Fantasy Flight Games is excited to announce the 2015 Regional Championship Season for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Regional Championship applications have been unearthed and now await bold investigators! Retailers are invited to apply now for this year’s Regional season, running from May 1st through July 31st.

If you are a United States retailer or tournament organizer interested in hosting a 2015 Regional Championship event, fill out our online application form before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to be considered.

If you are a retailer outside of the United States, please contact your distributor to apply to host a Regional Championship or ask questions. International applications must be submitted before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to be considered.

How Do Regional Championships Fit into Organized Play?

Regional Championships are your chance to create a community that spans beyond your town or city and the first big test for competitive players on their road to World Championship Weekend in November. A premier event, Regional Championships attract players hoping to earn the precious first-round bye at their National Championship and gain a leg up on their opponents.

Regional Championships are exclusive events and there are a limited number of them run around the world each year. We are excited to announce that this year we are increasing the number of events to better serve the needs of players. In the United States, each region can host up to three Regional Championships (see the map below). If you are outside of the United States, contact your distributor for more information on Regional Championships in your country.

What Does Premier Level Mean?

Premier-level events are the most prestigious tournaments FFG supports. Players can come to these events expecting the highest level of competition, as well as the strictest enforcement of rules. From the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game tournament rules:

Premier events are the highest level of competition for Fantasy Flight Games tournaments, and all players, judges, and tournament organizers involved are held to the highest levels of conduct. Players are assumed to be familiar with the game’s rules, as well as the latest FAQ and tournament rules, and should expect all rules to be strictly enforced. Regional Championships, National Championships, and World Championships are premier events.

Regional Championship Prizes

A bye is not the only reward for those who survive Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Regional Championships. In addition to a poster and info sheet, each Regional Championship kit comes with exclusive prizes for up to 64 players.

• 1 Regional Champion trophy
• 1 card granting the winner a first-round bye at the country’s National Championship
• 4 sets of Wood domain cards
• 8 Regional playmats
• 16 packs of acrylic damage tokens
• 64 Uruborus alternate art cards

Please note: The alternate art cards in this kit are produced through FFG's In-House Manufacturing, and as such, they may appear slightly different in color and texture from the game's other cards. To be tournament legal, these cards must be sleeved with opaque or art sleeves.

Apply Now

Apply today by completing the United States online application form for the chance to host some of the most influential investigators and cultists in your region. International retailers should contact their distributor to apply. Time is short! Apply before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) while the stars are aligned!

Fantasy Flight Games is excited to announce Android: Netrunner Regional Championship applications have been rezzed and are now online! Retailers are invited to apply now for this year’s Regional season, running from May 1st through July 31st.

If you are a United States retailer or tournament organizer interested in hosting a 2015 Regional Championship event, fill out our online application form before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to be considered.

If you are a retailer outside of the United States, please contact your distributor to apply to host a Regional Championship or ask questions. International applications must be submitted before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to be considered.

How Do Regional Championships Fit into Organized Play?

Regional Championships are your chance to create a community that spans beyond your town or city and the first big test for competitive players on their road to World Championship Weekend in November. A premier event, Regional Championships attract players hoping to earn the precious first-round bye at their National Championship and gain a leg up on their opponents.

Regional Championships are exclusive events and there are a limited number of them run around the world each year. We are excited to announce that this year we are increasing the number of events to better serve the needs of players. In the United States, each region can host up to three Regional Championships (see the map below). If you are outside of the United States, contact your distributor for more information on Regional Championships in your country.

What Does Premier Level Mean?

Premier-level events are the most prestigious tournaments FFG supports. Players can come to these events expecting the highest level of competition, as well as the strictest enforcement of rules. From the Android: Netrunner
tournament rules:

Premier events are the highest level of competition for Fantasy Flight Games tournaments, and all players, judges, and tournament organizers involved are held to the highest levels of conduct. Players are assumed to be familiar with the game’s rules, as well as the latest FAQ and tournament rules, and should expect all rules to be strictly enforced. Regional Championships, National Championships, and World Championships are premier events.

Regional Championship Prizes

A National Championship bye is not the only prize up for grabs at Android: Netrunner Regional Championships. In addition to a poster and info sheet, each Regional Championship kit comes with exclusive prizes for up to 64 players.

• 1 Regional Champion trophy
• 1 card granting the winner a first-round bye at the country’s National Championship
• 4 double-sided, spot-glossed identity cards featuring Edward Kim and Gagarin Deep Space
• 8 Regional playmats
• 16 packs of acrylic credit tokens
• 64 Reina Roja alternate art cards

Please note: The alternate art cards in this kit are produced through FFG's In-House Manufacturing, and as such, they may appear slightly different in color and texture from the game's other cards. To be tournament legal, these cards must be sleeved with opaque or art sleeves.

Apply Now

Apply today by completing the United States online application form for the chance to host some of the most enthusiastic and daring runners in your region. International retailers should contact their distributor to apply. Don’t wait! The application server will be unplugged on February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time), closing applications for the 2015 Regional Championships.

Fantasy Flight Games is excited to announce applications for the 2015 Regional Championship season are now open! Apply by February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to host one of these premier events at your store.

If you are a retailer outside of the United States, please contact your distributor for more information and to apply to host a Regional Championship. International applications must be submitted before February 6th 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time) to be considered.

Regional Championships are your chance to create a community that spans beyond your town or city and the first big test for competitive players on their road to World Championship Weekend in November.

What Are Regional Championships?

Regional Championships are your chance to host a diverse array of passionate players and create a community that spans beyond your town or city. Players sometimes travel many hours to attend these premier events and compete for exclusive prizes, as well as a bye at the country's National Championship. We encourage stores to add side events, additional prizes, or other creative ideas to make a player’s Regional Championships experience something to remember.

Regional Championships sit between Store Championships and National Championships in the OP calendar, providing a competitive atmosphere for those looking toward being crowned a National Champion while allowing local players a chance to compete for something more than title of Store Champion. In 2015, Regional Championships run from May 1st through July 31st.

After reviewing the 2014 Regional season, we have decided to expand the number of Regional Championships in 2015. Each region in the United States will now have up to three Regional Championships for each game. If you are outside of the United States, contact your distributor for more information on Regional Championships in your country.

What Games Are Supported?

Regional Championships are a major part of the Organized Play calendar each year. This year, we are excited to announce the addition of Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Imperial Assault Skirmish to the list of Regional Championships around the world. Follow the links below to see what’s included in each kit and apply to host a Regional Championship for each game.

• A Game of Thrones: The Card Game
• Android: Netrunner
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game
• Imperial Assault Skirmish
• Star Wars™: The Card Game
• Warhammer 40,000: Conquest
• X-Wing™

Are You a Player?

If you’re a player, you can do your part by telling your favorite game store about Regional Championships. If you’re interested in taking a more active role in bringing Organized Play events to your store, here are some other ways you can promote Fantasy Flight OP:

• Encourage your friends to join you and play at your favorite local game store
• Ask your favorite local game store if you can post a sign-up sheet for upcoming events
• Offer to run demos
• Check with your store to see if they are in need of a tournament organizer or judge

The exclusive items and alternate art cards included in these kits are only available at 2015 Regional Championships, so be sure to talk with your local retailer about applying to host a Regional Championship.

Apply Today

Retailers, apply today by completing the United States online application form for the chance to host enthusiastic players in your area. International retailers should contact their local distributor to apply. Don’t miss out! Regional Championship applications close February 6th at 23:59 CST (Central Standard Time).

“Star Destroyers, two of them, coming right at us.”
    –Han Solo

Recently, we announced the upcoming release of the first wave of expansion packs for Star Wars™: Armada, and in our last preview, we looked at how the game allows you to incorporate these ships, fighter squadrons, and upgrades into your own, custom fleet.

Now that you know how you can use your three-hundred fleet points to buy capital ships, starfighters, upgrades, and your commander, we turn to the first two Imperial expansion packs to explore what they offer.

Of course, both of them feature powerful Star Destroyers, but you’ll also find a great deal more, including a host of unique upgrades, including two commanders that can serve as alternates for the Core Set’s Grand Moff Tarkin.

Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack

The largest and most powerful of all the ships from the Core Set and first wave, the Victory-class Star Destroyer formed the core of the Imperial Navy at the outset of the Galactic Civil War, and it’s likely, soon, to form the core of many an Imperial fleet in Armada.

Available in both the Core Set and the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack, the Victory-class Star Destroyer can be fielded as either of two subclasses. The more powerful Victory II costs eighty-five fleet points, and the Victory I, which is very nearly as imposing, costs seventy-three.

The ship cards for the Victory I (left) and Victory II (right).

These ships are the same in the expansion pack as they are in the Core Set, but the upgrades differ. And, as you can begin to guess from a look at their action bars, the different Victory-class Star Destroyers can each field an astonishing array of upgrades.

Both the Victory I (bottom) and Victory II (top) can host as many as five standard upgrades, plus a title. Additionally, the Victory-class Star Destroyer can serve as an excellent flagship for your commander, so you can theoretically associate as many as seven upgrade cards with a single Victory-class Star Destroyer.

Notably, though, the Victory II features the ion cannon upgrade type while the Victory I features the missile upgrade type. A small differences in icons that might slip your notice at first, this is the sort of distinction to which shrewd commanders will pay close attention as they assemble their fleets.

For example, the Victory I can equip the Assault Concussion Missiles upgrade. Then, whenever your attack includes a  result on a black attack die, you can deal one point of damage to each hull zone adjacent to the defending hull zone. You can only trigger one critical effect per attack, so if you trigger the effect from your Assault Concussion Missiles, you won’t deal a faceup damage card to the enemy ship; of course, the exchange is that you will deal an extra two points of damage.

On the other hand, the Victory II can equip either the Overload Pulse or the Ion Cannon Batteries found in the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack. You can trigger the critical effect of either of these upgrades whenever you roll a  result on a blue attack die. If you’ve equipped an Overload Pulse, you can exhaust all of the defending ship’s defense tokens, leaving it, effectively, a sitting duck for the remainder of the round. Or if you’ve equipped the Ion Cannon Batteries, you can strip away a ship’s command tokens, leaving it with fewer and weaker command options.

As you can see, the upgrades that you select for your ships will drastically impact your strategy, and that means that each of the fourteen upgrades from the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack offers its own range of strategic concerns. However, no upgrade cards offer more far-reaching strategic concerns than new commanders and title cards.

Even though the Core Set offers a wide enough range of ship cards, squadrons, and upgrades to permit a great deal of fleet-building flexibility, it includes only one commander card for each faction and just one title for each type of ship. The Imperials gain Grand Moff Tarkin as their sole commander, and any Imperial looking to field a unique Victory-class Star Destroyer must choose to field the Dominator.

These are both solid options, but the Imperial Navy gains greater flexibility with the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack. Admiral Motti offers his services as commander, and you can field the Corrupter or Warlord instead of the Dominator (or alongside it).

These cards greatly expand the range of possible synergies you’ll be able to develop within your fleet, as do the expansion’s eleven other crew members, teams, hangar bays, and armaments. Accordingly, the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack, like each Armada expansion, isn’t just all about its pre-painted miniature Star Destroyer; it’s about harnessing enough firepower to put the fear of the Empire into your opponents.

Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack

The Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack also expands your fleet-building options with its miniature Star Destroyer, two ship cards, and ten upgrades.

Less powerful and less resilient than the Victory-class, the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer is also less expensive, costing either fifty-six fleet points for the Gladiator I or sixty-two fleet points for the Gladiator II.

The ship cards for the Gladiator I (left) and Gladiator II (right).

And while it’s not as powerful as the Victory-class, the Gladiator-class – in many ways – features a better balance of strengths. Instead of the Victory’s six forward-facing attack dice, the Gladiator features four, but it can also fire four dice from both its left and right hull zones, as opposed to the three dice that the Victory fires from its sides.

Simultaneously, the Gladiator trades away one of the Victory’s redirect tokens for an evade token, reducing its ability to rely upon its shields for protection, but increasing its ability to evade attacks at long range.

Perhaps more importantly, the Gladiator is a faster and nimbler ship, with a maximum speed of “3” – as opposed to the Victory’s maximum speed of “2” – and a command rating of “2.” The reduced command, of course, limits the number of tokens your Gladiator-class Star Destroyer can store, but it also means that you’ll be able to react more swiftly to your opponent’s tactics.

Its increased maximum speed is also important because the Gladiator features no medium-range blue attack dice. Instead, it features a hefty dose of potent, close-range black dice, so any admiral fielding a Gladiator-class Star Destroyer will want to find a way to race it into position to fire as quickly as possible.

One of those ways may be to take advantage of the upgrades and titles that appear in the expansion. Engine Techs nearly double the efficiency of your navigation commands, and though the Demolisher title doesn’t directly add to your ship’s speed, by allowing your Gladiator-class to fire after moving, it greatly increases your ability to get into position to fire at the target of your choice as early as possible.

Likewise, by increasing the range of your black attack dice from close to medium whenever you attack the rear hull zone of an enemy ship, the Insidious title also adds to your range and maneuverability. Moreover, if you happen to equip your Gladiator-class with Expanded Launchers, you could fire as many as four of those black dice at medium-range.

Finally, the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack comes with a commander upgrade of its own, Admiral Screed, who presents an interesting alternative for Grand Moff Tarkin or Admiral Motti.

“Once per activation, when a friendly ship is attacking, it may spend 1 die to change a die to a face with a  icon.”

The fact that you can use Admiral Screed’s ability once per activation means that you can apply it to each capital ship in your fleet. However, activating it requires the sacrifice of one of your attack dice. In the case where you roll two blanks, the decision to sacrifice one of them to turn the other into a critical result is a relative no-brainer, but those situations should be relatively rare. The blue attack die has no blank faces, and the red and black attack dice have only two blank faces each.

Still, Admiral Screed’s ability can come in handy even if you don’t roll blanks. For example, the face of the black attack die that shows a  result also shows a  result. If you sacrifice one  result to convert another  result to a result of  plus , you lose no damage but gain the opportunity to trigger a critical effect.

Moreover, guaranteed  results can greatly increase the potency of your upgrades can potentially offset the cost of losing other dice results, even standard hits. With Admiral Screed aboard your flagship, you can guarantee a black  result for your Assault Concussion Missiles or a blue  result for your Victory-class Star Destroyer’s Ion Cannon Batteries.

In certain situations, you might even elect to give up the raw number of damage cards that you force onto your opponent’s hull in order to turn the first two of them faceup with the XX-9 Turbolasers found in the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack.

The Imperial Fleet Is Yours to Command

The rules for fleet-building, along with the Star Destroyers and upgrades from the first wave of Armada expansions, ensure that you will be able to enjoy a range of Imperial fleets as diverse as the citizens of the galaxy they will help you conquer.

In our next preview, we’ll take a look at the Rebellion’s capital ships. Until then, it’s time to think about all the different Imperial fleets you can create. Once you’ve decided on your favorite builds, head to our forums to share them with the other members of the Armada community!

Organized Play for Warhammer: Diskwars will come to a close after the Spring 2015 tournament season.

While Warhammer: Diskwars continues to show healthy sales, we have come to realize that the game’s audience is more casual than competitive in nature, preferring to play casual, pick-up games with their friends rather than compete in structured tournaments. As a result, we have decided to end Organized Play for Warhammer: Diskwars after Season One 2015.

The War Is Yet to Be Decided

However, there is still time for those of you who continue to lust for battle to litter the Old World’s battlefields with the bodies of your rivals. We are currently in the middle of the 2015 Store Championship season, and you can check our list of participating retailers to see if there’s a Store Championship tournament scheduled near you.

Then, from March through June, our Spring 2015 tournament season is your chance to march boldly forward toward the realm of Chaos and vie for ultimate glory. Participating retailers have already placed their orders for their Spring 2015 Tournament Kits, and you can check with the staff of your favorite local game store to see if they’re running any Warhammer: Diskwars tournaments.

The contents of the Warhammer: Diskwars Spring 2015 Tournament Kit.

Meet Your Foes on New Battlegrounds

Even after the end Warhammer: Diskwars Organized Play, you can continue to enjoy your battles in the Old World. If you don’t already have an active play group, you can head to our community forums to look for nearby players who may be interested in meeting for games.

We know that the battles of Warhammer: Diskwars will continue to rage across the Old World. Heroes will continue to muster their troops and head to war. Although the game’s Organized Play will soon come to a close, we know the forces of Order and Destruction will continue to draw their blades and shed their blood in pursuit of power, glory, and victory.

“This bounty hunter is my kind of scum. Fearless and inventive.”
   –Jabba the Hutt, Return of the Jedi

The upcoming Lords of Nal Hutta sourcebook for Star Wars®: Edge of the Empire™ takes players into the lawless, ruthless depths of Hutt Space. In this region of the galaxy you’ll find exiles, smugglers, and all sorts of scum, including countless bounty hunters and enslaved bodyguards. You may find yourself hunting others for profit, or being relentlessly hunted for an Obligation to the Hutts that you could not fulfill.

The four playable species featured in Lords of Nal Hutta are all native to this violence and chaos. A playable Hutt was discussed in our first preview. In today’s preview, contributing writer Gregory Koteles introduces the other three: the stoic Niktos, bloodthirsty Ganks, and cunning Sakiyans. You’ll also get to peek at some of the cybernetic implants that may enable your character to not just survive, but even thrive in Hutt Space.

Gregory Koteles on the New Species of Lords of Nal Hutta

Alongside the Gamorreans and Weequay, the Niktos are probably one of the most recognizable races working for the Hutts. Due to rapid mutation caused by radiation on their homeworld, there are five distinct Nikto subspecies. From a design perspective, this gave us a lot to play with. While the Niktos all share a basic physiology and certain characteristics, the subspecies have unique traits that can give them a real edge in certain situations and environments, such as the Red Niktos’ capacity to weather the hottest desert environment, the Green Niktos’ natural coordination and deadly claws, or the Pale Niktos’ ability to move through water as easily as on land. Niktos are excellent survivors and likely to appeal to players who prefer more straightforward and brutal methods of conflict resolution.

Though the Niktos are familiar to most Star Wars fans, the Ganks have made far fewer appearances in the Star Wars universe and remain much more mysterious – even their homeworld is unknown. These notoriously secretive, consummate mercenaries have a penchant for augmenting their bodies with cybernetics – a lot of them. Ganks start their careers in Edge of the Empire with multiple cybernetic implants and can augment their natural abilities with even more technological enhancements as they progress, making them extremely efficient killers – though they might want to avoid the company of Jawa scavengers, lest they find themselves used for spare parts.

The Sakiyans are known for stealth and cunning. We chose to concentrate on their impressive hunting and tracking abilities, making them excellent Bounty Hunters and Explorers. Their slighter frames make them likely to absorb raw damage, but this is more than made up for by their intelligence and perspicacity. As one of the few species native to Hutt Space not completely under Hutt domination, the Sakiyans are less likely than others to owe a starting Obligation to the masters of Nal Hutta. Yet, coming from a culture that puts great emphasis on honor, they’re likely to owe some Obligation to their family and their pride, or clan.

Along with their Hutt overlords, these three new playable races give players the opportunity to explore the darker margins of life on the fringe of the galaxy, and they give GMs a few new resources to complicate things for players who cross paths with the Hutts.

Thanks, Gregory!

Becoming More Machine

Whether you play a Gank assassin who needs to kill on sight, or a human wanting to replace a lost limb, cybernetics allow you to transcend your body’s limits. As long as you have the credits to pay for it, there’s a doctor on Nar Shaddaa willing to implant any artificial device you can imagine.

For an edge in the struggle for survival, you may want to purchase some adrenal implants. These small devices attached to your subadrenal gland stimulate the production of epinephrine, which speeds recovery from fatigue. Any character who possesses adrenal implants therefore gains a rank in the Rapid Recovery talent. Similarly, cybernetic reflexes stimulate and regulate the nervous system, granting one rank of the Rapid Reaction talent. Either implant could make a significant difference in the middle of a fight – or even a high-stakes late-night negotiation.

Gank comm implants allow characters to communicate silently across several kilometers, essentially as if sharing thoughts. A team of characters with Gank comm implants could not only coordinate actions at a distance, but plan an attack or escape while standing in the presence of an enemy threat. These implants have proven to be so useful that almost all adult Ganks possess them and while they’re relatively rare, they only cost a couple of hundred credits.

The repulsor fist is a more drastic cybernetic improvement: a violent melee weapon that replaces your hand and upper arm. Lacking synthskin, repulsor fists aren’t designed to appear natural. Instead, you can rely on the mere sight of one to instill fear and caution in a potential attacker. For Bounty Hunters, Hired Guns, and anyone else who intends on doing a lot of melee fighting, a repulsor fist is a solid, permanent, investment.

Hunters and Hunted

You might make a living in Hutt Space as a Gank mercenary, using your cybernetic implants and brute strength to survive in war, or as a Sakiyan assassin, relying on your wits and natural stealth to hunt down your target. You might take on the sympathetic role of an escaped Nikto, hunted by the cruel Hutt that you once served, or play a conniving young Hutt, willing to do anything to rise in your kajidic. No matter what, you’ll soon find that almost everyone in Hutt space is either a hunter or hunted, and that it’s far better to be the predator than the prey. Do you have what it takes to survive in this realm of iniquity, or will you fall victim to others’ cunning snares and cold-blooded cruelty?

