The Borg have arrived and they aren’t here for a sleep over with milk and cookies. They like information and assimilation. The Borg have come to our sector of the Galaxy and they want to turn each and everyone one of us into a dull and dreary Borg underling. Doesn’t matter if you are Human, Klingon, Romulan, or otherwise. They want you and your little dog too!

Today I will be introducing you to one of the more unique ways to play a Deck Building Game: Cooperative Mode.

Here is a preview of some of the cards you will encounter:

You and up to 4 of your friends must take up arms against the Borg. You will encounter difficult events as well as some destructive Borg Cubes in your quest to stop them and save yourselves and all that you hold dear. Each player will begin the game with one of five unique Starships that feature a special effect that you will be able to use throughout the game to help your teammates in this endeavor. These effects will be available to you even if you upgrade your Starship into a stronger one.

GOAL: Your goal as a team is to survive the onslaught until you can locate the Locutus Event and meets its Goal. Do that and you will be forever remembered as The Saviors.

There are several special rules that you will be following that differ from the Exploration Scenario:

1. SHARED TURN: Players will share a single turn and can play their cards in any order.
2. SHARED SEARCHES: Players do not each have their own 1 free search but instead have 3 searches as a team no matter how many players in the team.
3. SPENDING XP RULES: Players will still spend only their own XP and only to gain cards for themselves.
4. EXPLORE RULES: Players do not have any free explores and cannot choose to explore if explores are gained. Instead, players MUST explore at the start of every turn,  before playing any cards or effects. Some cards will force additional explores.
5. UNIQUE STARSHIPS: Players will each have a unique Starship with an effect that can help their team if used correctly. These effects cannot be used in battle and will only help their other teammates not themselves.
6. BASIC STARSHIP RULES: Non-Borg Starships (the 15 normal Starships that are mixed in with the Borg Space Deck cards) will no longer cause a battle with your team. These Starship don’t have the time to worry about you when the Borg on right on their tail. When a normal Starship is flipped at the start of the turn, it will remain face up for the duration of the turn. During the turn any single player can Diplomacy that Starship if they have the Speed and Diplomacy to match or exceed the Starships. If they do, it will become their new Flagship and assist in the battle against the Borg. However, if no player is able to gain the Starships favor to join the fight, the Starship will be removed from the game at the end of that turn because it doesn’t want to stick around and get assimilated.
7. DEFEATED RULES: Players whose flagships are defeated will gain a BORG CARD instead of an Ensign.

The outline of a sample turn for you and your team will look something like this:

1. You will start the turn by flipping the top card of the Space Deck. If you are lucky you will flip a basic Starship and get a “free” turn. More likely though, you will run into some type of Borg card. 
2. You will have to resolve that card and any other cards it may cause you to flip.
3. Once that is done and assuming any of you survived, you will take your turn as a group.
4. [Defeated Players] Players that are defeated must sit out the turn and simply gain a BORG CARD, combine all their cards and wait until 7, to draw a new hand of 5.
5. [Action Phase] Players that were not defeated may play their cards, use their searches, gain new cards, and prepare for the next turn as best they can.
6. [Trash Phase] A player that did not play any cards/effects during  1-3, may choose to perform the Trash Phase by trashing 1 card in their hand and not performing any other actions during this turn.
7. [End of turn] All players discard the cards in their hand/bridge and draw back up to 5.

BORG CARDS

Throughout the game many of the Borg Space Deck cards will force players to gain BORG CARDS. When the game first begin you will set aside a preset number of BORG CARDS for the game. The preset number is based on the number of players in your team. For each player in your team, you add 5 to the pile plus an addition 5 (Ex. for a 4 player team you will set 25 BORG CARDS aside). BORG CARDS will be forced into player’s decks during the game and will result in a weaker and less efficient deck, but that’s not all, BORG CARDS have a few very evil effects. Players will have to use their effects carefully to manage and control the amount of BORG CARDS in their deck as to not allow for some very destructive results.

Here are some of the rules and effect of the BORG CARDS: