As always the tournament was at West's Rugby Club and once again thanks must go out to the Canberra Games Society for paying for it. Eleven people showed up; as this was the first tournament after the release of tribbles many people were still experimenting with the new cards. There were about 4 or 5 tribble side-decks, most of which were over 30 cards big. I saw when OS fed deck and one HoTE deck. It also seemed that most people were going for the 'jump-start' option as almost everyone was playing with Defend Homeworld, AMS and ASP, to get their strategy off to an early start. Now onto the games. I was playing a Defend Homeworld Deck that forced my opponent to attack me at my homeworld so I could download: a 50 card Romulan fleet of about 10 ships, a 40 card Cardassian fleet (I was playing with a treaty) and about 50 people to go and solve missions. For obvious reasons I won't divulge exactly how I reliably got my DH d/l but I will say that for it to work my opponent first had to attempt one of his/her missions.
 

Game 1 against Michael 'Jardmos' Jard

    Jardy was playing a Borg Cube deck that used Locutus to Service the Collective. He got off to a good start and was in the alpha within a few turns (because I had to wait for him to scout a mission I just drew from my 150 card draw deck in the opening turns), on his fourth or so turn he began scouting a mission - tripping my Defend Homeworld Combo. I d/l about 130 cards and sent two fleets of ships towards his cube. In my next two turns my mission solving crew solved 2 missions and my fleet destroyed his cube for the remaining points. He did manage to probe for one objective however.

FW 2 +75 cumulative 2 +75
 

Game 2 against Paul

    Paul was playing a very fast Dominion mission solver that got at least three people out each turn. He managed to get a few cards in front of some stuff I had to self-seed, however I got past them on my opening turns. On about his second turn he attempted a Gamma Mission only to trigger the Defend Homeworld Combo. I performed my massive download and started moving my fleets toward the wormhole. On Paul's next turn however, he played a Revolving Door on the Wormhole preventing me from going into the Gamma and destroying him. My mission solving crew began attempting missions only to be stalled by a Cytherian trip. I was franticly trying to draw one of my Revolving Doors to nullify his. Paul managed to solve the two other gamma missions but he unfortunately lost a LOT of points to 'the higher the fewer'. I eventually got into the Gamma, blew him up, and solved some missions and sat on a colony for the win. I really think Paul deserved to win this game as his deck was one of the best I'd seen.

FW 2 +28 cumulative 4 +103
 

Game 3 against Rennie

    Rennie is the son of Ian (Ian runs the store that we all buy cards from) his dad also collects and so Rennie himself had a good collection of cards. He was playing a fairly slow Klingon Armada (play a card then pick up sort of thing). As always I was just drawing in my opening turns and to my amazement that's all Rennie did to. I wasn't quite sure what he was up to but eventually he attempted a mission. I performed my massive d/l, though we had to call the TD over to verify that what I was doing was legal, and in a few turns his outpost was toast and I had solved 3 missions for the win.

FW 2 +100 cumulative 6 +203
 

Lunch Break - time for some nutritious Chicken Nuggets and Fries
 

Game 4 against Chris

    Chris is my brother and was playing the Stop First Contact deck I had made and was 'planning' on playing at this tournament. Sufficed to say we knew each others decks inside out. He made sure to only scout my missions so as not to trigger the Defend Homeworld download. Eventually I played enough people to solve a few missions, for the next few turns I would solve a mission and then he would complete an objective on it; unfortunately for him I got to 100pts before he completed his third objective for the win. After the game he showed me that he could have won on his next turn.

FW 2 +40 cumulative 8 +243
 

Game 5 against Adam

    Almost every game I play against Adam in a tournament we both pass consecutively in the seed phase. This game was no different. There were only 2 dilemmas seeded, both under my missions so I knew I wouldn't be able to do my d/l. Fortunately for me, before the tournament I figured out that with DH, AMS and ASP I could solve five of my missions on my first turn. On his opening turn he put out Q's Planet, this would slow me down he also did a DH for a Security and ASP for a Support Person. On my opening turn I got out the five people I needed and went to do my first mission, after I had beamed down he flipped a Scanner Interference and put a Distortion Field on the mission, I still managed to solve it for 45pts however. On his next turn he just played a person and let the DF flip. I beamed up and went and solved another mission for 40 pts and then another for another 40 he did however slow me down again with another distortion field. On his turn he solved 2 missions to put him at  60, with Q's planet in play I had to solve another mission and I thought that if I didn't solve it on this turn he would win on his next turn. I was to far away to go to a dilemma-less mission so I was forced to attempt a mission which had one card under it. Dead End. I solved the mission for the win, he proved me right afterwards showing me how he could have won on his next turn.

FW 2 + 40 cumulative 10 +283
 

Game 6 against Tommo

    This game proved to be very similar to the last game - there were no dilemmas. Tom was playing a Ferengi deck and I knew we would be pretty matched for speed, on my first turn I solved 2 missions and on Tom's second turn he solved one, unfortunately for him on my my next turn I solved another mission for the win. Tom's a really good sport and as always I greatly enjoyed playing against him.

FW 2 +70 cumulative 12 + 353

    This was enough to put me in first place, my brother came in second losing only 2 games. >Afterwards I was able to trade for 18 cards I did not have before I'm now only missing 124 from the set. To top it all off I only have to win a tournament with a Fed, Ferengi and Dominion deck before I've won a tournament with each affiliation.
 

Lee 'Q son of Q' Clarke