Tragic Turn, Mark II

Since my last Tragic Turn dilemma pile article, four expansions (Dangerous Missions, Captain's Log, Genesis and These Are the Voyages) have been released. In just a few short months, players have had 51 new dilemmas to try to squeeze into their existing dilemma piles. This current gap between expansions gives me just enough time to update my Tragic Turn dilemma pile, and hope it doesn't become outdated too quickly.

The previous dilemma pile consisted of 35 dilemmas, so the first task was to trim the fat. I made the decision to drop virtually all of the dilemmas that didn't offer a guaranteed stop or kill. Depression, Formal Hearing, Miner Disagreement, Sheer Lunacy and Tsiolkovsky Infection were among those that were no longer needed. By cutting these dilemmas, I could also remove Urgency, as there were few remaining dilemmas that would work well with it.

After that, all that remained was to look at the new dilemmas and decide which to add to the pile. Having decided on a theme of "stoppers with possible additional stop/kill side-effects", I selected Maquis Vendetta and Shields Up! from Dangerous Missions. Captain's Log offered Compassionate Inteference, Hull Breach and Last Gasp. Finally, These Are the Voyages provided Casualties to fill out the theme. All six of these dilemmas randomly stop one personnel, allowing Tragic Turn to stop another, before potentially killing that personnel or stopping another. If that happens, then Tragic Turn is triggered, so another personnel is stopped or killed. Using a single dilemma to stop/kill three or four personnel is rather efficient. It means that your opponent won't get many overcome dilemmas beneath their mission, which means that you can play more dilemmas during their next mission attempt.

Necessary Execution and Neural Parasites will probably be too expensive to combine with Tragic Turn, but they are still worth having in the dilemma pile. If your opponent does decide to attempt a planet mission first, then you have a good chance of drawing one of these dilemmas. Playing either will then give you a good chance of removing important mission skills, or ship staffing, to cripple your opponent for several turns. If you can combine them with Tragic Turn, then your opponent may never be able to recover from the loss of so many personnel.

The last dilemma to mention is Bre'Nan Ritual. While this dilemma and Tragic Turn are sitting on top of your opponent's mission, your opponent will have to randomly stop two personnel every time they make an attempt - and that's before you've played any other dilemmas. Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to play this dilemma very often; its cost of three can seem rather high given that it does not affect the current mission attempt.

The solution to this problem? Add dilemma manipulation events to your deck. Stir Crazy and Endangered are the obvious choice to increase the amount you can spend in total cost on dilemmas. With the advent of the Voyager Long Journey Home deck (completing four space missions), you're going to need some late-game help anyway. Another late-game card to consider is The Manheim Effect. Should a key dilemma, such as Tragic Turn, get consumed or overcome, this event gives you the option of retrieving it. You may also want to think about Not Easily Avoided, to make sure you draw that all-important Tragic Turn on a first mission attempt. Finally, Storage Compartment can be used to keep a number of planet or space dilemmas for emergencies. By doing this, you may also notice an interesting side-effect: If you let your opponent see dilemmas they may - or may not - face, you are going to affect the decision over which personnel make the mission attempt. It's always fun to mess with your opponent's head!