Strike Team Assembled

Title: Strike Team Assembled
Author: Douglas "Douglas" Harvilla
Date: Nov 8, 2000 Rating: 4.5

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Cards:

‘Locations(10) Endor (Starting) Home One War Room x3 Home One Docking Bay Tatooine Docking Bay 94 Kiffex Kashyyyk Kessel

Characters(20) EPP Luke x3 Ben Kenobi x2 General Solo Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol Leia With Blaster Rifle x2 Chewbacca of Kashyyyk General Calrissian Nien Numb Wedge Antilles, Red Squadron Leader Admiral Ackbar First Officer Thaneespi General Crix Madine Lieutenant Blount Orrimaarko Tycho Celchu Red Leader

Starships(6) Home One Independence Spiral Gold Squadron 1 Red Squadron 1 Artoo In Red 5

Weapons(1) Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber

Admiral’s Order(1) Combined Fleet Action

Effects(7) Strike Planning Insurrection Your Insight Serves You Well Traffic Control Draw Their Fire Menace Fades Launching The Assault

Interrupts(15) Heading For The Medical Frigate Sense x3 Alter x3 Gift Of The Mentor The Force Is Strong With This One Courage Of A Skywalker Sorry About The Mess I Know Punch It x2 Glancing Blow

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Strategy: ‘

No objective because they all have drawbacks, drain caps, poor card efficiency, etc.

Starting with Endor offers a 2-0 force generation start with Strike Planning and a battleground system where two of the ship/pilot combos deploy very cheap. It also avoids the Captain Sarkli threat of a War Room start, while three copies of that location mean you’ll get it out fairly early.

Only six starships, but they are the best the Light Side has to offer, and have matching pilots and/or mains with destiny adders to back them up. The new Wedge and any Red or Rogue pilot, including Tycho, Red Leader, or anyone piloting R2 In Red 5 or even Wedge’s own ship, can cancel a battle destiny. General Solo with a scout on the ground or Chewie anywhere can do the same.

There are a lot of ways to pull cards out from the deck to get the theme moving. Strike Planning can grab any of the Generals, including Calrissian who can then be used to grab his ship with Squadron Assignments, and Madine, who can get Chewbacca or Blount to pair up with General Solo and cancel a destiny.

Rebel Leadership would be nifty, but I find myself focusing on space in this deck, and while there are some Generals, there is only one Admiral. Get Ackbar down, and he can fetch Thaneespi to get another destiny-preventing mechanic out there. Or get Combined Fleet Action, which provides cover for your mains if you control the system overhead, cutting their destiny draws down to one, which you can then cancel. That’s another reason Rebel Leadership didn’t make the cut.

Your Insight Serves You Well can pull Launching The Assault from the deck. Deploy it on a system, use it to pull Home One from the deck, put a Rebel at the Home One War Room, and you’ve got a deploy 7 monster of a starship. With destiny-canceling or destiny-adding characters on the bridge, it will stand up to tough Imperial opposition. And when you clear the system out, LTA rewards you with a force drain bonus. I routinely hit opponents for 7+ cards a turn once my ships are out.

Independence was chosen over Liberty because I find the Indy’s immunity to attrition more useful than the Liberty’s regeneration, especially with a fair number of leaders in the deck to bring it up further and destiny-canceling combos to cut multiple flips down to acceptable attrition.

Don’t forget to use Punch It to set traps with Gold Squadron 1, and to use this ship’s hyperspeed of 6. The difference in parsec numbers between Kiffex and Kessel may strand the opponent’s ships at systems where he can only force drain for 1, opening up a drain he can’t reach.

EPP Lukes can be swapped out for Jedi Lukes, this improves the deck a bit, but it is still very playable without them.

This is a battle deck, don’t forget it. You draw the opponent, then trounce him, then spread to take advantage of his weakness. Killing even one of his starships brings you closer to total dominance, and few of the docking-bay-bound Dark decks seeing action these days can handle your space drains at that point. ‘