Game Introduction and Setup
00:00:38
Truthiness
Welcome back everybody. It's heat me, your friendly neighborhood truthiness with me as always is our EMH Biggs.
00:00:47
Truthiness
Hello. So we just got finished with our second campaign game, Allies of Inconvenience. So this one didn't go nearly as bad for me as the last one, which is which is kind of nice.
00:00:59
Biggs
That is something. That's progress.
00:01:02
Truthiness
Yeah, it's progress.
00:01:05
Truthiness
So if you're, again, follow along in the scenario. So the basic concept here is more or less, there was, think you go back and basically watch this DS9 episode is where some rogue Jemadar went and have discovered a, what is an Iconian gateway, I think it is.
00:01:24
Truthiness
Yeah. So we're basically trying to work together, track down some rogue Jem'Hadar.
00:01:30
Truthiness
um This adds transporting and teams, as well as hails to the, the basically the learning guide.
Learning and Campaign Strategies
00:01:39
Truthiness
so if you, again, I will say again, the campaign is a great way to learn this game.
00:01:44
Truthiness
It just adds a little bit of elements here and there. It's very clearly designed to help you get used to it. So again,
00:01:51
Truthiness
I highly encourage you to go through the campaign as you're learning the game. They do a great job of introducing you ah to all the course concepts. So for this one, we only got two ships a piece.
00:02:04
Truthiness
um So I got two Geminiar fighters. You brought your slightly damaged Defiant along with the Constellation.
00:02:14
Truthiness
And then did you have any extra officers? You bought Worf, right?
00:02:16
Biggs
Yes, I got Cisco and Worf as my...
00:02:20
Biggs
I got them on the cheap from ah Mission 1. Okay.
00:02:26
Truthiness
Well, look at you, fancy pants. And since I only had one campaign or one strategic point, I didn't get to bring anybody extra.
00:02:35
Truthiness
So I was rocking my generic founder, karma research researcher, board of diplomat, and Jem'Hadar first and second. So yeah, that didn't feel great.
00:02:49
Truthiness
But ah let's see, how did we start this game?
Initial Strategies and Objectives
00:02:53
Biggs
so we basically started the game um I had delayed getting my constellation um to go into system number one and sent my defiant into system number two you decided to send both your Jem'Hadar fighters into system one
00:03:17
Truthiness
Yeah, so you...
00:03:18
Biggs
And at that point, like after the first round, I saw both your fighters were going into system one and said, you know,
00:03:26
Truthiness
And both pointing directly toward the the start your your constellation glass.
00:03:32
Biggs
so I said, you know what? I think maybe my constellation class shouldn't warp into system one. Maybe I'll just turn around and do some stuff in system two. So both of us kind of up until the complication hung out in our own systems and completed the objectives as kind of like ah kind of solo.
00:03:54
Biggs
we were We were playing on the same board.
00:03:57
Truthiness
Parallel. were parallel playing.
00:03:58
Biggs
we were playing we were both playing our own game.
00:04:02
Truthiness
yeah And we were just rolling dice. I think my dice were a little higher than yours. I think I triggered the...
00:04:06
Biggs
Just slightly, you did manage to subdue some borders to get an extra victory point.
00:04:13
Truthiness
Yeah, and I got some crits. that Of course, I think you were getting crits, too, when you were testing them.
00:04:16
Biggs
I got the same... i feel like I got... I had one success that wasn't a crit.
00:04:24
Truthiness
Okay. That was probably, yeah, I think, because I think I went in so the complication too ahead.
00:04:31
Truthiness
Because all of mine had critical successes and yours one didn't.
00:04:31
Biggs
You had You... Yeah, you had a bonus... but You had a bonus success. Um... Yeah. But I did not...
00:04:44
Biggs
I did not get that extra critical and I did not succeed at any subduing of borders.
Tactics and Game Dynamics
00:04:50
Truthiness
Yeah, you pretty well avoided the anomalies not knowing what they are. I'll tell you what, that advantage of the Dominion starts this knowing what at least half the anomalies are. So being able to place that you know first Gemihara raider party directly in my path to start the game, like, yeah, sure, let's do it.
00:05:09
Truthiness
i can might get a victory point out of it.
00:05:10
Biggs
let's dance we'll we'll do this
00:05:13
Truthiness
Yeah, why not? So yeah, it was just a it was ah pretty easy to line that up and go for the extra victory point and it definitely turned out to my advantage there. So, complication got to it pretty quickly.
00:05:28
Truthiness
and then we, you and your silly analysis results, we got yet another Federation complication. Which, stupid scour the site in science testing. Needless to say, I didn't even bother to try.
00:05:45
Biggs
that's okay because I was scouring the sites to try and set you up for a um for a joint final assault
00:05:51
Truthiness
Final assault.
00:05:53
Truthiness
Yeah, so this was one that had a mutual loss win condition, so we decided to actually work together a little bit. um
00:06:02
Truthiness
you wouldn't You wouldn't know that looking at the two Gemini fighters staring directly at the constellation that I'm looking at right now, but yeah, we worked together.
00:06:13
Truthiness
but did things and stuff.
00:06:15
Biggs
we worked together to avoid a mutual loss and isn't in the end isn't that what's important all our teams all our teams were working together
00:06:21
Truthiness
No, what's important is I shoot you. yeah bad dad but but No, you did a thing for me, and then I thanked you for your service by shooting you in the face.
00:06:32
Truthiness
How many of your officers got killed in this one? but They got a little trigger happy.
00:06:36
Biggs
ah So, unfortunately, Jem'Hadar of various ah various alliances managed to incapacitate two of my officers.
00:06:51
Biggs
ah One was for me...
00:06:51
Truthiness
Oh, wait, now the Daring First Officer was Daring First Officer. right. It was because it tested him.
00:06:55
Biggs
Yeah, the daring first officer was me flubbing a mission test and him taking the damage meant for the team. And then my ah redoubtable engineer was um him throwing himself in front of
Final Moves and Reflections
00:07:13
Biggs
ah an entire Jem'Hadar assault force so that the rest of the security team could buy some time.
00:07:16
Truthiness
So but we maybe make back up a little bit. So Big sent over his his constellation into what we'll call my system, the one I what i had saked out at the the beginning of the game and or during the the overture.
00:07:32
Truthiness
And we had three teams down there. he had just successfully scoured the site to give himself, what was it, one or two victory points?
00:07:42
Biggs
ah Two victory points.
00:07:43
Biggs
No, only one only one victory point because i would only get two if there wasn't an opposing team there.
00:07:49
Truthiness
Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, that ah ah that yeah that was that that made me a little nervous because he's starting to pull even at that point and he's got the defiant able to go out and send teams to do yet more Federation sciencey nonsense.
00:08:05
Truthiness
So i decided to shoot him in the face. that So I took the negative and that um got the positive for inflicting the health damage on the opposing unit. So they eventually canceled out.
00:08:18
Truthiness
And my thought basically was if I could maybe bait him into shooting me back. I was trying to actually see if I could get you to shoot back and I i could flip.
00:08:27
Biggs
Mm-hmm. Yes, so that you could flip your aggressive...
00:08:29
Truthiness
Yeah, yeah my combat is my car
00:08:31
Biggs
Yeah, I know. I know what you were trying.
00:08:33
Truthiness
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, again, had two fighters staring right at that constellation. And I didn't need that thing to live. i just needed the team on the surface. So in a very, very Dominion kind of way, I was hoping, you know, let's see if we get a debate into this.
00:08:49
Truthiness
and you You didn't take the bait. i was very disappointed.
00:08:53
Biggs
Yeah, I wasn't about to just... um wasn't about to just open fire. I wasn't about to do anything to give you a justification for ship-to-ship combat.
00:09:06
Biggs
if you're gonna If you're going to shoot my Constellation, I want you to get those negative two victory points.
00:09:11
Truthiness
Yep, yep. Ugh.
00:09:14
Biggs
What can I say? i yeah ah even Even as Dominion, I play a very like diplomatic game, but I am
00:09:21
Truthiness
You belong in the Federation. I'm barring you from Klingons.
00:09:25
Truthiness
I'm barring you from Klingons.
00:09:26
Truthiness
You're not allowed to play Klingons at this rate.
00:09:30
Biggs
i think my I think my strategy will have to be different if I'm playing Klingons, but ah my my strategy so far is very ah very much a Federation strategy of, well, but if you if you're going to do a hostile action, you're going to have to do a hostile action, buddy.
00:09:51
Biggs
I'm not just going to give it to you.
00:09:52
Truthiness
shit like give it to So we spent the first turn of the complication.
Game Dynamics and Federation vs. Dominion
00:10:00
Truthiness
hadn't shot you. You know what? I did shoot you. No, i was on the fifth turn. So fourth turn, we're on the same thing.
00:10:07
Truthiness
We opened the the final mission hill, and I overthought a little bit. Yeah.
00:10:15
Biggs
I was willing to just have the game end. i was going to give you i was goingnna give you the four.
00:10:20
Truthiness
Well, fine, fine. Yeah, whatever. So, um yeah, I went with a three thinking he might try and lowball it and he didn't. So unfortunately, he failed the test the first time.
00:10:32
Truthiness
So we got into the fifth turn. we're going through standby actions. That's when I decided to shoot him. And then we decided to talk about it. it was you know somebody Somebody got a little trigger happy. so we've you know you know There's a Geminiar third that had his neck broken or you know as as discipline.
00:10:49
Truthiness
yeah weve got about our business, coordinated the final assault. and I got an extra victory token out of it, which ten ended up being the difference maker. Because you had, what, seven to my... Oh, wait a minute. I had nine here.
00:11:03
Truthiness
didn't have eight. I had nine. I can't count.
00:11:05
Biggs
man Same difference.
00:11:09
Biggs
o oah i'll update my I'll update the records I'm keeping, but
00:11:10
Truthiness
It's a principle thing.
00:11:14
Truthiness
it to Update the the official record.
00:11:18
Biggs
umll I'll update the spreadsheet.
00:11:20
Truthiness
Yeah, it's still a minor victory for me. So yay, minor victory for the Dominion! This one really didn't have a whole lot of talk about. It went pretty smoothly, pretty quickly, you know, mutual exchange.
00:11:31
Biggs
Of all the missions, this is the one... but of all the intro missions, this is the one that's like an extreme tonal shift. Because while you are yes, competing for competing for victory points, you the get this thing this one really incentivizes...
00:11:56
Biggs
working together but doing so in a way that you succeed.
00:12:00
Truthiness
yeah especially with your hippy-dippy...
00:12:05
Biggs
yeah Especially my hippy-dippy complication.
00:12:06
Truthiness
um um vacation yeah so and we could have had this over in turn four like if i had just you know done my initial plan of just throw the four out roll four dice even though bigs hadn't succeeded in one of the um scouring the sites yet i mean difficulty four would have been rolling four dice adding two for the the skirmish on my gem at our second that probably would have gone pretty well
00:12:27
Biggs
hu Yeah, it would have been... So the the comp the final the final roll, you've got... You're testing trust plus skirmish.
00:12:40
Truthiness
Yeah, there it is. I would have succeeded. Just rolled it right now.
00:12:42
Biggs
Yeah, neat. But yeah, you're trusted you're you're testing trust plus skirmish. But it's difficulty four to start with.
00:12:54
Biggs
It's plus one difficulty for every um every objective location that doesn't have a flag on it. So every time somebody's able to put plant a flag, that decreases the final difficulty by one.
00:13:11
Biggs
um Effectively. So you could think of it as it starts at a seven and every time you plant a flag, it drops by one.
00:13:19
Truthiness
Yeah, and then it's two less if you have a team.
00:13:20
Biggs
um that You get minus two if the if the unit testing is a team, and minus one if there's an opposing team on that location.
00:13:34
Biggs
So the idea is you want you want a team, ah ideally, a team hailing a different team, team whoever is giving or receiving the hail should be someone with some skirmish.
00:13:54
Truthiness
It was really weird to be hailing with a Geminar second.
00:13:59
Truthiness
yeah Especially since i did I threw the founder down there with him just in case I needed some extra shenanigans.
00:14:01
Biggs
Mm-hmm. Well, i specifically i specifically hailed the Jem'Hadar second with my scholarly doctor because i ah from the Constellation because I had no um officers left on the ground.
00:14:20
Biggs
just so i could Just so I could say, like, hey, no, I'm not competing for this.
00:14:25
Biggs
This one's just do it.
00:14:26
Truthiness
Just do it already!
00:14:27
Biggs
Just do it. You got this. You got this, buddy.
00:14:31
Truthiness
Yeah. So I think grand total time, if if we had finished on the fourth turn, man, this probably would have taken, what, 40 minutes, I think?
00:14:38
Biggs
Yeah, the the um the games games with a joint solution can go super duper fast if you've got if you've got a joint solution hail as the as the joint solution.
00:14:46
Truthiness
because we could have had it. Mm-hmm.
00:14:52
Biggs
um Especially if you're like an overture that takes two rounds, you immediately get to the joint solution and both players are just like, yeah, joint solution is the only thing that makes sense right now. We don't need to we don't need to keep playing this out.
00:15:05
Truthiness
I'm kind of surprised you didn't want to try and farm a four victory tokens from the other objectives.
00:15:12
Biggs
Uh, yeah, here's the here's the challenge with that, is that even those those victory point objectives um are really hard to farm.
00:15:26
Biggs
and but when i say when I say it requires people working together, I mean, it requires... the The reason why I scored the one that I did was because the Jem'Hadar...
00:15:38
Truthiness
Yeah. Had two teams there.
00:15:39
Biggs
yeah there were two Jem'Hadar teams on that planet.
00:15:43
Biggs
Like, uh, only the fact that it was difficulty too did I succeed. I had tried to farm one solo with, and yeah, even with a survey team with science three and a engineering one, um skilled first officer,
00:15:52
Truthiness
Yeah. Didn't work out.
00:16:07
Biggs
Uh, yeah, it did not, it did not work.
00:16:11
Truthiness
Yeah. And to give you an idea how much I just did not want to do those secure, scatter the sites. We actually, ah you replace anomaly tokens back on the board.
00:16:22
Truthiness
And one of them has a chance of being ah rating team that, what is it? the Renegade boarding party, which had a theory, theoretically could have given me some victory points.
00:16:33
Truthiness
The only way I felt I could get any victory points out of the complication. So the center of the board, i lined up three anomalies in a row, fully intending to warp over all three of them at once.
00:16:47
Truthiness
Then Biggs decided to come over and play in play in my system, so I opted not to do that. Now I'm going to flip them and, oh man, it would have been both of them.
00:16:58
Truthiness
That would have been gold.
00:16:58
Biggs
Oh, well look at that.
00:17:00
Truthiness
Look at that. We just flipped them now. And yeah, I could have gotten two tests on renegade boarding teams ah for some more. Oh, that would have been hilarious.
00:17:10
Biggs
That would have been pretty funny. Not going to lie.
00:17:11
Truthiness
That have been funny. Let's see. How many more victory points do have gotten out of this? Oh, I think I failed that one.
00:17:19
Truthiness
Yeah, failed it. Oh, no.
00:17:21
Biggs
that would Would that have disabled your...
00:17:22
Truthiness
but and That one was exceeding.
00:17:24
Biggs
That's like two health damage to your ship. That could have...
00:17:29
Truthiness
oo ow Oh man, yeah, that would hurt. Second one would have...
00:17:37
Truthiness
Subdued. Failure. Two health damage. and You're looking at the wrong table. You're looking at the the other one. This one's the Escalating Strikes table. So failure, ships gains, two health damage for the attackers flee the same way they arrived.
00:17:52
Biggs
Yep. So, yeah, you would have disabled your disabled from lack of crew. Your little guys do not have a lot of crew.
00:18:02
Truthiness
Now would have been lot. Not much left, but... Oh, wow. Ouchie. I suppose I could hurt the officers, but... Yeah, okay. Well, glad I didn't do that now.
00:18:19
Truthiness
Oh, God. So this was a fun one. This was a fun, quick one. Man, we don't have a whole lot to talk about with it.
00:18:28
Biggs
It's, it is, again, it's a mission where you're, while you are at odds in a certain sense, you're you're still trying to get victory points, more victory points than your opponent.
00:18:42
Biggs
You are working together, and if you don't work together, at least, honestly, quite a bit, if you don't work together quite a bit, you're just going to straight up lose.
Reflections on Past Games
00:18:54
Biggs
And when I played this with Loki, he, as the Federation, decided, yeah, no, that's okay, the Dominion can lose this one, and just did not work with me at all to complete the final hail, and forced the mutual loss to
00:19:10
Truthiness
Big old, big old feels bad. All
World Cup and Personal Anecdotes
00:19:15
Truthiness
right. Well, you want to talk about the ongoing world cup?
00:19:18
Biggs
Oh, yes. Let's talk about the ongoing World Cup. Let me get let me get out of this game real quick.
00:19:23
Truthiness
So first I'm going shame you and your pod because there is one of the three pods that is done.
00:19:29
Truthiness
And it's mine. Pot Enterprise has completed all of our games.
00:19:36
Truthiness
I've been having some good fun with it too.
00:19:40
Truthiness
Man, it's... a
00:19:44
Truthiness
So I did manage to win all three of mine. um There is very clearly becoming a complication that that it scores a lot of of victory points.
00:19:58
Truthiness
So apparently mint Minty... um minty punch he played cloak and dagger think he said three times um and by the time he got to the third one man did he figure out how to do this um he won his last game 31 to 19 um because some reason cloak and dagger does not involve putting a claim the objectives so you can park
00:20:25
Truthiness
All of your ships next to objective tokens and just commit officers left and right to just keep testing and testing and testing and testing. Now you bank them on the unit.
