When you look at personnel, you see their name, special lore qualities and their skills along with their attributes. In the beginning, there wasn’t much of a reason for paying much attention to attributes. Sure, getting hit with a Firestorm or Thought Fire was lousy for a Romulan but the Feds would often just laugh. In fact, most all the time the only important thing was high attributes, namely Integrity for Q-Bypassing. Over time, attributes became more important. Maglock had us looking at Officers with Strength greater than 5, Dal’Rok had us add all the attributes up in our away teams, Chandra had us looking for matching attributes and so on but attributes never really became a real reason to pick personnel, except to possibly counter nasty Chandra combinations.

That’s not surprising when you stop to think about it: If you don’t use missions that have attributes in the requirements, often there’s little reason to consider their worth. People seem to be more and more skill conscious and with good reason: Skills give you the means to pass most dilemmas, as well as the means to pass missions which is the true point of the game. That’s not to say that attributes are worthless, far from it; attributes have their fair share of importance for some occasions: Smackdown decks wouldn’t be as popular now as they might’ve been if the Dominion personnel weren’t so strong, not to mention the always "popular" Q-Bypass decks. But it seems that it’s less of a reason to make a deck based on it except for limited reasons.

Each affiliation has their own strengths and weaknesses to their own and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to compare those. I think you might be surprised by the results (I know I was)

1. Bajorans

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the total
1	0	0	0	0
2	4	0	3	7.27—0---5.46
3	4	0	5	7.27---0---9.09
4	3	0	7	5.46--0--12.72
5	7	5	10	12.72--9.09--18.18
6	14	11	9	25.46—20.00—16.37
7	14	22	13	25.46—40.00—23.63
8	6	15	6	10.91—27.27—10.91
9	3	1	0	5.46---1.82---0
10	0	0	2	0---0---3.64
Average attribute	5.89	6.92	5.67	Overall ranking
Rank	3rd.	7th	6th	7th @ 18.48

That’s not to say that there aren’t inherent Bajoran-attribute modifiers that are commonly seen:

• Earring of Li Nalas – Your Resistance personnel’s stats are all upped by 3.
• Orb of Wisdom- Allows you one additional card play to your location but also Integrity +3.
• Kukalaka- While can be used by any affiliation, Leeta can special download it, plus it’s Integrity +3 from Leeta instead of Integrity +2.
• Bajoran Phaser- Neela can special download it.
• Shakaar Edon- All Bajorans present are Strength +2.
• The Emissary- All Bajorans in play are Integrity +2.
• Keeve Falor- All Bajoran Civilian’s stats are all upped by 2.
• Bariel- Can download any equipment at all

As you can see, the Bajorans can compensate for their lacking in areas although they’re more Strength and Integrity-based, as opposed to Cunning. Overall, those attributes come out to up to +13 Integrity, +5 Cunning, +9 Strength. But how likely are they to see any use?

Earring of Li Nalas tends to only see play in decks that use it for the function of doubling Rescue Prisoners’ point box. Orb of Wisdom though is more common, what with Orb decks being nice and popular. Besides, a free card play to the location of the Orb itself is always nice. Kukalaka isn’t really a big deal for the Bajorans, they don’t really have any difficulties for Integrity, unless you want a sacrifice for Common Thief. Neela might see more use, with Denevan Neural Parasites now out but she probably won’t be used just for her download. Besides, Fontaine can download two weapons and has better skills than Neela. Still, not outside the realm of possibility. Shakaar is a nice personnel to have but with First Minister Shakaar’s special skill of reporting a Civilian for free to the Chamber, Shakaar Edon will see less use. The Emissary’s special skill to act as a roving outpost will always have him in decks until armadas aren’t viable anymore. I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future, how about you? As for Keeve Falor, his skills aren’t bad (Leadership, Honor, Biology) but they don’t make the heart beat faster. His stat increases are better suited for Civilian-based decks (i.e. Colony decks) but I wouldn’t stock him in just for the increase. Lastly, Bariel is easily accessible and with Crossover, can be one with the Alpha Quadrant. You can get whichever equipment you want (barring restrictions like the Breen CRM114) and he can either be Defend Homeworld’ or use Quark Isolinear Rods to get him into play. As an interesting combination: With a seeded Crossover, you can get Kira, Sarish Rez who can special download First Minister Shakaar to the Chamber, ASP Mora Pol to the Chamber and flip Quark’s Isolinear Rods to get Bariel into hand who can then play for free to the Chamber with the First Minister’s special skill. The kicker is, all without having any of them in your opening hand if you use DS9 at Bajor and download Sarish to the Promenade Shops. All of that plus having 2 Computer Skill, Security, Biology, Honour and Anthropology, not to mention the download and an Orb icon to boot is kinda hard to pass up.

