Wesley's STCCG card of the day #258

Hi, folks,

you know that certain Captain? He who tries to make it into the Internet Expansion by delivering so many ideas that one just has to make it? Well, in this case he was successful (though out of medal range):

Internet Expansion II

place #4 (41 pts)
Author: Capt. Stasis

BOARDING PARTY

Interrupt, uncommon
Plays during ship-to-ship combat. If opponent's ship is damaged, beam away team aboard, and engage in away team combat with crew. Ship and remaining equipment become Neutral when captured, if ENGINEER present.
"During ship combat, boarding parties attack the ship's crew, trying to take the ship from within."

Finally a way to gain something from ship battles other than just blowing up opposing hardware and wetware. Without this card, battle decks were more or less limited to the Armada approach with several Klingon K'Vort class ships delivering cumulative damage. Now a different approach, with a larger ship and substantial crew also is possible, thereby also multiplying your attack capabilities as you can use the ship as your own as soon as you successfully capture it. The ENGINEER requirement is not really a harsh one (though correct from story perspectives - think what Kirk & Co could have done with the Bounty in ST 3 / 4 had it not been for Scotty), so you should usually be able to fly the ship, and even if not, you at least prevented your opponent from Paloring (or Res-Q'ing) it. The disadvantage of this combat style is that you need several turns before you are finally able to capture the ship and the opposing personnel still get chances to act while you initiate a battle turn after turn (they're only stopped on your turn, so they can do something during their turn - like flying back to the outpost or getting some help. They might even beam off the ship at the nearest convenient planet location or start an auto-destruct sequence, so there is a significant risk involved in doing battle this way.

Taking into account that you can arrive at a very similar result using Rogue Borg and Lore Returns doesn't help the power of this strategy, but on the other hand, your crewmembers are usable for more things than Rogue Borg are.

In the end, this card is a nice, though sometimes merely cosmetic, addition to battle strategies, unless you can find a way (or an opponent) that helps you overcome the risks. Honor Challenges and Phaser Burns help getting the battle done much faster (important around here), and of course the cutest play is to turn tides on a Klingon ship battler, whose poorly manned K'Vorts can be taken in one turn and then turned on himself. After all, any card that helps battle to be a more viable strategy is highly welcome (though not Trek spirit, this game can use more diversified strategies...)

Favorite combo(s):

- Boarding Party + Phaser Burns (+ maybe Honor Challenge). Rather fast.

Ratings for : BOARDING PARTY

Wesley's rating:                5.2
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Data's rating:                  7.8
Gowron's rating:                4.2
Hal's rating:                   8.0
Nouwa's rating:                 6.0
Q's rating:                     6.0
Ranger's rating:                9.5
Tania's rating:                 9.1
Tony's rating:                  3.0
Ray's rating:                   1.0
Nanite's rating:		5.1
Wa'QaH's rating:		9.2
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 6.2

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: crusher@kiss.de

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With all back issues from #1 up to today !

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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