What a Card: 10 Tribbles

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. Tribbles go up by a factor of 10 each time...

EXPANSION: The Trouble with Tribbles

PICTURE 1 [Bonus]: This is probably my least favorite of the three versions of the card, and oddly enough, just like with 1 Tribble, it's the DS9 image. Quark with a Tribble on his head is supposed to be funny, but it just falls flat for me. Maybe it's the too-straight composition, or the fact that the laugh is forced. I do give points for actually counting 10 Tribbles on the image, including 3 on a wall in the back and one in Morn's hand. The "bonus" is possibly that extra hat-tribble. A simple 3.

PICTURE 2 [Go]: I also count 10 Tribbles in Scotty's arms on the Go card (and he seems to be "Go"-ing somewhere in a hurry). This one's a bit blurry and strangely colored (is Scotty wearing rouge?), but the humor is there for real. I like it for its comic yet frantic element. It's also one of the rare shots where Jimmy Doohan's missing finger shows up! A 3.7.

PICTURE 3 [Poison]: Ah, here we go. There may not be 10 Tribbles in this one (I'm just not sure where one begins and another ends on the plate, there might be), but it's the best one of the lot. Spock is a great straight man to foist these critters on. The fact that it's on a plate goes great with the Tribble game icon "Poison", and is very humorous. I'm not sure what that giant olive with a pimento is, but it's funny in its own right and adds the right splash of color. Are there red Tribbles? Tribbles that tiny? If so, that's hilarious. A cool 4.2.

LORE: N/A (score will be adjusted accordingly)

TREK SENSE: Like 1 Tribble, 10 report anywhere, and since I didn't like it on that card, I'm not gonna like it on this one either. The main problem is that though they seem to appear anywhere (in the machinery, the replicators, etc.), all those are at the same game location. There's simply no rationale for their appearing at Montana Missile Complex or in the Gamma Quadrant. As for the game text, 10 Tribbles is just enough to start getting annoying, especially to the Klingons who get real aggressive (translated as lower Integrity) and distracted (loss of a skill). I love the inclusion of Divok, the Klingon who studied Tribbles, to the game text, though the power he's been given is odd - I guess knowing your enemy has its uses, but this is more thematic than anything else. I don't love, however, the contention that non-Klingons are totally unaffected by 10 tribbles when one is such a nuisance. Just a 2.7 despite the Divok clause, I'm afraid.

STOCKABILITY: What hurts this card the most is that it does nothing to non-Klingons. Sure, Klingons are popping up in a number of affiliations thanks the the Non-Aligned Worf, and they're a popular affiliation, but that doesn't make it right. Against the Klingons, the INTEGRITY drain is a nuisance, but not a big one. The loss of skills though, is a bit more dangerous. Klingon mission specialists get no skills at all, while the others lose, for the most part, a lot of Honor (important to Klingon decks) and classifications (often ENGINEER). Divok fixes this, and being universal, you can have one of him at every infected location, and he's a support personnel that's more easily reported now. He'll see some use, but not much more than if this card didn't exist, so I wouldn't worry. The main function of this card is to start breeding Tribbles. From 100 up, you start seeing some more powerful game text and the ability to use Trouble cards. The 10 is still good change for use with Trouble in the Transporters though. Reporting anywhere, you won't be able to start your Tribble colonies without it. That gives it enough juice to reach 3.9.

TOTAL: Bonus-12.8 (64%); Go-13.73 (68.67%); Poison-14.4 (72%) Comparable to, but better than, the solo Tribble.