This month, The Ninja Scot and Dr. Telek R'Mor have decided to do a one-page review of every card in Holodeck Adventures.  That's right, all 131 cards!  Better set aside lots of reading time for this…  (DTRM is doing evens and TNS is doing odds)  The opinions, of course, are those of the authors :-)

13) Holodeck Door - (Doorway) – Seeds (during facility phase) or plays on your ship or outpost, or on any headquarters.  Adds Holodeck, and your compatible (HOLO) cards may report aboard.  OR Plays once each turn to download a Holoprogram or any (HOLO) or (BAR) card; place doorway out-of-play.  OR Plays at any time to prevent the deactivation of any one (HOLO) personnel; discard doorway.

        The first function will see the most use for a large majority of the game, giving facilities the ability to have a Holodeck and to report holograms not as deactivated personnel but as activated personnel, plus it gives a place to seed several of the
Holoprograms.  Another nice feature is that gives holograms of different quadrants a place to report, so you too can have the Doctor on the USS Enterprise, once you’ve reported both of them to their respective locations.  If you seed it on a ship, you can report Holograms directly to the ship, regardless whether or not it had a Holodeck to begin with.  The notion of a mobile outpost is becoming more and more likely as
more means to report to ships become more apparent.

        The second function is certainly helpful in its own right, especially in conjunction with a seeded Holodeck Door.  Granted, you have to place it out of play once you use the second function, but it’s still nice all the same.  Want any Holographic or Barash card in your crew without using a card play?  Holodeck Door.  The flexibility behind that is quite apparent, just by looking at the personnel available.  The Doctor, Dr. Noah, Moriarty, Emergency Command Hologram, Falcon, Chaotia, Crell Moset, etc, they’re just some of the options that are available at an interrupt pace and what’s more, you don’t have to play
them during your card phase.  Can’t seem to draw that one skill you’re looking for in your draw deck and you have it on one of your Holograms or Barash icon personnel?  Download them on your turn whenever you want.  Have a Delta Quadrant hologram in your hand and Delta Quadrant Spatial Scission in play?  Play your Holodeck door to download another copy and Scission away.

        The last function is much more specialized but can be helpful I suppose.  If you really need someone to live, you can use it to keep him or her alive, regardless of whose turn it is.  For example, you’re an evil person and are convinced to use Smoke Bombs on your opponent with Anastasia.  So you deactivate her in personnel battle; as a valid response to the deactivation of a hologram, I play my Holodeck Door and poof, she’s back to cause even more havoc.  Overall, however, you’ll be using the card  for the first two functions more likely than not.

Combo – Holodeck Door on ship + Holodeck Door + Vic Fontaine – Use the Door to download Vic, then let Vic download whomever you want after that on every stopping dilemma.

Combo – Holodeck Door on a Cardassian Facility + Holodeck Door + Crell Moset + Assign Support Personnel + Dominion War Efforts – Download Crell to your Facility or Ship, then use Assign Support Personal to give Crell some personnel fodder to draw with.
 

14) '45 Dom Perignon

    Holodeck Adventures isn't without its humor. The first drink or food card in the game is represented as a piece of equipment, both as an offensive weapon and as a speed up card to make some little-used ships a bit more useful.

    '45 Dom Perignon's inherit restriction is that it's holographic; you are required to use a ship or facility with a holodeck on it for it to be truly useful. While this isn't a horrendous disadvantage for it (especially with Holodeck Adventures), to use it as a speed card, you are required to most likely use a seed slot on a Holodeck Door to get the most use out of it (especially considering that the one affiliation with a built in Holodeck -- the Hirogen -- have no unique ships of their own). Of course, one can also use a Holosuite if using the Bajorans, Cardassians, or Ferengi. Some of the best affiliations for using '45 Dom Perignon's downloading function are the Dominion, where you can seed it at your Primary Supply Depot with a Holodeck Door, making your Spacedoor download of a Jem'Hadar Warship become the larger Weyoun's Warship (an even more powerful ship now that it's matching commander's Vorta status is more useful) and Cardassians, who can use Docking Ports (or spacedoor) to download a Galor and wait until they draw one of their many matching commanders to download the appropriate ship.