00:20:36
Truthiness
So if someone goes hostile, you can delete the victory points. before they are scored at the end of the game. But what seems to keep happening is nobody fights.
00:20:49
Truthiness
Nobody's willing to risk the two-victory point penalty to stop the other guy from scoring. um That wasn't the case when Minty and I played. I blew up two of his ships on my way to winning that game, but it was it was fairly close. so ah Not like his game against Krabok, which was the first one in my team.
00:21:05
Biggs
Yeah, that is, uh, that is, that one was quite the, quite the spicy ending. Um, ooh.
00:21:14
Truthiness
Yeah, the White Dads. And then my game against Kravok, I'm trying to remember what our complication was, but we did end up fighting. i think I blew up one of his ships. Or maybe was two to one. I think I blew up two of his. He blew up one of mine.
00:21:29
Truthiness
No, I'm thinking my game against Minty. I think, ah, crap, I'm not remembering how my game Kravok went other than the final score. um Yeah, but my ah because of my my game against Minty was very, very memorable because I used the Dominion kind directive to flip the hostile.
00:21:48
Truthiness
to get the first shot. i then managed to shoot his constellation, one of his two constellations in such a way that it was severely damaged on one hall and his engineering station was disabled. So he couldn't even recover energy. It was just sitting there shieldless.
00:22:06
Truthiness
And then the complication flipped. So I couldn't finish it without flipping my directive yet again. so it just kind of sat there with officers on board that couldn't do anything. Yeah.
00:22:19
Truthiness
So it was, you know, I eventually shot a torpedo at it to finish it off. I think it was on turn five because you used the directive at the end of turn four to flip. um And then also got his other one in kind of a similar way.
00:22:32
Truthiness
shit You really got concentrate fire in this game, I'm finding. Like sometimes if you're just kind of shooting one-on-one, it just kind of feels like shield damage and that's it.
00:22:38
Biggs
Yeah, both of them will both of them will just sustain and stay up. But if you can ambush one ship with two or three, or for the Federation, really, you want those shuttles out, adding their firepower as well.
00:22:55
Biggs
Because that's a that's an extra two shots.
00:22:59
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah. That's assuming you can get them in position, but you you really have no downside to it.
00:23:03
Truthiness
You might as well launch them. Might as well do it.
00:23:05
Biggs
Mm-hmm. The only thing it costs is energy.
00:23:08
Truthiness
Yeah. I'm kind of coming along to Minty's idea of throwing quantums on Gemidar fighters as well. Cause the, the regular photons are a little unreliable. Yeah.
00:23:20
Truthiness
And Jem'Hadar fighters, they they I ah like to run them lean on officers. So like one person dealing with warp and helm and Jem'Hadar on the weapon station, maybe.
00:23:34
Truthiness
um And then you don't have to burn a lot of energy on the weapons if you just use the Polarons in the front and then shoot a torpedo. It's only four energy to use.
00:23:43
Truthiness
You can leak them at yellow one and they'll be pretty sustainable throughout the entire game. Whereas the battle cruiser, you always you already want a lot of officer zoning anyway, and you can just pour a bunch of energy into Polaron beams and just not worry just not worry about
Ship Capabilities and Weapon Choices
00:23:59
Biggs
And you've only got one torpedo tube anyway, and it only comes out the front, so...
00:24:02
Truthiness
Yeah. yeah Yeah, so it's not really great with its torpedoes. So if you can just find a way to stay a little lean to get those 12 points into quantums for the fighters, feel like I agree with them. It's a really effective way to use those those weapons, especially since they can shoot at the aft as well. like They have a lot more weaponry on them um as far as torpedoes are concerned than the Jem'Hadar Battlecruiser.
00:24:31
Truthiness
as much as I, I do love the general cruiser, but yeah, it's, um, when you get all three of those things on a ship, you can melt pretty much anything.
00:24:39
Truthiness
Like I, I'm kind of, I don't think I've actually done it against another, like I, against like a galaxy yet, but man, if you can, you know, pump them full of Polaron shots to stop them from, from using impulse and then just, Oh, Hey, there's a bunch of torpedoes heading your way.
00:24:58
Truthiness
Have fun with that breaching. yeah it's amazing how fast those things melt when you hit with torpedoes.
00:25:05
Biggs
My goodness, I can imagine.
00:25:07
Truthiness
Yeah, it's, I think that's, that's pretty good reflection of what's on screen. Like you see, you know, phaser shots all the time. It takes a while for phasers to do anything. You hit with a torpedo though. That's a bad day.
00:25:20
Biggs
At least, uh, at least the photons, you can, you can tank a photon torpedo, but those...
00:25:26
Truthiness
Yeah. Well, any, in this game, any torpedoes,
00:25:28
Biggs
Four black dice hurts.
00:25:31
Truthiness
Yeah, and man, especially if you get locks on. like i'm I'm coming around to using standby action for a sensor lock these days because it really makes a big difference, especially on torpedoes.
00:25:45
Truthiness
Because you know you can relentless your way to to victory with some gem hadar sometimes, but torpedoes don't have any natural rerolls, which is what makes photons so aggravatingly inconsistent.
00:25:58
Truthiness
I've even had Quantums just completely blank out on me too. But like if you're getting four damage with the Quantums with Breaching, oh my goodness. That hurts so much.
00:26:09
Truthiness
Because you don't get the protection of the step damage. you you don't You don't stop. You just keep on going. And man, oof. yeah Even even a Galaxy Class with 8 Hall, it's it does not like getting hit Torpedoes.
00:26:27
Truthiness
But yeah, think
00:26:27
Biggs
I mean, the galaxy... class the gal I will say, the galaxy classes of um of the ships the Federation has, the galaxy classes feel the most resilient.
00:26:42
Truthiness
I think I actually...
00:26:42
Biggs
um And yeah, yeah even even like a Battlecruiser and a Galaxy Class going up against one another, trading blows, it's far from a guaranteed thing that you're going to take the Galaxy Class out of the fight.
00:26:58
Truthiness
No, not even close. But I will say, I think actually the ship I feel is feels the most tanky is the Defiant. It doesn't take... it One, got the higher natural evasion value.
00:27:08
Truthiness
um you're not You're not giving that ship a critical um if if it doesn't come from the natural step damage.
00:27:16
Truthiness
Like, what's his resilience? Three?
00:27:18
Truthiness
got a four. oh my god. Yeah, you're not...
00:27:20
Biggs
Yeah, you're you're not.
00:27:21
Truthiness
You're not doing it.
00:27:22
Truthiness
And then I think it only has like one or two criticals on its step down. um And unlike the Geminiar fighters...
00:27:28
Biggs
it's it's got It's got two, and like I think the last one is at one pole, so...
00:27:33
Truthiness
Yeah, that's why. Yeah, it's pretty much dead at that point anyway, so who cares?
00:27:38
Truthiness
um Whereas the Geminiar fighters, I feel like they melt much faster. I feel like the... I don't think the Geminiar have... Do they even have... feel like they actually miss a step somehow.
00:27:51
Truthiness
I don't know why, but i feel like...
00:27:53
Biggs
Yeah, they they go there's step down at 2. Yeah, five four three before there's a step down at two
00:28:02
Truthiness
Yeah, and then I don't think they have... They either don't have an orange or they don't have yellow. What is it?
00:28:10
Biggs
yeah it goes um it goes 5-4-3, 2 is yellow, is 0. Mm-hmm. one is orange and then um red disabled to zero
00:28:19
Truthiness
One is orange.
00:28:25
Truthiness
Yeah, so you got, like if they get hit by a torpedo, it's game over, man.
00:28:30
Truthiness
Yeah, Defiant, that's what it is. So it starts at six. It only takes two steps down and to get to a yellow, two more steps down to get to an orange, and then two more steps down to get to a red.
00:28:40
Truthiness
So it's got a bit more.
00:28:42
Biggs
A reasonable amount of tank to it.
00:28:44
Truthiness
Yeah, and I feel like it's the ship i because by by nature of just, and maybe it's just because it's so stinking upgunned. Maybe that's what it is.
00:28:52
Biggs
Sorry for the dogs barking in the background.
00:28:56
Truthiness
and Nobody cares about dogs. Professional podcast. We're definitely... um but and Maybe it's just because it's just got so many fantastic weapons related. Like the standard the standard quantum torpedoes.
00:29:15
Truthiness
The standard quantum torpedoes, the you the the um the that's this the pulse, the and just the natural amount of weaponry.
00:29:26
Truthiness
um yeah It just feels like it's just such a nice ship.
00:29:37
Truthiness
So yeah, so we muted Biggs for a little bit because he had some dogs to take care of.
00:29:44
Truthiness
Anyway, i was talking about The Defiant and it being awesome.