Overall, for the entire group of attribute increasers possible for Bajorans, there’s very little reason why they’d make a lot of decks because outside of the attribute increases, they offer very little.

1. Borg

There are 30 personnel of the Borg which are broken (in many pieces but that’s not to be the case, unfortunately) down into attributes thusly:

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the total
4	1	0	0	3.33—0—0
5	15	15	15	50.00—50.00—50.00
6	2	0	1	6.67—0—3.33
7	9	10	8	30.00—33.33—26.67
8	2	2	2	6.67—6.67—6.67
9	1	2	1	3.33—6.67—3.33
12	0	1	3	0—3.33--10.00
Average attribute:	5.97	6.37	6.60	Overall:
Rank	2nd	8th	4th	4th – 18.94

Outside of the Assault Drone’s ability to add +2 to your drones’ strength and the Unity Drone’s ability to add the hive’s Cunning to another Communications drone, the Borg do not have really much of the way of attribute modification. But really, the only time that they need such modification is when you’re dealing with invaders on your ships or trying to acquire your Counterpart from your opponent.

While it’s possible with things like Lower Decks (via a Ready Room Door), unless you expect invaders, there’s little need for it. Besides, you can use Awaken in response to a battle to download more of those Assault Drone’s.

Assault Drones are useful in and of themselves with their Security although the Unity Drone has little use so you’re not bad off, Strength-wise for those invaders. (of course, you could just blow up the Cube for bonus points ;-)

2. Cardassians

There are 52 Cardassians that are broken down below as followed:

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the total
2	4	0	0	7.69—0—0
3	6	0	3	11.54—0—5.77
4	8	1	4	15.38—1.92—7.69
5	8	4	6	15.38—7.69—11.54
6	8	13	14	15.38—25.00—26.92
7	10	13	14	19.23—25.00—26.92
8	3	15	9	5.77—28.85—17.31
9	3	5	3	5.77—9.61—5.77
10	0	1	1	0—1.92—1.92
Average Attribute	5.13	7.08	6.54	Overall:
Rank	8th	5th	5th	6th—18.75

The Cardassians only have personnel who can special download any equipment (Security Chief Garak) although he lets you decide what Cardassian equipment you wish to download, whether it’s a PADD (for Cunning and passing Executive Authorization) or Disruptor/Disruptor Rifle (for Strength and Vole Infestation). They also do not have any personnel that can enhance any of their stats for the entire affiliation.

While they’re the most flexible at Cargo Running (The Bok’Nor lets you cargo run with weaponry) which can draw them Latinum which could be used to trade for things like Kukalaka (helping their weak Integrity rating), they have one person which can make the exchange as cheaply as possible (Plain, Simple Garak)

It seems apparent that the Cardassians are the neglected race or the ones most reliant Non-Aligned assistance and this just seems to be another example of it.

