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. And immediately, the previous card's matching commander...
PICTURE: There's a little color burn on this extreme close-up, but you can't tell me Kargan doesn't look fearsome. The quintessential angry Klingon shot, it gets a good 3.5.
LORE: Pretty dull. Aside from the basic context from "A Matter of Honor" and matching commander status for the Pagh, there isn't much here. There was room for it. Just a 3.1, mostly for the m.c. (and even that's not necessary, since the ship also indicates it).
TREK SENSE: As captain, he's an Officer with a Command icon. He governed with the principles of Honor even if he was a little paranoid about the Federation (maybe the Integrity's still too high at 7). Computer Skill? Why? There's no real reason. It's just a skill that's easy to justify in the 24th century. And that's it? No Leadership? He even inspired Riker's loyalty (for a while). Post-Premiere, I'm sure he would have allowed a Fed to mix with his crew or something. None of that here. To make matters worse, we get a captain who's also a "support personnel". Seems like the two are mutually exclusive terms. The rest works, however. He was indeed the matching commander of the Pagh, he was pretty dumb in not believing Riker about the Enterprise's intentions (and allowing himself to be tricked by him - "hold this" indeed!), and was a big, burly Klingon who ruled with force (high Strength). It's just not enough to get a passing grade. Only 2.5.
STOCKABILITY: With rather low SHIELDS, the IKC Pagh wouldn't be my first choice for a ship, not when the DS9 birds-of-prey are usually better, and the universal K'Vorts more useful for armadas. Its matching commander makes it a 10-10-9 ship, and he's easily reportable as a support personnel, which may be both their saving graces. What does he have to offer as a personnel otherwise? Well, Honor is a big skill for Klingons. The more you have, usually the better, as much for completing missions as for using Klingon-specific cards. There's only one other Klingon support personnel with Honor, and that's the holographic Fek'lhr (which is good for Kargan). Of course, there are plenty of Honor mission specialists, and the skill is ultra-common, so reporting an Honor personnel mid-game at your ship is only worth so much. There are two other Klingon Computer Skill support personnel, each useful for its own reasons (Morag and Daval), but not that much more than Kargan. The skill is another common but useful one, and again, covered by a mission specialist, which may be the easiest way to get the skill for a first turn commandeer of Empok Nor. Kargan's high STRENGTH helps. I'd say that, like any support personnel, his usefulness depends on what you need to back up in your deck. Since his skills are very common, I don't think they really need to be backed up that much. How about a middle-ground 3?
TOTAL: 12.1 (60.5%) We needed a new version of Captain Kargan.
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