Resistance IS futile - you are eventually going to want to buy some Borg ships, even if you never intend to, the pull of playing the game in a completely different way to everyone else will draw you in. Multiple Generic Captains, Drone Tokens, 360 fire as standard, orthogonal movement - With the Borg everything you thought you knew about the game is a lie. Whilst the Borg are not as powerful as they once were in competitive play, they still offer a lot to a player who is interested in playing the game in a different way. If you do decide to make the jump into the Borg as a faction, here's a quick run-down of what you might want to get (if you can find it).
Part of the problem with making a Borg shopping list is that many of the upgrades are duplicated across expansions; A lot of the choice about which Borg upgrade to purchase comes down to ship preference. As such, in making this list I've tried to weight it more heavily towards ships rather than upgrades, although obviously upgrades play a big part. Another thing worth mentioning here is that for casual play, or in an OP environment that is heavily house-ruled away from the Wizkids suggested format, the choice of ship that works is going to be radically different to the choice you would make in a 50/3 standard environment. Please bear those caveats in mind when judging the credibility of this list.
Within the 50/3 format, a Borg pure fleet is going to struggle to pay the huge cost of Borg faction upgrades, so it makes sense to start from a low ship cost, since a low ship cost allows for greater flexibility in choice of upgrades. Therefore I'd start with the Borg Sphere 4270, mainly because at 38 points for the generic it allows you some room for captains and upgrades in 50/3. It also comes with many of the tricks that Borg have, since many of them are generic: Borg Ablative Hull Armor, Borg Assimilation Tubules, Borg Tractor Beam and Borg Cutting beam are all pretty standard Borg fare, and are all too hideously expensive to even consider in 50/3. Of the four upgrades I've just listed, the only ones worth running before the 50/3 suggested format came out were BAHA and BATS, the Tractor Beam and Cutting beam were always a little OTT. There are a couple of non-unique upgrades in this pack: Seven of Nine and Feedback pulse. Seven of Nine works in a similar way to another upgrade, Borg Alcove, and is a way to re-gain drone tokens at the cost of an Action/Disable, whilst feedback pulse is a great way to soften your opponent's alpha strike. The best card in the pack though, and the reason (other than the ship itself) that you may consider multiples, is the Tactical Drone. The Tactical Drone here allows for re-rolls without a target lock, so great for a cloak-hunter, and frees your action up for other things, namely ganking.
After the Sphere I'd next go for the retail scout cube. The named ship is the much feared Scout 608, which, for those of you who don't know, is essentially the ship that won the World Championships last year. With a slash line of 3/3/2/4 for 22SP, it certainly appears to be fragile, and it is, but its unmatched ability to arc dodge makes it much more survivable that it first appears to be. There are quite a few upgrades here that also help in the 50/3 meta since they are cheap. Borg Alcove works in a similar way to Seven of Nine, although it is half as effective but then doesn't cost the disable. Scavenged Parts is a good way to re-cover drone tokens, as for 2sp you can recover a drone token for each upgrade you discard. As a captain, 3rd of 5 is nothing special, a drone token for a single extra defence dice seems costly, but the crew version shines for 5 sp you can disable all an opponent's crew, through shields and cloak at range 2. All of the ganking upgrades on this ship have their place - 2nd of 5 and 4th of 5 work in slightly different ways to 3rd of 5, but are equally useful. In the current meta where I find Federation shield naughts all over the place, being able to disable or discard those shield granting upgrades is a good thing. There are other cards in the pack, but the one I want to focus on for the moment is Magnetometric Guided Charge. For 5 SP Mag Charges might seem expensive but the ability to ignore evade dice is magic, and also bizarrely solves the Borg's problem of poor attack dice efficiency (since it has a BS to Crit conversion built in and with a few exceptions, those dice are getting through). It's almost worth getting multiples just for this card.
The QVP would be my next purchase since in many ways it is a better a ship than the Sphere. WIth a good named ability, good dial and a better selection of slots than the sphere, the QVP also benefits from having a few cheap upgrades that help in the 50/3 meta. Power node, Magnus Hansen and Transwarp signal are all worthwhile cards (although Transwarp Signal less so since the "at any time" nerf), and the Borg Queen admiral is, in the opinion of the author, the best of the Borg Queens. On the expensive side of the upgrades you have Shield Matrix, the two Elite Talents and Multi-Kinetic Neutronic Mines - I'm not certain how much I would have used these upgrades in the pre-50/3 meta, but with 50/3 in play, I'm almost certain I never would.
My next choice may come as something of a surprise since I'd next buy the Soong/Borg Type 03. Yes, not all of the cards are Borg and Yes, the ship isn't great but Crosis is one of my favourite cards in the game at the moment and Goval is no slouch either. Card like Transwarp Conduit make me smile, even if they aren't great in the game.
Finally, of the 5 current retail borg expansions I'd go for the once mighty Tactical Cube 138. The ship itself is real expensive at 42/44 and doesn't come with that many upgrades you can't get elsewhere. Okay, the extra action Borg queen is fun, especially on the QVP and Borg Missile used to be one of the most feared cards in the game, but given the game state at the moment, 50/3 really limits the ship.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
Okay I'll admit it, I forgot about the Oversized Cube. It has an overcosted ship and Locutus in it. Meh. Don't bother unless you have a spare £60/$70 sitting around.
As for non-retail expansions, I'll go over them briefly, since you can't buy them per-se: the stand out of the assimilated ships is the Bird of Prey, but the other two are a good change up in game terms vs the orthogonal movement 360 Borg that proliferate the faction. Tac Cube 001 has Borg Queen 9, that I like since it adds a Borg slot, but suffers AGAIN from the 50/3 rule. Scout 255 has a few fun things with it, not least Proton Beam, and is relatively easy to get hold of, Assimilation Target Prime is better for its Mirror Universe parts than its Borg parts.
So the Borg Shopping list should be:
1. Sphere 4270
2. Scout 608
3. QVP
4. Another Sphere
5. Soong
6. Tactical Cube 138
7. Cube 112
It's a shame all these pieces seem difficult to find at the moment, because the really great thing about Borg, even in the 50/3, post-Borg nerf, WORF world, they still offer a player a different way to play the game from the other factions, and that's nice, since eventually having another faction with ships that 'move like Klingons' and upgrades that are similar to but not quite as good as federation won't be fun anymore, and barring a new faction coming out, Borg will always be a little unique. Isn't that a nice thought...
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