3. Dominion

The Dominion have 53 personnel that are broken down below:

Attribute Numbers	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
2	1	0	0	1.89—0—0
3	2	0	0	3.78—0—0
4	14	0	3	26.42—0—5.66
5	10	1	4	18.87—1.89—7.55
6	9	7	7	16.98—13.21—13.21
7	12	18	3	22.64—33.96—5.66
8	5	20	10	9.43—37.74—18.87
9	0	4	11	0—7.55—20.75
10	0	2	9	0—3.78—16.98
11	0	1	5	0—1.89—9.43
12	0	0	1	0—0—1.89
Attribute Average	5.51	7.55	8.29	Overall:
Rank	5th	1st	1st	1st—21.35

Just edging out the Romulans in Cunning and having no peer in Strength, the Dominion are the overwhelming kings of attributes. That makes sense, if you think about it. The Jem’Hedar are biological weaponry in foot soldier form, the Vortas have to be smart to oversee them and they’re cloned and the Founders have to be extra smart just to oversee everyone. They’re almost 2 full attribute points ahead of their nearest competitor. But even the Dominion get attribute bonus:

Primary and Remote Supply Depots: While they themselves don’t give you attributes, the fact that you can seed 3 or 2 equipment there for their use makes it nice to use most any enhancing Equipment in the game.

Itak’lka: He gives all Jem’Hedars +1 in Strength when in battle. As you’ll find with a lot of these attribute-modifiers, the modifications go more towards personnel battle than anything else. After all, that’s what Jem’Hedar do: Beam onto your ship and wipe them out. All of them ;-)

Ixtana’Rax: He gives all Gamma Quadrant Jem’Hedars +1 of all attributes, all the time. Helpful with all those Jem’Hedar you play by replacing Young Jem’Hedars.

Talak’Talan: He can special download either Ultimatum (which is usually seeded but that’s up to you) which can conceivably get you two Equipment via a Remote Supply Depot or a Dominion PADD (which can help with Executive Authorization and an extra target for your opponent’s Disruptor Overload, not to mention adding +2 to your Cunning.

What the Dominion have are personnel that enhance your crew that you could very easily use in your deck for their other attributes as well. That, coupled with the seedability of equipment and their naturally high attributes, make them a very scary prospect to come across for anyone, especially when they’ve beamed aboard your ship.

4. Federation

There are a whopping 196 Federation-affiliated personnel. They’re broken down below.

Attribute Numbers	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
1	0	0	2	0—0—1.02
2	0	0	8	0—0—4.08
3	8	1	18	4.08--0.51—9.18
4	5	4	38	2.55—2.04—19.39
5	16	10	41	8.16—5.1—20.92
6	59	38	31	30.1—19.39—15.82
7	52	60	29	26.53—30.61—14.8
8	44	52	17	22.45—26.53—8.67
9	11	18	7	5.61—9.18—3.57
10	1	6	4	0.51—3.06—2.04
11	0	3	0	0—1.53—0
12	0	2	2	0—1.02—1.02
Attribute Average	6.71	7.28	5.38	Overall
Rank	1st	3rd	8th	3rd- 19.37

With so many personnel to choose from, you can obviously go around and tweak as you see fit. Here are some of the personnel and means by which you can go to alter your attributes:

Admiral McCoy: Cunning +3 to other Medical personnel where present. Works nicely with equipment cards that give Medical to your personnel, now they’re all even smarter. Having Medical and Exobiology himself, doesn’t make him that unstockable although he usually isn’t seen except for his Admiral status via Going to the Top or for his Cantankerous for Reunion.

Comm. Officer Uhura: She can download the Mirror Dagger, which adds Strength +1. More helpful for passing things like Maglock, where you have on Uhura herself only Strength of 5. With the Dagger, you can give her a Maglock-passing 6. While she might see limited use due to her Mirror Quadrant restrictions, she’s not a bad choice at all, helping you pass In the Pale Moonlight without succumbing to Firestorm, as well as a number of other dilemmas.

Dr. Falleon and Dr. McCoy: While not exactly modifying attributes themselves, they can download personnel (an Exocomp and someone with Geology if with an Officer via I’m a Doctor, Not a Bricklayer) which can often be more useful, whether for their skills or just for overall stats. Not something to necessarily overlook (Like you’d overlook Dr. McCoy anyway ;-)

First Officer Spock: He’s practically the most flexible of personnel for attribute modification because he can download any Original Series equipment. You name it, he has it at his fingertips. That with his skills (and gloating ability to just show that you found him) makes him very stockable.

