(3) ThonNon-aligned Personnel of Andorian species. Each member of the Imperial Guard is trained in every aspect of warship operations. Characteristics: "relocate" ship cards, "affiliation", discard a random card from hand, Past related, personnel who has a cost of 3 or more, Andorian species, ship related card. Rule hint for this cardThis card has an erratum: Limiting to prevent "Game Over" for VOY. Skill without errata: "If you do not command a completed space mission, discard a random card from your hand to place the ship this personnel is aboard at your incomplete space mission.". Taken form Current Errata 2015-04-06.Card logging info: Last lgged by eberlems at Feb 10th, 2010 (Q1 by Roga Danar at Sep 9th, 2010 & Q2 by Telak at Mar 21st, 2011) | |
This Card-Review article was written by openCards user Tribble at May 21st, 2007.
After securing the Berlin championship with my shameful Gal Gath’thong deck, for the Hamburg TOC I just wanted to have fun. Which usually means my opponents won’t have much to laugh about.
Instead of reverting to my favourite Kazakh Vorta Borat(h), I wanted to try out the other card reminding players of Sasha Baron Cohen’s most famous article of clothing, the neon green thong. This one is no Romulan, but a non-aligned personnel of a healthy light blue skin tone, the Andorian Thon, who most players probably never looked twice at. But if you take the time to check out the ability of this guy, you might realise that he’s the answer to all those prayers of the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager - the one in the TV series, that is. For STCCG players it is not quite as desirable to find their ship in the alpha quadrant, possibly with only three personnel aboard. If they don’t have a Delta Flyer with back-up personnel in play, the “mobile headquarters” is neither if it’s stuck in the wrong quadrant.
Since I only possess two copies of “Dimensional Shifting” the best-known method to transfer your personnel to an opponent’s ship, I had to think up an alternative plan. And that is “Enemy in Our Midst”, an event most players would connect with those pesky Founders, but which works just as well with that Tenth-Anniversary ship named after Gul Dukat’s Bajoran lover Naprem. It’s like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, sans towel. You just beam your personnel to a planet where an opponent’s ride is parked, your guys instantly become infiltrators, and you beam up Thon, some assassins, maybe even some infiltrators with that keyword printed (for use with Pseudopod, another card working just as good with non-shapeshifters), and not only a Voyager deck can get a problem, but also other decks relying on too few ships - maybe this strategy could even work on a Gal Gath’thong deck if the opponent doesn’t play his alternative ship too soon.
Here’s my deck list:
Missions (5)
Cardassia Prime, Hardscrabble World
Qo’noS, Heart of the Empire
Amnesty Talks
Evacuate Colony
Investigate Maquis Activity
Draw Deck (70)
A Treasure Beyond Comparison
3x D’Arsay Archive
3x Enemy In Your Midst
3x Feast on the Dying
2x Ferocity
2x Guidance of the Council
2x How Would You Like a Trip to Romulus?
