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Victory is Life
41 Plays2 months ago
Biggs and Truthi finally get to their favorite topic: fleet building.
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Transcript
Introduction and Return
00:00:38
Truthiness
Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the Unknown Podcast. Sorry, we've been off for a couple weeks. Biggs here. Well, first, let's say hi, Biggs.
00:00:46
Biggs
Hi Biggs.
00:00:48
Truthiness
Biggs here is enjoying warmth down in down in Florida while the rest of us are married.
00:00:55
Biggs
It was really nice.
00:00:56
Truthiness
Yes, I bet. Um, and then, uh, then I got, as you can probably told my, my voice, I got the flu last week. Um, so, uh, yeah, we didn't record last week.
00:01:07
Truthiness
So apologies. We're finally going to get into the one I think we have been waiting for for quite a while.
00:01:13
Biggs
Oh my goodness.
Dominion Fleet Building: Overview
00:01:41
Truthiness
Victory is left people. We're talking Dominion Fleet Building. Get hyped.
00:01:47
Biggs
Get hyped. i yeah
00:01:50
Truthiness
So plan, yeah, so plan tonight is to just talk through the named officers, go through our lower deck MVP, finally getting to get and do that segment. And then we'll just kind of stuck initial thoughts and fleet building ideas, just kind of more freeform than we usually do. um And we're kind of getting into what Biggs and I really love to do. So Biggs, I'll let you hit it off. Who do you want to start with?
00:02:16
Biggs
Uh, let's
Spotlight on Talak Talan
00:02:17
Biggs
start with, um, I think my personal favorite, uh, Talak Talan.
00:02:25
Truthiness
Okay, alright, what are we doing with this guy?
00:02:27
Biggs
All right. So, uh, this guy, um, good old menacing third, he is, um, ordinance two skirmish two, uh, along with field craft one and discipline one.
00:02:45
Biggs
He's got relentless one for the keyword and ah some special text that after his unit locks an opposing unit, add one peril to the opposing unit.
00:02:57
Truthiness
yeah Coming in at nine points and you can fill your ops slot it looks like.
00:02:57
Biggs
So, yep.
00:03:04
Biggs
And what I like about him is just that natural ability to really get into a good old fashioned brawl.
00:03:18
Biggs
um Not only, not only the skirmish two, and I mean, there's, there's a decent number of skirmish two floating around out there in the gem hadar, but that, ah that ordinance to that ordinance to I think so.
00:03:19
Truthiness
Yeah.
00:03:33
Truthiness
Yeah, I think he's the only source of it in the roster right now, right? Yeah.
00:03:38
Biggs
um And, and you know, the relentless one is your is your other nice gimmick of getting you getting you a way to reroll your dice um when there aren't a lot of ways to do it.
00:03:46
Truthiness
Yeah. Without having to lock. Yeah, without having to lock, I think is the nice part is you don't need an extra action.
00:04:01
Truthiness
Yeah, you have the downside of relentless, but like, Oh, well, it's, it's just a really, it's a really good ability.
00:04:07
Biggs
e yeah that's you know he's He's here for a good time, not a long time. we love our We love our things that are here for a good time, but not a long time.
00:04:20
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's right at home in that weapon station, uh, pretty much on any ship, like, yeah um, just your ability to. to just add those two black dice on your shot is just just fantastic.
00:04:34
Biggs
And he's got some, there's some other gimmicks that you can do with him, like adding, being able to, burn an action on a target lock. It doesn't have to be him doing it. It's his unit locking an opposing unit. So he just needs to be physically present somewhere on the ship.
00:04:56
Truthiness
Yeah.
00:04:56
Biggs
um
00:04:57
Truthiness
You have more to go do it.
00:04:58
Biggs
And adding, that's ah that's a free peril. And sometimes getting that extra peril can make the difference because yes, you can use Peril for different things. You you can use it, um for example, to score victory points with your ah with your hail, your your default hail. But um in mutual in mutual loss scenarios, you can use it to help your opponent.
00:05:41
Biggs
succeed to make the mutual loss less likely.
00:05:47
Truthiness
cute.
00:05:48
Biggs
I've done that.
00:05:49
Truthiness
Very cute.
00:05:50
Biggs
I've done that. I mean, we didn't succeed because my opponent decided to spite me, but hey, you know, e go figure, right?
00:05:57
Truthiness
Loki, spite you, never. Yeah, right.
00:06:03
Biggs
But yeah, that that is ah that is a ah trick that you can do. You can use your own You can use your own peril to reroll blanks if you absolutely need the Federation to succeed at something.
00:06:20
Truthiness
Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's a nice trick. I like that. OK, so while we're on the theme of gem hadar, let's talk ometical on.
Ometicalon's Tactical Importance
00:06:30
Truthiness
So this guy's got discipline two, empathy one, field graph one, ordinance one, skirmish two, relentless two.
00:06:38
Biggs
Woofoo.
00:06:38
Truthiness
Ooh. And his special text is, after a metaclon sustains damage, you may add one advantage to a unit at comms range. Now he's coming in at a very hefty 11 points and can fill an op slot.
00:06:50
Truthiness
um This guy is just he's tailor-made for that that geminar assault team like the relentless the the skirmish to He can you know do a weapons team slot and in on a ship no problem But I feel like he he's right at home with a geminar assault team.
00:07:11
Biggs
that he is. And being able to add advantage to a unit at comms range it means that it doesn't even have to be his unit.
00:07:18
Truthiness
I
00:07:22
Biggs
so
00:07:22
Truthiness
Yeah. And well, that, that special text even goes into, he wants to be on the ground skirmishing.
00:07:28
Biggs
again And using Relentless to sustain damage that way.
00:07:30
Truthiness
Um, cause then, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you can, you can just assign one damage to him and then give the others to the team. And he's yeah, it's yeah nice.
00:07:42
Truthiness
car a Nice card. Very expensive, but I have a hard time making a fleet without him. I feel, I bet you.
00:07:52
Biggs
he he does't I don't feel like he auto slots into the fleets that I'm building, but I do have less experience than you do.
00:08:05
Truthiness
Well, no, I mean, he's not he's, I wouldn't even call him an auto pick.
00:08:05
Biggs
so
00:08:08
Truthiness
I have a hard time leaving him home, but that also is courtesy of just how small the roster is. He's just, he's really, really good at what he does for a nice price. And a lot of the Dominion officers are fairly cheap.
00:08:20
Truthiness
So usually I have the, I don't feel like I'm feeling the pinch on points with him, um like I do in the Federation roster.
00:08:26
Biggs
That's fair.
00:08:28
Truthiness
I feel like I, ah he's only, the only real, Majorly premium officer ah for the Dominion and I think he's well worth it Yeah Okay, um, well we talked about the name Gemadar.
00:08:39
Biggs
the It's certainly hard to argue for the Dominion that you're not going to be able to afford what you want to take.
00:08:50
Truthiness
Do you want to go on to our friendly?
Weyun's Negotiation Skills
00:08:54
Truthiness
neighborhood ah schemers
00:08:57
Biggs
Okay, so let's go to Weyun number four, the Unxious Envoy. ah He's got diplomacy two, which he backs up but with a nice glib two, as well as biology one, logic one, and navigation one. And As an added bonus, after he leads a hail, if you wind up being accommodating, you can exchange your spent trust token for one of your unspent trust tokens. so You can play a little bit of a game here where you can try and deal a um and try and steal one of your hails
00:09:47
Biggs
for cheap and then toss away like you can try and steal one with a three and toss away your two if they if they play the four to beat you.
00:09:55
Truthiness
Yeah. And there's no, there's no downside. Like if so you think your opponent's going to try and, you know, play a game of, okay, well they have initiative, so they're going to win this exchange with this high break.
00:10:08
Truthiness
Maybe they're going to try and get away with the three.
00:10:10
Biggs
Mm hmm.
00:10:11
Truthiness
There's no downside to throwing your four out there. Um, so, cause he can just pull it right back if you lose the tie break, which is just great. I mean, he's another one that's hard to leave home just for that, that hail aspect to it. Like he can, he's very flexible. Um, and you know, bright in line with the character with, uh, our favorite Jeffrey Combs hair character, um, of Star Trek. Oh my God. There's so many of them. How many, do you remember how many characters this guy's played?
00:10:40
Biggs
Jeffrey's comb. I think it, I think it's something like at least seven.
00:10:44
Truthiness
Oh, I think it's more than that. I think it's somewhere in the dozen.
00:10:49
Biggs
I know I've seen the memes.
00:10:49
Truthiness
He's played so much.
00:10:51
Biggs
I've seen the memes.
00:10:51
Truthiness
I'm i'm working my way through DS9, and he's already showed up at least twice, and we haven't even met Raine yet.
00:10:56
Biggs
<unk> Well, I mean, do you count every single way?
00:11:02
Truthiness
Eh, I would go with no. No, but he did have a, oh God, we're going to get so trudtracked here. I feel like we're he got enterprise. I'm pretty sure he was on next gen for a couple of roles. I know there's some more stuff he shows up in and yes, I am decides way.
Jeffrey Combs' Star Trek Roles
00:11:20
Truthiness
The man, the man's a legend.
00:11:22
Truthiness
But in this case, I feel like they really nailed the character. He is very good at wheeling and dealing and you know pulling back that high level of trust to use again later um in case you get, you know if you get out negotiated, he comes right back later on in the game and now you've you're gonna lose the negotiation to him now.
00:11:44
Truthiness
It's really nice.
00:11:44
Biggs
and you and you and you don't even want you don't even want to like win because he's got glib too that's that's too peril he's adding automatically to you just for just for beating him so good
00:12:04
Truthiness
Just for beating him, yeah, and get some nice insults in there. God, we are definitely talking about a Star Trek game.
00:12:14
Truthiness
So who else we got? Eris.
00:12:15
Biggs
but Yeah, Eris.
00:12:17
Truthiness
So out of curiosity, do you remember who this character is?
Eris' Infiltration Abilities
00:12:20
Biggs
No.
00:12:21
Truthiness
This is the very first Vorta ever encountered. ah So this is the, I think it's like season two, that episode where they where they meet the Geminar, it's the first full encounter with the Dominion.
00:12:34
Truthiness
And she poses as a a soic psychic alien on the run from the Geminar. It turns out, oh, whoop, nope, it's just a Dominion trick.
00:12:40
Biggs
Hmm.
00:12:43
Truthiness
um So that's her. If that helps you understand what this character is a little better,
00:12:51
Biggs
Okay.
00:12:54
Truthiness
oh sorry i was waiting for you
00:12:54
Biggs
so but So anyway, she's eight points. um She can fit your um your command slot or your um operation slot. And she also has glib2, diplomacy one, fieldcraft two, and this will be important in a second,
00:13:19
Truthiness
Oh, sorry, I was waiting for you.
00:13:21
Biggs
Logic1Navigation1, she's got a special ah action that she can take, so discourse ah so discord, where you ah you test operations and fieldcraft to add one peril to a unit at the same location with the difficulty equal to the unit's ah command value and highest
00:13:29
Truthiness
Discord.
00:13:48
Biggs
ah social skill.
00:13:50
Truthiness
Yeah, so this is reflecting her
00:13:51
Biggs
With that in mind, that's ah that's a that's a I've got nothing better to do. Let's waste ah action.
00:13:56
Truthiness
Yeah, you don't wanna go hostile, but you wanna make life more difficult for another team in the same location. You know, she infilts infiltrates and so is Discord. it's It's a nice cheeky little ability ah to to mess with objective stuff. I feel like she's not a bad thing to pull in there if you're Dominion and you're dealing with a freaking science objective, because Dominion kind of stinks at that. um So you just make your life harder for the opposing side.
00:14:25
Truthiness
um to do the same things. That's kind of how I see how she works.
00:14:28
Biggs
what Plus, for filling roles um on a ship, she's not too bad at filling roles on a ship seeing as how she has um at least a one in every ah
00:14:45
Biggs
What's the word I'm looking for? Every level every group.
00:14:46
Truthiness
you know yeah And then she can fill, what does it look like? The ops and command roles. for you guys. so Okay, so this will happen. Better than our geminar, who can only go into ops and and the flex slots, unfortunately.
00:15:03
Biggs
One of the few folks that ah can actually do the commander roles.
00:15:14
Truthiness
Hanok?
00:15:18
Biggs
I guess, I guess we have to talk a knock next.
00:15:21
Truthiness
Yes, we do ah Yeah, so let's see we got nine points um he can be Science or ops and he's got commerce to culture one diplomacy one mechanics one and navigation one he's perceptive one and after he leads a hail Add a advantage token to his unit equal to the difference between the highest and lowest trust tokens So yeah, he's there he exists
00:15:49
Biggs
Maybe she sure is.
00:15:52
Truthiness
Um, he's doing the thing he does in the TV show, which is, you know, negotiate, negotiate with, with Quark and care about commerce.
00:15:56
Biggs
Which is being around.
00:16:01
Truthiness
Um, so I guess if you have a commerce objective, this is the guide to bring. Um, but otherwise this is not really one I know much to do with.
Hanok's Limited Utility
00:16:12
Truthiness
He is, he's a sanctimonious minister.
00:16:12
Biggs
Yeah. these Yeah. He, uh, So what I'm thinking with him is,
00:16:23
Biggs
uh, remind me what perceptive one does again. Cause I'm, I'm drawing a, I'm drawing a little bit of a blank on that one.
00:16:27
Truthiness
Oh god, I have to look it up.
00:16:33
Truthiness
Oh, you had to call me out.
00:16:34
Biggs
that This shows, this shows how much both of us have paid attention to Hanok.
00:16:38
Truthiness
Yeah, right?
00:16:38
Biggs
Um, is that, let's see, 10 to the nine to five. What do we got here? Uh, ah
00:16:47
Truthiness
butpa papa Why am I singing this song?
00:16:47
Biggs
Where's our,
00:16:51
Biggs
where is our, there we go. ah Perceptive. When he leads, oh, when he leads a test, treat their units, instruments, power stat is increased by X.
00:17:01
Biggs
So he gets an extra inch on his sensors and comms.
00:17:04
Truthiness
Oh no, look out. Look out. Look out.
00:17:08
Biggs
Oh no. um Okay, so he he goes in the binder, right?
00:17:13
Truthiness
yeah He'll be another one for coaster gold some other day.
00:17:17
Biggs
um I mean, maybe if we at some point run into a mission that uses commerce,
00:17:24
Biggs
maybe, maybe he'll come back. Maybe if there's a Ferengi expansion or something.
00:17:29
Truthiness
Yeah, who knows? Yeah, and it's just really gonna come down to objective. Like, I don't think I've seen a whole lot of commerce so far. So I think that's really kind of the thing he brings. Like, that's unique.
00:17:40
Truthiness
So, you know, if you need to do some commercial negotiations, they're your guy. All right, well, we'll leave that guy in the in in the binder for for a bit and finish up the named characters with everyone's favorite genocidal shapeshifter, the female changeling.
Female Changeling's Duplication Power
00:17:57
Biggs
Yeah, so um lots of lots of skills, all at skill level one.
00:17:58
Truthiness
Ooh.
00:18:05
Biggs
um A source of ah source of biology, a rare source of biology for the ah for the um Dominion.
00:18:16
Biggs
You got culture one, diplomacy one, discipline one, field craft one, that biology one, navigation one, Um, can fill any role, 10 value for, um, for how much it takes to bring her. She's got changeling two as her, um, as her special ability. So after she leads a test, add two peril to each opposing ah unit at the officer's location. And she's inspiring.
00:18:55
Biggs
um, on command value, which is not the most common thing to find on, um, and I mean, all the founders have inspiring, but it's not, it's not very common otherwise in to, to have an inspiring unit.
00:18:55
Truthiness
On command only.
00:19:09
Truthiness
Yeah, it's all the founders are the ones that have inspiring. That's, that's it. That's it for the Dominion.
00:19:17
Biggs
Um, but then she has a action that she can take. Choose an opposing officer at the female changeling's location. She becomes a copy of that officer with this action and changeling two.
00:19:33
Truthiness
That's, that's the reason to bring her.
00:19:36
Biggs
Mm-hmm.
00:19:36
Truthiness
Cause like most of those stats are just like, okay, she's middling culture, middling diplomacy, middling discipline, field grant biology.
00:19:41
Biggs
Mm-hmm.
00:19:42
Truthiness
know Yeah.
00:19:43
Biggs
Yeah, sure.
00:19:43
Truthiness
Those are all nice.
00:19:44
Biggs
She can push the catch-or-sell white button. Okay.
00:19:46
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's really that duplication thing. Um, which I mean, it's going to depend entirely on like an away team. Um, or I suppose you could take her on a boarding action and start duplicating officers on a bridge or something.
00:20:01
Truthiness
Um, but it's really going to come down to that. Like, uh,
00:20:05
Biggs
She can become the best thing your opponent is using against you.
00:20:10
Truthiness
yeah. Yeah. Like imagine, like imagine duplicating Picard with that's just, whoo. That's a nice one to steal.
00:20:19
Biggs
or Or, you know, Miles O'Brien on a mechanics heavy mission.
00:20:21
Truthiness
Or Orion, yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, i mean like we talk about Dominion struggling with science objectives. Maybe this is the officer you bring to try and contest that. like Help yourself out with those those hard science tests and you know clone yourself a Bashir or a Dax. um And you know help your help with the objectives there.
00:20:46
Truthiness
And it's very flexible.
00:20:47
Biggs
Lots of very flexible, doesn't doesn't seem very interesting initially, but being that duplication is what mit brings her from good to great and why she's worth 10 points to bring, making her the second most expensive.
00:21:03
Truthiness
Yeah.
00:21:06
Biggs
But hear me out. Yes, she costs 10 points to bring.
00:21:14
Biggs
but if she goes in the transfer pool, she only costs three points to bring.
00:21:17
Truthiness
h She's only a three points. Yeah, that's a high upside to put into your transferable.
00:21:25
Biggs
that is That is potentially a steep, steep discount in replacing one of these vorta diplomat, or not vorta diplomats, vorta supervisors who are,
00:21:31
Truthiness
nothing
00:21:36
Truthiness
rising They're there. They exist.
00:21:39
Biggs
not good. they they sure They sure do exist. um Just a straight upgrade over the Vorta supervisor.
00:21:47
Truthiness
Yeah, that's an excellent point. You got to rely on a bit of luck there to get that in the transfer pool. But I mean, can't argue with that.
00:21:54
Biggs
You got a 2 out of 6 to top deck her.
00:21:59
Truthiness
All right. And as promised, we're we're not going to go over every
Jem'Hadar Second: Cost-effective Strategies
00:22:02
Truthiness
generic card. ah But we are going to talk about our our favorite, our MVP of the lower decks.
00:22:12
Truthiness
So yeah we're going to ignore rank here. We're basically just going to use this as our our talk about generics time. Um, so bigs, who is our MVP for the lower decks of the.
00:22:22
Biggs
our lower decks MVP could have been the founders and you'd think they would be the founders but no that's that's an honorable mention is is the ah Admiral level card founders for generics our actual MVP though is the gem Hadar second oh I love this guy it's
00:22:27
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah. I do love me as some founders, but that's not our MVP. Yes.
00:22:37
Truthiness
I thought you couldn't, yeah. Yeah. Ooh, they're good. But who's our MVP? So good. So good.
00:22:53
Biggs
Remember how much I said I loved Talak Talan?
00:22:57
Truthiness
Yes.
00:22:59
Biggs
Well, the Jem'Hadar second is just a generic Talak Talan, who happens to be a little cheaper and just a little bit not as good, but solid. Absolutely solid for picking fights.
00:23:18
Truthiness
And how many points does he cost in your transfer pool bags?
00:23:21
Biggs
Oh, he only costs two points in your transfer pool.
00:23:26
Truthiness
And he's generic. So if you get your hands on six of them, you can guarantee you're going to pull them now.
00:23:31
Biggs
For a mere, for a mere $900 to buy six Core Sets, you can guarantee yourself that you're swapping out two Vorta Supervisors for a Jem'Hadar second.
00:23:31
Truthiness
okay
00:23:34
Truthiness
yeah
00:23:42
Truthiness
like Just friends and trade some cards.
00:23:50
Truthiness
Borrow some cards make the transfer pool He's he just so solid for what you get for him like just even even just seven points He's well worth the take like he's just got that
00:23:52
Biggs
makes Yeah, make some friends, take their Jem'Hadar seconds, make yourself the best transfer pool you physically can because it's all Jem'Hadar seconds.
00:24:10
Biggs
He's got Skirmish too, he's got Relentless one, and that's all you need when you want to cause some chaos with the Jem'Hadar assault team.
00:24:17
Truthiness
But I mean, you got organs on them, you got little graphs like these. Because that that that value is just packed into that ops slide, it's just so much bang for your buck for that points.
00:24:29
Biggs
Oh, so good.
00:24:31
Truthiness
All right, um okay, so your fleet composition when you're making the Dominion, yeah again, this shit this game is mostly about officer selection, not a whole lot about ship selection.
Dominion Fleet Composition Strategies
00:24:43
Truthiness
And that is especially the case with the Dominion since every incident's mission is gonna have one battle cruiser and two fighters with maybe a reinforcement of a third fighter.
00:24:52
Biggs
Hooray.
00:24:52
Truthiness
um Hey, good job, you fix your you picture ships, they cost zero points.
00:24:59
Biggs
Good job.
00:25:00
Truthiness
Hey, um, and we've talked a lot about what these ships do, you know, what they've done. So rather than just go over them in my new detail again, I thought we'd just talk about like our initial thoughts on like strength and weaknesses of the roster as a whole. Um, you know, how you're using these ships. Um, yeah. And just general thoughts on how, how you play this faction.
00:25:21
Biggs
So general thoughts on how I play this faction is I'm not really looking for upgrades for these guys. um year like I don't want to take escape pods.
00:25:37
Biggs
I don't want to take class one probes. I think a little bit about quantum torpedoes and they're like, nah, why would I want that? I'll just shoot them with lasers.
00:25:49
Biggs
Personal transponders.
00:25:49
Truthiness
Personal transporters, don't sleep don't sleep on those. Those things are phenomenal.
00:25:55
Biggs
Maybe I put that on the big ship, maybe, I don't know.
00:25:59
Truthiness
Yes, yes.
00:26:01
Biggs
ah But for the most part, what I'm doing with these guys is I'm taking ah i'm taking a cool crew and putting them pretty much all on that battle cruiser with just a couple guys manning the fighters.
00:26:23
Truthiness
Yeah, I think that's been my general approach too is, you know, you got your, you got your core five and then you got your, your three support officers. And I feel like out of those eight four are on the battle cruiser.
00:26:35
Truthiness
Um, and then you got, you know, two apiece and the fighters, uh, to, I generally don't like to go any lighter than two on a ship, but I see what you're saying.
00:26:35
Biggs
Mm hmm.
00:26:39
Biggs
Or five on the battle cruiser and.
00:26:48
Truthiness
Um,
00:26:48
Biggs
Well, if you just if you just take one fighter and you say, well, this this fighter's only job is to hang out with the battle cruiser. You might be able to get away with just having one officer.
00:27:03
Truthiness
Maybe maybe that's that's that's gutsy, but I see I'm picking I'm picking up what you put me on Yeah, I mean it is the party bus Yeah
00:27:08
Biggs
I mean, you're you are you are at that point really committing to the bit. And that bit is that this battle cruiser is doing everything all the time forever.
00:27:23
Biggs
um And that you've got you've got one fighter that's able to operate semi-independently and one fighter that's just ah dedicated to be hanging out with that battle cruiser and
00:27:35
Truthiness
Yeah.
00:27:36
Biggs
maybe taking the occasional Commodore action.
00:27:40
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah. And then we got such wide access to relentless, like you just any kind of attack, I feel like you're going to if you're willing to absorb the damage for the rerolls, like i what's what's the what actually triggers the damage?
00:27:54
Truthiness
It's not.
00:27:55
Biggs
It's ah rolling a critical success, if I'm remembering correctly.
00:27:55
Truthiness
Right. Yeah, that's right. That's what it is. So, you know, it, you know, it might pop up, but it's not always, and it's almost always worth it. I feel like, um, and it's all over this roster. So there's just rerolls galore. The combat directive is really forgiving. Um, you know, you start getting behind, it's really easy to flip that combat directive and just go to town whenever you feel like.
00:28:22
Truthiness
Which can be, you know, it's not really something you generally want to do in the first half of a game, because you might have the complication go and flip it the other way anyway. So just, you know, save yourself the time and flip it, you know, in the second half.
00:28:36
Truthiness
And then, man, that hostile exploration directive, who you can rack up some victory points with the gem of dark salt teams. My goodness.
00:28:45
Biggs
Oh my yes.
00:28:46
Truthiness
Um, and I just, I, I always come back to that freaking distribute, uh, catcher cell white action in the med bay. Like it's just what what you just keep spamming teams on that thing is like, Oh, and catch the light up and form team down white up for team down.
00:29:03
Biggs
Mm hmm. Your your first three your your first three turns should be catcher selling informing a team catcher selling informing a team catcher selling informing a team and then probably catcher selling again for good measure.
00:29:09
Truthiness
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
00:29:15
Truthiness
Yes, absolutely. like Yeah, there's just
00:29:18
Biggs
And the and the only reason why you wouldn't do it is because you're taking that that a throwaway fighter and forming a team on that instead.
00:29:27
Truthiness
yeah ah yeah that's that's the only other way to do it. And then I feel like a lot of times I'm going to be tagging officers between the cargo bay and the med bay just to get that freebie ah ready from the cargo bay. So like yeah know one vorta in, one vorta out.