Julian Bashir: While the Feds are #1 in Integrity, why not add 2 more plus have 3 Medical, Exobiology and Biology to go with it, all in one package? Here’s Julian Bashir, who can special download Kukalaka. Another example of a person that’s very easy to stock in a deck.

Lightner: With a special download of a Type III Phaser Rifle, he can help you overcome your low Strength rating, adding +3 Strength. The problem is that he’s not a very stockable person: He’s Security, which is nice and all but he only has two regular skills plus his special download so he can’t even be used for Assign Support Personnel. With only Youth and Astrophysics, while his special download is nice, he’s not all that great.

Mr. Scott: He’s just so cool. Not only does he enhance all of a Constitution-class ship’s stats by two, not only does he have 2 Engineer, Leadership, Astrophysics and Transporter Skill but he can also special download a Classic Type II Phaser, giving him Strength +2 as well as his other Original Series companions but also Security as well. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s Scottish. That alone makes him stockable! ;-)

Paul Porter: Oddly enough, a great person to have in an otherwise pure Original Series deck. Why? Because he can download any PADD to help you pass Executive Authorization and you can get him via Dr. McCoy’s special download of I’m a Doctor, Not a Bricklayer. Isn’t it great? ;-) Normal Federation PADD’s add Cunning of +2.

Security Chief Sulu: While it’s not the best look for him, he’s certainly a nice guy to have around in a deck. He has Security as a skill, which isn’t that commonly found on Original Series personnel, so he can be downloaded via Defend Homeworld. Add to that Biology, Computer Skill, Navigation, Treachery and Officer and he’s just ready for any mission to throw out at him. Let him special download a Classic Type II Phaser and you just gave yourself an extra Security (not to mention your other leaders) and Strength +2 to all your OS personnel.

Tasha Yar-Alternate: She suffers from the same problems as Lightner, although her skills improve slightly at the expensive of a more powerful weapon (she special downloads a Type II Phaser). Her best use is in STP drop decks because she’s one of the few Federation AU Security personnel but outside of that, not very stockable.

The Emissary: He only enhances Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa and Kira, not really helpful to the Federation. Give me Benjamin or Mr. Sisko anytime.

Transporter Chief Kyle: The Agonizer he downloads increases Mirror Icon’d and OS Klingons in Integrity and Cunning by 1. That will help your Mirror personnel out in avoiding Firestorm but overall, it doesn’t do much by itself. His skills aren’t all that great either (Computer Skill, common. Transporter Skill, more rare but there’re other choices. Archaeology, unless he wants to go back in time via the Guardian of Forever, I’m not impressed). He can make a backup to a Scott but other than that, not worth it.

Overall, the Federation’s best attribute-modifying personnel are in the Original Series with a few exceptions (Dr. Falleon, Julian Bashir and Paul Porter) but those Original Series personnel are very potent to consider indeed, especially the Classic Type II Phaser

5. Ferengi

There are 49 Ferengi to choose from, the breakdown is below.

Attribute Numbers	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
1	0	0	1	0—0—2.04
2	4	0	4	8.16—0—8.16
3	2	0	7	4.08—0—14.29
4	7	0	8	14.29—0—16.33
5	11	2	6	22.49—4.08—12.24
6	11	13	11	22.49—26.53—22.49
7	10	16	10	20.41—32.65—20.41
8	3	13	2	6.12—26.53—4.08
9	1	4	1	2.04—8.16—2.04
10	0	1	0	0—2.04—0
Attribute Average	5.41	7.13	5.06	Overall
Rank	6th	4th	9th	8th – 17.6

The Ferengi as a race have probably the best chance to modify their attributes out of any affiliation in the game because of Latinum and Self-Sealing Stem Bolts. Use one Latinum with your Acquisition personnel to download the Bolts at the Tower of Commerce. Now, with a proper Latinum gathering mechanism or just lots of Latinum and Ishka, you can get two of any compatible equipment in the game by trading and discarding Latinum as you see fit. Perfect for Ferengi hand weapons like the Ferengi Whip or Disruptor Rifle that you can use later for Gunrunning and Kressari Rendezvous or Ferengi PADD’s for Executive Authorizations and Cunning increases. Very profitable indeed.

