Obsidian Order Review #1
Taris

        Well Major Rakal started her Romulan Reviews a few years back and then Evan
took up the Borg as a new affiliation and has now mastered them [along with
every other affiliation] so I thought since I took my good old Cardassian
Friends to a second place finish at my regional and since I enjoy playing the
affiliation so much, and it really appalled me that not another soul at my
regional used them, I’ll start up some reviews on them.  Now I haven’t decided
to do certain cards or rather strategy as a whole, but I did decide that for
my first review I will not review the station strategy [since Evan is doing an
article in Scrye concerning that] but I will rather talking about how to play
with Terok Nor without any fear of your opponent running all over you with
their seeded Deep Space 9.  So without further adu.

        When playing with Terok Nor, you’ll obviously need to be seeding a bajorian
region location, but more on track, first off you need to play with plenty of
Obsidian Order personal.  This should be no problem, seeing how you have
Garak, Entek, Korinas and Enabran Tain as having that all important skill.
Now you may ask why I need these personal.  The simple fact is that if you
play with Terok Nor, you opponent, if playing Bajorian, will most likely seed
a DS9 and since it’s unique they will seed it in the dilemma phase before you.
If the Bajorians control the station you’ll need some way to get your personal
onto the station.  The best way to seed Garak’s Tailor Shop.  It doesn’t
matter if you have either Garak in your deck, it is just added plus since it
is a free card play.  The text on the tailor shop lets all Obsidian Order
personall report there regardless of who is currently controling the station.
And then you will be in a even better position since you will have Obsidian
Order unopposed and you aren’t controling the station all your Cardassian
personall and equipment cards can report there.  If your opponent decides to
oppose you, that is if they move a personall to the tailor shop, then you
immediately lose the ability to report personall there but your Cardassians
can’t be afraid of weak Bajorians, so attach them at will.  Never be afraid to
battle, you will most likely need to do it later if you want to gain complete
control of the station.
        Now what do I do next after I report my Obsidian Order personall there.  Well
that all depends on the situation of the game.  First remember that you will
need a personall with Computer Skill to commandeer the station.  So simply
look at what personall your opponent currently has in Ops.  Most likely it
will be a Officer with strength around 6 to 7, with the rare exception of Kira
Nerys with strength against the Cardassians of 11, but the average Cardassian
leader will have a strength of 7 to 8.  Just take your time, as long as you
are unopposed in Garak’s Tailor Shop you will be able to keep reporting
personall there.  [Just remember that they must be Cardassian affiliation and
cannot be non-aligned]
        Another site you should seed, to help with your commandeering of the station
is Guest Quarters.  This site lets any player report a non-Borg VIP to the
site, assuming it is unopposed.  Now this site is best if you are going first,
because then you will get the first stab at using it to report your VIP to the
station.  Now lets seed what good VIP’s the Cardassians have.  Without says or
looking, the first card that comes to mind is Enabran Tain.  He is like Dr.
Telak R’Mor to a Romulan space deck.  Except for the fact that he should be in
every Cardassian deck.  He has 4 skills and security, but I’ll review his card
as a whole in a last review.  Other VIP’s are: Makbar, good in Extradition
decks; Kotran Pa’Dar, Command ability with diplomacy, leadership and Geology;
and any Soong-Type Android.  And another great VIP, which happens to be a
common is Parn, Command ability with treachery, archeology and diplomacy.  And
guest quarters also has a great built in function to manipulate with your
deck.  You get the option of drawing 2 cards any time you can draw a card and
then you place one to the bottom of your deck and one to your hand.  So say to
play a Kivas, you get to draw three, but instead, you can draw a total of 6
cards keeping three.  [You just have to do it two at a time]
        Which leads me to my next suggestion for playing with a Terok Nor.
Regardless of weather your opponent is playing Bajorian or with Deep Space 9
or not, you must also seed some sort of a second outpost.  I usually use a
Cardassian Outpost, since it can be seeded anywhere a Cardassian mission is
and has shields of 32, but a Neutral Outpost or Husnock Outpost will do, if
you like it better.  The reason for this is because you are only allowed 6
sites, 1 is going to be the Tailor shop, another is Ops and another has to be
some sort of docking site [pylons or ports].  So your other 3 sites will be a
toss up of many sites.  I’d always recommend and use Guest Quarters, so that
leaves me with two sites to use.  So you can get other classifications of
personall to the station who aren’t VIP, Officer or have obsidian order.  You
have the choice of the Infirmary for Medical, Science Lab for Science,
Security Officer for Security, Ore Processing Unit for Engineers and Promenade
Shops for Civilians.  So in theory you could get anyone on the station, but
Decipher balanced the station by only allowing you to seed 6 sites.  [Now your
opponent can also seed 6 sites too.  In fact in a game I have played with 11
sites, Evan walked over and looked stunned at the playing board.  Our Terok
Nor/DS9 was about 3 feet long.]  So you will need another outpost to report
those other personall into the game.  This is why I also suggest placing your
Terok Nor and Cardassian outpost as close together as possible, which
shouldn’t be hard if you add a few bajor region locations that the Cardassians
can attempt.
        So with all this information, hopefully Cardassian playing players won’t be
afraid to seed and play with Terok Nor.  You can always add a back up
Universal Nor, but keep in mind that Garak’s Tailor Shop cannot be seeded
there and it can’t be seeded at a Bajorian Region Location.
        My next review will show you the importance of the station to the Cardassian
affiliation and how you can use it to gain an advantage on your opponent.

        -Taris
        Bobo101rc@aol.com