So Fantasy Flight Games have done their first preview article on the next set for Star Wars Destiny, Spirit of Rebellion. There are some exciting spoilers, so let’s dive in!

First of all, does the artwork on the booster pack indicate that we’re getting TR-8R as a character (his actual designation is FN-2199), or only the Z6 Riot Control Baton, who knows? As much as I’d like TR-8R in the game, a red villain melee weapon might actually be more appealing (General Grievous would certainly not complain!).

As is usual with their card fans, this one hints at cards without showing all of their rules text. The main tease in this instance is Chirrut Imwe. We can see all of his die faces, which reveal that he will be dishing out a lot of damage, both ranged and melee, although two of the results are modifiers.

His first ability seems to read “You cannot play Blue abilities on this character”, which would represent his lack of force power usage. His second ability is rather more obscured, but my best guess would be “After you activate this character you may reroll all of your dice.”. If that’s the case, then it seems to be an even more powerful version of Jabba’s ability. However, it’s equally likely it says “your blue dice” or “your opponent’s dice”, either of which would also be good.

Supply Line looks like a cheap support card that will help generate resources. Judging from the artwork, I’d guess it was a hero card. No idea what the special ability is, but with a focus result as well, this looks quite reasonable.

Personal Shield looks like it will grant the wearer lots of shields (who’d have thought it, right?), as two of the die faces we can see have shields on. In addition, the ability on it seems to read “Before attached character is dealt 1 or more ranged damage, you may exhaust this upgrade to give attached character 1 shield.”. The artwork makes me think this will be a hero card, but hopefully it’s neutral!

Finally, Jyn Erso and Death Trooper have been fully revealed, so no need for speculation there!

First thing to notice is that none of her die faces cost resources. Next up, two lots of 2 ranged damage as well as two different discard faces. I imagine a lot of combinations with Jyn will involve Padme Amidala, as Padme can mill them and then Jyn can finish off their hand. Lastly, her ability to reduce the cost of the first yellow event you play each round means that you’ll be able to play events like Hyperspace Jump with just the resources you receive at the end of a turn.

Ten points, ten health, no abilities, lots of ranged damage, but no resource generation (they have disrupt instead). None of their die faces cost resources to use, which is nice. A team of three of these seems perfectly viable, particularly with Endless Ranks (although you’ll need some way to get all that cash!).

Another character with no resource costs for any of their die faces, and a character with a high HP total. Director Krennic is an interesting character as when you activate him you get to roll a die for a Death Trooper, even if you don’t currently have one in play. You must control the battlefield to use this ability, but it effectively gives Krennic an extra dice to use (one with a lot of ranged damage on it). This ability is both thematic, and also mechanically interesting.

It’s Darth Vader’s boss, Palpatine! The first thing you might notice is the points costs; 21/28. That means if you want to use elite Palpatine, it’ll be your whole team! He has 15HP, but only two dice for your team will be risky, but you know you want to.

His die faces are obviously pretty damn good, but it’s his ability that is potentially devastating. After you resolve one of his character dice, your opponent has to deal two damage to their characters, distributed as they wish (just like F-11D Rifle). With elite Palpatine, as long as you resolve both of his character dice you will dish out four damage per round. The questions remains would Palpatine be able to survive the retaliation? Time (and more spoilers) will tell!

Palpatine’s signature move, and a staple of dark side force-users. Four-cost blue ability upgrade means that you’ll probably be playing this alongside Sith Holocron. As you can see, it isn’t subtle, just dishing out loads of damage. Also, the special ability has the potential to not only damage characters but also ruin dice pools that contain blank results (as if Feel Your Anger wasn’t already enough punishment!).

Expensive event (although cheaper with Jyn!), but fixing all of a character’s dice is potentially crippling (just imagine if a tooled-up Jango could use this…). A Han Solo with his blaster pistol and some other upgrades is more than capable of one-shotting most characters, so this event is going to see a lot of play.

Zero-cost control cards are great (my favourite card in the game might just be He Doesn’t Like You). This will almost certainly be a staple in red hero decks.

Qui-Gon Jinn decks will probably get a lot of use out of this, but any hero deck with blue might find it useful. Notice that this says “After one of your dice rolls a shield…”, not when you resolve a die for shields. This means that you don’t even have to end up using that shield face (thankfully this support gets exhausted after use though). Another nice card!

Well that wraps up my quick look at the first Spirit of Rebellion preview article.

Cheers!