Barzan Wormhole
by Joeri Hoste (joerihoste@hotmail.com)

Are you ready to drool? Barzan Wormhole is giving you yet another reason to stock that easy-to-solve, 45-point (and that's without Mission Specialists!) Wormhole Negotations in your deck. Say no more, I like it already! Oh, if you insist:

Much like the regular Bajoran Wormhole and the Bajoran Wormhole: Mirror Universe, the Barzan Wormhole greatly enhances the interaction between players operating in different quadrants, or improves your deck's flexibility in hopping from quadrant to quadrant. The Barzan Wormhole however, isn't as stable as it may seem.

Seeding in any phase means you're not at a disadvantage if your opponent tries to outseed you and gives you the opportunity to spring a surprise at the last moment. It provides every battle-oriented deck based in the Alpha, Gamma, or Delta Quadrant the best option to swarm out and take out your opponent wherever they might be hiding. White-driven Jem'Hadar, organ-stealing Vidiians, and ship-ramming Kazon will all come pouring through that wormhole. Need to get to the [DQ] really fast? Line up that Dominion armada at the Barzan Wormhole and play another copy from your deck to relocate the Wormhole (and all cards at that location!) to a new location in the Delta (or Gamma) Quadrant. How's that for wiping the grin off someone's face? Relocate multiple ships with a single card and you're not even stopped. Going in for the kill?

It gets better! Once each turn you get to play a copy to drop any ship with crew (limit of four cards aboard) at Wormhole Negotiations. That's not even your card play, so make sure you keep filling that hand for a drop a turn. No more messing with only-[AU], which is necessary for the classic Space-Time Portal drop. Any ship, any personnel.

Seems like Barzan is going to see quite some activity real soon. Be prepared to defend it!

Combos:

Barzan Wormhole + Bajoran Wormhole: Mirror Universe + Bajoran Wormhole + your armada: Quadrants! Hah! Only one big spaceline to me!

Barzan Wormhole + Space-Time Portal: Pick up that staffed Weyoun's Warship with matching commander here, drop it down there and blow up stuff. It's that simple!

Caretaker's Array
by Evan Lorentz (mot@decipher.com)

Although the Voyager crew found getting home from the Delta Quadrant a difficult task, getting to the Delta Quadrant could hardly be simpler. Just include the Ocampa planet (Liberation) in your deck, add this handy incident, and you're ready to roll.

The benefits of the Caretaker's Array are numerous. First, you essentially get an indestructible outpost. Though you can't dock with the Array as you would a true outpost, your opponent can't attack it and leave you no place to report your cards for duty.

Second, you get a "Headquarters" of sorts. Instead of a free card play each turn, however, you get to report a whole ship with crew as your normal card play. Even with the limit of three staffing icons and three cards aboard, this is a powerful reporting mechanism allowing decks based around the Delta Quadrant to keep pace with the Headquarters enjoyed by the existing affiliations.

Third, you get easy access to the Delta Quadrant. By either relocating from the Badlands (using either of the card's two functions) or reporting directly to the Array, everyone has equal access, from the Federation to the Klingons to the Cardassians to the Dominion to the Terran Empire to the Vidiians to the Kazon -- and everybody else in between. With several tempting missions available in Delta Quadrant, you may need no further prompting than this.

Combo:

Caretaker's Array + U.S.S. Voyager: The Array also lets you seed there any one non-Borg ship native to the Delta Quadrant. Begin the game with Voyager at the Array, just as the series began. You can also seed Home Away From Home so you don't need to worry about drawing it early.

Home Away From Home
by Kathy McCracken (majorrakal@decipher.com)

The Borg, stuck outside their native quadrant since First Contact, have always enjoyed the roving "outpost" of a Borg Cube. Now, everyone else can have the same kind of "home away from home" while exploring another quadrant, by playing (or in some cases, seeding) this incident on a ship.

To start with, any [DQ] ship referring to the "Alpha Quadrant" in its lore can have equipment and matching [DQ] personnel report aboard. So all your [DQ] Federation personnel can report aboard U.S.S. Voyager, even the Non-Aligned crew such as Seven of Nine, using their alternate [Fed] affiliation icon. One with a [Stf] icon can even report for free each turn, for a Headquarters-like ability on the fly. With the ability to seed Voyager at the Caretaker's Array followed by seeding Home Away From Home, you have your roving outpost/HQ from the word go.

