The Month of Galactic Conquest : Part III "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany"

Without question the Mentak has been the toughest article for me to write. Twilight Imperium is such a complex game and the Mentak are probobly the toughest of all races to grasp. Add to that the fact that I have rarely had a chance to play them, albeit it played against them very often, it made it difficult for me to see objectivly their advantages.















The Mentak Coalition

Without question the Mentak Coalition is the most commonly debated race of all Twilight Imperium races. Many will argue that they are among the worst races in the game, claiming that their racial abilities are completely useless and easily countered while others swear by their starting conditions and racial combat ability, more specifically in combination with their amazingly useful racial tech. In my perspective the Mentak are a bit of a mixed bag while I don’t particularly like playing them as I do find that their abilities are not that substantial and they require an aggressive play style that is difficult to win with, I neither particularly like them as a neighbor either, as their combat driven play style can be quite intimidating. Unlike other combative races like the Sardekk N’orr and the L1z1x who while having good combat abilities are better or at least in my experience more often played peacefully, the Mentak core strategy is all about aggression, sort of pushing their way to victory. The odds of having to fight a Mentak neighbor are quite high and those 2 free shots combined with their racial tech that pays in ships makes them something to worry about, even though statistically the odds are not that much improved over other races.

To me the Mentak’s biggest strength is their ability to punish opponents who do not respect their strength and their uncanny ability to catch people making mistakes. This is where I believe much of the debate about whether or not the Mentak are a good race comes from as their abilities are circumstantial and actually based on luck (can you hit with those 2 free shots?). The question you have to ask yourself are you a gambler? If used against a table of novice players you can run the Mentak to great success as people will very commonly underestimate their racial ability and racial technology, after all its luck with odds at about 40% chance per roll not to mention the ability to recover ships so you have to plan a little for it. At a veteran table you will find it less likely these types of oversights in judgment occur, as veteran players will account for this ability when planning their defenses, making their abilities considerably less scary and useful. To run the Mentak successfully you really have to have a strong grasp of the rules, know how to take advantage of strategy secondary’s and generally work a fairly complex strategy. If done right however the Mentak can be a real threat at the table.

Pros: Very nice starting conditions allow the Mentak a comfortable and very forgiving early round opening the door to early victory points. Descent combination of combat racial abilities between their 2 free shots and a racial technology (salvage operations) make it very easy to wage war with pretty good odds, albeit still very luck driven so be careful. Good Home world production with a bonus for Enviro Compensator combined with an extra command counter in fleet supply and three starting cruisers allow you to get a nice force up early acting as both a good deterrent and a good early strike force.

Cons: Crappy trade contracts combined with not so friendly nor particularly useful trade goods stealing racial ability and a disposition towards inhospitable play style in general means you aren’t going to be high on anyone’s list of diplomatic allies, likely making someone’s people to kill list. Like the Sardekk N’orr they are a combat driven race and combat is not a particularly good route to victory, nor is it a reliable one, as it’s based on dice which means success with the Mentak Coalition really requires expert knowledge of TI3’s game mechanics and strong execution of generally good strategy.

Strategy: Playing the Mentak is all about posturing, fluidity of movement and attention to detail. It’s difficult to illustrate specific actions you can take, you really have to know the game and how to best respond to it to get the most out of your races core ability and the salvage operation tech which is important for you to get as early as possible.

The overlying problem with the Mentak is that your combat prowess will not likely help much with getting victory points so you must focus on opening other routes. An aggressive early expansion combined with a focus on technology acquisition is probably the best route. The more planets/resources you have the more likely you will be able to make some of the tougher objectives, while technology will give you a general advantage in the game as the Mentak benefit quite a bit from things like Stasis Capsules, Neural motivators and XRD Transporters to help beef up your movement flexibility and ability to wage war.

