Wesley's STCCG card of the day #283

Hi, folks,

this one's suitable for stalling strategies:

GAPS IN NORMAL SPACE

Event, uncommon.
Place between two mission cards. Creates a gap with a span of 4. Ships stopping on the gap kill one personnel (random selection)
"Pockets of space, such as those in the Mar Oscura nebula, dangerously phase out when coming in contact with a ship."

Span 4? I'd say it has more. How much more depends on two things: First the willingness of your opponent to lose personnel and second the place- ment of the card. Here's three examples: (Outpost is opponent's)

Span3 - G*A*P - Span2 - Span5 - Span5
OUTPOST

Span3 - Span2 - G*A*P - Span5 - Span5
OUTPOST

Span3 - Span2 - Span5 - G*A*P - Span5
OUTPOST

Which one is best?

Got it? The second one. In the first case, any ship with Range 6 or better will start from the Outpost and pass the gap, and you thus only created a 4 span gap. Nothing more. (Which still helps more than 4 as the two 5's serve as good blockers. They'll lose a full turn with any 7, 8 or 9 Range ship). On the way back, any ship with 7 or better gets over the gap after stopping on the right "5" and then hopping to the "2".

The third case is less obvious. A ship with 8 or less Range will be in definite trouble here, so the choice is much better. But a 9 Range ship loses nothing at all and some of the best ships are just that. Range 9. But a good choice if your opponent plays Klingon - they have nothing sensible in the Range 9 department.

And case 2? Again, any 8 or slower ship will lose a personnel on the way out (though they can avoid it on the way in) But in addition, you made the span of the gap a whopping 9 as far as the Range 9 ships are concerned. They'll have to stop on the 2 and then take a big jump which gets them right to the place they would have reached in one turn without the gap. More than double the effect than you paid for.

Net gains:

In (1), you created a gap that has a span of 7 to 9 for ships with those ranges and can be overcome unscathed with a ship of 7 or better.
In (2), the gap is unavoidable for 8 or slower ships and has Span = Range for all ships of Range 9 to 11.
In (3) lastly, you also have the block for ships with 8 or less Range but a 9 Range ship will only lose the span of the mission to the right of the second "5".

Obviously, (2) is best with (3) coming in second (although the latter is preferable if you think your opponent will have to bridge the gap very often and with ships of less than 9 Range. Which will normally be the case only in a Klingon Armada deck.)

And then there are my two

Favorite combo(s):

Gaps in Normal Space + Subspace Warp Rift. A no-win situation. You stop and lose a crewmember or you go over it and damage your ship.
Gaps in Normal Space + Tetryon Field. Hurts those Armada decks like hell.

Ratings for : GASP IN NORMAL SPACE(*)

Wesley's rating:                7.0
Allen's rating:                 5.6
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Data's rating:                  8.5
Drew's rating:                  ---
Gowron's rating:                6.8
Hal's rating:                   9.1
Jack's rating:                  7.0
Lakanta's rating:               6.0
Nanite's rating:                4.0
Nouwa's rating:                 9.0
Picarde's rating:               5.0
Q's rating:                     6.0
Ranger's rating:                8.0
Ray's rating:                   7.9
Tania's rating:                 3.0
Tony's rating:                  7.0
Wa'Qah's rating:                4.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 5.9

(*) That was a typo, but it was so funny that I left it in ;-) After all, what would you do if out in space, unprotected???

PS: I'll be in Paris for two days, so don't think I left this ship for good...

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Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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