But the main privilege isn't confined just to the few ships that meet that criterion; play this on any other non-Borg ship, and while it's outside its native quadrant, you can likewise report personnel aboard -- those matching both the affiliation and the native quadrant of the ship -- plus equipment. You'll want to report your Non-Aligned personnel before leaving home (unless it's a Non-Aligned ship), or use some other method of reporting them aboard such as Crew Reassignment. Perfect for exploring the Gamma, Delta, or Mirror Quadrant with your Romulan or Klingon crew, without worry about fetching backup personnel when a dilemma decimates your crew.

Combos:

Home Away From Home + Caretaker's Array + U.S.S. Voyager: All you need for a few turns around this far-flung quadrant, and they're all seedable.

Home Away From Home + any Alpha/Gamma ship + Bajoran Wormhole or Barzan Wormhole: If you want to start in your home quadrant, one of the wormholes will let you head for the stars without giving up easy reinforcements.

Home Away From Home + Ferengi Trading Post + a universal D'Kora: The Delta Quadrant isn't all that can take advantage of a seeded Home Away From Home.

Nanoprobe Resuscitation
by Joeri Hoste (joerihoste@hotmail.com)

Similar to Res-Q and Palor Toff - Alien Trader, Nanoprobe Resuscitation offers various retrieval possibilities. Granted, you can only dig up the top card of your discard and this only once every turn. Remember, however, that Nanoprobe Resuscitation can retrieve any card type, including personnel, without it costing you a card play like it would when playing Res-Q.

What makes this card a real gem is the last line of game text. Very easy to pull off for any Borg player indeed. Don't fret, other affiliations should have just as much fun reporting the dead if they have Seven Of Nine (whom you can download with Quark's Isolinear Rods) in play. Ready to manipulate your discard pile to get your personnel into play faster? This gives you another interrupt-based means to report one personnel card every turn, leaving your card play open to a drawing mechanism. Nanoprobe Resuscitation doesn't care about titles or skills, as long as it's the top card of your discard pile. Report those personnel where you need them the most by moving your [Com] Borg around.

Where you used to see the discard aspect of mechanisms such as Process Ore, Spacedoor, Mutation, and The Power as a cost, you'll now embrace it because you've already got that Nanoprobe Resuscitation in hand to turn it into a benefit. Surprise your opponent by discarding Dr. McCoy or First Officer Spock, only to report them seconds later. Don't even worry about The Next Emanation as you're discarding straight from your hand.

Combos :

Nanoprobe Resuscitation + your Seven Of Nine + opponent's killer dilemma (such as Tarellian Plague Ship): Back before you know it!

Nanoprobe Resuscitation + opponent's BBSD dedicated to wiping out a certain classification or skill: Opponent giving up on that ploy soon enough.

Process Ore + Nanoprobe Resuscition + Kivas Fajo - Collector + Barzan Wormhole + Mutation: Draw 7 cards, report 1 personnel to [Com] Borg's location, drop a ship (with up to four cards aboard), and ready to use Nanoprobe Resuscitation on your opponent's turn.

Heaven. Hell. Sto-Vo-Kor. Valhalla. The Divine Exchequer. The Celestial Temple. Norfolk.

Many humanoid species both inside and outside the Star Trek universe have wondered where sentient beings "go" when they die. In the Star Trek CCG, the answer is usually "the discard pile." Unlike the Hebrew She'ol or the Klingon Gre'thor, however, the Star Trek CCG discard pile is by no means a place of no return. Through ore processing, conducting services, and the use of cards like Regenerate and Res-Q, any number of "dead" personnel can be restored to "life" and mission-solving or dilemma-busting glory.

The Next Emanation allows you to give your opponent an alternate answer to the question of the destination of the dead. Instead of going to the discard pile, your opponent's discarded personnel may be directed to your Next Emanation. They're still discarded, no longer in play (not even for uniqueness), so The Next Emanation doesn't prevent your opponent from playing another copy. But since the various methods of retrieving personnel from the discard pile won't work with The Next Emanation, your opponents will have to be more careful with their humanoid resources. This is especially true in a Warp Speed environment, where the rush of the game and the promise of one automatic regeneration might heighten your opponent's risk-taking instincts.

