Mot's Useless Card Review #38: Discommendation

A card which relies on your opponent playing Klingon, you getting in a battle with that opponent, and them losing. Then you must play an Event on them just so they'll lose 5 points. Doesn't sound very promising...

But Discommendation is one of many cards that takes on an entirely new light when you consider the possibility of playing it on yourself. This card presents you the opportunity to play any Klingon of your choice in a deck of a different affiliation. I'll let you be the judge of who might best fit into your deck, but I know one really good suggestion: K’chiQ.

K'chiQ needs a male Klingon present to survive, and Worf (Prem) or Alexander Rozhenko fits the bill. I know I wouldn't mind a personnel with a variable skill in my Fed deck! The trick is getting around initial house arrest restrictions. You can't voluntarily mix affiliations without a treaty. So, how to make K'chiQ lose her first battle:

Play a second male Klingon. Put the two of them on a Zibalian Transport or Yridian Shuttle together, and release a Borg Ship at your outpost. The ship will be damaged, not destroyed, which then permits Discommendation on K'chiQ to make her Non-Aligned. You could also attack the near-defenseless ship with your own Federation ship using Incoming Message: Attack Authorization. You can also use a Rogue Borg attack to have her lose. (You do run a risk of killing her unintentionally this way.)

Once she's lost the battle, she can come work for the Feds. ;-) Romulan players could try this if they really wanted, but would have to suffer a 10 point loss and play 2 Events to get K'chiQ and her male escort on your side. Still, the Romulans need not feel left out... they can use Gi’ral instead of K'chiQ. Turn Gi'ral into a Non-Aligned personnel, and suddenly no Treaty is required to get your Colony started with Tokath. It's a 5 point loss initially, but it'll come back - and you don't need to worry about leaving her alone like you do with K'chiQ.

And that takes care of a gauntlet Wes threw down at me a few months back. ;-)