Stephen P (Spectre9) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event (Mission to Talos IV) 2020-09-04 - 12:00 AM Equinox Think Tank Introduction Started the tourney not really expecting much but feeling like I was a bit squishy to battle relying on the Equinox. I did have a backup plan with the Think Tank Ship but that could take a while to draw into. Round 1 Maggie Geppert FW (+65) Got a great hand with Kes and B'Elanna coming down turn 1 to staff the equinox and run to my outpost. jadzia playing Kazon stumbled a bit early with some draw go not getting a maje out and I had a glut of War Council and Chakotay down on Ancestral Vision early. I built up some forces and went for an attempt on turn 5 at Assist cooperative where my outpost was in the Nekrit expanse. I get on the slow grind getting stopped by Spatial Rift and then Matriarchal Society while all jadzia does is get out a Kazon Warship. I finally get past Matriarchal Society on turn 9 to score 40 points. I'm then stopped by Gravametric distortion trying to save a space mission but I pass it easily the next turn. jadzia manages to finish a mission but I'm so far ahead I can just mega team on Research Phage and get the 40 point with just 1 personnel after clearing dilemmas. All in the early card draws I feel. Round 2 Joe Kallstrom FW (+20) Commander Joe ended up playing Borg which was a bit of a worry. All the nasty objectives in Voyager block. He started by downloading a lot of drones fast while I stumbled around not getting any of my draw cards. I figure I have to do missions fast even though I don't have much and get slaughtered by Volcanic Eruption and Hanonian Land Eel. Joe isn't doing much offensively still building up so I have some time to get on the board. I download Pendari Champion with Penk to pass the eel but then hit Implication and get walled. Joe finally makes a move on Establish Gateway getting hit with Ankari spirits. I decide to take a turn off doing missions to rebuild a bit and pass back to Joe. He quickly cures Ankari and hits Hull Breach which only kills 1 drone then clears a Kazon Bomb easily. I run into a lack of preparation not realising I don't have Stellar Cartography and go down to -10 points. I decide to do another space mission the next turn and get slaughtered with Spatial Rift and Hull breach taking out 4 personnel then the Cloud damages my ship. Over the next few turns Joe allows me to limp home and repair my equinox while he switches objective to Harness Particle 010 getting lucky and hitting the 3rd probe. Now the score is 30 to -10 with double points in play for his Borg objectives. I play a handshake to try to draw 3 but Joe discards 3 to deny it. I don't have much on board and the game looks lost. Joe makes a move on assimilate planet but stumbles on a Hanonian Land Eel. It is only now that my Equinox is fully repaired. Been doing a draw go for a few turns feeling like all is lost but I do manage to get down Equinox Doctor which takes my treachery count to the level I need to turn on War Council. Joe adapts past the land eel and passes the turn back. I get to draw some cards with War Council and attempt a space mission but I run into Navigational Hazards and I still don't have Stellar Cartography. Where is this damned skill. He passes the Assimilate Planet for 60 big ones and goes to 80 points. Surely the game is over for me now with the clock ticking down. Here is my big chance to try to make a move. I play handshake discarding some of the cards I drew with my War Council to draw 7. I get down 7 of 9 just in time to get through a Navigational Hazards I was stuck on before. I get up to 35 points but then I'm hit with Mission Debriefing and I have to stop. This is where Joe slips up. He decides to steal my Research Phage knowing the dilemmas he seeded there he gets through them easily until he hits his own Matriarchal Society. Oops Borg don't have females. I make a critical error running the wrong crew into implication, a dilemma I already knew was there but had the wrong stats. So I get stopped and pass back to Joe. He adapts past the dilemma in his way and sends the turn back to me ready to probe for the win on the next turn. Unfortunately the door is now wide open for me. I'm not sure if he was keeping track or not. I'm able to split up my teams to pass the implication with 1 crew and fly over to cure the phage with 1 Think Tank personnel scoring 80 points in the turn from my 2 40 point planet missions. Absolutely stole the game on turn 27. Round 3 Brian Sykes FW (+45) Playing against another Kazon deck. I'm sure Brian will do some nasty things to me if I'm not careful. I start horribly slow. One turn I do nothing except play a phaser and pass. Armus plays The Power for some extra draw and is building up nicely. He decides to fly over next to his outpost to get an early mission done at Kazon Conference. First hitting a Volcanic Eruption killing Rebi and Azan, this is cool because it knocks out his Cortical Node Implant costing an extra card. Then Lack of Preparation stops him and takes 10 points. He has some more personnel in reserve and decides to take a