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Knowledge and Defense

Announcing the Third Force Pack in the Echoes of the Force Cycle

“You will know… when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”

    -Yoda, Star Wars™: The Empire Strikes Back

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Knowledge and Defense, the third Force Pack in the Echoes of the Force cycle for Star Wars™: The Card Game! Yoda told Luke during his Jedi training that a Jedi never uses the Force for attack. With this new Force Pack, you can explore the Force and draw upon its powers more deeply than ever before.

The ten objective sets (two copies each of five different sets) in this Force Pack mark a return to Hoth for the Rebel Alliance, even as the Scum and Villainy of the galaxy explore the highly lucrative slave trade. The Force is strong with every faction, and even the Smugglers and Spies will find a way to achieve their goals through knowledge, defense, and a little back-door smuggling.

Another Lucky Run

In Knowledge and Defense, the Force will help the Smugglers and Spies of the galaxy, beginning with the new objective set, Along the Gamor Run (Knowledge and Defense, 552). This objective possesses a powerful Reaction. Each time the Force phase begins, you have the opportunity to reveal the top card of your deck, and count its Force icons towards that Force struggle. If you lose the Force struggle, the card is discarded, but if you win, the revealed card is added to your hand, giving you the cards you need to maintain your defenses or plan your future attacks.

Winning the Force struggle has implications far beyond damaging dark side objectives, however, with the addition of new cards like Deneba Refueling Station (Knowledge and Defense, 555). At first glance, this card may appear to be just another resource-providing enhancement, but the Deneba Refueling Station has its own Reaction, allowing you to remove a focus token from the enhancement whenever you win a Force struggle. Even if you only win one Force struggle each round, this station will be ready to provide resources again after you refresh on your turn. 



A refueling station like the one on Deneba might be an ideal place to pick up some Hired Hands (Knowledge and Defense, 554), and this objective set has two of them. These units have a good spread of combat icons, making them equally useful for a deadly attack or for solid defense. Their combat icons become even more of a bargain when you combine them with three damage capacity for only one cost! Unfortunately, Hired Hands are often fickle. Whenever you lose a Force struggle, you must discard the Hired Hands, forcing you to make the most use of them while you can. If you can hold onto them, the Hired Hands may prove to be a critical part of your operations, but even if you can’t keep them, all is not lost.

Even if your Hired Hands desert you temporarily, they’re likely not gone for good, especially when you have the Hyperspace Marauder (Knowledge and Defense, 553) on your side. Hyperspace Marauder is the personal vessel of the renowned smuggler Lo Khan, and although it’s a useful attacker or defender, its best use may be to commit to the Force, counting its icons towards the Force struggle. When you have committed Hyperspace Marauder to the Force, it also gains the text: “Reaction: After you win a Force struggle, put a unit of printed cost 1 or lower into play from your hand or discard pile.” With this ability, you can make sure that your Hired Hands keep returning to you, or you can restore C-3PO (Core Set, 21) to play after he has been sacrificed.

Sometimes, even your best efforts are not enough to keep the dark side from seizing control of the Force struggle. At times like that, you may need to take a Gamble and Make Your Own Luck (Knowledge and Defense, 556). When a Force struggle begins, you may target a friendly, Force-committed unit with this event. Until the end of the phase, that unit gains three Force icons.

Make Your Own Luck neatly highlights the objective set’s other synergies. With it, you can ensure that you win the Force struggle by playing this event correctly, triggering Hyperspace Marauder and Deneba Refueling Station, making sure your Hired Hands stick around, and keeping the card you revealed with Along the Gamor Run. With the cards in this objective set, the Force will aid the Smugglers and Spies of the galaxy, opening a path to victory and giving you the opportunities you need to destroy the dark side’s objectives.

A New Darkness Rising

While the Smugglers and Spies look for ways to make their own luck, a dark power is rising in the person of the Sith Prophetess, Sariss (Knowledge and Defense, 558). Raised by the sinister Prophets of the Dark Side, Sariss is a deadly foe. Her combat icons allow her to be used for attack or defense, but the Prophetess is at her most dangerous when committed to the Force.

Sariss possesses the Elite keyword, as well as a Reaction that allows you to commit a target enemy unit to the Force after Sariss is committed to the Force. From there, the deadly schemes of the dark side can unfold in many ways. If you choose to commit an enemy unit covered with focus tokens, or one with only a few Force icons, you can make sure your opponent doesn’t get the upper hand in the Force struggle.

With some of the other cards in Sariss’s objective set, however, you can ensure a more grisly fate for enemy units devoted to the Force. With The Plan of the Prophetess (Knowledge and Defense, 557), every enemy unit committed to the Force loses one Force icon, and with Deadly Sight (Knowledge and Defense, 561), one unit loses two Force icons and is destroyed if it has no Force icons. With these dark schemes, you can bring your opponent’s most important units to utter destuction.

My Ally is the Force

The Echoes of the Force cycle continues with Knowledge and Defense, the third Force Pack in the cycle. Will you use the Force according to the precepts of protection and self-defense? Or will you turn to the dark side and use the Force for your own personal gain?  Whichever side you support, Knowledge and Defense will give you the tools you need. Look for Knowledge and Defense at local retailers in the first quarter of 2014!

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Source: Knowledge and Defense (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4495)