Smoke Bomb
by Evan Lorentz

Smoke Bomb is a great way to avoid being overwhelmed by an opponent's massive battling force. Or maybe there are just one or two specific personnel you'd like to keep hidden -- a weak, but valuable personnel, or maybe the one your Borg opponent has targeted as their counterpart. Smoke Bomb's second function is arguably the more useful, however. If you can get personnel present with your opponent's, you can halt their mission attempts just when it's least convenient.

Maybe when there's only one dilemma remaining (you can't play interrupts between the last dilemma and the solving of a mission, unfortunately for the Smoke Bomb user), or just before they're going to breeze by a self-seed you were counting on for extra points. Of course, it can work just as well for saving your own personnel from a grizzly fate. Did you just hit The Sheliak and realize you're a bit short on INTEGRITY? Throw up a Smoke Bomb, and you won't have to face the Q that will probably follow.

Combos:
Smoke Bomb + Open Diplomatic Relations: Just because your opponent is attempting mostly space missions doesn't mean you can't get personnel of your own present with them to blow Smoke in their faces.

Lack of Prepartation + Undetected Beam-In + Smoke Bomb: Download Talon and Assault Drones right to your opponent's ship or Away Team and then "stop" their mission attempt. You can then reveal Assimilate Counterpart on your turn to snatch up your opponent's crew for yourself -- before they have scored points with them.