Dangerous Covenants Review

Got my hands on a copy a couple days ago. I read it and let it sink in a bit.
so here we go.

opens with some nice history and background info on the galaxy. neat stuff.
Hired Gun backgrounds and obligation options are talked about. Not my favorite use of space, but there is some cool stuff that can help inspire when one is feeling un-original.

New Species ( Aqualish, Klatoonian and Weequay) YAY! More species options are always good and they did a good job with these. They fit well with the Hired Gun career (including the new options). I think perhaps my favorite aspect of these new species entries is that they have 'subspecies' options. For instance, if you are an Aqualish you may be a Aquala, Ualaq or Quara Aqualish each with slightly different traits. They are presented simply and concisely within the relevant species entry. This was something I mentioned in my review of Suns of Fortune having been disappointed with the human subspecies entry there in. I suggested doing exactly what they have done with the species in Dangerous Covenants. I'm sure they had this book in production well before my review, and i'm sure no one at FFG reads my little blog, but i'm going to go ahead and just take credit for this anyway. Thanks for listening guys ;)

New Specializations.
Enforcer.  This one is all about putting on a show about how tough you are and using it to your advantage. The class doesn't provide much in and of its self to help you back up those tough guy claims though, so you'll want to get into another specialization if you want to actually BE the tough guy.
Demolitionist. Blowing stuff up is cool... super cool. so, Demolitionist must be a cool specialization right? eh.. sort of.. It will help you use those explosives, as well as help you keep yourself and allies alive when they inevitably blow up in your face. The fact of the matter though, is that Explosives are dangerous, very dangerous and expensive. If you want to be a good Demolitionist, expect to spend lots of money. Also expect to spend a lot of time NOT using your Demolitionist abilities. Call me crazy but as much as I really wish that every problem could be solved with a few proton grenades, the reality is that most of the time this will just get you and your party into worse trouble. Also, it might seem like a good idea to use your down time during a long hyperspace flight to rig up your Baradium charge, but when you blow a hole in the side of your spaceship the rest of the party is sure to frown at you. You don't want to be frowned at do you?
Heavy. The Heavy talent tree is the serious bread and butter of the new specializations. "overwhelming firepower" is right on the money with this one. Carry more guns, bigger guns, and deadlier guns. This specialization verges on being pretty OP all by itself, but combine it with the other hired gun specializations like marauder or even Bounty Hunter Assassin and were talking about a serious bad ass dude. They may have gone a little too far with this one... maybe.
Another note on the Specializations. I am a little disappointed that there wasn't any more support for those of us (like me) who enjoy a nice personal 'civilized' knife fight. I really was hoping for more Melee combat options.

New Signature Abilities.
hmm... the first one enables you to kill virtually every bad guy in a fight just by spending some destiny. as an added bonus you get to ruin your GM's plans for the day. so, i'd say it's pretty good.
The second can make you virtually invulnerable to damage from anything but ship scale weapons for an entire encounter. It's less of a GM plan killer, but still pretty powerful. "oh no, a rampaging rancor!" ....  "no need to worry Ms....  I got this".

New Equipment. man there is a lot of it. Definitely supports the new Heavy and the generally Ranged dominated combat of SWEotE.
the two most notable new things are the new Explosives category and the variations they added for warhead types on missiles.
I like the new ammo type options guys! I already created a bunch of ammo types for missiles and grenades and the like to help add variety, so its nice to see FFG on board with this idea.
The Explosives.....  hmmm.  I like them in concept. It will be interesting to see how they really play at the table. The rules for explosives may take a couple read throughs before it all sinks in but once it does they seems pretty decent.
There is a lot of new equipment and attachments. Too much to talk about but most of it is good stuff. I'll just say that it's nice to see more armor and weapon attachments and i hope to see even more in the future.
My only real disappointment in the new equipment category was with the new Powered Armor. I't seems a little lackluster. I feel like it could have been a way cooler thing that it is.

More vehicles. They put in a little bit of mostly everything to create a nice new selection. There are a couple new ships for which i had already made stats. I cant help but notice that many of the ships that FFG stats out, seem to be underpowered when it comes to arms when compared to the 'canon' entries for those ships in other places. I have some hunches on why this may be, but that doesn't mean i have to like it.

The last section of the book is a little more geared towards the GM. It provides options for how to set up Hired Gun (combat mostly) encounters, plot ideas and other suggestions to help deal with your blood thirsty/money grubbing Hired Gun players.

All in all, I really like this addition. It may only clock in at 95 pages, but they are jam packed with cool new stuff.
8/10