Space Cowboys Episode II The Smugglers Strike Back

Title: Space Cowboys Episode II The Smugglers Strike Back
Author: Silent "Silent Bob" Bob
Date: Apr 10, 2001 Rating: 4.5

Cards:

‘Starships (7)

   Artoo-Detoo In Red 5 

 2 Millennium Falcon 

 2 Outrider 

   Red 10 

   Red Squadron 1 

Characters (16)

 2 Captain Han Solo 

   Chewbacca, Protector 

   Dash Rendar 

   Lando With Blaster Pistol 

   Luke Skywalker 

 2 Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight 

   Melas 

   Mirax Terrik 

   Obi-Wan With Lightsaber 

 2 Ralltiir Freighter Captain 

   Talon Karrde 

   Theron Nett 

   Wedge Antilles 

Weapons (2)

 2 X-wing Laser Cannon 

Effects (11)

   Aim High 

   Bacta Tank 

   Battle Plan 

   Honor Of The Jedi 

   I’ll Take The Leader - Admiral’s Order 

   Menace Fades 

   Order To Engage 

   Scrambled Transmission 

   Squadron Assignments 

   Tatooine Celebration 

   Your Insight Serves You Well 

Interrupts (19)

   A Few Maneuvers 

   Control & Tunnel Vision 

 2 Darklighter Spin 

 2 Fallen Portal 

   Heading For The Medical Frigate 

   Houjix & Out Of Nowhere 

   I Have A Bad Feeling About This 

 2 Out Of Commission & Transmission Terminated 

   Path Of Least Resistance & Revealed 

   Power Pivot 

   Run Luke, Run 

   Shocking Information 

   Shocking Information & Grimtaash 

   The Bith Shuffle & Desperate Reach 

   The Signal 

   Tunnel Vision 

Locations (4)

   Kessel 

   Tatooine 

   Tatooine Cantina 

   Tatooine Docking Bay 94 

Objective

   Watch Your Step/This Place Can Be a Little Rough 

’

Strategy: ‘

Start

Watch Your Step

Tatooine

Tatooine Docking Bay

Tatooine Cantina

Heading For the Med. Frig

Your Insight Serves You Well

Squadron Assignments

Scrambled Transmissions

Turn One

Get out Shocking Trans/Grim Combo (See tech).

Get out Kessel

You should have the ability to deploy on pilot and Starship from your hand.

Turn two

get out another pilot/Starship. Flip.

Drain at kessel.

Turn Three

Get out another pilot/Starship

Drain at Kessel.

Drain at Tatooine.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Okay. The object of the deck is to drain and battle. You set yourself up with a drain 3 location and the ability to get out starship.

Not much to say on how to play the deck.

Here is the TECH SECTION

**SWARM/MANIP/TIE DECKS**

Shocking/Grim combo will allow you to handle swarm decks and manip decks. Yeah, I could put in Goo Nee Tay, but it would take to long to get it out. So I chose these combo.

Also, when against Tie Swarms (Bombers/Interceptors) Set your course decks, save 4 force every turn. Bait the opponent. Put Han and/or Dash and/or another pilot at Kessel. When the place all their ships down, they plop all of the ships down at once. Force them to play the ships one at a time when the do that (Rules after all). After the first Tie hits, play the Shocking/Grim Combo lost. Hit them for all of their Ties and all powers to weapons. Now its only one tie against Two ships and a possible order to engage. Lay the smack down on the lone tie.

I’ll Take the leader hurts tie decks. Ties are power -2 without a pilot aboard.

REMEMBER, DO NOT SPREAD THIN IF YOU CAN’T HIT THE OPPONENT WITH SHOCKING/GRIM COMBO. WITH THE OBJECTIVE, IT’S LIKE HAVING 2 COPIES FROM JUST 1.

**HUNT DOWN**

There is a farm boy in the deck (works great on his X-wing). Don’t put him down. Use either the three Tunnel visions and Artoo in Red 5 to get out Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. You can then put another pilot on Artoo in Red 5 and have Jedi luke running your ground protection.

You will lose 1 force to Visage, The first turn. Lose an Interrupt (Can be played from lost pile) if you can. Ditch Your Insight to get Honor of the jedi. Though hunt down does have No Escape, most don’t start with it. By the time No Escape hits, you can either hit them with Transmission Terminated (remember the 2 copies can turn into 4 copies with the objective). The idea is to not cancel Visage until Honor is negated. I want to force the opponent to lose to Visage if I can.

**RAL OPS**

Not played much, but still raises its head every so often. Here is how to play Ral Ops. Either your first or second turn, you will have a pilot/Starship on the table. Deploy them to Tatooine. Then move them to Ral. Hold the system. Game over. Then go at them with your ground (See ground section). Use the ships and docking bay to farry characters over.

**SPACE TECH**

Darklighter Spin is tech against Guri and just any time. Guri allows you one battle destiny draw. Use Darklighter Spin first to use the maneuver of a starfighter. Then get your extra destiny. A Few maneuvers can add to this total by adding 2 to the maneuver of any starship. Also, RFC adds 1 to the maneuver.