Pre-order Lords of Nal Hutta today!

Lopez is part of a fast-growing community in Chrome City and across the West Coast. They call themselves chromeheads, and they wear their implants as fashion accessories.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Chrome City, the third Data Pack in the SanSan Cycle for Android: Netrunner!

Function breeds fashion in Chrome City. The Data Pack’s sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty individual cards) introduce players to the northern SanSan borough of Chrome City. Here, among the sketchy chop shops planted in the shadow of Haas-Bioroid’s genetics division, a growing community of chromeheads have begun to transform cybernetics into fashion statements.

If the surgery’s good, the latest cybernetics don’t just make you trendy; they also make you smarter, stronger, and more resilient. But a bad chopper’s just as likely to cause you irreparable brain damage as outfit you for the runways. Accordingly, Chrome City and its cybernetic hardware introduce a volatile mixture of risks and rewards, many of which are centered around protecting or damaging the Runner’s brain.

Brain Cage

As an example of the benefits a Runner’s cybernetics might provide, we can look at the neutral card, Brain Cage (Chrome City, 49). For just one resource, this unique piece of hardware increases your maximum hand size by three. In that respect, it compares quite favorably with the two-cost resource Public Sympathy (Cyber Exodus, 50), which increases your hand size by two.

It also compares favorably in the sense that it’s a piece of hardware rather than a resource. Resources are generally easier to trash, as if it tags you, the Corp can hit any of them for a click and two credits just by making use of the game’s standard actions. Hardware, on the other hand, can’t be targeted by the Corp’s framework actions and are targeted by only an extremely limited number of Corp cards.

On the other hand, Brain Cage also comes with a nasty install cost: when you install it, you suffer one brain damage. Since this brain damage is both random and permanent, you risk losing any one of the key cards you may be holding when you install your Brain Cage, and your newly increased maximum hand size is effectively increased by two, rather than three.

You can, however, prevent this brain damage if you find a good Chrome Parlor (Chrome City, 44) and a truly skilled chopper. They say that if you find a good chopper, you should stick with her for life. While you may be able to debate the merits of that advice, there’s no doubt that a good Chrome Parlor can greatly increase the efficiency of any deck that makes use of cybernetics.

Each of the game’s Runner factions gains a piece of two-influence cybernetic hardware in Chrome City, and each forces you to suffer brain or meat damage when it’s installed. Thus, if you want to take advantage of Brain Cage, Net-Ready Eyes (Chrome City, 47), and the other trendy cybernetic upgrades included within the Data Pack, it’s certainly worth your time to find a reliable Chrome Parlor.

Cybernetics Division

Even as it offers Runners the chance to expand their abilities as they sample the latest trends in cybernetic technology, Chrome City introduces a new identity for the leading name in cybernetics, Haas-Bioroid.

With its Cybernetics Division (Chrome City, 50) identity, Haas-Bioroid gains a new way to apply fast, constant pressure upon the Runner. In effect, it forces the Runner to suffer one point of brain damage right out of the portal, and this early reduction in hand size can change the whole shape of a game.

For starters, it makes every other point of damage all the more menacing.

• It quickly adds up with any brain damage caused by bioroid ice such as Heimdall 1.0 (Core Set, 61), Viktor 1.0 (Core Set, 63), and Janus 1.0 (What Lies Ahead, 12).
• It almost forces the Runner to draw up to his maximum hand size every turn lest he find himself flatlined by a single Scorched Earth (Core Set, 99).

Then, the fact that Cybernetics Division features a smaller minimum deck size means that it should be easier to draw into an early copy of Self-Destruct Chips (Chrome City, 51), along with the ice you need to protect it as you advance it.

And if an unwary Runner runs out of clicks as he barges through your server, you can deal yet another point of brain damage by rezzing and trashing the sysop Ryon Knight (Chrome City, 54).

Altogether, then, Haas-Bioroid’s Cybernetics Division doesn’t just shrink the Runner’s hand size; it reduces his options. It impacts the order in which he uses his clicks. It puts him on a timer, potentially prompting him to run earlier than he’d like. And it may even force him to reevaluate the metagame as a whole; can he still afford to run without adding Brain Cage or Public Sympathy to his deck?

Upgrade Yourself. Upgrade Your Deck.

Join the chrome revolution. Chrome City is scheduled to arrive at retailers early in the second quarter of 2015!

“The day has come at last,” he said: “the day of choice which we have long delayed. What shall now become of our Company that has travelled so far in fellowship? Shall we turn west with Boromir and go to the wars of Gondor; or turn east to the Fear and Shadow; or shall we break our fellowship and go this way and that as each may choose? Whatever we do must be done soon.”
    –Aragorn, The Fellowship of the Ring

After a long journey north and west from the realm of Isengard, several of Middle-earth’s heroes draw near the realm of Arnor. Here, a number of Dúnedain rangers have long safeguarded the region’s simpler folk from the Orcs and other dangers of Angmar and the wilds further north.

The Lost Realm deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is now just several weeks away, and it will soon transport us to the northern wilds of Eriador. When we first announced the expansion, we took a look at its Dúnedain Rangers and how they excel as hunters, offering players a number of advantages for engaging enemies. However, as the expansion introduces players to this new region of Middle-earth and explores its themes and conflicts, the Dúnedain and their trials are given shape in more than one way.

Today, developer Caleb Grace takes a look at how the expansion offers a dramatic new type of decision for players to make. Like the Rangers of the North, when you follow tracks that split and lead in two different directions, you must make your own decisions as to which you will follow. You are the secret protectors of the land; there is no one else to guide you. You can only hope that you make the right decisions.

Developer Caleb Grace on the Side Quests of The Lost Realm

The key to making a fun game is ensuring that players will have to make plenty of meaningful decisions. Many of these are already built into The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game by the demands the encounter deck puts upon your heroes: What ally do I play this turn? To which location do I travel? Should I optionally engage an enemy this round?

Still, as we started looking at The Lost Realm, the design team felt that we could add another choice that would give the game more of a “choose your own adventure” feel and strengthen the overall storytelling experience — the choice of where to quest. To address that issue, The Lost Realm deluxe expansion introduces side quests to the game.

In many video games and roleplaying games, side quests are optional adventures that you can choose to undertake while working toward larger goal. Often, they present you with a reward when you complete them. Side quests in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game work in a similar fashion, presenting you with new and exciting choices to make, as well meaningful consequences that can be either good or bad.

How Do Side Quests Work?

A side quest is a quest card with either an encounter card back, or a player card back.

• Encounter side quests are part of an encounter set and are shuffled into the encounter deck.
• Player side quests are included in a player’s deck and are played from a player’s hand.

Regardless of where it comes from, when a side quest enters play, it is placed in the staging area. If there is a side quest in the staging area at the beginning of the quest phase, the first player has to make a decision: Which quest will they attempt to complete in the quest phase?

The staging area doesn’t change, but the players can decide where they’ll want to place their progress. Do they continue trying to make progress on the main quest, or do they turn aside from their original goal in order to complete the side quest?

In order to make that decision truly meaningful, each side quest has a powerful effect that the players will have to examine carefully as they make their choice. An encounter side quest may have an incredibly detrimental effect on the overall game state if left uncompleted, but players may still choose to ignore them in favor of placing progress on the main quest. It is up to the players to determine what they feel is the right choice based on their own unique situation. In this way, one of the most exciting things about side quests is that they add a great deal of replayability to each scenario.

A great example of this concept is the encounter side quest, Make Camp (The Lost Realm, 55), which reads:

“Characters cannot be healed.
“Response: After Make Camp is defeated, each player heals up to 3 damage from a hero he controls.”

The negative impact of this side quest can be very situational. If the players do not have many damaged characters, they will likely ignore this side quest in favor of placing progress on the main quest. On the other hand, if there are a lot of damaged characters in play, the players may feel a more desperate need to heal them and dedicate at least one round to defeating this side quest.

When they do complete Make Camp, they will also trigger its Response effect, allowing each player to heal one hero. Many of the side quests included in The Lost Realm have this type of reward effect for completing them because the design team saw it as a way to push the storytelling element of the game. Make Camp is the story of heroes who are exhausted from continuous exertion and need a safe place to rest. Until they find it, they must push themselves past their limits (as represented by not being able to heal), but when they do get a chance to sleep, they wake up feeling refreshed (as represented by healing damage).

Side Quests and Encounter Sets

Working to bring storytelling and gameplay together with side quests made designing the individual encounter sets more exciting than ever. Typically, while all of a scenario’s encounter sets add to the scenario’s challenges and feel, only the cards from the encounter set directly to the scenario are used to drive its story. By including a side quest in each of the six encounter sets that are used in The Lost Realm and the Angmar Awakened cycle, we were able to add new story elements with these encounter sets, too, making them stronger thematically as well as mechanically.

For example, take the Foul Weather encounter set, which is built around Make Camp. While the passive effect on Make Camp may be situational, it comes in an encounter set with eight total treachery cards, six of which deal damage to characters. In that light, Make Camp becomes the capstone for that set’s design, and the other side quests are similarly the capstones of the five other encounter sets in The Lost Realm.

Seal the Tomb (The Lost Realm, 63) is another great example:

“Forced: At the end of the refresh phase, discard the top 3 cards of the encounter deck. Return the topmost Undead enemy in the encounter discard pile to the staging area.”

This side quest introduces a plot twist as the heroes learn of countless undead rising from the grave. If left unchecked, Seal the Tomb can potentially add an additional enemy to the staging area every single round. That’s easily enough to overwhelm a greater number of parties, but if that isn’t bad enough, Seal the Tomb also gains strength from the other nine cards in the Cursed Dead encounter set. Naturally, it’s packed with Undead enemies, increasing the odds that there will be Undead enemies in the encounter discard pile. Also, it contains both the Dead Lord (The Lost Realm, 60) and Cursed Dead (The Lost Realm, 61), which become more aggressive if there are Undead enemies in the discard pile. That means that even though Seal the Tomb doesn’t offer them a beneficial Response effect, the players might still decide that it’s in their best interests to defeat it.

Player Side Quests

On the other hand, player side quests always offer you a reward when completed. That’s because in order to complete a side quest, you must first draw it into their hand and put it into play. Only then can you even attempt to complete it, and for every round you spend completing a side quest, you come no closer to defeating the scenario, even though your threat continues to climb. However, the benefit from completing a player side quest may prove to be worth the effort. The Lost Realm includes one such player side quest, Gather Information (The Lost Realm, 14):

“Response: After this stage is defeated, each player may search his deck for 1 card and add it to his hand. Each player shuffles his deck.”

