An ancient city full of peril and mystery awaits in the ruins of Sudanya, a lost civilization on the edges of Terrinoth. Horrid creatures haunt the heroes’ every step, but powerful allies will guide them through the twisting maze of wilderness and broken cityscape.

Labyrinth of Ruin, an expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, is coming in just a few more weeks! Introducing an all-new epic campaign, plus new heroes, monsters, classes, and more, Labyrinth of Ruin takes players on a riveting journey to the broken remains of a forgotten city. Throughout the many quests included in this expansion, heroes will enlist the aid of unique allies in their mission to stop the evil overlord.

An Evil Sorceress Plots Destruction

The comprehensive campaign in Labyrinth of Ruin features nineteen narratively rich quests. While they can be enjoyed as standalone experiences, these engaging adventures were designed with campaign play in mind, telling the story of an enigmatic sorceress’s vile plot to bring darkness to the world; as with the base game’s campaign, “The Shadow Rune,” Labyrinth of Ruin uses a clever plot system that reacts to players’ successes and failures. With each successfully completed quest, either the heroes or the overlord will grow in power...leading up to a gripping showdown in the campaign’s finale. All this, along with new Travel Event cards, Condition cards, Shop Item cards, and two green power dice, ensure even greater customization and replayability than ever before!

In past previews, we’ve been able to examine the ally mechanic in detail, and we’ve looked into the new Hero classes: the Beastmaster and Apothecary as well as the Treasure Hunter and Hexer. Now, you can finally see the path laid before your feet into the Labyrinth of Ruin. The rules for Labyrinth of Ruin (pdf, 6.4 MB) are now posted on the support page!

Examine the maps and information found within, and prepare for a new adventure in an unexplored region of Terrinoth. Ready yourselves for new quests and combat, as you follow the road of exploration through the ruins. Labyrinth of Ruin will be soon be available through our webstore and your local retailer!

Fantasy Flight Games, leading hobby-market publisher of board games, card games, roleplaying games, and other tabletop games, is now hiring for the following positions:

Associate Game Designer (pdf, 770 KB, posted June 12th)
Associate Game Producer (pdf, 471 KB, posted June 12th)
Managing Game Producer (pdf, 471 KB, posted June 12th)

Details can be found in the pdf documents linked above. To apply for any of these positions, submit a single Word or pdf (preferred) document containing the following items, in the following order:

• A cover letter indicating your interest and whatever else you’d like us to know about your application.
• A resume.
• A response to the included test (Associate Game Designer application)

Make the filename of your submission “firstname_lastname.pdf” and email it to the address listed in the appropriate job description. Make the position for which you are applying the subject of your email. We will confirm receipt of your application materials by email. Please do not call or visit.

Our offices are located in Roseville, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Candidates not already living within commuting distance must be willing to relocate. Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse work force and a work environment free from discrimination.

“Since we’re a small operation, we don’t fall into the…uh…jurisdiction of the Empire.”
    –Lando Calrissian

Characters – their histories, their motivations, their obligations, and their stories – are the heart of Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™. The game’s narrative dice and Obligation systems work to reinforce this truth; they both empower the GM to explore the consequences of the players’ actions. Moreover, the game’s character creation process supports the development of rich, three-dimensional individuals, who have reasons to work at the fringes of the galaxy while they seek to reduce their obligations and pursue their goals.

Accordingly, our early previews of Edge of the Empire have explored several of the basic elements that players will want to understand about how their characters interact with the galaxy. Designer Jay Little introduced the features of the narrative dice system, as well as the implications of each character’s Obligation. We walked through the ten steps of character creation, and we explored the lives of the few remaining Force-sensitive exiles who cultivate their powers while avoiding the Empire’s notice.

Today, though, we turn our attention to those people who really make the galaxy move, the GMs. While GMs can still appreciate all the things that make Edge of the Empire a great Star Wars roleplay experience for players, they approach each gaming session from a different perspective. Like the Empire, the GM holds jurisdiction that reaches to the far edges of the galaxy, and he can create truly memorable adventures by shaping his stories around the characters and their actions.

True Power

“You underestimate the power of the dark side. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.”
    –Darth Vader

Don’t be seduced by the dark side! When you sit down to GM a session of Edge of the Empire, you’ll have true power. You’ll be able to read the hearts and minds of men, women, and even monsters. You’ll be able to destroy planets with just a few syllables. The galaxy will literally respond to your whims. However, you also have responsibilities. As Chapter Nine of the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook reminds you, the GM’s first goal should always be to create a fun and exciting roleplay session. Every tool the game provides you and every ounce of power you hold should work to that effect.

Accordingly, the Core Rulebook also provides plenty of advice for both new and experienced GMs to help them master the art of bringing the Star Wars galaxy to life at the gaming table.

Interpreting the Game’s Narrative Dice

As previously discussed, the narrative dice system used in Edge of the Empire often rewards players with surprising turns of events. Advantage and Threat can add depth to each action that reaches beyond its success or failure, and the Core Rulebook provides examples of how a GM may interpret them.

During a climactic space battle, the players may successfully gun down the TIE fighters that were pursuing them, but if they generate enough Threat, their space battle may still leave them limping through space when they suffer damage to the reverse power coupling. Alternatively, if the players earn enough Advantage while failing to repair the reverse power coupling, they may find the trace signal hidden in the ship’s engine that allowed the Empire to locate them in the first place. Whatever the outcome, the game’s narrative dice advance storytelling throughout your gaming sessions, and this leaves you plenty of opportunity to pursue new angles in your adventures.

If you’re GMing a published adventure, these angles may help you guide the players toward future scenes or allow you to explore other space within the bounds of the adventure. If you’re running your own campaign, these angles may lead to entirely new adventures and gaming sessions!

Spending Destiny Points

The Core Rulebook also offers GMs some helpful advice about the use of Destiny Points. The Destiny Pool is generated at the beginning of each session and presents both the GM and the players with opportunities to spend Destiny Points to modify dice rolls…but at a cost.

The GM can spend a dark side Destiny Point to upgrade a Difficulty die () to a Challenge die (). This allows the GM to make the roll more difficult for the players, but when he does so, the dark side Destiny Point is converted to a light side Destiny Point. Alternatively, the GM can spend a dark side Destiny Point to upgrade an NPC’s Ability die () to a Proficiency die () to gain a greater chance of success during a key roll. In either case, the GM’s expenditure of a Destiny Point means the players gain another Destiny Point available to use in future encounters.

In the hands of a savvy GM, Destiny Points can do more than simply modify a couple of dice rolls; they can make important villains truly menacing or make the players feel like their embattled characters are caught in the middle of a location that’s strong with the dark side.

Using Obligation to Advance Stories

In Edge of the Empire, the Obligation mechanic offers the GM plenty of story hooks and roleplay opportunities. Each player character begins his career with outstanding debts he must repay. Thus, each player character should be driven to adventure and seek ways to reduce his debts, lest his debtors come calling, especially because in Edge of the Empire a character’s debtors aren’t always friendly or cordial about collecting what they’re owed. To the GM, this means that each player character comes pre-built with a potential cast of contacts, associates, and opponents that can all impact a game’s events.

Before each game session begins, the GM should make an Obligation check. The greater the group’s total Obligation, the greater the chance that one of the players’ Obligation will make a direct impact upon the session. If the group’s Obligation is triggered, the GM notes which player’s Obligation is activated and how that player’s specific Obligation manifests itself. The results allow the GM to create any number of a range of custom challenges. You might be able to add an extra adversary. Perhaps the player characters will learn that they’re being targeted by a deadly bounty hunter, and they’ll have to conduct their adventure under the strain of that looming threat. Then again, the Obligation may manifest in other ways: the characters may find it hard to purchase the items they need when they’re blacklisted, they may be coerced into taking on a difficult side mission, or they may have to speed up their efforts when they realize their time is running out.

No matter what type of Obligation the players trigger, the Obligation mechanic helps you impress upon your players the meaningfulness and consequences of their decisions and actions. It keeps them rooted in the world of the adventure.

In fact, there’s one more way that the Core Rulebook illustrates the impact of Obligation. While an individual’s Obligation concerns him directly, a group’s total Obligation says a lot about its reputation, and the GM is encouraged to hold player characters accountable.

Characters highly in debt to the galaxy’s shadiest crime bosses aren’t likely to gain favors from upstanding politicians, but they may be able to find contacts among black market tech heads and gun runners.

How to Use Motivation

Like Obligation, the game’s Motivation mechanic helps characters relate to the galaxy in which they adventure, and like Obligation, it offers the GM plenty of hooks for storytelling. Players receive additional XP for playing their characters’ Motivations, so there’s real incentive involved when the GM wishes to present opportunities in gaming sessions for the player characters to pursue their goals. These moments may be introduced simply for the joy of developing characters and roleplaying with cunning adventurers and alien species, but they can also be used to lure the characters toward your adventure’s main plot points, especially if the group has strayed “off the rails.”

Sometimes, characters will achieve their goals, or they may have changes of heart. People change, and so do their motivations. In these cases, the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook also offers GMs some suggestions about how they may help players find appropriate times and ways to change their characters’ Motivations.

When used properly, characters’ Obligations and Motivations allow the GM to craft adventures that connect to the player characters in deeply personal and meaningful ways. Characters won’t just be adventuring for the money; they’ll be looking to pay back old debts, restore lost pride, aid their friends, and pursue love. And when the players find themselves invested in their characters and their characters’ interactions with the galaxy, that’s when the magic happens!

Other Ways to Enhance Your Gaming Sessions

The GM’s experience in an Edge of the Empire gaming session starts with the game’s core mechanics, but it can certainly go far beyond them. The game’s narrative dice may drastically shift the momentum of key encounters with their Advantage and Threat, but they can also inspire entirely new adventures when players roll Triumph and Despair results in critical moments. Rules for Fear checks allow you to challenge player characters and their resolve when momentous adversaries hit the stage. Additionally, some GMs may choose to use music to further enhance their gaming sessions, establishing the mood at key moments. Some may use props, and some may work to integrate their games into the larger Star Wars canon. The Core Rulebook touches upon all of these and helps you establish those truly high highs and devastatingly low lows that lend so much drama and excitement to the Star Wars universe.

Adding the Edge of the Empire Game Master’s Kit to Your Toolbox

Part of running a session is budgeting your time, and the Game Master’s Kit includes a GM screen with quick reference to most of the rules you’ll want to have on hand.

Additionally, the Game Master’s Kit includes a complete adventure, and when you start to look beyond running published adventures and into the idea of creating your own campaign, the Game Master’s Kit provides some advice to help GMs create truly memorable nemeses for their groups. Here, we’re not talking about the mid-level overseer who provides the real challenge in an adventure after the player characters blast their way through a squad of Stormtroopers; we’re talking about utilizing proper recurring villains to give your players chills. How do you create someone as menacing as Boba Fett or Darth Vader? The Game Master’s Kit can help you along the right path.

Freedom to Be Imaginative

Edge of the Empire allows players to adventure in some of the galaxy’s grittiest locations and meet some of the universe’s shadiest characters. Its mechanics keep characters grounded in their adventures and invested in the events taking shape around them, but they also provide GMs with plenty of opportunities to loose their imaginations during spontaneous, structured interaction with the players and their characters.

In the end, as the GM of an Edge of the Empire adventure, you’re far more than just a rules arbiter, you’re also a partner in the fun. Whether you’re running a published adventure or pursuing the events of your own campaign, you’ll be every bit as invested in the heroic space fantasy that makes this game Star Wars as your players will be.

Next up: We’ll look at the resources that the Core Rulebook offers to GMs as they seek to develop ongoing campaigns!

They are more than objects. . .
They are dreams made of wood, glass, and metal.
Impossible wonders you can hold in your hands.
- Adrian Delacroix

The land of Gaïa is ancient, and artifacts from eras long past can still be found in the forgotten corners of the world. Prometheum Exxet is a thorough compendium of some of the most powerful objects that have managed to survive the countless conflicts of Gaïa and the ravages of time. Prometheum Exxet: The Supernatural Artifacts, a supplement for Anima: Beyond Fantasy, is now on sale at your local retailer and through our webstore!

Relics of a Lost Age

Centuries ago, supernatural artifacts were an established feature of day-to-day life for the inhabitants of Gaïa. Whole civilizations once built their societies around the use of such potent magical objects. Unfortunately, after the War of God, most of these items were destroyed or drained of their power. Magical artifacts are still created and traded throughout the land, but creations on par with the objects from Gaïa’s past are few and far between. Most of today’s most talented and knowledgeable artificers know only a tiny fraction of the knowledge that has been lost to time. The Order of Magus and the Black Sun still create and trade in mystical objects, and some individuals still possess the skills to create wondrous devices. Still, the greatest artifacts—those whose mere existence shakes Gaïa to its very core—are all relics of a lost age.

Prometheum Exxet gives players the chance to experiment with magic items, from those of minor magical significance to those that contain godlike power, and everything in between. Each of these items is not a mere tool, but has its own tale to tell of its creation and history. Players can now create their own mystic objects to use in crafting their own stories.

Prometheum Exxet: The Supernatural Artifacts is available now, so head to your local retailer or our webstore to pick up your copy. Then, forge your own legendary artifacts, and delve deeper into the history of Gaïa by exploring ancient relics of days past!

Amongst the steamy canals of Venice, the invitations arrive for the old nobility of the city. The Doge is holding a masquerade ball to celebrate the Carnival! It might seem like a party, but in Venice, everyone wants something, and every action has a purpose. Whether one desires the favor of the guilds or just cold, hard ducats, each family must walk the marble hallways of the palace, hire agents to do their unsavory tasks, and pave their own way to the golden throne of the City of Water.

The political maneuvers and posturing of Masques are now available in your local retail store and on our webstore! Masques is a card game for two to four players, each of whom controls a powerful family at the Doge’s palace in Venice. The prize of the party is the favor of the Venetian guilds, and by clever positioning, a family can gather the influence it needs to gain control over Venice. But the road to power requires more than just the use of one’s own family. Outside help will be necessary, and there are plenty of agents available for the family that cares to hire them. After all, no price is really to high to pay in order to become the real rulers of Venice.

Balance your Efforts in the Palace

At the beginning of a game of Masques, players set up the palace of the Doge, and seed favor and ducats throughout the hallways. If players want to gain favor with a guild, they will need to strategically place influential members of their family in the halls, but there is always some kind of competition waiting. If an opponent’s family members are more important, they will win the duel for money or influence, leaving your own family shut out in the cold.

Although favor is the path to victory in Masques, a wise player will also devote himself to more economic concerns. The number of members in a player’s family is limited, and not all family members are created equal. Only by skillful placement and deduction will players be able to determine what is the most important use of their own limited resources.

Enlist the Lowborn to Aid You

Even a noble family cannot accomplish every task easily, and sometimes, a less recognizable person is better. For the price of a few ducats, players can hire a member of lower society to help. Assassins and thieves, gondoliers, courtesans, and more are willing to lend their special talents to the help of their employer. But beware, these agents know exactly how much they are worth—and as they are employed more and more, their prices increase drastically.

The invitations have arrived, and the party is beginning! Masques is now available at your local retail store and at our webstore. Check out the rules on the support page, then claim your place and join the dance of power today!

“It is clear that Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk became even aware of them. And the world being after all full of strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed of very little importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The good villagers of Amon Dîn need help! In Encounter at Amon Dîn, fires and Orcs threaten their homes and their lives.

The scenario is the third in the Against the Shadow cycle for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and it’s a classic rescue mission, complete with all the potential for danger, drama, and last-minute heroics that you’d expect. Its primary mechanics revolve around the introduction of the “Villagers X” keyword. When a card with the Villagers X keyword enters the staging area (even during setup), it gains X resource tokens that represent the village’s women, children, and men. As your heroes race to save these villagers from the fires and Orcs that threaten to destroy their homes, you track your progress by comparing the number of resource tokens on the two objectives you place in the staging area during setup, Rescued Villagers (Encounter at Amon Dîn, 68) and Dead Villagers (Encounter at Amon Dîn, 69).

This mission isn’t just about getting to the end; it’s about saving as many people as possible.

By No Wish of Their Own

Who will heed the villagers in their time of need? In our announcement article, we already introduced Pippin (Encounter at Amon Dîn, 56), the game’s third Hobbit hero available for any scenario. We also promised to reveal a Hobbit-themed deck that approached the game’s challenges in an all-new fashion. Well, here it is, the surprising, all-Hobbit deck made possible by the new hero and player cards from Encounter at Amon Dîn.

Heroes (3):
Bilbo Baggins (The Hunt for Gollum, 1)
Frodo Baggins
Pippin

Allies (9):
Arwen Undómiel x1
Erestor x1
Gandalf (Core Set, 73) x3
Gildor Inglorion x1
Gléowine x1
Northern Tracker x2

Attachments (12):
Fast Hitch x2
Good Meal x2
Protector of Lórien x2
Resourceful x3
Song of Kings x3

Events (29):
A Test of Will x3
Daeron’s Runes x3
Elrond’s Counsel x3
Hobbit-sense (Encounter at Amon Dîn, 65) x3
O Elbereth! Gilthonial! x2
Out of Sight x3
Peace, and Thought x3
Sneak Attack x3
The Galadhrim’s Greeting x2
Timely Aid x2
Will of the West x2

It was unlikely when they awoke that Bilbo, Frodo, and Pippin planned to spend their day fighting fires, dodging Orcs, and saving villagers. Yet, their good and curious natures dictated that when they saw the first signs of smoke on the horizon, they had to investigate, and then, discovering the villagers in need of aid, they had to do what they could to help.

Still, these Hobbit heroes are no warriors like the Men of Gondor, so the deck plays to their unique strengths. Hobbits are talented at “the art of disappearing swiftly and silently,” and this deck pairs their low-starting threat and several threat-reduction cards with three copies of Hobbit-sense and a number of Secrecy effects that help them avoid enemies long enough to save some villagers and get quickly out of Amon Dîn!

Designed for experienced players in search of new challenges, the deck presents a unique play experience. Whereas most decks strike a balance between questing, defending against enemies, and mounting counter-attacks, this deck focuses primarily on questing and avoiding attacks. Both Hobbit-sense and Out of Sight (The Long Dark, 81) allow these Hobbits to avoid the enemies engaged with them, and the deck is full of card draw effects, as well as Will of the West (Core Set, 49), to help you cycle through them. If all works according to plan, you’ll be able to optionally engage an enemy each engagement phase and then, during the combat phase, hide from all those enemies sniffing at your trail.

If things don’t work exactly to plan, Pippin can bounce an enemy back to the staging after it engages you, and Frodo can absorb some damage, converting it to threat. Plus, there’s always the chance that Gandalf will show up to help out. He is, after all, fond of Hobbits.

Pre-Order Your Copy Today

Hobbits are a sneaky lot, and if you blink at just the wrong moment, you might miss them. Don’t miss out on your chance to catch Pippin in heroic action. Amon Dîn is burning, and its villagers need help. Head to your local retailer today to pre-order your copy of this action-packed Adventure Pack!

“What is human? Is it the biology of homo sapiens? Or is it a state of mental, social, and spiritual existence? Perhaps you are less human than the AI you enslave.”
    –Rielle “Kit” Peddler

Who will write the future?

In our last look at Creation and Control, we explored what Haas-Bioroid’s new generation of bioroids might add to the cyberstruggles of Android: Netrunner. With enhancements to its bioroid ice and the development of such upgrades as Tyr’s Hand (Creation and Control, 22), Haas-Bioroid looks to emerge from Creation and Control stronger and more efficient than ever.

Still, they’re not the only faction getting a major boost out of the game’s first deluxe expansion. It also provides plenty of programs, hardware, and other resources to those enigmatic and inscrutable runners known as Shapers. Other Runner factions can make use of the twelve neutral Runner cards (three copies each of four different cards) from Creation and Control, and they can certainly set aside influence to use their favorite new Shaper cards. Still, there’s no denying that the Shapers get the Runners’ best deal out of Creation and Control, and the expansion is bound to send them back to their workshops, set them to work on their rigs, and spur them to theorize about imaginative new approaches to corporate servers.

Creation and Control offers Shapers access to five different events, four new pieces of hardware, and three new resources. Moreover, as the Shapers are the runners most inclined to solve their problems by inventing new software, Creation and Control includes nine new Shaper programs. Finally, it introduces a trio of new Shaper identities, which give players a much greater range of options to explore the faction in the fashion that suits them best.

Today, then, we meet these individuals. Genius, innovative, and eccentric, they’re all capable of harassing any corporation against which they choose to run. The only thing we don’t know is why they started running in the first place.

Rielle “Kit” Peddler

AI activist Rielle “Kit” Peddler seeks to transcend her humanity and guide self-aware artificial intelligences to a new “all-consciousness.” More often than not, she recognizes the ice she encounters on her runs as kindred spirits, playing two sides of the same game. The game is a riddle, and she can solve it. See it as a snapshot of time and space. Remove the origin, remove the trajectory, and all that remains is an opportunity.

As a cyborg, Rielle “Kit” Peddler (Creation and Control, 28) has pushed herself beyond the physical boundaries of basic humanity, and she seeks to make a similar spiritual leap.

As a Runner identity, Kit changes the nature of your encounters with corporate servers. Typically, the Runner must prepare for ice of all three basic varieties – barriers, code gates, and sentries. These differentiations exist because of the different ways that ice are programmed to respond to the threat of invasion. Barriers work to simply stop entry. To bypass them, runners generally need to “jump” higher or smash holes through the codes. Sentries work to chase runners and strike them down, causing harm in the virtual world, or applying tags that allow corporations to respond to runners in the meat world. Runners typically seek to evade sentries, outrunning them, sneaking past them, or luring them away from their posts. Code gates, on the other hand, are like riddles. They change the nature of the server and the run. To bypass them, runners need to solve the riddles. With Kit, however, every server begins with a riddle.

Because she adds the code gate type to the first piece of ice she encounters each turn, Kit finds extra value in any icebreaker capable of breaking code gates. This also means that she excels in the early game, when the Corp is going to be hard-pressed to install or rez more than one layer of ice on any server. Drop a Yog.0 (Core Set, 14), and go! Better yet, Kit can install that Yog.0 on a Dinosaurus (Cyber Exodus, 48), and she’s ready for action. For ten , she can build a simple rig capable of breaking any subroutine on the first piece of ice she faces each turn with a strength of five or less.

Naturally, the Corp will respond by installing and rezzing additional layers of ice. That’s fine. That’s where Kit benefits from the rest of her skills and tools. Cards like Tinkering (Core Set, 37) and Inside Job (Core Set, 21) allow Kit to work her way through loaded servers, and if she gives her Yog.0 The Personal Touch (Core Set, 40), she can keep up with the stronger ice that the Corp is likely to play later in the game.

Eventually, though, if the Corp is able to safeguard its agendas long enough, it will create complex servers that Kit can’t riddle past with just her Yog.0. That’s when she might want to switch gears for a moment and restructure the Corp’s whole game plan. Escher (Creation and Control, 31) might not allow Kit to access any cards or destroy (or even de-rez) any ice, but it can reposition Corporate security measures in such a way that they’ll offer little or no security against her runs in future turns.

The Professor

The Professor once worked at Levy University, teaching advanced AI and robotics in a laboratory funded by Haas-Bioroid. However, when he discovered files that showed how the corporation intended to make use of the research he and his students were conducting, The Professor sabotaged his work, rendering the data inoperable. In retaliation, Haas-Bioroid flexed its muscles, forcing The Professor off the project, reassigning the funding to one of his rivals, and pressuring the university into loading him with five morning and night courses full of bleary-eyed undergraduates.

As a runner, The Professor (Creation and Control, 29) is all about his extensive expertise and wide range of knowledge. Though The Professor offers only one influence (after being blacklisted by Haas-Bioroid), this limited influence is extremely deceptive. The Professor knows that there is an optimal method of overcoming any obstacle. This is important because his new probationary status at the university means that his time in the AR labs is closely monitored, and he can ill afford to leave any trace of his illicit endeavors. Instead, he must make sure that he stages his moves perfectly, and The Professor intends to find just the right program for just the right moment.

The Professor’s limited influence is deceptive because he ignores the influence cost for the first copy of any program in his deck. While his paltry one influence makes it impossible to run many of the game’s most powerful events and resources, including Emergency Shutdown (Cyber Exodus, 43) and Ice Carver (Core Set, 15), he can include at least one copy of any program in the game. He can choose whichever icebreakers you want; he’ll apply his knowledge of program efficiencies to construct the optimal rig. Some programs are better in the early game. Some programs are better in the late game. It doesn’t matter; The Professor can use them all, adding them to his rig when they’re most effective.

Accordingly, a deck featuring The Professor is likely to include a lot of programs, easily thirty or more, and many of those will appear just once in the deck. Of course, this creates a number of challenges to your card draw. Test Run (Cyber Exodus, 47) can help. So, too, can Self-Modifying Code (Creation and Control, 46). One of The Professor’s favorite pieces of code, this program can overwrite itself with any program from your stack. At first, the two  it requires may appear steep, but they offset the unknown number of  you’d spend digging through cards. Furthermore, an early Sahasrara (Creation and Control, 47) can nicely offset those two , and it becomes increasingly useful the more programs you play, a point of efficiency that’s quite likely to matter a great deal to The Professor.

Exile

Exile is the guy you see hanging out in the corner of the DIY community. Everyone recognizes him, but no one knows his name. He keeps to himself. Some speculate that he’s a former ristie, cast out of the life of luxury for unknown reasons, but those who see him more often are certain that he’s just some self-taught prodigy who grew up on the mean streets of New Angeles and has figured out how to build whole rigs from the spare parts he’s found while sifting through thrift shops and dumpster diving.

A streethawk, Exile (Creation and Control, 30) is the master of the heap. Whenever he installs a program from his heap, he draws a card. This is a talent he has cultivated of necessity. While other runners may reach to their contacts for support, Exile has had to learn how to do things for himself.

In the game, Exile offers many of the same advantages as Chaos Theory (Cyber Exodus, 46), but with a distinctly different feel. Both identities allow players to quickly build their “ideal” rigs. Chaos Theory offers a slimmer deck, meaning that she can cut away some of the chaff. On the other hand, Exile works wonderfully with early card draw, such as that provided by Wyldside (Core Set, 16), Diesel (Core Set, 34), and Quality Time (Humanity’s Shadow, 87). You’ll draw too many cards to hold in your hand, but it won’t matter. They’ll go to your heap, you’ll install them with Test Run or Scavenge (Creation and Control, 34) or a Clone Chip (Creation and Control, 38), and you’ll draw a card.

As an added benefit, Exile rewards your focus on redundancy. If the Corp trashes your programs, you may need a way to play them from your heap, and Exile’s the only Runner identity who rewards you for doing so. This is particularly handy if you’re willing to make a lot of early, exploratory runs without getting your rig into place first. You may suffer net damage, meat damage, or even brain damage. So long as you build sufficient draw and recursion into your deck, along with some cards that may increase your hand size – like Borrowed Satellite (Creation and Control, 50) – Exile can bounce back with the best of them.

A New Breed of Shaper

Creation and Control is on its way, and players will soon gain the opportunity to build decks around these three Shaper identities. Make sure you don’t miss out on the action. Head to your local retailer today to pre-order your copy of Creation and Control!

“Captain, this factory cannot fall. It is more important than you, your troops, or the population of this planet. Expend every available resource to keep it from the enemy.”
–Planetary Overgovernor Worthington Derrymore

Enemies of the Imperium, the upcoming supplement for Only War, takes a closer look at the myriad threats to the Imperium that must be rooted out and destroyed by the Imperial Guard. Throughout the Spinward Front, terrible foes like Ork Squiggoths, the Dark Eldar, and the dreaded Chaos Space Marines aim to destroy the Imperium. It is the task of the Imperial Guard to stand firm against these, and all enemies, and with new rules for Formations in this supplement, Guardsmen have new options for squad-level combat. However, the Enemies of the Imperium are numerous, and the threats to mankind must be constantly warded off. In the following Designer Diary, contributing writer John Dunn discusses the traitorous Duke Severus the Thirteenth, leader of the Severan Dominate in the Spinward Front.