Han in Falcon - Maneuver 6

Dash in Outrider - Manevuer 4

Wedge in Red squadron 1 - Maneuver 6

Artoo in Red 5 - Maneuver 6

Luke in Artoo in Red 5 - Maneuver 8

Theron Nett in Red 10 - Manveuver 4

X-wing Laser cannon is the zuckuss/Dengar killer. There are two. If you tunnel for both of them, you can get them on 2 of the 3 x-wings. use them with Aim High to add 5 to your total power.

Power pivot works with the cannon because you can lose 1 force (interrupt) to reduce the power of any starshp to zero (Executor, Chimera, etc.)

Houjix & Out of Nowhere protects from swarms also. It also allows you to add one more battle destiny.

Max destinies at one time = 4 with one of them being high with Darklighter spin.

Theron Nett adds one destiny to total power.

**OBI-WAN WITH LIGHTSABER**

Besides Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, he is the most expensive card to get out. Why is he in here? I reviewed my orginal deck (Space Cowboys) and determined that I needed some more ground forces. I could add more copies of Lando with or Chewbacca, protector, Han with, but I would still have the same amount of charactes on the table. I needed power. I could have put in Ben Kenobi, but he is limited to where he deploys. I went with Obi-wan with lightsaber because he has a weapon and can deploy anywhere. Just activate force and wait until you have enough to put him down. He really was my only, card economical opition with out sacrificing other card spots.

**UNDERCOVER SPIES**

Use Path of least resistance & Revealed to send Spies back to the used pile. Remember, one copy turns into 2 copies

**COURT**

Remember to use Your Insight to get out Honor to cancel that force lose from the objective. Also, if Honor is negated, just deploy the pilot/starship to the docking bay and then move up to the system.

You should beat them in space. Drain in space while keeping Menace Fades working to prevent Gailid from kicking in.

**BATTLEGROUND SITE AND SYSTEM**

The battleground system for Battle Plan and Menace fades is easy to get. Use Tunnel to get out Lando with, Chewbacca, protector, and other ground cards to hold the cantina for a nice drain of 2 (See ground cards).

**ZUCKUSS IN MIST HUNTER**

Melas, Farmboy Luke = Ability 4

Dash, Han = Ability 3.

Melas + Dash = Ability 7

Han + Luke = Ability 7

Zuckuss proof locations.

X-wing laser cannons, use 3 force to add 3 to destiny. Draw destiny. No zeros. Bye, Bye Zuckuss.

**YOUR INSIGHT SERVES YOU WELL/The Signal**

Cards to get (In order of importance)

Honor

Tatooine Celebration (Signal only)

Battle Plan

Menace Fades

Order to Engage (Signal only)

Aim High

**ACTIVATION**

Don’t worry about activation. There aren’t that many cards with high deploy costs. You start out with enogh force right off the bat. All the opponent has to give you is 1 force (usually Rendili or Carida) and you can have Han in the Falcon at Kessel on turn 1. There aren’t too many darkside decks that don’t give you at least 1 force on your first turn. Even court gives you 2 force (1 force to get Han down at the DB if neeed, and 1 extra to get out of the DB if needed).

**HARVEST**

2 Harvests, 2 Owen and Beru Lars, and 2 Tatooine Lars farm is what I had in the original version. That was too card intensive. That is why I don’t play it now. Generally, People had Something special planned for them and Secret plans, so I didn’t have the ability to retrieve a lot of cards. DON’T PLAY IT UNLESS YOU HAVE ROOM.

**Ground Cards**

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight (Uses when needed)

Lando with Blaster Pistol (Can be both)

Chewbacca, Protector (Can be both, mainly ground)

Obi-wan with lightsaber (Expensive, but a nice surprise and good support)

RFC (Especially against Ral Ops

Fallen Portal x2

Mirax (Either/Or)

Talon (Mainly Ground for Defense and forfeit increase)

Bacta Tank (This can really help to save characters)

**CARDS I DON’T OWN, BUT WOULD PUT IN IF I DID**

I would take out the destiny 5 Shocking to put in another copy of Shocking/Grim incase it were to get grabbed. I don’t so, I still use the regular. It is a used 5 after all.

I only have one copy of Control/Tunnel vision. If I had another copy, I would take out Tunnel vision only because of the ability to cancel drains. Tunnel vision is a destiny 3 after all.

**Possible additions**

(If you think I should drop a card and add one of these, please say so in the review. Don’t let these Possible additions detour the rating. Thank You.)

Direct Assault - Used 5 - Starships with weapons can cancel immunity to attrition of any starship (Executor, Chimera).

Smoke Screen - Lost 3 - Guri helper. I can use it for one of battle destinies on either Obi-wan with or Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight.

Cantina Brawl - Lost 5 - I could have the ability to remove characters from the cantina. ‘