Prior to The Lost Realm, there was only one card in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game that allowed you to search your entire deck for a card of your choice and add it to your hand. That card is Word of Command (The Long Dark, 84), it requires you to exhaust an Istari character, and it only allows you to search your deck for a card, not your teammates. When you defeat Gather Information, you and your friends all get to search your decks for any one card each and add those cards to your hands. That’s a very powerful effect. The question is whether or not you’ll be able to take an entire round away from the main quest in order to trigger it.

Choices are key to great games, and you’ll find that choice and many others awaiting you in The Lost Realm deluxe expansion!

Pre-order Your Copy Today

In a number of weeks, The Lost Realm deluxe expansion for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game will lead players deep into the intrigues of a dark and deadly adventure. From what terrifying evils have the Rangers of the North long guarded the simple folk of Bree and the Shire? You’ll soon have your chance to find out.

In the meantime, head to your local retailer today to pre-order your copy of The Lost Realm!

“None can foretell what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now clear which is the road we must take.”
    –Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

As a cooperative Living Card Game®, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game functions differently than competitive LCGs. You work with your friends against an encounter deck, or you play by yourself. This means that, as a The Lord of the Rings player, you interact with a different sort of metagame than you would while playing a competitive card game. This cooperative metagame isn’t driven by players’ relentless and creative efforts to gain advantages in a tournament environment, but by your desires to enjoy clarity and a sense of adventure as you endeavor to overcome the challenges of new scenarios.

For the most part, then, the metagame for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is self-policing; if you don’t like how a card works or interacts with the scenarios that you’re attempting to beat, you can simply choose not to play it. However, as the game grows, issues sometimes arise that merit further clarification or balance. It is to address these situations that the developers have updated the game’s FAQ (pdf, 13.7 MB).

The Developers on What’s New in the FAQ?

The design team for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is deeply grateful to all of you who play our game, and it is our goal to provide you with many rewarding gaming experiences for years to come. To that end, we have updated our FAQ to answer some common questions, clarify a few rules, and issue some necessary errata to a small handful of cards.

It has been nearly one year since our last FAQ update. In that time, the game has grown significantly, and a number of rules issues have arisen that deserve closer attention.

In order to address some of those rules issues, we have issued errata to nine cards. While this may seem like a lot, the vast majority of these changes were made only to clarify how the card is intended to function. For example, the treachery cards Counter-attack (Assault on Osgiliath, 106) and Impenetrable Fog (The Morgul Vale, 157) both received errata to add the word “either” to their effects. This was only to make it more clear their effects give players a choice. Likewise, the word “then” was edited out of the second line of The Power of Mordor (Heirs of Númenor, 61) so that players would still be required to reveal encounter cards for the second part of the card’s effect even if the first part was not fully resolved.

Sometimes, though, in order to preserve the long term health of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, it is necessary to restrict a card’s effect, and this FAQ issues errata to a few cards in order to balance them within the context of a growing card pool.

Will of the West (Core Set, 49) is the backbone of every endless loop in the game, and while the design team acknowledges how much fun it can be to discover endless loops when deck-building, we also recognize that they can cheapen the game by taking away meaningful decisions. In order to balance Will of the West and keep as much of its original effect as intact as possible, it is now removed from the game after it resolves. This way, players can still use its effect to recycle their decks, but only once per copy of Will of the West.

A Elbereth! Gilthoniel! (Shadow and Flame, 132) is another card whose potential uses exceed its intended effect. Formerly titled O Elbereth! Gilthonial!, A Elbereth! Gilthoniel! has received errata to its title as well as its game effect. Its ability to place an enemy that just attacked you on the bottom of the encounter deck is an exciting way to deal with a Black Rider (The Black Riders, 39) or a Mumak (Heirs of Númenor, 54), but it was never intended to allow players to get rid of “boss” enemies like the Witch-king or the Balrog. As a result, the design team has edited A Elbereth! Gilthoniel! to work only against non-unique enemies. This simple edit allows the card to continue to function the way it was intended, and without warping the game.

The ability provided by A Watchful Peace (Heirs of Númenor, 12) to recur locations that should go to the victory display upsets the balance of various scenario designs. Therefore, A Watchful Peace now reads: “Response: After a location worth no victory points leaves play as an explored location...” This change ensures that when a location with victory points is explored, it will be added to the victory display.

Finally, Blue Mountain Trader (The Dunland Trap, 6) was designed to be an interesting card in multiplayer because of its ability to change control from one player to another. However, as written, its action allows players to move resources from hero to hero in an unlimited fashion that makes managing your heroes’ resources almost inconsequential. As a result, the design team has added the limit of “Once per round” to the Blue Mountain Trader in order to prevent its abuse while still allowing players the ability to trade control.

In addition to these errata, the FAQ tackles a number of other rules issues in the Rules Clarifications and Q&A segments. The design team is confident that these updates will improve each player’s understanding and enjoyment of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Thank you for playing!

    –Caleb Grace and Matthew Newman

Thanks, guys!

The new FAQ for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is now available on the game’s support page, as is a low-res printer-friendly version. Download your copy today.

He found himself swaying to infandous rhythms said to pertain to the blackest ceremonies of the Sabbat and to have an origin outside the time and space we comprehend. Presently he realized what he was listening for – the hellish chant of the celebrants in the distant black valley… He was not his own master. He had signed the black book after all.
–H. P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House

In the Gates of Arkham expansion for Elder Sign, investigators fight against unfathomable horrors on battle fronts throughout this legendary New England city. Those hardy souls who defeated the threats inside the Arkham museum are now faced with new challenges – gates that rupture space and time, omniscient Ancient Ones, uncompromising gang wars, devout and ruthless Cultists. Fortunately, other investigators are coming to their aid, equipped with arcane talents surpassing ordinary human capabilities.

In today’s preview you will meet four of the eight investigators included in Gates of Arkham. You will also learn about the two underground organizations that control the city: the bootlegging Sheldon Gang and the clandestine Order of the Silver Twilight. Since survival in Arkham is as much about your associations as it is about your strengths, joining one of these organizations may not only grant you privileged access to closed headquarters and valuable secrets, but ultimately save your life.

Local Legends and Mysterious Foreigners

Gravedigger William Yorick and Professor Norman Withers are both Arkham natives accustomed to life in the haunted city. A hard worker (and aspiring Shakespearean actor), Yorick knows more about the dead than most people would ever care to. Being brutally pragmatic, Yorick is willing to give away the mysterious corpses he handles for his own benefit: by discarding a monster trophy, he can add the red and yellow dice to his pool. Professor Withers’ chosen field is Astronomy, which he tirelessly lectures on at Miskatonic University. Yet his erudition goes beyond the scientific and into the arcane: when an Other World adventure is resolved, he may draw a spell to aid the investigation.

Some of the new investigators are drawn to Arkham by rumors of the city’s occult secrets, haunted spaces, and the recent uncanny events. The young shaman Akachi Onyele has traveled there from Africa, told by her mentor that it is her destiny to seal the gates that are tearing Arkham apart. Her magical connection with the Earth allows her to help others: when an Other World card is drawn, she can return stamina and sanity to an investigator of her choice. The concert violinist Patrice Hathaway came to Arkham neither to save the city nor to perform for its wealthier inhabitants, but to cure her own psychological troubles and purge from her mind the horrors she has sensed and seen. Her transcendent violin music has opened up to her an awareness of Other Worlds– and the terrible creatures in those Other Worlds are now very aware of her. Her connection to other dimensions allows Patrice to gain extra clues, and through her music she can easily convey them to other investigators.

Bootlegging and Black Magic

Anyone who has spent time in Arkham knows that it is not the local government, the police, or even the Miskatonic University bureaucracy that controls the city, but rather two underground organizations: the Sheldon Gang and the Silver Twilight Lodge. The members of these organizations possess enormous amounts of political power, live outside of the law, and are privy to dark, often deadly, secrets.

With connections throughout the United States and deep into Canada, the Sheldon Gang is Arkham’s largest supplier of illegal liquor– and will do anything to maintain that status. The gang’s members include not only bootleggers, distributors, and their armed protectors, but city council members, prominent businessmen, and senior police officers who keep their involvement secret not only from the public, but even from their own families. You can obtain a membership in the Sheldon Gang by spending trophies at Hibb’s Roadhouse, their reputed headquarters. It may give you access to helpful Allies, or Common Items like cash, cars, and guns, but it can also help keep you out of trouble. If the police raid Hibb's, you're better off being part of the Sheldon Gang than an innocent bystander or even a loyal member of the police: part of the adventure is marked as a membership task, which you can bypass as long as you’re a card-carrying Sheldon Gang member.

The Order of the Silver Twilight is even more secretive, with a presence in Arkham dating back far beyond living memory. Most Arkham citizens can only guess what goes on behind the closed doors of the gabled, Victorian, Silver Twilight Lodge, but the ubiquitous rumors tell of black magic and bloody occult rites. As with the Sheldon Gang, its members include many of Arkham’s elite, bound by strict vows not to speak of their dark dealings or reveal the order’s ancient mysteries. Once you become initiated by spending trophies at the Silver Twilight Lodge, you’ll be invited to attend their clandestine rituals in hidden locations throughout the city and bypass Silver Twilight membership tasks. You will also be granted Membership rewards, such as access to the Lodge’s immense library of arcane knowledge – or even priceless Elder Signs.

Illicit Ties that Bind

You never know who may be involved with the Arkham underground. Patrice Hathaway’s captivating music may attract the attention of a member of the Order of the Silver Twilight, who draws her in with the promise of soothing her psyche only to take advantage of her connection with Other Worlds. Norman Withers may have been working for the Sheldon Gang since the beginning of prohibition, subtly selling whiskey to other Miskatonic University professors and their beleaguered graduate students. In a city where gangsters hold as much power as the police, vicious monsters are roaming the streets, and a gate to an Other World may open in the lobby of the bank, cultivating illicit and occult connections will give you additional Allies, Spells, and Elder Signs, and may even help you survive.

Pre-order Gates of Arkham from your local retailer today!

While the Anarchs and Weyland Consortium are the stars of Order and Chaos, the expansion has plenty to offer each of the other factions of Android: Netrunner. Six different neutral cards and an array of versatile, low-influence Anarch and Weyland cards introduce new efficiencies, tricks, and tactics for all manner of Corps and Runners.

Today, we look at some of these cards and how they may help you safeguard your servers, avoid tags, and advance your economies.

Safeguard Your Servers

Have you ever kept a Runner out of your R&D by rezzing a copy of Enigma (Core Set, 111) only for the Runner to then install Yog.0 (Core Set, 14) on his next turn?

