Holodeck Adventures Contest #3: Super Holo Crew

Your goal in this final Holodeck Adventures contest is to form a crew consisting of only holographic personnel (plus an equipment card, if desired) with the highest possible attribute total. Here are the ground rules:

• Assume you have Children of Light in play, so all your [Holo] personnel can mix. Don't worry about quadrant – for this contest, it isn 't important how you got them into play.
• You may have a maximum of 8 cards in your crew, all different (no duplicates/copies, including universal cards).
• All personnel must have a [Holo] icon. For example, Dixon Hill is Picard's character from a holonovel, but he does not have a [Holo] icon, so you may not use him. [Bar] icons do not count as [Holo] icons. You may not use Holoprogram: 221B Baker Street to add [Holo] icons to normal personnel.
• No more than one of the 8 cards may be an Equipment card (not an Artifact used as Equipment), either [Holo] or non-[Holo].
• The crew must be able to staff a Kurlan Naiskos, i.e., it must include at least one each OFFICER, MEDICAL, SECURITY, SCIENCE, ENGINEER, CIVILIAN, and V.I.P. Either skills (printed or added by the equipment card) or classifications will do.
• You may use any holographic personnel from previous expansion sets, and/or any from Holodeck Adventures that have been revealed here on www.decipher.com by the close of the contest. Cards revealed through other sources (e.g., Game Players Network, Online Star Trek CCG, pre-release tournaments) may not be used for this contest if the images are not yet shown here on our official card list.
• No attribute modifiers may be used except those provided by the equipment card (if any). Equipment cards that supply STRENGTH only in battle do not count.
• Miscalculated totals or inclusion of an ineligible card will disqualify your entry.

The Answers

The highest legal total is 182. The most commonly submitted 8-card crew was:

1. Wodek'idan (OFFICER, 6-8-9)
2. Sumek (SCIENCE/ENGINEER, 7-8-8)
3. Iden (V.I.P., 5-9-8)
4. Dar (SECURITY, 5-7-9)
5. Kejal (ENGINEER, 8-8-4)
6. Professor Moriarty (CIVILIAN, 5-12-5)
7. The E.C.H. (OFFICER/MEDICAL, 7-9-5)
8. Hirogen Disruptor Rifle (adds 2 CUNNING and 4 STRENGTH to each of the 5 Hirogen)

Weiss (OFFICER, 4-8-8) could be substituted for Kejal for the same total, but few people did that because Weiss was not revealed until a few hours before the close of the contest. There are no other solutions at this time, though a total of 183 could be obtained if either Harath or Doran (not yet revealed) were substituted for Kejal.

The most common mistakes were:

• Including a non-holographic personnel. John Watson, Secret Agent Julian Bashir, and The Twin Mistresses of Evil have no [Holo] icons – they were real people playing a role within a holoprogram.
• Not including MEDICAL.
• Forgetting to count personnel types that appear in a skills box when staffing the Kurlan Naiskos. Many people selected The Doctor (total attributes 20) for their MEDICAL, apparently overlooking the fact that The E.C.H. has MEDICAL skill. Either a skill or a classification will do for the Kurlan Naiskos.
• Not using the disruptor rifle to boost the [Hir] holograms' attributes. With 5 Hirogen, you gain 30 attributes, which cannot be provided by another personnel card.
• Incorrect use of the Hirogen Disruptor Rifle. "Hirogen use only" means you need at least one Hirogen personnel (by affiliation or species) in the crew to make any use of the rifle. Once you have a Hirogen to enable its use, the rifle enhances only Hirogen ("each of your Hirogen..."), not Moriarty or the ECH.

The Winners

Out of 185 entries, 98 did not have the correct maximum total, and another 16 were disqualified for incorrect calculations and duplicate entries (only one entry per person, please). From the remaining 71 correct entries, these three were randomly selected to receive 10 packs each of Holodeck Adventures:

Jason L. Kotz, Imperial, MO
Robert Reichel, Chicago, IL
David Wong, Lexington, MA

Congratulations to the winners of our final Holodeck Adventures contest!