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

Another Talent Tree Addition

I noticed that there was something just not quite.... 'complete' about my Talent trees...
AHA!
Signature Abilities!

According to the rules Signature abilities have to be "attached" to a talent tree PRIOR to being able to actually spend XP on and then use the signature ability. Once a Signature Ability is "attached" to a talent tree it can never be un-attached..
that seems like kind of a big deal...

So..  I added a space at the bottom of each Talent tree to "attach" a Signature ability.
I also added to the signature ability trees a place to show what talent tree it is attached to.

Wheeeeeeee!
Enjoy

zZip Product Concepts

Need a landspeeder to get you there safely and in style?
Astral-8 Landspeeder is the one for you.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Those walkers you see in the gladiatorial arena all the time, ever wonder what that was?
it was the Gladiator Walker from zZip of course. Relatively low cost, able to stand up to lots of punishment and easy to repair when it doesn't you can't go wrong!
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Atmospheric air superiority is the game? the K-222 Aero-Interceptor is the name. This little baby packs one hell of a punch.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Back on the civilian side of airspeeders, the Orbitblade 2000 offers a little bit of everything.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

On land, if versatility and sheer cool factor are important to you, the X-X Landspeeder is your go to vehicle. customizable, fast and with an aggressive sporty look, it's sure to impress.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

FINALLY! something real!

So I did a review of Suns of Fortune the other day.. but before that it had been a while since my last real update.
Life...  blah..
anyway..
I have been ... very slowly...  working on something and It's finally done.

I made printer friendly (no background image) of my character sheets.
neat, but not a HUGE deal...
the thing that took forever was Career and talent tree stuff.

But it's done. I have all the career and talent trees entered and good to go. Up and running...
It took forever because while I saw some other very nice (much nicer than mine honestly) home made renditions of the talent trees, i wanted my own. Not only so that i didn't have to ummm.. 'borrow' someone else's work, but also because i have some more plans, and i wanted to have the groundwork set up for those.

Anyway.. the point is.. i finally got something done and i'm on my way to more..

Check out the trees on the Fillable Sheets Page

Suns of Fortune Review

I wasn't terribly impressed by Enter the Unknown, but Suns of Fortune is a different story..

At 144 pages, Suns of Fortune has Enter the Unknown beat for page count. Whats really impressive though is just how jam packed with great material these 144 pages are.

This book is exactly as advertised. It explores and helps inform us on the Corellian system and sector of space.

Chapters 1 and 2. (exploring Corellia and the Corellian sector)
There is a plethora of information and back story on many locations that can help a GM plan a session, or a player plan a character background. The artwork is nice and the information is top notch.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of this whole book is found in these first two chapters. what is my favorite aspect you ask? the baddies..  the number of monsters, npc characters, and other opponents that are provided in these chapters is impressive. It's always helpful to have a big list of pre-made baddies/npc to pull from and Suns of Fortune expands this list immensely over released material so far. Even better, all these baddies are presented in a way that keeps them relevant to the core concept of the book ie: exploring Corellia and the surrounding area.

Chapter 3. (player options)
My single largest complaint/issue with this book is Corellian Humans. In a universe like that of Star Wars, there is such a huge plethora of alien species to draw from that creating an offshoot of a species that has already been covered (humans) is, in my opinion a wast of page space. You can get across the point that the Corellian sector is 'different' in other ways. If it's the stat/bonus combo that you liked, you could have called the Corellian Humans something else, given them different artwork and left the stats the same... it would have felt even more 'different' and region specific than the Corellian Human. leave altering already existing races and creating off-shoots to players and their GMs at home.. lets see more of that Star Wars variety.
I have heard some people complain about the quality of the weapons in Suns of Fortune, claiming they are under-powerd or unimpressive. I feel like while they may not be the best for those power gamers out there, they are varied and interesting in design and capabilities. I personally like some of the new weapons.
New gear....  there is a fair amount of it. I am happy to see another cybernetic, and i look forward to more in the future. The rest of the equipment is neat and definitely up to snuff.
There are lots of new vehicles, most of them only so-so in quality or capability. I always like to see more vehicles, after all I am a huge vehicles fan. What i would like to see, is more vehicles with increased modularity, as well as more interesting vehicle capabilities. Ships like the A-36 Pathfinder-class or the E-9 Explorer-class (from Enter the Unknown) with their unique ship capabilities come to mind.

Chapter 4. (modular encounters)
Won't say much about this chapter other than this; more bad guys is good, modularity is good, nice job.

All in all Suns of Fortune is a huge step above Enter the Unknown. I like its format, I like its content.
a nice 8/10 on this one. Good job FFG guys.

Bigger than Small but smaller that huge

Mostly a random assortment of new ship. Several from old republic times. Not really sure how to handle a thousand year tech gap given the rules, so i just kind of said "eh" and didn't bother thinking about it much.
anyway...  enjoy some new stuff.

Corona-Class Frigate
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Defender-Class Light Corvette (gunship)
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Fortitude-Class Assault Shuttle
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Liberator-Class Republic Starfighter
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Nexus-Class Corvette
(can not verify canonicity)

Strike-Class Medium Cruiser
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Thranta-Class Republic Corvette
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Virgil-Class Corvette
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Don't run.... Walker

Sorely missing from the field is the assortment of iconic Star Wars universe Walkers.
So here are some more.


AT-AHT All Terrain Armored Heavy Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-AR All Terrain Advanced Raider
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-AT All Terrain Armored Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-RCT All Terrain Riot Control Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-RT All Terrain Recon Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-ST All Terrain Scout Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-TE All Terrain Tactical Enforcer
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE