Today's the first Tribble card to be reviewed:

I think that, on the whole, reviews of actual Tribbles will probably be shorter than that of other cards.  Most have just one or two effects, plus the breeding and effect on Trouble cards, as compared to objectives or incidents, personnel, etc. which often have many more uses.  Also note that I haven't actually played with any Tribbles as of yet, so anything I say about these is from an inexperienced viewpoint.  Although something may sound good or bad to me, with no actual playing time with a Tribble side deck, I'll never really know for sure.

So, with that out of the way, we learn from the first sentence that one must have a hundred tribbles in play to put this one into play.  This means that it's at least the third turn of the game before 1,000 Tribbles can surface, if you're lucky enough to draw a 10 Tribble card first turn, followed by a 100 and then 1,000 on the next two.  Furthermore, this has little effect if played immediately on a facility, as when your opponent boards a ship, he'll be free of the tribbles.  So, you'll have to hold off starting the breeding process until your opponent has a ship out.  We'll see if this is significant when we look at the rest of the uses of this card.

"Each personnel present loses their first-listed skill."  Note that, since you most likely bred this group of tribbles from a 100 Tribbles card (which still is there), mission attempts where these tribbles are present require 2 Leadership.  So, the obvious question is, "is Leadership a skill commonly listed first?"  A quick look at some personnel would indicate that it is not, although some personnel (most prominently Dukat, who loses both of his Leadership) do.  I wouldn't count on locking opponents out with the 100 Tribbles/1,000 Tribbles combo.

The other skill which would often be nice to take away is Transporter Skill -- after all, we don't want your opponent simply beaming these Tribbles onto a spare ship of his, or, worse yet, a planet or HQ of your own.  So, after an examination of all of the Transporter Skill in the game one would find that the grand total of personnel with first-listed Transporter Skill is... [searching through ST:CCG database] ... zero!  Unfortunately, that makes this card rather easy to get rid of.  Even the ASP-downloadable Anara, Daro, etc. or the DH-able Lore, Chief O'Brien, and others make it not too difficult to remove.  All that's required is another place to beam it to... like a spare ship, or your outpost, or an opponent's planet (or planet facility).  You'll have to draw 1,000 Tribbles each turn to keep the first-listed skills away, and if your opponent gets a second Transporter Skill, you'll be losing ground.  Or, your opponent could simply beam his personnel to a different ship, abandoning the first to the tribbles.  Even if you use Trouble... in the Transporters to move your 10 Tribble card over, you still need two more turns to breed them back up to 1,000.  Of course, all tribble cards (especially the large denominations) have these failings, so they're not just problems with 1,000 Tribbles.

Well, now that we see what the skill effect 1,000 Tribbles can't do, let's see what it *can.*

Firstly, mission specialists now have no skills at all, meaning that they can neither contribute skills to missions or dilemmas nor score bonus points when they solve a mission.  Pretty harsh against AMS decks, right?  Not really.  As stated above, all that's required is another ship to beam your personnel to, and you've got two 1,000 Tribble-free turns to go solve more missions.  If you need still more turns, you can STP one of them back to your hand and re-play it; repeat until you win.  This shouldn't be too big of a problem, especially if your deck focuses on planets: just don't play a ship until you're ready to move your personnel; and then, even when you do attempt planet missions, the Tribbles will not be "present" with your personnel on the planet and you have all the skills back.  If attempting space missions, you've got a couple of extra ships anyway... why not just use old red-ships as a Tribble refuge, especially since there's several good Transporter Skill that can be downloaded with ASP and/or Defend Homeworld.

The Borg would also appear to take a big hit from this card: they lose skill sharing and the Queen's ability to choose a skill, two of their most powerful tools to pass dilemmas.  Unfortunately, the Queen's other skill (the ability to download a drone in place of a card draw) renders all Tribbles (1,000 included) almost useless.  Download the Transport Drone, who, like all other Transporter Skill, still has it after losing his first-listed skill.  Have him beam the 1,000 Tribbles onto a planet. Suddenly, Interlink-ing is restored, all the other Borg have Transporter Skill ("stopped" Borg still share skills -- Glossary, "stopped."), and you can beam all the other Tribbles off as well.

