Wesley's STCCG card of the day #236

Hi, folks,

here's another nasty Dilemma:

HUNTER GANGS

Dilemma, Planet, common AU.
Two Away Team members (random selection) are chased. Examine cards separately. Personnel escapes if CUNNING is even, killed if odd. Discard Dilemma.
"On some planets, civilization has devolved into a bitter struggle for survival. Violent gangs search for prey, such as those which chased Natasha Yar on Turkana IV."

Three words: Poor man's Armus. Why? With Armus you kill one personnel. With this card, you kill one personnel, on average. Really? Let's do a quick check:

Fed personnel: 32 even, 34 odd.
Klingons: 23 even, 17 odd.
Romulans: 12 even, 17 odd.
Duals: 2(1) even, 0(1) odd.
Non-aligned: 9 even, 13 odd.
----------------------------
78(77) even, 81(82) odd.

The number in brackets is for Major Rakal who has 8 Cunning as Romulan, 7 as Fed...

So your chances are even a little better than 50% of nailing any given personnel. Only 51/49, but still, you have a slight edge. And if your opponent is not a Klingon player, it gets even better. Our Rommie fans have once again drawn the worst end as their crew (including non-aligned) gives them a 23/30 disadvantage. Feds are slightly better off at 42/48 with the 6 better bridge crew (Picard, Data, Bev, Wesley, Geordi and Worf) absolutely safe. The Klingon player has better chances at 32/30 and thus is the only one better off when hitting Hunter Gangs compared to Armus (by a whopping 0.07 personnel cards ;-) )

Now further on, there's a commonly used defense against killers: Genetronic Replicator. Let's assume your opponent has two MEDICAL. If one gets killed, goodbye Replicator. 4 of 7 Fed doctors can survive, 1 of the 2 Klingons and neither of the two Romulans. Of the non-aligned, Vekor is a loser but Farek wins. Again, the good Fed crew is on the safe side with the worse ones affected. With the chance of actually hitting two MEDICAL (thus giving a small chance to kill both in spite of Replicator + 3 Meds), your averages are again better than with Armus.

So if you want to take a little risk, just go for it. It's a little riskier than Armus, but the rewards are slightly greater on the long run. If only by 2%.

And just think of a deck where your Dilemmas are 6 Female Love Interests, 6 Male Love Interests and 6 Hunter Gangs. Complemented by a few Temporal Rifts to stop Rescue ships...

BTW: Quick Rules Info (for those who didn't read every FAQ line): This Dilemma does not stop away teams even if it hits.

BTW2: Hey raters! I still need a lot of your opinions of the first three repeats, Picard, Borg Ship and the Enterprise. Didn't you see the last call I posted?

Favorite combo(s): - Female Love Interest + Male Love Interest + Armus + Hunter Gangs + Any big-time Dilemma. If you can't kill them when five crew are gone, you'll never get them...

Ratings for : HUNTER GANGS

Wesley's rating:                8.0
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Data's rating:                  5.0
Jack's rating:                  7.0
John's rating:                  7.0
Q's rating:                     9.0
Ray's rating:                   8.0
Richard's rating:               7.8
Tony's rating:                  8.0
Tania's rating:                 3.0
Hal's rating:                   ---
Nick's rating:                  7.0
Heather's rating:               8.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.1

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

"A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart"