J (The Mad Vulcan) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event (Mission to Talos IV) 2012-10-01 - 12:00 AM Talos IV is for Klingons Introduction I through this deck together on the night before my scheduled first game. My goal was to play a different deck from last year's Talos IV.1 event and I did so by building Klingons instead of Romulans. I had spoken to Ken about deck strategy for this early event and he pointed out that Counterspells were king and he who could play their interrupts/events would have a strong position over he who couldn't. Ken assured me that he could win any counterspell battle and had built his deck to be a solver with a speed advantage. He then told me that his second best choice was a K'vort armada Klingon battle deck, but that it was too slow to guarantee a win. I decided to take Ken's advice here. That is, I certainly could not hope to beat Ken at couterspell wars and so I built my deck with the specific intent of losing to Ken and then defeating a couple people with Klingon battle. I.E. Ken's second best deck is good enough for me. Round 1 Kenneth Tufts FW (+5)View opponent's ReportView original Report Obviously my first game was against Ken, so it was his deck vs. his deck. Both of us had 4 of one mission type and 2 of the other, as Balancing Act was legal in this event. Ken's strategy was rather obvious in that he had four 40+ point space missions and then 2 random planets. This meant that he could solve any three missions to win (get to 140) and would thin out the opponent's space dilemmas. This set up hit me pretty hard because I had opted to go for the No Dual Dilemmas achievement. I had 12 planet dilemmas and so I put 6 at each of his two planet missions. That left 2-3 dilemmas for each space. All of his space missions could be stolen by OTF rules (a weakness) but only two could be stolen by Klingons, so I seeded dilemmas accordingly. I intended to take Wormhole Negotiations and put an easy dilemma in front of a Radioactive Garbage Scow such that I could plan the range, shift it and steal the mission OR if Ken got there first and lacked the range to move the scow and solve, steal it. But Ken also put a dilemma there. At Pegasus Search, I put three dilemmas where the last was Cytherians with the hope that such a combo would set up a possible theft. Ken was going first and seeded his Outpost first (at Wormhole Neg.) so I put my Outpost adjacent to open up the opportunity to blow it up. Early game went according to Premiere era games. ken tossed a KFC every turn and then drew to end until he had no deck and a large hand. He was then kind enough to play a Red Alert so that I could drop some guys, reasoning that he would get a greater benefit from it than me. I didn't bother to try and counter any of this as I knew he'd win that war. When I acquired all the skills to bust my dilemmas and solve Ken's Wormhole negotiations, I considered going for it only to realize that if I used my only two Engineers to move the Scow, I would not have the skills to solve and the scow towing ship could not get back in the same turn. I decided to wait for one more Honor personnel. I also attempted to Kevin the Red Alert, but not surprisingly, it was countered. Ken played every personnel, ship, or equipment in his deck and then took on Wormhole Neg. and was able to solve it easily for the 45 points. He then flew half way to Pegasus Search. He cloaked to prevent any crazy ideas of battle. I also moved my fleet of 3 ships halfway to PS in case there was an opportunity to steal. This worked out because Ken only had 1 ship in his deck. It attempted cleared everything and then STP'd back to hand once it had gained a Cytherians. I then stole Pegasus Search on my turn to put me on 50. Ken replayed all of his personnel, ships, and equipment cards and started trucking down to his farthest space mission. I set up a ship halfway there in case of a chance to blow him up (that mission could not be stolen). But then realized that my best bet was to try and clear two planets before Ken solved his two remaining Space. The only thing in my favour was that his missions were really far apart and his one ship had to really truck it. I ended up attempting and Clearing Krios Suppression and then set my eye on Medical Relief (my next closest planet). This had the Radioactive Garabage Scow on it so I needed to set up ships to shift it. Ken solved his second space mission for 50 points, as it had a 5 point dilemma from me and a 5 point one from him as well. Then he started trucking