Kathy McCracken's Capturing
08/99 - Kathy McCracken, Major Rakal
Related Links:
Blaze of Glory card list
Star Trek CCG Discussion Message
Board
Way back in the Alternate Universe expansion, Star Trek Customizable Card
Game introduced the concept of taking captives. The mechanism was rudimentary
and not very realistic - only four cards took captives; a captive was placed in
a separate "captive area" off the spaceline; and the only thing you could do with
a captive was to "Interrogate" him to earn a few points. You could play Rescue
Captives to retrieve your captured personnel, but most players didn't bother to
stock the card; the chances were slim that an opponent's Cardassian Trap (the
only capture card that was reasonably useful and reliable at the time) would capture
a personnel so crucial that they couldn't do without him.
Since then, almost every set has included one or more cards that take captives
or give you more ways to use them. The Blaze of Glory expansion not only supplies
as many new capture-related cards as all the previous sets together, but also
turns capturing into a more realistic scenario with new rules on "escorting" captives
and brigs to hold them in. While you aren't likely to win a game with capture
alone, it's more devious than straight dilemmas and more subtle than all-out battle
for draining your opponent's crew of good personnel. What's more, you can score
a few points, drain your opponent's score a bit and use his own personnel against
him in a variety of ways.
How Do I Capture Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
How do you like your captives - from dilemmas, interrupts, incidents or objectives?
Take your pick of well over a dozen ways to fill your brig to overflowing.
The most reliable of the dilemmas is still Cardassian Trap. Take out your opponent's
Empathy with Brain Drain, Yuta, or Empathic Echo and, if he has any unique non-Cardassians
in the Away Team, one is taken captive. Mandarin Bailiff (a Q-icon dilemma that
can either be used in a Q-Continuum side deck or seeded as a normal dilemma using
Beware of Q) isn't a sure-fire way of getting a captive - your opponent can "post
bail" instead by transferring points to you for the red "skill dots" on the captive's
card - but either way you benefit from the dilemma, and as with Cardassian Trap,
you don't need any personnel at the location to get the captive (or the points).
Frame of Mind, another dilemma with no conditions and a difficult cure, can also
produce a captive if you follow it up with Reflection Therapy, with the bonus
of allowing a later download of Interrogation or Brainwash. Just remember to give
the personnel more useful skills than the typical Barbering or Cantankerousness
if you intend to Brainwash him later for your own use (or cure him with your own
3 Empathy if his native skills are useful to you).
To take a captive with Extradition, you must have Law or Treachery at the location,
as well as a ship or facility from which your SECURITY personnel can beam aboard
the opponent's ship. For that reason, Scout Encounter makes a good setup; just
download two universal SECURITY, with at least one having Treachery, aboard the
scout ship. A couple of dilemmas don't require you to have anyone present when
the opponent encounters them, but they aren't "trap cards." For Kidnappers, you
must bring your SECURITY to the planet by the end of your next turn, or you lose
your chance for a captive. (Precede Kidnappers with Matriarchal Society to ensure
females in the Away Team.) For Abandon Ship!, you can capture the abandoned crew,
but only if you get your ship there before your opponent can rescue them with
another ship. This dilemma has the added complication that the opponent's ship
must be damaged or have its RANGE reduced to trigger the dilemma. Because of this,
"Pup" and Scout Encounter are a good setup.
His Honor, The High Sheriff of Nottingham doesn't take a captive on its own; you
have to take a captive some other way first, so that when your opponent hits this
dilemma and returns a captive to his Away Team's location, you can show SECURITY
from your hand and take two captives.
Several Interrupt cards also provide ways to take captives. While a couple are
quite specialized and dependent on your opponent's affiliation or strategy (Seize
Wesley works only with Ktarian Game and can capture only Wesley Crusher, and Caught
Red-Handed exposes and captures an infiltrator present with your shape-shifter),
four are well worth a second look.
Blaze of Glory's Outgunned, which provides the long-awaited capability of commandeering
a ship, has a side benefit of taking the entire crew captive. It must be the opponent's
only ship at a location (and undocked), and you need WEAPONS power present of
three times the target's SHIELDS. Against an opponent who relies on a mega-crew
aboard a single ship, this can be devastating. You'll want plenty of Q2's on hand
to counter the Amandas this card will attract.
Thine Own Self "loses" an opponent's one- or two-person Away Team under a planet
mission until the mission is completed. If you are the one to complete the mission,
you capture that Away Team. Try this on a red-shirting, mission-stealing opponent
to make him think twice about his strategy.
