I opted to play Kazon again in the hopes of finally getting that 5th win and also to fill a dilemma achievement: no kills. Yes, taste that sweet irony.

This game was so wrong on many levels. Andrey is fairly new to the 1E game, but he's picking it up quick! He had two ships in play after two turns and had one red shirting a space mission (OG tent, baby) and the other set up for the Flagship draws. When I burst onto the scene with a three ship fleet!

Pretty solid starting hand. Andrey had gone first, so Leader of the Sect had gotten me Razik. I played a Mothership from hand and one free Son'a to the Observatory and used an Observatory download to set up Duck Blind. Then on Andrey's 2nd Turn I used Going to the Top to get Culluh and on my turn Spacedoor for the Kazon Raider and Defend Homeworld for Penk. I managed to get two Ready Room Doors off in two turns, so Defiant Dedication Plaque and Captain's Log were also in play, and I had a wormhole interrupt in hand to discard to my wormhole mission to hop to the Mirror Quadrant. There, Penk brought out his ship and I was on three ships, all with matching commanders.

Andrey's ships were at different missions, but he chose to STP the Flagship and so we flew to the other mission and relieved him of his Vor'cha.

So, Andrey is set back to start and I spend turns three and four relieving him of his only outpost. The Flagship was replayed and flew out of the MQ and I could, thankfully, not follow him because I had no Scientists in play.

Here, Andrey can still play to his ship, but he is reluctant to attempt another mission and he isn't drawing too well either. What he did do, which was brilliant, was relieve me of my Duck Blind draws. So I am building up while digging for more Wormhole. Once I had two, I used them on the Pendari ship (on his turn) and Nanoprobed one copy to reuse on the Mothership (combined with STP and Make It So) on my turn to Outgun his ship. Luckily, all his people were on the planet. Unfortunately, they could do not much more than to prevent me from getting Duck Blind draws and he could play no more cards without a facility or the Flagship.

So, I begin working on dilemmas. Andrey's combos were absolute murder. But it was just a matter of sitting out mission skills and cleaning up after the bloodbath. I cleared two missions and solved one and was digging for one more skill (Physics) to solve the second when Andrey opted to concede.

Niall was playing a Dominion deck using Reward from the Founders and good draws from rationing the white and building outposts, which sounds like a solid strategy against an Outpost destroying deck.

Niall went first, so I started out with Razik. First turn, I downloaded a Mothership with the Spacedoor and free played a Son'a. I then used one Son'a download to set up the Duck Blind on Turn 1 and get three draws. My opening hand and early draws were all great for fleet building, but had no wormhole. On Niall's Turn 2, I used Going to the Top to fetch Culluh and on my turn 2, I played a Kazon Raider from hand one free Nistrim dude and downloaded Penk. So I had my three ships with Matching commanders and I also had Captain's Log and Defiant Dedication Plaque, but no wormhole and it would have been quite useful as Niall was stopped at the wormhole after flying through.

So, Niall gets his outpost built and has been drawing and playing like nobody's business. I spend a few turns drawing for a wormhole, and when I finally find one, I have access to 5 ships. But by then, Niall has played a second ship and has attempted a space mission. He failed for the lack of one Engineer for Trilithium Raid. I had a plan to bring my 5 ships to bear on his two, though his two meant that he could eliminate one of my ships, and then I could Outgun the other one. So I targeted the ship with fewer people on it. This almost worked, but Niall took out the biggest weapons that he could get by taking on the Tsunkatse Ship. So, after that battle, I have 4 ships left and he has just the 1, but I no longer had 3X of Weapons over his shields, so I could not Outgun.

Niall opts to try the space again, but with the requirements for Trilithium Raid and gets through that to slam up on a Cytherians + Mission Debriefing. He had the range to get to the end of the GQ spaceline next turn, so I really needed to outgun him.

Had I thought this out right, I would have done things differently. I had a Karden in hand and he was a matching commander for one of the remaining ships, so I thought the +3 would be enough to Outgun. That was wrong. What I should have done was to play another ship and wormhole it in and then Outgun at the start of Niall's next turn. But since I blundered this, we had to blow him up through old fashioned ship battle, which actually cost me another ship and a single commander aboard since Dominion Battleships are big. But at this time I was drawing into lots of ships and lots of wormholes.

Here, Niall mostly sat and watched. He must have only had two ships in the deck and inevitably, he played an Isomagnetic Disintegrator (which is why I really needed the Outgunned to go off). Though for now he wasn't doing much. I was short some people due to battle and had little Security in play, so I opted to spend a few turns flying to the AQ and blowing up the new facility there.

Finally, I sent a red ship (Kazon Raider) and they had their Navigator distracted by a Devastating Communique before failing a Subspace Shockwave. This was a good combo and killed 4 (since Niall had Battle Bridge deck) and left one dilemma there. I get that Niall intended to use situational battle with his Battleships and I was lucky that there were none of those in play.

I had started to collect people in play, but they were split between two quadrants. When the 4 people died in space, I chose Culluh to be on top of the Graveyard and then had Seven of Nine Nanoprobe him back into play. Then, I wormholed the rest of my people to the DQ and started working on a planet mission (Kazon Conference). My main concern here was Niall's Aid Fugitives mission as it told me that he had a Medical dilemma theme. My deck is pretty poor at Medical, but I wanted to make sure they helped clear a mission before dying out.

