I'm going to say it now and I'll no doubt repeat it throughout this: I don't like The Borg. The affiliation, not the actual expansion although I'm looking at it like I did with MM: Whoopee-do (note the large amount of sarcasm inherent in there.) I have deep reservations about the affiliation that I'll refer to now as locusts, ethical reservations if you will. I might as well inform you of my bias now before I continue with my meandering textual conversations. That being said, we'll continue on with the review.

Ankari Spirits is much like a souped-up version of Macrovirus, being more potent and more difficult to get rid of unless you know it's there. With the exception of the Klingons (an actual more simplistic dilemma for them to solve for a change), you don't see 3 Honor in an entire deck all that often. Case in point: The entire affiliations in the DQ have between 2 to 4 Honor personnel, including the Feds (4) and the NAs (4, 2 of the same persona and 2 of which are Fed as well). While it's not impossible to solve by any means (some affiliations will have an easier time than others), it will likely be a hit first and that means that since the ship is stopped, unless you can come up with the 3 Engineer and Exobiology, you'll lose 4 people (unless clause stops that ship.) I'm just glad this dilemma is rare because this is one dilemma you just don't want to hit in Warp Speed format. Now, if you were talking about Voyager-only, this dilemma will have less effect on the Ancestral Vision-type of deck, because of the multitude of Honor personnel but again, it'll hit if you don't risk them in the initial mission attempt. Then it won't matter what kind of Honor you have in the deck, it's all for the cure now. I'm just glad it's Space-only.

Impressive Trophies acts much like Kelvan and A Fast Ship, it's an opponent's choice dilemma which is may or may not or do as it wants, depends on whether they have Cunning >50 to spare. Otherwise, the crew or Away Team member with the most icons (which I find rather interesting) or highest Cunning and Strength is captured. A good dilemma that goes with a capture-based deck (Hirogen comes to mind but a few other affiliations could do it quite well) but if it's mega-teamed or if they have a PADD (or in the Hirogen's case, the Disruptor Rifle from Hell), getting Cunning > 50 isn't hard (After all, we've been doing it for passing Ferengi Infestation for over a year now) It's not a hard dilemma to set up (Chandra or Hide and Seek before it) but really, there's little to gain from it unless you're using Fajo's Gallery to get card draws for the capture.

Invasive Procedures is cake if you're in the DQ. The Borg laugh at it (Like there's a Borg deck that lacks Def icon personnel), if you're using Seven with any of the other affiliations, you've passed it or one of the other NA Borg Def icon personnel or, if that's too difficult: the Kazon can report either one of their disruptors for free and the Vidiians are never without a Harvester. It's the AQ that will have a more difficult time with it although the Feds should have less of a problem since they can report Type I Phasers for free. Getting the Medical and the Cunning isn't all that difficult, but the hand weapon that doesn’t report for free for many is more difficult (except for the Dominion). Granted, Dr. McCoy nullifies this bad boy but if you're in the AQ, I'd make sure that you could get your hand weapons, otherwise you get a quarantined ship that combines Tsi Infection and an uberfied-IP Creatures, plus a countdown that can stay around for a bit longer if your opponent uses this in conjunction with End Transmission.

Photonic Energy Being is a space dilemma that takes three people away, before you can do anything. Since it's random, your cure might just go away with them and since it's a 2 countdown, I'd make sure you'd have either a Holo personnel or Anthropology and Diplomacy present just in case. This is in the category with Aggressive Behavior as the Chakotay-irrelevant dilemmas because he nullifies them both by himself. But seriously, there's no reason why you couldn't solve this dilemma on the initial try as Diplomacy and Anthropology isn't the most difficult of skills to have available in multiples even if you don't have the Hologram personnel to go with them.

Replicator Accident is the other dilemma in the Voyager-only format that actually gets you points so alas, no Cytherian Shuffle for you yet. Decipher really wants you to have Physics apparently, since Quantum Fissure and The Swarm just haven't had the effect that they were hoping for. Now, if you don't have it, your crew is dead and the ship is damaged. Ouchie. You only get 5 points to have Engineer, Physics and Cunning > 30 present but that's not all that hard to come up with. However, it's actually possible to take out a Borg Cube with this dilemma, I kid you not. Unless they have the Procurement Drone (or if they do and you could take it out), have them hit a Q-Flash that has Fighting Words in it. If they get Oof, you can Amanda or Quinn it. Then have them hit this dilemma. The Procurement is the only drone that doesn't have Engineer as either its first or second skill. If it's not present, the ship is damaged and the crew is dead. Seriously though, it's a great dilemma for Warp Speed but outside of that, you won't see it used much unless it has a great set up of filter cards.

Sabotaged Negotiations is a nice dilemma against the Borg. Unless they go down with an average of two COM drones for each non-Com drone, this will most likely hit and take out four drones. Unfortunately, this one does not count out attribute enhancements (Lower Decks, Isotope Drone) and it doesn't even need an Adapt to pass the second time. It's a good dilemma against a good many low-integrity affiliations that kills most of the people that it comes across. It's also a wall. Killer/Walls are always welcomed and I see this dilemma being used more often than most of The Borg dilemmas due to its versatility; unfortunately being stuck on planets will not help it out much.

The Clown: Beneath the Mask has one simple requirement: You give me personnel with an average attribute level of 8 in each attribute and you can pass. Barring attribute enhancements, the Borg will need to adapt which makes me already a fan of this dilemma unless they use a counterpart such as Locutus. As for other affiliations, it ranges widely before Voyager: Bajorans - 4 (FM Shakaar, Shakaar Edon, Odo and Vedek Dax), Cardassians -1 (Tekeny Ghemor), Dominion -10, Federation - 14 (with over 3 times as many people as the Dominion), Ferengi -1 (Maihar’du), Klingon - 8, Non-Aligned - 5 (Lore, Solkar, Ruk, Roga Danar, STA), Romulans - 2 (Data and Picard, Keras) without enhancements. With DQ personnel, you have Chakotay, Seven of Nine, Tuvok and The Pendari Champion from Voyager and in the Borg, Hajur, Karr, Captain Chakotay and One. I expect this to be a cause for a few players to use more attribute-enhancements since this can be quite a stickler if you're not prepared.

The Clown: My Festival is more of a nuisance than a wall per se. You need no fewer personnel than the lowest Integrity you have and no more than the highest Integrity you have present. This is really an attempt to keep your Away Team or Crew from going too big. Which isn't really all that effective in doing since the most efficient means of attempting missions nowadays is sending a false team: A group of people which can complete the mission but is more down there to get rid of your dilemmas while the mission solvers stay behind, safe and sound. I've found that the metagame has already done the job of this dilemma and therefore it's not really all that great.

The Weak Will Perish. This dilemma has had quite a few people clamoring for coming up of ways to get Borg Nanoprobes (Bariel and TMW, s/d Borg Nanoprobes being the most simplistic of means for non-Borg, while the Borg get a drone that can download it in place of their normal card draw) but basically, if you have any attribute (practically either Integrity or Strength) below 5, you die. If you're Borg, you've just lost all your universal drones. Attribute-enhancements will not help because they look at base-attributes. This is by far, my most favorite dilemma in the expansion. Common Thief-The Weak Will Perish-Chula: The Game is almost a guaranteed stall, while Common Thief-The Weak Will Perish-In The Pale Moonlight will hurt quite a few affiliations like the Dominion. While they normally laughed at this dilemmas, they'll have a difficult time passing this one as, with the exception of the generic Founder, all founders will all die to this dilemma. In fact, so will quite a few of the Vorta. The elimination of your opponent's Borg Nanoprobes will be quite helpful in your task to eliminate your opponent's personnel to get them stuck on the next dilemma (Chula: The Game, In the Pale Moonlight, Q Gets the Point, etc.) Also, one more note: Only Nimira will live among all Empathy personnel in the game if they hit this dilemma, so Lethean Telepathic Attack afterwards is a pretty good stall.

I definitely think that people will go back to Scanning missions again because all of the previous means of avoiding doing missions (Q-Bypass, Ajur/Boratus) are being taken out of the metagame thanks to the new Referee icon, Feedback Surge. This seems to be a common theme with dilemmas post Tribbles: You have things like Denevan Neural Parasites, Macrovirus, this dilemma, Kelvan Show of Force, A Fast Ship Would Be Nice, etc. Make the dilemmas downright deadly as all get out. Definitely all for scanning in the future metagame IMO.

Borg Data Node makes Adapts easy to acquire in the Voyager-format as if it's present with the Com-icon Borg, once each turn, may download one Adapt card to hand OR glance for 10 seconds at either the crew of one ship or the top card of any player's draw deck. For the Borg, it's definitely useful and it's still a good probe for many objectives. It's better than the Countermeasure Drone since you don't have to replace your card draw to get the Adapt and it's more versatile since you can check to see whether or not you're going to get a good probe the next time. It's also helpful if you're looking for that new Counterpart, Assimilate Species or finding that Lost Drone but that's just a side benefit. The former Borg and their allies get less out of it since obviously we don't have the need to download Adapts, so effectively, it becomes Jake Sisko with a Padd or any Garak at his Tailor Shop with the Long-Range Scan benefit. Does anyone even use these strategies except the Borg? Not very often.

