Allies and Adversaries

Here's a preview of the newest book, an anthology of NPCs.

-Nate

Allies and Adversaries (P)review

This book is the second in the black-bound line of era-specific books, following Dawn of Rebellion and preceding (announced after, but arriving before) Collapse of the Republic. It's laid out a little differently from that other, with four chapters dedicated to different types of characters whom the PCs might encounter. Those are Chapter 1: Rebels and Heroes; Chapter II: Imperials and Despots; Chapter III: Scum and Villainy; and Chapter IV: Creatures and Citizens. 

Power levels for these NPCs run the gamut from generic Alliance troopers all the way up to Yoda. Some of them are familiar from previous sourcebooks, while others I don't recall seeing before. Familiar faces include Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, Lando Calrissian, Leai Organa, Luke Skywalker, Mon Mothma, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Saw Gerrera and Wedge Antilles; Admiral Piett, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, General Veers, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Grand Moff Tarkin; Boba Fett, Bossk, Dengar, Doctor Aphra, Hondo Onahka, Jabba the Hutt, Maul and Zuckuss. 

Creatures—which I always find useful for bolstering encounters—include the acklay, bantha, bearsloth, dewback, dianoga, gundark, krayt dragon, loth-cat and loth-wolf, Mantellian Ffutterplume, mynock and vynock, nerf, nexu, rancor, reek, ronto, sarlacc, tauntaun, varactyl and wampa. 

All in all there are some thirty characters n each category, making this a highly utilitarian book. It can supplement a collection from any of the three lines, providing access to stats that would otherwise require a stack of books to transport. 

A highlight for me is the fact that Ewoks are introduced as a playable species.

Dawn of Rebellion (P)review

I know it's a bit late, but here's a preview of what people can expect from Dawn of Rebellion.

Page 1: Crawl

Page 2: Credits

Page 3: Table of Contents

Page 4: Foreword by Dave Filoni

Pages 5-9: Welcome to the Rebellion!/The State of the Galaxy/Life Under the Galactic Empire

This section provides an overview of the the Star Wars galaxy in this time period, which spans the years leading up to A New Hope—inlcuding events covered in the Rebels TV series and the film Rogue One.

Pages 10-49: Chapter 1—Worlds in Revolt

Presented in this chapter are overviews of numerous planets, including Alderaan, Atollon, Dathomir, the Death Star, Scarif, Jedha, Lothal, and five smaller ones. This seems like good material, including stats for creatures and modular encounters. Most interestingly, it also provides stats for characters from the TV series and films, including Princess Leia Organa, Saw Gerrera and even (former) Darth Maul.

Pages 50-89: Chapter 2—Organizations

This section describes numerous groups, including the Empire, the early Rebellion, Phoenix Cell, the Spectres, the Broken Horn Syndicate, the Free Ryloth Movement, the Protectors of Concord Dawn, and numerous “independent operators.” Here again there are stats, including Ahsoka Tano, Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian.

Pages 90-129: Chapter 3—Player Options

Presented in this chapter are four new alien species (the Drabatan, Gigoran, Iakaru and Tognath); six new universal specializations (Force adherent, Imperial Academy cadet, Padawan survivor, pirate, retired clone trooper and ship captain); six pages of new talents; new weapons including the lightbow and some heavy Gunnery weapons; four new droids, especially the KX enforcer and MSE units; and many different vehicles from Rebels and Rogue One.

Pages 130-143: Chapter 4—Game Master Support

This section provides guidelines for GMs, including treating campaigns like TV seasons, how to develop antagonists, and how to use Rebel cells in campaigns.

Page 144: Ad

All in all, this seems like a highly useful book. There's a lot of crunchy content for use in an Age of Rebellion campaign, of course, but also good material for Edge of the Empire games that involve up-and-coming Rebels. As always, the art is beautiful and the production values are top-notch. The decision to include stat blocks for major characters is an interesting one, and of course means that somebody's campaign will see the PCs kill Darth Vader.

First Look at SOLO

For the sake of completeness, here is the Superbowl first look as well.


Perhaps this is Lando's buddy (a Clone Wars era T-series Tactical Droid):

Trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story

After very mixed feelings about The Last Jedi, I'm hopeful that this one will recapture the feel of Star Wars.

-Nate

Custom Character Sheet

I recently modified a character sheet I found out on the web. I think they were originally made by FFG forum members Caied and DylanRPG. I changed the logo in the upper right to be generic (I plan to blend all three games into one). I also added the Lightsaber skill, the Knowledge: Warfare skill, and made room for Force Powers, Obligation, Duty, and Morality on page 2.

I tried to use the most printer-friendly version they had, plus there's a very cool form-fillable version that calculates and displays the dice pool for you.

Click here to download it.

May the Fourth

For those who live in the Twin Cities metro area, Fantasy Flight Games will be hosting a night of game demos with an X-Wing tournament on Wednesday, May 4th. Check it out.

May the Fourth (2016)

-Nate

Especially for You

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."

I just picked up this cool supplement at the FFG Event Center: Special Modifications. Now all I need is the Jedi Guardian book and a bounty hunter book and I will be done with my modest FFG SWRPG library. Probably.

Techs are a big deal in Star Wars RPGs, but they can be a bit difficult to integrate into the larger group sometimes. I can't say whether this book helps with that as of yet, but here is a preview of the book.

Pages: Contents
1: Crawl
2: Credits
3: Contents
4: Fiction
5-9: Overview and Introduction
10-41 (Chapter 1: Expert Artificers): Backgrounds for Techs, including Antiquarian, Born Engineer, Tech Designer, and Underworld Tech Expert. A new chart of Technician focused Obligations. Three (or four?) new species: the Dug, the Besalisk, and two subspecies of Mustafarian. New Specializations like Cyber Tech, Droid Tech, and Modder. A bunch of new talents, a new Technician Motivation Chart and two new Signature Ability trees: Inventive Creation and Unmatched Calibration.
42-67 (Chapter 2: Tools of the Trade): Equipment! For techs! Rules for using tools as ranged weapons and for hot-rodding existing weapons (or tools) into something more useful. And dangerous. Some new armor, new cybernetics, slicing tools, construction and salvage tools, weapon and armor attachments, and things called "remotes". Simple droids. Drones? A few new vehicles, with emphasis on heavy haulers and at least two airspeeder equivalents of a mobile tow truck/repair yard. Cool. A few starfighters, then the starship equivalent of a mobile tow truck/repair shop. Artwork seems a bit like Han's new Episode VII ship, Eravana: open mouth, suck in broken down vessel. The chapter is rounded out with vehicle attachments. These techs will find a way to attach anything to anything, won't they?
68-96 (Chapter III: Ingenious Creations):If you can't merge the two things into one thing, you may have to build a new, separate thing. This chapter includes rules to do just that. There is a discussion related to my point above, why/how the Tech leaves the workshop for the danger and thrill of adventure. Integrating the Tech into the hijinks that are bound to ensue when an RPG adventure happens. A related discussion assists with making "Technical Encounters" exciting in their own right, so as to more fully include the nerd, I mean, Tech, in the fun. Rules for crafting weapons (melee and ranged) and droids, as well as gadgets and cybernetics. Rules for Slicing encounters! Every non-Tech party member's nightmare, potentially. Sit still and listen as the computer hacker goes on a solo adventure...within the computer! Seriously, it looks like the rules here are again focused on making sure the Tech stuff can be integrated into the rest of it all. The chapter, and the book, ends with some ideas about selling your wares, as a Tech, and some ideas on Tech rewards.

Impressions
I am not done reading the whole book, but I like what I see.Wonderful art and whatnot, as per usual with the FFG SW stuff. I like having the four-armed Besalisk race stats. Dugs are kinda neat, too. I will probably ignore the Mustafarians. Both of them.

I will be paying very close attention to the "Integrating Techs into Non-boring Adventures" portions of this book as I get to them. From what portions I have read of those sections, it looks promising. I am reminded (with some of the vehicles and artwork) of Shug's Space Barn on Nar Shadaa or the aforementioned Eravana...without the rathtars and questionable hyperspace lever usage, of course.

Great Pictures, part 1

This is an incredibly wonderful picture. My favorite Star Wars ship, docked on some exotic world. Various doorways beckon, leading deeper into the well-used installation. The YT-1300's boarding ramp itself invites us to run aboard (perhaps under a hail of Imperial blaster fire), drop into the pilot's seat and gun it for orbit.

Is this a mining colony? Is that a bounty hunter near the mandibles? Is that Chewie coming out of the bay to the right? One could write an entire adventure from the juicy tidbits presented in this image, and perhaps flavor an entire campaign with ideas extrapolated from details.

Simply wonderful!