As you may have heard, 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 :-)

In the same way that the Ferengi have Establish Trade Route and the Dominion have Subjugate Planet, the Hirogen now have Hunting Group. However, how powerful is the ability to attempt any space mission with modified requirements? The short answer is, considering the fact that almost every single Delta Quadrant mission is already attemptable by the Hirogen or Non-Aligned, is not very powerful at all.

No, the real power in Hunting Group is the ability to commandeer an opponent’s ship present and capture all of its personnel. This is an even more powerful ability; however, the main weakness is getting the ship to you. With Outgunned, any mission they are sitting out is game, however, with Hunting Group, they must be at your mission and it must be on your turn. How often does this happen? Well, unless you set it up for it to happen, not very often at all.

Of course, setting it up to happen isn’t that hard to do. High range missions will keep them close to you and Wormholes can be annoying. Granted, Operate Wormhole Relays is one of the most used Referee cards, however, it takes them three RANGE to
return home; enough of them will slowly wear down a ship and keep them where you want them. The other real question is what to do when your opponent isn’t playing in the Delta Quadrant? The Hirogen are one of the worst affiliations to leave their home quadrant: they can’t work with others and Barzan Wormhole is too slow to be effective. In addition, since you’ll most likely need at least two ships to capture and commandeer them, relying on Wormholes does not work since you’ll need a minimum of four just to set it up.

What about the requirements? This seems to be the one relief for the Hirogen have with this mission. Getting a ship out is basic and an Alpha-Hirogen is needed in any Hirogen deck arch type. However, the attributes requirement is a double sided sword. On one hand, the Hirogen do not lack attributes in any form. Most have eight to nine STRENGTH and six to eight CUNNING. Adding in the Hirogen Disruptor Rifle (which adds a six to each Hirogen’s total CUNNING/STRENGTH) and it’s fairly obvious that almost any group of seven to nine personnel will have the needed attributes. On the other hand, while it may be easy to get them out, if you truly want to reap the benefits of Hunting Group, you need to solve it the turn you attempt it to avoid their ship getting away from you. A mere Dead End will shoot you in the foot before or a Lack of Preparation, which forces you to bring in the needed personnel and make them open to dilemmas. In the end, the simplicity of the mission’s requirements seems to hamper it in being effective the way the card was intended. Also, the idea of Patrol Neutral Zone or similarly high point missions is tempting, however, the effect of In The Zone is too great for it to be worth the risk.

In conclusion, Hunting Group is a card that may work once in a blue moon. It may find some use in a Hirogen player’s Tent to either try to solve Return Life-Form after your Exobiology has been killed or maybe to take an unsuspecting opponent by surprise.  However, don’t expect it to make it a large impact for an already powerful affiliation.

Combo(s):

Hunting Group + Cytherians = If they’re in the Delta Quadrant and you get your missions on the end, this could be your chance…