Enemies of the Imperium is divided into different sections that focus upon the different threats to Imperial security located throughout the Spinward Front. Some of the foes are clearly monsters, unrepentant enemies who can only be dealt with via the massed weapons of the Imperial Guard. I was fortunate enough to work on the Severan Dominate, an organisation whose motivations and actions are more relatable for the Player Characters. Put simply, this is because the Severan Dominate has fallen prey to the same foibles of Imperial infrastructure and callous politics that often hurl the Player Characters into desperate or seemingly hopeless situations.

A Traitor's Domain

I thought that it was important to focus a portion of the attention on Duke Severus the Thirteenth himself. His domain faces insurmountable challenges, but these issues were present and recognisable at the time he began his secession. It is easy to believe that the only reason the Severan Dominate exists is because Duke Severus is a deluded megalomaniac. After all, he absolutely fits that mould. In spite of his pride and unfaltering belief in his right to an empire, however, he has demonstrated unexpected competency. His forces are simultaneously fighting two wars, even as the Duke maintains a fledgling domain, negotiates treaties with treacherous xenos, and keeps his population deluded about the core reasons for their secession. This would be a nearly unbelievable feat of political savvy for a person who had a firmer grasp upon reality. That the troubled Duke to has managed all of these crises indicates that he is either truly talented or amazingly lucky.

Explaining how this luck or skill interacted with his plans and his particular areas of expertise became a central focus of this section of the book. The Severan Dominate's existence is based upon the philosophical beliefs that Duke Severus the Thirteenth put into place. In order to launch the secession, he had to rely upon deception, and to sustain it, his lies have had to become ever more grandiose. At the same time, very practical matters such as equipping and supplying a competent fighting force, maintaining adequate supplies to keep his people fed, and satisfying the needs of a population who remain loyal to the Emperor—though not His servants—are ongoing concerns. Every time one element falters, it risks toppling the others. The Duke has had to constantly maintain a careful balancing act so that the population remain satisfied without exposing his lies.

The section I wrote explores worlds of the Severan Dominate, as well as the people who inhabit them. Throughout these materials, the issues of how the different worlds interact, and how the Duke must maintain his delicate balance remain a central theme. It is clear that as things stand, the centre cannot hold indefinitely. However, if the Duke can somehow turn his enemies against one another, then it is possible that he could stave off the inevitable for a very long time. He has already proven his willingness to strike dark bargains to undermine his foes, and who can say what measures the Duke will undertake to maintain his grip upon the realm he has sacrificed so much to forge.

Thanks, John! Prepare to wage war against new threats to the Imperium in this upcoming supplement for Only War. In the meantime, take a sneak peek inside the supplement with the following pages (pdf, 565 KB), excerpted from Enemies of the Imperium, coming in the third quarter. Then, get ready for the fight of your life!

“Bring my shuttle.”
    –Darth Vader, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Not long ago, we announced the next four starship expansions for X-Wing™. We also promised that these new starships would allow players to pursue a wide range of new tactics and strategies built around their support functions and system upgrades. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the Lambda-class Shuttle Expansion Pack, the HWK-290 Expansion Pack, and some of the ways they can strengthen your squads.

Lambda-class Shuttle

When the X-Wing design team began working with the Lambda-class Shuttle, they knew they wanted to dedicate it to squad-based synergies and skillful piloting. Accordingly, each of the shuttle’s unique pilots comes with an ability that supports his wingmen:

• As long as he’s an eligible target, Captain Kagi draws target locks away from more vulnerable ships, like TIE interceptors.
• Colonel Jendon helps to establish quick, deadly volleys of missiles, allowing another pilot to spend a target lock and fire the same turn he uses his action to Focus.
• Captain Yorr can absorb the stress tokens other ships would take, freeing them up to take actions they might otherwise lose after executing stressful maneuvers like the Koiogran turn.

Additionally, the expansion pack’s twelve upgrades help each of these pilots serve their roles better, and they afford some other tricks as well. Some of these tricks are subtle, such as those permitted by the Intelligence Agent. Others, like those permitted by Darth Vader, are dark, ruthless, and brutal ways to finish off wounded foes.

Altogether, the Lambda-class Shuttle Expansion Pack’s various ship and upgrade cards introduce powerful support for nearly any Imperial squad, including the sample squad below, which uses Captain Yorr to hinder enemy movement and reduce the stress your other pilots suffer as they perform Koiogran turns and Push the Limit.

This squad’s tricks begin with the Intelligence Agent, who can reveal one enemy’s chosen maneuver at the beginning of each Activation phase. Captain Yorr’s Navigator then permits the Lambda-class shuttle the option to change its maneuver, adjusting its speed along its current bearing. With any luck, Captain Yorr will be able to plant himself directly in the path of an enemy starship, forcing it to overlap the shuttle. In that case, the shuttle can fire its Anti-Pursuit Lasers while the enemy ship loses the opportunities to select an action and to fire at the shuttle during the Combat phase.

Captain Yorr plans to execute a straight one-speed maneuver, but when his Intelligence Agent discovers the opposing X-wing’s maneuver, Captain Yorr calls on his Navigator to plot a new, three-speed maneuver along the same bearing to block the X-wing’s path.

Meanwhile, “Mauler Mithel” and Soontir Fel can close in upon the hindered foe to fire, ideally from Range 1. Few ships can survive such a concentrated barrage of fire.

Captain Yorr has the X-wing pinned, allowing “Mauler Mithel” and Soontir Fel to swoop into close range for the kill!

HWK-290

The design team’s search for a Rebel counterpart to the Lambda-class shuttle led to the development of the game’s first starship from outside the original Star Wars trilogy, the HWK-290. This freighter was made famous by Kyle Katarn’s Moldy Crow in the classic video game, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and the game's developers closely reviewed the video game’s screenshots and engaged in conversations with Lucasfilm Ltd. to confirm the ship's official length. Accordingly, the pre-painted miniature from the HWK-290 Expansion Pack is accurately rendered at 1/270 scale.

Like the Lambda-class shuttle, the HWK-290 rewards players who can fly their squads in formation, as each of the expansion’s unique pilots focuses on supporting friendly ships within Range 1–3.

• Jan Ors can take a stress token to allow one of her squad mates to roll an additional attack die during his attack.
• Kyle Katarn can transfer his focus tokens to his allies.
• Sometimes, it’s just necessary to fire first, and Roark Garnet can help you do just that, boosting one friendly ship’s pilot skill to “12” at the beginning of the Combat phase.

Again, like the Lambda-class shuttle, the HWK-290 comes with six upgrades that enhance and expand upon the ship’s abilities, as well as those of its various pilots. Though the HWK-290’s primary weapon is the weakest in the game, with a value of only “1,” the ship can be outfitted with either an Ion Cannon Turret or the new Blaster Turret, both of which can fire at any target within a complete 360° arc so long as it’s within range. A Saboteur can turn faceup any facedown Damage card assigned to an enemy ship, potentially crippling it, and upgrades like the Recon Specialist and Moldy Crow go a long way toward making Kyle Katarn’s ability wonderfully action-efficient.

In fact, the HWK-290 can make an entire Rebel squad wonderfully action-efficient, as demonstrated in one fashion by the sample squad below.

This Rebel squad features two unique HWK-290 pilots, Jan Ors and Kyle Katarn, who can boost each other, just as they can boost Wedge Antilles. If they both support Wedge, the Rebel ace can use his Engine Upgrade and Push the Limit to maneuver into position for a Range 1 shot with a focus token, target lock, and five attack dice, even as his ability subtracts one from his enemy’s defense dice.

During battle with a Firespray-31, Kyle Katarn takes a focus action and gains two focus tokens with the help of his Recon Specialist. Wedge Antilles then flies into position, uses his Engine Upgrade to boost out of his opponent’s firing arc, and sets up his attack by acquiring a target lock.

Wedge has a clear shot at the Bounty Hunter at Range 1, so his wingmen decide to boost his attack. Jan Ors takes a stress token to give Wedge an additional attack die, and Kyle Katarn transfers one of his focus tokens to Wedge, setting him up for a lethal attack with five attack dice and fantastic odds of connecting!

Because they can shuffle the extra attack die and focus token to whichever wingman needs them most, Jan Ors and Kyle Katarn’s abilities will keep your opponent guessing. Will Kyle Katarn transfer his focus token to Wedge, to fuel the ace’s attack, or will he shuffle it to Jan Ors, to fuel her Blaster Turret? Will Jan Ors boost Wedge’s attack, to push for the kill, or will she increase the chances of Kyle Katarn hitting with his Ion Cannon Turret?

Skill, Strategy, and Support Ships

The squad-building rules for X-Wing allow players to pursue a wide range of strategies, even starting with just a few starships, and creative players have enjoyed finding and utilizing clever combinations of unique pilot abilities and upgrades to gain an extra edge in the game’s deadly dogfights. Some squads use pilots, like Biggs Darklighter and Chewbacca, to draw fire away from their squad mates. Some squads fly in close formation to launch devastating barrages of fire, taking full advantage of abilities like those of “Howlrunner,” Squad Leader, and Swarm Tactics. Other squads may rely heavily upon the brute strength of powerful starships like the Millennium Falcon and Slave I, loading them up with missiles, modifications, and a Gunner.

Soon, the addition of the Lambda-class shuttle and the HWK-290 will permit players to focus even more tightly upon the types of squads that suit them best. Do you want to boost one primary starship, giving it the power to tear through your enemy’s fleet? You can do that. Do you want to feed your swarm tactics a little bit of espionage and treachery? You can do that, too. If you want, you can even design squads that can adapt their tactics to counter those your opponent hopes to employ.

While players have found ways to use other pilots and other starships to support their squads’ aces, the Lambda-class shuttle and the HWK-290 are the first X-Wing starships designed from the ground-up as support ships, and each of their unique pilots and upgrades allow skillful players to enhance their squads’ key strategies.

Until these ships arrive, keep your eyes open for more previews and other X-Wing news, including a look at the system upgrades featured in the Lambda-class Shuttle and B-Wing expansion packs!

During the endless battle for the fate of mankind, members of the Imperial Guard must be ever vigilant as they work tirelessly to destroy threats to the Imperium. This means constant training, and an ever expanding understanding of what must be done to ensure the continued future of humanity. Only War’s lead developer, Max Brooke, is here to issue new orders to the soldiers of the Imperium.

The battlefields of the 41st Millennium are chaotic, violent places where command can break down at a moment's notice. For the soldiers of the Imperial Guard, clear orders can mean the difference between death at the hands of deadly xenos or traitors and narrow survival to fight another day. Though no soldier in the Spinward Front can escape these dangers forever, we are pleased to offer some clarity and closure to the stalwart veterans of Only War.

We have compiled the Only War Living Errata based on feedback and rules questions from dedicated and inquisitive fans. This document contains clarifications and common rules questions for the Only War Core Rulebook and Hammer of the Emperor. Look for answers to inquiries about a trooper's Standard Kit and Specialist Equipment, failed Fear Tests, using mechadendrites, and more in version 1.0 of the Only War Living Errata!

Thanks, Max! Download the Only War Living Errata (pdf, 1.2 MB) at our Support page, and brush up on the finer points of war. Then, defend the Imperium in Only War.

“We’re not going to regroup with the others. We’re going to the Dagobah system.”
    –Luke Skywalker, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

With the upcoming release of Assault on Echo Base, the ice planet of Hoth will soon become a white-hot battleground! Led by General Veers (Assault on Echo Base, 268), Imperial Walkers batter through the Rebel Alliance’s outer defenses, clearing the way for Snowtroopers to enter the Rebel base. As the Imperial Navy’s overwhelming numbers sweep across the ice, the Rebellion’s best hope for survival may rely upon the assistance it gains from several Droids and the elite members of the Smugglers and Spies affiliation led by Commander Col Serra (Assault on Echo Base, 258).

Still, there’s more than one battlefront hidden among the new objective sets in Assault on Echo Base. Even as the Imperial Navy and Rebel Alliance find themselves more and more deeply invested in the Battle of Hoth and its outcome, other affiliations turn their attentions elsewhere, looking to prepare themselves for the next conflict in the ongoing galactic civil war…

Knowledge and Defense

“Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor.”
    –Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Anger, fear, and aggression lead to the dark side, so a Jedi must not use the Force to attack; a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. This is one of the most important lessons that Yoda gave Luke Skywalker, and its principle is reinforced in Star Wars™: The Card Game with the cards coming in the Jedi objective set built around Knowledge and Defense (Assault on Echo Base, 252).

So long as you have no damage on Knowledge and Defense, it allows you to return friendly units destroyed during engagements to your hand instead of discarding them. This means that you can ignore your opponent’s  icons when you strike with units, like Twi’lek Loyalist (Core Set, 15), that have  icons. You can prevent your opponent from damaging your objectives with  icons, and your damaged Twi’lek Loyalist will return to your hand, allowing you to bring his  icon back to the table the next turn. If you can prevent your opponent from placing damage on the objective, you can play your Twi’lek Loyalist repeatedly, and build your strike force in the meantime.

• However, in Star Wars: The Card Game, time is always ticking, the Death Star dial is always advancing toward “12,” and the pressure is always on the light side player to attack. Thus, it’s easy to be lured into aggressive stances and early engagements, but those attacks may leave you exposed to the dark side’s machinations. The unit you exhausted to strike against an opponent’s objective may be struck down by Force Lightning (Core Set, 60), or your dark side opponent may cackle with glee when he realizes that you’ve attacked for just one or two damage against his objective and left yourself undefended against his lethal counterattack. There are, of course, times when early attacks may swing the game into your favor, but as the light side player, you should always be mindful of the Force struggle. If you win it, you can fully halve the dark side’s progress each turn. Thus, the Knowledge and Defense objective set includes two copies of Daughters of Allya (Assault on Echo Base, 253), which remove damage from your objectives when they commit to the Force. Because they come with a () icon, Daughters of Allya can also serve as excellent defenders, and if Knowledge and Defense returns them to your hand after an engagement, then you can trigger their Reaction again the next turn.
• Still,  icons can’t fully guarantee you safety against your opponent’s strikes, and the unit recursion you gain from Knowledge and Defense will stand at risk. Eventually, the dark side is likely to attack with more units than you can exhaust with your  icons, or it will win the edge battle and strike first. There are, however, several ways to keep returning your defenders to your hand. You can mitigate your concerns by getting two copies of Knowledge and Defense into play; then, even if your opponent places damage on one copy, you can return units to your hand with the ability of the other copy. You can also shield your Knowledge and Defense with either Yoda’s Protection (Assault on Echo Base, 254) or Protection (Assault on Echo Base, 256).

