Dawn of Rebellion

TLDR: Good book. Lots of fun, inspirational material with some amazing new universal specialization trees. A very significant portion of this book is dedicated to giving stats to iconic characters/vehicles from the time period and the only possible negative of this book is if like me, you are unlikely to ever use any of this.

NEW RACES

The Good: No reprints.

The Bad: Nothing overly unique about any of these races.

NEW LOCATIONS:

The Good: Some really iconic locations (Jedha, the Death Star, ect) make appearances. Each location is on theme as being big points of interest during the time period the book focuses on. Excellent information. Some locations have small story elements or other narrative add-ons tied to them that could be enjoyable.

The Bad: Nothing significant.

NEW CHARACTERS

The Good: Lots of really iconic characters get official stat blocks. A lot of people will be really excited to have stat blocks available to throw in their favorite characters from the shows or movies. 

The Bad: Lots of really iconic characters get official stat blocks. Creating stat blocks for iconic LEGENDARY characters is always super risky. I have found that many people consider the printed words as an end-all be-all..  "how did Maul DO that? it's not in his stats!"... or you run into situations where your player characters are able to overshadow people they should not be able to. The last thing you want, is to throw Vader at your players expecting them to run in terror, only to have them turn and cut poor Vader down in a single turn. In my opinion stating out these characters is slippery slope that my lead to some dark places I'd rather not risk visiting in any of my games.

NEW SPECIALIZATIONS

The Good: 6 New Universal Specialization Trees, all of which are super on point. They are well organized, with healthy and compelling ability arrangements. Each of these specializations is chalk full of inspirational juju.

The Bad: There aren't more.

NEW ITEMS/WEAPONS/GEAR

The Good: A few stand out items like the MWC-35 Repeating cannon, or the new droids.

The Bad: Nothing.

NEW SHIPS

The Good: Some great ships, with no reprints. Hammerhead is a great mid range ship for successful parties to aim for.

The Bad: There are a few ships before the "player options" section that I really wish were more completely stated and price tagged in this section.

OTHER

The Good: Some potentially useful info for new GMs in the back. Some interesting info about organizations like the Empire, Rebellion and Inquisitors. 

The Bad: Not much.

last thought...

This book is subtitled "an Era Sourcebook"... which has me sort of confused, as I was under the impression that each of the three core rulebooks (eote, aor, fad) was an Era Sourcebook. This book was great, and I want more quality work like this. That said, I do NOT want a bunch of small super focused "era" books. If FFG wants to get out more Era stuff, I think we could all agree that we want a CLONE WARS era sourcebook first, with tons of doids, Clone trooper career tree(s), and some legitimate, complete Jedi Career trees.

Overall Score
If you think giving stat blocks to famous/critical cannon characters/ships is a bad idea = 8/10
If you think giving stat blocks to famous/critical cannon characters/ships is a good idea= 10/10
     two point difference because there is a LOT of this in the book.

Updated Universal Career tree to include new specializations.