Greetings, time for a new Trek expansion. Trek has an unfortunate curse to have lackluster expansions. Stand alones always do well but the it's subsequent sets are definitely lacking. Does Call to Arms stack up? Let's see.

First I would like to express my disappointment on this year's anthologies that Decipher put out. The LOR Elvish cards were so full of mistakes they kind of turned me off. Don't get me wrong, I love Rings, it's just that I hate half-assed card games. The Buffy CCG could have been so cool, but the company pissed it all way on crappy gameplay. The All Good Things anthology really pissed me off. The 2nd Anthology was so cool. We got a bunch cool promos that were really usable that changed the game. Sloan made Prisoner Change possible, Dax and Sisko let you get some good Engineers, Koval and Bashir breathed new life into Romulan and Dominion respectively. Damar was neat. You got a bunch of solid playable cards that advanced their perspective affiliations.

Now let's look at All Good Things. Decipher had a beautiful chance to leave the game on a high note to give all affiliations a great boost and fix them in ways that they were lacking (like the Dominion had no themes that they could exploit). Instead we get a bunch of USELESS cards. Boone? crap. USS Drake? crap. Pike? crap. They gave a bunch of cards that we will never use. What about affiliations that were constantly ignored since Voyager? Where's the Dominion, Ferengi, Romulan, Cardassian and Mirror stuff? They needed the most help. What about the Borg? When was the Collective going to get it's teeth back? Also, Decipher gave us cards that we couldn't do without or else. Instead for forcing us to adapt and make new strategies they gave us magic bullets, which kill the game. I hate Shape-Shift Inhibitor, it sets the game back 4 years, pre-Tribbles. Downloads is what made this game great. It made the game like chess instead of poker. Ultimate flexibility. I truly believe that the game reached it peak after Mirror, Mirror and when Voyager came out with its ridiculously broken DQSS that's when the game slid down hill. (DQSS what were they thinking?)

Whew, man did that feel good to get that off my chest.

So now back to Call to Arms. This is Decipher new attempt to energize the game. Let's see if it works.

This is a stand alone that introduces the Dominion and Borg to the 2nd Edition universe. I will be going through each of the card types and discussing how they will change the game and if it will be effective.

Dilemmas

    The bread and butter of this game, there is not any card more important than these ones. They stop your opponent from completing her missions and buy you more time to win the game. First up, no 1 or 5 point dilemmas but plenty of 0 costing ones. I have to admit the dilemmas are pretty good in this set. Premiere only had a handful of dilemmas that were worthy and Energize had even less, but this set has a bunch that will pump up any dilemma pile and they aren't all rare ones either.

0 point: A Bad End and Don't Let it End This Way are not worth it because like Sorting Things Out they require other dilemmas to be successful to work and that doesn't always happen. I love Skeleton Crew, but Secret Identity is only good vs a Fed or Bajorian deck because only they have really expensive characters that would make it worth your while. You might get a personnel with a crucial skill but she might have another copy in her deck.

2 point: They are all ok, but only one of them is better than average. I think Psychic Receptacle is pretty good. The world champion used 3 Kahmis, 3 Jerax and 3 Soto. The dilemma shuts down the skills of one personnel title, so if your opponent has a lot of copies of the same guy they all get shut down. Too bad it works only on dilemmas.

3 point: Personally I don't like any of the 3 point dilemmas in this set. The skill killers in this set are too easy to pass. The ones that stop 3 people if they have a certain skill are good, but they are strictly planet or space dilemmas and the others are lackluster. There are of course exceptions to this rule, diamonds in the rough. Gomtuu Shock Wave is a tough space dilemma. Rock People is a nasty planet dilemma. Dressed down is good because it is a duel, same with Justice or Vengeance.

4 point: So far 4 point dilemmas have kind of sucked. You never got the bang for your buck. If you were willing to spend 4 points, you get something really good. I think Decipher is finally getting the picture. Demands of Duty is like Kelvan Show of Force on steroids. So Many Enemies and Murder Investigation will stop a Comfort Women deck many times. Overwhelmed is kind of neat if you can pair it with a good wall like Dangerous Liaisons. Dangerous Climb will rock if you combine it with Picking up the Pieces.

