Playing The Borg: Reporting Personnel Quicklyby Evan Lorentz, aka "Mot the Barber" Last installment, I talked about Retask and revealed (to some people's surprise) that I don't use it. But neither do I rely on reporting Borg slowly each turn until I can finally get a ship into the Alpha Quadrant. Here is my fourth "Mot's Advice on the Borg" - Reporting Personnel Quickly. When I wrote about downloading, I talked about the value of Awaken and Activate Subcommands in Borg decks. They allow you to report extra personnel each turn beyond what you are normally restricted to. More importantly, the Borg you report through these cards can be selected from your draw deck, not left to the random chance of a card draw. Of course, the favored way to report tons of cards has always been Red Alert. For the sake of game balance, Red Alert was dealt a series of pretty severe blows in the First Contact expansion. There are now no less than 3 new ways to damage somebody's abusive Red Alert strategy: Deactivation, Ready Room Door (to protect a Yellow Alert), and Mirror Image. (All this, on top of plain old Kevin Uxbridge.) MOT'S ADVICE: Forget about Red Alert. It's hard enough to make one float in the face of all this. If you do get one to work for you, odds are it will benefit your opponent more than you if they use a Mirror Image to report cards off your Red Alert. A non-Borg player has built their deck with multiple overlapping personnel. Borg players do not stock as many personnel in multiple. If you are left to playing all the personnel in your hand (through Red Alert), odds are you won't do as well as you will through downloading. Definitely, you won't do as well as your non-Borg opponent. Also remember there are many non-personnel cards in most Borg decks: Adapts, Transwarp Network Gateways, A Change of Plans, Awakens, Activate Subcommands... you won't have as many personnel in hand to play as your opponent, either. In the end, Red Alert isn't the way to go. But then there's the number one best way to rocket Borg personnel into play: the Borg Queen. In my Retask article, I suggested that to use the first Q's Tent of a game for any reason other than getting a Borg Queen was a big mistake. Now, I'm going to explain that a little better. The Borg Queen has the ability to download a personnel in place of a card draw. Every turn, at the end of your turn, you have the opportunity to have a very "lucky card draw." You can search your deck for a drone -- any drone -- and put it straight into play. Wow! I mean, imagine if Jean-Luc Picard could download any one member of the Enterprise bridge crew every turn! But it doesn't stop there. There are, after all, ways to draw more than one card per turn, mainly Kivas Fajo -- Collector, and The Traveller:Transcendence. Kivas Fajo allows you to draw three cards, and this in turn can translate to downloading three drones if you've got a Queen in play. Of course, this is not much different than using Activate Subcommands, but consider The Traveller. At the end of every turn, you can download two drones. This, on top of your card play, makes for three personnel per turn. You'll have a Cube staffed in no time. MOT'S ADVICE: Kivas Fajo -- Collector and The Traveller: Transcendence took some hits at the hands of Mirror Image. There's a good chance when you play these cards that your opponent will be benefiting from them as well. When playing Borg, you should not allow this to concern you. You will always have the better end of the deal. When you play a Kivas that your opponent Mirror Images, they will draw the top three cards of their deck -- whatever they happen to be. You will download the three drones of your choice. Where they draw two cards to end a turn, you download two drones of your choice. Besides, if your opponent is still Mirror Imaging your Traveller when you reach the point where you no longer wish to download drones, simply Mercy Kill your own Event. (Mercy Kill will also get you out from under a Persistence of Memory played on your Traveller.) So have no fear, use these cards when playing Borg. Just beware an opponent who also playing Borg! I've talked a lot about Mirror Image. I've mentioned three of the four cards named in the game text. Better take a look at the last one. Masaka Transformations... a Borg player's dream. Let's say on turn one, I report a Borg Cube. Turn two, I Tent for and report a Borg Queen. (By this point, I have six cards in hand.) On turn three, I play Masaka Transformations. I discard the remaining five cards in my hand, but instead of redrawing five from my deck, I use the Queen for five downloads. When I draw still another card to end my turn, and instead download another drone, that makes seven Borg personnel and a Cube in just three turns. How's that for Borg speed? How about a way to double the number of Borg you have in play? Seed Ooby Dooby at a space location you intend to scout, then load up a Cube full of Borg. Just before initiating scouting, switch your Queen's skill to Youth (and be sure she's present with an Interlink Drone), then in place of each card draw you'd get from the Ooby Dooby, download a new Borg. (A very effective way to play very large Borg decks!) One final thing on reporting Borg personnel quickly. In this series to this point, I've talked a lot about getting Cubes staffed and into play. Similarly, the emphasis of many players out there seems to be on the Cubes. The Cube is not the end-all, be-all of a Borg deck. Most Klingon players will tell you that the little K'Vorts are far more valuable than the big Vor'cha class ships. It can be this way with the Borg, too. You can scout and probe just as easily from Spheres and Scout Vessels as from Cubes, and those smaller ships are far easier to get out and running. The big anti-redshirt card of First Contact, Lack of Preparation, is of little or no consequence to the Borg. They take no point loss for hitting it unprepared, and it's actually quite easy to overcome for a wall dilemma. Even if they can't overcome it with three subcommand icons, they can Adapt to it with Negate Obstruction. There's no reason a Borg redshirt strategy fueled by swarms of little ships couldn't be made to work. And with all those Navigation icons in your deck, space objectives would be a natural. So now you know how to get personnel out quickly. Who should you be using? NEXT TIME: Choosing personnel |