Borg Nanoprobes give your Def-icon drones the ability to become Talon Drones without the Tubulars, abducting and assimilating one personnel just stunned by them OR (and this is the most popular part of the card) nullifies a Species 8472-related dilemma (Except Gravimetric Distortion). In Voyager-only, they needed some means in which to get Talon Drone-abilities without them, hence the first function, giving them two birds knocked down with one stone. But it's the second function that makes everyone happy since it's the only Borg-means to nullify The Weak Will Perish without any ill effects. Just like everyone else who seems to be worried about this dilemma. Is it just me or is just obvious not to use people that have attributes under 5? Sorta like Chandra: If you think that'll be a problem, why not have all of your personnel with the same attribute? Personally speaking, this equipment is one that just begs to be Disruptor Overloaded or Common Thief'd, not to mentioned a target for some Boarding Parties.

Borg Vinculum is the Voyager-only version of the Interlink drone, sharing skills among the entire collective at this location at their highest level if they have a Com Borg present. The annoying part about this card is the fact that it can't be Disruptor Overloaded but at least it can be targeted by Common Thief and stolen by the Kazon. Unfortunately, it's Borg only so your former Borg can't use it for the same benefit.

Hirogen Disruptor Rifle. It looks more like the 24th century equivalent of a grenade launcher (Breenzooka is the Surface to Air Missile equivalent) but it makes you smarter and obviously stronger just to use it. I don't get the cunning part myself, my theory involves a lack of space to make a Hirogen Padd or lacking the screen shot to do it, so they needed a card that could give them the Cunning bonus without using another card. But in any case, you get Strength +4 and Cunning of +2 for this card. And it's cumulative. Sure, you can lose all the Diplomacy if you're on a planet but if that means that you can wipe out your opponent's personnel as they drop down on the planet for some trophies, I think you could handle that loss.

Hirogen Talon is the Hirogen equivalent of the D'k tahg which reports for free, but adds only Strength +1 to your already pretty buff Hirogen. But you're able to score points once each turn when your Hirogen with a Talon kills in personnel battle, which makes it a Hirogen's far better No Way Out, which makes this far better. Unfortunately, just like other blades, it doesn't help with things like Denevan Neural Parasites or even Invasive Procedures and Vole Infestation.

Maturation Chamber gives you practically the same abilities of the former Borg Queen, allowing you to download to the chamber one drone in place of one card draw while giving you an additional option by allowing you to report a drone for free. You can even carry the Chamber onto ships that you might not normally be able to report personnel to (Borg Scout Vessels, Borg Probes, etc.) which gives it more flexibility.

Essentially, the non-weapons are essentially geared toward the Borg, making them viable and more powerful in the Voyager-only environment, supplementing the abilities of personnel from the First Contact expansion (Countermeasure, Interlink, Queen) and adding some capabilities to make them even faster. Disruptor Overloads would be quite welcomed against them, I'd imagine.

Alas, Poor Drone is essentially the Mutation of the Borg. You may discard a Com or Def drone from hand or in play (which is the difference between Mutation) to draw 1 card (or two if present with the Queen). The Borg is going to have so many card drawing mechanisms available and this is just another one. You can get rid of a drone that you've found to be rather useless (Reassimilation Drone against no one with Rogue Borg for example) to draw up to two cards, depending on the circumstances. Now, depending on the Queen in play, you could download drones in place of those drones or any number of, in place of a card draw, abilities. The new Queen can even download this Event to get the rudimentary card drawing going.

Cranial Transceiver Implant is a Cunning boost to a drone, plus while it's on a Com Borg, once each turn you can download any Borg-only Objective OR discard your current objective. This will give the Borg A Change of Plans in the Voyager-only format. The only non-Voyager format that I can see that could use this would be Queen-less decks but other than that, not really.

Meditation lets you choose where you draw your cards from if you discard one card from hand at any time (including your opponent's turn.) This is mainly best suited for cards you've just gotten from your discard pile from Ore Processing (which will see an increase thanks to a second NA Engineer in the Mirror Quadrant) or from the first function of Mutation. What it does mess up is Referee cycling unless you really want to routinely draw a Referee icon card just to put it back to cycle again. It has its purposes but only in a few archetypes.

Omega Particle, when you read it without the Omega Directive or Harness Particle 010, makes very little sense. You play it on your own outpost. If the countdown expires, it destroys outpost and all ships there, plus the span is +3. Granted, it can download either one of those Objectives, but whichever you want to do, you get three turns including the one you play it during, in order to complete those objectives. Choose to do at your own risk.

Quantum Slipstream Drive lets you escape to different spacelines or elsewhere on the same spaceline if you have your full range available, and if you play it on the Dauntless it's played for free. This is a rather helpful armada evader or Cytherians instant-solver as well as an armada mover. Think of it, your Kazon Warship carrying umpteen number of weapons has all those inside that ship and your opponent just played Goddess of Empathy to keep those Wormholes away from him at the moment, thinking that he's safe. Play the Slipstream and you move that Warship to lay the Smackdown onto your opponent, regardless of the quadrant. Same can go for Dominion opponents who's annoyed that the Smackdown targets are in the Delta Quadrant, just go over there and lay some smack. The Slipstream has a lot of different uses which makes the event rather useful in a variety of different areas, whether it's to evade, to attack or just to get back from your trip with floating, disembodied heads, just to name a few.

Again, the Borg get more Voyager-only cards for things that in full environment, they already have, however none of these are immune to Kevin Uxbridge except Omega Particle with the right Objective to go with it, so if you don't want them to have those effects, I'd use Quinns or Amandas/Kevins..

The Unicomplex. To all anti-Borg players, the fact that it exists with the obscene number of 74 Shields, it's a slap in the face. It just makes us more inclined to blow up the damn thing. It's not impossible to blow up; after all any affiliation can come up with the weapons for that; but to do it quickly enough for it to have any real effect, that is the real goal. The Borg can report Borg Queen or one unique drone or unique ship to here for free. Not as though the Borg were lacking in reporting abilities but now they get faster with a headquarters. But it can be blown up. Tox Uthat/Supernova or a Kurlan Naiskosis'd ship and supplements can bring it down to the cinders. Personally, I want to hear about how fast you can blow it up, my e-mail is at the end of this. Right now, I'm thinking turn 2 is the best you're going to get but again, if you can top that, let me know.

The Hirogen outpost has a Holodeck, who knew? You can seed it either at a Hirogen-icon mission (duh) or, like the Borg, at any space mission with no affiliation icons. You get a special download of Hirogen Hunt that is, without a doubt, the key card to the Hirogen. While unlike both the Kazon and the Vidiians whose outpost downloads the ability of your personnel to report directly to your largest ship, the Hirogen gain the ability to beam through shields of damaged ships, even if landed. Assuming you're using the second function, of course.

Cortical Node Implant lets you draw one card (which can't be converted into a download) if with a Com Borg. But what it also allows you to do is basically a Divert Power of Borg attributes, which is rather odd. You can subtract 2 from any attribute and add 2 to any other attribute. This does give the Borg the ability to pass In the Pale Moonlight without an adapt (sap 2 Integrity from any 5 Integrity drone, increase whatever, you now have under 4 Integrity) and it can be used to suspend play to do it whenever you feel the need. Take 5 Nav drones going up against Clan People, now instead of them having 35 Cunning, they can have 45 Cunning and pass it without even knowing that it was there because of this incident. Essentially, the Borg can circumvent almost any attribute-based dilemma with this incident if they feel so inclined.

Feedback Surge is the most recent of the Referee icon cards and it's quite possibly the most efficient counter to things that eliminate dilemmas without encountering them in the first place while still serving a very useful service in Voyager-only. Access Denied in the Voyager-only format was just a necessity. It was a necessity when First Contact came out although it took three expansions to finally get it. Learning from their mistakes, they made it so that the Borg cannot steal your space missions out from you, which can make it so that you can protect all of your missions from Borg thief, provided that your planets are under 35 points. But it's the second function that's gotten the most buzz. If you discard any seed cards using Ajur, Boratus, Senior Staff Meeting or their own dilemma, you may reseed them under any mission or missions and they lose 10 points for each card. Ouch. Again, another reason why Scanning will make a comeback: If you can't get rid of them with your own cards, better to figure out the cheapest loss of personnel to your dilemmas to solve the mission as quickly as possible.

