Hey everybody, Back in December, I wrote a small series of posts about Star Wars Destiny, the collectible dice/card game from Fantasy Flight Games that ran between 2016 and 2020. I was excitedly spending money on cards for this game, with the vague intent that I might be able to play it with someone like James or JP, or even convince my wife to give it a try, but it was the discovery of the solo/co-op variant, Encounters, that really got me interested. Developed by the same guy who did the Leaders variant for the Star Wars deck-building game, it uses custom cards for an enemy, with automated turns to provide an opponent.
Right from the start, I think what impressed me the most about Star Wars Destiny Encounters is how much thought has gone into the AI enemy. There is a full deck of 30 cards for this enemy, including enemy-specific cards and neutral cards, and at least four different enemies to choose from. You aren’t just limited to “the baddies” though, as there are enemy sets for Luke Skywalker as well as Darth Vader, General Grievous and Boba Fett. Additional enemy cards for the likes of Count Dooku and Jango Fett can be used to mix things up.
The enemy AI functions really quite slick, and once you get into it, the turns go very smoothly. There is a row of 5 cards set out next to the deck, which forms the enemy’s hand: some of these are locked, and some are unlocked. At the start of the game, the enemy can only play unlocked cards, but as the game goes on, the enemy will amass resources in order to unlock further slots. For a solo game, there are two slots unlocked, but if the enemy is able to gain 3 resources, they unlock a third slot, and each time the enemy amasses three resources, they get traded in to unlock another slot.
The cards that the enemy plays get put into a second row, so any support cards or upgrade cards are placed here, and the enemy turns run off an activation list that really effectively automates the decision making as regards what it is able to do. When targeting which character to get damage, there is a hierarchy here as well, so everything that can happen is taken care of, which I think is fantastic.
As a solo variant, overall I think this is absolutely fantastic. Like I said, the amount of work that has gone into creating this variant is astounding, and it really functions well. I think the fact that you need to print off the enemy card decks to play the variant are possibly the only way in which it falls down, however. You can’t use the normal player cards for this, and have just two decks going against each other. It doesn’t really bother me too much, because (a) I don’t have a massive collection of Destiny to use in the first place, and (b) I have so many games regardless that I don’t anticipate playing this to the point where I begin to see the same old combos time and again. But I think it’s worth mentioning, because it is such a big investment to either print at home and sleeve them up, or get them printed through a third party site and whatnot.
Having playing it now a handful of times, this is really the only downside that I can think of when it comes to Star Wars Destiny Encounters. It’s really just incredible how much work has been put into this, and I think the fact that it has given the game a new lease of life, especially if you’re like me and never got to experience the game when it first came around in its head to head version. However, I can imagine that plenty of other folks would also enjoy the ability to still play with their collections against these enemies, so I can highly recommend it!
Hey everybody, I know, I’m really late to the party with this, but I’ve wanted to chew over both trailers for the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu movie before coming here with my thoughts on it all. The tl;dr on this is that I simply cannot wait. The movie is coming out in May, and I am really looking forward to it.
The teaser we got six months ago was good, with a lot of flashes of stuff like Grogu with those tiny aliens and whatnot, but it really whetted my appetite for more. In that sense, then, it was a success.
The trailer that dropped last month was excellent. We seem to have Mando teaming up with Zeb to help the New Republic, maybe? We’ve got gladiatorial fights with Hutts and all sorts – there’s even what seems to be a Mantellian Savrip involved at one point, one of the holochess pieces from way back.
It isn’t clear from the trailers how much of this movie will deal with stuff like Ahsoka and the return of Thrawn, but rather it’s possible that we’re picking up directly from the end of Mando season 3. However, I really hope that this could be something of a renaissance for Star Wars on the big screen, and depending on how the story pans out, I think it could be really nice to see more movies that pick up on the shows and stuff. It might just be a pipe dream, but it would be amazing to have more TV shows that then converge in another movie in a few more years’ time.
I realise that I seem to have a very unpopular opinion when it comes to Star Wars, in that I’m a fan that actually enjoys this stuff, by and large. Of course, there have been some mis-steps, and a few times over the years I’ve expressed my incredulity that they have replaced stories from the EU with something like that race around a star destroyer. But I think by and large, and especially with the TV shows, we’re seeing some incredible quality on the whole. People love to hate on Star Wars, to the point that I’m firmly convinced that if A New Hope were to come out in 2026, people would actively hate on it.
Hey everybody, After getting the Rebel Alliance starter set for Christmas, I have finally managed to get the whole thing fully painted up, and also managed to get in my first game of Star Wars Legion last weekend!
I’ve got two squads of Rebel Troopers, a squad of Rebel Commandos, a Rebel Commando Strike Team, two squads of Wookiee Warriors, all led by Luke Skywalker. It’s an impressive force, and I have really enjoyed getting them all painted up – well, maybe not the Wookiees…
I have predominantly used contrast paints here, and while I don’t have a huge selection of them to choose from, I think that has really worked in my favour. The Rebel Troopers are modelled with a somewhat loose uniformity to them – they’re not all wearing the same jacket, but it’s close enough, etc. But by having a somewhat broad colour spectrum of different browns, greens and greys to choose from, I’ve been able (I think!) to make them look like a proper sort of rag-tag force and not like they’ve all been to the quartermaster for their standard-issue Rebel Alliance uniform.