Your early tactic should be building a large fleet of mostly cruisers and destroyers to pose a real threat to your neighbors early on and throughout the game . You should jump on Stasis Capsules in the first round (take technology if you can) then make B line for Warsuns, with a short stop early on to get your racial tech. You will already be in a good position to get warsuns with Hylar V and Enviro Compensators both being pre-requisites. This will serve two main purposes. First it will allow you to have the strength to stop your neighbors in the late game as with the Mentak like the Sardekk N’orr military attributes don’t normally help much early in the game to get victory points so you will likely find that someone will be a contender for the win ahead of you. You want to make sure you can effectively stop them. A secondary reason is to ensure that your neighbors are blowing a good chunk of their resources on their own fleet in response to your build up, hopefully attributing to a general slowdown of their own strategies to gain victory points. If they aren’t doing that, take advantage of the situation by striking at them early and claiming some much needed planets. As the Mentak Coalition you are fairly tough opponent for most races, but it will be crucial for you to have a proper fleet makeup that takes full advantage of your cruisers that roll at 6’s with the Mentak 2 free shots ability and destroyers anti-fighter barrage to clear the cannon fodder while having your own cannon fodder fighters allowing your fleet to dish out the pain to the rest of the fleet. This means you are always going to be trying to increase your fleet size permanently and creating complete ready to fight cruiser and destroyer based fleet’s in every space available along your neighbors borders. The idea is to intimidate and follow through on the intimidation if your neighbors are not respecting your fleet strength. Remember however only take what you need, don’t over expand.

Smart players will respect your fleet size and respond appropriately by building up their own fleets to match you, but don’t fear an attack as there are few races in Twilight Imperium that can successfully run a war campaign without hurting themselves in the process, especially against combat races like the Mentak. If someone does attack you, odds of you coming out on top are very good as you generally have a lot less of a volatile situation. Like any race however long wars are the kiss of death. The best way to avoid long wars is to hurt someone bad enough that they will see their ability to win slipping away if they continue, so hurt them fast and hard and then try to offer up a truce. Unfortunately one of the fallouts of this approach is the ‘revenge factor’ which the Mentak are a victim of more often than not.

The Revenge Factor is essentially the idea that when a player gets beaten so bad that they are pulled out of contention for the win, the only thing left for them to do in the game is take the personal responsible for that with them. Even a badly beaten opponent can do considerable enough damage to drag someone out of contention with them, especially if they no longer care about getting victory points. Be very wary of this effect, remember the goal isn’t to remove someone from play or hurt them so bad that they can’t win, the goal is to get what you need to make the points you need to win, so plan accordingly and always keep the revenge factor in the back of your mind each time you make a combative move.

Since the Mentak are not really setup up to get victory points based on their race alone you will have to think very hard about what you can do about that. Usually in the early game its too tough to tell if your aggressive actions and technology acquisition will be enough to get caught up to some of the stronger races so ultimately getting your secret objective is really quite crucial for you. Without it your chances of making the points in time before someone else does may not be that good depending on the situation. Positioning yourself to meet your secret objective is vital so whatever it is, even if it’s a really tough and seemingly impossible one, from the very start, treat it likes it’s your only hope. Push hard for it and be prepared to negotiate with weaker players in secret to help take down stronger players in the event you can’t. Fortunately your mobility and toughness should make getting most of the secret objectives considerably easier than many other races.

There are a couple of really good strategies that work well for any combative race, but particularly well for the Mentak as they have far less too loose if an all out war breaks out; My favorite is the Trade Control Strategy.