Hirogen Hunt can seed (which I'd recommend) or play, it can download Rituals of the Hunt, another Hirogen Hunt or a Hirogen ship (which would eliminate needing a Spacedoor). You can also report an Alpha-Hirogen or any Hirogen card that names an Alpha-Hirogen that you already have in play for free once each turn. Playing it on your ship allows that ships' transporters to beam through Shields of damaged ships, even if landed. Basically, this card is the bread and butter of the Hirogen people and the more cards that they can draw, the more of an advantage they could take with this card. A souped-up version of Blood Oath, minus the personnel needed to report in order to make it work.

Relics of the Chase lets you capture an opponent you just stunned with the Hirogen, any number of them even. You can also earn points for either a personnel you killed with the Hirogen Talon or, if it's an Alpha Hirogen's captive he's escorting, equal to the highest attribute printed on them. Ruk would be the best choice, earning 16 points. Assuming that you can manage that, of course. But definitely a good choice card to have for the Hirogen, getting a number of bonus points from an incident that, unlike Organ Thief or Boarding Party, never goes away. In fact, these along with the rest of the Hirogen incidents are all cycle-able with Prepare the Prisoner and would go quite well with Fajo's Gallery. After all, for all those personnel that the Hirogen could capture, each one could earn 1 to 2 card draws for each one. Hirogen Captured/Prisoner Exchange/Fajo's Gallery. Now that could be downright frightening.

Rituals of the Hunt plays on your prey (anyone of your choice but it's unique). If your Hirogen has Anthropology, you can add your prey's printed regular skills to him. It you want to stalk him, your equipment and Hirogen personnel may report aboard your Hirogen ships. If you want to capture them, just get present with them using a Hirogen Talon. This has one of the drawbacks to the Vidiians and Kazon's Incidents: If your prey dies or leaves play, then you lose those abilities. Sure, you can play another one via Hirogen Hunt but still, it's a definite inconvenience. The ability to choose the skills that you need from your opponent is rather intriguing and could help out immensely, depending on the circumstances. You're stuck behind a dilemma and you forgot to stock Diplomacy (you forgot about Shaka apparently), now you can steal Motura's Diplomacy to pass it. That's just one example.

For the Hirogen, the best manipulation of their incidents will really be the keys to making the most potent Hirogen deck imaginable. Feedback Surge is something that you'll want to seed in all Voyager-only Constructed tournaments, just in case. Cortical Node's are just the thing to get around certain inconveniences based around attribute-based dilemmas.

Multivector Assault Mode is definitely a most handy Interrupt for battle decks, as it plays at the start of battle (once per battle) involving either the USS Prometheus or >2 of your ships. You can then give whichever ship you want Weapons and Shields +5 until the end of battle. Perfect for Launch Portal, Blood Oath and Hirogen decks as it can mean the difference between using 3 and 4 ships to attack that outpost. In fact, the Hirogen with their Hunting Vessels could damage a Borg Outpost with just four ships and this Interrupt 4(7 + 4)+ (5) = 49 Weapons. That's not even counting things like Captain's Logs or any other enhancements. It's also handy for defense purposes, as you can just have two barely staffed ships along with your huge ship where almost everyone is onboard. Adding 5 Shields and 5 Weapons might make turn the tide on the attack, resulting in the attacker being the attacked and ultimately vanquished. It works either way, especially if the ship involved is the USS Prometheus.

Narrow Escape is definitely an armada-escaper. It plays on your staffed, undocked ship if the Shields are less than half of your opponent's total usable Weapons here. You may immediately move ship up to its total Range. This is now deemed to be the "Run Away!" card from Monty Python's Holy Grail because that's exactly what it's there for. But it will rarely be used because like most armada counters (Chain Reaction Pulsar, HQ: Orbital Weapon Platforms, etc.) you just don't see them used all that often. A Tent card, at most.

Odd how both of the new Interrupts in this set are battle-based. A hint perhaps?

Corner Enemy Ship has only three requirements (Leadership - Navigation - Stellar Cartography) but you can't attempt unless your Total Weapons (ala Intercept Maquis) is >15. Klingon, Romulans, Kazon and Hirogen can attempt this 40 point mission. The Kazon would have no problems with this mission (an extra ship, DH for Razik + DTRM via TMW on a Logged Kazon Warship and one of the new AMS for a bonus), however it wouldn't be impossible for the Romulans or the Klingons to do the same, provided that they're able to work with one of the DQ affiliations. Hirogen can attempt with two Hunting Vessels, the requirements easy enough from any number of different Leadership and Navigation personnel. Since this is the only DQ mission that the Hirogen can attempt (except for Cure Deadly Virus, barring the inclusion of NA's) that's worth more than 35 points, I wouldn't be surprised to see it included in more than a few Hirogen decks. Just watch out for Isabella, since this is a nebula.

Establish Settlement discards DQ Klingons for bonus points (up to 5 of them) for 5 points each (making the mission 55 points). The mission requirements mention Miral Paris, who I can only assume is their baby (I wasn't a big Voyager watcher since I left college, The West Wing won out every time) but since she/he doesn't exist yet, the requirements of Diplomacy + Anthropology + Honor for 30 points, attemptable by the Feds and the Klingons (obviously) makes this easy pickings for Chakotay and a combination of other individuals as well, plus it's safe from Borg assimilation while still being able to earn more than 30 points from it. Plus, if it'll help you win, discarding DQ Klingons (including B'elanna) for the bonus points to win the game is always nice.

// Editor's note: yes, Miral Paris is Tom and B'elenna's daughter.

Hunt Alien gets you 30 points for either your Klingons, Kazon or Hirogen for coming up with Anthropology + Exobiology + Leadership + (Strength >40 OR Borg Nanoprobes). Oddly enough, the Kazons have no problems with this at all (Defend Homeworld for Seska, QIR for Bariel combined with TMW, s/d Nanoprobes = one solved mission) but really, any one of them can get Exobiology and Leadership out on turn 1 so it's not a huge achievement as Bariel can get the Anthropology and the Nanoprobes. It's a planet mission (which is odd since it takes place in an asteroid belt but oh well) so again, safe from Borg assimilation.

Maintenance Overhaul is most suited for Voyager although the Kazon can get Blue Alert thanks to their new ship in this expansion. The requirements of a Landed Ship + Engineer + Computer Skill is yet another mission solvable solely by B'elanna Torres. Of course, this mission can be solved by umpteen million other personnel, provided that the ship can land of course. The fact that you can download Divert Power when you solve is a nice thematic bonus although it won't get people to use it just for that. The fact that this one is only 30 points and have simplistic requirements would be more of a draw. The other that anyone can attempt it against the Borg can add to the draw.

Repair Null Space Catapult's as nice looking as it is tempting to most DQ decks, much like Reinitialize Warp Core Reaction is in DQ decks now. Simple requirements (Engineer + Physics + (Diplomacy OR Treachery)) for 30 points but it's the fact that the solving ship may relocate to any spaceline location that offers the appeal. Imagine this: You use up your range to get to this mission, you solve it and are relocated to the Reinitialize and solve that, now you have range again to go to a planet mission to solve. It can be useful as well to get away from your Armada opponent but be careful: say it's a Kazon Warship, they can simply gather all of their little ships inside and use the big ship to solve the mission, then launch all of their tiny ships to smack you down. Scary thought.

Secure Station is the only Hirogen-only mission in the game thus far which also has the easiest requirements to go with it. An Alpha-Hirogen + Total Weapons > opponent's Total Weapons. Space mission of only 30 points aside, it's a walk in the park for the Hirogen. Although none of the Hirogen-Alpha's are downloadable with our current jump-start cards, a RRD to a Hunting Vessel could get you one in Decaren or Idrin. And it's not likely that on turn 1 you'll have opposition there except against another Hirogen player. That's going to be the main problem with playing the Hirogen: Other Hirogen players. Unless you're using NA's (which is definitely recommended), your mission selection will be quite limited.

Assimilate Species lets the Borg initiate personnel battle against a crew or Away team after they name a species. At the end of the battle, you immediately probe and discard said objective. If it's a [Def] icon and you won the battle with your Nanoprobes or Assimilation Table present, all stunned personnel of target species present are assimilated. One of the problems with this (from the Borg perspective) is the fact that you might not win the battle, making the objective not very effective. While the Borg will almost always have Borg Nanoprobes at their disposal, there are few affiliations that won't pose a problem for them. Vidiians will not put up much resistance, regardless of their Harvesters, for example. If you like your Borg in the offensive category and you can rig your probes, this is the objective for you.