Aluura: All other Dabo girls and Ferengi waiters’ attributes are +2. Very helpful with a 211^th Rule deck, in case the discard clause on Quark’s Bar wasn’t much of a deterrent. Combine with Leeta and you’ve just given Frool Integrity of 9. How scary is that?! ;-) Her skills aren’t all that bad but not useful except for the Diplomacy but really, she’s best left at Quark’s Bar for Daboing unless you need the boosts to your Rom or Leeta or Pel.

Leeta: She’s even more important for the Ferengi than she is for the Bajorans. Her Kukalaka is much more needed to the Ferengi, since over 25% of them will die without it to Firestorm and even if it’s not used for that, makes for Cargo Runable equipment. Plus, let us not forget Dabo! How best to get rid of those discarded Latinums but to earn points by them and she can special download Dabo to do just that. While her skills aren’t all that great, she’s still very useful for the profiteering of the Ferengi.

Morta: His special download of Prepare Assault Teams can be downright helpful for a variety of things. 1) You get a hand weapon of your choice, which can add 2 or 3 to your overall strength. 2) It can be used to sacrifice to an evil Common Thief or for other dilemmas (Berserk Changeling, Security Precautions, Vole Infestation come to mind) 3) Really nasty with Ferengi Infestation. With Empok Nor, you’ve just sent 6 personnel who originally have a base strength of 5.06 and you’ve increased it by 3. Add to that the ability to choose who’ve you’ve just sent over there and you have upwards of 47 in Strength over there before you even count the Disruptor Rifle for an additional 18 Strength. Or, even if you just have two, with Maihar’du , that’s a total of 22 and the means to attack however way you wish, especially with Maihar’du’s special download of Bodyguards. His skills aren’t bad either, with Security and Engineer both being necessary as well as Geology on a variety of dilemmas and missions. He’s a nice guy.

Omag: His special download of Calandra has two special benefits. 1) She gives him an extra Medical, Youth and Music, not to mention the attribute benefits that an extra person can give. 2) All of your DaiMon’s just went up in attributes by 1, including Omag. Apparently she gives special services to DaiMons ;-) (don’t make me explain any further than that ;-) Omag himself is an odd sort because his skills aren’t all that common in and of itself. Sure, there’s the obligatory Greed but Smuggling, even among Ferengi, isn’t common as well as Archaeology and Music. While he’s not all that great alone, with the combination of Calandra and all that she brings to the table, not a bad guy to have anyway.

Quark and Rom: The ability to vary your attribute numbers can be very useful in the right situations, most importantly for dilemmas that call for it (Chula dilemmas come to mind most prominently) as well as missions. Of course, with both of their skills being so great for the Ferengi, you were probably going to use them anyway but this is just an added bonus for you.

Ferengi have a lot of options as to how best to modify their attributes, if the situation calls for it. With their control over Latinum, they can do it with or without the many personnel that are available to them. Helps to compensate for their 2^nd lowest total attribute base level.

6. Klingons

There are 90 Klingon warriors available for your battling pleasure, broken down as follows.

 

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
1	0	2	0	0—2.22—0
2	7	0	0	7.78—0—0
3	5	1	0	5.56—1.11—0
4	11	7	3	12.22—7.78—3.33
5	13	16	4	14.44—17.78—4.44
6	21	31	20	23.33—34.44—22.22
7	13	20	22	14.44—22.22—24.44
8	19	10	27	21.11—11.11—30.00
9	0	3	10	0—3.33—11.11
10	1	0	3	1.11—0—3.33
15	0	0	1	0—0—1.11
Attribute Average	5.74	6.06	7.00	Overall
Rank	4th	9th	2nd	5th—18.80

The Klingons are the oddest in terms of attribute modifications, because a lot of their most powerful attribute modifiers are only during battles: Klingon Right of Vengeance doubles retaliating Klingon force’s Strength, Q’apla adds Integrity to Strength and while that’s nice and all, it doesn’t deal with anything long-lasting. That’s not to say, however, that the Klingons don’t have a collection of means by which to increase their attributes, I’m merely saying that the more effective ones (at least to me) are personnel battle responses (Worf Son of Mogh can even special download Q’apla if necessary circumstances arise.) But with Council of Warriors in the game, it’s not unlikely that they wouldn’t make such a deck.

Nonetheless, there are means by which the Klingons can better enhance their attributes. The Sword of Kahless is the Klingon version of the Earring of Li Nalas although farther reaching as it not only effects Klingons with Honor but it gives Kahless immortality in personnel battles. Seed a Starry Night at Q’oNos for both the Sword and maybe a Varon-T, then go out and attack your opponent’s personnel like the Council asks of you ;-)

There’s also the Blood Oath quartet, each with their own brand of fun. Kor gives all Klingons (except him) Strength +2, Jadzia gives all Blood Oath personnel +2 in attributes, Koloth can special download a Bat’leth, adding Strength +2 to all present and Kang can special download Blood Oath. That means between the four of them, they’re all Integrity +2, Cunning +2, Strength +6 (+4 if you’re Kor), not to mention having a wide variety of skills that can be useful for just about everything.

Blood Oath has a variety of properties, which makes Kang rather popular with Klingon players in his download via Defend Homeworld. Blood Oath can, in place of a card draw, download the IKC Ning’Tao (commanded by Kor), IKC Lukara (commanded by Kang), the IKC Gr’oth (commanded by Captain Koloth, the Trouble with Tribbles premium, or Koloth), a Bat’leth (adding to your Strength again by 2), another Blood Oath (which can be used on a non-Borg personnel with no Honor and Integrity > 8 or one of the other Blood Oath personnel. Just to keep this in perspective: You play a Kivas Fajo-Collector. In place of three draws, you download the IKC Ning’Tao, Lukara and Gr’oth. Since you have to have two Blood Oath personnel in play already to do this, for sake of argument it’s Kor and Kang. With the special download of the Gr’oth for Captain Koloth, you now have three ships, fully staffed with matching commanders, ready for action. Next turn, play another Kivas for Jadzia, Koloth and a Bat’leth. When you can have that kind of firepower out on turn 2 or 3, you can see the appeal.

 

Kahlest gives Klingons with Honor a boost of Strength +2. That being said, she’s not all that useful. She’s a Civilian with Medical, rare but in this particular case, isn’t that helpful. Her other skills of Honor and Music do little to make one use her outside of a Flute deck.

Martok himself can add attributes, both to ships and to personnel as well with his special download of a D’Ktahg, which adds a Strength +1. Most commonly found in armada decks (Weapons +2 to all Klingon ships present tends to do that) his skills aren’t all that bad, staples in the Klingon handbook (Leadership, Honor, Navigation x2) but they’re not all great either. However, he’s not hard to get into play either (RRD on two different ships help that along) and his added benefits couldn’t hurt either.

Targ adds +1 in Strength and can nullify one Rogue Borg present. He’s also helpful with Scottish Setters and Palukoo. But nonetheless, Targs are still not worth the effort.

Thopak suffers from Lightner/Tasha Yar syndrome- Can’t be Assign Support Personnel'ed into play to special download his Bat’leth. While his skills are better than the aforementioned Federation personnel with his Biology and Transporter Skill, unless you’re planning on a Bat’leth/Council of Warriors deck, you can do better than him.

Unless you have the Sword of Kahless or playing Kukalaka/PADD, you’re not able to increase your weaker areas much, but they're great for battle.

7. The Non-Aligned

There are 103 personnel that can most of the time work for anyone; their breakdown is as follows.

