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Time for a Smuggling Run

Edge of Darkness Is Now Available for STAR WARS (TM): The Card Game

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself.”

    –Han Solo, Star Wars: A New Hope

Expand your galaxy with two new, playable affiliations! Edge of Darkness, the first deluxe expansion for Star Wars™: The Card Game, is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore!

With twenty-two new objective sets and 132 total cards, Edge of Darkness allows players to battle for the fate of the galaxy as the dark side’s Scum and Villainy or as the light side’s Smugglers and Spies. Both affiliations are loaded with tricks, traps, and clever means of blasting past your opponent’s defenses, and they bring a host of iconic characters to your games, including the likes of Bossk, Lobot, Bib Fortuna, Lando Calrissian, and Jabba the Hutt!

The Fastest Hunk of Junk in the Galaxy

Also in Edge of Darkness, players gain the opportunity to field the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon (Edge of Darkness, 332)!

Appearing in the Asteroid Sanctuary (Edge of Darkness, 331) objective set, the Falcon is a heavy-hitting Vehicle with three damage capacity and five combat icons. Its two   icons will make quick work of enemy objectives unless your opponent defends them, but if your opponent does defend, its three   icons can wreak havoc. Of course, since one of those   icons is edge-dependent, you’ll need to win your edge battles to benefit fully from the Falcon’s combat utility, but unlike most units, the Falcon can actually help you win its edge battles. It has Edge (1), which adds one Force icon in all its edge battles, meaning that as an attacker you can pass on your first action and force your opponent to bid the first card.

What about the Falcon’s unique ability? This is one that, at first glance, might appear too expensive for the reward. After all, to trigger the Falcon’s ability, you have to return a five-cost unit to your hand from the table. However, this is one ability that’s just perfect for players who like to mess with their opponents’ heads. Sure, it’s expensive, but what does it offer? Let’s look at a couple of examples. First, you can strike with the Millennium Falcon on the attack, deal your two   damage, and then just when your opponent is about to retaliate with his Stormtrooper Elite (Core Set, 125) and destroy your ship, you can take an action to remove it from the engagement and get a free Han Solo (Core Set, 64), who can then engage a different objective. Alternatively, you might use the Millennium Falcon to defend an objective against a damaged Emperor Palpatine (Core Set, 51). If you win the edge, you can destroy Palpatine. If you lose the edge, however, Emperor Palpatine will need to target the Falcon with at least one of his   icons or be destroyed after his strike. But then the dark side player has to decide: will he bury the Falcon under multiple focus tokens, or will he spread them around to other units? If he buries the Falcon, you can easily return it to your hand to get another powerful unit like Lando Calrissian (Edge of Darkness, 328). If he doesn’t bury the Falcon, it can strike again on your next turn. Either way, you force the Emperor to scatter   icons in a fashion that’s less optimal than he’d like.

The tricks in the Asteroid Sanctuary objective set don’t stop with the Falcon. When it enters play, the Cloud City Operative (Edge of Darkness, 324) can move a focus token from one of your units to one dark side unit. This can set up a nice turn of engagements, but the Operative’s ability also makes it an intriguing target to bring into play – at a key moment – with the Falcon. The fate card, Twist of Fate (Edge of Darkness, 157), is always good for a bluff and a trick during important edge battles, and Bamboozle (Edge of Darkness, 334) works like the Cloud City Operative, but at Action speed.

Never Tell Me the Odds

Now that Edge of Darkness is available at retailers and on our webstore, players finally get the chance to see the Scum and Villainy and Smugglers and Spies affiliations come to life. As you look through the expansion’s encounter sets and explore all the clever, new tricks they make available, here’s a sample deck that explores interesting synergies made possible by partnering two copies of the expansion with objective sets from the Core Set and The Search for Skywalker Force Pack.

Affiliation: Smugglers and Spies

Asteroid Sanctuary x2

    Millennium Falcon

    Cloud City Operative

    Cloud City Guest Quarters

    Bamboozled

    Twist of Fate

Questionable Contacts x2

    Han Solo

    Twi’lek Smuggler

    Cloud City Casino

    Swindled

    Crossfire

Raise the Stakes x2

    Blockade Runner

    Cloud City Operative

    Bothan Spy

    Smuggling Compartment

    Swindled

Renegade Squadron Mobilization x2

    Renegade Squadron

    Renegade Squadron Operative

    Munitions Expert

    Echo Caverns

Target of Opportunity

Trust Me x2

    Lando Calrissian

    Saboteur

    Cloud City Casino

    Sabotage

    Target of Opportunity

This deck packs as many tricks as you can fit into a YT-1300. Inspired by the Falcon’s ability to bring Character units into play, it focuses on playing a limited number of units, like Han and Lando, who are deadly at the right moments, as well as units like the Cloud City Operative that can throw your opponent’s plans into chaos when they enter play. Additionally, it excels at denying your opponent the ability to defend your key engagements. The Blockade Runner (Edge of Darkness, 323), Lando Calrissian, Swindled (Edge of Darkness, 130), Bamboozled, and the Cloud City Operative all work together to help you sneak past enemy defenses. Then, you can use the combat icon manipulation made possible by Echo Caverns (The Search for Skywalker, 212) to transfer a   icon to an engaged unit from another unit that shares a trait.

Ignore defenders during your first attack run. Exhaust your opponent’s potential defenders before your second attack run. What’s not to love?

Available Now

Edge of Darkness is available now at your local retailer and online through our webstore. Pick up your copy today!

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Source: Time for a Smuggling Run (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4256)