Playing The Borg:
Choosing Personnel

Here's the final installment of my anlysis of Borg personnel:

Assault Drone (Eight of Nineteen): Standard decks need MEDICAL, SCIENCE and SECURITY. So do The Borg, and the Assault Drone helps. Note the STRENGTH bonus. This is important to a strategy built around stunning and assimilating personnel (if you can't beat their STRENGTH, you can't stun). The Assault Drone is also one of the best to download with Undetected Beam-In. There should be at least one, if not two, in every Borg deck; you never know when an opponent will beam over to your ship to interfere with your plans.

Guard Drone (Four of Eleven): Having MEDICAL as a first-listed skill makes this Drone less desirable than the Bio-Med Drone. The SHIELDS bonus looks nice, but you could play a Nutational or Metaphasic Shields instead and have ENGINEERs and SCIENCE all throughout your hive providing +2 SHIELDS each. The Guard Drone's saving grace is Computer Skill. If Assimilating Starships is a part of your strategy, you may want him around.

MOT'S ADVICE: The Astrogation Drone is better still for assimilation. Its RANGE bonus insures you can catch the ship you want to assimilate. Sadly, the Guard Drone's abilities are duplicated too well on other cards.

Multiplexor Drone (Nine of Seventeen): A purely defensive card. When using the Eliminate Starship objective, you are only allowed to attack the one ship you've selected. Only if your opponent initiates a battle against you can you retaliate by attacking multiple ships. Being able to do that is a great thing, especially if you're gonna lose the ship -- take as many of them with you as you can. MOT'S ADVICE: Think of this card as you would think of Metaphasic Shields in a normal deck. I'm not implying it's "useless." (You know I would never do that!) But not every deck has a Metaphasic Shields. Not every Borg deck needs a Multiplexor. If you have room for it, use it. If not, you'll probably be okay, too.

Sabotage Drone (Six of Seventeen): This drone is perhaps the most highly specific of all Borg drones. The special ability to sabotage the RANGE or WEAPONS of a ship by 2 is a nuisance. It's no coincidence this drone also has Computer Skill. He makes the ideal scout to send over for the Assimilate Starship objective. His presence there is not only a threat of impending doom for that ship, but a pain in the neck until he succeeds. It's a big incentive for your opponent to attack the Drone, which lets you counterattack by beaming over a Borgish horde, or by destroying the ship. MOT'S ADVICE: Most players are too smart to fall for Sabotage alone, no matter how much of a pain it is. They know what's coming if they attack you. To really induce an opponent to attack you, you need the Assimilate Starship objective as well. If this is a focus of your deck, then the Sabotage drone is nice to have around. Otherwise, don't bother.

Tactical Drone (Thirteen of Nineteen): One of three Borg SECURITY drones. This one's special ability is to enhance the WEAPONS of your ship by 2. This is an ability you're only likely to ever need against another Borg opponent. MOT'S ADVICE: Anyone else who has SHIELDS so high they can withstand the assault of even an unenhanced Borg ship should be dealt with other ways. Shipwreck comes to mind. Your unenhanced ship will be more than a match for your non-Borg opponent's. And as for Borg opponents, Assimilate Starship is a much more devious approach. The Borg opponent has no way to attack your drone aboard their ship, scouting for the objective. They can only play Eliminate Starship to attack the ship itself. While you could benefit from Tactical Drones here, I find the attack from within more effective than the one from outside.

Talon Drone (Three of Nineteen): The final SECURITY drone, the Talon Drone can both assimilate any personnel you've stunned, and download an Assimilation Tubules once per game. You'll need STRENGTH enhancements for your Drones (in the form of Assault Drones or Lower Decks) to be sure you're stunning your opponent's personnel to do this. And remember, you can only have a personnel battle one of two ways: by your opponent picking the fight against you first, or by an Assimilate Counterpart objective.

MOT'S ADVICE: Remember that the Assimilate Counterpart objective does not give you leave to initiate personnel battles at will -- only against the Away Team containing your target, and only until you succeed in abducting that target. You could prolong this process if you are trying to assimilate your opponent's personnel, but usually you'll want to send a large enough group to succeed in this on the first try. That leaves Talon Drones as a means of retribution if your opponent beamed over to your ship to battle you, delaying your probing. Measure the value of that retribution according to your strategy. If your intended Objectives don't probe successfully off Defense icons, consider leaving out Talon Drones.

That takes care of the Defense subcommand drones. Of course, I've left out the two main Borg, the two with all three icons. So, a few words about the Borg Queen and Locutus of Borg.

Borg Queen: Like the card says, she is the Collective. Have one in your Tent, and at least another in your deck. For that matter, it would not be unreasonable to stock every copy of the Queen you own in your deck, as you'll make it more likely to get one by a natural card draw. Even though you can only play one at a time, she makes for easy probing later on. (Again, I'll say I believe a Borg deck can work without a Queen, but this is a topic for later.)

Locutus of Borg: Obviously a good card. OFFICER for Maglock, Leadership for Q, Diplomacy for Shaka, and a ready-made counterpart for assimilating the Federation homeworld. MOT'S ADVICE: Don't let the flash and glitz draw you in. Most Borg decks can get by without Locutus. I played Borg for weeks before my Fajo Collection arrived, and managed just fine. The Queen's skill changing ability will cover you in the cases I mentioned. There's no question that the matching Federation counterpart is Locutus of Borg's best feature. If you are doing a Homeworld-centered strategy, stock this card. If you have a copy of Locutus, go ahead and throw him in the deck or the Tent. But if Homeworlds aren't the big thrust of your deck, you don't need Locutus to win. Don't use a Tent thoughtlessly -- make sure he'll really help you more than some other card in your Tent at that moment.

And there you have it, an in depth look at all 20 Borg personnel. By now, you should have a good idea about who to choose for which strategy -- and there are definite, distinct Borg strategies. So which one should you try?

NEXT TIME: Choosing Objectives.