Dixon Hill's Business Card is often overlooked because its "gangster-ese" game
text is a little obscure. Buried in the interrupt text is the phrase "Put da bag
on 'im." In Federation standard, that means "That personnel is captured." If one
of your opponent's personnel dies with no one present, play Dix's Card as an interrupt
to select any other personnel he controls, anywhere in play, and you get a captive
- probably one whose owner will be happy to "pay" you 10 points to retrieve when
you Interrogate him.
The last of the capturing interrupts is Romulan Ambush. You need a D'deridex-class
warbird and an opponent's ship with SHIELDS of less than 6. That last is not so easy to come
by, you say? It is now, with the new Battle Bridge side deck which allows you
to fine-tune the damage you inflict to suit your needs. Many Tactic cards, when
applied as damage, reduce the target's SHIELDS; by deliberately limiting the hull
damage, you can easily cut almost any ship's SHIELDS below the magic 6 without
destroying it first - and after you play your Ambush and take a captive, you get
to destroy the ship anyway. The Tactic card Target Shields was made to order for
a Romulan Ambush deck. Not only does it have respectable ATTACK and DEFENSE modifiers
of 2 each, as a damage marker it reduces SHIELDS by 2 and takes any SHIELD enhancements
off line for that ship, and inflicts no hull damage at all. Finally, while dealing
two damage cards if you "hit" the target, it still "drains shields - deals one
damage - even if you don't "hit"! And if you're planning to use Romulan Ambush,
make sure one of your warbirds is the new Goraxus, which has a special download
for the interrupt.
Two Blaze of Glory incidents, both seedable hidden agendas, will add to your captive
pool. One of the most powerful capturing cards yet is Captured. For its first
function, all you need to do is bring your personnel together with your opponent's
(on a planet, ship or facility), and have more SECURITY or hand weapons there
than he does, and you take away one captive. And if you've ever envied the Borg
the Talon Drone's ability to assimilate a personnel stunned in battle, you'll
especially like the second function, which lets your SECURITY take a captive under
similar circumstances. You get one use before discard, so seed a couple and Palor
them back to replay. Intruder Alert contains several important functions, including
the ability to capture a one- or two-person Away Team in your Ops. Be sure to
seed one if you want to prevent first-turn commandeering of your Nor by a CIVILIAN
or V.I.P. Computer Skill played to Promenade Shops or Guest Quarters.
Blaze of Glory even gives us a personnel card that can take a captive: Ilon Tandro,
a Federation/Cardassian personnel, has the ability to capture one personnel present.
He can only do it once per game, but nevertheless a nice addition to a capture
deck.
To wrap up capturing methods, consider two more that require some "cooperation"
on your opponent's part. If you complete your homeworld mission with HQ: Secure
Homeworld, and at that time, your opponent has any personnel on the planet that
don't match your affiliation, you capture them. In addition, any time you earn
seeded personnel that belong to your opponent, they become your captives. That
includes Mirasta Yale, personnel in a Cryosatellite, or those seeded under Dozaria
(Search for Survivors) or Cardassia IV (Rescue prsioners). Attempting to steal
your opponent's mission to get captives can be dangerous with Fair Play, but Cryosatellites
often end up under a high-point mission such as Wormhole Negotiations, and you
might consider including Dozaria or Cardassia IV in your own deck; if your opponent
was planning to seed it, he will undoubtedly seed his personnel anyway, and the
mission will be immune to Fair Play.
Escort the Prisoner to his Cell
No longer is a captive magically "transported" to a nebulous holding area near
your discard pile, even when your personnel are present to make the capture. Instead,
your crew or Away Team takes the captive into custody if they're present when
the capture is made (for example, with the dilemma Extradition or when earning
your opponent's Cryosatellite). A few cards (for example, Cardassian Trap or Dixon
Hill's Business Card) don't require you to have anyone present; the card itself
then acts as a "trap," staying in play to mark the captive until you send someone
to take them into custody. The captive is held on the planet surface or "in space"
at the capture location, so you have to take an Away Team down to a planet or
beam him onto your ship at a space location.
Once you take custody of a captive, you may keep him with your personnel ("escort"
him) or hold him in a "brig," which has several advantages in addition to allowing
you to dispense with an escort. If you're using a Nor, a Security Holding Cell
site will let you download Brainwash, Interrogation or Torture each turn; for
any other facility, or a ship, you'll need a Holding Cell Door to supply the brig,
plus another to play when you want to download one of the capture-related events.