    '45 Dom Perignon's battling function seems to fit best with its primary user: Secret Agent Julian Bashir. Unless running the Dominion (who have easy downloads of most equipment in the game) or using Mila or Bareil's download on it, Secret Agent Julian Bashir is the best way to get it out. Easily downloaded by Holoprogram: Noah's Mountain Retreat, he'll not only
give you access to a nice download for whatever affiliation that uses him (beside those Delta Quadrant bound), but will also supply a handy tool in battle. If you are planning to use Secret Agent Julian Bashir's download of the '45 Dom Perignon offensively in battle (or more likely defensively), wait until the battle starts to use his special download so it can not be
Disruptor Overloaded. As for its effectiveness, the Vidiian have long enjoyed the ability to cause The Pendari Champion or a Hirogen with their Disruptor Rifles to sit out of battle. It can swing the course of any battle by taking out a heavy hitter and is also useful in the long run, by keeping your weaker personnel alive.

    In conclusion, a cool little card with a few hidden uses here and there. Without Secret Agent Julian Bashir's download of it, it'd be close to useless, but he breathes life into the card, allowing it to be used as a speed-up for an armada deck or as a defense card in battle. Not too shabby.

Combo(s):
Holoprogram: Noah's Mountain Retreat (on opponent's ship) + Secret Agent Julian Bashir + Duchamps + Dr. Noah + '45 Dom Perignon = Give your opponent a little surprise. Now, you will have to watch out for Reactor Overload (unless they are also using holograms), but if you can get out the Holoprogram and use Holodeck Door and Scission to drop the three personnel above, you'll be able to stun four personnel and capture one before the battle even begins.
 

15) Ablative Armor – (Equipment, AU Icon) – While aboard your ship or facility, opponent’s ATTACK total must be more than double that ship or facility’s DEFENSE total to score a hit, and more than triple to score a direct.

        When this card came out, I did my happy dance.  I still had memories from GenCon before where the only decks that beat mine during Day 2 were battle decks (with one exception but that was my own fault, not my deck’s.)  It’s pretty dang difficult to hide from opponents when your missions have Female Love Interest/Radioactive Garbage Scows at them.  So naturally, something that can help keep my ship afloat
is certainly helpful.

        One of the nice things about this card is the fact that it counts your bonuses from the Battle Bridge side deck; especially well on the defensive end.  Take something dinky like the Yridian Shuttle.  Combine the Armor with Evasive Maneuvers and now you need 19 ATTACK (3 + 6 from the bonus x2 = 18) to damage it and that’s just the Yridian Shuttle.  How’s that for a scary concept to consider?  Then try it with the Delta Flyer + Captain Log and Tom Paris on board.  That’s 33 of ATTACK just to damage it.  But, it’s best for a facility where it starts out.  Even the dinky Neutral OP would take the same amount of damage as a non-enhanced Borg OP.

        The other nice thing about it is that it’s immune to things like Target Shields  because it doesn’t enhance the shields; it enhances the DEFENSE total, which makes all the difference.  There’s nothing more annoying than having things like Nutational Shields, Metaphasic Shields and a Captain Log and have it all taken by one stupid tactic.  I mean, you try to protect yourselves from being blown up but if your opponent can just take that away with one attack that doesn’t even have to even be effective to work, where’s the justice in that?

        But obviously it can’t be a perfect card, no matter how much one could plead.  It’s AU for one and while it is an equipment and therefore can be reported with a Temporal Micro-Wormhole as can it report with any AU reporting mechanism such as an STP or even part of a Caretaker Drop, those same mechanisms can be blocked off.  Another problem is that, with the exception of Mila, Bariel and Latinum-exchanging, there’s no way to download it.  I’m hoping that Admiral Janeway (whenever she decides to make her appearance) will special download it or make it more readily accessible since I don’t want to use a card play to report it.  That’s why non-battle deck areas won’t probably use it, because they don’t have a reason to fear battle.  It’ll be a card that, unless they’re concerned about battle, it won’t make many decks because people trim away such contingencies in return for a more focused deck.  Add to the fact that not everyone will even use the means to report them on turn 1 and you have a powerful, yet probably under-used card that requires a Battle Bridge for extra protection.

// Editor's note: just to clarify, the equipment works without a battle bridge, but the
// defense boost from your tactics sure helps ;-)

Combos – Quark’s Isolinear Rods + Bariel + Temporal Micro-Wormhole – First turn Armor for any ship you need.

Combos – Ablative Armor + Cargo-Running strategy – They can’t outrun everything ;-)
 

16) SATAN'S ROBOT!

Halt intruders! You are not allowed to access this point from here! Only those who have qualified by reading previous chapters are allowed to proceed from here. WARNING ! WARNING! DANGER! DANGER! This review contains contents that endanger the world. Intruders, stop! The power of this robot is beyond you! DANGER! DANGER!
    As a holographic equipment program, I am limited to only invasions that occur defensively but I will do well against intruders who dare enter my Area of Pain and Suffering. My STRENGTH of 8 will cause the majority of mere mortals to crumble before
my STRENGTH, however it is more likely that the dastardly STRENGTH of the Hirogen, Kazon, and Klingon villains will suppress me. I work best against my own kind: holograms. Their STRENGTH rarely surpassed my cybernetic enhancements and they will in turn become captors for my master, Chaotica. Females are another issue. While some, such as Ms. Danara Pel of the Vidiian Sodality are weaker in their physical strength, I have had one too many bad run-ins with the likes of Ms. Seven of Nine or her Klingon companion, the malevolent B'Elanna Torres.

    My greatest weakness lies in my STRENGTH (And you thought us robots had no emotion. Ha. Ha. Ha.). Most affiliations have the ability to easily download my primary bane: hand weapons. I have no way to increase my STRENGTH (I. Will. Never. Be. Real. *sob*). Most opponents of my most Evil One, Chaotica, will readily arm themselves with side arms that my cursed hands can not grasp. I will never feel the true power of being able to crush an enemy with a large Breenzooka or the Death Ray. Instead, my pitiful STRENGTH pales in comparison to the Harvester totting Vidiians (I HAVE NO ORGANS, FOOLS!) or the hunting Hirogen (Prey. Is. For. The. Weak.).

    In the end, I stand here in shambles, my schemes failed and I am no more than a servant for The Evil One. My only last savior is that our home and Place Of Evil Things, the Holoprogram which they called The Fortress of Doom, provides a download of me that takes up nothing more than a once each turn action. This will guarantee me a spot in some of the more reclusive decks that exists with thou in this unholy hell that is my life. Why. Must. I. Live. This. Way.

Combo(s):
SATAN'S ROBOT! + Disruptor Overload = No, not on me you petty mortal fools! No, this works against those who dare oppress me using their "technology".

SATAN'S ROBOT! + Prepare The Prisoner = NOOOO! Please don't cycle me under this devilry inferno that you call a draw deck.

SATAN'S ROBOT! + Fek'lhr = No explanation needed, you foolish mortal
 

17) Bynars Data Transfer – Event – Plays on table.  Glance at the top five cards of your draw deck.  Place them in any order on top of and/or beneath your draw deck, then place event beneath draw deck.

        Well, now you get a new option for 10 and 01’s download and it’s following the theme of draw deck management.  In fact, it’s a lot like Handshake’s second use, you’re going to look through your top five cards and arrange them, the only difference is that you can put them beneath your draw deck as well.  But will your deck really need this?

        Some decks need to go through their deck, being quite picky about who or what they play each turn for their personal benefit, they manage everything down to as fine tuned as possible.  Decks that cycle through a great deal of cards each turn and reports the right personnel at the right time, that’s where cards like this come in handy.  You decide each turn what you need this turn; you know your deck well enough the odds of you getting that card, etc.  That’s where this card comes in handy, it’s just one of the number of different deck management cards that you have available.

        But it requires a card play.  Besides 10 and 01 downloading the card for free, each time you wish to use it, it’ll take a card play to do it and that’s a problem.  Card plays are more for things like Caretaker’s Drops, War Councils and Kivas Fajos, Ops downloads, etc.  They’re not something that one should squander easily and that’s where this card has
problems.  When it stacks up against things like The Power, Mutation, Data, Keep Dealing and All Threes, it’s just not as easy of a sell as its power can be.

    That’s not to say that the card is useless; there are so many free reports nowadays that, if you have both nothing to play and a reliable card drawing mechanism that doesn’t require card plays (Ancestral Vision, 35th Rule of Acquisition, Traveler, Crell Moset, etc.), why not use it to adjust your next bunch of card draws to get the cards that you want and need?  One of the advantages of this over Handshake is that you don’t discard it so it’s possible for you to use it over and over again for your advantage, assuming that you can get the card from the bottom of your draw deck, thereby saving you additional cards and keeping your draw deck small yet again.

    Frankly though, I won’t use it.  I’m not the kind of player that uses this kind of deck management, nor are many that I know of that go into that kind of deck management where they go through all these numerous cards without drawing them.  I’d rather draw the cards and make due with them, I find that often I don’t really know what I need until it happens.  I can see the need if you have few Tents so you go through your draw deck to get the cards you need, but I find that its not something I need often.  Not a great endorsement of a card, I know, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Combo – Bynar’s Data Transfer + Remodulation – Look through your draw deck each turn as much as you want.

Combo – Minuet + Bynar’s Data Transfer – Time to look every turn, for free no less.
 

18) Dominion War Effort

    One of the most powerful cards to come out in recent times, this card is able to single-handedly support the Cardassian and Dominion more so than almost any personnel (Deyos and Crell Moset exceptions) could possibly have. However, how does it truly work in a deck?

    The key to Dominion War Effort (DWE) is recognizing that its power is versatility. It is not a card to be used excessively early on, simply because it supplies you with personnel in your deck whose main purpose it to solve mission or pass dilemmas. If you download them all out on turn five, you'll be a tight jam when they all die by turn seven and you can't pass a Hanonian Land Eel or what not that faces you down at a key mission. It is still important to get out a few personnel early on (such as
Jemmies for Deyos), but, to use Dominion War Effort to it's fullest advantage, it is important to stock a variety of Support Personnel and also use it more in the mid or late game than early on.

    It is not particularly necessary to indulge in an exercise of discussing what skills Support Personnel can provide. For the Jem'Hadar, it's almost anything that's not SCIENCE, MEDICAL, Greed, Law, or Diplomacy. The Cardassians have nearly every skill on a Support Personnel. No, the problem is not having enough personnel in a deck to use DWE to its maximum
advantage, the main issue is having too many. The majority of Support Personnel are just that: Support Personnel. Without their two skills, they'd be utter crap: not good enough to waste a card play on and very few places worth free reporting them to. This leads to an important deck building decision when using DWE: you want to use enough personnel where you're not wasting a seed slot on it, but if you use too many Support Personnel you'll end up drawing them when you could be drawing much better personnel or even resources (ships, card drawing mechanics, the works).

    Here lies the built-in problem with DWE: it's slow. It still doesn't match the Cardassians or Dominion with the speed of their Delta Quadrant counterparts. It is a slow card that relies you to methodically attempt missions to get the best use of it. Don't get me wrong, it still fits nicely in several deck archetypes, especially a Dominion deck using Deyos. With a plethora of Young Jem'Hadar, the Support Personnel you draw can now be dropped for free and card draws. However, this sort of deck is still slow in its working, especially because it relies on MEDICAL and SCIENCE from non-Jem'Hadar Support Personnel. While you'll draw plenty of cards, if you simply recycle your card draws with more Jem'Hadar, you won't be able to get out the personnel who have your other skills. This is why the Delta Quadrant still holds a powerful advantage: almost all of their personnel an report for free and the power of Scission isn't matched by any other card today.

    However, this isn't a review of the Delta Quadrant, it's a review of Dominion War Effort. The final verdict? It's a powerful card, no doubt at all, though it's important to recognize its downfalls and weaknesses (mainly because its power is evident to almost any player).

Combo(s):
Dominion War Effort + Deyos = A perfect match. Throw in a Clone Machine and some Vorta and you even have a decent Dominion deck.
 

19) Ferengi Financial Data Net – Event – Plays to discard your hand.  Draw a card for each unique (FERENGI-affiliation) Greed personnel you have in play.  Discard event.

        Personally, I think this card is pretty sweet.  It’s like a combination of Watson and Holmes all in one for the Ferengi, all you need to do is get lots of unique Ferengi Greed personnel in play.  But is it worth the acquiring of all those rare events?

        Depends on what you really want to do with the card and how many cards you can draw each turn.  Of course, it helps to know just how many cards you can draw each
turn.  Without even using a card play, you can get a minimum of 4 card draws on turn 1 (First Rule, Writ for Brunt, Defend Homeworld and Quark’s Isolinear Rods to Quark’s Bar) but the potential can be as many as the following personnel:

        Brunt, Gaila, Gegis, Goss, Gral, Grand Nagus Gint, Grand Nagus Zek, Kol, Krax, Lurin, Mr. Nog, Nunk, Omag, Par Lenor, Quark, Quark Son of Keldar, Sovak,
Tog, Yeggie

        That’s 19 separate personnel to choose from, 18 of which can be in play at once without any special cards, 18 possible cards that you could draw with each play of the card.  We have great personnel to choose from, from Gint’s Rule download to Brunt to Gaila and so on, so it’s not as though they’re all bad personnel to choose from.

        The card is much like Handshake’s last function, but it doesn’t matter how many cards in your hand and it can grow to be as many cards as you have Ferengi Greed personnel so it has the potential to be a supped-up Handshake but the best way to take advantage of this is to get your hand size down to as few cards as possible before you use it, to minimize the loss.  The only problem is that, unlike Handshake, the card
can be countered by Quinn and Kevin Uxbridge.

        But how can one best take advantage of this?  After all, the Ferengi don’t especially have the best access to DQSS, so they can’t simply use it for one of their card plays and even the Ferengi can be limited in the number of personnel that they can report for free but there are other things that one can do with this to help draw the cards you want.  Need cards such as Rogue Borg, Transporter Phobias and other nasties in multiples?  This can potentially be the card for you.

Combos – Vic Fontaine + Stopping dilemma – Download new hand upon stopping

Combos – Ferengi Financial Data Net + Parallax Arguers = 5 points or new hand

Combos – Ferengi Financial Data Net + Barzan Wormhole + Palor Toff or Nanoprobe Resuscitation – Draw the cards, play the cards you’ve just drawn, get back whichever one you don’t have at the time and repeat on the next turn.

Combos – Orb of Wisdom + Grand Nagus Gint + Ferengi Conference + Ferengi Financial Data Net – Play the Conference for more Greedy Ferengi for the Data Net.
 

20) Holo-projectors

    Off the top of my head, no other card has been errated to a totally different function, only to be re-printed with a different function, all within about a six month period. The real question is, though, how bad has this card been hurt and/or improved by it's constant change?

    The first function, Holos can exist on planets, would have been too good in today's environment. Toning it down a bit, for the last six months they were ship bound. (Too weak.) Now we have the present function: they can exist on whatever planet the Holo-projectors are played on. This at first seems fairly useful; however, there's a major catch to it: the Projectors aren't
immune to nullification and if they are nullified with your Holograms on it, then they're all erased into the oblivion that is the discard pile.

    That right there puts major constraints on any deck that is hoping to rely on planets. No matter how many counter cards you run to protect your Projectors, the likelihood of it being nullified is always going to be too detrimental of a risk for it to be useful. To protect it to the highest extent will mean relying on several counter cards to prevent the key card in your deck from being the death tone to it.

    This isn't to say that the gamble to use the Projectors isn't some times one worth trying. Establish Home Planet is a tempting fifty-five points bounty for the Holograms: easy to complete and only requires personnel that your deck should already be built on. To add in to its usefulness, Kejal can download the Projectors and she herself is only a Holodeck Door's download
away.