The other thing that 1,000 Tribbles does by itself is prevent Ooby Dooby card draws.  Against a dedicated Ooby Dooby deck, waiting until the third turn to start preventing its draws is way too long.  It's better if you combine it with Q the Referee/Temporal Vortex to stop the Distortions, giving you time to build up Tribbles.  But still, all your opponent needs is a Transporter Skill personnel (again, easy to get with ASP/DH), and once the Vortex has counted down, beam the 1,000 Tribbles off and go Ooby Dooby-ing. End result: not a very good use (although, of course, it never hurts -- you might surprise an opponent or two by seeding Ooby Dooby as part of a dilemma combo: with 1,000 Tribbles there, there's no cards drawn, but a risk of discarding a few, plus filtering a number of personnel.)

So, we now look at its effect when combined with Trouble cards.

Trouble... in the Engine Room: another annoyance to an opponent: reducing the attributes, although minor in this case, is still quite a bother; and "stopping" the ship after it moves slows a deck down a *lot*. Of course, your opponent can remove the Trouble by removing the Tribbles: either by abandoning ship or beaming the tribbles off.  Or, in this case, he can prevent the more annoying effect by getting 3 ENGINEER on the ship, which shouldn't be a problem unless the ship was designed to be a quick ferry of just a couple of personnel.  1,000 Tribbles will also prevent Ore Processing... but not indefinitely.  If the Nor is at a planet mission (very high chance if opponent is processing ore: only other possibility is Mining Survey, in which case a ship will do just as well), your opponent can beam the Tribbles onto the planet.

Trouble... in the Transporters: OK, you can try to circumvent your opponent trying to ditch the tribbles on a facility/ship/planet/wherever. However, you has to start over at ten again, which gives your opponent two turns free of 1,000 Tribbles.  Also, the Trouble is discarded after use, meaning you have to include lots of Trouble... in the Transporters to keep them with the Tribble group.

Trouble... on the Bridge: Here's the nasty use.  Suspending matching commander enhancements is nice, but limiting mission attempts to ten personnel is very powerful.  Unless redshirting or Scanning (the latter of which has suffered a number of hits with the expansion's release), attempting a mission with enough skills to pass the common dilemmas, plus the mission solvers themselves and extra personnel in case of filters often requires at least 12-15 personnel.  Going into a mission blind with only ten personnel is a huge risk.  This'll essentially halt any mega-teaming where these Tribbles are present... but the catch is the "Tribbles are present" thing.  Planet missions are virtually unaffected by this: beam the personnel down, the Tribbles stay on the ship, and you can megateam all you want. (Although your opponent can beam Tribbles onto your planets, this'll take several extra turns to get 1,000 Tribbles onto all of your planets, and in this case you can use the Transporter Skill to beam the Tribbles back to your ship when attempting the mission, then beam them back down once it's completed)  At space missions, however, a second ship is almost mandatory... but that's nothing new.  Attempting a space mission with only one ship is extremely risky.  Tactics, Temporal Vortices, or high SHIELDS may protect you from Borg Ships, but without an extra ship, running into Cytherians, Chula: the Chandra/Conundrum, or any of a number of space nasties could spell disaster.  A bit more hassle, but nothing severe.

Trouble... on the Station: A more specialized Trouble... in the Transporters: you can move up to 100 tribbles, but this may only be done when the tribbles breed.  Which means that if your opponent plays a ship, moves his personnel on board, and undocks the ship all on the same turn, your Tribbles can't follow.  Again, as with Trouble... in the Transporters, this is discarded after it's used.  However, if you can do it successfully, moving 100 Tribbles can be a big boost, as it cuts in half the amount of time your opponent has free of 1,000 Tribbles.

The final verdict: Although the effects of 1,000 Tribbles are powerful, they are also easily dealt with.  However, trying to solve your tribble problems, regardless of the method, is an annoyance.  Either personnel must be stopped, or you need to play/move another ship, etc.  This is true of tribbles in general.  They are much like old, pre-OTSD Q-Continuum side decks: although the effect of each card may be relatively minor, they're annoying enough that, faced en masse, they can cause a significant hindrance.  Dealing with tribbles takes time, there's no question about it, and it may force you to use resources like ASP or DH for a different personnel than you would really want.  As for this specific Tribble card?  I think it's one of the most powerful ones, considering not just its effect but also the time required to breed.  Losing a first-listed skill is just plain annoying, as is forcing a ship to "stop" after moving -- there's no question about that.  Although your opponent will be free of the effect shortly, it'll take time to do it.  And in a CCG, time is one of your most valuable resources.

Next, yet another old one: Classic Tricorder

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles