Tantalus Field
Artifact Place on your ship here. (Unique.) Once each turn, may discard top card of draw deck to kill a ❖ personnel here OR discard top three to kill a unique personnel here. Characteristics: Original Series . Rule hint for this cardThis card has an clarification: You may not use this artifact to kill a personnel if either the artifact or the potential victim is aboard a cloaked or phased ship. See cloaking and phasing. Taken form Glossary - Version 1.9.5.Card logging info: Logged by openCards team at May 1st, 2009. | |
This Card-Review article was written by Evan Lorentz and was published first on "Decipher's Website (decipher.com)" at Dec 7th, 2000.
The secret behind the mirror Kirk's success can be the secret behind yours. With the Tantalus Field, you can vaporize a personnel once each turn - any personnel, if you're willing to pay the price. Killing a universal personnel will cost you the top card of your draw deck, while a unique personnel will require more of a sacrifice - the top three. (Only a personnel with an enigma icon is safe from the Field.)
The real trick to using this artifact is in moving (and protecting) the ship it is played on. You may want to make heavy use of RANGE enhancement cards (or tricks like Wormhole) to make it easier for you to chase down a personnel you'd like to eliminate, or to avoid an armada your opponent is sending after your ship.
Also worth considering are ways you might minimize the cost in discarded cards, by knowing ahead of time what it is you'll be giving up. The Orb of Prophecy and Change will give you a peek at the top card of your deck, and even let you move it out of discard's reach if you don't want to lose it. New Essentialists and the 47th Rule of Acquisition will let you position one of your personnel from in play as your Field discard. More elaborate, but with greater effects, is Zalkonian Storage Capsule: store enough cards, destroy your own Capsule with a Kevin Uxbridge or Mercy Kill, and you could potentially arrange many turns' worth of cheap Field payments.
So what do you do with the Field if you've got it up and running? That's the easy part. You could try to eliminate personnel with skills required by your opponent's missions. Or you load up on dilemmas requiring a specific skill and gun for that. If battle's on your mind, you can use the Field to kill off high-STRENGTH personnel from Away Teams or crews you plan on attacking, or matching commanders from your opponent's ships (especially effective against Rinnak Pire!). There are even a few reasons you might use the Field to kill your own personnel, like if they're under the negative effects of a dilemma, or have been captured or assimilated by your opponent.
The possibilities are both endless and... well... Tantal-izing.
Combos:
- Tantalus Field + James Tiberius Kirk: An obvious combo, but appropriate. Seed Halkan Council (with the I.S.S. Enterprise as your download), and you can even get this up and running on turn one!
- Tantalus Field + Process Ore: With Ore Processing underway, you don't need to worry as much about making blind sacrifices from the top of your deck. You'll be getting those cards back from your discard pile soon enough.