"I never use Hit and Run in any of my Thrass Decks," said tsai.

What? Not use Hit and Run in a Thrass Deck? I couldn’t believe I’d read that sentence correctly. For me, Hit and Run (H&R) is the perfect card to describe the Thrass military philosophy of never accepting a fair fight. It is the quintessential Thrass card.

And yet here was tsai, one of the most experienced Star Chamber players active today, and certainly one of the most, if not the most, dangerous player leading the bugs into battle, admitting that he couldn’t find room in his deck for it. I asked him why.

"Because I usually build cruisers."

So what? I probably have a higher percentage of cruisers in my fleets than scouts, and I still find it hard not to throw in 4 H&Rs in all my Thrass decks. But I had to admit, tsai had a point. He’d read the card, maybe even studied the cool card art, and determined that H&R was to be used with a scout swarm. Since he didn’t do scout swarms, it wasn’t useful.

That, I believe is wrong. H&R is a zap, and as such, it’s obviously situational. But H&R is a zap with far more situations in which it is useful than the average card.

The way to appreciate this card is to understand what it does for the Thrass player. It allows you to skip the second missile round and all the cannon rounds; it gives all your target ships +3 to beam weapons (including ships, such as bombers, without beam weapons); it reduces your movement point by 1 the next turn; and reduces your laser weapon by 2 the next turn. So it looks, on the face of it, fairly symmetrical - you gain a temporary advantage this turn in exchange for a temporary disadvantage next turn. But it is only the illusion of symmetry - because the advantage gained is immediate and very real and the disadvantage is not.

Hit and Stay

For instance, suppose your large cruiser fleet is facing off with a roughly equal fleet at a planet two jumps away. Usually, an attack is out of the question, as your opponent’s alert crew status will chew up your cruisers. Your cruisers are already at a disadvantage in terms of hull strength, unless the other player is also Thrass.

Enter H&R

With one card, you give all your cruisers (which, unless they’re modded, don’t have beam weapons) a beam weapon, and more importantly, you give them a chance to jump to the enemy planet while avoiding 80% or so of their weapon damage. More importantly, the next turn, your cruisers now have alert crew status. And as for the penalty? The -2 only applies to beam weapons, and as such, does not impact your cruisers at all.

Make the Base Run

Another situation in which H&R can save you is in case of a Homeworld assault. H&R will withdraw all your ships, including the Starbase, after the 5th round of combat. This can help you avoid the most damaging rounds of combats, and save your game.

What Just Hit Me?

H&R, since it gives beam weapons to all ships, including those without beam weapons, can turn your gaggle of defenseless bombers into a nasty force. It can also be used to send your bombers into fortified planets that would otherwise be inaccessible. I played one game in which a couple of bombers with Wide Net ran into an artifact planet, which my opponent thought was well defended, and killed Professor Hernandez!

Hit and Hit and Hit and Run

H&R is stackable - if you play two H&Rs on a single fleet, they will get +6 beam weapons to each ship. Stacking is even more fun if you play H&R on a fleet which includes the Harvester, which then harvests a citizen to give +2 to all your fleets’ weapons, including the bombers and cruisers that now find themselves with +6 or +8 beam weapons! In one game, I played two H&Rs followed by 2 citizen sacrifices to the glory of the Harvester resulting in a group of 5 cruisers, 4 bombers and the Harvester doing an awesome 170 points of beam damage - this from a group that, as far as my opponent thought, didn’t have any beam weapons except the Harvester’s. The next turn, my fleet was sitting on the planet with alert crew status.

If you want to pull this off, make sure you play the H&R first - if you activate the Harvestor’s ability first, it won’t stack on top of the H&R beams.

They Do Run Run

Blockade running is another obvious use of H&R. Turn any Thrass ship into a Storm Transport for one turn.

Last and Perhaps Least...

H&R can be used in a scout swarm. The obvious and still sometimes useful scout swarm benefits from H&R.

Epilog

A few days after telling tsai how important I thought H&R was for Thrass decks, I found myself facing him again. We had large fleets facing off - mine at my HW and his a 2-jump away. Tsai slapped a H&R on the virtual table and landed his fleet on my HW. As I typed "gg" felt a twinge of pride, followed by the suspicion that I didn’t do the rest of my fellow Star Chamberians a favor by introducing this card to tsai.