00:29:49
Biggs
Yeah, Defiant is awesome. No doubt ah no doubt about that. um is it Is it worth six points to take two Defiants?
00:30:02
Truthiness
It depends on how you want to play. And the Federation plays, i can I don't know if it's the right call. I do take...
00:30:09
Biggs
It certainly doesn't feel right to gain six points to take two constellations.
00:30:17
Truthiness
No, definitely not. I mean, unless you know that you're going to have a very science-heavy objective. Like, I saw Minty do Minty was beating the snot out of me during the overture.
00:30:28
Truthiness
ah But I've found that I am... letting my opponents naturally... ah basically have started daring my opponents to get two or more points ahead of me in the overtures.
00:30:41
Truthiness
like i just I'm doing it intentionally as the Dominion. It's a very flexible way to play if you just just delay a little bit. you you don't have to You can get yourself in position to score, but you don't have to score.
00:30:54
Truthiness
Just so you can, in that hail phase, even if you don't end up shooting, you're giving yourself the option to start shooting, which...
00:31:02
Biggs
And being able to being able to say, hey, I can open fire at any time. is almost as, it may even be more powerful than actually taking the shot because it forces your opponent to consider, consider the possibilities.
00:31:23
Truthiness
Yeah, yeah. So it's going to start forcing them to you know put actions toward adjusting alerts to try and get their shields up. It's forcing them away from your ships or it'll start them grouping up, which is also another thing you manage to It's another thing I like to do as Dominion is I stay together as a unit.
00:31:42
Truthiness
One, the Battlecruiser is pretty much the only thing doing a lot of objective farming anyway, especially when it comes to command tests or science tests. So why would I split up my fighters? Keep the fighters as a unit, threaten a smaller chunk of the board, and just you know take it slow, take it easy, let the Federation build up their head steam, and then just pounce.
00:32:05
Truthiness
like i've I've used this a couple times now. I watched Loki do it to me, and it it was really effective. um And, you know, I then proceeded to do it to Crybuck and Minty, and it worked out really well for me.
00:32:18
Truthiness
um So, yeah, I like playing from behind his dominion. It's, you know, I think it's probably an obvious tactic that we all kind of saw when we saw the directives, but watching it actually play out, I feel like is is really enjoyable for me.
00:32:32
Truthiness
It feels feels very narratively appropriate of just found the the the founders are just going to sit back and watch and evaluate, and then they'll take their their opportunity when they're well and ready.
00:32:45
Biggs
I will say that i aye I have begun to prefer the opposite tact of the Federation of, hey, I can have so much out on the board between my shuttles and my teams, and I will be able to contest all of these objectives.
Player Experiences and Game Outcomes
00:33:09
Biggs
And I will be able to be places that the Dominion just isn't able to reasonably get to.
00:33:21
Biggs
i mean... My game against... um
00:33:28
Biggs
My game against GP where... ah Again, it was cloak and dagger, and both of us decided, yeah, it really doesn't make it really doesn't make sense to shoot one another, ah because everyone's scattered to the winds, we really can't get the appropriate teams down to contest the other teams.
00:33:37
Truthiness
Farm, farm, farm, farm, farm.
00:33:49
Truthiness
So that's the thing. Why were you scattered to the winds? That's, yeah and for you, absolutely. That's the right call to make.
00:33:55
Biggs
for me For me, absolutely. I was i was i was very...
00:33:57
Truthiness
themi For Dominion, because on that complication, you can keep farming off of the same one with everybody.
00:34:06
Truthiness
You can just keep all for me keep all of your guys together and threaten things that are making those tests. Like, you know,
00:34:13
Biggs
Well, he all of his guys were all of his guys were together for the most part, but the the problem wherein all of his guys were together is that all of his guys were together on the opposite end of the map that I was.
00:34:31
Truthiness
Gotcha. Yeah, so nobody nobody around each other, he didn't have the the ability to, you know, you didn't want to take the time and effort to take all of his units to your location.
00:34:41
Biggs
Yeah, it was going to be multiple turns for him to get to me and a location to score with those units was right there.
00:34:45
Truthiness
Yeah, I gotcha.
00:34:52
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I kind of wonder if maybe there was supposed to be a flag on those, because that seems
00:35:02
Biggs
I mean, i so to be fair, to be fair, um I played an in-person game against Loki yesterday where we also pulled
00:35:15
Truthiness
Cloak and dagger.
00:35:15
Biggs
um we also pulled that objective. And or that we we also pulled that complication. And it made more sense for...