• Finally, if your  icons and shields fail, you may still be able to surprise your opponent at the last possible instant. Confronting the Terror (Assault on Echo Base, 255) not only allows you to prevent all the damage dealt to your objective, it forces your opponent to redistribute that damage to his units and objectives. Suddenly, he won’t be nearly so pleased to find his strike from his Devastator (Core Set, 44) go unopposed; its four  will turn back to his side of the table.

While the tactics made possible by Knowledge and Defense are good for slowing the dark side’s progress, you’ll still need to attack and destroy your opponent’s objectives to win the game. What you’ll gain, though, is time to build the strike force you desire. These tactics might buy you one or two more turns to play attachments on Luke Skywalker (Core Set, 92) or Yoda (Core Set, 166). Then, when they strike, fully trained and allied with the Force, they’ll be at their most effective!

The Shield Will Be Down in Moments

Imperial walkers and Snowtroopers are poised to launch their assault. Will the Jedi be able to play around the events of Hoth and strike for their own end game? Now is the time for patience, calm, and control, but soon the Force Pack, Assault on Echo Base, will arrive at full strength, and the light side must take action.

Until then, keep checking our site for more news and updates, and share your thoughts on the game with other members of our community forums!

"It is a vast criminal syndicate…its influence felt on every planet from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim. Black Sun has existed for hundreds of years, and embedded itself in the very fiber of the galaxy. The resources at its disposal are almost limitless. The soldiers under its command number in the tens of thousands. The ignorant even call it the most powerful force in the known universe."
     -Darth Sidious

Edge of the Empire, the Star Wars™ roleplaying game set on the fringes of galactic society, is coming the first week of July . . . and you can be among the first to experience it! Head to your local retailer this Saturday for Free RPG Day, an annual event that encourages RPG enthusiasts to demo current and upcoming roleplaying games.

June 15th at participating games retailers, you’re invited to take part in Shadows of a Black Sun, an introductory adventure for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. A dangerous bounty hunter is hiding amongst the populace of Coruscant, the capitol of the Empire. Over the gripping three-part adventure in Shadows of a Black Sun, the Player Characters will gather information on their target, track him through the streets of a bustling city, and (with luck and skill) face off against him in a final, deadly confrontation. But when faced with such a dangerous and highly trained target, will you remain the hunter...or become the prey?

Shadows of a Black Sun, a free introduction to Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, includes a full adventure, four pre-generated characters, and a set of basic rules to help players and Game Masters become familiar with game’s core mechanics. See if your local retailer is participating at the Free RPG Day Retailer Locator.

What's more, we're pleased to offer two bonus characters, downloadable via the links below or through our support page! Download them now in advance of this weekend's game, and be ready for your adventure!

Free RPG Day 2013 Character: CH-1 (high-res pdf, 2.9 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: CH-1 (low-res pdf, 406 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Grabow (high-res pdf, 2.7 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Grabow (low-res pdf, 332 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Jovel (high-res pdf, 3 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Jovel (low-res pdf, 401 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Matwe (high-res pdf, 2.7 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Matwe (low-res pdf, 324 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Sinoca (high-res pdf, 3.9 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Sinoca (low-res pdf, 446 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Trey Essek (high-res pdf, 3.6 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Trey Essek (low-res pdf, 373 KB)

Play at the FFG Event Center

Do you live in the Roseville, Minnesota area? In honor of Free RPG Day, the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center will give away free copies of Shadows of a Black Sun, and our roleplaying game development team will be in attendance to answer questions and run introductory sessions. Sign up now at the Event Center to play Star Wars: Edge of the Empire with an FFG RPG designer!

Your adversary is clever, well armed, and has a head start in the Empire’s largest city. But you and your team have been tasked with bringing him in, dead or alive. Do you have what it takes? Find out this weekend!

“Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!”
    –The Witch-king of Angmar, The Return of the King

Last week, developer Matt Newman provided insight into the origins, development, and future role of Easy Mode in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Designed to make the game more accessible for new players, theme decks, and experimental play, Easy Mode is one of three different modes that allow players to face the game’s challenges at the level of difficulty that they prefer.

Easy Mode exists for every existing scenario, as does Standard Mode, in which players follow a scenario’s standard setup rules. Meanwhile, the game’s third mode, Nightmare Mode, was first introduced with the three Core Set Nightmare Decks that appeared in our The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Season One 2013 Game Night Kits. These Nightmare Decks will soon be available via Print on Demand, and three more Nightmare Decks will release with the game’s Season Two Game Night Kits. Today, developer Matt Newman discusses the place of Nightmare Mode and the development of the deadly new twists and surprises you’ll discover in the Nightmare Decks for The Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock, and A Journey to Rhosgobel.

Matt Newman on Nightmare Mode

In last week’s Second Breakfast article, I discussed how the cooperative nature of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game causes it to balance differently than our other Living Card Games® (LCGs), and I explained how we responded to players’ comments about the game’s balance by creating Easy Mode, giving players greater control over their play experiences. Today, I want to look at the other end of the difficulty spectrum and the work we’ve done to introduce Nightmare Decks into our Game Night Kits. These decks and their alternative encounter cards are designed to offer players surprising new play experiences as they return to their favorite old scenarios. Of course, they introduce deadly new challenges, but they also play up new themes and unexpected, new twists that really evolve these scenarios.

The Season Two 2013 Game Night Kit for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Sturdier Challenges

In competitive card games, you and your deck are tested by the player sitting across from you. In The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, you and your deck are tested by a scenario’s encounter deck. Because you won’t know which encounter cards you’ll face at any time, the encounter deck may surprise you like a living opponent would, but it can’t respond to you in the same way. This means you may be able to devise highly specific, highly effective strategies to defeat its challenges. Then, to face new challenges, you need to face new encounter cards, and this generally means playing a new scenario.

Meanwhile, scenarios and their encounter decks cannot react to an evolving metagame in the same way a human opponent can. With competitive LCGs, when a single card or deck becomes so popular it dominates the playing field, the metagame can correct itself. Players can adopt new strategies to defeat popular decks, and new strategies emerge. Nightmare Mode gives us the chance to evolve older scenarios. Not only can we make them tougher, but we can make them more thematic and introduce new challenges that respond to popular player strategies.

I spent a lot of time browsing through forums, blogs, podcasts, and video play-throughs to see what strategies and decks players were using to defeat the game’s different scenarios, and the new encounter cards you’ll face in the game’s Nightmare Decks are a response to what I found. Players who think they know the best strategy to use to defeat a particular scenario may find themselves forced to rethink their play style. Overall, as the card pool grows and player tactics evolve, Nightmare Decks allow scenarios to evolve. A Nightmare Deck’s modification to its scenario’s encounter deck simulates the challenge you’d face against a living, breathing opponent who’s grown accustomed to your tricks.

A New Sense of Urgency

As an example, the Troll Lair that you can find in the Nightmare Deck for Conflict at the Carrock was designed to counter a particularly effective player strategy. In Conflict at the Carrock, players are faced with some very difficult Troll enemies, all of whom have an engagement cost of thirty-four. Players quickly found that one very good way to approach this scenario was to stay at Stage 1B, lowering their threat as much as possible, until they could take on each Troll one at a time. In Nightmare Mode, however, locations such as this Troll Lair hinder this strategy, and players may find themselves at Stage 2 much sooner than they planned, surrounded by Trolls, and with no hope of escape!

While we used Nightmare Mode to increase each scenario’s challenge, we also established a goal to use the new Nightmare Decks to introduce new elements or twists that build upon their scenarios’ foundations, turning them on their heels. Players may be surprised to see new victory conditions or even new quest stages, and while familiar elements will return, they may not always show up in the way you would expect.

For example, in The Hunt for Gollum, players send their heroes on travels through Mirkwood forest, looking for clues in order to find Gollum, hoping to find the strange creature before the forces of Mordor do. In the base scenario, the search is represented by the players’ ability to gather Clue objectives, but the scenario only establishes its sense of urgency through the game’s threat mechanic. In Nightmare Mode, though, the forces of Mordor actually gather Clues on their own, and if they get four, they pick up Gollum’s trail before the heroes, and the players lose. This truly pits the players in a race against the forces of Mordor and changes the way that players approach the game.

We hope that you’ll have a lot of fun facing and adapting to the new encounter cards in Nightmare Mode, and that you’ll have fun discovering each scenario’s new challenges and thematic twists!

Thanks, Matt!

To conquer the challenges of Nightmare Mode, you’ll need to muster Middle-earth’s greatest heroes and draw upon its riches resources. Even then, your quests won’t be easy!

Nightmare Decks for The Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock, and A Journey to Rhosgobel will soon be available in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Season Two 2013 Game Night Kits. If you’re interested in testing your mettle against these darker versions of existing scenarios, talk to your local retailer!

"It is a vast criminal syndicate…its influence felt on every planet from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim. Black Sun has existed for hundreds of years, and embedded itself in the very fiber of the galaxy. The resources at its disposal are almost limitless. The soldiers under its command number in the tens of thousands. The ignorant even call it the most powerful force in the known universe."
     -Darth Sidious

Edge of the Empire, the Star Wars™ roleplaying game set on the fringes of galactic society, is coming the first week of July . . . and you can be among the first to experience it! Head to your local retailer this Saturday for Free RPG Day, an annual event that encourages RPG enthusiasts to demo current and upcoming roleplaying games.

June 15th at participating games retailers, you’re invited to take part in Shadows of a Black Sun, an introductory adventure for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. A dangerous bounty hunter is hiding amongst the populace of Coruscant, the capitol of the Empire. Over the gripping three-part adventure in Shadows of a Black Sun, the Player Characters will gather information on their target, track him through the streets of a bustling city, and (with luck and skill) face off against him in a final, deadly confrontation. But when faced with such a dangerous and highly trained target, will you remain the hunter...or become the prey?

Shadows of a Black Sun, a free introduction to Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, includes a full adventure, four pre-generated characters, and a set of basic rules to help players and Game Masters become familiar with game’s core mechanics. See if your local retailer is participating at the Free RPG Day Retailer Locator.

What's more, we're pleased to offer two bonus characters, downloadable via the links below or through our support page! Download them now in advance of this weekend's game, and be ready for your adventure!

Free RPG Day 2013 Character: CH-1 (high-res pdf, 2.9 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: CH-1 (low-res pdf, 406 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Grabow (high-res pdf, 2.7 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Grabow (low-res pdf, 332 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Jovel (high-res pdf, 3 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Jovel (low-res pdf, 401 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Matwe (high-res pdf, 2.7 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Matwe (low-res pdf, 324 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Sinoca (high-res pdf, 3.9 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Sinoca (low-res pdf, 446 KB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Trey Essek (high-res pdf, 3.6 MB)
Free RPG Day 2013 Character: Trey Essek (low-res pdf, 373 KB)

Play at the FFG Event Center

Do you live in the Roseville, Minnesota area? In honor of Free RPG Day, the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center will give away free copies of Shadows of a Black Sun, and our roleplaying game development team will be in attendance to answer questions and run introductory sessions. Sign up now at the Event Center to play Star Wars: Edge of the Empire with an FFG RPG designer!

Your adversary is clever, well armed, and has a head start in the Empire’s largest city. But you and your team have been tasked with bringing him in, dead or alive. Do you have what it takes? Find out this weekend!

“Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s some all-powerful force controlling everything.”
    –Han Solo

The Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Roleplaying Game is set after the events of A New Hope. The Rebel Alliance has destroyed the evil Galactic Empire’s powerful Death Star. Now, Imperial forces strike back, throwing the galaxy into war.

Meanwhile, throughout the galaxy, belief in the Force has become nearly extinct. The Jedi are gone, the vast majority hunted down and destroyed by the Emperor and his minions. If any survive, they do so in hiding at the farthest edges of the galaxy. The Galactic Empire regards the ability to use the Force as a crime punishable by the harshest measures. In a few short decades, the Galactic Empire has managed to destroy nearly all evidence of the Jedi, and most of the galaxy has since forgotten the order and dismissed the Force as an ancient religion.

However, there are still those rare individuals who believe in the Force and those even rarer few who can draw from its power. These Force sensitive individuals have to learn how to use the Force on their own. The Jedi order is gone, there is no one to train them, they possess powers they barely understand, and they risk falling to the dark side without even realizing it. On top of all this, a young Force user must keep his connection to the Force a secret, or risk being hunted and destroyed.

Despite all these difficulties – or, perhaps, because of them – players may wish to assume the role of an exiled Force sensitive character in Edge of the Empire. The desire is natural enough; the Force is at the heart of the Star Wars universe, and few figures light up the imagination as much as a character able to sense dangers before they arrive and who can draw upon the power to move objects with a thought.

Force sensitive characters are extremely rare in Edge of the Empire, and as they stand apart in the universe, they stand apart, too, within the game’s mechanics. Today, Lead Producer Sam Stewart provides insight into the development of the game’s Force mechanics, how players can create Force sensitive characters, and how such characters might fit into an Edge of the Empire campaign.

Lead Producer Sam Stewart on the Force in Edge of the Empire

“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
    –Ben Kenobi

The Force has always been a key part of Star Wars. Far from a “hokey religion,” it’s probably the most iconic aspect of the setting. Accordingly, Edge of the Empire allows players to take on the role of Force sensitive characters who’ve gone into hiding on the edges of civilization. These individuals have the ability to touch the Force, but using that power can make them targets for the Empire.

When we were designing the way the Force would function in Edge of the Empire, one of the first things we wanted was to make it distinct from the rest of the game. That desire led to the development of the Force die.

The Force die is a twelve-sided die with “light side” and “dark side” symbols on it. There are eight light side symbols and eight dark side symbols on the die. These numbers represent the balance of the Force between light and dark, but the distribution of these numbers is notably unequal. Five die faces have light side symbols, while seven die faces have dark side symbols. On the other hand, the die faces with light side symbols are more likely to have multiple symbols than the faces with dark side symbols. This means that while the dark side is often easier to access than the light side of the Force, the light side is just as powerful and can even be more rewarding if the Force user is willing to exercise control.

When a Force user draws upon the Force, he rolls one or more Force dice in an attempt to generate light side symbols, which he can then spend as Force points. Each Force power, as well as some minor Force sensitive abilities, requires a certain number of Force points to activate. The more Force points the Force user generates, the more he can do with the power.

A Force user must pay attention to the balance of the Force.

But what about the dark side symbols? Well, for most Force users, these are effectively “blank” results. Edge of the Empire assumes that the “default” for Player Characters is that they’re playing good people. However, if the player wants to tap into the dark side of the Force, he can suffer penalties to generate Force points from these dark side results as well.

Becoming Force Sensitive

Now, how do Force powers fit into the rest of an Edge of the Empire campaign? Well, first it’s important to note that nobody in this game is just a Force user.

Any player wishing to create a Force user must first select a career for his character and a specialization within that career. Only then can he spend additional experience on the Force Sensitive specialization that gives access to Force powers. That player will also have to spend even more experience on the actual Force powers, and each Force power has customization options, which require even more experience to unlock. What this all means is that a Force user is investing quite a bit of experience on being a Force user, which means he’s not investing that experience on skills or talents that his group will still require to play the game.

As a result, Force users will almost certainly be better at doing some things than other characters, and they will just as likely will be worse at others. More importantly, perhaps, is idea that they’ll be accomplishing some tasks differently; they will utilize the Force to aid them in circumstances where other characters must use straight skill.

Force users can approach situations in ways that other characters cannot.

Using the Force in Your Campaign

As a player and playtester, I’ve seen Force users depicted in several ways.

One player made a young thief and slicer. She was Force sensitive, but only had a small amount of experience invested in the Sense power. She relied primarily on her skills in Computers and Skulduggery, but every so often she used Sense to gain advantageous knowledge of what her opponents were thinking. In one memorable instance, she learned that the group’s armor-covered adversary was actually a droid!

Another player created a young fringer who desperately wanted to be a Jedi – or at least he wanted to become what he thought a Jedi was, based on old holovids. He invested most of his experience into his Force abilities, and he used them whenever he could. This included situations where he would have been better served not using his powers, but whether he succeeded or failed, he enjoyed playing true to his character’s concept. However, as he invested more and more in his abilities, he grew very competent at using the Force to accomplish specific tasks. Primarily, these involved moving things with his mind and using Sense to enhance his combat abilities. Outside of combat, though, he wasn’t as proficient and tended to take a back seat, letting other characters do the talking, or slicing, or healing, or repairing their starship.

Thanks, Sam!

In Edge of the Empire, as in the movies, the Force permeates and binds all things. While Force users may be rare and the Jedi order destroyed, the Force can never, itself, be truly eliminated. Force sensitive characters can learn to draw upon its power to accomplish truly remarkable feats, but their efforts come at a great cost. Will you learn to master the Force before you are hunted and destroyed? Or will you focus your energy elsewhere, developing and honing the skills you need to survive as one of a handful of characters living lives full of adventure in some of the galaxy’s darkest and most dangerous locales?

In our next preview, we’ll learn more about the GM's role and experience in Edge of the Empire!

The Sky People in the World Above have finally depleted their legendary stores of power, forcing them to come to the Borderlands. But they need the help of your Borderlanders if they wish to siphon the Fire Beneath into their floating cities. You and your fellow tribes must barter, bribe, and compete to be the first to raise the skyworks and reap the bounty of the Sky People’s favor. Gearworld: The Borderlands is now available at your local retailer and on our webstore!

Set in a steampunk apocalyptic future, Gearworld: The Borderlands puts you and your fellow players in charge of a few ramshackle tribes, fighting for whatever resources they can mine or gather in a destroyed world. Each round, players must try to scavenge a variety of resources, ranging from coal and gold, to horses and vital scraps. As the players collect more resources, their tribes become stronger, and are able to move closer to the ultimate goal of skywork construction.

Relations between the tribes are sometimes uneasy, but trade can exist, as we saw in an earlier preview. If a deal of mutual benefit can be reached, players are able to swap resources across borders, but everything must be transported somehow, and in the Borderlands, transport capabilities can be scarce. Foot and horseback may be the only options, but if a tribe is able to construct a riverboat or an ocean-going ship out of scraps, it can give them a significant transportation advantage.

Break What you Cannot Make

When the normal operations of commerce fail, your ships and horses can be used in a more martial purpose. After all, the Sky People only want a tribe that possesses skyworks—they couldn’t care less if that tribe actually made the skyworks. The iron, coal, and other resources your tribe gathers can produce advanced weaponry as well, giving your tribe the upper hand in their raids and conquests. If you want to garner more hints and tips about surviving in Gearworld, head over to the rules on our support page!

In the Borderlands, life is a short and uncertain affair at best. Even the main phases of resource production, trading, and transportation are subject to the winds of change, and unexpected events may jeopardize the occurrence of any one of these phases. Only the threat of imminent battle, and the struggle to build upward are constant in the shifting world of the Borderlands.

As the tribes race to construct their skyworks and stop their opponents from completing theirs, the smell of desperation is in the air. The skyworks will rise, tribes will perish, and fires of advancement will be fueled, one way or another. Are you equipped to handle the hardships of earning a life in the Borderlands? Head to your local retail store, or to our webstore, and pick up Gearworld: The Borderlands today!

Whether you’re unraveling the plot of a treacherous ruler, sending a Wyrm Queen back to her subterranean slumber, searching for treasure amongst sun-scorched ruins, or embarking on countless other adventures, you don’t want to be slowed down by a shortage of your most basic necessities. Keep the focus on the quest with extra dice!

The Descent Dice Pack, an accessory for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, is now on sale at your local retailer and on our webstore! Featuring all nine of the custom dice found in the Second Edition base game, the Descent Dice Pack will help you defend (or destroy) Terrinoth with a new level of convenience.

The Descent Dice Pack includes two red, two yellow, and one blue attack dice, plus two gray, one black, and one brown defense dice. Stop interrupting your game or reaching across the table with every attack; look for the Descent Dice Pack on store shelves now!

The vicious Bol’Goreth rampages through the wildlands at the edge of the Valdari Marsh, and those left in his wake babble terrifying tales of destruction. However, dark rumors hint at something more sinister behind the simple-minded brutality: something horrific that threatens to spill out across the realm.

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce The Trollfens, an expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition that introduces new heroes, monsters, classes, quests, and more! Over the course of its five included quests (playable as side quests to a larger campaign, or as their own mini-campaign), heroes can discover and investigate secret rooms and rumors while the overlord spreads infection and brings a powerful new lieutenant into play: the massive troll Bol’Goreth.

Two New Heroes Rise to Protect Terrinoth

Ready to face the nightmares of the Valdari Marsh, two new heroes have risen in defense of the realm. Roganna the Shade is a Scout of unparalleled cunning and valor, while the Healer Augur Grisom can provide solace to his allies through his mere presence in the fray.

In addition, two new classes arrive to enhance your character selection process. The Stalker, a class for the Scout archetype, is a master of the hunt who excels at laying traps of all kinds. Balancing this expertise is the Prophet, a Healer class that bolsters the effectiveness of his fellow adventurers. These new heroes and classes, along with a selection of new Shop and Relic cards, will help the forces of good reclaim the Valdari Marsh.

The Overlord’s Evil Infects the Land

Prefer to smash do-gooding heroes? The Trollfens features a host of options for the overlord, including new monsters, new class cards, and a new lieutenant!

Plague Worms are despicable, disease-carrying creatures thought to have died out generations ago. Carriers of every affliction imaginable, these scavenging beasts feed off of the pestilence and filth they create. Their reappearance in the Valdari Marsh is indeed a sign of ill tidings for the realm. But even as the Plague Worms assault the realm from below, another threat is arriving from above. Harpies are bat-like monsters that have been twisted through sorcery into a mockery of the female form. Vicious and unyielding, these semi-intelligent carnivores always hunt in groups, swarming over their prey with deadly precision.

The overlord’s evil has always been a blight on Terrinoth, but The Trollfens presents that sentiment literally. The new overlord class, called “Infector,” features a wide selection of powers centered around spreading pestilence and disease. Cards like Contaminated allow the overlord to mark his unfortunate target with an infection token, a representation of the maladies emanating from the swamplands. Once so afflicted, the unfortunate target of this token can find himself unable to defend himself, too weak to attack, or unable to differentiate friend from foe!

With new heroes, monsters, classes, quests, and much more, The Trollfens is sure to enhance any Descent fan’s gaming experience. A rampaging troll is threatening the safety of the realm. Are you prepared to face his fury? Find out when The Trollfens arrives this fall, and in the meantime, visit its website and check back for previews!

“I want to set this fleet on a path to freedom."
     –Tom Zarek

Fantasy Flight Games recently announced Daybreak, an upcoming expansion for Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game. With two supplemental game boards and hundreds of cards and tokens, Daybreak invites players to undertake desperate missions, struggle under the constant threat of mutiny, and bargain with Cylon Leaders driven by motives of their own!

As we approach the release of Daybreak later this summer, we’re pleased to begin a series of previews that will look at its new mechanics, characters, and challenges. Today, we’ll start with a closer examination of the all-new “Mutineer” mechanic, which allows Galactica’s crew members to gain a range of powerful new abilities...for a price. We’ll also meet a master mutineer, the duplicitous Tom Zarek, and we’ll take a look at how his alternative character sheet makes him the perfect choice for any player harboring a problem with authority.

Distribution of Power

In many ways, mutiny is a matter of perspective. When successful, it’s the rightful overthrow of a dangerous or tyrannical leader, carried out for the good of the crew and fleet. When unsuccessful, it’s a crime punishable by execution. After all, as Tom Zarek once said, "the truth is told by whoever is left standing."

In the complex, high-stakes political environment of Battlestar Galactica, this distinction is even more vital. At worst, a questionable president or admiral might be a Cylon, secretly biding his time before dealing an irreparable blow to the cause of humanity. But even if your leaders are human, their judgement may become clouded or the thrill of power may go to their heads. With so much on the line, can any one person be trusted to lead?

Inspired by the events of the fourth season of the television series, the Mutineer mechanic represents the fleet’s unraveling command structure in the face of overwhelming tension and desperation. This new system replaces the sympathizer rules from the base game, and primarily consists of two new components: a deck of twenty-two Mutiny Cards, and the “You Are the Mutineer” Loyalty Card.

Let’s look at that deck of Mutiny Cards first. Mutiny Cards provide special abilities that players may perform as an action. The catch is that each Mutiny Card also includes a negative effect (negative for the humans, anyway). Send a Message requires that its player damage Galactica to take a powerful shot at a Cylon boarding party, while Necessary Risk buys the fleet some precious food . . . but it also places a basestar and three raiders uncomfortably nearby. With Make a Deal, anyone can enjoy a privilege once held solely by the president, and as a final example, The Strong Survive can move the fleet forward at the cost of a civilian ship! In some ways, Mutiny Cards can be thought of as Quorum Cards for the average Joe. We can’t all be president, but we can occasionally taste that same power.

Moderation in All Things, Including Mutiny

Then why not just load up on Mutiny Cards and use them as you see fit? It’s not quite that simple. The illicit dealings described on Mutiny Cards must be undertaken carefully, away from the prying eyes of those in charge. Successful sabotage, even sabotage for the good of the fleet, must be carried out with discreet, carefully measured movements. Too much insurrection (or even discussion of insurrection) all at once means unwanted attention from those in command, and that in turn means a trip to the brig.

Accordingly, each player may only hold one Mutiny Card at time (with the exception of the Mutineer, a role we’ll discuss a little later). As soon as a player draws his second Mutiny Card, he must choose and discard one, then his character is sent to the brig on charges of conspiracy. Mutiny Cards, therefore, offer a tempting risk/reward proposition. The potentially helpful effects they grant humanity cannot be ignored, but to hold onto one is to live with the constant threat of incarceration. Unfortunately, playing Mutiny Cards is one of the few ways to discard them, but there are plenty of ways to draw them...whether you want to or not.

Crisis Cards in Daybreak often force players to draw Mutiny Cards as part of a penalty. Rallying Support, for example, can result in the current player drawing one Mutiny Card and one Treachery Card, and Secret Meetings can inflict this fate on an innocent bystander! Treachery Cards can also result in an unexpected Mutiny Card draw, so given the fact that anyone can be forced to draw one at any time, cautious players know that the safest number of Mutiny Cards to possess is zero.

The new Colonial One overlay in Daybreak includes the Press Room, where characters can air their dirty laundry and unburden themselves of Mutiny Cards. Click to Enlarge.

Problems with Authority

Some crew members want to bring their leaders down, and they don’t care who knows it. These malcontents live on the edge, wearing their contempt for authority on their sleeves. They may have humanity’s best interests at heart (or not), but they’re fed up with the current command structure and what they view as life-threatening negligence or incompetence.

A new Loyalty Card, entitled “You Are the Mutineer,” represents an agitator who’s a little more comfortable with insubordination than his fellow crew members. This rabble-rouser is willing to take matters into his own hands, and he’s more adept at avoiding the consequences.

When constructing the Loyalty Deck at the start of any game that uses the Daybreak expansion, the players include the new “You Are the Mutineer” Loyalty Card in lieu of the “You Are a Sympathizer” Loyalty Card. And since the Mutineer immediately draws an additional Loyalty Card (after his Mutineer Loyalty Card), he can still be either a human or an unrevealed Cylon! This means that compounding their challenges, the human team will have to grapple with yet another dilemma: there’s a mutineer in their midst...but is his rebellion motivated by a genuine concern for humanity’s well-being, or is that just a convenient cover for his underhanded Cylon agenda?

Either way, the Mutineer can draw one more Mutiny Card than anyone else before he’s sent to the brig, meaning that at any given time, he benefits from the options they bring while enjoying relative safety from their consequences. On the other hand, the Mutineer draws these dangerous cards at a significantly increased rate; whenever the player with the “You Are the Mutineer” Loyalty Card draws a Crisis Card bearing the “prepare for jump” icon (on his turn), he must immediately draw another Mutiny Card!

The Ultimate Mutineer

Whereas some players might find the “You Are the Mutineer” card to be a burden, others will surely relish the role. For players of that mind, we present the ultimate mutineer, Tom Zarek. Notorious for his political cunning and ambition, Zarek returns here as an alternative character sheet – a “Military Leader” version of his former self. Zarek’s “Necessary Steps” gives him an unparalleled command of the Mutiny deck, while his “Abuse Power” once-per-game lets him play a just the right Mutiny card (for good or ill) at a crucial moment!

Click to enlarge

The stakes have never been higher, and there’s no room for failures of leadership. When you can’t trust your commanding officers, isn’t mutiny the only option? Find out when Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak Expansion releases early in the third quarter of 2013!

The discovery of valuable ores and other resources has led to the founding of a new colony, hidden away in an untouched corner of a steam-powered world. It won’t stay untouched for long, however; prospectors from all over are boarding their airships and then risking a trip across the Boiling Sea to stake their claim. Can you outbid and outbuy your rivals to acquire the most wealth?

In Planet Steam, two to five players take the roles of entrepreneurs, racing to assemble equipment, claim plots of land, extract resources, and accumulate riches. After harvesting resources using tanks and converters, players must buy and sell those resources in a volatile and ever-shifting market. The one who amasses the greatest pile of credits by the end of the game will be victorious. However, only through shrewd resource management and clever manipulation of supply and demand can a player reign supreme!

In our last preview, we took a look at plots of land up for grabs on the board’s claim map. We also covered extraction of all-important resources. Today, we will look at the resource terminal, and talk about manipulating the market to help build your fortune, while ruining your opponents.

Buy and Sell Valuable Resources

Once players have filled their carriers with precious resources and are ready to make a profit, they may use the board’s resource terminal to make their sales. The resource terminal, which tracks the supply of resources and their prices, fluctuates with each sale. The fluidity of the market means that players must be clever when buying and selling, using this volatility to their advantage.

The resource terminal, shown below (set up for a five-player game), has supply and price tracks for each of the four resources. On the left side of each column on the resource terminal is the price track, which lists the current cost of one resource in credits. The right column is the supply track, which displays how many of each resource is available in the reserve. The supply track is color coordinated with the price adjustment track, shown on the far right. This determines how a resource's price is adjusted. The gold circle at the bottom of each column depicts which resource the given tracks represent. Resources are always bought and sold in the order dictated by the number in the gold circle at the top of each column, beginning with quartz and ending with energy.

Let’s look at some examples to get a better idea of how the Resource Terminal works, and how supply and price adjustment impact the game.

During the Resource Phase, players have used their equipment to harvest resources and place them on their respective carriers. Now it is time to buy and sell resources at the Resource Terminal.

The first player elects to buy one quartz at 6 credits. He puts his credits into the reserve and takes one quartz, placing it on his resource carrier.

Now, he adjusts the quartz supply track, lowering it from 7 to 6. Then, he compares the color of the supply track to the Price Adjustment track. 6 is on a green space, and is 0 on the Price Adjustment track, so the price of quartz stays the same.

The next player decides to pass.

The third player chooses to sell quartz, at 6 credits each. He takes 12 credits from the reserve, and places two quartz from his carrier into the reserve. Now, he adjusts the supply track from 6 to 8. 8 is a yellow space on the supply track, which is -1 on the Price Adjustment track, so the price of quartz is reduced by 1 credit.

This continues until each player has had the opportunity to buy or sell quartz. Then, beginning with the first player again, each person has the opportunity to buy or sell ore, then water, and finally, energy.

Use Market Shifts to Your Advantage

Prices can shift rapidly as each player buys or sells, so it is important to carefully consider turn order when deciding whether to purchase or sell resources (we will discuss how to establish turn order via Specialist cards in a later preview). Buying and selling to impact the market, in order to affect the choices of your opponent is a valuable strategy to embrace. After all, you can’t get ahead without putting people behind!

For example, let’s say that both you and one of your opponents have an abundance of ore. If you are first in the turn order for the round, it makes sense to weigh your options, and sell enough to drive the price down far enough that your opponent may decide not to sell, or sell at a much lower rate. However, if your opponent is able to buy or sell first, this may put you at a similar disadvantage. That being said, having your turn to buy/sell following your competitors may also provide the opportunity to capitalize on buying resources at low prices, and selling them at high prices after your opponents have induced a market fluctuation with their transactions.

In this example, during a five player game, players are buying and selling energy. To begin the round, energy is priced at 5 credits, and the energy supply is at 5 as well. The first player elects to sell 4 energy, so he places those into the reserve, and adjusts the supply track from 5 to 9. According to the Price Adjustment track, the cost decreases by 1 credit, so the price track is moved down one. The price stays the same at 5 credits.

The second player also elects to sell his energy. He places 3 energy into the reserve. The supply is increased from 9 to 12, and the price is adjusted from 5 to 3, as per the Price Adjustment track.

Due to the price decrease, the third player decides to sell just 2 energy this turn. Again, the supply track is adjusted from 12 to 14. The supply is now in the red, and the Price Adjustment track requires a price decrease of 3 credits. However, since the price track is already at 3 credits, and it cannot go below 1, the price is adjusted to 1 credit.

Unfortunately for the fourth player, who has a full energy carrier, energy is now selling at an extremely low price. Unwilling to part with his resources for such a low return, the fourth player decides not to sell this turn.

The fifth player, however, was counting on his competitors to sell off their energy this turn, and takes this opportunity to snatch up energy at this rock-bottom price. He purchases 5 energy at the price of 1 credit each. He places the newly-acquired energy onto his resource carrier, and 5 credits into the reserve. Then, the supply track is adjusted from 14 to 9. Since the supply track is now in the yellow (a -1 price adjustment), and the price is already at 1 credit, the price track is not adjusted.

Another important aspect of the resource terminal is using it to predict which resources are going to be worth more credits in the following round, thus determining which resources you should try to extract on your turn. The more effectively a player can determine which resources to focus on in the coming turn, the better chance he will have to amass credits and ultimately win the game.

For example, in let’s say in a previous turn, a player noticed that energy prices were sky-high, while water prices were very low. He buys energy converters for his basic tanks this round, and doesn’t produce any water. Then, he is able to sell energy for a premium. Other players, who didn’t modify their tanks in reaction to the shifting market are stuck selling other, less valuable resources for far less of a profit.  

So, there you have it! Planet Steam’s resource terminal is an invaluable tool to maximize your profits, while derailing your opponent’s money-making opportunities.

In the next preview, we will discuss Specialist Cards, the auctioning process, and how their turn order and abilities influence the game. It takes a cutthroat attitude and clever decision-making to become a top entrepreneur. Do you have what it takes? Find out in the upcoming Planet Steam.

“The Sa Nalaor is infamous for disappearing. Well, and the way it disappeared.”
    –Grinner, ex-smuggler and infochant

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Beyond the Rim, the first full-length adventure for the Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ Roleplaying Game!

When new rumors add credence to old smugglers’ tales of the long-lost Separatist treasure ship, the Sa Nalaor, it’s time for a handful of intrepid explorers, scrappy smugglers, and adventuresome academics to fire up their hyperdrive and embark upon a fantastic journey to the farthest regions of the Star Wars galaxy!

Beyond the Rim is a full-length adventure in three acts that carries players from the bustling, hub-and-spoke space station known as the Wheel all the way to the surface of a deadly jungle planet at the edge of Wild Space. In this epic tale of exploration, your characters will seek fame, fortune, and opportunities to repay old debts. You’ll dodge Imperials, explore distant worlds, run into rival parties, confront new adversaries, and uncover decades-old secrets from the Clone Wars. The ninety-six pages of Beyond the Rim contain enough material to make veterans out of new characters, or heroes out of veterans, and optional hooks for extended campaigns allow GMs to make further use of the book’s fleshed-out setting and NPCs.

The Edge of the Empire and Beyond…

Characters in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire live on the fringes of galactic society, literally or figuratively. They have their checkered pasts, they owe their debts, and they have their reasons to steer away from agents of Imperial law. They are smugglers, scoundrels, explorers, mercenaries, political refugees, and renegades. By fleshing out a number of frontiers and taking you far beyond the Empire’s reach, Beyond the Rim offers exciting new ways to explore life at the Edge of the Empire.

The events of Beyond the Rim will challenge your characters with a wide range of encounters at the edges of the galaxy, and you and your friends will need to work as a team to survive. You’ll need to make good use of all your characters’ skills and talents as you navigate the jungles of Cholganna, broker deals on Raxus Prime, and encounter the deadly nexu. You’ll also have cause to fend for yourselves in dramatic space battles.

Moreover, Beyond the Rim provides GMs with guidelines for engaging the player characters. These include optional recommended Obligations and Motivations that forge strong connections between new characters and the adventure’s events and NPCs, and a number of potential subplots offer GMs the means to customize the adventure for experienced parties.

Peril and Possibility

Life at the edge of the Empire is rife with both peril and possibility, and producer Katrina Ostrander offers a few more words about the adventures awaiting your characters Beyond the Rim:

In Beyond the Rim, players must journey to the true edge of the Empire: the fringes of Known Space. They’ll be among the first to explore the dense jungles of Cholganna, and come face-to-face with the deadly nexu in its natural habitat. Fans of the Star Wars comics will recognize the Wheel space station, where the Millennium Falcon and the heroes of the Battle of Yavin once fled from the Empire. You’ll even have a chance to explore the junkyard planet and Outer Rim haven, Raxus Prime – if you can get past the Imperial shipyards and TIE fighter patrols.

We made sure that this introductory adventure would reward all specializations and styles of play. While working for the black-market tech company, IsoTech, Smugglers and Technicians will find their piloting and mechanical skills invaluable. Colonists and Explorer characters will have their chances to forge new hyperspace routes, survive savage environments, and pioneer an unsettled world. Finally, Bounty Hunters and Hired Guns can prove their mettle in skirmishes with deadly creatures, rival treasure-hunters, and relentless Imperial forces. To uncover the mystery of the long-lost Confederacy of Independent Systems treasury ship, the Sa Nalaor, the players will have to work together, and everyone will have a chance to shine!

One of the most exciting parts of working on Beyond the Rim was being able to bridge the Clone Wars with the Rebellion era in the adventure’s backstory. We were able to draw from the original trilogy, the prequel movies, and The Clone Wars animated series in order to bring this adventure to life, and it led to some fun and interesting developments. You don’t often get to see B1 battle droids pitted against scout troopers or Imperial Security Bureau agents pursuing Separatist traitors. We even managed to give a nod to the Old Republic, so players should look out for that as they play through the adventure.

What really happened to the Sa Nalaor? You’ll soon have your chance to solve this decades-old mystery as you hunt for lost treasures, explore distant worlds, and enjoy life at the edges of the Star Wars galaxy… Beyond the Rim is scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of 2013!

“For thousands of years after the collapse of the polar gates, with the immediate threat of Chaos thwarted, the Lizardmen existed in relative seclusion while the world changed around them.”
    –Warhammer: Lizardmen

The Old World shudders with the throes of eternal war. Ancient animosities and powerful ambitions drive the world’s races to conflict, and even those who have long kept to the sides cannot long remain isolated…

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Hidden Kingdoms, the fifth deluxe expansion for Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game!

The Lizardmen of Lustria travel far from their jungle homes to impose the laws of their masters across the Old World. Within the forests of Athel Loren, the Wood Elves hunger for vengeance and muster for war. In the depths of their subterranean kingdom, Skaven hordes plot, scheme, and multiply. Meanwhile, the Old World’s Vampire Counts and Undead thirst for blood and begin to turn their attentions to the lands beyond the borders of forsaken Sylvania.

In Hidden Kingdoms, these four neutral races launch their assaults!

Each becomes a playable faction, complete with its own capital, legend, faction-specific supports, a host of new units, and powerful support for its racial themes and mechanics. The 172 cards (including four capital cards and the maximum legal number of fifty-five different player cards) of Hidden Kingdoms hand players the keys to fun and effective strategies built around Skaven swarms, Wood Elf developments, and the Necromancy and Savage keywords.

Capitals to Call Home

The battles of Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game are battles for dominion over the Old World. You build from the strength of your capital. You win by burning your opponent’s capital.

Accordingly, each of the game’s factions must have its own capital. The Men of the Empire rule from their palaces and outposts. The Dwarfs hold their Karaks. The Dark Elves of Naggaroth forge their war plans in the frozen spires of Naggaroth. Even without a kingdom to call their own, the greenskin tribes dominate vast tracts of land where they establish crude lairs and massive campsites from which they can fuel their next Waaagh! In Hidden Kingdoms, the Lizardmen, Wood Elves, Undead, and Skaven all gain capitals that they can call home.

Lead developer Brad Andres explains how these capitals help to turn the game’s neutral races into full-fledged factions with rich personalities:

“The most exciting piece of the Hidden Kingdoms expansion is the new capital cards. Players will finally be able to field some of their favorite races from their home turf, and they’ll reap benefits for doing so. These capitals don’t have loyalty icons; instead, each capital has a special ability designed to play to the advantage of its home race. These abilities provide synergies with each neutral race’s cards, in the existing card pool and in Hidden Kingdoms, and the capitals’ abilities also reinforce their races’ mechanical identities.”

Instead of a loyalty symbol, each neutral race’s capital bears a racial icon that corresponds to the faction-specific capital rules outlined in the Hidden Kingdoms rules insert. The Lizardmen and Wood Elves capitals are aligned with the forces of Order, while the Skaven and Undead capitals are aligned with the forces of Destruction. Each neutral race’s capital allows the play of faction-specific units and legends. Additionally, each racial icon is tied to a unique game effect.

	After an attack against you is resolved, deal 1 uncancellable damage to a unit that participated in the attack.
	After determining the first player during Setup, place 1 card from the top of your deck into each zone as a development (start with the Kingdom Zone, then the Battlefield Zone, and finally the Quest Zone).
	You have 2 [POWER] in both your Kingdom and Quest Zones. Lower the cost of the first Skaven unit you play into your battlefield each turn by 1.
	After determining the first player during Setup, discard the top 5 cards of your deck.

As Brad states, these neutral race capitals do more than allow you to play each faction’s faction-specific units, supports, and legends. They bolster each race’s signature personality and mechanics, giving you plenty of reasons to consider playing these races on their own, rather than as support for another of the game’s factions!

They Will Be Legendary

In addition to their new capitals, the new neutral factions from Hidden Kingdoms all welcome the arrival of new legends to lead their troops to battle. These legends can only be played if you field the race’s capital, but each is certain to make a big impact upon the game.

Like Count Vlad von Carstein (Hidden Kingdoms, 28), these powerful legends all add new dimensions to their factions’ potential strategies. While many of the units and supports in Hidden Kingdoms directly build upon the factions’ traditional mechanics, lending strength and versatility to keywords like Savage and Necromancy, these new legends all take their factions’ strengths and add a new wrinkle. Count Vlad von Carstein ensures that your discard pile isn’t just a temporary resting place for your Necromancy units; he converts it into your stronghold. If everything is dead, the Undead win!

Tributes and Treaties

The main thrust of the Hidden Kingdoms deluxe expansion may come from its four new playable factions, but there’s plenty more to excite fans of the game’s other races. You’ll find new units, tactics, and Tributes for the Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Chaos, Orcs, and Dark Elves. These cards further distinguish the races’ personalities, such as the Empire’s mobility and the Dark Elves’ bloodlust. Meanwhile, Tributes targeting each of these six races allow you to forge temporary treaties, ignoring the loyalty cost of the next card you play out of faction.

No One Is Truly Neutral

In a world of eternal war, no race can remain forever neutral, and Hidden Kingdoms finally gives you the chance to launch four of your favorite Warhammer races into the ferocious, fast-paced battles of Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game as fully developed factions.

Get ready for battle. Hidden Kingdoms is scheduled to release late in the third quarter of 2013!

“Those who dwell within the grace of the God-Emperor need never fear the dark. His grace and guidance shines a perpetual light upon them.”
Nadine Aleynikov, disciple of St. Cognatius

Fantasy Flight Games is excited to announce Faith and Coin, the latest Rogue Trader supplement! It is a Rogue Trader’s duty to assist in spreading the Imperial Creed across the stars, helping missionaries as they wander from world to forgotten world. In turn, Rogue Traders reap the profits from the seeds that missionaries sow. In this guide, for players and GMs, the complex relationships between missionaries and Rogue Traders come to life, with new Endeavors to complete and new worlds to convert. Find sacred relics, smite vile heretics, or embark on new Alternate Career Paths with the grace of the God-Emperor guiding you every step of the way.

A Word From the Developer

Lead developer Max Brooke gives a taste of what is to come in the upcoming Faith and Coin:

The Koronus Expanse is a realm of unlimited opportunity and incalculable risk. It teems with life, from deadly alien beasts to incomprehensible xenos species to human populations rendered utterly strange by aeons of isolation. To prepare these lost human populations for their return to the dominion of the Imperium, Rogue Traders are required to give passage to missionaries, wandering priests who carry the Emperor's Light into the darkness of the fringes. These representatives of the Imperium work to introduce their faith on these far-flung worlds, subverting local faiths by weaving elements of the Imperial Creed into local religions and mythologies. Of course, different missionaries use extremely different methods. Some bring the Emperor's light with zeal and fire, burning down the old edifices to glorify the Emperor, while others wander alone in the darkness, quietly sowing seed of faith that their successors can reap in centuries or even millennia to come.

The relationship between these representatives of the Imperial Creed and those who carry a Warrant of Trade is one of mutual necessity, punctuated by both conspiracy and conflict. Many Rogue Traders rely on itinerant priests to maintain the spiritual health of their crews and to open inroads upon new worlds they can exploit. Missionaries, for their part, often benefit from the unique resources a Rogue Trader can provide above and beyond transit between the stars. The vast material wealth of a Rogue Trader, the keen mind and expansive knowledge of a seneschal, or the raw might of a warship can all accelerate the conversion of a given world tremendously. Not all Rogue Traders are willing to put piety before profit, however, and such alliances of convenience can shatter at the drop of a coin.

Faith and Coin is a supplement for players and Game Masters that explores the role the Imperial Creed in Rogue Trader through the tales of four different missionaries who set out into the Koronus Expanse and sought an ancient secret—the lost tomb of Saint Cognatius, which is said to contain priceless relics and miraculous archeotechnology alike. The book uses the framework of their stories to delve into the ways the Imperial faith can be a powerful tool for many characters in Rogue Trader. It offers new options not only for Missionaries, but for any Explorers who interact with the Imperial Creed in the Koronus Expanse—or at least turn a profit by it. This volume includes new Endeavours that crews can undertake as they use the Imperial faith to build the fortune of their dynasty, Alternate Career Ranks Explorers can use to gain powerful new knowledge and abilities, and a host of weapons, armour, equipment, and powerful relics of past holy warriors for smiting heretics in the Koronus Expanse. Finally, it contains an adventure, The Sacred Heart, which allows the Explorers to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors in seeking the legendary tomb of Saint Cognatius.

Faith and Coin is full of new options and stories for both players and Game Masters to pursue, and I'm looking forward to hearing how readers use it to expand their characters and campaigns!

Thanks Max! Look for Faith and Coin coming later this year. Meanwhile, keep checking here for more news and previews about the upcoming Faith and Coin supplement for Rogue Trader.

Across the vast expanse of the cosmos, strange quakes and startling explosions make the galaxy an even more dangerous place to wage war. New alien races are making themselves known in the interstellar clash for control. Set up space stations to boost your skills, then prepare for galactic disturbances and more epic encounters than ever before.

Fantasy Flight Games is excited to announce Cosmic Storm, the fourth expansion for Cosmic Encounter! This new addition sets the galaxy trembling as twenty-five new alien races come zipping through the cosmos. Guard yourself against the sticky-fingered Swindler, and stand in awe of the massive appetite of the Mouth.

Cosmic Storm also adds space stations, which when attached to one of your home planets, gives you additional powers to use in your encounters!

Batten Down the Hatches

Prepare for the upcoming galactic turmoil by setting up a space station on one of your home planets. This variant allows each player to draw one of ten space station cards and then attach the corresponding space station to one of their home worlds. Each of the ten stations has a unique ability that can be harnessed as long as a player has at least one ship on the planet the station is attached to.

Space station abilities like the Big Space Laser or the Alien Outpost shake up interstellar encounters, and provide even more options for players to maximize their options on their quest for galactic supremacy!

Space stations are also compatible with all previous expansion variants, so no rules have to be changed to include them.

Meet the Bulwarks

The toughness of the Bulwarks is legendary. They think nothing of facing overwhelming odds or throwing themselves into the thick of battle, knowing they have the ability to endure nearly any hardship. The Bulwarks can also be as thick-headed as they are thick-skinned.

The Bulwarks are just one of twenty-five new alien races bursting into the galaxy and entering the chase to become ruler of the cosmos. Incredibly tough and strong, the Bulwarks are widely known for their Resilience, a power which allows them to withstand even the most brutal battles.

With the help of this power, any time a Bulwark would lose ships to the warp, they can reduce the number of ships lost to one, making them incredibly difficult to defeat.

Brace yourself for the upcoming Cosmic Storm! Equip your home world with a space station, choose your alien race, and prepare for the strange and exciting altercations that can only occur in Cosmic Encounter! Meanwhile, keep checking back here for more news about Cosmic Storm!

“Bran was going to be a knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. Old Nan said they were the finest swords in all the realm. There were only seven of them, and they wore white armor and had no wives or children, but lived only to serve the king.”
    –George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of The Kingsguard, the third Chapter Pack in the Kingsroad cycle for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game!

A man’s word can be broken. A knight’s honor can be tarnished. Any man can harbor secret ambitions, even a member of the Kingsguard. The seven Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard wear white armor and take vows to serve the crown, and only the crown. However, each Sworn Brother is a man at his core, and susceptible to the temptations and ambitions and doubts that plague all men. Each has his secrets, and the sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty different cards) in The Kingsguard lend shape to their ambitions, their deceptions, and their deadly talents.

Like each of the Chapter Packs in the Kingsroad cycle, The Kingsguard returns players to a Westeros changed by the War of Five Kings, countless treacheries, and new alliances. The balance of power between the game’s six Houses has changed, as have the faces of those Houses. As part of this return to Westeros, each Chapter Pack in the Kingsroad cycle explores one or more of the game’s existing themes or mechanics, adding new depth of strategies and deck-building options while remaining light on new rules.

Accordingly, as it explores the secret ambitions of the seven active Kingsguard, The Kingsguard adds new depth to the game’s Shadows mechanic, featuring not only Shadows-crested versions of the Knights of the Kingsguard, but of other characters and locations, as well. In total, no fewer than twelve of the Chapter Pack’s twenty different cards feature the Shadows crest.

Seven Knights with Seven Styles

“Ser Arys offered his arm and she let him lead her from her chamber. If she must have one of the Kingsguard dogging her steps, Sansa preferred that it be him. Ser Boros was short-tempered, Ser Meryn cold, and Ser Mandon’s strange dead eyes made her uneasy, while Ser Preston treated her like a lackwit child.”
    –George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

The Kingsguard introduces eight new characters with the Kingsuard trait, seven of whom bear no House affiliation. All of them bear the Shadows crest, except for Ser Barristan Selmy (The Kingsguard, 53), the one true Knight among them and the only Kingsguard member to be dismissed from service before his death.

Excepting Ser Barristan Selmy, the knights of the Kingsguard depicted in The Kingsguard are secretive, manipulative, self-serving, and conspiratorial. Their vows are merely veils behind which they hide their true ambitions. Because of this, most of these Kingsguard characters are fueled by secrets, possessing abilities that trigger when cards come out of Shadows, that allow players to return cards to Shadows, or that increase in strength with the number of cards in Shadows.

All told, the new dynamics permitted by these Kingsguard characters will keep your opponents in suspense. You’ll know which cards you’ve placed facedown into Shadows, but your opponent won’t. You’ll be able to identify the perfect moments for these characters to reveal themselves. If you’re clever, you’ll be able to use these Knights to your advantage, preying upon their personal ambitions and swaying them to serve your House and your cause. These Sworn Brothers may have taken their vows to serve only the king, but in the end, they’re only men – talented warriors, but ambitious, prideful, and imperfect. More than anything, they are distinguished from other men by their proximity to the king…and to the Iron Throne.

Secrets, Sorcery, Treachery, and Oaths

These new Kingsguard characters, On My Oath (The Kingsguard, 60), and the other cards from The Kingsguard will soon make the battles, intrigues, and power grabs of Westeros more exciting and more dangerous than ever.

Look for The Kingsguard to arrive at retailers late in the third quarter of 2013!

Are you ready to reexamine the intricacies of Horus’s Pyramid? In The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus, players must push their luck to the utmost to grab treasure while escaping from the dusty clutches of the mummies, and the collapsing pyramid itself. With luck and skill, a player can grab some loot and get out, but a less fortunate player will be trapped forever among the treasures of the dead. It’s a race against time for the spoils of the Pharaohs, and everyone is only hoping they won’t join the Pharaohs forever…

Now, Matt Miller of Game Informer has written a review of The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus. Head over to the article, and find out why he says this game “hits a sweet spot between accessibility and fun.” If you’re new to strategy board games, or just considering The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus, this article contains a wealth of helpful information, addressing ease of setup, overall complexity, gameplay, and theme.

If you’re still hunting for more after that article, check out some of our past previews, or the rules on our support page. The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus is a worthy addition to any game closet, and you can pick it up at your local retailer or at our webstore today!

“The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound—and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other, fainter, noises which he suspected were lurking behind them.”
    –H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House

Recently, we announced the upcoming release of Terror in Venice, the fifth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Full of terrifying secrets, horrific monsters, and devious intents, Terror in Venice explores the themes of H.P. Lovecraft’s eerie fiction in turn-of-the-century Venice as unfathomable powers lie ripe for the plucking. The expansion centers around several new conspiracies, but they’re not the only cards destined to concern the game’s investigators, cultists, and darker powers; many of its 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five different cards) explore the passage of time and give shape to the fleeting hopes the game’s investigators hold during Day and the mounting perils they face at Night.

As the expansion’s horrifying struggles of begin, Carnevale is drawing to a close. Revelers lurch through the city’s streets, drinking, dancing, and singing. Their brightly colored masks and elaborate costumes belie the darkness that has begun to spread with the coming of dusk, a darkness that is both physical and figurative. At night, forces that defy human comprehension comb the city’s narrow alleys and dark canals. They seek something powerful, something that beckons unconsciously to their very natures. At night, they roam.

Today, developer Brad Andres reveals a little more about those things that glint in the sunlight and slink in the shadows, but as you read, remember: time is always ticking!

Day and Night in Terror in Venice

Greetings, cultists, investigators, and servitors!

You’ll soon have reason to fear the darkness once again…

The Terror in Venice deluxe expansion is bringing Day and Night back to the forefront of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Day and Night were originally featured in the Dreamlands cycle of Asylum Packs and proved to be very popular with players. Personally, I love the Day and Night mechanics. They ooze with flavor and reinforce the narrative nature of the game, and in Terror in Venice, they represent the shifting states of power amid the narrow streets and canals of the “City of Water.”

The ability to discover a story in my games is one of my favorite things about Call of Cthulhu. As such, I wanted to make sure this storytelling aspect featured prominently as more Day and Night cards were reintroduced to the game.

Cards with the Day or Night trait change the “time” of the game, an effect which does nothing by itself. However, as the time changes, other cards may become much more powerful, and some can only be played when it is a specific time of day.

The Day effect is closely associated with the investigator factions of Call of Cthulhu, who fight against the invaders to our world. In Terror in Venice, the idea is that Day effects would protect them from the creatures that lurk in the dark. There is safety in the light of day, especially on the streets of Venice, and Day cards reinforce this narrative. The Church Operative (Terror in Venice, 3) makes it harder for your opponent to remove your key characters while the sun is up, providing safety within the walls of his church. Other Day cards in the box can even tell a story all by themselves, like the card, Desperate Search (Terror in Venice, 23). What does that student hope to find, and will he find it in time?

Night empowers the game’s mythos factions. After the sun sets, many mythos faction cards, like Poleman (Terror in Venice, 8), become deadlier by gaining icons or additional abilities. These creatures stalk the streets of Venice in the dark, preying on the weak and furthering their master’s plans. Night cards also have the opportunity to tell their own stories, with cards like At Night they Roam (Terror in Venice, 17). During the Day, it’s possible that an inmate can escape from the walls of San Servolo (Terror in Venice, 15), but at Night the lunatics wreak havoc, spurred by some otherworldly will.

The stories told by Day and Night aren’t limited to faction cards, as neutral cards can change the game as well. These neutral Day and Night cards reflect the changing alliances of the city’s conspirators and can shift the balance of power to either light or dark. Cards like The Guardian (Terror in Venice, 27) ensure that no matter what deck you are playing you are always able to stay on schedule, or keep your opponent from doing the same. Neutral cards like this were essential to our design as they ensure that every faction has access to enough Day and Night effects to make them viable and entertaining.

Soon, you’ll be able to get your hands on these new cards…and grasp control over time itself! Each faction has its own designs for the city of Venice and the powerful artifacts found in its depths, so only one question remains: who will you support?

    –Brad Andres, developer Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

Pre-Order Your Copy Today

The hour is growing late, and the darkness spreads. What monsters roam the streets and canals of Venice? Will we survive another night?

In Terror in Venice, time is always ticking. Your expediency matters. So head to your local retailer today to pre-order your copy of this deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Who knows? Tomorrow the Ancient Ones may devour us!

“We’re raising state-of-the-art facilities in close proximity to cozy residential neighborhoods, fantastic ethnic cuisine, and convenient mass transit. This renovation is going to bring high-end jobs, as well as highly skilled workers, and it’s going to improve our quality of life in this city.”
    –Elizabeth Mills

Fantasy Flight Games is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Second Thoughts, the second Data Pack in the Spin Cycle for Android: Netrunner The Card Game!

The cyberstruggles of Android: Netrunner continue to escalate. As we see the release of more ground-breaking ice and icebreakers, the time has come for both corps and runners to take a second look at how they want to wage their burgeoning cyberwars. Are the flash and the sparkle of the newest encryption and decryption technologies luring corps and runners away from basic efficiencies? Are basic efficiencies too blunt to counter their opponents’ increasingly nuanced strategies?

The time has come to explore new angles, inventive new uses for programs, and the importance of public perception. It’s time for runners to become more creative and less obvious with their program design. It’s time for the corps to run a two-pronged assault on the whole runner culture, employing lethal new ice and Black Ops teams, even as they bolster their public images with new PR campaigns. It’s time for Second Thoughts.

Perception Is Reality

In Android: Netrunner, the game’s corporations are colossal, ubiquitous entities and household names. They produce everything from your home to your threedees, from your workplace to your coworkers. They’re constantly advancing humanity’s influence on Earth and in the solar system, and their corporate headquarters are shining and glossy towers, bastions of the latest technologies and forward thinking. You see their names splashed across cities on flashboards, vidscreens, and vehicles. It’s not uncommon in the slightest to see individuals on the street wearing their brand logos tattooed across their arms or necks.

Accordingly, each of the game’s corporations wants to control its reputation. These corporations are in business not only to offer the newest, hottest technologies, but to collect credits, and they don’t want bad publicity to slow them down.

Bad publicity has existed as a game mechanic in Android: Netrunner since the release of the Core Set. Each point of bad publicity results in a free, renewable credit that the Runner can spend during runs. It represents the resources that become available to the game’s subversive hackers as other individuals band against corporations that they begin to view as “evil overlords.”

Sometimes, a corporation will risk a little bad publicity to claim some greater reward, but the more a corporation loses control of its image, the easier it becomes for runners to work against it. Ultimately, no corporation can afford to allow its image to be derailed by multiple points of bad publicity. Thus, it comes as good news for two of the game’s corporations that Second Thoughts presents them with the game’s first means of removing bad publicity.

Elizabeth Mills

The Weyland Consortium has recently been targeted by a vicious, negative PR campaign. A small number of embittered individuals have forwarded slanderous, undocumented allegations that Weyland has been involved in some sort of supposed “scorched earth” policy. The truth is that the Weyland Consortium has long been a proponent for and active advocate of green technology and processes. One of the company’s key values is the “harmonious integration of design and environment.” Even as Weyland continues to advance humanity with the construction of cutting edge facilities on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, it actively supports those lawmakers who are working on zoning laws that better regulate the renovation of existing urban neighborhoods. Such zoning laws are important both to maintain a sense of local community and to establish clear standards for the quality of all architecture and construction involved in the process.

Clone Retirement

Ever since scientists and policy makers first truly began to consider the eventuality of human cloning, the techniques involved have drawn close scrutiny and heavy criticism. Led by various non-governmental institutions and organizations, cloning’s opponents have lobbied against every incremental advancement. Therefore, cloning is one of the most rigorously regulated of all industries. Accordingly, Jinteki is proud not only of the fantastic services its clones provide the world on a daily basis; the company is proud of its full compliance with all local, state, national, and international standards for the development of its processes. When others think of clones, they tend to think only of those individuals who helped explode the former limitations of space travel and who have greatly reduced the mortality rates associated with a range of careers. However, when Jinteki thinks of clones, it remembers companions and friends. The company is proud to seek constant improvements in the treatment of its active clones and the facilities it maintains for those who retire.

Rethink the Possible

Control the message. Control the game. If you can’t shatter your opponent’s economy, perhaps you can change the nature of the contest.

The time is coming to take a look at all-new strategies. The time is coming to invent something amazing. The time is coming to take a second look. Second Thoughts is scheduled to arrive at retailers in the third quarter of 2013!

“They sat and rested and ate a little food; and Legolas told them tales of Lothlórien that the Elves of Mirkwood still kept in their hearts, of sunlight and starlight upon the meadows by the Great River before the world was grey.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Fans of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, be welcome. Take a seat, and eat.

Today, developer Matt Newman shares more of the tale of Easy Mode. You may have already learned about this new mode in our announcement of The Black Riders. You may have even found the rules on the game’s support page and started incorporating them into your games, but today Matt offers some secrets about the mode’s origins, its development, and what role it looks to play in the game’s future.

Matt Newman on Easy Mode

Caleb Grace and I have used our first few Second Breakfast articles to share the themes and synergies of some of our favorite decks, but today I’d like to talk about Easy Mode and how it can help players scale a scenario’s difficulty to their liking.

Because it is a cooperative card game, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game balances differently than our competitive card games. Most of our Living Card Games® maintain balance by increasing the overall card pool and effectiveness for all factions simultaneously. In The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, however, players gain new cards regularly while the composition of a scenario’s encounter deck doesn’t change after it’s released. Thus, with each new expansion, players will continue to find new options to increase their decks’ strength and effectiveness. Conversely, those scenarios that account for the growing card pool can trouble players with more limited collections.

We’ve read about players’ experiences with The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game on forums and blogs, and we often talk to players in person to see what we can do to make this game even better. This eventually led to the development of Easy Mode, which gives players greater control over their level of play.

There are many reasons why a group of players might choose to play Easy Mode. New players who are fans of Gondor and want to help Boromir and Beregond deliver important news to Faramir can purchase a single copy of the Core Set and Heirs of Númenor, play through Peril in Pelargir, and stand a better chance at victory. Experienced players who are teaching The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game to a group of new players can do so in a more casual environment, without limiting themselves to a handful of easier scenarios. Even the most rugged survivor of some of the game’s most difficult scenarios might want to take a breather and play an easier, more relaxing game every once in a while. Perhaps you want to try out a new deck, or experiment with a fun and innovative strategy that would not be viable in normal play, and try to make it work – for example, a deck with zero allies!

Balancing the Encounter Deck

Easy Mode is the game’s balance to Nightmare Mode, and as we did when we developed the first Nightmare Decks, we very carefully considered how best to implement this new difficulty setting. We discussed making substitute “Easy Mode” versions of existing scenarios (like our Nightmare Decks), but decided against it because we didn’t want players to need additional packs in order to make the game easier. It was important that this mode would require no additional purchase. We also knew it had to be simple to implement; once the game begins, players shouldn’t be bogged down with new rules or forced to reference alternate card text. Everything had to stay as written. With those parameters, the option was clear: we would get rid of the cards that caused players the most trouble!

If you take a scenario and remove some of its toughest cards, you’re left with an encounter deck that’s still full of challenges, but won’t offer the same potentially crippling draws. Cards such as Caught in a Web (Core Set, 80) and Sleeping Sentry (Road to Rivendell, 46) were completely removed from their encounter decks, but we often found that simply removing one or two copies of a tough card was enough to significantly decrease a scenario’s difficulty and luck factor. For example, Journey Down the Anduin still requires the players to defeat an angry Hill Troll (Core Set, 82), even in Easy Mode – only now, the encounter deck includes just one copy of Hill Troll, and there’s no possibility of drawing a second one on turn one.

As it turns out, though, simply removing the toughest cards isn’t always the best answer. Many of these are treachery cards, leaving the encounter deck weighted too heavily toward enemies and locations. With too many enemies and locations, the staging area can quickly pile up. We made sure to remove an appropriate amount of enemies, treacheries, and locations; the result is a tight, balanced encounter deck stripped of some of its toughest encounters.

The gold difficulty indicator shown on a card from The Black Riders

This solution also led to the development of a handy graphical guide that will first appear in The Black Riders Saga Expansion. We could have simply listed which cards to remove in the insert for each scenario, but we thought it would be more intuitive to alter the encounter set icon. Since players are naturally drawn to this icon as they build each scenario’s encounter deck, the addition of a golden border to these icons makes it easy to tell which cards should be removed in Easy Mode. Meanwhile, to help players apply Easy Mode to the scenarios they already own, we made sure to create a document that lists which cards should be removed from all encounter decks to date.

The removal of a number of encounter cards is not the only change to be found in Easy Mode. Players have found that the opening turns in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game are often the toughest. They have to stare down enemies and explore locations with limited resources and allies. In Easy Mode, each hero begins the game with one resource. This small change allows players greater flexibility in their opening turn, allowing them to play more allies and attachments early on when the game is often toughest.

Not All That’s Easy Mode Is Easy

There is one other important thing to note about this new mode: Even though we call this mode “Easy Mode,” the relative difficulty of each scenario will still play a large factor into determining how hard the game is. Even in Easy Mode, Escape From Dol Guldur will still be quite challenging. This is because the rules of the quest itself remain unchanged, and all locations and enemies, such as the Nazgûl of Dul Guldur (Core Set, 102,) directly referenced by the quest cards must still make an appearance.

As developers of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, we want every player to enjoy playing every scenario we create. For some of our players, that means playing in Easy Mode and gaining additional freedom to explore thematic decks while facing some of the toughest enemies Middle-earth has to offer. For other players, it means continuing to play the scenarios as they are printed, in Standard Mode. Finally, for the most experienced and courageous of players, it means integrating the new Nightmare Decks into their game experience, relishing the increased difficulty and replay value of the game’s Nightmare Mode.

In our next installment of Second Breakfast, I’ll take a look at the darker places of Middle-earth and discuss how encounter decks must change to adapt to growing player strategies and a more expansive player card pool. Specifically, I’ll explore how this has influenced the design of our Nightmare Decks.

Have fun!

Thanks, Matt!

Easy Mode gives you another option to explore the unique challenges of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game at the level of difficulty that suits you best. You can find the complete rules for Easy Mode (pdf, 3.0 MB) on the game’s support page.

Unseen Forces, an expansion for Elder Sign, brings a fresh challenge to the efforts of the investigators. The museum harbors artifacts that draw the attention of horrible beings, and the unfathomable wills of these creatures make themselves known in the form of blessings and curses. New Ancient Ones, monsters, and investigators accompany the introduction of these powers, and the entrance of the museum has been remodeled, adding new locations and options for the beleaguered investigators.

Over the past several weeks, we have explored the new additions to the mysterious museum in a series of in-depth previews of Unseen Forces. Now, with the release just a few weeks away, we are pleased to present your guide to the museum, in the form of the full rules. After downloading them (pdf, 4.2 MB) at our support page, get ready to face the horrors that lurk within the museum’s exhibits.

Tempt Fate with Master Mythos and Mythos Insight Cards

Already unpredictable, Mythos cards have gained a few dangerous new twists. Nine new Master Mythos cards deliver wicked effects from especially malignant forces when the clock strikes midnight. The Time Slips Away . . . Amid the Stillness card requires investigators to resolve midnight effects again with a second Mythos card. The A Warning . . . Of Grave Danger Master Mythos card adds the doom token penalty to every adventure attempted for the rest of that day.

The Mythos Insight icon gives investigators a peek into the dreadful schemes of the powers-that-be, and then forces them to choose between the lesser of two evil effects. The Wrack . . . Or Ruin card with the Mythos Insight icon forces a choice between the loss of stamina or sanity, while the Haste . . . Or Waste Mythos Insight card could result in the clock being advanced three times, or one doom token being added to the doom track. The choices are yours, and humanity’s fate relies on you choosing wisely.

Mythos Insight Icon

More Adventure and Other World cards present even more difficult tasks for investigators, while new Spells, Allies, Common, and Rare items wait to be picked up in the shadowy corners of the museum. Perhaps this world will survive after all . . .  

As investigators work to protect the world from the unspeakable horrors that stir beneath the earth or hail from the formless reaches beyond our reality, blessings and curses abound, and the threats to be faced have increased in difficulty. Do you have what it takes to brave Unseen Forces and survive with your brain and body intact? Find out when Elder Sign: Unseen Forces is released in the next few weeks.