As long as he is held by a trap card or in a brig, or escorted by your personnel,
your opponent will have to play a card, such as Rescue Captives or the new Prisoner
Exchange, to rescue his personnel - or commandeer the facility or ship where you're
holding him. Don't leave him unattended (unless he's Brainwashed and working for
you) unless you want your opponent's Away Team to "untie" the prisoner and let
him walk away. (Note that a captive that is "held" by a trap card is not unattended,
even though no opponent's personnel are with him; "held" and "unattended" are
mutually exclusive.) To limit the all-encompassing effects of Rescue Captives,
split your captives up and hold them at different locations, and seed Prepare
the Prisoner; your opponent will have to bring his ship or Away Team to each location
and play a separate copy of Rescue Prisoners for each group. If you're playing
Romulan, keep Tharket with your most important prisoner group, so he can nullify
Rescue Captives (once per game).
As before, a captive cannot use any of his skills or other features, with this
restriction now represented by the captive being "disabled."
Decisions, Decisions: Brainwash, Torture or Interrogation?
Now that you've loaded up your brigs with prisoners, what are you going to do
with them? To start with, you'll want to play Prisoner Escort on each one before
you take him to the brig - it costs your opponent 5 points when he gets there.
Keep needling him for points with Torture: he'll lose 7 points for each prisoner
who dies under Torture. Even better, let Madred perform the torture to increase
the loss to as much as 10 points. If you'd rather score points yourself than take
them away from your opponent, use Interrogation instead. You score 1 point each
turn your opponent "resists" the interrogation (2 points each turn if Madred interrogates
him); if you snared one of his more vital personnel, he may well be willing to
"give in" (you score 10 points, 11 with Madred there) in return for getting his
man back. Torture can even be special downloaded with Gul Madred, but you need
the Non-Aligned Madred to get the extra points for these cards, so use persona
replacement as your needs change.
If you prefer a more active approach, you can Brainwash the captive and use him
yourself. Brainwashed captives make good redshirts or, if you happened to get
someone with skills you can actually use, solve a mission. Then again, turning
him against his owner might be more to your taste. With E-Band Emissions, not
only is the Brainwash protected from Kevin Uxbridge, but the Brainwashed captive
gets an infiltration icon and can infiltrate his former crew. There he can foil
a mission attempt by draining skills from his Away Team with Counterintelligence,
or attack and kill a crewmate with Dial Martok for Murder.
Maybe the random captive you took isn't really good for much; he's not valuable
enough for your opponent to want to rescue from Interrogation, you can't use his
skills and infiltration is too much trouble. If your opponent has a few of your
personnel sitting in his brig, you can use Prisoner Exchange to release one captive
to him, in exchange for all of yours he's holding at that location - not a bad
tradeoff. If he doesn't have any of your personnel, just download someone instead.
Either way, you get at least one of your own personnel to use in exchange for
an otherwise useless (to you) captive.
Drawing What You Need
With all the capturing-related cards that you'll want to use in your deck, you
may be concerned about drawing your personnel and ships in time to solve missions.
Two Blaze of Glory cards will give the capture-oriented deck a hand with extra
card draws.
Fajo's Gallery, like Kivas Fajo - Collector, is an event that provides you with
extra card draws. But instead of a one-time "draw three" effect, Fajo's Gallery
stays on the table and gives you two card draws each time you capture a unique
personnel, one draw if you bring a {Fajo} card into play. If your deck is loaded
with capturing cards, chances are you'll hit on a unique captive at least a few
times during a game. Focus on Cardassian Trap (which takes only unique captives)
and Dixon Hill's Business Card (which lets you choose the victim) and you're sure
to get a high proportion of captives that will trigger the Gallery's effects.
And Dix's Card will even get you three extra draws, because it's also a {Fajo}
card.
Perhaps the cards in your hand just aren't the ones you need at the moment; you're
holding a handful of Tortures and Brainwashes in the early game when what you
really need are some personnel to go take captives into custody; or your opponent
is playing Borg without any counterpart, making your Dixon Hill's Business Cards
useless. Prepare the Prisoner provides an efficient way to burrow down through
your deck a little faster, eliminating any capture cards that you know will not
be useful while not discarding permanently the cards you will need later when
you actually have some captives to Torture. During each of your turns, select
from your hand a capture-related card that you won't be needing right away (or
at all) and put it under your draw deck or discard pile, then draw a card to replace
it. Your temporarily unneeded capture cards will accumulate under your deck, where
you can get them back with Remodulation when you need them.
So Many Captives...So Little Time
Yes, capturing has come a long way from its limited initial implementation. The
wide variety of capturing methods and captive uses means a universe of card combos
to explore - dilemma combos that create one-man Away Teams to die alone or lose
to Thine Own Self, non-battle ways to damage ships with SHIELD-reducing damage
markers, or devious ways to use infiltrators. So start setting your favorite traps,
and prepare the torture chamber and brainwashing booth. It's time to start rounding
up the prisoners!
Jolan tru!
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