“You’re Black Krrsantan. The infamous Wookiee bounty hunter. I’ve heard of you. I know why you were forced to leave Kashyyyk. And how you’ve disgraced your people ever since.”
     –Obi-Wan Kenobi to Black Krrsantan

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Swayed by the Dark Side, the fourth Force Pack in the Alliances cycle for Star Wars™: The Card Game!

With sixty new cards (divided between two copies each of five different objective sets), Swayed by the Dark Side continues to explore the bonds of friendship, duty, and honor that drive many of the galaxy’s pilots and soldiers, as well as the fear, hope, and greed that compel others to take action.

Among these new objective sets, you’ll find new units and tactics for the Sith, Imperials, Scum, Jedi, and Rebels. You’ll find cards to carry you from the Imperial strongholds of the Core Worlds to the forested moons of the Outer Rim. You’ll find new enhancements, events, and Fate cards that support decks built around multiple affiliations. And you’ll find a number of recognizable, high-impact characters taken straight from the films and Marvel comics, including Biggs Darklighter, the Ewok Logray, and the notorious Wookiee bounty hunter Black Krrsantan!

Unsavory Contracts

After making his debut in Marvel’s Darth Vader comics, Black Krrsantan has quickly become a fan-favorite, and he makes his Star Wars: The Card Game debut in Swayed by the Dark Side.

Tall, dark, and deadly,

the black-furred Wookiee bounty hunter

 (Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-2) has been seen most frequently in tow with the notorious

Doctor Aphra

(Allies of Necessity, 263-2). But their partnership isn’t driven by the sort of loyalty or friendship that has long kept Chewbacca united with Han Solo. The primary bond between Doctor Aphra and Black Krrsantan is a matter of credits. Aphra owes Krrsantan a great number of credits, and the Wookiee has elected to keep her safe in order to guarantee his repayment.

In the comics, the adventures these treasure-seekers share are marked by chaos, cunning, and violence, and Star Wars: The Card Game allows you to explore new adventures for the duo when you play with Doctor Aphra’s objective set,

Rogue Archaeology

(Allies of Necessity, 263-1), and Black Krrsantan’s set,

Unsavory Contracts

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-1).

Just as in the comics, Black Krrsantan makes an ideal enforcer to serve alongside Aphra. Even though Aphra’s ability and objective set appear geared more toward realizing the destructive potential of Droids like

0-0-0

(Aggressive Negotiations, 267-2),

BT-1

(Aggressive Negotiations, 267-3), and

IG-88B

(Solo’s Command, 188-2), they can just as easily contribute to the defensive potential of a dark side deck built around using Black Krrsantan’s Targeted Strike and Tactics icon—as well as those on Aphra and other characters—to establish an unassailable late-game.

In such a partnership, Aphra’s Rogue Archaeology objective can generate valuable shields, even during an engagement—provided you can play a

BX-series Droid Commando

(Allies of Necessity, 263-3). And Black Krrsantan provides the muscle, taking down enemy units with his Targeted Strike and the extra unit damage provided by

Aqualish Arms Dealer

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-3) and

Allies of Necessity

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-6).

Krrsantan can even enable Doctor Aphra to conduct her Droid

Reconstruction

(Aggressive Negotiations, 267-5). Since Krrsantan’s objective set contains a point of Influence on its

Underworld Contact

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-4), and since the Underworld Contact is a Mercenary, you could extort the Contact for a point of damage with Unsavory Contacts to remove a focus token and make the resource available to play another event. In this way, you could potentially surprise your opponent with the timely play of an event as disruptive as Reversal of Fate (Edge of Darkness, 81-6) or Springing the Ambush (Lure of the Dark Side, 106-5).

Finally, the Unsavory Contacts objective set contains another pair of cards that lend a great deal of strength to any deck that pairs Black Krrsantan with the members of another affiliation—whether those are Aphra and her Droids or other units like Vader, Stormtroopers, or Star Destroyers.

When you have an engagement with units from at least two different affiliations, the set’s copy of

Allies of Necessity

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-6) is, as World Champion Mick Cipra previously noted, effectively as good as both

Heat of Battle

(Core Set, 169) and

Target of Opportunity

(Core Set, 170) combined. Sure, it’s a bit trickier to pull off, but it gives you both the extra unit damage and blast damage you’d normally get out of the other fate cards, and with Black Krrsantan’s Targeted Strike, that extra unit damage is arguably more valuable than the one point of damage you’d apply directly with Heat of Battle.

