Being a look back at cards from the Star Trek CCG, and what I thought of them back when they were fresh and new... in EPISODE order. Tribble cards were presented with a choice of picture (and score) because of a separate Tribble game you could play with them, but sold separately. That's what the Bonus, Discard, Go, Clone, Rescue, Poison icons are all about. They are irrelevant in the CCG but for the purposes of these reviews, they might come into play on picture appropriateness. Some of these cards are actually from Deep Space Nine's Trials and Tribble-ations, and I won't wait 'til I get there to show them to you, since the game play is the same.
PICTURE 1 [Bonus]: There are two things that will apply to most Tribble pics. One, they'll be funny. The Tribbles come from a humorous episode (actually, two of them), and are pretty silly creatures in and of themselves. Second, they have that odd Classic Trek look that's at once blurry and kinda painterly. The 1960s colors don't really hurt the various regular cards (often headshots), but on cards with tight close-ups, the problems tend to show up more. On the one hand, the zoom-in loses a lot of definition; on the other, Decipher's cleaning up of the image may be the reason why there's an artificial look to them. Now that that's out of the way, the first 1 Tribble picture, Bonus, has one of the most famous Tribbles on display, the one Kirk sat on. I guess he didn't expect THAT particular "bonus". The pic has its comic charm, and matches the useless (for this game) Tribble game icon. I don't like the garish apple green however, not in this light, and Kirk's upper lip on top of the title bar is more than a little disturbing. A classic image, but execution only gets it to a 2.9.
LORE: N/A (Score will be adjusted accordingly)
TREK SENSE: 1 Tribble. It looks so harmless right? Very disarming. Well, it is! Personnel are Cunning -1 in the presence of a single Tribble (before sheer numbers turn them into a nuisance) due to the cuteness factor and appeasing purring. Some personnel will actually stop what they are doing to pet the creature. Klingons are not immune to being stopped (they stop when the Tribble starts screaming), but they don't get the Cunning penalty. They are definitely NOT disarmed by these "monsters". The problems include the fact they are not cumulative, as we've seen them stop plenty of personnel at the same time (Uhura and Chekov, for example), and also that they report anywhere. Sure, it SEEMS like they pop up anywhere (captain's chair, food slot, etc.) but those are all one location as far as the game is concerned. What would they be doing in the Gamma quadrant (alone mind you, since this is just 1 Tribble)? Seeing one smuggled onto a facility or aboard a ship could be possible, but Montana Missile Complex? You see what I mean. A well-designed card, but some things hurt it. A 3.7.
STOCKABILITY: The lowest number of Tribbles to a card may seem like the runt of the pack. 10 Tribbles can also report anywhere, see? The 1 Tribble can't breed to a higher form. And it can't cause any Trouble alone. But it still has its uses! By reporting anywhere (any planet, any ship, any facility, any quadrant, any time location), it can get your Tribbles everywhere in play. The drop in CUNNING they occasion may be minimal, but could still be annoying ("Crimson Forcefield" becomes harder to pass, for one thing, and the immune Klingons weren't so smart to begin with). The power to stop one random personnel each turn may be limited by the cumulativity rules, but since they do report anywhere, don't group them together! One on each ship, etc. will turn turn personnel into morons, one of whom might not want to beam to that planet, not want to partake in personnel battle, not want to get on that ship before it undocks, etc. The maximum being one per game location on the Cunning, one full stop on the stopping. Reporting anywhere is also important to your creating Tribble groups. You can report a Tribble card to each existing group each turn. That means that if you've drawn 3 cards from your side-deck that turn, you can only play 3 if you have 3 groups. Groups are required to play the higher card denominations (though 10 Tribbles is the better card to set that up). The small Tribble cards can be carried like equipment, so if your opponent somehow gets out of range, you can always try to "sell it back" to them (possibly activating that stopping mechanism). Watch out though, dropping a Tribble will stop your own personnel. And unfortunately, they can't be beamed. But that also means your opponent has to carry the thing out of a ship (and get stopped for it) to get rid of it before more Tribbles arrive. The Tribble can always try to stop that personnel before he gets to the transporter room though ;-). Not powerful, but can be a fun random element. A 3.3.
TOTAL: Bonus-13.2 (66%); Discard-14.13 (70.67%); Go-11.47 (57.33%) Varying scores for the 3 versions, but it's the Cup'o'Tribble that "wins" the competition.
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