Harness Particle 010 plays on table. You target Omega Particle (download if you need to, it's immune to Kevin) at your mission not yet scouted. Your Borg may scout that location and, if your scouting is completed and you have a staffed Borg cube present, you may probe. If it's an enigma, incident, or an objective, you can discard the Particle and double the point boxes of your next Borg Only objectives, plus you earn 30 points for this task. You just have to scout through, complete the scouting and probe successfully in three turns. If you don't, you've just lost your outpost at a bare minimum, if not your entire Cube. Most people have suggested that Service the Collective would work out well but that requires a couple of things: A Borg OP at a mission which you have to build without completing an objective and whose icon matches your counterpart, then you might have a chance, if the dilemmas don't give you a problem. It's not impossible, just very difficult. But if you succeed, then you can Salvage a Starship for 60 points, then use Resistance is Futile for the final 10 points. If you Harness at a planet, then you're safe from The Big Picture.

Omega Directive: Seeds or plays on table, you place it on your ship with a matching commander aboard (Nullified if no Cmd personnel on the ship); while at the same location as the Particle, you may ignore affiliation attack restrictions and each turn, you must probe. Special download discards the particle, draws two cards and score points, discard the objective for 10 points. The Non-Borg version of the above objective gives a far less bounty but I'd still consider stocking it if you think that your Borg opponent would try for it. This way, you can discard it before they can, thereby stopping your opponent from their task. Granted, I'd recommend this more for Voyager-only than full-environment as there's lots of deck designs that you could come across but at least in Voyager-only, you're more than likely to come across it. The Omega Particle is more the domain of the Borg than the non-Borg.

Reassimiliate Lost Drone targets a non-Borg opponent's Borg and if you have a Borg Queen in play, you may probe. First, you have to probe a [Def] to abduct them to your ship if your Borg ship is at the same location. Second, you need to probe a [Com] if your abducted target is present with the Borg Queen in order to re-assimilate them, worth 5 points per skill dot while objective on them (10 points if the target is One). Personally speaking, this is a far better Objective in Voyager-only than in full environment, regulated into the Tent as a just in case. You're much more likely to play against opponents who are using the former Borg, thereby getting them far more likely and easily. One of the nice things about this in comparison to Assimilate Counterpart is the fact that you don't have to battle or even board their ship in order to abduct your target. True, you have to probe twice in more specific outcomes whereas Assimilate Counterpart, you're pretty likely to probe correctly but you don't have to battle in order to capture them.. Between Reassimilate Lost Drone, Assimilate Counterpart and Assimilate Species (combined with Add Distinctiveness) you could possible come up with 100 points between them all. It's obvious that they're trying to make the Borg more interactive and responsive to threats while giving them the means to put them on the offensive but I'm wondering whether or not such offenses would make for a Worlds-caliber deck. After all, if you can avoid your opponent's assault, you'll be doing far better than your opponent who'll have to change gears, doing a different objective instead, leaving you to do what you need to do in order to win.

The New Queen. Same attributes, same ability to change her skill at the start of each turn. It's the fact that she can download any Borg only Event or Interrupt in place of your normal card play. No more need to stock your limited number of We Are The Borg in the draw deck, when she can download it for you, giving you either another card draw or playing a Borg-icon card for free. She can get the Activate Subcommands, downloading three drones at once or Alas, Poor Drone to set up a card drawing mechanism, or even Cranial Implant to have a Change of Plans in Event form. She has access to everything that she had before plus the ability to go even faster, thanks to Activate Subcommands and We Are the Borg. Between We Are The Borg, a free report to the Unicomplex and the Maturation Chamber plus Seven always allowing an additional card draw if you need it which can be converted to who knows what you come up with.

Annexation Drone becomes another target for Defend Homeworld as well as an essential part to pro-assimilation strategies as he allows you to beam through your opponent shields.

Antitoxin is the Borg's new best friend as he can download Borg Nanoprobes in place of his normal card play in order to counter The Weak Will Perish. His Medical and Exobiology isn't all that important to the Collective, it's his download. Because of that download, he'll be used quite often.

Augmentation allows implants to play for free and be reabsorbed if countered, plus has Cybernetics and Medical. Now you can play Ocular Implants, plus the other two Implants from this expansion for free and are essentially immune to overall countering because of his reabsorbing abilities. The Cybernetics isn't much of anything of importance and I suppose the Medical will come in handy but this is mainly the evolution of the Bio-Med drone.

Connectivity has Computer Skill, Engineer and Biology which are helpful although his main use of downloading the Voyager-skill sharing mechanism is what makes him the most useful of drones in Voyager-only. The fact that he special downloads the Borg Data Node, which will get your Adapts and help in probing is just gravy for him. This is the drone that helps enable their skill sharing, which makes him a great target.

Fifth, a unique drone, has Youth (perfect for Ooby-Dooby), Computer Skill, Biology and Security (making him a good target for Defend Homeworld), plus has the option of once each turn, return to hand one of your Borg Only Incidents, Events or Objectives in play. His main purposes are for the cycling ability of certain cards and to start off the Borg Ooby Dooby. Now, you don't have to wait for the Queen in order to get it started, you can just use Defend Homeworld to get Fifth, then go from there. The fact that he's unique makes it easy for you to DQSS him, which can allow you to do a great number of things that I'll leave to your imagination. He'll definitely be seen in a few Borg decks, regardless of whether or not he'll Ooby Dooby.

First also has Youth but it's his Treachery over the other regular skills of Navigation and Biology that are of interest, as well as his ability to initiate battle against intruders and the Strength boost of 3, which are certainly a testament to his aggressiveness. Now the Queen doesn't have to pick Treachery to be immune to Unscientific Method or to pass Q Gets the Point, she can pick Greed to pass Chula: The Game or Empathy to pass Cardassian Trap or whatever she feels like playing with. But First's presence will definitely make your opponent think twice before boarding the ship he's on. Or worse, he can be Awakened to battle in a pinch.

Heuristics (which by the way means: Of or constituting an educational method in which learning takes place through discoveries that result from investigations made by the individual.) ends up with another odd skill to appear in a drone: Honor. However it's more his ability to place one drone underneath the draw deck, then download another after that which could compliment the Bio-Med drone nicely. If they die, the Bio-Med reabsorbs the drone to the bottom of the draw deck, the Heuristic drone sends a different drone back to the bottom of the draw and download that drone back to play, all without any expenditure of a card from your hand. Plus, he's their only non-Queen/non-Counterpart means to escape Ankari Spirits without incident.

The Isotope Drone outside of Voyager-only, isn't really that useful. Science, Physics, Astrophysics and if you complete Harness Particle 010, you get attribute boosts of +2. You can get your attribute modified with an Implant that you can already report for free with the Augmentation drone and if that isn’t enough, there’s always Lower Decks for your universal drones. And you can get those skills from more useful drones. So he isn't really all that useful.

Network Drone is quite useful to decks that don't probe well because besides having Engineer, Physics and Navigation, if he's present where probing for Establish Gateway, you can discard probe card to probe again once each turn. One of the more useful drones to quite a few different kinds of Borg decks just for the special skill alone.

Second has Engineer, Astrophysics, Physics, Youth, Stellar Cartography, a special download of Divert Power but it's the fact that he doubles regular skills of other drones present that can catch someone's interest. His ability makes it less necessary to send as many drones down in order pass certain dilemmas, especially with skill sharing as well. Divert Power is a welcomed freebie as it can increase the range of the Cube without having any extra expenditure plus it's flexible enough to have several uses.

Purification Drone gives you Geology, Stellar Cartography and Science but also increases the range on the ship by 2. Combine it with Divert Power and your Cube is 12 in the DQ, making it much more difficult for people to escape from you, or more difficult for people to attack you.

Sentinel Drone has a simple purpose- To add Security and to add 1 to each of your Borg's Cunning and Strength. Not terribly useful.

Third and Fourth, the first dual-personnel for the Borg adds to the Ooby-Dooby desire for the Borg, plus the fact that they can special download the Maturation Chamber (aka the Queen's skill upgraded) and help staff a Cube even more quickly, plus since they're two drones, they can still skill share as two drones. Sending them with a [Nav] and [Def] icon drone and you're going to get through a whole lot of dilemmas. However, their special download and being a dual-personnel makes them more valuable than their skills of Youth x2, Science, Transporter Skill, Exobiology and Computer Skill would suggest.

Tactician Drone's skills of Engineer, Astrophysics and Stellar Cartography are definitely suited for space but his special skill of placing a card underneath the draw deck from hand makes him more suited for the original Queen. Since it's each turn, you're always able to download another drone without having to worry about Obelisk.

Transtator Drone's one of the rare dual-classification Borg personnel with Science, Physics and Security but it's the Mutation-like of his that is of interest more than the aforementioned status. Once each turn, you can discard a card from hand to place the bottom two cards of discard pile beneath draw deck. Discarding something early in the game can come back to haunt you. Here's a chance to save yourself plus you'll be hard pressed to ever draw your deck out.

Xenology Drone gives the Voyager-only crew their only doses of Archaeology and Anthropology plus Exobiology but it's his ability to be like the Network Drone only for planets: May reprobe while probing for Assimilate Planet if the first one didn't work right. It’s that special skill that’ll make this drone useful regardless of the format, plain and simple.

Without a doubt, the Borg have the easiest time in the game to get DQSS to work on turn one. Download either Two of Nine or Fifth with Defend Homeworld, download another to play with Activate Subcommands or just Awaken two of the same drone, it’s not especially difficult. Add a seeded Complink Drone and if you get the new Borg Queen in your opening hand, you could have one large crew coming up. Play the Queen for free to the Unicomplex, download whichever drones via Awaken and Defend Homeworld, and use your normal card play as a download of We Are The Borg. Next turn Spacedoor for a Cube of some sort and go to work. The Borg have gotten much faster in this expansion, whether it’s from DQSS or the new drones or the new Queen but it’s the new rulings allowing them to form as large of an Away Team as they want as well as having their Shields immune to being beamed through, along with these cards that make the Borg much scarier.

Angelo Tassoni is another of those Fed/NA AMS personnel that are just so much fun to have around. He can report for free to either Voyager or the Equinox with Home Away From Home but Navigation will help for bonus points for DQ missions and now without having to seed an Incident to let those other AMS personnel in Voyager-only format, now you can get two NAs for your AMS, saving a seed slot. His stats aren’t that great but he’ll live through The Weak Will Perish and gives you yet another Security MS, in case you’re worried about things like Captured/Prisoner Exchange.

Deanna Troi gives you three skills (Diplomacy, Empathy and Anthropology) plus a skill that really isn’t all that useful: All your Enterprise-E personnel add Cmd stars. A scary thought: Enterprise-E personnel staffing USS Intrepids as part of an Armada fleet. Okay, that was more for humor but seriously, the special skill isn’t all that great. People didn’t use Enterprise-E personnel just because they couldn’t apply their staffing icon to other ships but because they aren’t all that good in many circumstances. Outside of theme decks, you won’t see them used all that often. Data Premiere is better than Data (FC), Picard depends on what you’re looking to do (his two special downloads will come in handy but skillwise isn’t as good as the Premiere version), Beverly Crusher FC is an improvement with a special download of a Medical Tricorder, although occasionally the EMH could offer some purpose but not likely), Riker got rid of his Diplomacy to add an extra Leadership but which special download would you rather have: Anti-Matter Spread or, in the form of Admiral Riker, any Enterprise of your choice? That’s what I thought.. Geordi trades his Navigation for Leadership but his special download helps take a look to see what’s next for your Away Team. But Deanna Troi (FC) is much more useful than Deanna (The Borg) because of their special skill: Deanna Troi (FC) can act like a non-counterable Distortion to any Away Team that she’s a part of once per game. That’s far more useful than adding a staffing icon to me.

Equinox Doctor is a hologram, can work with anyone thanks to his dual-affiliation status (in fact, he’d be rather useful to the Hirogen) but he’ll find interesting usage. He can be very helpful, with his double Exobiology, the ability to get you a Type II Phaser to help pass Invasive Procedures or help stave off a Kazon or Hirogen invasion of your ship, his double Treachery can let him use The Art of Diplomacy to download yet another hand weapon, not to mention use Protection Racket for added fun. He can be of assistance to your Officers with a special download of a Medkit and the Computer Skill is a nice touch, I suppose. Too bad he doesn’t have a staff icon so that he can report for free to the Equinox (which would help out immensely) but oh well. Not especially the best Medical hologram but he has its uses.

Hogan has one more Integrity than Angelo, even though in his lore thinks briefly about rebelling against Janeway. But yes, you now have a second Engineer that’s NA and the first one with Transporter Skill as his skill. This in itself makes him quite valuable to two very different affiliations: The Ferengi and the KCA. Both of the dual-icon missions require Transporter Skill that are attemptable by the Ferengi. Combine with Dr. Borts and you have up to 95 points from those two missions alone. The KCA like him because, in conjunction with Narik, you can use AMS to get your two Engineers for Ore Processing in the Mirror Quadrant, making that much easier for them. In fact, you could do it like this: AMS the aforementioned Engineers, DH for Overseer Odo to s/d Process Ore over to the Ore Processing Unit without having to Ops-download it that turn, instead getting someone like The Intendent, then QIR and report for free Bariel and go from there. He too can report for free to Voyager if you feel inclined but skill wise, you’ll be much less likely to earn points for his skill, making him much more attractive to Harvest.

Reginald Barclay is the Ultra-Rare. (shrugs) It really doesn’t matter all that much to me. His skills aren’t all that great (Computer Skill, Astrophysics, Honor) so in that regard, he’s like The Rock but he’s better than that Rock in the fact that his special skill earns +5 points for Fed-icon missions that you solve in the DQ. This doesn’t mean that you have to necessarily be Fed in order to earn the bonus mind you, just that they have a Fed-icon on them so your Liberation for Kazon is now worth 35 points, your Inv. Quantum Singularity is now 50, etc. Where is this most handy does in your 30 points planet missions which you’ve no doubt seeded because you don’t want the Borg assimilate your planet. So, in order to not lose your extra points from those missions, Barclay will automatically give you 5 points for solving the mission. If you combine that with Mordock, that’s +10 points, provided that you don’t battle. But Mordock is an uncommon and even with the point bonus, he isn’t used all that much and frankly, I don’t expect Reg to be used all that much either. He’s not easily downloadable for starters, in fact he’s Alpha Quadrant so unless he reports with crew via Caretaker’s Array, he’ll have to be reported to the AQ, which doesn’t always fit in with a DQ deck. His skills are more useful than The Rock’s but he’s also not as easily gotten into play so you take it as you get it.

Gegis gives you Computer Skill, Science, Acquisition, Greed and the ability for your Holograms (of any kind, mind you as I’m sure he has some holosuite programs for… anyway…) to mix with your Ferengi at this location. He’s a Daimon so he could get some "enhancement" from Calandra but the fact that he’s downloadable to the Cargo Bay and can pass Maglock is more useful to me than his special skill. He’s just not a very impressive guy and he’s rare. Kol at least was useful.

Nunk gives you Greed, Stellar Cartography and Anthropology in an Engineer classification. He lets you capture one Hologram present. He’s even less useful than Tog, who lets you capture one Empath present. He can’t be downloaded in any way unlike Tog (RRD), his skill selection is less useful (Tog gives you Greed, Anthropology as well plus Exobiology which is more useful than Stellar Cartography, especially since your lone ASP personnel has it as well as DTRM) and his Engineer status isn’t as helpful as Tog’s Officer status and the kicker: Tog can pass Chula: The Game after living through The Weak Will Perish, which is very rare. Why pick Nunk when Tog is better?

Yeggie and Bariel are the only personnel who can download directly Borg Nanoprobes (Morn can download Latinum which can be changed into Borg Nanoprobes, after all you can buy literally anything at Quark’s) but this Ferengi is one of the scarce Medical personnel and the first with Cybernetics. He can pass Chula: The Game and still live after The Weak Will Perish, provided that he can keep his Nanoprobes, thanks to his Greed and Treachery. Biology rounds off the collection of skills but the fact that he gets the Nanoprobe will make him an inclusion in many Ferengi decks since they’re one of the hardest hit by the dilemma. I also see a deck design entitled something like: Slave, clear out those dilemmas. Use Dr. Soong and Yeggie to report STA’s for free and have them clear out dilemmas while the non-androids just sit back, sippin’ on Slug-o-Cola when they’re not exercising holosuite programs. After all, there’s no profit in getting killed, so we have tin soldiers to do it for us, a Ferengi player might say. Either that or I’m just weird.

Lagren is a Olga-sect member who gives you skills of Physics, Geology and Exobiology in the classification of Engineer. He’s not a very interesting guy who lives past The Weak Will Perish and can operate your Transporter Module. (shrugs) What more can you say?

Surat is the first maje of the Mostral, a previously unmentioned sect of the Kazon, who commands a Kazon Raider. Now you have three matching commanders to Kazon Raiders - Culluh, Haron and now Surat. Perfect for Kazon Conference which can now be upped in point value by 5. His skills are very similar with Razik, sharing his Treachery, Leadership and more importantly, his Security which makes him a viable Defend Homeworld candidate. However, he also has Diplomacy (not exactly the most Diplomatic affiliation in the game) and Astrophysics which makes him rather useful at the same time. Besides, Razik can be downloaded with Bricklayer if you’d rather.

Tanar is a member of the Nistrim sect, giving you Archaeology, Biology and Anthropology as well as being a Science personnel. Archaeology isn’t all that helpful except for Salvage Operation in the DQ, which is much like him. He’s just not all that useful except for the fact that there’s few Science personnel that are Kazon but with all the Think Tank personnel, I’d rather use them.