And the second of these cards,

Alliance of Evil

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 279-5), functions similarly—although at action speed. As with Allies of Necessity, Alliance of Evil forces you to target two of your units that don’t share an affiliation and then grant a bonus to each of them. One gains a point of shielding; the other gains edge (1). And both keep these bonuses until the end of the phase.

The biggest difference between Alliance of Evil and Allies of Necessity, however, may be the fact that the units don’t both have to be part of the same engagement. Accordingly, even though it may feel counter-intuitive to wait until after an edge battle to play Allies of Necessity to give edge (1) to one of your units, you can give it to the unit you’ve held back for a second engagement, especially if you need the point of shielding to keep Black Krrsantan, Aphra, or another key unit from being destroyed or being suppressed by your opponent’s tactics icon.

Wookiee Rage and Rebel Wingmen

With all the tricks and destruction that Black Krrsantan and his Unsavory Contracts bring to the Scum and Villainy affiliation, all the support the Rebel Alliance gains from

Biggs Darklighter

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 276-2) and

Red Three

(Swayed by the Dark Side, 276-3), and all the other options provided in the Force Pack’s other objective sets, Swayed by the Dark Side promises to make it difficult to choose between the affiliations.

So it’s a good thing the Force Pack furthers the Alliances cycle’s efforts to make it easier to play two or more affiliations in the same deck!

Honor the Ewoks and their sacrifices. Advance the Sith agenda under the cover of Night. Terrorize nearby star systems with your Star Destroyers and bombers. The game’s affiliations are no longer as divisive as they once were; the only truly enduring conflict is between the light and dark sides of the Force. Will you stand with the armies of light, or will you be Swayed by the Dark Side?

Swayed by the Dark Side (SWC40) is scheduled to arrive at retailers in the fourth quarter of 2017!

“I am no Jedi.”  
   – Ahsoka Tano, Star Wars Rebels™

Today we’re previewing the Blue heroes and villains of Empire at War, the newest set of boosters for Star Wars™: Destiny. As characters with a connection to the force, these cards specialize in manipulating dice to get the results you need to bring your enemies to bear.

The Will of the Force

In the years following the rise of Emperor Palpatine, the remnants of the Jedi Order often found purpose in fighting the Empire and in inspiring the burgeoning Rebel Alliance.

Former apprentice of Anakin Skywalker,

Ahsoka Tano

 (Empire at War, 31) received her Jedi training during the tumultuous Clone Wars, and though she eventually left the Order, Ahsoka continued to use the Force as a hero in the early days of the Rebellion.

Ahsoka comes to Destiny costing thirteen points for a normal version, or seventeen for an elite. Ahsoka’s die features two melee sides, a discard side, a shield, and a resource symbol. Ahsoka is an incredibly efficient character, as well—the first time you activate her every turn, you may spend one resource for every die you just rolled to ready her. An additional activation is a powerful tool, essentially letting you reroll all of her dice once they have been resolved.

Ahsoka is a perfect target for a multitude of Blue weapons, including the new

Shoto Lightsaber

 (Empire at War, 51). The Blue weapon features one melee damage symbol, two modified melee damage symbols, a shield symbol, and a resource symbol. While this can greatly increase your damage output, Shoto Lightsaber also features a special ability. After you activate an attached character, if it has another Blue weapon, you may give it one shield or remove one shield from a character. The Shoto Lightsaber is designed to work well on a heavy damage dealing character that already has another Blue weapon attached. If you have two Shoto Lightsabers on a character, they can trigger off each other to either provide or remove two shields. If a Shoto Lightsaber is equipped on Ahsoka, you could even have the opportunity to use the Shoto Lightsaber’s ability multiple times per turn.

In order to get these weapons more consistently,

Lightsaber Pull

 (Empire at War, 130) is a great addition to Blue decks. Lightsaber Pull is a zero-cost event that allows a player to search their deck for a Blue weapon and add it to their hand. This can allow you to consistently play powerful Blue weapons like the Shoto Lightsaber.

As a young Jedi during Order 66,

Kanan Jarrus

 (Empire at War, 33) went into hiding for many years before reemerging during the Rebellion against the Empire as the mentor of Ezra Bridger. Kanan joins Star Wars: Destiny as a Blue hero costing ten points normally or thirteen for an elite version. Kanan has a diversified die, with sides showing ranged damage, melee damage, a focus, a disrupt, and a resource. Furthermore, before you take an action, you may resolve one of his die. This action efficiency allows you to double up on your actions, as you don’t have to use a full action to resolve one of Kanan’s die. Equipping Kanan with a

Force Speed

 (Spirit of Rebellion, 55) can help you get the most out of your turn, resolving Kanan’s die before using the special symbol on Force Speed makes for an action-packed turn.