back (while cloaked) toward the last space mission. I shifted all of my ships to bring the Radioactive Garbage Scow to Wormhole Neg. and then everyone to Medical Relief and sent everyone. A few peopple were lost to various dilemmas including Gowron to an Armus: SoE and then failed Q by one due. This was unfortunate as I had the two Diplomats and was just 5 shy on the Integrity and on his turn Ken found one of my guys in his crew (K'vada! damn you lackey!) I had a cleared mission and a definite solve on my next turn and Ken didn't have the range to get to his final space so he had to to a planet mission. So it all came down to which one he chose and who he sent. In this respect, I got lucky as he sent a Female (of the two in his deck) in order to ensure busting walls Like Shaka and that meant that my Female's Love Interest effectively set up the Matriarchal Society. so J knew I would be running heavy coutner spells and purposly ran not requiering card that could be countered it served him resnabel well as he didn't waste turns trying to KFC against my 6 kevins. I used self seeded balancign act and Q, (I could Q2 it), to make my big 3 icon missions look scarier. I made 2 mistakes this game 1 i was sure J had no trechery out when i flew out to peg serch so I though I was safe from a theft if I cleared and hit cytherians, unfortunutly that did happen only he had trechery and stole it for 50. after that I though oh crap i had no bonus points from him yet so i had to plan on doign a planet heres my seocnd mistake, he had a nice little planet needign only geo or phisics I temporaly forgot this was OTF i knew my dillemas under it would let me solve it so a flew out to my further space wich was right beside it solvign easly they realizing I was not alowed to attempt the planet I had to flew all the way back to do the last space, on the way back it became clear J would win on his next turn so I went for a a planet clearign all but the very last dillema matriotical... I had started the attemp with all but mission requierments and i had thought hard i had 2 mian things i was worried about one was matritical the other holo ruse I needed at elast oen of my femails for attributes, i bet on the ruse and sent a fem down onyl to have her fall in love. J solved on his next turn fro the win. Round 2 Rem Boon FW (0) It really is amazing that I beat Ken and Rem as both had better decks than mine and are better players. In both cases, I only won because their deck had a weakness. In the case of Rem, it was the Treaty. The spaceline was 4 planet and 2 space for me and the exact opposite for Rem. Because of my dilemmas, that put six dilemmas under each of his two planets. We shared one space mission, Explore Black Cluster. So my plan was to grab that early and then solve two planets FTW. Very Risky. I put 3 dilemmas under two of Rem's space missions and 2 under the other two including the shared one. Rem tossed a Kivas Fajo - Draw Engine each turn for the first maybe 6-7 turns. I did a Spacedoor DL for the Combat Vessel to be ready for the Red Alert! on turn 1 and my own Kivas on Turn 2 and then went about playing 1 dude and drawing 1 each subsequent turn. When R did drop the Red Alert, I dumped my hand but only had 1 Engineer so did nothing more. The I tossed a futile Kevin at the Alert Klaxon to trigger the inevitable Q2 counter. So Rem did toss his high volume of peeps, but only one ship, and he did not yet have a treaty. The Klingon group had the ship, so he sent them to scout Explore Typhon Expanse. The cleared all of the dilemmas with ease (scoring 5 of Nagilum) but had failed the second half of Menthar Booby Trap and did not have the skills to solve the mission. So he cloaked and left the Klingon ship there for most of the rest of the game. I thought that this would be a solid opportunity to steal the shared space mission, as I had drawn Dr. Reyga for the 2nd Engineer. I sent a lone dude on a 8 range K'vort to clear my cytherians and then everyone else to bust Rem's next D and move the Scow. But I didn't have the range to go back in that ship after towing the scow and the 3rd ship lacked a tractor beam (Combat Vessel). I was 100% certain that the last D was another Scow. Rem's turn, and he uses the spacedoor to get a Nebula. Not being in range of the theft, he went to another space mission, cleared, and solved it. I played a better range ship and flew over to move Rem's scow attempting with everyone. The last Dilemma was a Cytyherians. So I had all of my people heading down the spaceline on a