General ramblings on the Hologram sub-faction in Star Trek CCG 2E

Last Friday, the Continuing Committee released a new virtual expansion for the Star Trek CCG, 2nd Edition: A Time to Stand.  This expansion focused on pre-Federation Starfleet and the Maquis, as well as making different parts of missions more useful in game.  Although I'll print it out soon (hopefully next Friday), it's going to have limited use for me at present- I don't own a Starfleet Headquarters mission, and I don't believe I own enough Maquis cards to play a Maquis deck yet.

However, one card that immediately grabbed my attention was the new Headquarters, Grid 296, Holographic Training Facility.

For me, part of the enjoyment of any card game is playing with the various themes in the game, working and tweaking with them until I make something enjoyable (and hopefully decent).  Sub-factions and sub-themes are a perfect example of the sort of thing I absolutely love.  Having a new sub-faction available is very exciting!

Of course, it is pretty limiting- trekcc.org lists 31 Hologram Personnel, some of whom are not particularly useful in a Photonic deck (Aikido?).  You could use Iden, Lustrous Demagogue and a version of the Olarra as well as some Holoprogram events (there are only two), to get some Hologram related bonuses, but is that really good enough to be its own thing? Two missions give you benefits for having Hologram Personnel. Strangely (to me, since they included the Headquarters in this expansion), it does not look like A Time to Stand has any other cards that work with this sort of deck.

Quality of such a deck aside, I'm thrilled that the Continuing Committee is adding new factions/sub-factions.  So long as there is enough to distinguish each faction from one another by play-style, more options are always a good thing.

Right after I print A Time to Stand, I will need to print the Unity expansion as well (since they included many Hologram toys there), and I'll toy around with it some.  As I play with it, I'll put up some decks that I'm trying out.