Independence Week- Joachim!

Much less impressive than Khan

Rounding out our look at the independent faction, we turn to the two individuals who were helping Khan out with his dastardly plans: Following of Khan, and Joachim.

Follower of Khan is almost nothing to write home about, except that she costs 1 point for something that costs one point in every other faction. I've never seen Follower of Khan in any build. I've never seen any of these cards in any build- AND THEY COST 1 pt. Imagine if any other card cost 1 pt? How good would Sulu be if he cost 1 pt? Heck, Chekov would be busted if he cost 1 pt. The fact that these guys cost 1 pt is an indication that the playtesters didn't think much of these cards. They're so bad, that the have to cost the absolute minimum pts, but not zero, because they'd be pretty darn good at 0 pts. 

You know what, there may be an argument here about looking at how many crew slots you have left over, and throwing these dudes into your remaining crew slots for 3 pts. Even then, they take an action and just remove opposing crew members- how many of those do you see that aren't named Data, Sulu or "tactical officer"? 

So okay, the Follower of Khan is pretty terrible. So is Klag, so is Bochra, at the very least, Follower of Khan isn't unique, so she's strictly better than Klag, but only in combo with Khan, who is quite bad on any ship without battlestations. 

The brain power expended in trying to come up with the silver lining on Follower of Khan is too much. Don't use her. She's weaksauce. 

Moving on, Joachim! He is as follows:

Joachim (Independent/USS Reliant Expansion)
Each time you inflict a [CRITICAL] on an enemy ship's Hull, you may draw 2 Damage Cards (instead of 1) and choose which one to place beside the enemy's Ship Card, discard the unused Damage Card.
Cost: 4

On first glance, not terrible. In order to cost 4 pts, you have to run him with Khan, who turns hits into crits with battlestations. Combo anyone?

You will get to choose which cirt card of the two you want to put onto the opposing ship. This can be great if you pull Warp Core Breach or those damage cards that throw two damage on the opposing ship. The relative power of each of these damage cards is pretty flat, with the exception of Warp Core Breach. It's a nifty ability that doesn't require a an action. Is it worth 4 pts? It does seem overkill on Khan's ability. Joachim is a bit of a bullseye- your ship is going to be targeted quite heavily. You're going to want to balance out your relative threat against your other ships, or go balls to the wall with a big nasty ship. Decide what your build needs and go for it. 

One neat use of the Miranda, Khan and Joachim could be as follows:

USS Reliant

Khan Singh

Joachim

Quantum Torpedoes

Don't use the regular photons with Khan- he can already use his ability to do what they do. Use Quantum Torpedoes and get more Oomph!

This thing costs quite a lot of points, so be sure that it's something that can fit into your list, but it doesn't need to fly straight at a ship to be useful, and you can still take other actions such as Target Lock (needed for those torpedoes) or scan. 

Give it a go and let me know how it goes!