Ten Special Edition Starter Cards Revealed.

I was shocked to discover that Decipher brought the Halloween Treats by revealeing 10 of the set cards for the Special Edition Starters. I want to take a quick look at them and share my thoughts on these cards.

Rendili

This Dark Side location will be the newest edition to the Dark Side fleet deck. By allowing Retrieval of Victory Class SD's, we may see the coming of the "fast" fleet comprised of mostly non-unique Victroy Class Star Destroyers (that is if you can get your hands on enough) or at least a few more included in this kind of deck.By making it force drain -1, Rendili is not a desirable location to drain, and thus forces the light side to either ignore the retrieval or divert some of it's strength there. This may even become a new starting location since it gives two force icons where the LS can only drain for 1, and has a great game text. Parsec 2 puts it in a nice place for the Executor to move between Rendili and Kiffex.

Desert

This card alone has added a new dimension to the game. Suddenly clouds strategies could conceivably move to Kashyyyk, Anoat, or even Alderaan. It also allows jawa decks to diversify and move to other planets. Start with the AC and Scum and Villainy. Now lets take our jawas on the road to Yavin. Who would have thought Imperial Decree and aliens would go together? Place a sandwhirl here and those jawas will have minimal problems holding down this site. This card reveals that Naboo woll be making an appearance, though when isn't definite.

Sentinel-Class Landing Craft

This is one of my favorite cards shown so far. It is power, maneuver, and hyperspeed three, and can use some of the newest nifty weapons incluiding the new destiny 7 Intruder missle (uhhh can you say a very USEFUL destiny 7), but I'll get there soon enough. While it would best be used with an ability 3 pilot, this bad boy will fit well into a clouds deck, which is good since it is going to need some backup to keep from becoming attrition fodder. R2-Q2 will work nicely in this ship as would Danz Borin (who mind you adds to weapon draws as a passenger!). And the 3/4 deploy forfeit ratio isn't too bad either. Expect to see this card make an appearance in many decks. This also become deadly since it can be used to talon roll. And I would like to remind you that it is non-unique.

Tie Defender Mark I

I wasn't all too impressed with this one. Decent destiny/deploy forfeit. The react mechanism is nice. It has good power for a tie, but is nothing but fodder when the Falcon is around. While it can use all sorts of weapons, I wouldn't expect to see too many of these around. Of course, with its maneuver of 4 combined with Dark Maneuvers, the Mach I could stay around to create havok in the skies.

Intruider Missle

This has to be my favorite card so far. A destiny 7 USED weapon. WOW. Can't be sensed or anything. Expect some decks to use that concept as the basis of a deck. Add in a few counter assaults and a bunch of intruder missles and ouch. This bad boy can deploy on bombers, Defenders, or freighters (meaining it will fit well into a SE sealed deck tourney). What's even better is that you can add 3 to the weapon draw if that same ship was targetted by another weapon in the same battle. The beauty is that these missles are non-unique, and will be around long after the ship originally carrying them is sent to the lost pile.

B-wing Attack Fighter

Well this light side snub is power packed 4 and adds one to weapon draws. It has a good destiny, and deploy/forfeit ratio, but with the new starship weapons, its maneuver is lack luster. We will defitely be seeing at least one more type of B-wing's that will hopefully have better maneuver. According to a little birdie at Decipher, B-wings are suppose to somehow be good in asteroids since they were created by the Verpine who live in the asteroids. This card also hints that orbital mines are coming soon since it defuses them.

Wookiee

Perhaps the most unexpected yet most well received card is the non-unique wookie. I'm sorry to say that the Darkside counter part, the forfeit 1 Whipids, get screwed compared to these forfeit 4 wookies. I'm not sure what Decipher was smoking, but I hope they fix how uneven that is. Anyway, Wookies kick some serious booty. These nasties are power +1 when at a jungle, forest or Kashyyyk site, and are power +1 when at same site as an imperial. I wouldn't turn my nose up at that, but it gets better. These aliens make the archaic bowcaster great weapons by making them cheap to deploy and fire all the while adding THREE to the destiny of the bowcaster (the card, not the weapon draw). If that wasn't enough, they also make wookie strangle a used interrupt. I guarantee we will be seeing wookies running amuk all over the universe with bowcasters in hand strangling people. Wowza!

Disruptor Pistol

A good destiny for a powerful weapon. This little piece of contraband packs a punch that could send a few creatures and characters running scared. While it encourages the use of non-unique warriors, it's real strength is that hit targets are immediately lost. Combined with electrobinoculars, the Darkside may not want to come to the ground anymore!

Sandspeeder

This definitely surprised me. I knew we would see desert walkers of some kind, but I never imagined this. These have a great deploy/ forfeit ratio while keeping the power and game text of the snowspeader counterpart. These could prove useful out in those sand dunes!

Spaceport City

I was surprised that his wasn't a Tatooine local, but I'm glad it wasn't. This card does much of what Desert for the darkside does. It is unfortunate that this can not deploy to Kashyyyk. It seems that the wookies may have to rely on the Dark Side to get to a Kashyyyk site (provided there aren't any in SE already). Again, Decipher shows its initiative to make non-uniques more useful with the force drain bonus provided by non-unique rebel leaders. I'm sure that the bulk of this cards time will be spend in clouds decks or on Tatooine, but I'm not convinced it will see a whole lot of play time.

Well, that's it for now. Overall, I think Decipher is onto a winner expamnsion. From what we have seen so far, the game could be revolutionazied a great deal. I must admit, I'm getting excited!

Beakman