This is a common problem and one experienced by Corps everywhere as players move from a game’s middle stages to its final throes. In his introduction to the Lunar Cycle, developer Lukas Litzsinger explained how the Corp wants to extend its mid-game as long as possible. In the mid-game, he writes, the Corp has bought itself time to score agendas by barricading its servers with ice the Runner cannot yet break:

“Generally, most games of Android: Netrunner can be broken down into three stages: the early game, the mid-game, and the late game. Historically, the early game belongs to the Runner, who looks to score as many agenda points as possible before the Corp can rez its defenses. In the mid-game, the Corp has established enough defenses to start scoring some points. Then, in the late game, the Runner’s rig is fully assembled, the Corporation’s defenses become vulnerable, and no agenda is safe. The most powerful Runner decks try to extend the early portion of the game as long as possible, and may even prevent the mid-game stage from ever occurring. And many of the best Corp decks are able to win the game in any stage, often by flatlining a careless Runner.”

While Lukas went on to explain how the Lunar Cycle and its cards offered both Corps and Runners novel means to delay, interrupt, and even reverse the standard movements from early game to mid-game and late game, the fact remains that most Corps want to live in the mid-game as long or as much as possible, and that means they need meaningful defenses.

Here, Order and Chaos introduces several new cards that any Corp can use to extend its mid-game.

• First of all, Patch (Order and Chaos, 21) can transform such binary ice as Enigma, which are only “on” until such a time as the Runner has installed a program like Yog.0 that shuts them “off,” into ice that can continue to impede or, at least, tax the Runner. Not only can it boost a good number of code gates past the point that Yog.0 makes light of them, Patch can work wonders on sentries, since most killers are expensive to boost.
• Alternatively, you could get more value out of your ice by using The Twins (Order and Chaos, 24) to discard your extra copies and make the Runner smash back into the ice he just passed, but this time, you might catch him slamming into it face first. Against a piece of ice like Janus 1.0 (What Lies Ahead, 12), this might even be a lethal, game-winning play, and one that’s certainly much cheaper than rezzing a second copy of the ice.
• Finally, though you may intentionally build your deck with ice like Janus 1.0 to tax the Runner, bleeding him of clicks and credits turn-by-turn, there may come a time when you need your ice to provide hard stops. Enter Sub Boost (Order and Chaos, 25), an operation that adds an “End the run” subroutine after all of its other subroutines. Not only might this operation force the Runner to suffer extra brain damage against Janus 1.0 or end his run, it can also work wonders when hosted on ice like Universal Connectivity Fee (Up and Over, 67) that are immune to most icebreakers.

As a whole, these cards tend to reflect the Weyland Consortium’s focus on strong, defensive barriers. After all, this is the faction that gave us advanceable ice, and for those Corps willing to pay the influence, Order and Chaos gives us even more of these advanceable ice, as well as the code gate Builder (Order and Chaos, 16) to continue ramping them up, run after run after run.

Avoid Tags

Even as the Corp is using these new cards to build up its defenses, Order and Chaos provides Runners with new ways to avoid tags, shake the ones they take, and focus more on running against Corporate servers and less on finding ways to get out of Corporate crosshairs.

If you’re looking to stay off-grid, a Qianju PT (Order and Chaos, 54) allows you to forfeit a click at the beginning of your turn in order to avoid the first tag you would take until the beginning of your next turn.

This can be handy if you suspect you might run into a Snare! (Core Set, 70) or think you might take a tag from ice like Shadow (Core Set, 104) or Data Raven (Core Set, 88). It’s also a great piece of equipment for Runners looking to play multiple copies of Account Siphon (Core Set, 18). If you keep the tags from your Account Siphon, you can quickly find yourself bankrupt or dead, so it’s generally advisable to shake the tags after you get them. If you avoid the first of them with your Qianju PT, you find yourself another two credits ahead with each Account Siphon.

Nonetheless, the best use for a Qianju PT may be to stave off the tags the Corp might try to lay upon you during its turn. More than one Runner has been flatlined by an SEA Source (Core Set, 86) tag that led into one or more copies of Scorched Earth (Core Set, 99).

Sometimes, however, you can’t avoid a tag… or you might intentionally tag yourself to mill the Corp with a Data Leak Reversal (Future Proof, 103). In these situations, you might wish to supplement your deck with the Chop Bot 3000 (Order and Chaos, 45). Much like Aesop’s Pawnshop (Core Set, 47), the Chop Bot 3000 adds new value to otherwise dead (or even detrimental) cards that you have installed. Those cards can be discarded to fuel either a single card draw or to allow you to remove one tag.

Advance Your Economy

As much as Android: Netrunner is largely about finding innovative ways to maneuver toward economic superiority, Order and Chaos maintains some of these fundamentals with cards for both Corp and Runner.

• A Dedicated Technician Team (Order and Chaos, 26) can perform wonders for a Corporation like Haas-Bioroid that might try to bunker up within its central servers, tucked away behind layers upon layers of ice, until it can score its agendas from hand with the assistance of Biotic Labor (Core Set, 59).
• Meanwhile, the Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos, 27) offers an efficient response to the recent onslaught of the many new virus programs that Runners have been throwing against Corp servers. Once a Runner start building up a huge stack of virus counters, the Corp takes tremendous risks if it simply continues to ignore them, but spending three clicks to wipe virus counters can prove a horrific tempo hit. Cyberdex Virus Suite offers an alternate response, allowing you to purge virus counters and take other actions on your turn.
• The Runners gain their own efficiencies, too, but whereas cards like Cyberdex Virus Suite offer Corps new efficiencies built around greater versatility, the event Day Job (Order and Chaos, 36) rewards Runners who are willing to go all-in on their turns. While your Day Job demands that you sacrifice your entire turn (or, at least, four clicks of it), it can also take you from the brink of poverty to a point where you can easily pay for quick economic boosts like Sure Gamble (Core Set, 50) or install such expensive icebreakers as Femme Fatale (Core Set, 26). Moreover, it’s a single card worth a boost of eight credits, and in a slim deck, such as you might have with Chaos Theory (Cyber Exodus, 46), the card efficiency it provides might be as important as the credits it can grant you until such a time as you get your Magnum Opus (Core Set, 44) installed.

A New World Order

While Weyland is attempting to develop a new world order, and while the Anarchs are attempting to tear down the existing order, the neutral and low-influence cards from Order and Chaos ensure that every faction can find plenty of ways to get into the action.

When Order and Chaos arrives, how will you use its cards to shape the future? Will you take humanity to the stars? Will you plunge New Angeles into chaos? Or will you quietly secure data toward some other end goal that’s all your own? Your chance to make an impact is nearly here; Order and Chaos is due to arrive at retailers late next week!

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:

• Application Developer (pdf, 82.5 KB)
• Game Center Line Cook (pdf, 79 KB)

• To apply for the position of Application Developer, please submit a cover letter with salary requirements and resume to HumanResources@fantasyflightgames.com; under the subject line “Application Developer” no later than end of business day Friday, January 30, 2015.
• To apply for the position of Game Center Line Cook, please submit your application (pdf, 106 KB) to the Game Center Staff member or HumanResources@fantasyflightgames.com; under the subject line “Game Center Line Cook” no later than end of business day Friday, January 30, 2015.

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.

Standard military responses have proven ineffectual. Human civilization stands on the brink of collapse. In the face of an extraordinary threat, the time has come for extraordinary solutions…

The digital companion app for XCOM: The Board Game is now available for download, and the game is scheduled to arrive at retailers late next week!

In XCOM: The Board Game, you are part of an extraordinary team of individuals. You and up to three friends assume the roles of XCOM’s department heads, and it’s up to you to find some way to use your soldiers, scientists, satellites, Interceptors, weapons, and other resources to establish an effective response to the alien invaders that brushed aside the world’s militaries.

Throughout our series of previews, as we’ve explored the different challenges that XCOM offers players, we’ve looked at how the different roles allow you to respond to those challenges.

• We’ve seen how the Central Officer is responsible for maintaining XCOM’s satellite network and obtaining accurate information from the game’s digital companion app.
• We’ve seen how the Squad Leader forms teams of soldiers to simultaneously defend the base and undertake dangerous missions.
• And we’ve seen how a good Commander will help the team manage its efforts to stay within budget, strategically directing its expenditures toward launching and completing the game’s final mission to achieve victory.

Today, we explore the responsibilities of the Chief Scientist, the fourth of XCOM’s department heads, and we look at how XCOM’s science division can provide the technological advances that just might help you win your war against the alien hordes.

Chief Scientist

In XCOM: The Board Game, your team starts out horribly outmatched and outgunned, thrust into a world that is falling swiftly into panic, and if you are to have any chance of winning your war, you’re going to need new technology. Fortunately, as the Chief Scientist, you command a science division comprised of some of the world’s most brilliant individuals.

Per the Chief Scientist’s reference card, your role is defined by two key responsibilities:

• Research – assign tech and scientists to research
  
• Salvage – use alien materials

However, that’s an intentionally minimalist expression of the role and its responsibilities. It doesn’t explore the role’s impact in the game or stress the importance of the decisions that you’ll make:

• As the Chief Scientist, you are responsible for supplying your teammates with the technological advances they need to repel the alien invasion.
  
• As the Chief Scientist, you are responsible for developing a far-sighted approach to the war that overlooks early losses to aim for ultimate victory.

Of course, no matter how you look at the role, it is defined first and foremost by the deck of twenty-eight tech cards from which you draw and select new technologies to research. From Holo-Targeting to Firestorm and from UFO Navigation to Alloy Cannon, these technologies provide your team with different benefits, but before you can use any of these technologies, you need to research them.

To research a tech card, you must first assign it as a task to one of the three stations in your laboratory. Then, you must assign a number of scientists to the task. You can assign up to three scientists to any task, and you should typically assign a number of scientists that weighs the benefits of the technology against the budget and the number of successes you need.

Each tech card indicates a number of successes that you need to complete your research. In this example, Elerium requires two successes. Understanding the tremendous potential financial benefits of researching this technology on the first attempt, the Chief Scientist has assigned three scientists, meaning that he will roll three dice when he attempts his research.

However, while some may look at your job in such simplistic terms as “assigning scientists to research tasks,” you recognize that you’re not just forging a random collection of new technologies. No, in order to win the war, XCOM relies upon you to make key strategic decisions about the technologies you research.

	For example, a Plasma Cannon demands a heavy research investment, and though it can make it much easier for you to defeat the enemies you face, the energy you spend researching it won’t pay off if your Commander can’t keep Interceptors on hand to place upon it in the resolution phase.
	Likewise, Revive is more useful in some circumstances than in others. If your Squad Leader can’t keep support soldiers on hand, it’s not useful at all, but if your enemies aren’t focusing their attacks on your base, it may help you mount a successful and efficient defense that relies on only one soldier.
	Finally, technologies like Weapon Fragments that provide you economic benefits are more effective the earlier you research them. The closer you get to your final mission, the less effective they become, and the more you need technologies like Battle Scanners that can help you succeed at your tasks.

