‘The Search for Skywalker’ is the second Force Pack in ‘The Hoth Cycle’, just as before I will be breaking down this set and running through what it contains. This set again as part of The Hoth Cycle includes new and wonderful Hothy goodness to expand on your themed decks. It contains the sets 43-47 and contains 60 new cards just as before.
Again for those who haven’t read the previous articles, I am a casual Star Wars LCG player and will be breaking into these sets and discussing them from a casual players mind set.
If you’re strictly looking for tournament opinions, the best I can offer is a nice look at what this set contains below.
So lets break this set down.
- 2 x Set 43 – Rebel Alliance – ‘Sensors Are Placed’
- 2 x Set 44 – Smugglers and Spies – ‘Renegade Squadron Mobilization’
- 2 x Set 45 – Light Side Neutral – ‘Preparation for Battle’
- 2 x Set 46 – Imperial Navy – ‘Deploy the Fleet’
- 2 x Set 47 – Scum and Villainy – ‘Jabba’s Orders’
You may notice that this set has dropped Jedi, Sith and Dark Side Neutral in favour for Smuggler and Spies, Scum and Villiany and a second Light Side Neutral. It should be very interesting making the Smugglers and Scum decks more viable.
Lets start with Set 43 ‘Sensors Are Placed’. The objective card for this set is quite formidable, while you control more Hoth objectives than your opponent, that opponent must place his first card in each edge battle face up. This ability speaks for itself, it’s a killer that makes ever edge battle either costly or a huge bluff.
First of all, I have to say I love how this set feels like it is advancing the plot. It is nice that the Force Packs do this, especially considering the fact that this means we get all of the token Echo Base themed stuff.
You get the ‘Echo Defenders’ these are pretty costly at 2 resources and they ship with nothing but 1 edge dependant focus icon. They do however have a nice ability that means they gain 1 unit damage icon per Hoth objective you control.
‘Echo Base’ is a nice Enhance card that grants 1 resource, gives each of your Hoth objectives +1 damage capacity and means you are considered to control 1 additional Hoth objective… This card is excellent, a must include for myself.
‘Echo Base Shield Generator’ is a nice utility Enhance card that allows you to place 1 damage on it to provide a target unit or Hoth objective with one shield token. Once this location has 3 damage tokens on it, it is returned to your hand… Yes, Hand.
‘First Marker’ is an Enhance card that means the enhanced objective can not be damaged by Vehicle units, a fantastic ability for denying those brutal Imperial bombardments.
‘Renegade Squadron Mobilization’ is a Smugglers and Spies set, the variety of which we have all been wanting more of. But how much does this set really add to the good old Smugglers?
Well, this set is a bit less point and click and is definitely made in order to compliment and prevent other cards. For example we gain ‘Renegade Squadron’ and as well as being a pretty solid combat unit with Elite, they can also take a damage token to rescue 1 captured card at the engaged objective. So a nice card overall with a bit of a niche ability in honesty.
We gain some basic troop choices with decent attack values on the ‘Renegade Squadron Operative’ and a decent ability on the ‘Munition Expert’ which allows you to focus said unit to grant a singular additional unit damage icon to a target unit until the end of the phase.
We gain a nice fluffy entry in the form of ‘Echo Caverns’, now this card is a funny one. It provides 1 resource and can be focused to target 2 units that share a Trait. Until the end of the phase, one of those units loses a combat icon of your choice, and the other gains that combat icon.
This is nice for granting a unit an additional combat icon from a similar unit that may have already focused for example, for the cost of a lowly 2 resources, not a bad entry. All in all, a bit niche to make smugglers really appealing, but not the worst set in the world by a long shot.
‘Preparation for Battle’ is an interesting fluffy Neutral Light Side entry. It contains utility cards really, designed to help you protect and buff what you already have, so not entirely useless by any means.
The objective card itself makes your units pretty formidable, instantly making the cards within the set far better than they are alone. Having this objective card on the board means your Shielded units cannot be damaged while the Death Star dial is 4 or lower. Your Shielded units gain 1 Objective Damage icon while the Death Star dial is 8 of higher too.
So let’s take a look why this is particularly handy. Well, the first card in the set is the ‘Hoth Scout’ who has a singular edge dependant unit damage (not the best) but can be sacrificed in order to place 1 Shield on a target unit or objective. Not too bad considering the single resource cost (especially if you have the main objective card in play.)
You also get ‘2 AAC-1 Speeder Tank’ cards, the damage output is non existent with only a singular edge dependant Focus icon, however they do have shielding which can be a nightmare for your opponents. This can lead to some interesting bluff plays and horrifically hardy super units.
A nice fluff entry here, a singular ‘Tauntaun’ card, it has a single Unit damage icon and grants 1 resource… Nice and simple, especially as it only costs 1 to play. Last but not least we have ‘Shelter from the Storm’. It has to be said, this card has brilliant artwork that depicts the scene where Han shelters Luke inside the grim Tauntaun carcass.
This card can only be used if there is a Hoth objective in play, for an Action you can place 1 Shield on a target friendly Character unit, until the end of the phase that unit also can not be targeted by enemy card effects and can not be damaged. Brutal for a 1 resource card indeed.
Having cards so excellent looking genuinely makes the game experience so much better for me. ‘Deploy the Fleet’ is a set that I particularly enjoy. Anything Imperial with more awesome ships is a good sign for me. The objective card itself allows you to damage the objective by 1 in order to reduce the cost of the next Capital Ship unit you play this phase by 1.
Next in the set we get 2… Yes, 2 ‘Death Squadron Star Destroyer’ cards. They cost 6 to put out, can take 5 damage tokens, they have Shielding, put out 3 Objective damage as standard with no edge dependant icons and they can’t be targeted by enemy events… Ouch.
Hefty to run, but the good old ‘Fleet Navigator’ is a 2 cost unit with a single edge dependant Focus icon that grants us one resource to help out. As if that wasn’t enough (it really wasn’t…) We also get the ‘Death Squadron Command’ this Enhance card gives us 3 resources… Not only that but after an Objective is destroyed you may remove 1 Focus token from this enhancement.
Last but not least, ‘Admiral’s Orders’, this quite frankly excellent card is a free to play event card that reduces the cost of the next Capital Ship unit you play this phase by 2.
Oh, Imperials just stepped it up a notch.
‘Jabba’s Orders’ is another exciting set. Yet more Scum and Villainy is always a good thing as you know we all want an awesome Bounty Hunter deck.
Interestingly, the objective card itself upon entering play, allows you to look at your opponents hand. The first and second card in the set is a ‘Weequay Elite’, he costs 4, has 2 unit damage icons and a Focus icon. You can also reduce the cost to play this unit by 2 if there is at least 1 card captured at any of your objectives. A very good ability if you’re working on a pure Bounty Hunter deck.
I love this next card… ‘Jawa Trading Crawler’, this card grants 2 resources and has 1 edge dependant Unit damage icon and 1 edge dependant Objective damage icon. Resources generated by this unit can only be used to play Vehicle or Droid units however. That is an awesome card, the art is cool, it’s fluffy and the ability makes sense.
These last 2 cards are also crackers, ‘Jabba’s Palace’ this Enhance card grants 1 resource and grants each of your objectives +1 damage capacity. A very useful card with a brilliant fluffy perspective to boot. Last but not least we have ‘Get Me Solo!’ a card with really nice artwork and a crazy ability.
This card allows you to name a unit then reveal an opponents hand, Capture all copies of the named unit in that hand. I can see some hilarious gambles coming into play here, or some very useful tactics for cards that get sent back into the owners hand…
Makes me smile every time…
That concludes my break down of this set, all in all it’s fairly good as the trend has gone so far! As an Imperial player I love the additions there, I was also happy with yet more brilliant Hoth themed stuff.
I had to say, the Scum/Smugglers stuff was okay but not quite enough to make those decks really stand up to the pretty awesome alternatives. But time will tell and as the ‘Edge of Darkness’ set exists, they are definitely viable as long as you factor that expansion into your gaming.
Review by Rich Campbell-innes. For more RPG reviews, click here.