risk. Sabotaged Negotiations!!! The Kazon Conference goes balls up with a sweet quad kill. Armus can barely believe it. Then a Land Eel kills another just leaving the volcano to finish off anybody left there. A huge squad wipe for me leaving me in a good position to recover from my early lack of card plays. There is a big period of draw go around this stage for about 5 or more turns. Neither of us has much in play and just need the card draws. I manage to get a Chakotay down to turn on Ancestral Vision for a double draw. This leaves Chakotay vulnerable on the planet though and in this game I'm quite close to Armus's outpost. He needs to move his Equinox full range to get there for the kill but we soon discover he doesn't have the Equinox lore personnel required for the range boost. The next turn I have a decent force built up so decide to attempt mission at Assist Cooperative where my Outpost is at. I can't get past Hazardous Duty so I pass turn. Armus decides not to come after me since Chakotay is now guarded and I have a gun. I move to pass Hazardous duty but I hit Crisis not having an officer on a ship I can't continue. A good combo stop for Armus. Armus is doing a bit of draw go still reeling from that early mission wipe. I get off a War Council and suddenly I have 12 cards in my hand while Armus only has 5. I've got a hand full of replacement personnel and feeling confident. I hit a Common Thief which steals my gun then I hit the land Eel. I manage a minor miracle of passing it with 51 strength thanks to the Rock (Pendari Champion) coming in clutch with 15 strength. I had only wasted a card play on him to serve as Chakotays bodyguard and deter the personnel battle. Score 40 - -10 with a big lead and lots of cards in hand it looks like I might run away with it. I go straight for a space mission and hit Macrovirus. Armus kills Dr. Ma'Bor thinking he has set me up for The Cloud. Lucky for me I have a download up my sleeve. Penk gets Hajur for the extra MEDICAL and I slide through undamaged. Then I hit a garbage scow and Armus decides this is the right time to sting me with a Mission Debrief. Armus then uses a Ready Room Door for Captain's Log which I don't think much of but I was about to feel some pain. It is at this point I decide to use Nanoprobe Resuscitation to revive the good doctor coming back from the dead to cure the virus that killed him. Armus is now starting to loom over me looking for a fight so I decide to dip on the garbage scow and go to Research Phage. Good move with Lack of Preparation not wanting to risk my Think Tank guy in the attempt. I lose 10 points. I have made a critical error at this point leaving my Think Tank Ship in no mans land uncloaked. I thought with 18 shields I was ok but the captains log gets Armus to 19 weapons and he damages me. I move Sullin into my away team and get past Lack of prep then I hit a Kazon bomb. Turns out I left my SECURITY guys on the other ship and this is a big wipe for me. 7 personnel bite the dust. Things go from bad to worse for me as Armus finishes off my Think Tank ship and Slipstream drives over to my Equinox to blow that up too. Female love interest sends B'Elanna away and then I'm left with no ship and no females unable to pass Matriarchal society not that I have a Think Tank Personnel to cure the phage anyway. Armus decides to try a space mission with a mega crew. You know what stops mega crews? The Clown: My Festival I'm playing draw go at this point while Armus is playing catch up on the scoreboard. Armus scores 35 points after losing a few personnel to dilemmas. Armus does a 2nd space mission and Ankari spirits get revenge on Rudolph Random for the crimes against them. I still have plenty of cards but no females so I decide to just burn a handshake to turn over my hand and pass. I have a replacement Think Tank ship in play with Fennim docked safely at my outpost and I'm slowly rebuilding looking for some females. Armus has his personnel a bit split up and isn't capable of doing missions. At this point it's turn 40. Armus manages to do another space mission to move up to 55 points but I'm finally able to get a couple of girls with Marika and Riley and slide on down to cure the phage with Fennim in my cloaked Think Tank vessel. I could have settled for the mod win but I got 1 extra turn after the clock ran out so I did a space mission which I did in a single attempt to get the full win. Perhaps Brian wasted too much time chasing me around but I think it was my dilemmas wiping him out early which decided the game. He never did get back to finish that Kazon Conference. I'm lucky I came prepared with a big deck that could survive the attrition of having a lot of stuff killed. It was a great game and I went from thinking I would win easily early to thinking I was lost after my ships got destroyed to pulling out a full win. Closing Thoughts Always good to win games and this was a fun tournament. I made full use of all the super powerful Non Aligned stuff and just relied on the card advantage of War Council to get it all out. I probably stole game 2 more than I stole game 3. A bit of luck and a bit of skill.