Very Pleased!

All the talk of an impending Disney flop can be put to rest, as far as I am concerned. Went to see Solo last night and I was very pleased. 

I rate it after Rogue One -- which I place after the OT, all of which is before the Prequel trilogy; then The Force Awakens, then comes anything else (Ewok Adventures, Caravan of Courage, SW Holiday Special, Droids cartoon, etc), then, grudgingly, comes The Last Jedi, just before anything written by Chuck Wendig.

They managed to re-tell an origin story differently, but with some "deep-cut" nods to the past sprinkled throughout (I think I heard Lando mention a 'star cave', for instance). Qi'ira is wonderfully enticing, Lando was great, Han was better than I feared, Chewie was great. Didn't mind Woody Harrelson. Loved the L3-37 droid sidekick. Intrigued by the news that Alden Ehrenreich is signed for two more movies. Also intrigued by the surprise ending 'cameo'. No spoilers here, yet.

I have the book "Last Chance" (haven't started reading it yet) and plan to get "Most Wanted" soon.

I will likely go see this movie a few more times in the theater. Nice!

As for timeline, Del Rey books claims these events take place between the novels Tarkin and Thrawn; which doesn't help much, as it makes the window 14 BBY to "before 2 BBY". The Wookieepedia article for the movie says "13-10 BBY", slotting it around the time of Rogue One's prologue (the young Jyn Erso portion, listed as 13 BBY). 

Still no official word on the novelization of this film. How odd. All I found was this contested entry on Wookieepedia:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Solo:_A_Star_Wars_Story_(novelization)

A Wonderful Cross-over

Fully Operational (P)Review

Presented here is an overview of what one can expect from the new Fully Operational supplement.

Page 1: Opening crawl

Page 2: Inside title page

Page 3: Table of contents

Page 4: Fiction

Pages 5-9: Overview and summary

Chapter 1 (pages 8-35): Building a Rebellion

This chapter presents new backgrounds and duties for Engineer characters; three new species, the Bith, Kaminoan and Skakoan; three specializations, the droid specialist, sapper and shipwright; a list of engineer motivations; and two signature ability trees, The Harder They Fall and Unmatched Ingenuity.

Chapter 2 (pages 36-63): Tools for Freedom

Detailed in this chapter are seven new types of weapons, five explosive devices, four types of armor, various equipment items, a handful of droids, some weapon and armor attachments, nearly a dozen vehicles, and some new vehicle attachments. All in all, this looks like good new gear.

Chapter 3 (pages 64-96): Crafting Victory

This chapter provides suggestions for incorporating Engineer characters in campaigns, as well as new rules for spending Advantage on Mechanics checks, guidelines for building repair facilities, and tips for designing campaigns around Engineer characters. I need to play around with these rules in order to have a stronger opinion about them.

All in all, this seems like another solid entry in the collection. As always, the production values are high and the art is gorgeous.

Solo...so soon!

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.

Honorable Mention

Another good book, this the second and final entry into the Empire and Rebellion series, Honor Among Thieves (James S. A. Corey, 2014). The book takes place around 2-3 ABY, before Empire Strikes Back. An interesting note is that James S. A. Corey is a pen name for a writing duo from Albuquerque, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

This was a fun read. Great Star Wars action, to my mind. While it does have a new superweapon, of sorts, it doesn't feel like a retread in that way. Good characterization, using the best characters we have: Han, Leia, Chewie, Luke. Plus introducing us to a remarkable and intriguing newcomer, Rebel spy Scarlet Hark. This was a fun book to read during Women's History Month, as two strong, intelligent, quick-witted women constantly get the best of Han, ol' buddy. Delightful!

Herein we meet an old smuggler frenemy of Han's named Baasen Ray. Ray is a desperate character who has fallen on hard times and taken up a new career as a third rate bounty hunter. He wants to turn Solo over to Jabba (get in line). Solo shoots his hand off. Ray doesn't care for that. Things work out in the end.

A short story included at the back of the book, entitled Silver and Scarlet, is the only other place we get to see the wonderful Agent Hark in action. Too bad. I would read more about her any day.

A good entry into my preferred canon, boyo.

SWAJ 11

Hit a snag in my readership of the Star Wars Adventure Journal, in that Vol.1, No. 11 cannot be found on the second-hand market. I have searched high and low and this is the only issue where I have run into a brick wall, so to speak. I finally relented and read the issue in PDF form.  It is strange this one is so seemingly rare; I have the other 14; most were trivial to collect. The only other somewhat hard to get issue is the last one, No. 15. I will keep searching for the last piece of my SWAJ collection, however.

After all that horsing around, the issue is not the greatest. Love the cover picture. This issue is from November, 1996. To set the scene, The New Rebellion novel has just come out, along with Tales of the Bounty Hunters, and Tyrant's Test (book 3 of the Black Fleet Crisis). Look for them now, at a B. Dalton's near you! The Tales of the Jedi sourcebook is also new from WEG in this issue. I don't know that story line, but I might wish to pick this book up sometime as it purports to be a complete collection of the Force powers for D6 Star Wars RPG. Check the Yellow Pages for the Waldenbooks nearest you!

A new Zahn story entitled Command Decision starts us out. This is the sort of Thrawn story in which Thrawn confuses his underlings, even to the point of near mutiny, only to have them come to realize that he knows what he is doing and they do not. Nice read. The rest is a bit blah, in my opinion, including a long, poorly written piece by my new frenemy, Pablo Hidalgo.

I liked the Platt's Smuggler's Log feature. A long piece by Bill Smith thoroughly discusses the Star Wars Rules Upgrade. This covers the changes to the RPG as they moved to the Second Edition, Revised and Expanded.

This was not my favorite edition, as the book had very strange art direction. Filled with screen shots from the movies juxtaposed beside bad drawings, it did not work for me.