mission from a floating head. It took Rem a couple turns to fly to the cleared Explore Black Cluster and I did not draw the skills to solve it in that time (still plenty of ships, though). Meanwhile, my two ships get to the end of the spaceline simultaneously putting me on 30. Although my range was expended, I had every personnel that I owned in orbit over my planet mission. So I attempted, cleared and solved with everyone. This put me on 70 points due to 5 bonus points from Rem's REM. On his next turn, Rem solved the shard space mission making it 75-70 and then tried to bust through one of heavily seeded planets. The Holo Ruse was a walk, but Armus offed Data which caused his team to fail the Nausicans (killing Tasha Yar). I had the choice of trying to bust my heavily seeded space and one more planet or two more planets and hope for a 5 point dilemma. Either way, I flew to and attempted the only mission I could reach, which was a planet and it put me up to 35 once solved (30 point mission and a 5 point dilemma). Rem finally got the treaty and combined his teams to solve Typhon Expanse. I though that this won him the game as he went up to 105 and had solved a non-Fed mission but he had yet to solve a planet mission. He couldn't get back to his planet as one ship had flown to the mission, exhausting it's range, and the other exhausted it's range moving the Scow which I had put on Typhon. That gave me one more turn to win it, and it finally looked good for me. I just needed the 35 points from my next nearest planet and had rearranged my ships at the outpost and those returning from Cytherians to be able to get everyone there this turn. It worked out and I sent everything I had at the one mission. Not only did they solve, but they scored even more dilemma bonus points for 150 and a FW with all Planets. Rem would have cake walked through another mission if given another turn. Round 3 Matthew Zinno FL (+15)View opponent's ReportView original Report This is one of those games where you constantly question how it was played and how it could have been done better. Matt won because he made key, good decisions. First, I had noted that Matt had two 100-0 games and decided that he was going for a lockout. As such, I built the spaceline with him on one end and me on the other and opted not to battle. This was in error as I now think that I would have wiped the board with him, as his strategy was not battle. I had assumed, though, that he would be playing battle lockout. Instead his strategy was to make a player bring Diplomats to the missions (Shaka) and kill them in order to slow them down or lock out with Q's Nets. My deck only had 4 diplomacy, which was about 2 under what would have been optimal for this game. I cleared the two planets without Shakas but did not want to lose my Diplomats to the Shaka Combos. This was also in error as the game came down to a double deck out. had I completed one more mission (even losing all diplomats), I would have one - even with 3 or 4 planets. The Q's Net was blocking me from space. I waited until late game to go space in hopes that I would draw more Diplo, but ended up sending everyone but the mission skills (Dr. Reyga) in hopes of clearing it and then hitting the Cytherians. The Cytherians, however, was before a RAGS. So I needed to get two more diplo AND an Engineer to solve the mission. When we had almost decked, we each had two missions and needed one more and had everyone heading down the spaceline on a Cytherians. Matt used Transwarp Conduit to get his ship to the end first this made it look like it was going to end in a tie as my ship woudl get to the end on my turn that I would draw my last card. But he wisely KFC'd me to make the game on his turn just prior to my Cytherians completion. YAKO -- Yet Another Klingon Opponent.  One duplicated mission, Boreth, deep in his territory.  I played my QNet on the first turn, to separate J's outpost from his space missions.  No treaty for a while, so I played just Klingons at first, and cleared out Reported Activity, but lost Mogh to Armus in the process and so couldn't solve with who I brought.  J got a ship and poked at my dilemmas, but couldn't get past the opening walls yet.  I started playing Feds, then Toffed for my Traveler (Kevined earlier) and replayed it to draw more, and that gave me got a treaty.  I got everyone together, and Worf solved Reported Activity.  Next tried Secret Salvage, clearing that down to BOJ on the Heghta, and a Scow.  I played Wesley, who joined Roga to move the scow, and who solved Secret Salvage with Worf.  