Like the Commander, then, the Chief Scientist benefits tremendously from understanding the alien invasion plan and the enemies your soldiers will face. The more you understand the nature of the challenges that lie before you, the more you can strategically direct your research to respond to them. The two scientists you assign to a task may require the same two credits as the two soldiers you’d assign to a mission or the two Interceptors you’d assign to global defense, but if you assign your scientists wisely, they may make a far greater impact over the course of the game. Assigned poorly, however, they may make no positive impact at all.

Accordingly, as the Chief Scientist, you will want to make good use of your Research Center and Workshop.

• If you identify which technologies are most likely to help you, you can dig through your tech deck by exhausting your Research Center and discarding tech cards that would be less helpful.
• On the other hand, if your team is strapped for funding and asks you to refrain from late-game research as much as possible, you can still assign crack teams of scientists to your Workshop to derive temporary benefits from tech cards in your hand before discarding them.

Together, these two assets provide your role with enough flexibility that you can shape your research for maximum impact from turn one through the end of the game.

Salvage

Another key part of your role as Chief Scientist is the management of salvage. Each time an enemy is defeated, it’s claimed as salvage, and the Chief Scientist can make use of these fallen enemies in a number of different ways.

The first use of salvage is provided by your asset card, Laboratory. During the resolution phase, as you’re resolving your research tasks, you can discard one salvage to your Laboratory to add one XCOM die to each of your rolls on one task. Effectively, by discarding a salvage, you gain the benefits of assigning another scientist.

This can be an effective way to research new technologies even while your teammates are asking you to hold back on expenditures, and it can also give you a bonus die when you decide you really, really need some new technology now. While you’re limited to three scientists per task, discarding salvage to the Laboratory allows you to roll as many as four XCOM dice for critical tasks.

Meanwhile, there are two tech cards that open new uses for your salvage.

• Weapon Fragments allows you to sell off surplus alien tech, transforming any number of salvage into an equal number of credits on Emergency Funding.
• Xenobiology, on the other hand, takes the ability of your Laboratory and pushes it to an extreme, allowing you to discard salvage during the timed phase to immediately research any one tech card from your hand, provided you discard salvage equal to the number of successes you would need to research the tech.

Paired with Archangel Armor and a focus hauling enemies back to XCOM headquarters as salvage, an early Xenobiology can greatly accelerate your research and mastery of alien technologies, allowing you to weaponize them and bring them to the battlefield.

These cards and their effects illustrate how much can be gained from the dissection and examination of your fallen enemies. Of course, to get those bodies, you need the full cooperation of the Squad Leader and his soldiers. Accordingly, it pays to research some tech for the Squad Leader to keep him happy, and to keep XCOM’s soldiers safe in the field.

• By reducing the threat by one during a mission or enemy task, Holo-Targeting decreases the risk that your team will lose soldiers on a mission or during base defense.
• Some tech you may give to the Squad Leader, like Run & Gun and Battle Scanners, add dice that greatly increase the chances that your team’s soldiers will succeed at their tasks.

If you can keep the Squad Leader happy, then, you might convince him to make use of Archangel Armor. This tech can feed you as many as two salvage per round, though you’ll need the Squad Leader to hold two soldiers back from missions to do so.

Crafting Your Comeback

Reports are coming from around the world of alien ships being blown out of the sky, military aircraft bearing the markings of no country, and special forces soldiers with weapons and body armor unlike anything we’ve ever seen…

Where the world’s militaries have failed, XCOM must succeed. To do so, you’ll need as much cutting edge tech you can possibly wield. You’ll want Alien Alloys, Battle Scanners, a better Defense Matrix, Plasma Cannons, UFO Power, and Blaster Launchers.

As the Chief Scientist, you’ll keep your teammates fully supplied with the tools they need to survive their encounters with the alien invaders. Accordingly, you want to come to the mission with a plan. You start on your heels, and time is against you. Still, if you perform your duties well, you just might help your teammates strike harder and faster, and you might help them survive shots from weapons that would have killed them otherwise.

Next week, you just might help win the war.

As Civil War rages throughout the galaxy and the battles of X-Wing™ continue to pit daring Rebels against disciplined Imperial pilots, a third faction waits for its time to strike. Led by such notorious figures as Boba Fett and Prince Xizor, the galaxy’s Scum and Villainy will soon bring new ships, new abilities, and new excitement to X-Wing players everywhere.

As we continue to look forward to the release of the first four Scum expansions, the game’s developers, Alex Davy and Frank Brooks, offer their take on the faction’s introduction, including why it’s a natural fit for X-Wing and what the faction offers the game. They conclude by offering a couple of sample lists that illustrate how differently the faction’s squadrons may look, even as they share a focus on the faction’s penchant for dirty tricks and illegal technology.

Developers Alex Davy and Frank Brooks on the Scum and Villainy Faction

Why create a third faction for the X-Wing miniatures game? 

Since the announcement of the Scum and Villainy faction at Gen Con Indy 2014, we’ve been asked that question numerous times by fans who are excited, trepidatious, or just plain curious. 

One of the most compelling reasons is thematic. The faction offers a fitting home to the Star Wars galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunters, pirates, and Black Sun agents. When we watched the movies as kids, the galaxy’s scum etched themselves into our imaginations through a handful of memorable scenes: amid the filthy opulence of Jabba’s palace, in a dark Mos Eisley cantina full of weird and nefarious aliens, and on the deck of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, where six sinister bounty hunters met with the Dark Lord of the Sith, their rag-tag equipment and disdain for discipline contrasting sharply with the surrounding signs of the Empire’s military precision. These Scum generally do their best to remain outside the conflicts of the Galactic Civil War, except for when it’s profitable to become involved. Still, they form an integral part of the Star Wars universe, exerting profound influence over the lives of millions, including many of the Rebel Alliance’s greatest heroes.

In X-Wing, the Scum & Villainy faction gives players the opportunity to interact with these characters and the seedy fringes of a galaxy at war. The criminal underground even intersects directly with the protagonists of the Star Wars galaxy: Han was hunted throughout the original trilogy by a score of ruthless bounty hunters throughout, while in Shadows of the Empire, Luke, Leia, Lando, and Dash Rendar had to contend with machinations of the cruel and calculating Prince Xizor. As we see them, the Scum faction’s rogues, villains, bounty hunters, and criminals are a quintessential part of the Star Wars universe, and it’s thrilling to bring them into the game.

What does this mean for the X-Wing? New stuff! New ships, new characters, new scenarios, and new ways to play. With such a rich thematic vein to mine, inspiration came easily, and the result is a third faction with an entirely different feel.

Dirty Tricks and Illegal Technology

In X-Wing, the Rebel Alliance focuses on teamwork and defense, and it features a high ratio of shielded ships and synergistic pilot abilities. The Galactic Empire has no such concern for its pilots, which means its dogfighters run the gamut from cheap cannon fodder to elite, fragile offensive powerhouses whose pilots rely purely on their own abilities for survival. 

Meanwhile, the hotshot pilots of the Scum and Villainy faction represent a loose coalition of ruthless individuals whose motivations happen to temporarily align. Formation flying is rare, self-sacrifice unheard of, and pilots must pay nearly as much attention to their supposed allies as to their foes. Among the Scum, you can never be certain that some unstable mercenary won’t have packed his ship full of thermal detonators. Still, what they lack in military discipline and raw pilot skill they make up for with dirty tricks, highly illegal technology, unpredictable maneuvers, and some of the finest and wildest starships that money can buy.

These tricks, technological advances, and maneuvers lead directly to an increased diversity among the squads available to X-Wing players. This is important because asymmetrical competitive thrive on diversity. The more viable lists and strategies that exist, the more varied and exciting the gameplay.

Variety is something at which the Scum’s loose cannons are going to excel, and we have put together a couple of sample lists to illustrate the point.

Dual Aggressors

Alex’s list features one of his favorite Star Wars characters, the cold and merciless assassin droid, IG-88.

   IG-88A (36)
      Predator (3)
      Advanced Sensors (3)
      Proximity Mines (3)
      Shield Upgrade (4)
      Inertial Dampeners (1)
      IG-2000 (0)

   IG-88C (36)
      Predator (3)
      Advanced Sensors (3)
      Proximity Mines (3)
      Shield Upgrade (4)
      Inertial Dampeners (1)
      IG-2000 (0)

   Total Squad Points: 100

A two-ship list is a huge gamble, especially when you’re relying exclusively on a forward firing arc, but IG-88 can do things that other pilots can only dream about.

With their native boost actions, Advanced Sensors, and access to both a K-turn and the Segnor’s Loop maneuver, these Aggressors are masters of repositioning. Advanced Sensors allows them to perform a boost action before executing a maneuver, which means you can angle your K-turn or Segnor’s loop in jaw-dropping ways.

A 360-degree view of the agile Aggressor.

Thanks to IG-88C and the IG-2000 Title, both ships in the list get an evade token each time they boost, and Predator helps ensure the ship’s shot doesn’t go to waste. Proximity Mines are also made more flexible by Advanced Sensors, allowing them to be dropped either before or after the Aggressor performs a maneuver, making them an ideal tool for dealing with fragile, high pilot skill enemies like TIE phantoms and TIE interceptors. Against a swarm of enemy ships, which is easily this list’s toughest matchup, IG-88A’s ability to provide shield regeneration can help the droids weather the storm. Then, Inertial Dampeners add an extra dash of unpredictability to an already versatile list. 

This is one of my favorite ways to fly dual IG-88s, but the fantastic thing about this ship is how many different options it provides. With a dial chock full of green maneuvers, Push the Limit is an excellent choice, and Advanced Sensors can be swapped out for Accuracy Corrector, allowing IG-88 to focus and evade for defense, secure in the knowledge that he will roll at least two hits with his attack. Adrenaline Rush, Advanced Sensors, and IG-88D make for even crazier K-turn possibilities, and Expert Handling gives you access to a large ship with both boost an barrel roll!

Thugs and Pirates

Frank’s list features one HWK-290, two Z-95 Headhunters, and two Y-wings. Though all of these ships can also be flown by the Rebel Alliance, the list has a distinctive feel when flown in the Scum faction.

   Torkil Mux (19)
      Ion Cannon Turret (5)
      Dead Man’s Switch (2)
      Engine Upgrade (4)

   Binayre Pirate (12)
      Dead Man’s Switch (2)

   Binayre Pirate (12)
      Dead Man’s Switch (2)

   Syndicate Thug (18)
      Autoblaster Turret (2)
      Unhinged Astromech (1)

   Syndicate Thug (18)
      Autoblaster Turret (2)
      Unhinged Astromech (1)

   Total Squad Points: 100

This list attempts to leverage as much as it can off of Torkil Mux’s ability. By reducing an enemy’s pilot skill to “0,” Torkil Mux allows for his entire squadron to attack the targeted ship before it can attack back. To that effect, this list gets away with paying the minimum price for pilot skill, thereby leaving room for several utility upgrades.

Bidding low on pilot skill leads to some other benefits, too. The Binayre Pirates, with their pilot skill values of “1,” can maneuver early and block enemy flight paths, pinning down ships for the Syndicate Thugs to target with their Autoblaster Turrets. Additionally, as the battlefield becomes more crowded and chaotic, the list’s liberal use of Dead Man’s Switches may force your opponent into some truly difficult play decisions.

A 360-degree view of the Scum-themed Z-95 Headhunter from the Most Wanted Expansion Pack.

Whereas a Rebel squad that features the same ships would most likely fly in formation, those tactics are unwise in this list as taking down one of the Z-95 Headhunters with Dead Man’s Switch could very easily injure the other. Accordingly, this list requires a bit of finesse to fly, especially since the Y-wings have to get very close in order to be their most effective. That’s why the Unhinged Astromechs allow for the Y-wings to move more unpredictably. Additionally, the list’s emphasis on Torkil Mux means that he has a rather large target on his head, so you need to be very careful with him. Try to fly erratically and use his boost from the Engine Upgrade to get out of arcs and at Range 1–2 of his prey.

Of course, these lists demonstrate just a couple of the many new squadrons the faction provides, and we hope you will enjoy experimenting with the galaxy’s Scum and Villainy as much as we have!

“Only three fully human souls since time began had ever crossed and recrossed the black impious gulfs to other dreamlands, and of that three two had come back quite mad. There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach.”
    –H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce that the six classic Asylum Packs of the Dreamlands cycle for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game have been reprinted and are now available!

• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – Twilight Horror
  
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – In Memory of Day
  
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – In the Dread of Night
  
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – Search for the Silver Key
  
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – Sleep of the Dead
  
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game – Journey to Unknown Kadath

Long out of print and in demand, these six Dreamlands Asylum Packs are now available via Fantasy Flight Games’ in-house manufacturing. Each has been updated to the sixty-card format which features three copies each of twenty individual cards, and this printing incorporates all errata from the game’s latest FAQ (pdf, 1.0 MB).

What Lies Within the Dreamlands?

It was the Dreamlands cycle that first introduced the game’s popular Day and Night mechanics, which add a sense of time and a heightened tension to its struggles. Meanwhile, the cycle also introduced a number of fantastic Dreamlands locations and Dreamer characters, those daring souls who have learned how to explore the strange and mysterious realms beyond our mortal world.

Here, in a realm where your imagination makes you strong, you’ll be able to climb The Seventy Steps (In Memory of Day, 30) and converse with the intrepid Randolph Carter (Search for the Silver Key, 63). However, the Dreamlands can also be treacherous, and you must remain wary, lest you be ambushed by the fearsome Dreamlands Fanatic (In the Dread of Night, 47) or stumble into The Cavern of Flame (In the Dread of Night, 49).

Should you dare to enter the Dreamlands, you may also come across some of its stranger residents. Ghouls, Gugs, and Zoogs all appear in these Asylum Packs, as do a handful of eldritch Tomes that may shed light upon these realms of dreams, such as a Dream Diary (Twilight Horror, 4) or The Book of Black Stones (Search for the Silver Key, 79).

Altogether, the Dreamlands cycle is filled with cards that echo and evoke H.P. Lovecraft’s visions of a realm in which the dreamer can experience unparalleled freedoms, witness unimaginable beauty, and find himself subjected to unfathomable horrors.

Dare to Dream

“Carter resolved to go with bold entreaty whither no man had gone before, and dare the icy deserts through the dark to where unknown Kadath, veiled in cloud and crowned with unimagined stars, holds secret and nocturnal the onyx castle of the Great Ones.”
    –H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Travel with Dreamers, visit the Dreamlands, and take your games of Call of Cthulhu into strange, new realms. The six classic Asylum Packs from the Dreamlands cycle are now updated and available. Pick up your copies today!

Note: Due to subtle variations in print quality that arise with in-house manufacturing, players must sleeve these cards in opaque or art sleeves to use them in tournament play.

So I must break through all reticences at last – even about that ultimate nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness.
–H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

There is now an updated FAQ and errata for Eldritch Horror available on the game’s support page. You can download it there, or by clicking the thumbnail on the right. It answers rules questions about the core game, the Forsaken Lore expansion, and the game’s newest expansion, Mountains of Madness. Armed with this fresh information, you and your fellow investigators can better focus on solving the dark mysteries of the Ancient Ones before they awaken and unleash incomprehensible horrors.

This update features a few new errata for the core game and both expansions, and provides details about the new Assets, Conditions, and Spells introduced in Mountains of Madness. There are also clarifications regarding movement, the Acquiring Assets action, and the special abilities of the new investigators Finn Edwards, Ursula Downs, and Wilson Richards. 

Download the updated FAQ (pdf, 478 KB) today!

“Branched lightning smote down upon the eastward hills. For a staring moment the watchers on the wall saw all the space between them and the Dike lit with white light: it was boiling and crawling with black shapes, some squat and broad, some tall and grim, with high helms and sable shields. Hundreds and hundreds more were pouring over the Dike and through the breach. The dark tide flowed up to the walls from cliff to cliff.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

After The Black Riders and The Road Darkens allowed players to accompany Frodo Baggins along the first stages of his epic journey to Mount Doom, the Fellowship has broken. Now, Frodo must find his way toward the dark mountains of Mordor without the help of his former companions. Those companions, meanwhile, must swiftly recover from all the early losses that fate has dealt them, for one wizard’s betrayal threatens to cripple their efforts, as well as those of all the forces who would stand against the Dark Lord.

The Treason of Saruman is coming soon for The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and as its three scenarios carry players through select events drawn directly from the first half of The Two Towers, the expansion gives us a new villain, whose White Hand baters against our heroes at every turn. While Saruman’s Uruks, his magic, and his evil are at the heart of all three of the expansion’s scenarios, there’s perhaps no greater illustration of the scope of his power than in the scenario that allows us to accompany Aragorn and the Riders of Rohan for the Battle of Helm’s Deep.

In a period of several weeks, we’ll be able to stand atop the walls of Helm’s Deep, alongside Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Théoden. Until then, however, developer Caleb Grace offers a look at the all-new fashion in which The Treason of Saruman brings this momentous battle to your tabletop.

Developer Caleb Grace on the Battle of Helm’s Deep

The Treason of Saruman is coming in a number of weeks, so let’s talk about the scenario that everyone is dying to play: Helm’s Deep! It’s arguably the most exciting chapter in The Two Towers and one of the most memorable battles in fiction. And the design team is proud to have come up with a way to stage this battle in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game that we believe lives up to the legend!

In order to give life to your defense of Helm’s Deep, the scenario has you switch places with the encounter deck by making it the players’ job to prevent the encounter deck from placing progress on the current quest. Each stage that the encounter deck advances brings the army of Isengard one step closer to capturing the fortress. If stage 4B is defeated, then Helm’s Deep falls and the players lose the game.

In order for the players to defeat the scenario, they must defend Helm’s Deep through a long night of constant battle. To do this, the objective card, The Defense of Helm’s Deep (The Treason of Saruman, 33), tracks the passage of time by collecting one resource token each round, and the players advance to stage 5A when the last resource token is placed on it. At stage 5, the players join the Riders of Rohan as they charge out of the fortress at dawn and ride over their enemies. When they defeat the last enemy in play, they win the battle!

Making it to stage 5 will not be easy though. The defensive nature of the scenario turns some elements of the game upside down and creates challenging decisions. For example, you don’t necessarily want to explore locations. The locations in this scenario represent the different parts of the fortress, meaning it’s your job to defend them and keep them in play. When a section of Helm’s Deep leaves play, that means it has fallen to the enemy, and that can have dire consequences. Consider Deeping Wall (The Treason of Saruman, 38):

“While Deeping Wall is the active location, each hero gets +1 defense strength.
"Forced: When Deeping Wall is explored, raise each player’s threat by 4.”

By traveling to Deeping Wall, you can increase your heroes’ defense strength and slow the encounter deck’s progress on the quest by using the active location as a buffer. However, if Deeping Wall is explored, you and your friends must each raise your threat by four as part of the fortress is overrun.

Of course, if you don’t explore any locations, they’ll continue to add their threat strength to the total threat strength of the staging area as it rises, and it will become increasingly difficult to keep the encounter deck from placing progress on the quest. Accordingly, you will probably have to make some choices where neither option feels good, and you might face some moments of real desperation, too. That’s an appropriate feeling when you consider how close Saruman’s army came to capturing Helm’s Deep.

In fact, if it were not for the valor of a few outstanding allies, the men of Rohan would have been overmatched by their enemies, so the design team is pleased to announce the arrival of two of those esteemed allies: Legolas and Gimli!

Keeping Count

One of the biggest challenges with the Saga Expansions has been finding space for all the cards we want to include. Tolkien created such a rich world, full of amazing characters, that there just isn’t enough room in each Saga Expansion to include all the characters that we’d like. That’s why the design team made the difficult, early decision not to release two members of the Fellowship in either of the first two The Lord of the Rings Saga Expansions, but to save them for The Treason of Saruman. That decision was made, in part, because both Legolas and Gimli are already available as heroes in the Core Set, but also because so much of the battle of Helm’s Deep revolves around these two unlikely friends.

To any fan of the book, the game that Gimli (The Treason of Saruman, 4) and Legolas (The Treason of Saruman, 5) play at Helm’s Deep is as unforgettable as the outcome. Eighty-three fewer Orcs survived the battle as a direct result of their competition!

Hopefully, players will find their ally versions just as unforgettable as their participation in the battle of Helm’s Deep. Tactics players will be glad for a new way to draw cards by combining Legolas and his Response effect with his Ranged keyword. That seemed like a fun way to merge his Silvan far-sightedness with his skill with a bow.

Gimli’s effect was inspired by his flavor text: “Give me a row of orc-necks and room to swing and all weariness will fall from me!” Accordingly, when an enemy is revealed from the encounter deck, Gimli throws off his weariness and readies. That means you can use Gimli’s two Willpower to quest and still take advantage of his two Defense Strength and Sentinel keyword if an enemy is revealed.