    However, neither of the above facts truly compensate for the fact that the Projectors are still an easy target for nullification. It's hard to slice or dice it any other way: if you rely on the Projectors for a mission like Establish Home Planet, a simple combo such as a mass wall (Founder's Secret) with Mission Debriefing will cause you to lose the bulk of your people,  which your deck relied on to not die. If your deck isn't heavy on Holograms and just uses a few to supplement with missions, why bother using the Projectors anyway? It's a waste of a card play to get out a card (either on the Projectors or the sub-par Kejal) which merely lets a few of your support personnel assist in the attempt. Why not just leave them in space where a lot of the Holograms are meant to be?

    The Holo-projector's, in conclusion, really seem to be a gambler's card: are you willing to risk your personnel for a large bounty with the possibility of it being nullified? I'll grant that if you can draw a few and place them all on one mission (making it much harder for them to erase your away since they'll have to nullify all of your copies that are out) that it can be more
useful, but it still seems like a waste of time and speed to set up a mission attempt. In the turns it takes you simply to get going, you could have simply done some space missions. What can you say about a card that went from useful, to trash, to binder fodder?

Combo(s):
Holo-projectors x2-3 + Dr. Leah Brahms + Establish Home Planet = Give it a try, if you have the time and space.
 

21) Oo-Mox – Event – (Countdown 3) Plays on table, “stopping” all male Ferengi in play.  Until countdown expires, doubles regular skills of all male Ferengi in play, and they are attributes all +2.

        Now you don’t have to be with Ishka and be called Grand Nagus Zek to get your skills doubled, you just need to be stopped with a countdown enforced and plenty of women (in the rhetorical sense, this isn’t an excuse to be around women but if you need an excuse, I worry about you ;-)

        But is it worth the trouble?  After all, we’ve had the ability of all universal male Ferengi’s first skills to be doubled, thanks to Lumba.  It rather depends on the circumstances really.  Take, for example, your opening hand.  You’ve used up all your
report for free cards (1st Rule to the Tower, AMS, ASP, DH, QIR for Quark) and you haven’t used your card play.  This is where Oo-Mox has the best power because you weren’t going to move people around this turn anyway, were you?  Next turn, when you can report people via Ferengi Conference and/or Brunt’s Shuttle, people for free to Quark’s Bar and the Tower and, of course, the Barzan drop of people as well, all of these Ferengi males have double skills.

    Where does this come in handy the most?  Dilemmas.  Need 3 Honor for those Ankari Spirits?  Just two Honor personnel will do.  Lacking the Law for Implication?  Not a problem, just use two Diplomacy personnel.  Need 2 Astrophysics?  Just one Ferengi can have it for you in an instant.  Because you need fewer personnel to risk on dilemmas, more separate Away Teams and crews can be formed, minimizing the risks involved when it comes to attempting missions.

        Unfortunately, the Ferengi are the least likely of any affiliation (IMO) to be able to Scission, so this will take up your card play, although your opponent might be in the charitable mood if you use Parallax Arguers.  Since In the Zone counters End  Transmission, this card will countdown.  Problem with this is that you will have less chance to report and/or draw cards each turn, thereby making the card less and less powerful.  Unlike the drone for the Borg, Oo-Mox can’t be downloaded yet.  However, with the right deck, one with lots of free reports, it could work out relatively well,.  It’s best as a Tent card rather than something to focus a deck around.

Combos – Lumba + Oo-Mox – While not a combination of circumstances most people would want to picture, they might overcome that when all their universal Ferengi males have quadruple first skills.

Combos – Oo-Mox + Rascals + Ooby Dooby – Since they only count how much Youth you have, not how many people have it; you could rack up the card draws.

Combos – 62nd Rule of Acquisition + Oo-Mox – Less need for multiple personnel

Combos – Ishka + Grand Nagus Zek + Oo-Mox – Besides the obvious bad image involved, Zek has quadruple skills.