6 point: Uh, this a little too expensive. 2 Treachery or Honor is not hard to come by these days and you get to put the personnel that pass the dilemma on the bottom of the deck. Pretty good actually. If this dilemma was 3 points it would be godly, 4 points rockin, 5 points playable, but 6? The only time I get 6 or more points is on the initial mission attempt and that's it. Maybe if you used it with Machinations, but other than that I would skip it.

Equipment

    A gun. Wooooooo. It should have cost zero. Come on, Jem Hadar sleep with pistols under their pillows.

Event

    Well, like last set there are plenty of events, something for everyone. First let's concentrate on the Borg and Dominion events.

I like that all the Borg battle cards involve assimilation somehow, but man is the Cutting Beam expensive. They also got the standard discard-to-draw-two-cards event and it's common. Hallelujah! Uncommons are a pain in the ass to get, especially 3 of them. One with the Borg is neat. 3 of those will allow you to skip doing one of your missions. Regeneration Alcoves is OK, but since your ships have huge range it's not that difficult to go home to pick up for drones.

The Dominion has the lion's share of the events since they have 3 main themes. Simply: the Jem Hadar, Vorta and Founders. The Jem Hadar got mostly battle cards and a friend of mine said if a battle card doesn't leave a damage counter it's not worth having. I agree. The Birthing Chamber is interesting, but I think it won't get much play since you need non-personnel cards to activate it. Vorta got events that affect their mission attempts. Building a Bridge would be great if you use lots of Vorta: your opponent would have to discard their hand, and you fill yours every time you solve a mission. Should you fail in your attempt, Vorta Cloning will prevent your Vorta from dying. That's keen. They also get the card drawer (discard to draw two), which is also common, very sweet. The Founders get a slew of cards that affect them as infiltrators. Infiltration as a tactic is quite weak at the moment. The only thing that peaked my interest was Changeling Sabotage, you bounce you infiltrator back to you hand to play a damage card from your hand onto the ship. Easy destruction. Unfortunately there are only 4 infiltrators and 3 points is the cheapest one.

As for everyone else, each affiliation got a card or two, nothing really that interesting but one or two caught my eye. Dissolving the Senate, while having the coolest picture, is also pretty good: anything that adds +4 to stats until the end of the turn is OK in my books. We're Mutants work well with Julian and Kelly. Manheim Effect is kind of cool, it's always good to get my Personal Duties back for another go. Sluggo is neat also. The rest? Well I think the proper word is "pass".

Interrupt

    Unlike previous sets, practically all the interrupts are crap. Except two. First The Founder is Wise lets a Vorta copy all of a Founder's skills and gains +2 stats. Not too shabby, but the sweet one is Parting Shot. For the low cost of 5 points you get to kill a personnel. Yikes! It might be a good idea to pick some up. Do it cause Sparky said so.

Missions

    Let's see, nothing too interesting. Just your standard missions for affiliations. The ones you have to watch for are the ones that Dominion can solve using Strength. All Jem Hadar have 8 strength, so these can be solved easily by 5 people and since there are 5 missions like that Jem Hadar might become the new Klingons, especially with Terok Nor floating about.

Personnel

    Well here is the part everyone has been waiting for. The who's hot and who's not list. Let's check it out.

Bajorians

Not much to work with here, Yassim is kind of interesting but costs 3 points. I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Borg

The standard drones and what not. So who's special? Why Seven, the Queen, Locutus and Calibration Drone of course. Calibration Drone, what am I smoking? The good shit of course. In 2nd Edition it's not that hot, but it's 1st Edition compatible, and in 1st Edition it will rule. It's a drone that draw cards! That's so broken.

Cardassian

The best card in the set is Damar. Period. Everyone STOP what you're doing and throw him your deck. I don't care what else is in it, if your deck has Cardassians it must have Damar. Tell your friends Sparky says so.