Ch’Regha is yet another woman that’s turned Harry down. But of all people, why did she choose Neelix? That just had to sting. Outside of her ability to report for free to the Voq’leng, this Medical personnel of Exobiology, Archaeology and of course Honor, isn’t all that useful, especially if the Vidiians help our lost warriors. She does help pass Matriarchal Society, assuming you ever see it.

// Editor's note: Anyone who's seen the episode is probably LOL here ;-)

The Klingons finally don’t have to use Narik to commandeer Empok Nor, thanks to Kamok being a Computer Skill AMS. However, outside of being able to report for free like Ch’Regha to the Voq’leng, he isn’t all that useful. Much better in Warp Speed, though.

Kohlar, captain of the Voq’leng, is your typical Diphole (Diplomacy, Honor, Leadership) with Anthropology and Stellar Cartography for extra seasoning. He can also special download Auto Destruct Sequence but much like Keras and Lily Sloane, it’s just not very useful except in very rare situations. But you’re going to want him when you need to move your ship around, enhancing it with any number of different Captain's Order cards. The fact that he can solve their main mission by himself is, of course, quite welcomed.

Morak can report for free to the Voq’leng, gives you Transporter Skill, Astrophysics and Physics in a Science-classification package. He also enhances said ship +1 just by being there, helping it move down the spaceline when you hit that Cytherians or escaping from that towering Kazon Warship while cloaked.

T’Greth is the only Klingon personnel which can’t have some means to report to the Voq’leng for free, in fact he doesn’t even mention the ship at all. This Officer with Leadership, Geology, Navigation and Engineer fills the void of all the other skills that the Klingons in the DQ didn’t have. They spread out all of the skills that you could justify to list on the Klingons over each of these personnel with only Leadership and Honor being the overlap as far as skills go. In fact, in constructed play, I can definitely see people using the Klingons to augment their personnel usage, especially since almost all of them can report for free and it doesn’t take an additional seed slot to do since the Voq’leng special downloads Home Away From Home. Imagine: Voyager and Voq’leng having two people report to their ships for free, no matter where they are on the spaceline. Definitely an interesting notion to consider, I’d think.

B’Elanna at the cost of her extra Engineer, Transporter Skill and Cybernetics, earns Security and the ability to enhance a Maquis ship attributes +2. She has one less Integrity and can’t be reported to free on Voyager but can aboard the Liberty (which is the only Maquis ship thus far in the game) for free with Home Away From Home. Personally, she’s more valuable to me in the Voyager version and besides, she already can work with anyone she wants, so why use this version?

Captain Chakotay loses an Anthropology, Diplomacy and Archaeology (no big loss here) but retains his attributes and in fact can boost other Maquis personnel attributes +2. As matching commander to the Liberty, he can get into play faster than normal Chakotay thanks to RRD which can be a boost to Ancestral Vision decks since he too can draw 2 cards from the Vision, but skill wise, he’s just not as good as Chakotay for the same reason as B’elanna isn’t: The special skill doesn’t make up for the absence of the original skills.

Fennim is a Science, Medical x2, Exobiology, Anthropological member of the Think Tank whose special skill is barely worth much, if anything, to you: Your Vidiians are immune to The Phage. In fact, the only uses I’ve seen for The Phage except for an incidental death of a Vidiian is actually an intentional use: To bring a Vidiian back from being captured. Fennim nullifies that so that option is gone. However, if you need a Medical x2 personnel (Hirogen and Kazon), this odd-looking individual is your choice.

Icheb is one of the former Borg, a Nav icon individual who can report to Voyager via Home Away From Home for free. His Civilian status notwithstanding, he’s definitely a space-kind of guy: Engineer, Astrophysics, Physics, Youth (being the exception), Stellar Cartography and Biology. Being a Borg gives him some advantages (skills shared with One for example) but really, he’s just a compliment to Seven and works for the "Lost Borg" motif of deck designs.

Angry Kes has some definite issues in this personnel. Her Cunning only goes up 1 but her Integrity drops 5 points, her Empathy is doubled, she forgot her Exobiology and Biology, instead learning the art of Physics, Navigation and Treachery, but at least she remembered her Medical. The fact that she can’t be stunned means you’ll have to kill her instead of stunning, then assimilating her. She can report to Liberation for free just like young Kes and can report for free to USS Voyager as well via Home Away From Home. If you have The Doctor onboard, this is the better Kes for you or if you’re playing with Vidiians for that matter. If you’re not, you might consider the younger Kes.

Lansor, Marika and P’Chan combined give you the following: 16 Integrity, 21 Cunning, 19 Strength, Civilian, Engineer, Science, Computer Skill, Honor, Medical, Astrophysics, Stellar Cartography, Physics and Security. You can get all of this on turn 1 without using a card play with Defend Homeworld for Lansor because you may download Marika and P’Chan if they’re not in play. The same goes for reporting any of them into play. However, let me emphasize this point: "If they’re not in play." If your opponent has them in play, then you can’t download the others because the others are in play already. They’re just not yours. The other downside is that if the others aren’t in play, you discard them at the end of the turn. This can happen either on your turn or on your opponent’s turn. Case in point: You have Marika in play while your opponent has all three of them. Your opponent then takes his ship with those former drones back into hand. Marika will now die because Lansor and P’Chan aren’t in play. All those skills without using up a card play, definitely prime targets for DQSS since all three are unique but they’re in play tenuously. They’re certainly helpful in coming up with attributes and skills though, things like Empok Nor commandeering would welcome them especially. Just be careful.

Mabus is the second DQ personnel who can solve Executive Authorization (Magistrate Drang being the other one) and he can work with anyone, even the Kazon. Which is odd, because he can kill one Maje present if he wants to. I’m not sure why he’d want to kill his own personnel that’s with him but it’s an odd game. He can use Protection Rackets as well with his Treachery x2 as well as use Art of Diplomacy to get a hand weapon, plus has Diplomacy and Security to at least he has some skills of note. Unfortunately, there’s no way outside of Recruit Mercenaries to download him so he’ll be less likely to see use, unless you didn’t want to buy Starter Decks for Drang.

Mezoti is much like Deanna Troi (FC), she can unstop your Borg present. The difference is that it’s once each turn. Her skills aren’t much (Youth, Computer Skill, Biology) but that special skill will definitely get notice, especially in Lost Borg decks. Think about it: You send your entire Away Team of Borg down to the planet, only to come up against a dilemma that you can’t pass (Say Executive Authorization). You unstop those Borg and then have Magistrate Drang join in and poof, the dilemmas are gone. Between One’s ability to share all Borg skills present and the number of drones available, that could very well happen.

One is like Seven in that he has all three subcommands but his skill of Youth isn’t that great. However, he can beam through any Shields and shares all regular skills from all Borg at this location. That can even include your opponent’s Borg as well which makes him the uber-Lal. It’s quite conceivable that at one time, he could have practically every single, solitary skill in the game at once, which is damn frightening. He’s the core of a Lost Borg deck as a result. He’s also really helpful in Cargo Runs and Nors in general, as he doesn’t need to walk anywhere, he can simply beam himself to wherever he wants to go, like a Cargo Bay to turn in some equipment for card draws. He’s also a prime target, like Seven and Icheb, for Reassimilate Lost Drone so you’ll want to keep him away from the Borg if you can. One is a specialized character, whether his specialty is for you or not remains to be seen but for me, he makes one hell of a redshirt.

Orum is a rather interesting character: A Com former Borg, he’s a Civilian but Medical and Cybernetics as well, plus Computer Skill, Exobiology and Anthropology. The second Cybernetics in the DQ, he alone can solve Borg Servo as well as Primitive Culture. He has a wide eclectic selection of skills which would do well to add to the Lost Borg contingent.

Rebi and Azan are double Civilians with double Youth, Exobiology, Computer Skill, Science and Transporter Skill who never have to be a concern with Chandra as they have identical attributes. That being said, outside of Lost Borg decks, they really don’t off much of anything that would be of assistance except to Ooby Dooby decks. After all, Rudy Ransom has three of their four non-Youth skills by himself.

Riley Frasier gives your other Borg Cunning +2 while supplying Computer Skill, Astrophysics and Geology, thereby doing the same thing as the Klingons above only for One: Supplying One with as many different skills as possible to make a super-red shirter. Imagine getting all the skills of 7+ personnel and giving them to one person and having them redshirt with whomever. Riley is a Science-classification but outside of the Lost Borg theme, there’s not much to using her.

Sullin is like a more useful version of Mortal Q’s skills, supplying two Science (which isn’t exactly a skill in abundance except for the Feds), Engineer, Physics x2 and Geology x2, while offering a high Cunning, making her highly prized prey which wouldn’t be hard to capture with her Strength of 1. The fact that she’s female, however, would make the Hirogen consider using her as well, as they have no females available to them except for Non-Aligned.