Then I put everyone on the Enterprise to try SHIS.  Meanwhile, J had solved the two unshared planet missions on his side of the QNet, so we were tied 65-65, and flown a large crew with his 2 dip (Kurn and Gowron) through the net to try a space mission.  He hit BOJ and Cytherians and got compelled to fly the Quvat toward me.  I hit Cytherians and got compelled to fly toward him.  Now, I was flying toward the QNet, so before it went anywhere I had to report Kurn (2nd dip) and fly him on the Heghta to catch up with the Enterprise so it would pass.  But the Heghta had lost too much range to BOJ, so this plan also needed a TWC so he could indeed catch up.  Anyway, I flew 2 missions with Cytherians, and then he did the same.  Next turn, I played a resQ to get my TWC back, and played it on the Enterprise.  It flew 5 missions to the end of the spaceline, scoring Cytherians [80-65], and I drew my last card.  J had 3 more cards (we both had 30-card decks), and 3 more turns until  his BOJ ship would reach the spaceline end for a true tie.  On my next turn, I tried the shared Boreth that I found myself near.  I thought I would solve it and win, but I misremembered which combo I put there ... I thought it was Shaka and BalAct, good for a shared mission, but during seeding I had decided I wasn't going to fly all the way here to attempt this, and I put that easier combo under his 20pt mission.  Here, I faced a matsoc with only one female.  He moved, and drew, and was left with 1 more card and 1 more mission to fly.  So I ... Played kivas on him, to draw him out and end the game with me in the lead!  Final 80-65 FW.   Round 4 Jeremy Huth FW (+100) Jeremy and I had very similar decks out of the gate, though like every other deck I saw, hew seeded an STP (I didn't). We each had 2 space and 4 planet missions and were playing Klingon. None of his mission were stealable, but we did share two of the planet missions, so we each had 2 and 2 unshared. I put 5 dilemmas under each of his space, and 4 under each of his unshared planet. Then just 2 under each shared planet, Jeremy put 3 and 4 under the shared missions, which was odd - unless he suspected that I would attempt to easy clear those. Which I had certainly intended. He was going first, and seeded his Outpost first so I put mine just 6 Range away. Early on in the game I tried to copy his actions as best I could, because I thought it was funny. We both Spacedoored for a Vor'cha on turn 1 and played a Kurak on turn 3. He played Kurn on 2, while I played mine on 4 and K'mpec on two. So by turn 4 we had essentially the same stacks. But then I went a different direction as I played Roga Danar and Evek so that I could pilot any non-aligned ships that I might draw. Jeremy decided to attempt early at the space where his outpost was and made quick work of it, easily clearing down to the RAGS. He did not have the engineer x 2 to move it, but had only one dilemma left. Here I considered flying over and shooting his undocked ship, but I didn't quite have the staffing for two ships (one man short) and could not guarantee the destruction. Next turn he flew to the neighboring planet (between our outposts) and red shirted with just 3. the cleared the Impassable Door but failed the Holo Ruse. The people still on the ship did not have enough attributes for the Holo Ruse but the two groups together certainly did and he decided to wait for next turn to unite them. He ended his turn by leaving an uncloaked staffed ship in orbit of the planet adjacent to my outpost. So, I obliged him by relieving him of it. Jeremy played a new ship (K'vort) but had noone at the outpost to staff it. So on my turn I did personnel battle to pick off one more of his guys before he did play staffing and rescued his people. here he hid at the outpost and rebuilt. However, I was also still building and staffed a third ship so that I could spend 2 turns relieving him of the K'vort (docked at the outpost). I am uncertain why he did not undock and cloak it though perhaps he didn't want to risk losing anyone else if I could Tachyon Detection Grid (didn't have it in the deck). Instead he played more people and flipped his space door to get a third ship. I got the weapons to go after the Outpost and he allowed it to blow up with all hands. I guess he never drew the Engineers and decided that it wasn't worth furthering the battle. So with 8 cards left in each deck, I had the whole spaceline to myself... Closing Thoughts Should have shot more people. Especially Matt.