Dominion

Very interesting, "it has potential" as I like to say. You just have to filter out the crap. When I was playing in the prerelease I found that the skills balance was pretty good. Very good in fact. The Jem Hadar are stat beasts. Plus since they have 5 strength missions, which they can solve using just Jem Hadar (minus Treachery; they're just too loyal but Keevan will solve that). They can use Our Death is Glory to the Founders (quite a mouthful) which can nullify any annoying interrupts that come your way. That will be pretty tight. But don't count out a Vorta/Founder deck, a lot of 6 and 7 cunning personnel, so the Cunning missions won't be too hard. A nice selection of skills, but a little more expensive than the Jem Hadar as most of the good Founders cost 3 or more. But wait what about Founder Councilor? Yep throw three of those in to get your more expensive Founders cheaper. With so many changelings (8 max.) in play how can you capitalize on that? Kilana of course. She is one of the best personnel I've seen recently. Imagine digging up to 8 cards down in your deck every turn and making sure what you want is on top. That is so broken, I love it. You'll need some NA Science to back your guys up (with the Jem Hadar also) because the affiliation is a little weak in that area. All in all the Dominion has strong personnel, just not that many support cards to back it up.

Federation

I'm glad that Decipher finally toned down the Federation. No super broken Fed skills monsters, in fact they all suck! Well Satie has a nice bunch of skills and B'Elanna will fit in with a Maquis discard deck. All the mutants are too expensive and their skills are really weak. The gold star will go to Eddington. Cheap, good skills and can use Confessions in the Pale Moonlight. He fits into DS9 like a glove. Nod to Decipher for promoting deck archetypes, that's the best way to evolve a game.

Ferengi

I'm not too sure about the colour, its a little strong for orange, but other than that these Ferengi are good. The dissident cost is a little harsh, but with the two brothers together they can meet the skill requirements on pretty much every space dilemma in the game. Pretty good huh?

Klingon

Well, like the Feds in this set the Klingons got pretty much nothing. Good. Decipher should focus on Romulans more, they are kind of lagging behind. Anyway they all suck, with one exception (of course). Darok is really quite good. Sure his skills are pretty sad, but the number one rule in CCG's is that cards that draw more cards are ALWAYS good. Take LOR for a moment, everyone scoffed Mithril Shaft when it first came out but look how many Malboeuf is running now (4). So hence, Darok is good.

Non-Aligned

Boring. Yates would be kind of good if her ship wasn't a total piece of crap. The rest are basic personnel. Snore.

Romulans

My roommate's favorite affiliation. Nothing too groundbreaking. Karina & Ruwon are kind neat but that's about it. Sorry Michael. Through don't count them out yet they still have Dissolving the Senate, which rocks total ass.

So there is the personnel of Call to Arms (I keep wanting to call this set Blaze of Glory). My top ten? Well here they are.
10) Davok
9) Calibration Drone (for my hommies who play old school Trek)
8) Quark
7) Rom
6) Locutus, Voice of the Borg
5) Seven of Nine, Part of the Greater Whole
4) Michael Eddington
3) Borg Queen, Guardian of the Hive
2) Kilana
1) Damar

Ships

I have yet to see real good ships in this game. People play cost effective ships instead of ships that have cool abilities. That's why you don't see many people play with the Enterprise or Scimitar. With the exeption of the Defiant I don't see any of the unique ships seeing play. Wow does the Xhosa suck balls, come on people, it can't even cross quadrants. Donkey balls, big ones. The Defiant on the other hand is neat, combine with B'Elanna and they will severely trash an opponent's hand very quickly, watch out for it. Decipher make cool ships!!!!

So now that's done, what do I think of the set? It has potential, but is so god damned simple. The game lacks even a fraction of the depth the original. Decipher, if you read this quit being so chicken shit and put some dangerously broken cards in. What's the point to be same if you can't have any fun while doing it?

Peace.

Earl S. Prusak
Team Five Iron