Combo:

The Next Emanation + Long Live the Queen: With their non-universal personnel under your Next Emanation and six universal personnel removed from play when they Regenerate, your opponent's Regenerates will not be sure shots to personnel recovery. Add multiples of Burial Ground to further drain your opponent's discard retrieval options.

The Next Emanation + Doppelganger and/or Klingon Painstik: Make sure that your opponent's personnel don't come back again, even if they've been stocked in multiples for use with the Delta Quadrant Subspace Scission.

Stadi
by Kim and Allen Gould (society@connect.ab.ca)

One of only four empaths in the Delta Quadrant, she can help you get past Unseat Dictator if you don't happen to have a Vulcan or a large amount of STRENGTH around. But her true calling is as a pilot – put her on any Federation ship, and it moves one point of RANGE faster. Add her to Voyager (or any Intrepid-class ship), and get a +2 kick – it's like having an extra Dedication Plaque to work with. That's especially important in the Voyager-environment, where you don't get the Plaque to work with.

If you want to get her out of the Delta Quadrant, her Navigation will let you drop her with a Type 18 Shuttlepod. And while her skill isn't cumulative, she is universal, letting you spread the RANGE-increasing love across your entire fleet.

Combos:

U.S.S. Voyager + Stadi + Bio-Neural Gel Pack x3: In Voyager-only, you can move at 14 RANGE. Defiant Dedication Plaque will increase it to 16, and you can Divert Power to move a staggering 18 RANGE.

Delta Flyer + Stadi + those Gel Packs from above: Once you've moved Voyager, launch the Flyer and move another 12 RANGE. Add Tom and the Plaque for 14 RANGE. That's 32 RANGE in one turn, enough to move about two-thirds of the average spaceline in one turn. Always good if you're in a hurry.

Stadi + Lower Decks + Ancestral Vision: You can only have one Chakotay (well, OK, you can have two), but if you need those skills elsewhere, Stadi can use her Honor to have substitute visions.

In 2371, U.S.S. Voyager discovered a most unusual wormhole -- a very small one that led through both space and time, to the Alpha Quadrant 20 years in the past. That wormhole appears in the Voyager expansion as our doorway to other times and places.

At first glance the Temporal Micro-Wormhole looks much more limited than an Alternate Universe Door or Space-Time Portal; it doesn't allow you to seed [AU] dilemmas or play [AU] events or interrupts, but only lets [AU] personnel and equipment report for duty. But if you're playing a predominantly "present-day" deck, with only a few key [AU] personnel such as Dr. McCoy, Major Rakal, or Grand Nagus Gint, that may be all you need. Especially in the Voyager environment, it's more than adequate, especially when you consider the doorway's other functions.

To start with, you get a once per game download of Space-Time Portal, saving you a seed slot to get that doorway's important functions -- or you may find it more important to stop your opponent's Space-Time Portal "drop" of an [AU] ship reporting with crew. By the time you respond to his report with crew action by nullifying it, he's already paid the costs of that action, both discarding his doorway and using up his once per game allowance for that action, and you don't get back costs paid when an action is nullified.

But the final function of the card is the one that will make you seed this instead of one of the other doorways: twice per game, you can use a Temporal Micro-Wormhole to report a personnel directly to your ship (no quadrant restrictions!), regardless of affiliation. For that, you have to discard the doorway -- so you'll need two to take full advantage of the function -- but they can then mix with your other affiliations for the rest of the game. That one personnel with a special skill that you'd love to have, but who's incompatible with your affiliation of choice, is now accessible. (Sorry, Borg fans -- the one thing it won't let you do is stock non-Borg-affiliation personnel in a Borg deck (or vice versa). If you could legally get them into your deck, it would allow them to report and mix, but it doesn't get around this basic Borg deck-building rule.)

Combos:

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Seven of Nine: Seven's Delta Quadrant icon won't keep you from having your very own Non-Aligned (or Federation) Borg in the Alpha Quadrant for carrying out Nanoprobe Resuscitations.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Brunt: And you thought only the treaty-less Ferengi could conveniently use the Writ of Accountability.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Space-Time Portal: Get the best of both space-time continuums, seeding just the Temporal Micro-Wormhole. Download the Space-Time Portal for continued (and expanded) ability to play [AU] cards before reporting your off-affiliation personnel and discarding the Micro-Wormhole.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Dr. Telek R'Mor: For the die-hard Romulan fan, what could be more important than downloading our old friend? That Space-Time Portal can wait until you draw it!

As seen on the show, the U.S.S. Equinox crew resorted to very different methods of trying to get home than the crew of U.S.S. Voyager. In the game, the Equinox can become the centerpiece of a very different kind of Federation deck.

One major asset is its tremendous RANGE. All you need is any "Equinox personnel" in the crew, and the ship's RANGE instantly rockets to 11. Among Delta Quadrant ships, it can only really be beat by loading up U.S.S. Voyager with all the Bio-Neural Gel Packs it can handle. True, there are several ships with matching commanders you can use with the Defiant Dedication Plaque, but then the Equinox also has a matching commander in Rudolph Ransom. In short, the Equinox has the run of the Delta Quadrant spaceline (and can also be an asset in any other quadrant if you find a way to get it there.)

Perhaps even more appealing is the ship's dual-affiliation status (shared by all personnel with "U.S.S. Equinox" in their lore). If you find the Federation attack restrictions too limiting, you can simply change the ship's affiliation to Non-Aligned, then initiate battle (provided there aren't still Federation personnel in the crew). For that matter, the Equinox doesn't even have to be part of a Federation deck. The ship and her crew will mix with anybody in Non-Aligned mode.

Combo:

U.S.S. Equinox + Caretaker's Array + Home Away From Home: Start the game off with the Equinox as your featured ship rather than the Voyager. Be sure to include plenty of Equinox personnel so you can start using that beefy RANGE early.

Villagers With Torches
by Sean O'Reilly (jono1701@prodigy.net)

If you aren't playing fair, Referee Q will blow his whistle, call time out, and place your personnel on a bonfire until they're well done.

This card is the ultimate anti-red shirting card. If you attempt a planet mission with one or two personnel - you can't say I didn't warn you! Since Villagers With Torches has a Referee icon, your opponent will be able to suspend play with Q the Referee to download it to the table and then reveal it to kill your personnel.

Within a Voyager-only environment this card becomes very powerful. Without having Thermal Deflectors and with just a single card to nullify it, you can seed the event face-down since it's a hidden agenda. Then, reveal it to wreck havoc on an opponent's one- or two-personnel Away Team that's attempting a mission.

Combos:

Villagers With Torches + Rishon Uxbridge: Protect the event from nullification by Kevin Uxbridge.

Villagers With Torches + Issue Secret Orders: Infiltrate your opponent's small crew to force them to attempt a planet mission and die before they see any dilemmas.

Villagers With Torches
by Joeri Hoste (joerihoste@hotmail.com)

Ooooh! That puts an end to redshirting real quick. That's gotta sting! Beef up all those nasty dilemma combos of yours with a card that doesn't necessarily require one of those precious seed slots.

As long as you have Q The Referee revealed on table, you can just go ahead and download Villagers With Torches, revealing it as a valid response to your opponent sending fewer than three personnel down to the surface for reconnaissance. Beware of Kevin Uxbridge or Quinn who might foil your plans.

Now that Villagers With Torches requires basic numbers you might want to go for skill-based walls instead of the attribute-based wall dilemmas you've been using to keep your opponents at bay. Focus on a particular field of expertise while your Battle Bridge Side Deck supported armada swarms out to hunt down those very same experts. Use dilemmas such as Spatial Rift and Berserk Changeling that kill and function as a wall at once. Just watch your opponent squirm.

Opponent's planet missions may very well require fewer dilemmas to counter their strategy effectively, which will only make it harder on them to reach the minimum of four cards for their Ajur/Boratus Shuffle and will leave you more room in your seed deck to protect the Senior Staff Meeting-susceptible space missions. Back that up with The Big Picture and you're set.

Combos:

Villagers With Torches + Thine Own Self: Should I kill'em or just make them go AWOL?

Villagers With Torches + Implication + Odo's Cousin: Just one of many, give it your best shot and oh, don't look now but there's my Kazon Warship!

Villagers With Torches + Atmospheric Ionization + your walls: Up for a long wait?