Blue characters have always been experts at dice manipulation, and Empire at War brings that theme to its extreme.

At Peace

 (Empire at War, 98) is an event that costs two-resources and turns all dice on the field with a blank side to that blank side, including your own. This can be used to your advantage with cards like

No Surrender

 (Empire at War, 132), which lets you reroll a blank die and then resolve it.

Blue heroes can modify their dice further with

Training Remote

 (Empire at War, 35), a support with four modifier sides that can be used to modify any symbol on a Blue character die.  This can give your Blue characters’ die additional value. Blue heroes like

Mace Windu

 (Empire at War, 34) can deal massive damage when guided by the skills learned sparring with a simple training remote.

Ultimate Power

Blue villains revel in their service to the dark side, and with an Empire at War feeding their anger and hatred, Blue villains continue to dominate their foes by manipulating dice and sacrificing their own resources in the pursuit of ultimate power.

One of the Rebels most persistent foes, the

Grand Inquisitor

 (Empire at War, 11) was a former Jedi Temple Guard who turned to the dark side after the rise of Emperor Palpatine. During the early days of the Rebellion, the Grand Inquisitor hunted down surviving Jedi, eventually leading him to cross paths with Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger.

The Grand Inquisitor enters Star Wars: Destiny as a Blue villain costing fourteen points for a normal version, or nineteen for an elite. His die includes two melee damage sides, a focus side, a resource side, and a special symbol. The Inquisitor’s special symbol allows a player to remove a character die showing a blank, then deal two damage to that character. This is an extremely versatile ability that not only allows you to remove a die that may otherwise be rerolled, but also deal damage to a character.

Even if your opponent rolls no blanks, cards like

Manipulate

 (Spirit of Rebellion, 73) allow you to turn an opponent’s die to a blank side, making it a target for the Grand Inquisitor. Of course, one of the best ways to turn a die to a blank is with the

Grand Inquisitor’s Lightsaber

 ( Empire at War, 15), a four cost upgrade. The lightsaber includes three melee damage sides, a shield side, and a special symbol that allows you to turn a character die to a blank before rerolling the Lightsaber’s die into your pool. Not only will this consistently roll melee damage, but the ability to turn a character die to a blank side pairs perfectly with the Inquisitor himself.

Like the Inquisitor, an Empire at War pushed Jedi Master 

Quinlan Vos

 (Empire at War, 8) to the dark side. Quinlan Vos enters Star Wars: Destiny with twelve points for a normal version or fifteen for an elite. His die includes two melee symbols, a discard symbol, a resource symbol, and a special symbol. Vos’ special ability allows you to deal damage to a character equal to the amount the cards in your hand that exceed the cards in your opponent’s.  When combined with cards like

Boundless Ambition

 (Awakenings, 80), you can always make sure you have plenty of cards to fuel Vos’ ability. An elite Quinlan Vos combined with an elite

Asajj Ventress

 (Spirit of Rebellion, 9) can keep your opponents’ hand size low while maximizing damage.

Turning your opponents dice to blanks is a consistent theme for Blue villains, and can often lead to your opponent getting rid of cards to reroll them. While this is a significant advantage, Blue villains now have a powerful tool in

It Will All Be Mine

 (Empire at War, 73), a three-cost event that allows you to turn all of your opponent’s blank dice to a side of your choice, and then resolve them as if they were your own. The more blanks your opponent rolls, and the more blanks you give them through effects like The Grand Inquisitor’s Lightsaber, the more powerful It Will All Be Mine becomes.

Blue villains are also known for sacrificing their own health to dominate their foes.

Hate

 (Empire at War, 77) is an upgrade that allows you to deal a damage to the upgraded character every time they activate to deal one damage to another character. Hate allows you to control the flow of the game and ensures your opponent’s characters won’t escape the damage your characters’ deal.

Kill Them All

 (Empire at War, 74) allows you to deal one damage to each non-unique character your opponents have, allowing you to continually damage your opponents’ characters regardless of your dice rolls.

Relics of the Past

Empire at War sees Blue characters expand on their ability to control dice and have complete control of the game through the power of the Force. 

Use the Force and purchase Empire at War (SWD07) from your local retailer in the third quarter of 2017.