 

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
0	1	1	1	.97--.97--.97
1	7	0	1	6.8—0--.97
2	12	2	12	11.65—1.94—11.65
3	13	1	12	12.61--.97—11.65
4	11	2	15	10.68—1.94—14.56
5	11	7	8	10.68—6.8—7.77
6	14	26	16	13.59—25.24—15.33
7	19	19	21	18.45—18.45—20.39
8	10	29	8	9.71—28.16—7.77
9	5	9	1	4.85—8.74--.97
10	0	2	3	0—1.94—2.91
11	0	0	1	0—0--.97
12	0	4	3	0—3.88—2.91
13	0	1	0	0--.97—0
16	0	0	1	0—0--.97
Attribute Average	4.96	7.02	5.46	Overall
Rank	9th	6th	7th	9th—17.44

The Non-Aligned have a variety of different ways which they can make life better for you.

Anya can not only special download Salia but she will replace her if Salia is randomly selected to die. Very helpful to Q-Bypass decks, since their combined Integrity is 17 and they didn’t take up a card play, as well as to Diplomatic Conference decks, helping to protect your N/A VIP. The combined skills aren’t bad either, Security, Leadership, Honor, Diplomacy, Exobiology, Youth, Anthropology. Depending on your purposes, they can make for a very nice combination indeed.

Fontaine. Vic Fontaine he’s not, especially when he’s branding out two disruptors in his hands, ready for action. Our first non-Borg enigma, he won’t be going away via Tantalus Field decks anytime in the near future. What’s great about him is that he can download two disruptors, each of which must give strength of +2. Now, you have +4 for everyone, just for your personal fun. Have him run into Berserk Changeling for you, passes that all by himself and he’s not even a Security personnel ;-) He has decent skills for space decks, with Navigation and Astrophysics, not to mention a nice skill of Medical and, of course, Music. Granted, he’s a Mirror Quadrant personnel so that makes him less attractive but still, when the Jem’Hedar board your ship, you can download those weapons and make it a little more fair.

Jenice Manheim. No offense to the lady of same handle but she’s just not worth it unless you know for a fact that you’re playing a Flute deck. She enhances +2 of all stats of one male (+4 if it’s the rarely used Paul Manheim) and she limits a Flute to 4 people. That’s it. Next….

Morn. This cuddly old Quark’s Bar sex symbol (what, you thought I was going to say maybe Leeta or Quark? ;-) can download a Latinum which you can turn in for anything you want while he sits at Quark’s Bar, earning you an extra card draw in the process. When you want him to take off, his skill set best helps the Ferengi but helps with all sorts of things with Navigation, Engineer, Biology and the less non-Ferengi needed Greed, Acquisition and Smuggling. He’s a nice guy to have around, plus he can download a weapon to keep him at the bar for a while, not to mention blowing up Bajoran Shrines if the need arises.

Mr. Sisko. (For some reason, that sounds like Mr. Christian to me, but I’m odd) Helpful for those other Terrans in Mirror Mirror, he enhances all of their attributes by 1 in their fight for freedom. That is, when he’s not also working for Alliance. Seriously, working both sides, he’s a nice guy to have for either side, with double Leadership, Biology, Navigation and the rare Honor, all while being Security personnel himself. With a baseline stats enhanced by his own special skill to 7-9-9 respectively, he’s not someone you’re going to easily push over, especially when he’s enhanced the rest of the Terrans. Unfortunately, his best usage is for the Mirror Quadrant, rather than others.

