(#25, R)

HQ: Orbital Weapons Platform (#25, R)
Incident
Icons: Referee, Trouble with Tribbles
Plays on any homeworld.  Each time opponent initiates
battle here against your ship or facility matching this
homeworld's affiliation, just after it is targeted each of
your Orbital Weapons Platforms here may "fire upon"
an opposing ship present.  Each ship fired upon is
damaged = [flip] [flip] for each Platform that targets it,
and you may exclude that ship from the battle.

The first anti-armada bullet to be revealed, this one is arguably the weakest of the ones shown so far.  Why?  I'll go through this thing sentence by sentence to see if this is a justifiable statement.

"Plays on any homeworld."  The first sentence alone makes it less powerful than, say, the Obelisk of Masaka or Defend Homeworld.  It cannot seed on table, but rather it must be played.  Of course, this is mitigated somewhat by some factors, such as being able to download it (or cycle it if the opponent isn't playing armada) with Q the Referee, and being able to play it for free at your homeworld because 99% of the time you're playing an affiliation and its homeworld, you've got the Headquarters as well (however, the Continuing Committee does not allow free HQ:whatever card plays, so unless you're also using Office of the Proconsul, beware).  However, except for the playing for free (which QtR allows anyway), both OoM and DH can also be cycled/downloaded with Q the Referee, and have the additional flexibility of being seedable.  Also, the other cards are hidden agendas, so your opponent won't know what's coming until it's too late.  With this card, though, your opponent will know you have it, and can try to compensate by bringing in more ships before attacking.  So, there's one fairly large strike against this card, but hopefully the rest of the card will make up for this.

"Each time opponent initiates battle here against your ship or facility matching this homeworld's affiliation..."  Here's another drawback, although it's only slight.  Your opponent has to be attacking a ship or facility *at the homeworld.*  Unfortunately, Headquarters were the facility that needed an anti-armada card the least, because they could simply be Palor-ed and re-played, without the hassle of needing an ENGINEER (for outposts) or re-playing sites (for Nors) in addition to the Palor; plus, they also had higher SHIELDS and allowed free card plays with which to better outspeed the attack deck, so HQs already were the facilities of choice for armada defense (without losing a mission with Nebula, or messing around with an android for Paxan "Wormhole")  Of course, any armada deck is going to go for the HQ at some point or another, so something is better than nothing.  Defend Homeworld also has this drawback, but Obelisk of Masaka affects armadas right from the start regardless of where battle is initiated (but it does nothing to deplete their forces afterwards, as this card does, or give you cards to compensate for lost ones, as Defend Homeworld does)  So, the card breaks even on this one, as the other [Ref] anti-armada bullets from this expansion each have their benefits and drawbacks in this area.

"...just after it is targeted each of your Orbital Weapons Platforms here may 'fire upon' an opposing ship present.  Each ship fired upon is damaged = [Flip] [Flip] for each Platform that targets it, and you may exclude that ship from that battle."  I've got a question about the timing of this effect.  Does the damage from the flips occur before the rest of the battle?  This is significant when cards like Martok are involved.  Even though his ship may be removed from the battle, if the damage is not resolved until after the main battle is completed, he will still be able to enhance the WEAPONS of the other ships.  If, on the other hand, this damage is resolved before ATTACK and DEFENSE totals are computed, taking out a ship with Martok (or Cretak, or Dolak... hey, I just noticed how similar their names are... coincidence?) could be extremely beneficial, decreasing the ATTACK total potentially by eighteen or more (in a Klingon armada, excluding a Captain's Log-ged Rotarran removes 10 WEAPONS; four ships are generally needed to damage a HQ, so removing Martok's bonus from four ships removes an additional 8), hopefully throwing them down below the DEFENSE total of the HQ.