If Sullin is a highly prized prey, try the Artificial Intelligence on for size: Same points for The Rock without the fear of getting the Smackdown. Being without gender, AI is immune to gender-related dilemmas. His double Science and double Computer Skill gives AI the ability to staff the Think Tank’s Ship, thereby keeping safe inside the Cloaking Device once you report AI on board with QIR and TMW, being the only downloadable personnel able to staff the ship. But against the Hirogen, AI would make the pinnacle of capture (although for sheer theme, getting the Pendari Champion deserves more props.)

Outside of Orum, the only Romulan in this expansion is an AMS personnel by the name of Thenelak, a female Physics personnel who has distinctive Borg attributes. The problem is that Physics in the AQ, where most of the Romulans are in the game, is only on 4 missions that are attemptable by the Romulans without Espionage: Cargo Rendezvous, Fissure Research, Relief Mission (either original or II) and Study Cometary Cloud. A lack of missions results in a lack of usage outside of Voyager Warp Speed.

Dilanum sounds more like a mineral than a personnel but he’s an Engineer/Science combo personnel for the Vidiians that happens to live to Unscientific Method with his Treachery, combine with Stellar Cartography because….. well, just because. Unless you count his ability to use maintenance tunnels as a map-making ability, it’s only for his lore, not because it’s of any real use. And like other Vidiians, he’ll die to The Weak Will Perish.

Sinaren is one of the Medical personnel that the Vidiians are known for, however outside of Warp Speed, doesn’t really have a purpose. Biology isn’t exactly lacking in the Vidiians, Geology comes from Sorum (s/d Lower Decks) and Dereth and Archaeology isn’t all that great except in specialized decks. His only claim to fame is the fact that he reports for free via the Sodality. That’s about it.

The Lost Borg (Seven, Icheb, Lansor, Marika, P’Chan, Orum, Rebi and Azan, Mezoti, Riley and One) will be a rather popular deck archetype, especially thanks to One who can have all of their skills as well. Seven can be downloaded on turn 1 via QIR to Voyager with HAFH and Lansor-Marika-P’Chan can be downloaded via Defend Homeworld to get you started. One of the things that they’re lacking is like the Borg without a Counterpart: Leadership, Officer, etc.) which can be an exploitable weakness. Assist Cooperative is just a given in this kind of deck. But when you can give One the following skills without using an additional card:

Science

Stellar Cartography

Physics

Exobiology

Computer Skill

Engineer

Astrophysics

Youth

Biology

Security

Medical

Cybernetics

Anthropology

Honor

Transporter Skill

Geology

That’s certainly a temptation.

Davar is your average, generic Hirogen, the Treacherous Scientist. He gives you Archaeology, Biology and of course, Treachery. He names Karr for him to report for free via Hirogen Hunt, 1 of 5 which does so, will help out with Salvage Operation with his Archaeology, Treachery comes in handy with some missions but he’s not all that useful, especially since he’s universal and can’t be Scissioned. But if you don’t want your Science dying from Unscientific Method, you could pick him. Or Kurros. Or Tanis. And so on.

Decaren is the Hirogen equivalent of Janeway: They both have Officer, Science, Diplomacy, Leadership and Physics. They even have the same Integrity. Unlike Janeway’s Astrophysics and Computer Skill, Decaren has Anthropology and Honor which is much more useful to the Hirogen as well as more Voyager-dilemma resolving abilities. He also allows three people to report for free, the second most of all Hirogen Alphas. His Anthropology makes it easy for him to know his prey, plus he’s a matching commander for a Hunting Vessel. I find that it’s probably in the Hirogen’s best interest to stock some Ready Room Doors when you report the matching commanders to those Hunting Vessels. He can help out no matter what kind of deck you’re going for - armada, mission solving, whatever.

Donik is one of two Computer Skill x2 personnel available to the Hirogen and can report for free with Decaren in play. His Youth, Science, Physics, Honor and his classification of Engineer can help solve quite a few different missions. His special skill at present has no help since we don’t have Hirogen Holograms but if we did, he’d allow them to report there. He’s Scissionable which makes him quite helpful: just get one into play and Quark Isolinear Rods for the second - Instant Scission. He’s a good compliment to Engineering-based missions (Aftermath, Prevent Annihilation come to mind.) But, most importantly, he’s your Ancestral Vision guy as he’s the only Hirogen who can trip out on the face of rocks for card draws without enhancements.

Gann is the only Hirogen who can report to free to two different Alpha-Hirogen: Decaren and Netek. He’s one of two beyond-Support Personnel status Security personnel, sporting five skills. With Computer Skill, Navigation, Biology, Transporter Skill and Astrophysics, he’s a virtual space dilemma-buster. His Strength of 9 adds to your ability to hunt and capture your opponent’s personnel. He’s a good choice for a pure-Hirogen affiliation Defend Homeworld although if you want to wait, you can report him for free depending on which of the two Alphas he names first comes into play.

Hajur is Penk’s second choice of special downloads, the only Non-Aligned Hirogen and the only one who doesn’t name a single Alpha-Hirogen. He’s more Integrity-driven than the Pendari Champion, more Cunning than him and with a respectable and beyond the bar of Strength of 9 is certainly no slouch. He has the same two basic skills, no special skill but 4 additional skills of Biology, Medical, Anthropology and Archaeology. I’m not sure what it is about the Hirogen and Archaeology but they seem to have it a lot. If you’re using Penk, he’s a much better choice for all but Away Team battles, unless you especially wanted another Security personnel (Hajur is a Civilian). He’s just a plain useful, especially thanks to Penk. My personal combo: Penk + Hajur + seeded Art of Diplomacy = Download Hirogen Disruptor Rifle, now start smacking some heads.

Harkan is one of five (count ‘em) Support Personnel for the Hirogen. This one is universal with Security as a classification, Anthropology and Exobiology for skills (same as Prylar Mond.) If you need to know your prey as soon as possible and you’re not interested of the above-mentioned Penk/Hajur trick, use your ASP for Harkan and you’re set. However, he offers nothing that the Hirogen don’t already have in large amounts so he would really only be support personnel.

Idrin is the Culluh of the Hirogen. He commands a Hunting Vessel, has Engineer, Archaeology, Greed and Treachery as Culluh does, however where he lacks Culluh’s 2 Leadership and Diplomacy, we only get Exobiology and a special download of a Hirogen Talon instead of Culluh’s special download of Boarding Party. Heck, they even have the same Integrity and Cunning, although at Strength of 12, he can smack down Culluh in personnel battle. He pales in comparison, however, when it comes to reporting people for free. While Culluh can arguably report the most Kazon for free, Idrin can only report one personnel for free. He’s perfect for Salvage Operation (which is likely to be a popular Borg mission as well), earning you 40 points as well as using both Rituals and Relics to your advantage. Whether it’s blowing you up in personnel battle, reporting underlings for free, earning points in the Hunt or blowing you up with his Hunting Vessel, he’s your man.

Jetram is ASP choice #2, the Telle of choices as it were. Security classification with Medical and Computer Skill as the additional skills of choice, he’s able to report for free if Karr is in play. He’s Telle and we all know how often he’s used.

Jorik is your second choice for QIR and if you need the Medical, he’s a good choice, an improved Entek. Exobiology, Biology and Treachery round off his Computer Skill x2 and he can report for free if Karr is in play. Again, another person that’s easy to Scission because of the download to hand function of QIR, his Medical status with useful skills to compliment the Hirogen, once they decide to go after some missions. In fact, he almost looks Vidiian in his skill selection.

Karon has but one lone reportee for free, but he downloads the big gun. He’s an Alpha who’s commanded a Hunting Vessel, with Anthropology x2 for those Aggressive Behaviors, Leadership, Treachery, Navigation and Exobiology to finish off the rest of the skills. He has a special download of the Hirogen Disruptor Rifle, to help hunt down your opponent. Not surprisingly, he has all the skills necessary for Hunt Alien since that was the episode that he was in. Definitely focused towards the more aggressive aspects of the Hirogen affiliation, he’s there to hunt you down.

Karr reports the most Hirogen for free (5) but has no means of reporting for free himself. He’s one of two who doesn’t command a Hunting Vessel, which is too bad as he’s the most skilled of all Hirogen. This Officer has Leadership in duplicate, Diplomacy, Honor, your only source of Law, Computer Skill, Anthropology and Astrophysics. He’s handy for solving missions with a wide collection of skills that go far to pass dilemmas as well. The mere fact that he can report the widest assortment of personnel for free and is your only Hirogen source of Law makes him quite handy all around.

Konuric is yet another of your ASP choices, this one giving you Officer, Engineer and Geology. This is one of two possible free reports from Netek, his main usefulness comes out of being an Officer to help initiate battle on turn 1. That’s pretty much his only real purpose unless you’re worried about Scows and don’t want to use DTRM via TMW for it. QIR one Engineer, ASP this guy to be the other one.