00:29:44
Truthiness
or somebody like a founder or something like that. um So weaknesses, what have you what have you been finding?
00:29:51
Biggs
ah the weak The biggest weakness is that they can't be everywhere all at once, like the Federation sometimes can seem to be.
00:30:00
Truthiness
Yeah, Federation feels like they can spread out quite a bit with their their ships and and do more things.
00:30:00
Biggs
um
00:30:05
Biggs
yeah you Wherever you are, you should dominate. But again, you're not everywhere. You're in one place and then kind of in another two, but like not really.
00:30:28
Biggs
So yeah, you're you're really your big determinant is where is my battle cruiser and how quickly can my battle cruiser get to where it needs to be?
00:30:31
Truthiness
ah thank you i think
00:30:38
Truthiness
Yeah, and I feel like that is really exacerbated by the lack of our auxiliaries. Like the enterprise has little reason not to just be spitting out shuttles just because it can.
00:30:49
Truthiness
And just to just you just you can just because it can have extra little auxiliaries on the table.
00:30:49
Biggs
Oh, yes.
00:30:50
Biggs
Oh my yes.
00:30:55
Truthiness
Why not? And you don't get them as Dominion, which kind of stinks. um And then you got very specialized officers that do a thing, um, with the exception of the female changeling, your officers do a thing.
00:31:07
Biggs
h
00:31:10
Truthiness
They do it really well, but they do that one thing. So, man, we've we've talked about it already, but
00:31:15
Biggs
And none of those officers. For none of those officers, that thing is really engineering.
00:31:21
Truthiness
yeah yeah
00:31:22
Biggs
um
00:31:22
Truthiness
you get the karma researcher, they can do engineering decently, but like.
00:31:23
Biggs
the they could they got yeah They got mechanics too, but like they're the generic and it's mechanics too.
00:31:34
Truthiness
Yeah.
00:31:36
Biggs
None of them have a three in anything.
00:31:39
Truthiness
Yeah, yeah, and they're really weak in the science category. Just testing in general, the ships are not designed for it, especially not the fighters. Oh, my goodness. They go down one crude island. Oh, hey, what's the science value?
00:31:54
Truthiness
um So you got to do all your science tests from either a team, which ain't great, um or from the battle cruiser itself. And again, you don't have auxiliaries. So you got to try and get these teams all over the place. All right. um So fleet ideas. what what have you been What have you been running?
Maximizing Jem'Hadar Seconds
00:32:11
Biggs
Okay, so the fleet that I have cooked up for us today is called Oops, All Gem Hadar Seconds. to go back to where we were before.
00:32:22
Biggs
Um, so this guy, uh, has your female changeling as the commander, your omit Kalan loyal first as the operations chief and your Karima researcher as the science officer, because I mean, you gotta have the Karima researcher, uh, for our specialists, we take a founder and way you in four.
00:32:30
Truthiness
Okay.
00:32:51
Biggs
And then we take six Jem'Hadar seconds, which gives us an officer core cost of 46, and we have four flex points available.
00:33:03
Biggs
I wonder what I'm going to spend those four flex points on.
00:33:07
Truthiness
Geminar seconds.
00:33:08
Biggs
Jem'Hadar seconds. So then my lineup on the battle cruiser, I've got my female changeling in the captain's chair, obviously. I've got my Karima researcher starting on the helm.
00:33:21
Biggs
I've got Omet Ikhlan manning weapons. I've got Jamadar II sitting in the cargo bay ready for um ready for the first team out the door. And I've got my founder in the Ketrasil white dispensary. Yes, that is five guys on the battle cruiser.
00:33:45
Truthiness
and That's a choice.
00:33:46
Biggs
On Fighter 1, go off on your own and do things. I've got Weyun in the captain's chair and a Jem'Hadar second manning the weapons. And then on the second Fighter, I have a lone Vorda supervisor ah and his only objective is stay as close as you can to that battlecruiser and support whatever it's doing.
00:34:13
Truthiness
Okay.
00:34:15
Biggs
And this is this one's not so much in and ah this one's not so much aggressive towards enemy ships, although it certainly can be.
00:34:34
Biggs
But it's not about beaming onto enemy ships like you would expect. This one is about really contesting those objectives um and then defeating the enemy ships um by having a fighter and battle cruiser just open fire and wipe them off the map.