In the Trade control strategy the idea is to take the Trade card at the start of the game and really bust people’s balls about what trades you will allow. Turn down trades unless you can get 2 for your 1’s for both of your contracts and force payment for any trade 3 trade contracts between other people on a per round basis. People may and probably will refuse you in which case someone will be forced to take the trade card to get trades going. Your response will be to promptly take the trade card again and cancel trades that earn people too many trade goods. This isn’t going to make you particularly popular but like the strategy for the Xxcha in which you invent chaos to get people to make mistakes, this will likely have a similar effect. Ultimately what happens is you take away people’s ability to get easy access to those crucial extra trade resources and frankly the Mentak can easily be played using nothing but strategy secondary’s so it’s not that crucial for you to have a useful primary strategy card each round, wasting a round to get trade and cancel trades is good as it will in turn force others to re-acquire it. Since you have 1/1 trade contracts you really have very little to lose if you get nixed out of trade all together. Forgo this strategy if the Hacan are in play.

Bullet Point Strategies

· Early Expansion is the key, get Stasis Capsules in round 1 and make use of those 3 cruisers you start with. Don’t be afraid to fight for planets in the early stages of the game, you’re in good position to do it. Don’t overlook high influence planets, you need to have 6 influence available each round for Leadership.
· Technology is your best long term strategy, acquire as much as you can keeping in mind that you need to diversify to ensure that if technology objectives come up you can meet them (2 of each kind is a good method). You should have Warsuns by end game time.
· A continues increase of fleet size is important for you so be sure you have the influence planets to take advantage of Leadership each round.
· Avoid fights with Sardekk N’orr and L1Z1X. These guys are as capable as you of waging war, especially in the late game so its best not to get those players to upset at you, in fact you may consider partnering up with a Sardekk N’orr player as you will have a lot in common with him.
· To whatever you can to slow other players down a bit, best way is intimidation through fleet strength forcing them to respond, so build up your fleet is key.

Adjusting the Mentak

Adjusting the Mentak is a complicated situation since it is really difficult to analyze whether or not they are ask weak as some say or as strong as others say. In my opinion you have to thread lightly as in the hands of a experienced player the Mentak are actually quite descent.
Trade Good Negotiator: (Replacement for their current trade goods stealing ability) – You may spend 1 command counter from your strategy allocation area once per round to swap trade contracts with another player. – This is actually a quite powerful and not particularly nice ability which I would only add to a game in which a novice is running the Mentak.
Trade Good Stealer - (Replacement for their current trade goods stealing ability) – Spend 1 command counter from your strategy allocation area to steal 1 trade good from another player. This is a fairly balanced trade good stealing ability that has the side affect of acting as a turn staller.
Trade Terminator - (Replacement for their current trade goods stealing ability) – Spend 1 command counter from your strategy allocation area once per round to cancel any one trade agreement between two players. You may not terminate a contract involving the Hacan.

Beating the Mentak

Beating the Mentak is all about convincing them that you aren’t a good target and to go elsewhere. If you find they are a neighbor, lean your primary fleet along their borders and when the Trade Round comes up offer them a token 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1 trade contract. That will probably be enough in most cases to have them seek war elsewhere. If they do attack you, swear to the player that you will not end the war until he’s eliminated and attack him with everything you got like a wild man. Even though you are likely to suffer heavy losses, hurting the Mentak fleet is the absolute best way to push them out of contention and the Mentak player knows it. A wise Mentak player will very quickly change his tune if he see’s that you aren’t going to give him even an inch without an all out war and come to the diplomatic table. If the Mentak are stubborn, hit them where it hurts, blow up space docks and slow their military buildup more importantly convince the Mentaks other neighbor to help you take them out.

Conclusion

The Mentak are a tough race to run and while they certainly have their advantages in comparison to the rest of the races they rank pretty low in most areas if for no other reason than the fact that if those dice work against you, you have nothing else to fall back on but your own wits and game knowledge. Exactly why the Mentak belong in the hands of a veteran player, as a novice looking at the race card will not find much that can help him. With the Mentak you are going to have a tough game, they really do make a great challenge for veteran players who already know how to win with other races. I can’t say that they are bad enough to pull from the race pool, I mean there are routes to victory with this race and I have seen them win plenty of games as evidence of that. I would say however that if you have a mixed group of veteran and novice players, be sure not to stick a novice with it.