Netek is the last of the Alpha-Hirogen who is rather bland in comparison to all the others, sorta like Jabin for the Kazon: Sure, he has some useful skills and purposes but he’s not the person you think of when think about great personnel except for the fact that he’s the matching commander to the largest ship in the Hirogen arsenal: Venatic Hunter. He has Transporter Skill, Navigation, Geology, Stellar Cartography and Exobiology, giving him a collection of mission solving and dilemma resolving skills but again, he's still not a key personnel.

Ranjen is Idrin’s lone sidekick, the fourth ASP and the only one among them with Navigation x2, handy for things such as Navigational Hazards and Gravimetric Distortion. He’s also an almost instant cure for Astral Eddy, being an Engineer and Physics to boot. Seeing as he’s the least likely of Hirogen to report for free, he’d make the most logical of choices for your ASP. He’s also great in Warp Speed, getting past Gravimetric Distortion by himself and can assist with Replicator Accident, Radioactive Garbage Scow, Spatial Rift and The Cloud even.

Takirac is a Diphole, literally. He plays for free with Karr in play, his power shows up in Warp Speed more so because of being a Diphole but he has value with the Hirogen as being the only personnel outside of Karr that has Diplomacy. Other than that though, he’s not all that useful.

Turanj is the only Treachery x2 personnel for the Hirogen, has the lowest Integrity and the most controversial picture. That being said, his other skills of Leadership, Geology and Stellar Cartography makes him helpful in solving Corner Enemy Ship, providing two of the three skills but personally, I think he’s more useful as an expendable extra.

Vurond represents the last of the ASP’s and, IMO, the least useful. He’s Science with Astrophysics and Stellar Cartography. If you can already download Dr. Telak R’Mor, who provides all of that, plus an extra Astrophysics, Honor and Engineer, why not use him? The fact that he can report for free if Karon is in play isn’t all that inspiring.

I think the Hirogen can be the most flexible as to their purposes, whether it’s just to blow you out of the sky with their Hunters, capture and kill your enemies, or just solve missions. However, I can see them teaming up with either the Kazon or the Vidiians even. The Kazon could clean up the results of the Hirogen beaming over, earning points with their Boarding Parties as well as Relics, plus the Kazon are no slouches in the beatdown department. The Vidiians, on the other hand, make great companions to their Organ Thieving. Damage their ship, then beam a Vidiian with a Harvester to steal their Organs for 10 points, then kill someone for more points as Relics.

Statistics-wise, they’re rather average in their Integrity, in the top three of their Cunning and #1 in their Strength. Let’s put it this way: The Dominion are pretty close to them in every attribute, edged out of their Integrity and Strength and taking them in Cunning. In fact, the Dominion could make for a pretty nice team up: Dominion supplying the Invasive Transporters, the Hirogen earning the points for the Smackdown.

The Hirogen are quite viable in the current metagame, although I have a feeling that most people will use them in a more ship battle sense than a personnel battle sense.

Borg Probe is the enhanced Borg Sphere, in more ways than one. It still has the same bounty of 10 points, but has twice as much range, one less staffing drone requirement but it’s the other text that makes it much more likely to be seen: May report with crew to any DQ location (limit 3 cards aboard). Since the Borg don’t get to use the Array, they get their own kind of ship for the same purpose. There is one catch though: The Borg Queen has to be in play for the report with crew function. Another card that will increase the desirability of the Queens, although I’m not sure how popular it’ll be. It’s easy to blow up with Shields of 6, for one and second, it’s so easy for the Borg to get people out, why not use the large ships which give you a safer bet for living through battles.

Borg Queen’s Ship can be staffed by the Queen alone and allows your equipment and Borg personnel aboard with a Tractor Beam. It’s 20 points of bounty and has range of 9, Weapons of 14 and Shields of 14, which will more than likely require you to devote two ships to blow it up. The Queen can be downloaded by RRD to this ship but seeing that the Queen is a good probe for everything and the RRD is not a good probe for anything, you’re more than likely to have multiple Queen’s in your deck. However, having a unique ship to Scission is helpful and the fact that the Queen can use Make it So on this ship gives it more than typical benefits.

The Class-4 Tactical Cube is likely to be the preferred choice of downloaded Cubes to your Outpost because if you’re using a lot of Def personnel, this is the ship you want. You can report your equipment and personnel onboard, but once each turn, you can get a Def-icon personnel on board for free. Although it loses one Range, it increases the Weapons and Shields up by 4 as does the bounty on the ship to 50 points. The mere fact that you can report a drone for free and increased stats would make some to consider using it but it all really depends on your deck focus, metagame factors, etc. It’d just make sense to me to have a ship that reports some of my drones for free and increased weapons and strength at the cost of 5 more points if they do blow it up and one less range.

The USS Prometheus is the first dual-affiliation ship between the Romulans and the Federation. For the Romulans, you have a matching commander in Rekar which initially makes it more valuable to them at present. After all, in a battle having a ship of 10-14-14 + any enhancements from Rekar or worse, having him unstop the ship and attack you with the ship again, can be rather unhappy if you’re the victim. The problem is that you can’t get it easily except by Tenting, unlike the matching commander who can be snatched via Defend Homeworld.

The Hirogen Hunting Vessel has two staff icons (which means that Obelisk of Masaka will do nothing) and has a kind of built-in Attack Wing built into the Weapons. It’s the only ship that I can think of that has three matching commanders, which makes using Ready Room Door a definite plan. After all, Hirogen Hunt lets you download a Hirogen ship with each card draw if you want, making an Armada not all that hard to come up with.

The Ventari Hunter, however, won’t be as popular or as powerful of a card, not in the same vein as Kazon Warship or Vidiian Cruiser because 1) You can report to any of your Hirogen ships and 2) The Hunting Vessel is far more convenient. Sure, it has two more range, 2 more weapons and 3 more shields but Armada wise, Hunting Vessels are quicker to staff and have more matching commanders plus each ship ups the Weapons.

Kazon Fighter will be the Launch Portal choice of Kazon-only decks, although it can also report for free to your Kazon Raider if it has no ships aboard. It doesn’t have a Tractor Beam but it has a special download of Blue Alert, allowing your Kazon Fighters and Shuttles to land at an expenditure of Range. Karden is a matching commander but I think it’s the free report to Raiders that will give it more life. There’s quite a few matching commanders for the Raiders as it is and easer to staff than the Warship, plus the same effect of carrying ships. Try this for a combo: Kazon Warship holds a Kazon Raider which holds a Kazon Fighter. You’ve now made it across your DQ spaceline practically.

The IKC Voq’leng has a nice ability to special download Home Away From Home and the Cloaking Device will help keep it around longer because its stats of 6-5-6 makes it a target of even Vidiian Scout Vessels. It’s just asking to be taken down by the Kazon to be commandeered and not all that good.

The Liberty requires a Maquis-icon personnel for staffing, making it a valid target for Crew Reassignment, letting you report other Maquis personnel if you so desire (Michael Eddington, Riker Wil, Ro Laren, whatever suits your fancy). It’s an AQ-originated ship, which makes it able to report any NA from the AQ into the DQ with Home Away From Home. That not withstanding, the ship stats of 8-6-6 can be increased with B’Elanna and if you use this ship, I’d recommend it because you’re going to need the range increase to escape from the Kazon/Vidiians/Hirogen. I think it’s more for the theme and the chance to report a good many people to the DQ from the AQ.

The Think Tank’s Ship has one of their members as a staffing requirement, with Kurros as the matching commander. It has all the goodies of ships: Cloaking Device, Holodeck and Tractor Beam. It has Range of 9, Weapons of 6 and huge Shields of 18 which is a good thing, since as you can’t guarantee either a RRD or Tent, you might not be able to staff it on turn one. However, having it cloaked will help matters, I’m sure. It’s also a perfect ship for the Kazon to commandeer from you.

USS Dauntless can be fully staffed by its matching commander (Arturis), has a holodeck and a special download of Quantum Slipstream Drive which makes it a far more interesting ship. It has a better average range of 10, which gives it escaping power although the Drive will give it even more escaping power, avoiding whole quadrants. Weapons of 7 and Shields of 8 aren’t all that impressive per se but it can be grabbed rather easily, thanks to Artuis’ special download of Construct Starship.

If you’ve made it through all of this meandering and pointless babble, I’m impressed. I know I didn’t cover every possible purpose of these cards, in fact I’m sure I’ve missed entirely quite a few things that were rather obvious to you. These were just my impressions of reading the spoiler list. But if there’s anything I’ve blatantly missed, by all means let me know by e-mailing me at this address: theninjascot@yahoo.com Right now, it’s 6 am and I’ve been writing for the past two nights so I’ll finish now.

PS: I am still working on my travel log, but if I can meander and babble about all the new cards of The Borg for 27 single-spaced pagers, imagine how long two weeks in my life which I took notes for would be.

Michael van Breemen

theninjascot@yahoo.com