake seeded it. I had not and Hazardous Duty stopped him on the first attempt for lack of Officers But on his subsequent turn he dialed for that necessary skill on the Queen and interlinked it. That got him through dilemma one and damaged by the Orion Syndicate Bomb due to a lack of Transporter Skill. My two tactics could pick from anybody as he had them interlinked but the first took out the interlink drone and that limited the remaining choices for the second to two. Jon being stopped, I got my Xepolite Freighter all the way to Kressari, beamed Morn to the outpost and attempted with everyone else. Garak and Roga Danar got picked off by Ferengi Ingenuity enhanced by Access Denied but amar and Dukat had the compuet skill and officer to get by No Loose Ends and had the Science from a Science Kit. This just left one dilemma and it was Conundrum. At that point, all of my personnel in play except Morn (on the outpost) and Narik (processing Ore) were destined to die in battle vs. the Borg. But the worst of it being that Jon would eliminate both my Medical Kit and my Science Kit. Jon decided to retreat from his mission attempt as he was afraid of attempting while damaged. But he hung out long enough for the Borg to make Space Debris of my 1st Xepolite Freighter. I made sure that the equipment hit the discard pile first so that i could process them back under (my deck is seriously lacking in Science and Medical) but they were not actually needed for the rest of the game and were not redrawn, though they did get back into the deck. Things got slower here as Jon limped back to the Delta Quadrant to trade cubes and I built up and rearranged to bust Founder Secret (as described above). Dolak and Danar bust through the door with a BFG but met their untimely end to the follow up Firestorm. This wasn't so painful for me, however, and the following turn I managed to find a Cardassian to help Kivas Fajo bust through the In the Pale Moonlight. To do that, I simply had to ship shuffle and bring Narik (a mission specialists who had been working hard in the Ore Processing Facility) and Benil (my only living Cardassian in the region) to the mission. However, they were short on treachery to solve the mission (irony!), so I had to wait until the following one and use the range to move ships around in the opposite direction and grab Enabrain Tain from the homeworld. This actually worked well for me as I sent only two personnel (Tain and Narik) to solve the mission (note: Jon had revealed a Mission Debriefing after I failed to solve on the last turn). About here, Jon swapped out his ship and use some massive range to bounce back to Seek Life form and reattmempt. The giant Borg ship was unphased by a Stellar Flare or Navigational Hazards (due to interlinking) and probed for the mission solve. This put Jon on the board first with 25. On my turn I moved ships around to pick up Tain and some friends from Cardassia Prime,dropped Tain and Narik off at Bajor to solve the mission, ran morn and an Engineering Kit to the Nor for some draws, and finally sent more Cardassians to red shirt Search for Survivors. (It was a great turn for the Union.) The Cardassians burnt through another Founder Secret and only Kivas Fajo was stopped by a Chula: The Chandra and that let every one else (Zef'no, Toran, and Entek) die to a Barlay's Protomorphosis Disease. I am sad that I didn't bust that dilemma as the 15 points would have gotten me a two mission win. Narik had made Bajor worth 40 and with the 15 from Barclay, I would only have needed 45 from Kressari which could have been achieved with 4 guns or 3 guns and Narik as Jon had an Access Denied on it. Interestingly (to me) Kivas Fajo keeps accidently surviving mission attempts. Jon used his draws and conversions of draws into drones to get two Range enhancing drones and skip back to Kronos for some assimilating of a Homeworld. He sent almost everyone (no God in this format) and they found Dangerous Liaison hard to surmount as there weren't any Science drones in play to interlink. I was short on Officers to solve my two remaining missions and there was one more dilemma under SfS. I Ops Downloaded one Officer and still had Benil in play (to get me a free play for the second BreenCRM114 that I had drawn). But I had to red shirt one of them as all of my other living people were Non-aligned. So I sent Jasad with all the Yellows to find a Dead End. I needed to solve Kressari first and then could come back to it (not bad) but already had all the skills for both and guns for the Kressari boost needed to complete and win the game. But mission Debriefing and rnage would make it take at least 3 turns. Now that I knew that I could win on just the three missions, I started discarding my Espionage cards for the draws. Jon switched his card play for a draw and then his draw for a drone and brought out the science needed to bust Dangerous Liaison. Then they found a Sleeper Trap, so I downloaded my 3 Cardassians and a gun and started some fighting. That ended up in a couple stunned Borg and an assimilated Cardassian (Jasad) and a full stop of most of Jon's drones in play. However, he went at the mission with just Seven of Nine and she was extradited and he sent a last remaining drone at the mission to see On the Pale Moonlight so that it could be Adapted to the subsequent turn. I played a new gun for free (for the fun of it) and then I sent Kivas Fajo alone on the Jovis to pick up Dakol and shoot the Borg cube orbiting Kronos. That ended up in a bit more space debris (than normal) orbiting Kronos. Everyone else went to Kressari Rendevous (which required two turns range while setting up a second ship for the return, though jon couldn't even probe on his turn, thank's to Kivas' valiant sacrifice) and solved while discarding 3 guns but were, of coarse stopped by the Mission Debriefing. I still had one ship floating in space between my two mission allowing me to span the distance the next turn, but I was a bit concerned that Jon could pull out something cool and get all the way over to the middle ship and destroy it. But as I was on 80 and Jon only 27 (two more from Jasad's assimilation), he opened a pack of First Contact! This was pretty exciting as jon said that he had yet to see the opportunity and I had also never seen it happen in a game. He didn't pull well, however, so he probed and Kronos and failed (green drone). This gave me the game on the next turn.
Round 4BajoranChristopher CoyleFL (-30)View opponent's Report
Other than the fact that we were playing different affiliations, this was a mirror match-up. Both Chris and I chose Cargo run decks with Cardasian and Bajoran Regions. The game was essentially quite close and came down to one mistake by me in the seed phase (from my point of view). Chris and I had two shared missions, I put real dilemmas at each, but at the one which I intended to solve I put In the Pale Moonlight as the final wall (a walk for Cardies) and at the other I put Scientific Method. However, I again forgot that the Nor can't seed at a Bajor region mission. This put my Nor at the mission without ITPM and with SM. It came down to me not being able to get the Sceince to bust my own wall before Coyle won.