// Editor's Note - yup, it should take the damage before the main battle…bye bye Martok! ;-) //

  The next question is "which Tactics should I include in my BBSD?" (which is required to damage the ships, just like with Breen CRM114; and without this damaging effect there is only a one- or two-turn delay for the armada player)  There are two basic choices I see.  First is to stock just the basic affiliated Tactics to random-kill people from your opponent's ships; the other is to go high on Strafing Runs to take out OFFICERs and Leadership.  If your opponent is playing a small-ship armada (i.e., two staffing or less, such as K'Vort, Interceptor, or Science Vessel), it makes little difference, but in a big-ship armada (i.e., more than two staffing, such as D'deridex Advanced) it could potentially make a difference.  A ship only requires an affiliated leader -- not full staffing -- to initiate battle, so if your random-kill Tactics take out support personnel, your opponent can still initiate battle with that ship next turn (of course, you can use this effect then, too, but your opponent would have the opportunity to get another ship out in that time).  On the other hand, using mostly or only Strafing Runs limits your ability to destroy ships this way (it'll take three HQ:OWP hits to do it) and is of more limited use if you plan to damage a lot of ships this game, or engage in some battle of your own.  Plus, it doesn't allow your ships to be enhanced when they leave the Headquarters, because Strafing Runs actually decrease DEFENSE, so you'll just have to live with the basic weapons, whereas the affiliated Tactics also give a DEFENSE boost.  I'd go with the random-kill tactics myself, unless going with an anti-OFFICER dilemma theme or other mitigating circumstance.

Excluding the ship from the battle is the other main thing this card does.  This is another powerful use, effectively reducing your attacker's WEAPONS by around ten just by itself.  And even if your Tactics fail to take out the leader of the ship (or if the ship has three matching leaders on board) you've at least succeeded in limiting the opponent's offensive capability by one ship *of your choice,* so you can take out the highest-WEAPONS ship he's got, slowing him down a turn or two.

That's this card's biggest failing though: it does little more than slow your opponent down a turn or two.  While that may give you time to get a ship out and moving, that ship does not have the same protection as the HQ does against attackers.  Even if you get a cloaked or phased ship out, your opponent can still follow it around (unless you're also using Engage Cloak, in which case he can just spread out his ships and wait) and wait for you to de-cloak to attempt missions, because you cannot re-cloak it that turn (even if you play Distortion of Space/Time Continuum, which only restores RANGE and "unstops.")  The only way to effectively do both is to do some funky things with Tachyon Detection Grid on the opponent's turn, but that requires a few TDGs to be effective and you have to have plenty of ships out.  Landed ships suffer from the same drawback: with the exception of the Vulcan Lander, they can only land and take off once per turn (again, DS/TC does not help here), so they will be vulnerable between moves.  The delay to the attacker is so short simply because your opponent can see this card coming (unless QtR'd in at the last moment), and just get another ship staffed before coming over and attacking to compensate for the one that will be lost.  In fact, if it's a Nor armada, depending on the size of the discard pile there may be no delay at all (Process Ore the personnel to the bottom of the deck, then RRD him next turn right back to the ship)  If it is QtR'd in, again, your opponent will simply get another ship out next turn, and another the turn after that, and then attack again.

Of course, of the three anti-armada Trouble with Tribbles bullets shown so far, this is the only one that actually chips away at the armada's personnel and ships.  Obelisk of Masaka slows it from developing, but does not eliminate its personnel or ships; and although Defend Homeworld gives you personnel and ships to battle back or solve missions with some extra padding for battle attrition, neither of those actually takes out ships of the attacker.

So, what is the conclusion on this card?  Well, read the next section.

The final verdict: Even though this is the only anti-armada [Ref] card to take out ships, its weaknesses in flexibility and its short-lived effect keep it from being the optimal bullet (IMO, of course).  Obelisk of Masaka is much better at keeping most armadas' speeds down, as a large majority of battle decks use "small ships."  Defend Homeworld is better once your opponent does attack, because you can usually start mission-solving right after that turn.  This card may give you the turn or two you need against armadas, but the speed benefit from Defend Homeworld or the Obelisk is generally much greater.  Although this card is a decent bullet, I'd much prefer the other two for anti-armada choices.

Next: Bajoran Shrine

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles