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Major Rakal's Romulan Review #103: Assign Support Personnel ... Major Rakal ... 08.27-16:19
Major Rakal's Romulan Review #103
08/27/00

Aefvadh! While Assign Mission Specialists was a boon to the Romulans, by making Takket (essential as a MEDICAL when we had so few) easy to get and by making Selok someone you would actually put in a deck (5 extra points for completing a typical Romulan mission being nothing to sneeze at), nevertheless the Romulans didn't have all *that* many single-skilled personnel. What we did have was a lot of two-skilled folks, often the only ready source of a necessary skill like Navigation or Diplomacy. Now, with three-, four-, and more-skilled Romulans abounding, it's been hard to find room in a deck for the two-skilled back-up personnel; card economy dictated that you use Sela instead of Tomalak and Neral. But you may look at those under-powered personnel in a different light when you have the option to ...

ASSIGN SUPPORT PERSONNEL

Objective, common

Seeds or plays on table. (Unique.) Your "support personnel" (those who have exactly two skills, but no special skills) may report aboard your compatible ships that have two or more staffing icons. Once each turn, you may discard objective to download a "support personnel" (once per game per Personnel card title) to your matching ship that has two or more staffing icons, or to your matching facility.


A support personnel is defined identically to a mission specialist, but with two skills instead of one: a personnel with exactly two skills, but no special skills. That lets out anyone with a special download or other special skill (no Borg Queen, Kova Tholl, or 10 and 01, for example), but leaves lots of scope for variety nevertheless.

Not a clone of Assign Mission Specialists, this card has its own special benefits. Instead of points for using their skills, you get the ongoing benefit of reporting the support personnel directly aboard your compatible ship. It has to be one with two or more staffing icons (how much "support" does a shuttlecraft need, anyway?), but if you're using warbirds, Vor'chas, Galors, or a 24th-century Enterprise, one can set out for a mission as soon as you have minimum staffing aboard, and let the support guys catch up with it later in time for the mission attempt.

Like AMS, you can (at the cost of a copy of the objective) download personnel -- one instead if two (so you get one classification and two skills instead of two of each) but with the flexibility of downloading to a matching ship, or to a matching facility if you wish. So when the Devoras gets to Espionage Mission and you still haven't turned up a vital geologist yet for the Seismic Quake you expect is lurking there -- or worse, a replacement for poor Selveth who bit the dust the *first* time you attempted the mission -- discard your Assign Support Personnel and download Jaron, without going home to Romulus to fetch him.

So, are the two-skilled personnel worthwhile? You bet. All those Senators and Selas in your deck won't do you darned bit of good if they're cooling their heels back on Romulus while you're off in the Gamma Quadrant. But you don't need them when you can report either Tomalak or Commander Tomalak to your ship stuck behind that Q-Net or Taul to the one fuming at a Berserk Changeling.

Most of the affiliations have a good selection of support personnel to choose from. No Borg (they all seem to have special skills, and can report to cubes anyway) and only one Ferengi, but from half a dozen Cardassians to over 30 Federation personnel, everyone else has good reason to use this card. The nine Non-Aligneds even include *two* double Empaths, Maques and Gem, making Empathy nicely accessible to every non-Borg affiliation. The Romulans came in just about in the middle, with 13 support personnel; a little heavy on OFFICERs, but a nice balance to all the V.I.P.s and SECURITY you can report for free at headquarters, and they can always use the various equipment kits to provide lots of MEDICALs and ENGINEERs.

On my website you'll find a complete list of all current support personnel.


The Major's Combos:

- Assign Support Personnel + Goraxus + Jera: If you've ever had your ship stalled while an Aphasia Device relentlessly picked off your personnel, you'll welcome a way to get the needed 2 MEDICAL and 2 Biology aboard without ferry service.

- Assign Support Personnel + Tomalak: He can report for free to Office of the Proconsul or download with Ready Room Door to the Decius or a universal D'deridex. With yet another way to get him into play, as well as a valuable Diplomacy skill and a mission he can solve alone, why wouldn't you want this flexible man in your deck?


Jolan tru,

Major Rakal
(Kathy McCracken)

Tal Shiar Agent and Star Trek CCG Intelligence Officer 

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