Borg Scenario Q and A

[dudeenriquez]

Hey all,

Was very excited about the game and picked it up right away on day one. My roommates and I loved the game. It is very interactive comparatively to a lot of other DBGs we play. We look forward to new promos, events, and expansions already.

One clarifying question we had was the interaction between the Borg encounter and Sensor Sweep. Is there a way to check the space deck before you are required to explore? Could u just play it right away on the turn before the space deck flips? Thanks!

Cory Damone Enriquez

[Alex_Bandai]

Hi and welcome to the forums, i'm glad you are enjoying the game.

Unfortunately, you cannot play any cards or effect before you explore, so cards like sensor sweep are not very useful in the Borg Scenario. The Borg are too advanced to succumb to that technology.

[ImmortalJedi]

Wait a minute? The game is out? I preordered and haven't heard anything yet....time to send an email to ask about it...

Sorry I'm not contributing to the rules Q&A, but I just wanted to say it is reassuring to have someone from the company clarify the rule and then give it context to the source material. Thanks!

[Alex_Bandai]

The game is officially out this Friday but it seems some customers have gotten their hands on it earlier. I will be here to answer any rules questions and keep it flavorful when possible.

[Tetrabecca]

First of all, we love the game! We have several questions about the Borg Scenario:

1. In combat with a cube does the team combine speed stats to determine damage order between the team and the cube?

2. When assigning damage to the team, can players split damage evenly or is it assigned to one ship and then remaining damage is passed on to another ship?

[Alex_Bandai]

1) No you do not combine stats, you play your cards, then your team(individually) and the cube will deal damage in order of speed.

2) You must assign the maximum damage to 1 player before you can assign the rest to another and so on.

[Alex319]

I have attempted to play the Borg scenario with two players, and it seems like it is almost impossible to win. The Borg Cubes are very difficult to kill at the beginning with only two players and you always get lots of Borg Cards, so you have to spend so much time getting rid of the Borg Cards that it is very difficult to improve your deck. (And in fact, I just realized that I wasn't even playing with the rule that you add +1 to the stats of the Borg Cube for each Borg Card in players' hands.) Maybe it is because I'm not playing correctly, so correct me if I am wrong:

(1) Is it true that the "fail" effect on the Borg Cubes is resolved every time you don't defeat them? For instance, suppose there are two players fighting a Borg Cube. The Borg Cube destroys one player and the other player does not have enough to kill the Borg Cube. I am playing where the defeated player would get two Borg Cards (one from being defeated, and one from the fail effect) and the surviving player gets one Borg Card. Is this correct?

(2) Does resolving a Space Deck Starship (the ones you can Diplomacy, not the Borg Cubes) count as "in battle" for the purposes of the special abilities that say "once per turn while not in battle"? For instance, if I have the "once per turn while not in battle, give an opponent a card from your hand..." special ability, could I give my teammate a card with +diplomacy to help him diplomacy the starship?

(3) Similarly, is it possible to use one of the "during your turn when not in battle" abilities before exploring?

(4) If a player is defeated but there are still more Space Deck cards to resolve (e.g. due to "Scout Party") , does the defeated player still count as an "exploring player" for purposes of resolving later cards?

(5) It seems like the game gets significantly harder the fewer players you have. Since the base stats of the Borg Cubes don't scale based on number of players, it is very difficult to defeat Borg Cubes early in the game with few players, and then you quickly get lots of Borg Cards and quickly get into a downward spiral. Am I missing something?

[Alex319]

Also, another question:

(6) Can "Peak Performance" be used to upgrade Borg Cards? If so, what do the cost of the Borg Cards count as? (I was playing that the cost is 0 so "Peak Performance" could upgrade it to anything with cost 3 or less)

[Mr. Domino]

1) I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Once a player's flagship is destroyed, their turn is instantly over and they are no longer allowed to interact with any game features until the start of the next turn, so logic would dictate that after destruction, they are no longer classified as an "exploring player", and would not receive a Borg Card. Thus, in the example you listed above, each player would end up with a single Borg Card.

2) I'm not sure on this one - Diplomacy is listed under the collective battle heading in the general rules section, however the paragraph about Space Deck ships in the Borg scenario section specifically states that you "will not battle these starships." My gut tells me that utilizing diplomacy on a space deck ship would not count as combat for the purposes of card effects, but you're probably better off waiting on a response from Alex (the other one).

3) No. The Borg scenario rules state that the player turn begins with exploration. There are no phases to go through prior to exploration, so you would have to wait until the exploration phase has begun, and if the space deck card enters the table without triggering combat, then you would be able to use such an ability.

4) Assuming I wasn't wrong on number 1, no.

5) The only scaling factor built into the Borg scenario is the number of Borg cards used for any given game (for instance, in the two player game you mentioned, only 15 of the 30 provided Borg cards should be included in the game). I can certainly see needing a few other handicaps for having less players, I'm just not sure what they are yet. Perhaps trying it where each of the two players utilizes two flagships, but you still only use a single deck per player to upgrade them with.

6) Yes. The rules for Borg cards state that while you can't voluntarily Trash them during the trash phase, they can be trashed due to card effects, and the clarification for Upgrading specifically states that the original card is trashed.

[dudeenriquez]

1) Agree with Domino and his reasoning.

2) The starship sticks around for the turn to be diplomanced. This also means it is not a battle. It says in the rules that non borg starship don't fight u, they either join or run from the borg.

3) Domino right again. First thing is to flip a card off the space deck.

4) Same reasoning for 1 applies to 4. They are not present in the turn here.

5) Scaling is something you could house rule. My roommate and I just played 2 against borg and got there. There are good characters that keep you efficient and still powerful enough to get over cubes. See B'etor and Taag. Just invest highly in card selection based cards and diplomance those starships!

6) Peek performance plus borg card equals Lt