00:34:59
Truthiness
right
00:35:01
Biggs
What about, what do you have going on? I know you've got a fun name for yours.
00:35:03
Truthiness
All right, so I I call this I call this the pirate party bus um because this is This is all about
Aggressive Fleet Tactics
00:35:11
Truthiness
boarding actions. Um, I really like doing I I don't mind flipping the the aggressive action Uh taking the victory point if it means that I can knock a ship out of contention really quickly take a bunch of officers prisoner um and you know,
00:35:31
Truthiness
it's more difficult to beam through shields and the personal transponders are really good on the battle cruiser, ah testing with you know that that ah ops value instead of, or testing with that ops value um to get through shields. um And it's it's just really, I find it really fun. and um So I call this a party bus. I go 422, so four on the battle cruiser, two each on the,
00:36:01
Truthiness
on the fighters. So I've got for my commander I got the founder. um I really like bringing a founder especially the generic one as the overall commander you could switch this out to the female changeling because I do actually have one point to to just spare here.
00:36:17
Truthiness
um So if, you know, I'm in a mission that looks like it's going to need more science-focused stuff, I'll probably change over to her to try and, you know, make the overall Commodore a little better at trying to, you know, contest science. um Otherwise, it is then a whole bunch of Gemadar, so Omedeklan to Lachlan and a Gemadar second. And then finally, our obligatory Karma Researcher. So the Reacher goes in engineering on the battle cruiser. He's, you know, the one operating
00:36:48
Truthiness
the transporters beaming through shields um and Ometiklans on there with him and he's sitting at the the tactical station until it's time to board and then he's going to be leading ah those boarding teams right where he wants to be. um You know, you can use the standby action to fire weapons. That's fine on the battle cruiser um Especially since this build is not, you know entirely um dedicated to Hostile acts it's fine with aggressive acts. So ah Firing weapons isn't quite as critical here because the you know, the main point here is crippling um And taking a minimal victory point damage to cause kind of a crippling hit early on um and then but the gem har second and to lactic on they both go on ah
00:37:33
Truthiness
a fighter apiece and then the board a supervisor on You know one on the battlecruisers sitting in the good old catcher cell white ah doing lines of a of white stuff um The whole time and then the others are just sitting that captain's chair on each of the Gemadar fighters or you know, yeah, or yeah the and Yeah, they can do impulse no or moving over to the helm to you know do impulse once we don't need to be at warp speed.
00:38:01
Truthiness
know um yeah And obviously I'm spending the six points on the personal transporters, so I'm coming in at 49 points overall. um Yeah, so I have a point to spare.
00:38:14
Biggs
don't need that Don't need that extra point.
00:38:16
Truthiness
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:17
Biggs
Good enough.
00:38:18
Truthiness
Yeah. So yeah, I just have a lot of fun with this. It just kind of goes crazy with the boarding teams. It's something I've found like early games you can really surprise people with that don't really entirely understand how teams are working, how critical they can be, um especially when you know yeah you can you're thinking your shields are up and you're safe.
00:38:37
Truthiness
That's so much with the Dominion, which tracks with you know how they work in the background.
00:38:42
Biggs
fair Fair enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:45
Truthiness
All right, um so yeah, that's the Dominion. um We'll be, you you know, I really like playing this faction. It's they it's got good flavor to it. too It's definitely a lot more aggressive ah than than the Federation. Federation, a bunch of damn hippies. um You know, they they love doing their objectives and you're an ejecti- I think that's something where this game really shines is, you know, you can have aggressive players and objective oriented players and rather than one feeling frustrated that they can't do their thing you can do whatever kind of floats your boat. ah yeah If you do want to be more objective focused the Federation I feel like is very good at that kind of player and whereas somebody who likes to
00:39:28
Truthiness
you know, play yeah aggressively.
Dominion vs. Federation Playstyles
00:39:31
Truthiness
There are means to do that with the demean here, like a party bus. Again, it's worth, I think, in a lot of cases, if you can catch your opponent unprepared to beam teams onto their ship and really mess with them early in the game.
00:39:47
Truthiness
All right. I swear, I swear I'm just not sick anymore.
00:39:49
Biggs
spectacular not really uh i think that's uh i think that's a wrap
00:39:51
Truthiness
I swear. so Alright, you got anything else to talk about tonight? Alright.
00:40:02
Truthiness
Alright, well, join us next week where we'll be doing the same thing for the Federation. Until next time, have a good night.