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he title of this set is accurate. The Borg have been a playable affiliation in the Star Trek Customizable Card Game for a long time, but this card set expands them. It makes them a full-fledged, winnable affiliation. In addition, this set adds cards for a new Hirogen affiliation, plus cards for the existing Vidiians, Kazon, Federation and Klingon affiliations. There are cards with Delta Quadrant missions, new dilemmas and new objectives. The set is fully compatible with all the existing Star Trek CCG cards (over 2,000 now), and it supports both the Voyager stand-alone play formats: Standard and Warp Speed.
Two cards from this expansion push the Borg into the mainstream of affiliations. The first is the Unicomplex. With this card, a Borg deck can now play an extra personnel for free each turn. The other affiliations have had cards to let them do this for a long time, but now the Borg, who are supposed to have lots of "man" power, can do so as well. The second card is a new objective that allows a Borg player to assimilate entire species. The Borg targets a group of the opponent's personnel, battles them and, if they win, singles out and assimilates all personnel of one species in that group. Now the Borg can use an opponent's own deck against them.
The card "Harness Particle 010" sets the Borg apart in one other way. With it, it is possible for the Borg to win by scouting only three missions rather than the usual four. And there is the new Borg Queen. Her card is similar to the first Queen, but the differences mean she is more effective with her own style of deck. The new Queen is better for building up personnel early because she can download Borg cards that in turn get several Borg at once.
Resistence is brutal
There is a real style difference in playing the Borg, because they are not about solving missions. The Borg don’t negotiate treaties or rescue prisoners. Instead, they scout, ultimately establishing new transwarp gateways and assimilating planets. The rules are the same, but Borg decks must be built differently. Borg personnel are expendable; it's easy to play new drones, so players shouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice drones when clearing out dilemmas.
It is important to remember while playing the Borg that their objectives require probing in order to score points. What that means is that the icon on the top card of the player’s draw deck must match an icon on the objective they are trying to complete. Players must hang onto cards with the right icons for the objectives the player wants to complete. Nothing is gained for the Borg by putting ordinary interrupts, events and such into a Borg deck. Two new drones in The Borg set allow players a second chance to probe each turn, though. This helps thin the deck down far enough to have a high ratio of the right icons left in it.
In all the Borgy goodness, don’t over look the non-Borg cards. There's the Hirogen, now with enough cards to be their own affiliation. Their decks are built on going out to hunt down the opponent's personnel, just like on the show. The Borg Expansion also contains cards for unassimilated Borg which can be used in nearly any deck. There are new members of the Think Tank.
And then there are the new Klingons, based on the seventh-season Voyager episode "Prophecy," about a generational Klingon ship that had been travelling from the Alpha Quadrant for 100 years. There are enough cards for that ship and its crew that players can build a Klingon deck that is based in the Delta Quadrant rather than the Alpha Quadrant. The new mission, "Establish Settlement," was created for a Klingon Delta deck and allows the player score half the points needed to win the game in a single mission.
The only complaint I have about the Borg Expansion is the same one I have for all CCGs; they take these beautiful screen captures from the show, and shrink them down to little, tiny thumbprints. The art deserves to be bigger, but that is a quibble. If you’re a Voyager or a Borg fan, then this is a great set of cards, particularly for Warp Speed play. — Eric
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