“The belonging you seek is not behind you… it is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force.”

–Maz Kanata, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The First Order’s power is growing as The Force Awakens begins. Under the joint supervision of Kylo Ren and Admiral Hux, this oppressive military force strikes out into the galaxy, searching for any trace of the Resistance and the missing Jedi, Luke Skywalker. Though the dark side is rising under the guise of the First Order once more, hope can be found in unexpected places—including a desert scavenger living in the sandy wastes of an old battlefield planet called Jakku.

From her humble beginnings to her cinematic battle with Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base, Rey’s journey takes her through danger and adventure. Soon, you’ll be able to mirror Rey’s path and fight alongside her in the duels of Star Wars™: Destiny! Last week, we joined the dark side with the Kylo Ren Starter Set, but today we heed the call to the light as we explore the cards and dice within the Rey Starter Set.

I Can Handle Myself

Throughout The Force Awakens, Rey proves that she’s perfectly capable of surviving on her own—but that doesn’t mean that she won’t benefit from being part of a team. Together, Rey and Finn surmount countless perils, including shooting down a TIE fighter patrol, escaping from rathtars, and dueling Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base. Just as Kylo Ren has the support of a First Order Stormtrooper in the Kylo Ren Starter Set, you’ll find both Rey and Finn inside the Rey Starter Set.

In your games of Star Wars: Destiny, Rey (Awakenings, 38) can be a powerful asset for your team. In fact, because her die features several modifier sides—dice which can’t be used on their own, but must be paired with a standard value to be resolved—Rey functions best as part of a team. For instance, you may roll one melee damage and a plus two melee damage. Without the standard melee damage, you wouldn’t be able to resolve the plus two melee damage on your turn.

Fortunately, the Rey Starter Set includes two copies of Rey’s die, inviting you to field her elite version. All unique characters in your team can be included as a normal version or an elite version. The only difference is that the elite version of a character starts play with two copies of its die, rather than just one. The elite version does take up more of the points that you can spend on your characters, however: as you can see from the bottom left corner of the card, the normal version of Rey costs nine points, and the elite version costs twelve points.

Of course, Rey is more than just her dice. She also bears an ability, which reads, “After you play an upgrade on this character, you may take one additional action.” In a game that’s fundamentally based on alternating actions with your opponent, the option to take two actions in a row—with no opportunity for your opponent to interfere with your plans—can give you a distinct advantage.

Just like in the movies, Rey works especially well with Finn (Awakenings, 45). Finn is well suited to taking upgrades of his own, because you can attach any weapon to Finn, regardless of play restrictions. What’s more, Finn’s familiarity with the First Order’s equipment invites you to include Red Villain weapons and vehicles in your deck. Within the starter set there’s just one, the F-11D Rifle (Awakenings, 8), but once you move beyond the starter set, Finn opens up plenty of options for customizing your deck.

The Garbage Will Do

As you might expect from their character abilities, both Rey and Finn prefer to have plenty of upgrades that you can use to enhance your heroes. Although you’ll run plenty of upgrades, each of these upgrades offers a different effect and fills a different role in your deck. For instance, you may play Jedi Robes (Awakenings, 40). This upgrade gives your character some vital shields, while its die can grant you more resources or use the focus result to change the sides of your own dice.

You may equip one of your characters with Rey's Staff (Awakenings, 44) to increase their melee prowess or give you the chance to knock your opponent’s weapons out of their hands, removing a die that could deal damage to you. Or, you may call upon your mastery of the Force with Force Throw (Awakenings, 57). This upgrade not only gives you the chance to destroy your enemy’s precious resources, it can remove an enemy die and deal damage to your opponent’s characters in a single action.

Of course, with a variety of upgrades in your deck, you’ll inevitably discard some of these cards in order to reroll your dice and gain the advantage. Still, just because you don’t need an upgrade at a certain time doesn’t mean that you’ll never need it. Fortunately, you have a way to recur your upgrades and supports with Starship Graveyard (Awakenings, 174). As the battlefield included in the Rey Starter Set, this card reads, “Claim – Choose a support or upgrade in your discard pile and place it on top of your deck.” Essentially, this allows you to find the perfect upgrade or support you’re going to need for the next turn, so long as the card you want is in your discard pile.

Manipulating the Future

Whether you’re tapping into the power of the Force or relying on the tricks that any scavenger or fugitive must use to survive, you’ll find plenty of ways in the Rey Starter Set to manipulate dice—both yours and your opponent’s. Since the dice are so integral to every game of Star Wars: Destiny, making them work in ways that they normally don’t lets you stay one step ahead of the dark side.

For instance, you may use Awakening (Awakenings, 124). By exhausting this support and spending an action, you can resolve a die with a modified side (showing a +) as if it were not modified (did not have the +). By resolving your dice in this way, Awakening gives your deck much more consistency, especially if you’re using cards like Rey or the F-11D Rifle that have a higher number of modified results. In addition, you can use BB-8 (Awakenings, 43) to help you get the results you need. BB-8’s die is fairly useful across the board, and with his special ability, you’ll be able to reroll his die and another die without removing BB-8’s die from your dice pool!

On the more offensive side, you may focus on rerolling your opponent’s dice instead of your own. With Daring Escape (Awakenings, 126), you can reroll any number of your opponent’s dice and remove any dice that show blanks. Best of all, if your opponent rolled any blanks to begin with, you can just leave those dice untouched and reroll the others, ensuring you remove the maximum number of dice! As a final option, you could advise your opponent to simply Let the Wookiee Win (Awakenings, 130). This Yellow event forces your foe to make a difficult choice: either deal two damage to an exhausted character or remove two dice from the dice pool. Either way, you’ll come out ahead.

These Are Your First Steps

At this point, you’ve seen both of the starter sets for Star Wars: Destiny—one for Kylo Ren and one for Rey. Now, it’s up to you to choose which one you’ll support, and where you’ll go from here. In our next preview, we’ll begin to explore the unique and powerful dice and cards that you’ll find throughout the Awakenings booster packs.

Head to our community forums to join the Star Wars: Destiny discussion, and pre-order your starter sets at your local retailer today!