Yint. He’s your universal arms dealer, so if you didn’t want or don’t have Hagath, now you have an alternative. He’s not all that great but with his special download of a disruptor rifle, he’s not that bad either. Treachery, Stellar Cartography and Transporter Skill aren’t all great but they’re not bad. My favourite use for him is in conjunction with Recruit Mercenaries. Not only did you get to download people from such dilemmas as Sleeper Trap or Ferengi Infestation but now, at a cost of 10 points, you can send down a team consisting of Yint, Mickey D and Ishara Yar who combine total 32 in Strength, not to mention those 3 Cardassians with their own disruptor rifle. And since you get to pick which disruptor rifle, just choose the Cardassian disruptor rifle. Now you’re all at +6 in strength and the lowest base strength is 7. I don’t see you getting past them for a very long time. Same goes for the Ferengi Infestation with Morta (via Prepare Assault Teams) and Letek, giving you the Treachery to lay waste on Empok Nor borders ;-) Also, it’s a nice card to have for Dangerous Liaisons. In any case, Yint has only specialized uses at best.

What the Non-Aligned represent are essentially specialists that help fill gaps in your affiliations weaknesses. If you’re weak in Strength, Yint, Morn and Fontaine can help with that, adding a combined +10 in Strength between them when necessary. If you want more Integrity in a hurry, Anya and Salia are your best bets with Morn and his Latinum for Kukalaka right behind. All depends on what you need.

8. Romulans

There are 72 members of the Romulan Star Empire available at your disposal. Analytical breakdown of the affiliation is as follows:

 

Attribute Number	Integrity	Cunning	Strength	% of the Total
2	3	0	0	4.17—0—0
3	8	0	1	11.11—0—1.39
4	17	0	2	23.61—0—2.78
5	11	1	12	15.28—1.39—16.67
6	13	6	15	18.06—8.33—20.83
7	14	32	23	19.44—44.44—31.94
8	6	27	10	8.33—37.5—13.89
9	0	4	9	0--5.56—12.5
10	0	2	0	0—2.78—0
Attribute Number	5.24	7.46	6.69	Overall
Rank	7th	2nd	3rd	2nd—19.39

Back in the day, the breakdown for the affiliations was: The Romulans were the smart ones, the Klingons were the strong ones and the Federation was the virtuous ones. While the Romulans were just edged out of first by the Dominon, they’re still pretty crafty and strong to boot, resulting in the second highest base attributes among all affiliations. Nonetheless, the Romulans have attributes that can be increased just like everyone else.

D’Tan is one example, adding one Integrity to all non-Treacherous Romulans (he doesn’t like them much). With the bulk of Romulans Integrity at 4, his additional one skill can make a world of difference with Firestorm being a concern but realistically, with only two skills ala the other two-skilled attribute enhancers, he’s not very useful.

Subcommander Tal can special download one of two toys: A Classic Disruptor, which much like the Classic Type II Phaser, adds two in Strength to all OS Klingons and Romulans as well as adding Security, and Intruder Alert, which is useful if you don’t want to use up a Q the Referee card to download it. The Romulans do not work with anyone in their timeframe without a modern treaty but this weapon does help fill the gap of quality Romulan OS Security. Unless you’re playing a Romulan OS deck, his download of the weapon isn’t all that great due to lack of OS personnel for the Romulans. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, giving himself two Security, as well as being an Officer with Computer Skill and Anthropology isn’t the worse combination of skills in a person but it’s not the greatest either. Great in a Romulan OS deck, not that useful otherwise.

The Centurion raises all attributes by 1, like a souped up and improved D’Tan and he doesn’t have bad skills to go with it: Science-classification, Exobiology, Stellar Cartography are very useful in space (the Honour does little for Romulans). He’ll help with such things as passing Ferengi Infestation with as small of a crew as possible and provides backup for Stellar Cartography to Lonka Pulsar and Shattered Space. All that and he can be STP dropped where you want with Dr. Telak R’Mor, Keras and someone else, just for giggles.

The Centurion to me is the only overall Romulan attribute personnel that’s worth using in most Romulan decks with Subcommander Tal in more selective uses.

9. Conclusion

I do hope that you found this article interesting in some facet to your card playing lives. Now that you’ve learned at least what I find to be the best and worst of attribute-modifying cards, the next article (hopefully not as long ;-) will be on what to use attributes for and the benefits and drawbacks involved. Comments should be sent to: theninjascot@yahoo.com Ciao everyone.