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J (The Mad Vulcan)
Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event
2012-07-01 - 11:00 PM
KlingonVirtually Shooting Space Debris
Introduction
Looking at the Virtual pool of cards, it was quite clear that everyone would be playing Federation or Klingon TNG decks that likely go for a 2 mission win. I decided to shift to the Klingon side of that to gain battle in order to hold out the opponent so that I could 2 mission win. I also chose to go with whatever point loss dilemmas were available to try to push them into a 3rd mission. I expected few to no players to run the Homeworlds, thereby allowing a battle lockout strategy, and yet - everyone had a homeworld. I used mine for the HQ: War Room.
Round 1KlingonepinnickFL (-70)
This was my first time ever playing against Eric, and I quite recommend it. It was clear from quite early that we were playing the same, or rather similar decks. We both seeded a Q' Tent and a Battle Bridge Door and played some Klingon only missions (Note: the format lacks espionage or treaty cards) and we shared 3 missions including both of my 50 point (with mission specialists) planet missions and Kronos itself. Nick was playing all planet missions, which put me a slight advantage as I could 2 mission win where he would need 3 (though one of my two would have to be a shared planet mission). However, I did have a few space dilemmas that I needed to false seed. Knowing that I didn't need Kronos, I put a few there this was a solid call as Nick never even threw an HQ: Secure Homeworld at it. A few solid moves on Nick's part and a few blundering ones on mine definitely decided this game. First and likely most effective was Nick's placement of Kronos very, very far from my Mercenary planet. this established my free play engines at very disparagent ends of the spaceline. The next major deciding move was mine. Not having much experience with the new Klingon Incidents and affected by the Kronos placement, I played Gowron to the Homeworld so that I could get a ship or two going easily at both facilities. What I didn't realize is that this shut out one of my play engines until I could get Gowron away from the Homeworld. Eric's deck was like mine but was simply pulling personnel out faster due to having all play engines, while my ability to get Continuing Mission draws was confounded by the loss of the Sole Leader play engine. Eric first attempted the mission with his outpost and found an Edo Probe. Here he made a smart (and perhaps lucky) move in that he bailed as the follow up was a Important Guests leading to a Friendly Fire which would have hit and cost him 10 (given his attempting crew). I had spent early turns gaining leaders and staff for ships and had a decent armada going. Then I putted over to his outpost to eliminate it. Eric only had the one ship and posed little threat. My goal was to cripple him so that I would have time to complete two missions and win (especially a shared one, which is risky with him able to swoop and snag). I got to the outpost after Eric's first mission attempt but chose to fire on the ship docked there as I was still one ship shy of the firepower to damage the facility. I had more than enough firepower to damage it but he pulled a Crimson Forcefield as his tactic and that eliminated mine. Again, this was a side effect of the Gowron misplay as I had to play Losta and Kahless to different Facilities and couldn't download my Lower Decks (I also had oddly not yet drawn a Ready Room Door). The lack of a high cunning dude meant that my attack fizzled. Next, Eric went to the closest of his missions (which was shared) and attempted. He found the 2nd Edo Probe but decided to continue on. This was also brilliant and/or lucky as this time I didn't have the set up Friendly Fire. The second Edo Probe FF combo uses a Personal Duty in the middle which was useless without Space missions. So the combo was broken up. Eric blew through the mission and solved thereby eliminating the first Edo Probe. One flaw of Eric's deck became apparent here, as he didn't know that duplicate mission specialists (3x Vekma) can only get 5 points for a mission, and he only snagged 40 here. With the 1st Edo Probe gone, he then went back to the first mission but failed the remaining dilemmas and had the Friendly Fire countdown set. he also lost one of his mission specialists for the mission (Dukath) to the FF. Having played a 2nd ship that turn, Eric now trucked all the way to the end of the spaceline and attempted another shared mission (this guy has balls) but failed to get through my first dilemma -> the Founder Secret. This was the turn I'd been waiting for. I used my card play to get a ship at Kronos (a Vorcha with Continuing Mission) and could fly it to his outpost to begin the assault. But I took a minute to consider my options. I had a lot of personnel in play and could do a bit more damage by taking the 2nd shared mission. Besides that, he already had one complete and only had to wait a turn more to get another, I needed a big play. And perhaps most importantly, this was the last planet mission that I could use toward a 2 mission win, as Erik had completed my other option. So I shifted my ships to meet my personnel at the 2nd shared mission and through down. His next dilemma did nothing as I remember, but my next dilemma: The Arsenal:Separated meant that I would lose some of my unique dudes. I really only needed non-uniques and Kahless for the mission so I made a stack of one with Kahless and a stack of two other dudes. Eric stopped Kahless (the brilliant bastard). Then I blew through his Friendly Fire and my other Friendly Fire to clear the mission. Only issue-> one Honor short of a solve. So rather than snagging a 35 point mission for 50, I left one open for him to easily grab the next turn. Luckily Eric still didn't have the right specialists to score big and only got 40 for it. But now I needed 3 missions to win and he essentially had 3 (but needed 4). I completed a mission at somepoint just to make the differential look better. That was pretty much it for the game, I made a bold move and it didn't pay off. The finale featured Eric playing more ships and then suicide running them at my fleet just to get a Tactic on a ship so that he could remove it for 5 points. This guys got the biggest balls in the game. He's the Ace Rimmer of Trek: What a Guy!
Round 2FederationMarkFW (+50)View opponent's Report
Mark is one of my favorite players to go up against, and not because I usually win. It's just always a blast. This was one of my favorite games in quite a while (I also won). Bro was playing Feds and this was quite obvious from his initial seeded missions. Meanwhile, mine clearly revealed Klingons. I staggered my missions to make him need to fly past the Klingon fleet to get to anything much. Then looking at where my two facilities landed, I put combos there which would work better early game since late game there would likely be a Klingon battle fleet hanging about. We shared one space mission, which was Observe Stellar Rebirth, but it fell into Klingon territory. We also each had a planet mission which was worth 40 or more points and could be stolen, both in Klingon territory. Mark seeded the HQ at Earth, a Federation outpost at his only other planet mission, Hunt for DNA Program, and a Husnock Outpost at the space mission farthest from Klingon territory (which was a 2E BC mission). He put his duck blind at the Fed Outpost which was right next door to my Husnock Outpost as he had the full intention of using the 50+ DNA points toward a 2 mission win. Starting out the game, Mark played most of his dudes to the Federation Outpost and stocked up the duck blind. He also played a Surprise Party quite early, thereby netting me some draws but ensuring him 3 end of turn draws for the early turns. I used those extra draws and a few more that I supplied myself to build up an armada. This was aided by playing Gowron to the Husnock Outpost. His Federation Outpost was space debris on turn 5. Mark saw the Benny Russell scrawls on the asylum walls and used a card play to get all his personnel onto the U.S.S. Enterprise_D and get the fuck out of Klingon Territory. I left most of my armada at Huntfor DNA Program in order to milk Lets See What's Out there Draws (and build more of an armada as a result) and also sit within striking distance of many of his missions. This included some of his best ones like Automated Repair Station and Explore Dyson Sphere. Then I sent a crew to Reported Activity which they cleared and solvved over the next couple turns. Mark set up Observe Greatness to replace Duck Blind and suffered no loss of drawing and playing. Then he went after the 2E space mission which was very, very far away from Klingons. My Gomtuu Shockwave did nothing as he had a ton of Diplomats in play already, however the Forsaken set up the Anakari Spirits which then milked personnel off the Enterpise for a while. Mark still needed to use the ship, as the Husnock ship has crap range but couldn't find the Exobiology to excise ghosts. The mission was a non-issue for him to solve and he did so on the next turn for 50 points (using three specialists) which is exactly what I had done for Reported Activity the turn before. I started sending teams at Observe Stellar Rebirth, which Mark was no where near, but got shut out by my own Gomtuu Shockwave due to a lack of Diplomacy. That worked to my benefit as it had broken up his Personal Duty + Friendly Fire combo. On my next turn, I sued Get It Done to boost range and shift ships over to Kronos grab my K'mpec and team him up with his successor to make a treaty with a Gomtuu. This got me through the mission but not a solve for two reasons; first the key mission specialist: K'Tesh is a Hologram and the only ship with a Holodeck is the Husnock ship which was armada'ing up at Hunt for DNA Program with it's shit 6 range. Second, I had not yet drawn into Anthropology. I used Officer Exchange Program to get my Klingon Riker for the Anthro at the end of turn. Seeing that it was an all or nothing situation, Mark decided to load up the Enterprise with all the Red Shirts and Ankari Ghosts he could find and make a go at another space mission. That is to say that he had accepted that he was never going to make it to Hunt for DNA Program and would need to 3 mission win with Earth. However, the first dilemma at the space mission was Edo Probe and he decided not to risk 10 of his 50 hard earned points. After all, I was about to solve my space mission and open it back up for him. I played Riker for free to Gowron, shuffled my ships about a bit and made a solving crew for Observe Stellar Rebirth on a Husnock Ship. Then I left them at that mission (unsolved). Next, I used Attention All Hands to shift all of my personnel to the Husnock Outpost where two Vor'cha were waiting (I had to use the card plays somehow, why not more ships?). The two Vor'chas flew to Earth as that was as far as they could get and I used Officer Exchange Program to get the I.K.S. Pagh to hand. Mark flew his U.S.S. ENterprise-D to Earth and beamed everyone down for an attempt. He spent every draw he had to try to get into the deck and find a HQ: Secure Homeworld but with no luck. (Note to reader: HQ Secure Homeworld can be downloaded with Defend Homeworld which is a Ref card, as long as you haven't spent the once per game download on a Security personnel). he parked the Husnock ship at his Husnock outpost with a crew to clear and solve his space mission if the Edo Probe ever went away. I played the Pagh, loaded up all of my ships (except the damaged K'vort and the Husnock waiting to solve Observe Stellar Rebirth) and flew them to Earth. Then I attacked the Enterprise-D with a Offensive total of almost 50. To my surprise, Mark didn't activate Q the Referee to get a ref card (which he said he hadn't stocked). This allowed me to get the 5 Bonus points for not putting a tactic on the mighty Enterprise. So I solved Observe Stellar Rebirth for 45 with mission specialists.
Round 3StarfleetChristopher CoyleFW (+40)
Coyle dropped 4 doorways, which I found impressive given the format. In addition to the common choices of Battle Bridge Door and Q's Tent he also had STP and TMW. I could assume that the latter meant that he had one dude that he really wanted to work with everyone else (but not Dr. Telek R'Mor) but I found STP to be a surprising choice as I didn't see enough AU dudes to make it worth the cost of a seed slot. Unless he just really wanted Admiral Riker. The missions started coming out and we were alternating the Federation/Klingon/Nonaligned attemptable missions meaning who knows what the other is playing. I was leaning toward Federation with Coyle as I couldn't come up with any reason to run an AU door in a Klingon deck. Coyle dropped Earth and I became more certain of Feds, then I pulled Raid Ancient Burial Site and put it on the opposite end of the spaceline from Earth to deter theft. Finally, Coyle pulls Free Orion Slaves and I realize that he is playing Starfleet. I pull Kronos and decide to put it at the Burial Site end of the spaceline rather than the Earth end so that my play sites are all together. This created a spaceline where we each had four missions at the opposite ends and a DMZ in the middle of alternating missions. This set up meant a race to solve and little chance of confrontation, I could easily battle any ships which entered the DMZ but would have to travel a bit to get to Starfleet territory. As such, I expected Coyle to stay at his safe 4 missions and put the best dilemmas there while leaving the DMZ missions to be defended with Vor'chas. This left Coyle with only one Space mission and 3 planet missions. I also had 3 planet and 1 space with my last planet mission the farthest away and another space in the DMZ. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Chris had got Starfleet to work. The addition of 2E BC printable cards meant that he had a lot of choices of Universal starfleet peeps, in particular D'vela and he was also running the Undiscovered Country Archer. This meant that the Orion free play site had lot of use. However, he was still quite hindered by the por range on Starfleet ships. I ended up attempting first, and it was on the second or third turn I believe. It was at Raid Ancient Burial site, which is where I was playing everyone. I drew a lot of Mercenary personnel and universal Non-aligned. I also pulled out Gowron as the first turn card play in order to get free play Klingons. I didn't yet have the skills for the mission, but I wasn't worried about lack of Prep as I need to shoot Coyle to get a two mission win and the 40 points off RABS would make a 3 mission win a cake walk. The first dilemma was a The Arsenal: Separated which did nothing because I only had universal personnel in play and Gowron wasn't red shirting. After that was Edo Probe which I definitely bailed from since the mission skills were in my hand. Not being stopped, I hopped on board the Mercenary Ship and headed out to space where I found a sweet The Clown: Bitter Medicine + Subspace Shockwave combo. With the battle bridge side deck, this killed 4 personnel with two of those being Engineers. As such, I was fairly certain that the last remaining dilemma was Radioactive Garbage scow, but i still had 3 more engineers on that ship (which doesn't have a tractor beam). Coyle went after his first mission, which was Free Orion Slaves. It just so happened that after getting all of his personnel together, that is where they were. They made quick work of my dilemma combo as two Starfleet Phasers added 4-6 strength to everyone. Then he only had one Civilian (and no VIP) for Important Guests meaning that not enough Security were stopped to hinder him from busting the Friendly Fire. On the plus,side, with one mission complete (and 35 points) the Edo Probe went away from my Burial Site. Now I could attempt my space mission with the Damaged Mercenary ship, but i was fairly certain that I would just find the Scow and not be able to tow it. So why take the risk. I putted back a mission and used a second ship to shuffle everyone to Raid Ancient Burial Site to see the final dilemma. It was a Dead End and they were all stopped. Coyle trucked to his next mission (a 2E space one) and found an Edo Probe which he happily bailed from. Then he went next door (earth) and found a second Edo probe. He thought about this one for a minute but bailed and had no more range to go elsewhere. I split my personnel between two goals, an away team for the planet mission between Raid Ancient Burial Site and my space mission (Observe Stellar Rebirth) and then sending the Vorcha out to the space mission to move the Garbage Scow. The ship didn't have the range to get there and move the scow in one turn so that was just set up. Coyle's combo of Distracted By Thoughts of Home + God + Founder Secret did the trick as I was just about 1 dude short of the strength on Foudner Secret (though lower decks got me through God easily). This was unfortunate as I had yet to draw my HQ: War Room (or anything that played for free at The Great Hall for that matter) and had left 4 people on the Vor'cha, even though it only needs 3 to staff it. on the plus side, I didn't solve the mission and so the Edo Probes stayed on his missions. However, I basically had three missions cleared and couldn't solve them all in one turn due to In the Zone (which Chris was kind enough to discard for the Ref draw to ensure that I didn't consider the risk). Chris next went to his 4th mission in Starfleet territory, Save Stranded Crew. This one was another easy bust for him as it also had a Founder Secret. That dilemma was a walk but the follow-up, Damaged Reputation, cost him 5 points. The Final Dilemma, The Arsenal: Separated failed to prevent him from completing the mission (current score: 0-60) but likely deterred him from trying another (along with In the Zone). At this point, I have little reason not to solve missions, but lots of reasons not to solve more than one. I completed the planet mission where most of my people were by playing more personnel to the damaged Mercenary ship in orbit and busting discovering the secret of the founders (it's a door!) for 50 points with 3 specialists. Then I shifted the garbage scow to the completed mission and set up ships for one last turn (if I got one). This means that Coyle need to gain 40 points in this turn or lose. Earth was a walk after Edo Probe as it was just God (which I am sure he could bust) and Dead End. but it was only worth 30 points. His 2E space mission was worth 35 and so were any of his other missions, so he needed to clear both. It all came down to whether or not he could bust the Personal Duty + Friendly Fire combo in space. Chris definitely had the tech to do it, all he had to do was empty out his hand and throw D'vela (x6) at the mission, but for some reason (I assume the 1 card in his hand was very hard to get rid of) he didn't and the Friendly Fire hit thereby giving me the game. He could have flown to and solved Earth, but he didn't (perhaps too many key personnel were stopped when trying to clear the space) and certainly lacked the range to truck out into the DMZ. I played a new ship, shuffled personnel back to Raid Ancient Burial Site, solved it, then trucked out to Observe Stellar Rebirth and solved that with a specialist. He could certainly In The Zone me, but 50 points was all I needed.
Round 4FederationNiall MatthewFW (+65)
Niall and I started out joking about how obvious it was which affiliation each was playing. However, it wasn’t actually obvious that Niall was playing Federation as he had an AU Door seeded and could have very well went the Chris Coyle route. The spaceline turned out very different than I intended but perhaps still in my favour. I had intended to alternate between my missions and his so that the battle strategy would be more useful. However, we ended up having two shared missions (a planet and a space) and a spaceline divided down the middle with the two shared missions on my half. I figured that Niall could easily swoop in and snag the space mission which was bordering the DMZ and put two dilemmas there (which would be easy for Klingons), but I didn’t put any dilemmas at the shared planet mission as it was so deep in Klingon territory I assumed that it would be easy to defend. I also managed to get Raid Ancient Burial Site and Kronos to be next to each other for a change, with both being closer to Niall’s territory than the shared planet mission. This shift in dilemmas meant that I had a good number for the missions that he most wanted to solve. In particular the two Space missions which Niall claimed sole ownership where easy 50+ pointers for Feds (Explore Dyson Sphere and Repair Mission), so I loaded them up with 5 and 6 dilemmas respectively. The shared planet was clearly one of the ones which Niall intended to 2 mission win with so that left him with only one planet mission which could still be used for a 2 mission win. Niall had the first turn, but my deck played personnel (and ships!) much faster. Niall attempted Dyson Sphere, found an Edo Probe and then bailed. Then he attempted Repair Mission, found an Edo Probe and bailed. He then moved on to the planet mission closest to my territory, so I trucked a small fleet out into the DMZ to deter him from attempting it again. This successfully made him retreat back home. I cleared the shared planet mission with ease, but chose not to solve it so as to not clear his Edo Probes. I then cleared Raid Ancient Burial site (and also left it empty). Finally, I threw down at Survey Mission. I blew through the Edo Probe to trigger the Personal Duty + Friendly Fire combo and get the countdown rolling as soon as possible. The loss of 10 points meant little to me at this point as I had 90 points worth of planet missions just waiting to be solved. At this point things looked pretty good for me. I needed to give Niall two more turns before the FF would count down, but I could solve the shared planet mission on my next turn to get 50 and then both Raid Ancient Burial Site and Survey Mission on the subsequent turn for another 50 9aauming In the Zone). But my overconfidence was almost my undoing. Niall finally got enough AU dudes to staff the Future Enterprise and he used the range on that ship (boosted with Defiant Dedication Plaque) to bust over to the shared planet mission and solve it. This should have been obvious as he had been sitting (cloaked) in the DMZ, but I thought that he was eyeing the shared space mission. This did, however, leave an uncloaked FE in Klingon Territory and I retaliated by making it space debris. I then was wise enough to solve Raid Ancient Burial Site as Niall had cleared his own Edo Probe by stealing my mission and then booked over to Kronos since I now needed to clear a 4th mission if I wanted to win. Given the number of personnel in play on my end at this point, Kronos was made quick work and completed by the first attempting team (11 personnel) even though I had a second team waiting to solve it with another 11 personnel. The score was now 60-35. With Friendly Fire counting down at the end of the turn and mission specialist in play on my end, Niall was on his final turn (and couldn’t possibly win due to the In the Zone in my Q’s Tent). He did go after Explore Dyson Sphere again, but he failed the Important Guests before even seeing the Friendly Fire. Since the Enterprise-D was his only ship left in play; that was the extent of what he did. I put everyone on a ship and flew over to Survey Mission and solved it for 45 to call it a game.