00:35:28
Biggs
ah me to go hostile as the Dominion because I was playing the Dominion in that game it made me it made me it made more sense for me to go hostile early um break down some of these locations that he was already farming on and be like okay that's that's fine you're youre you can't score points there good luck getting to another one in time
00:36:01
Biggs
That game had to unfortunately end early due to time, but it was going to be it wasn't going to be nearly as high scoring as the previous one.
00:36:10
Truthiness
ah Yeah. Oh, man. 31 has got be a record. I think it's record at this point.
00:36:16
Biggs
ah No, i I beg to differ because I was the record with thirty four to twenty eight against GP.
00:36:16
Truthiness
But quite a margin. 34 to 28.
00:36:27
Truthiness
thirty four to twenty eight
00:36:28
Biggs
Yes, 34 to 28. Yeah,
00:36:31
Truthiness
my goodness as a yeah when you got other games here that are going like seven to five oh man
00:36:40
Biggs
yeah that game is that game is significantly different in terms of final score.
00:36:45
Truthiness
yeah oh man it's a funny one all right well i am i'm heading to adepticon this week uh so if you're
Future Plans and Real-life Parallels
00:36:58
Truthiness
In the hall in Milwaukee, I'll be hanging out on Thursday, I'll be playing some Heresy, and then Friday, and I'll be playing at least one day of Armada. If I don't make the next cut, I'll be hopping over to Drop Fleet, probably checking out some of the, maybe swing by some of the demo games for Into the Unknown as well.
00:37:19
Truthiness
I think they're just going to have the same setup as last year where there's kind of doing the the two ships ah demo games. um But I'd really love they had more of the stuff out there. I'll definitely have to swing by and see if they have any previews out, especially if they got any Klingon previews to to hand out. That would be really cool to see in person.
00:37:36
Truthiness
um so if you're DeptCon, please feel free to swing by say hi. um And yeah, I'll be happy to chat. Biggs, you doing anything? You doing anything fun?
00:37:48
Biggs
Not really. I'm going to be working six of the next eight days, so...
00:37:54
Truthiness
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh,
00:38:02
Biggs
is the Is the short answer no. And the long answer is oh no.
00:38:06
Truthiness
oh God. Well, ah that there you little Little thing to pick you up. ah
00:38:14
Biggs
All right. Well, we'll be seeing everybody next time.
00:38:15
Truthiness
Well, enjoy working. Yeah, i enjoy working in what is totally not the pit.
00:38:21
Biggs
ah you did It's not nearly as bad as that.
00:38:27
Truthiness
but How did you just...
00:38:27
Biggs
ah although although i Although I do enjoy watching the pit and talking about like, no, yeah, yeah, that's legit. Yep, yep, that's legit.
00:38:34
Truthiness
Yep, that's legit.
00:38:36
Truthiness
Yep, yep, yep, that's legit. What did you do?
00:38:38
Truthiness
I think you said it's based very heavily on your hospital, right?
00:38:42
Biggs
ah No, not my hospital, but a hospital in the area.
00:38:46
Biggs
It's ah Allegheny General's No Good, Very Bad Day.
00:38:50
Biggs
um we are The hospital I work at is not a trauma center, so it my my day is nowhere near as bad even on my worst day.
00:39:02
Biggs
But it's, ah I mean, much of the much of the science that they're doing there, much much of the medicine that they're doing there legit. legit like and And a lot of the things that they show happening in an emergency department is absolutely like, oh yeah, oh yeah, that but yeah that happened to me. Yep, that happened to me.
00:39:25
Truthiness
So how many times have you gotten decked?
00:39:28
Biggs
ah I've only gotten punched in the face one time by mistake, ah and that's because the fourth person going into a psych patient's room and I was on legs and the third person into the room who was supposed to be on left hand ah just kind of stood around and did nothing.
00:39:54
Truthiness
Oh, that's fun.
00:39:57
Truthiness
Oopsie. All right. Well, on that end,
00:39:59
Biggs
but Yeah, generally generally ah generally I don't look like the kind of person that you want to throw fisticuffs to, so. I haven't gotten decked nearly as much as some of the female nurses and techs have.
00:40:11
Truthiness
Oh, lovely. Lovely. All right. On that uplifting note, I guess we'll we'll call it for the day. By the time this is published, I will likely be at Adepticon.
00:40:21
Truthiness
So this will be on a schedule.
00:40:24
Truthiness
Yeah. So if find me there. This will publish on Friday. So I will be playing my first day of Armada. So until next time, y'all have a good one.