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DECIPHER.com > Star Trek >
Expansions > Necessary
Evil
Risky Business
by Kathy McCracken (Major Rakal)
Web Writer and Tal Shiar Agent
A popular Second Edition strategy is the use of more than one headquarters
mission. Although a second headquarters takes the place of a scorable mission,
many players feel that being able to tap the complementary skills and special
abilities of more than one affiliation more than compensates for the limitation
on their mission-solving choices. For example, the Cardassians' forté
is capture and punishment, while the Romulans favor tactics that manipulate
the opponent's resources (forcing discards from hand, preventing them from
using skills, and so on). Mixing these tactics – and the personnel
themselves -- in your deck is as easy as stocking Cardassia Prime and Romulus
as two of your missions. And aside from the lack of a fourth scorable mission,
there really isn't much of a downside to this kind of non-treaty "treaty"
deck.
Until Necessary Evil.
 You'll
find a diverse array of cards in this set that can make a multiple HQ deck,
at the least, troublesome, and often downright dangerous. Typical is the
dilemma Language
Barrier. Lacking the skills it requires, you'll find at least two of
your personnel stopped. But if you happen to have two HQ missions, you'll
lose four personnel from your mission attempt. Which is worse –
the perhaps lower skill diversity of a single affiliation, or a double dose
of stopped personnel (whose skills you can't use now anyway)? You'll have
to decide which is the lesser of these two necessary evils.
 While
Language Barrier just stops, On
Foreign Ground imposes a stiffer penalty for multi-HQ usage: it kills
one personnel for each HQ you command, and it's your opponent's choice,
to boot. Granted, you can get around it by commanding an event in your core...
but then, if you do, your opponent isn't going to select this dilemma for
you to face, is he? The other way to get out of it is to discard your hand
(providing you have at least one card there). The choice between losing
your hand and losing your personnel may be relatively easy if you only have
one HQ mission, but it gets tougher the more HQs you have.
 There's
more risk to multiple headquarters than just getting a few more personnel
stopped or whacked, though. Rather than hitting you directly, some cards
more subtly just give your opponent a nice bonus instead.For example, your
opponent may play
Your Fear Will Destroy You to score 5 points for each of your headquarters
missions where he commands an infiltrator. Since the event is removed from
the game, that's a maximum of 15 points per game if you have only
one HQ. But if you have two... that's a whole mission's worth of points
your opponent can get to play with.
 Anti-multiple-HQ
cards aren't limited to "verb" cards, either. You've already seen
Koval, who can't be stopped by a dilemma if your opponent has more HQs than
you do. Another personnel who earns you a bonus from your HQ-happy opponent
is Martin
Benbeck. He doesn't hurt your opponent, but he does let you draw cards
when you play him – one for each of your opponent's headquarters missions.
You're guaranteed at least one, and if your opponent just had to play both
Bajor and Mouth of the Wormhole, you luck into two free draws.
Whether you're out to penalize your opponents head-on for being affiliation-greedy,
or you just plan to reap the benefits of their folly, you'll find lots of
ways to take advantage of a plethora of headquarters on the other side of
the table. Just remember that for best effect you'll have to forego that
second HQ yourself, as many of these cards key off of your opponent having
more HQs than you do. How inconvenient – but then, it's a necessary
evil.
January 30, 2004
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