The Front Line

When The Enterprise Collection was released in the summer of 2006, I wasn’t too pleased with the idea. I had been hoping that more First Edition cards would be made, but this was almost too little to matter. An expansion of just eighteen cards which were supposed to introduce a whole new affiliation seemed pretty pointless, and of course the purpose was to try to draw more First Edition (1E) players into buying Second Edition (2E) product in order to fill out this new affiliation using Backwards Compatible (BC) cards. But I bought it anyway, as I had to maintain my complete collection of 1E and these were certainly 1E cards. 

For years, these cards sat in the closet with no use other than aesthetic. I had bought two sets but only opened one, to admire the art, and that is where The Enterprise Collection really shines. In stark contrast to the shoddy images given to To Boldly Go cards, every image on a TEC card is outstanding.

This all changed when the virtual set, Straight and Steady, was released. It brought Starfleet from an unrealized pipe dream into a playable and enjoyable deck type. Since then, the Starfleet affiliation has seen cards released in various products which have slowly increased their card pool and playability. I wrote about a Starfleet deck that I built back in February of 2011, but as recently as last August I set out to try and make a competitive deck that used Starfleet as the sole affiliation. In this article, I update my Ready to Die deck to include the newest member of Starfleet: Gannet Brooks.

I could definitely see Gannet added to the original Enterprise-themed expansion. The art is amazing and she is an absolute skill monster, with a wide array of useful skills. Computer Skill, Biology, and SECURITY all fall into the ‘can never have quite enough’ category. Diplomacy isn’t one of the most common Starfleet skills, especially if you limit yourself to just 1E template cards. As for Treachery, this is the first time that it has appeared on a Starfleet personnel on the 1E template. All other Starfleet Treachery occurs on Mirror Universe sourced 2EBC versions of the existing Starfleet persona, meaning that once they are converted the skill could be much harder to come by, unless you care to seed Crossover.

Gannet Brooks is only the second Starfleet personnel to have the CIVILIAN classification, though as of yet it’s not the most useful. What really makes her interesting is the brand new Infiltration icon. Never before have we seen someone who can infiltrate the Starfleet affiliation, and at the moment, I don’t really see much use for it. But it has got me quite intrigued as to what mischief she might be able to cause once Infiltration, as an in game mechanism of interaction, is fleshed out. 

Well, Mr. Archer, Are You Ready to Die?

This version of my Starfleet deck, like the one before it, has the goal of making the affiliation stand on its own. Previously, I had always coupled them with 22nd Century era Klingons or Orions. When approaching a Starfleet deck build, it becomes immediately obvious that they are wealthy in draws but not so much in free plays. In some ways this is not an issue, both Star Trek : Enterprise and Star Trek : Voyager presented to us a small group of highly skilled main characters who often solve the problems on their own. This is reflected in the gameplay for the Delta Quadrant decks (Voyager) and Starfleet decks (Enterprise), where just a few personnel have a lot of skills and powerful abilities. When it comes to 1E gameplay, the Starfleet deck is at the opposite side of the spectrum from a TNG one, in that the former plays a few very powerful personnel and the latter plays many rather weak personnel – and I think this is exactly how it should be.

However, I have mitigated this ‘slow play’ weakness to some extent in the deck design. First, we have Visit Cochrane Memorial, which has recently had errata to allow Starfleet to use it. This deck is built with a very high number of human Engineers in order to increase the number of turns were the famous memorial can be visited. In particular, Defend Homeworld (for Malcolm Reed going Commando) and Quark's Isolinear Rods (for Emory Erickson) should ensure that the early turns have a few opportunities to probe. With this deck, the most likely results are a Starfleet icon, netting one card draw, or an Event or Interrupt, netting a free personnel play to Earth. There are only two cards in the deck which do not net one of these results, making the odds of a card draw about 50% and those of a personnel free play at about 45% (depending on how many Ready Room Doors you’ve been lucky enough to draw).

Next, we will discuss the ability to download key personnel out of the deck. In the seed portion of the deck, it has: Assign Mission Specialists, Assign Support Personnel, Quark's Isolinear Rods, and Tribunal of Q (to get Defend Homeworld). In the draw deck, it has: Going To The Top, I'm a Doctor, Not a Bricklayer, and M.A.C.O.

Both Assign Support Personnel and I’m a Doctor Not a Bricklayer have very specific targets, which are hidden in the Q’s Tent side deck. Neither Garrid nor Elizabeth Cutler are particularly useful to the deck, but they do fill skill holes. Going to the Top has just two possible targets in Jonathan Archer and Maxwell Forrest. Military Assault Command Operations, on the other hand, is in the deck in a high number of copies and has an array of targets with a wide variety of skills. Because they work so well together, the MACOs are perfect for dilemma busting and mission clearing. Amanda Cole, Hideaki Chang, Conscientious Corporal, and Nelson Kemper – in addition to Lower Decks – all increase personnel attributes, which helps make up for the fact that they have yet to be converted. Sascha Money and Sean Hawkins help prevent death and capture of personnel. While Jeremiah Hayes, Diligent Major is just an all-around solid cheater, though the requirement of completing a space mission before his ability can be used makes it unlikely to be useful in every game. The ability to simply dial a target skill heavy personnel out of the deck is pretty useful, but it unfortunately costs a card play and will use up your one personnel download per turn limit enforced by General Quarters. Still, not everything is free.

How to Get What You Want for Free

Unless, of course, it played for free and during your opponent’s turn. Enter Parallax Arguers, the card that offers two great ways to win every time that it is played. This Interrupt gives the opponent the option of giving you 5 points OR allowing you to play an Event for free. Neither of these results is bad, and in most games I have seen a bit of both. If they give you too many points, the deck might just be able to pull off a two mission win, or at the very least it can mitigate any point loss incurred during the game and give you the liberty to red shirt missions with just MACOs while the key mission solvers get drinks in the safety of the Starfleet HQ bar.

Always, always, always play Parallax Arguers when you have an event in hand. The deck only has two types of events: draw more cards (Temporal Shifting) and download sweet personnel (MACO). But there is also another reason to use Parallax Arguers in a Starfleet deck: Jonathan Archer’s special gametext adds 1 to every X, meaning that a choice of Points will actually get you six points on the board and a choice of Event will get you 1. All Parallax Arguers go to the Point Area and are instantly increased in value once the Captain finds his way to the bridge.

But What’s the Point of Playing If I Can’t Cheat?

I completely agree, and luckily Starfleet are one of the best cheater affiliations in the game. Tucker’s special download of Mr. Tricorder obliterates the popular Access Denied + Ferengi Ingenuity + Dejaren dilemma combo. But he also has the option of bringing in the Vulcan Tricorder for added Biology, Geology, or Science. Jeremy Lucas can bring in the Medical PADD, which not only passes Executive Authorization but also upgrades all those extra ENGINEER classification personnel into M.D.s.

T'Pol’s special download of Vulcan Mindmeld can add another copy of a key skill to the mission attempt. This can be especially useful for busting the popular Personal Duty + Friendly Fire dilemma combo.

But the best is certainly Daniels' special download of Out of Time. This play suspending move can remove your personnel from a mission attempt, at Earth, right in the middle of a dilemma combo and/or right before they are all about to perish horribly. Then you can simply bring in a new crew or away team to bust the final dilemma(s) and solve.

Conclusion:

It’s always great to see Starfleet get new cards and Gannet Brooks is a fine (pun intended) addition to the team. I am personally looking forward to bringing out this Starfleet deck build once again in an upcoming tournament.

Welcome aboard, Ms. Brooks.

See corresponding deck here!