The Game Begins Anew!Opening Moves Is Now Available for Android: Netrunner
“And in other news, Haas-Bioroid declined to comment on rumors that a series of attacks against its network hubs may have exposed its latest research in new bioroid technology to harmful tampering.”
–NBN Today
Even the deepest stratagem begins with a single move…
Opening Moves, the first Data Pack in the Spin Cycle for Android: Netrunner, is now available at your local retailer!
As Corps and Runners decide how they’ll contest the game’s tense cyberstruggles, Opening Moves introduces sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty individual cards) to permit a wide range of innovative new strategies. The Anarchs’ Caïssa programs don’t break Corporate ice, but manipulate it. New Double cards require heavy investments, but offer tremendous rewards. And the game’s megacorps risk the fall-out of bad publicity with several new cards that promote lethal security measures and fast, dirty economic gains.
Are We Even Playing the Same Game?
As we’ve seen in the announcement for the forthcoming Data Pack, Mala Tempora, the Spin Cycle introduces the Anarch’s Red Queen, Reina Roja (Mala Tempora, 41), and while her identity card doesn’t yet make an appearance, a couple of the cards in Opening Moves suggest her eventual impact by allowing Anarch players to employ the Red Queen’s opening gambit…
Reina Roja is a master tactician and chess master with an eye toward the long play, and to that end, she brings a wildly different strategy to the game, one aimed, for now, at keeping the Corp off-balance. In fact, while the Corps are busy building defenses against the typical array of icebreakers, Reina Roja is playing chess, designing and employing her Caïssa programs, like Pawn (Opening Moves, 2) and Rook (Opening Moves, 3).
Developer Damon Stone explains how the Red Queen’s approach mirrors the ways in which the asymmetrical struggles of Android: Netrunner mean that the Corp and Runner are always playing a different game:
“Through conversations with a number of players, I realized that Android: Netrunner seemed to blend two other games I truly enjoy: poker and chess. It’s not so much that the game is a mix of the two, experienced by each player, but that each player experiences a completely different game. The Runner has a chess-like experience, planning attacks moves in advance, based on the cards in his hand, and following through with his strategies as closely as he can. And the Corp has a poker-like experience, evaluating the strength of its cards, calculating the probabilities of drawing the other cards it needs to complete a set, and deciding when to go all-in on setting up a server, and its defenses and traps, if any.
“Often, there is a point where the play experiences reverse themselves, and the Runner's experience becomes more like poker, when he has to risk blind runs on servers, and the Corp uses perfect knowledge to plot out moves many rounds ahead. The best players are able to transition smoothly from one mental process to another, and they often seem to be able to predict their opponent's actions and even read or manipulate them into running or defending where they wish.
“This ability to read patterns, sometimes referred to as ‘tells,’ is part of what enables the best players to make so-called ‘lucky’ draws work for them. This is also the kind of player who can make the game within a game of Caïssa pieces work the best.”
Pick Up Your Copy Today
Will you be able to use the new Caïssa to your advantage? Will you be able to defend against them?
The game is wide open. How will you spend your first click? Start planning your next move today. Head to your local retailer to pick up your copy of Opening Moves!
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The Game Begins Anew!