Each ally is strong in his own right, but they also work together very well, as they should, allowing you to defend and attack any enemy in play, even one engaged with your friend. That’s important because you, your friends, and your characters, will have to work well together if you hope to emerge victorious from the battle of Helm’s Deep!

“The stir of the Suydam investigation made it certain that these unauthorised newcomers were flooding Red Hook in increasing numbers; entering through some marine conspiracy unreached by revenue officers and harbour police.”
    –H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror at Red Hook

The Agency-focused deluxe expansion, For the Greater Good, is nearly here. In our last preview, we explored some of what its new government characters and conspiracies may soon add to the faction and to Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game as a whole. Their new synergies and abilities look to significantly strengthen humanity’s ability to fight against the dark and evil cults that seek to plunge the world into chaos.

However, Call of Cthulhu and its eerie fictional setting are full of dark secrets and terrifying twists, and many of the valiant men and women who serve the government, believing they’re working for the greater good, may in fact be advancing the far-sighted designs of some nefarious cabal.

In Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, it’s just as easy to mix two factions together as it is to make a deck that uses only a single faction, and you can readily build a deck that features some unholy alliance between factions that no one may have ever suspected of working together. These alliances, in turn, lead to countless deck types, inhabiting alternate worlds, and they may include two factions, or three, or even more. There’s no limit to the decks that players can create, but each new deck reveals its own secrets.

Accordingly, as we continue exploring For the Greater Good and the conspiracies it introduces to Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, we turn our attention to two outwardly similar Agency decks:

• One is pure Agency, relying upon the efforts of its operatives to explore the eerie circumstances surrounding three copies of Eldritch Nexus (Core Set, 154), shielding humanity from the horrors by wrapping them up within an elaborate conspiracy, The Blackwood Initiative (For the Greater Good, 35).

• The other deck is also an Agency deck and shares twenty-three of the same core cards, but as it hides the truth within the layers of its conspiracy, we begin to recognize a darker influence. In this second deck, the Agency’s operatives are being subtly manipulated by a cabal of powerful conspirators and the cult of Shub-Niggurath.

Layers Within Layers of Dark and Deadly Secrets

The sample decks above illustrate but two of the nearly infinite ways the new Agency cards from For the Greater Good can be put to use for good… or for evil.

Will you grab your shotguns and fight back against the forces threatening to unmake all of human civilization? Or will you manipulate endless troops of unwitting government officials, using them all to advance some dark ritual or open portals to other worlds?

Among all the ways that Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game evokes the eerie fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, perhaps the most terrifying is that the characters in your deck never truly know if they’re the heroes, or if they’re merely being played to some nefarious end.

Dozens of the Agency’s most noble men and women will soon put their lives on the line, not just the overburdened detectives like the King John (For the Greater Good, 8), but also the Overworked Bureaucrats (For the Greater Good, 3) and forensic psychologists like Dr. Christine Maire. How will you use them all? If you haven’t already pre-ordered your copy of For the Greater Good, go pre-order it at your local retailer today!

The dragon stirred restlessly on its hoard, sending gold and jewels cascading down the sides. It could sense a thief approaching, already close. When the thief arrived, he would be greeted with snapping teeth, rending claws, and a blazing stream of fire, but for now, the dragon could only impatiently wait. Then the ground began to rumble beneath the steps of the approaching thief, and the dragon realized its foe may be a worthy challenger.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the first Reinforcement Packs for BattleLore Second Edition: the Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack and the Great Dragon Reinforcement Pack!

Legendary creatures have strode across the battlefields of BattleLore Second Edition since the days of the Core Set. Roc Warriors and Chaos Lords currently serve the Daqan Lords and the Uthuk Y’llan, while Siege Golems and Doombringers will soon arrive with the upcoming release of Hernfar Guardians and Warband of Scorn. You can easily build an army around these legend units, and each one can deal unprecedented destruction to your opponent’s forces.

But some creatures are wild by nature; they cannot be controlled by one army. They may be temporarily harnessed for battle, but in the end, they can never be tamed. Mountain Giants and Great Dragons are two such creatures, and you can bring their might to your battles with these Reinforcement Packs.

Both the Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack and the Great Dragon Reinforcement Pack contain a detailed plastic figure, the cards you need to muster this unit in your army, three new lore cards to customize your lore deck, and a new terrain tile. In addition, each Reinforcement Pack offers a pre-constructed scenario that highlights the new unit and challenges you to fight for victory in entirely new ways.

From the Mountains

The mountains of Terrinoth are home to terrifying beasts of all kinds, including the Mountain Giants. These enormous humanoids are usually content to stay close to their lairs, but when one is enticed to venture out, the very ground shakes beneath his massive feet. A Mountain Giant is undeniably a fearsome combatant on the field of battle. He can cast boulders with stunning accuracy at your foes or cut a swath around himself with his club.

A Mountain Giant’s strength can also reduce the buildings of the realm to nothing more than rubble. By playing the Crushing Force lore card, you can replace a building hex near the Mountain Giant with a rubble hex – terrain which provides no benefits and damages any unit that enters! Two other lore cards are also included in this Reinforcement Pack, and if you field the Mountain Giant in your army, you can include these cards in your lore deck.

You’ll aid the Uthuk Y’llan with the Mountain Giant’s power in the included pre-built scenario, The Sound of Thunder. In this scenario, the Daqan Lords have taken a handful of Blood Harvesters captive, but an Uthuk Y’llan raiding party has assembled to free the prisoners – and they’ve enlisted a Mountain Giant to help. The Daqan Lords must protect the prisoners while the Uthuk Y’llan use the Mountain Giant to destroy buildings and liberate the captives. Although this scenario puts the Mountain Giant under the command of the Uthuk Y’llan, you can bring the Mountain Giant’s strength to any army in your other games of BattleLore.

Nowhere to Run

In all Terrinoth, few creatures can match the might and ferocity of a Great Dragon. These beasts commonly collect treasure of all kinds into a massive hoard, and they would face any odds rather than see a single piece stolen from its glittering mass. Unfortunately for would-be thieves, a Great Dragon is well equipped to defend its loot. A Great Dragon in the service of an army is a terrifying thing – it flies across the battlefield, breathing plumes of flame on any who cross its path.

When you muster a Great Dragon in your army, you must place the hoard terrain hex underneath it. The hoard is full of all kinds of treasure, and if the enemy occupies it at the start of his turn, he claims the treasure as victory points. Thankfully, the Great Dragon watches over its loot vigilantly. Whenever ordered, a Great Dragon may return to the hoard hex instead of moving and attacking. You may even use the Great Dragon’s Firestorm lore card to dissuade enemy units from approaching the hoard. Firestorm places inferno markers next to an enemy unit, and whenever a unit enters an inferno marker, it takes a damage.

Even without a supporting army, a Great Dragon is a dangerous foe. In the Into the Fire pre-built scenario, the Daqan Lords and the Uthuk Y’llan compete to claim the dragon’s hoard. Both armies start on the same edge of the battlefield, and they must compete to overpower the Great Dragon and be the first to claim its hoard. The task may sound simple, but the Great Dragon is a mighty combatant, and your opponent’s army is just as desperate for treasure as your own. You can introduce fiery danger to every game of BattleLore Second Edition with the Great Dragon Reinforcement Pack.

Reinforcements on the Way

New reinforcements for your armies arrive as legendary creatures walk and fly onto the battlefields of Terrinoth. Will you call upon the might of a Mountain Giant, or unleash an inferno with the Great Dragon? The choice is yours.

Look for the Mountain Giant Reinforcement Pack and the Great Dragon Reinforcement Pack at your local retailer in the second quarter of 2015!

“I shall reap a terrible bounty from the death that I sow in your name, Father Nurgle…”
   –Typhus the Traveller, Herald of Nurgle

The Tau Ethereals guide their entire race, shepherding them towards their rightful place as rulers of the galaxy. Now, the Ethereals have led the Tau to the Traxis sector! Swell the ranks of the Tau and every other faction with the Gift of the Ethereals War Pack for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore.

A new Tau warlord strides onto the battlefields of the Traxis sector in this expansion, but the Tau are not alone in receiving reinforcements. Dark Eldar mercenaries fight for whoever can pay, the Astra Militarum call countless legions to arms, and White Scars Space Marines ride to battle on their bikes. You may repair your supports with an Ork Repair Krew, or foretell the future with the power of the Eldar.

Of course, the minions of Chaos are not idle as the Tau arm themselves under a new warlord. With new Chaos cards from Gift of the Etherals, you can devote yourself wholeheartedly to Father Nurgle and follow Ku’gath Plaguefather!

The Fetid Stench of Nurgle

The forces of Nurgle receive a new army unit in this expansion: the Rotten Plaguebearers (Gift of the Etherals, 59). This unit has the Daemon trait, allowing you to reduce its cost with your Cultists, but it also bears a powerful Action. When you use the Rotten Plaguebearers’ Action, you exhaust the unit to deal one damage to any other unit at the same planet. This ability has dozens of possible uses. You could use it to deal a damage to an enemy unit before any other attacks can be made, or to damage one of your units, such as Ku’gath Plaguefather (The Scourge, 23) himself. Many Nurgle abilities, including Ku’gath Plaguefather and Fetid Haze (The Scourge, 27) require a unit that has been damaged. The Rotten Plaguebearers give you another way to activate these abilities.

You’ll find another way to quickly deal damage to your enemies with the Nurgling Bomb (Gift of the Ethereals, 60). When you play this event, you may choose any planet. Every non-Nurgle unit at the planet either takes one damage or is routed back to its controller’s headquarters. By playing the Nurgling Bomb on a crucial planet, you force your opponent to choose between two unappealing options. Either he sees widespread damage dealt to his units, or his entire force is routed to his HQ, leaving your forces in possession of the planet. Either way, your Nurgle units escape the damage unscathed.

The third Chaos card included in Gift of the Ethereals gives you another way to take advantage of the typically high-cost cards in Chaos decks. This card is the Throne of Vainglory (Gift of the Ethereals, 61). As an Action, you can exhaust this support to discard the top card of your deck. If the discarded card costs three or more resources to play, you may put two Cultist token units into play at your HQ! Cultist token units can be sacrificed to reduce the cost of your Daemon units, which are among the most expensive and powerful units in the game. Whether you’re trying to summon a Soul Grinder (Core Set, 91) or a Black Legion Heldrake (Core Set, 87), a reliable source of additional Cultists can easily keep pressure off of your resources.

Choose Your Tactics

Whether you’re spreading disease with the servants of Nurgle or following the inspirational leadership of the Tau Ethereals, your armies can benefit from the additional troops, steadfast supports, and powerful events contained in the Gift of the Ethereals War Pack. Muster your forces and prepare to take the Traxis sector by storm!

Pick up your copy of Gift of the Ethereals at your local retailer today.