Noble Cause
Point Blank Strike
Provoked Attack
Psychological Pressure
Standard Cardassian Procedure
2x Temporal Incursion
Tribunal Sentencing
2x Dimensional Shifting
3x Pseudopod
2x Dukat, True Cardassian
Evek, Attaché to the Demilitarized Zone
2x Goran
3x Jasad
Macet, Skeptical Commander
Madred, Calculating Captor
Makbar, Chief Archon
2x Mila, Trusted Confidante
Thrax, Chief of Security
2x Toran, Ambitious Brute
3x Alexander Rozhenko, K’mtar
2x Drex, Arrogant Warrior
Duras, Son of a Traitor
K’mpec, Klingon Supreme Commander
2x K’Tal, High Council Member
William T. Riker, Exchange Officer
Worf, Regent of the Alliance
2x The Albino, Killer of Children
2x Altovar, Vindictive Criminal
B-4, Dangerous Simpleton
3x Thon
3x Naprem
Reklar
2x Trager, Patrol Ship
Dilemmas (50)
2x Arena
2x Back Room Dealings
Cardassian Processing
2x Center of Attention
Chameloid Chicanery
2x Hard Time
2x Last Gasp
Psychokinetic Control
Secret Identity
3x Skeleton Crew
2x Temptation
The Dreamer and the Dream
3x Tragic Turn
2x A Bad End
Assassination Attempt
2x Charged-Particle Precipitation
2x Compassionate Interference
2x Cultural Differences
Gangster’s Welcome
Harsh Conditions
The Moon’s a Window to Heaven
2x Trabe Grenade
2x Triage
Ungracious Hosts
3x Vault of Tomorrow
2x Don’t Let it End This Way
3x Hull Breach
2x Magnetic Field Disruptions
Because of some traffic problems of the guy holding the key to our location (the “youth cellar” of the “resurrection church” in Lurup) the tourney started a bit late, and I used that half our to try to find out how many Voyagers I could send home - but it soon became evident that I intimidated possible Voyager opponents with my war declaration - only Sandra Stieß, Germanys best female STCCG player and a Klingon at heart accepted my challenge, but we were not paired against each other in the first round and so the chances of later matches against the only Voyager at the TOC soon dwindled as I didn’t expect to start with a full win with my deck.
My first opponent was Alex Rieß, the local champion, against whom I probably played at some tourney in Hanover - but we both only vaguely remembered something like that. Alex played also Klingons, but those more scientifically inclined. His deck didn’t work quite as he would have liked it. He had several Grav-Plating Traps, diverse equipment and Fajo’s Menagerie, but didn’t draw Korath to use those equipment for further event distruction. I also had the impression that he didn’t draw a ship for something like eight turns - at least he didn’t play it. When he finally left Q’onoS for his first mission attempts (a planet), he solved a bit too fast for my taste, but I managed to send his ship to my space mission. Even though my first attempt to capture the only person left on the ship with “Provoked Attack” failed because it wasn’t a Medical but some Klingon looking very similar to a Med Klingon he played twice, I thought he would need some time to get to his second ship - but unfortunately he had another one handy. That was not how this was supposed to work! With the help of two “Temporal Incursion” (he destroyed one, but I fetched it back with “Feast for the Dying” and sacrificed a Mila when he tried it again) I could keep him at his second mission til the time-out, but my own mission attempts were rather futile, and so the modified loss was inevitable without regard of his second mission. I had assimilitated two of his personnel, send one back to his hand (Altovar) and killed three with dilemmas. In his last mission attempt I could only play Secret Identity to make him discard a personnel with a key skill - but he had another copy of that guy. Not quite as I had envisioned it…
My opponent in the second round was Thorsten Wanek, against whom I still haven’t won in several years of tourneys we both visited (it should be 10 to 12 matches lost by now). And when he started to play his tampering stuff (The only event destruction whatsoever in my deck was one Gangster’s Welcome), I knew this would probably not be the game in which I could finally break that series (I’m not sure if this is understandable in English - bear with me). But Thorsten was just as wary of my deck. In my first two turns I played two assassins each (okay, Altovar is not a real assassin, but he works for my tactic) and some capture maneuver and Ferocity. And as in my first game the opponent stuck to his headquarters (Starfleet) as if that particular Earth was made of glue. The exact opposite to his girlfriend Sandra - a coward, and a slow one at that.
I just proved that I can play for time, too and made a telephone with some girl in Korea. But then Thorsten tried his first mission (after several Tamperings and with the help of “Running a Tight Ship”), solved it at once - and immediately went back home. Since he also had played a second ship by then, I figured my little Thon-scheme wouldn’t work at all, but when he finally tried his second mission he could be stopped - and I came over with two ships, two capture-maneuvers, Thon and Dimensional Shifting and about four assassins. I destaffed one of his ships with Toran (and this time I was rather clever in choosing the right person to discard), put one of his Moriks in my brig, killed another one of those with Ferocity, and had three assassins left to try to killl as much of his remaining three personnel on ship two as possible. But he had no one with Medical, Honor or a cost of 3 or less. Two copies of Amanda Cole (who overcame my “Arena” in a previous turn) and a “Trip” (the commander version) with the big star he needed for the ship. Bad Luck! That game ended also with a modified loss in which my opponent had solved two missions and I none. And I shouldn’t neglect to mention my stupidest mistake of that game: When I made a mission attempt and ran into “The Caretaker’s Guest” I really shouldn’t have hopped up and down because I thought I could get my Mila back (Thorsten also worked with the Grav-Plating Trap), because then my opponent decided to kill a Klingon instead - and there wasn’t one in my discard pile yet.
Third round I encountered a deck I never played against, but heard of - and immediately recognised because of the missions: Ferenginar, TOS-Earth, skills reminding very much of Morik. I knew I had to play at least one of my Temporal Incursions against that Palamas trick invented by Marc Schütze (I think). My opponent, another guy from Hamburg called Mirko Wittenberg, played Brunt and Ishka in his first turn, and followed that by a Quark (downloading the 9er Rule) in turn 2. At first I thought I had to double-check not commanding more events than him (because of the Brunt), but he played so many Rules there never was a danger for that. In turn 3 or 4 I visited Ferenginar and killed Ishka (with the Albino) and Brunt (with Drex), followed that with executions of Lwaxanna and Quark, and when he finally played a ship I sent it to my Amnesty Talks. He than tried his luck with the first mission attempt: 3 personnel, I couldn’t have drawn a single dilemma if it weren’t for my Temporal Incursion, and I drew a Vault of Tomorrow, which I changed for Ungracious Hosts. I had four cards on hand, enough for Morik, and since Mirko somehow confused skill dots with cost, he didn’t choose the one personnel with five skill dots. So Morik went into my Brig, in the next two mission attempts Krunk died because of Charged Particles and Kol went into the jail cell next to Morik after my Cardassian Processing. I went on assassinating, killed his other two Moriks and an Ishka (next time my Albino came around, Mirko just said “I’m all outta Ishkas - and thus honor!”), and shortly before I killed a Kol (which obliterated his 9er-Rule), we had only 11 minutes left. Mirko had only one Ferengi and his three Palamas left, at a planet where a Non-Aligned ship parked, and was a more than fair opponent by not beaming his personnel up and down the ship every turn and doing mission attempts if he couldn’t solve. To honor his behaviour I failed several mission attempts (at least one of them through sheer stupidity), and so we seperated with a True Tie (0:0), a first for both of us. Nevertheless I considered myself the moral victor (too bad I haven’t got my English dictionary handy), since I kidnapped a ship (as in every game of this day), assassinated nine personnel, killed one with a dilemma, and incarcerated two. Exactly the twelve personnel I wanted to get in every game.
In the first three turns my games were always ended through the time-out, and since the last turn of the other players always took some time, it was clear that I couldn’t stay a whole hour for my last turn and still catch my train. So I encouraged my last opponent to play fast, since I would probably quit after 35 minutes or so. Since Emil Thies (whom I mostly know from his website www.decipher-games.de) played Borg, and I got the best starting hand of the whole day I could kidnap his big borg cube (he really looked kinda funny when I came over voluntarily to his Borg headquarters) staffed with one or two peeps in turn 3. Unfortunately he downloaded Regeneration Alcoves from his huge deck and played a second cube in turn 5 or so. Since he also started to play several assimilation and maneuver cards by then, I decided to try to solve at least one mission on this day (someone once told me that is what this whole game is around). Emil stopped one of my crew and killed three more with a Tsiolkovsky infection. But I could fly home and played some more personnel. Emil first assimilated my Thon, who was still on his Borg cube, got five points with One with the Borg, played The Perfect Tool, allowing him to spend eight counters each turn, and I thought: best try to attempt some more before all my personnel get assimilated or it gets to late to catch my train. To cut a long story short: I solved my three missions in five attempts (counting the Tsiolkovsky one), while Emil assimilated my Riker and two of my events with Changed History, and I got a full win after about half an hour. I fetched my prize support and certificate still missing my rank in that tournament, and arrive at the track exactly three minutes before my train was supposed to leave the station.