I attempted the mission with a decent strength team with a couple Security and a couple Medical. The first dilemma was Hippocratic Oath and so one of my Medics relocated to the GQ. Then we found combo scow. I was lucky in that the random selection of a dude got Culluh, so that my Medical could be discarded for that dilemma. Then I was further lucky when we hit the final dilemma, because I had no Medical left to be killed by Medical Crisis. I nearly had the ability to cheat this dilemma, as I still had two Biology in the attempt and I also had the dude who downloads Medical PADD, so all I needed to cheat this was one more Engineer, but it was not to be. After the attempt ended, I nanoprobed the Dead Medical into play. I was now on 5 points to Niall's 10 (which he scored with Ultimatum from blowing up one of my ships).

So on my next turn, I grabbed Culluh from the neighboring mission and went with most everyone at the planet. I could have still used the cheat I described with having no Medical for the first half of Medical Crisis and the Special Downloading of the PADD to gain some for the second half BUT I wanted to have my Majes present for the mission solve. So, I opted to risk poor Haron and went with two Medical (he and Dr. Farek) so Niall had a 50/50 random selection to see if I had to Nanoprobe Haron again. But lady luck smiled my way and I solved with 4 Maje.

It was around here that Niall Isomaged his deck and started drawing to try and find a ship. On my next turn, I wormholed everyone to the AQ and unstopped them to get rolling, with Make It So. My crew sent to scout and clear the last dilemma at space managed to solve as the only dilemma that I really planned for (Gomtuu Shock Wave) was there. So, on the subsequent turn, we red shirted Save Stranded Crew and I was pretty surprised to just find The Higher, The Fewer and Dead End. Neither of those did much, as I had a decent enough score, but the crew did not have the skills to solve because I wasn't risking my only Transporter Skill left in play. But, I still had the range on the Mothership and various other ships of the fleet to go pick up my Son'a and they brought the skills for the solve.

Niall always had the ability to play people, but his draws were significantly inhibited after the major battle and he never recovered, while I was lucky that his dilemmas weren't just mass kill.

I got to go second again, so free Q the Referee and a starting Maje. But I didn't like my opening hand as much. Razik was in there. I was considering getting Minnis as the 1st Maje download but I needed an Ogla to get Ogla free plays and wanted to use my first two card plays on ships, so I ended up just getting Razik from my hand. Painful.

Turn 1 goes straight forward for me. I played Karden for free and used the Spacedoor to get a Mothership, downloaded The Kazon Collective onto that, got an Anthropology Son'a with a download, and fetched Defiant Dedication Plaque with a Ready Room Door. I had a Wormhole interrupt in hand, so was sitting good there, but not much else. What's worse, I realized here that I couldn't actually set up the Ancestral Vision as I did not have the ability to transport down to the planet.

But the two end of turn draws found me a Going to the Top, so I was able to get Culluh on Jordan's turn. On my turn two, I card played a Kazon Raider, free played a Halok, and used the second twice per game Son'a download to get a second Anthropologist and set up my Duck Blind draws. These were much needed.

Meanwhile, Jordan was just spewing people out, but had not yet played a ship. He was setting up lots of draws and free plays, and quite scarily, grabbing a lot of guns. It was quite clear that his deck used Invasive Beam in to bring the pain, and I was not certain how the battles would go. He had a lot more people and strength than me, and I had more ships than him. But I need to staff my ships, or at least man the guns, so I need people to stay in play. I wasn't at all certain when I wanted to go on the offensive, but I knew that the decision of when and who initiates it would decide the game.

Here, I card played a Maje and free played another mook. I must have pulled a second Ready Room Door on the end of turn draws, because my plans to wait for an opportunity shifted to: go now! I used my Q the Ref for Defend Homeworld for Penk and then moved to my wormhole mission. I was hoping to use one of Jordan's two AQ wormhole missions as the 'other end' of my wormhole trip so that I would both not be stopped and use less resources, but both were just a bit too far from Terok Nor and I wanted to act now! So I used my wormhole interrupt as the other end and Jordan Quinn'd it. So, I used Nanoprobe resuscitation and reused the wormhole interrupt and got to Bajor, but now I hit an issue. Jordan used his Q the Referee to grab Containment field so that I had to lose a card to use Penk's special download to get a third ship. But I no longer had any cards in my hand.

I quickly looked about for anything that could help me, feeling a bit uncomfortable with just two ships in Jordan's territory. Then, I spotted Quark's Isolinear Rods. It was a bit of a cost, but I uploaded Seven of Nine to hand and then placed her on Containment Field to get the ship. Then the three ships with three matching commanders attached Terok Nor and damaged it.

Right here, though, when all looked bleak for Jordan he made some very good moves. He played a ship, in the Stolen Attack SHip, and maneuvered his people about the station so that he could put Kira Meru into Bajoran mode, and then he use mid turn draws with Historical Coming Together to get Stratagema.

So, I am in a bad way. I damaged the facility, but won't be able to take it out. And Jordan can Ops download for more ships to prevent an outgunned. All he has to do is wait. But he made one error. He undocked his ship. Now, I had gotten three draws at the end of my previous turn and they had all been useful. They were: Outgunned, Nano-probe Resuscitation, and Outgunned. I opted to play the Outgunned and Jordan countered it with a second Quinn (taking him down to -10), then I played the other Outgunned.

And that is where he conceded.