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Rules of Acquisition - What the Borg Acquire
by Christopher Heard The lack of Borg-affiliation cards in the Rules of Acquisition expansion has generated some negative comments, even to the point of some players complaining that Decipher has intentionally neglected the Borg in recent expansions. It’s true enough that the big stars in Rules of Acquisition are the Ferengi, and that the Borg get no new personnel, ships, or [BO] objectives in the set. Nevertheless, the Borg do benefit in several ways from the new set. Missions The first thing that many Borg players will notice about the new set is the presence of a new dual-icon mission, Runabout Search. Many Borg decks exploit the two-objective potential of Tarchannen Study and Deliver Supplies; now a third [S][P] mission can reside on the spaceline, ready for gateway establishment and assimilation. Since many players prepare their dilemma combos in three sets - two including [S] dilemmas, two including [P] dilemmas, and two exclusively [S/P] dilemmas - including three [S][P] missions on the spaceline can potentially disrupt your opponent's well-planned combos, or result in a virtually dilemma-free scouting attempt for one of the objectives. Note, however, that the requirements for Runabout Search are in fact rather simple (an increasing number of decks will stock Transporter Skill now, in anticipation of Orion Syndicate Bomb), so assimilate the planet promptly to avoid mission stealing. (Note that the Rules of Acquisition spoiler list initially released by Decipher contained an error in the text for Runabout Search, listing it as a 30-point mission rather than a 40-point mission.) Two other Rules of Acquisition missions should attract Borg attention. Deliver Message is set on Ferenginar, the Ferengi homeworld, giving the Borg another target for Assimilate Homeworld - made perhaps more attractive by the relatively large number of highly skilled Ferengi, and high proportion of Ferengi males to females. Long-time Borg players have surely already calculated that Quark's eight [Skill] icons make him worth 40 points as an assimilated counterpart. But Quark's attractiveness should not overshadow the even more attractive prospect: Brunt. Brunt has six [Skill] icons, making him a 30-point counterpart, as valuable as Jean-Luc Picard (Premiere). The probability of Brunt showing up in non-Ferengi decks, however, is far greater than that of Jean-Luc showing up in non-Federation decks, thanks to Writ of Accountability. Imagine snagging Brunt from your Romulan or Cardassian opponent's Husnock Outpost, Neutral Outpost, or Ferengi Trading Post and assimilating Ferenginar for 70 points! Borg players who favor Gamma Quadrant decks should also appreciate a new, relatively difficult Gamma Quadrant planet mission, Tulaberry Wine Negotiations. Dilemmas The area where the Borg really win big in Rules of Acquisition is dilemmas. Center of Attention, Dangerous Liaisons, and Scientific Method participate in the recent trend toward requiring higher multiples of common skills, while Ferengi Bug, In the Pale Moonlight, Chula: The Door, and Orion Syndicate Bomb have unusual or uncommon requirements. For all those inferior species who rely on individual contributions, these can be tough. With an Interlink Drone in the hive, though, most Borg crews can easily muster 4 SECURITY, 2 SCIENCE + 2 SECURITY, and MEDICAL + 3 SCIENCE. Chula: The Crossroads will almost always stop one of your Borg instead of two, but be careful to have "backups" of important personnel in your crew, since your opponent gets to choose who gets "stopped." (On a planet mission, your lone scout will be stopped, which is usually to be expected anyway.) Strange Bedfellows is, of course, irrelevant. Passing Chula: The Door on the numbers isn’t going to be easy without a counterpart or the Queen, but with two drones who can download doorway cards, it shouldn’t be a problem. Just be sure to pack a Transport Drone or two, so that you don’t get your Cube damaged by an Orion Syndicate Bomb. Incidents Most of the events, incidents, and interrupts that appear in Rules of Acquisition are naturally Ferengi-related. But a couple of the incidents bolster Borg strategies. The first function of Bodyguards is irrelevant to the Borg (who do not have bodyguards or leaders), but the second is quite useful: include a [Def] drone in your crew or Away Team and you can use a copy of Bodyguards to pre-arrange the order in which your personnel will fight. It’s Only a Game puts the kibosh on most affiliations’ mass-reporting strategies, but since Borg decks don’t often rely on Red Alert and Borg report with crew actions are exempted from the card’s effects, this incident is strongly pro-Borg. Quark’s Isolinear Rods meshes well with any deck, Borg or not, in which your opponent might try to skirt planet or space missions, or overuse bonus points (the ability to download Intermix Ratio perhaps being the most important, since the Borg cannot successfully use Writ of Accountability). Of course, Reactor Overload works as well for the Borg as for anyone else, as long as you don’t carelessly place it on your own ship or facility without a [Com] drone in the hive.
Christopher "Unimatrix Zero One" Heard
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Admittedly, none of this compares with the allure of an oblong Borg probe ship, or the Unicomplex (a Borg HQ!), One, a black-bordered, regular rare Seven of Nine, an omega particle objective, or any of the vast potential for drones and other interesting Borg-related materials that are available in the Voyager series. Nevertheless, the canny Borg player will find ways to use Rules of Acquisition to his or her advantage while waiting for the groundswell of material that the Voyager set will eventually offer.