I absolutely adore the Trooper squad, and have been seriously contemplating picking up another box of them because I would love to paint some more up. They just look so incredibly good, and have the Star Wars look about them. The first squad that I got painted up, I was so pleased with them that I began to write up a backstory for them!
The Wookiees are a different kettle of fish. I think the contrasts method really didn’t suit these, and instead they would probably have benefited from a standard black undercoat and then using drybrushing to get a better look. I didn’t enjoy painting them, and took longer on these than any other unit. Indeed, I almost didn’t hit the self-imposed deadline of getting the box finished by the end of March as a result.
Finally, the Commandos. These guys were okay, but I think I struggled to differentiate them from the basic Troopers, as they’re broadly the same in terms of the bodies, etc.
At any rate, I’m really pleased to report that I have got all 36 models painted in the three months that I had given myself. There’s still plenty that I could go back to try to improve, but as a cohesive force, I’m really pleased.
I’m going to talk about the game in another post (spoiler alert: I lost), but I want to mention something that I got quite excited about when I was looking at the Legion road map again the other day. The stuff they talked about at Ministravaganza last year included mention of a Rebel Trooper upgrade expansion (alongside battle droids and stormtroopers) for Q4 of 2026. Now, they’ve already got Rebel Specialists (alongside the other factions) listed for reissue in Q2, which was the original box that included stuff like the Captain, medical droid and so on. Currently, I think these are all things that can still be added to a squad, though if like me you’re only buying the new plastic stuff, there isn’t a new version yet. I would love to see a box to expand the squad like this, so I hope that’s still on the horizon!
Hey everybody, It’s been a quiet month here at spalanz.com, which has predominantly been due to the real world intruding on my life. There’s no getting away from the fact that the world is a mess right now, and I’ve been finding it pretty exhausting to be honest. Almost as a way to cope with all of this, then, I have kinda retreated in an attempt to find some peace. I’ve still been doing all of the things that I would usually do that then find their way to the blog, such as gaming and painting, but there just hasn’t been a desire to then write up any kind of post about them.
I’ve been playing a lot of Marvel Champions this month, after a good start to the month where I wrote up a couple of posts about some of the latest heroes, Tigra and Wonder Man. I’ve managed to get games in with all four of the heroes from the Civil War wave now, though these two are by far and away my favourites from the bunch. While that might partly be due to the fact that they come with preconstructed decks that use my two favourite aspects, nevertheless I think they’re both really fun to play. Tigra feels especially thematic, the way she keeps her prey – minions – engaged but effectively neutered while she gets benefits from having those minions engaged with her.
It’s been almost entirely about Arkham Horror LCG second edition of late, though, and having made the decision to end my collection with The Drowned City, it has been interesting this time around, being on the outside and all. It seems like there are a lot of folks annoyed with the direction Chapter 2 is going, with bright and colourful investigator cards, less mythos-y villains to fight, and so on. The misprints and general mistakes in the core set are also seeming to cause a lot of concern online, which I get. FFG seems to have fumbled the ball a little on this one – and while I don’t necessarily want to get into the conspiracies here, it does lead almost directly into the other big card gaming news of the month.
It seems as if Lord of the Rings LCG is now being wound down as a mainline product. After the initial glut of releases for the game, FFG had re-issued several expansions, and seemed to suggest that this is something that would be kept as a curated core game line. Now, Lord of the Rings will be 15 next month, and the final box for the revised content was released in October 2024, so it is quite a venerable old game now. I suppose it’s really not surprising that a game like this has come to the end of its run – heck, it’s actually more surprising that it stayed in print for as long as it did. FFG are saying that it was not being ordered in sufficient quantities at distribution level to warrant keeping it in print. I totally get that, I really do.
Could it mean a second edition? I don’t know. It would be fascinating to see what they decide to do, though it most likely won’t affect me because I still have my complete collection, and as you may well know from multiple posts so far this year, I have been enjoying it very much once again. I’ve been playing my way through the Ringmaker cycle, which is not my favourite – indeed, it’s the one that turned me off from the game back when it first came out in 2014.
However, after playing mostly quests that I have already played plenty of times before, I’ve recently been able to play some quests, such as the Nin-in-Eilph and Celebrimbor’s Secret, which I have never before played. It’s actually been really fun, and a little bit odd to think I’ve had these cards for twelve years without actually making an attempt to play them. I will be taking some more about Lord of the Rings LCG as we move on though April and get to the fifteenth anniversary.
As we make our way towards Easter, my thoughts invariably turn to Star Wars, as I have said on this blog countless times before. However, this year I find myself in a difficult place where I’ve been reading Oathbringer, the third book in the Stormlight Archive series, and have also been dragging myself through The Path of Heaven, the thirty-something book in the Horus Heresy series. The latter I have been reading with Dave, although he finished it in record time and I have been really struggling with as I find myself completely uninterested. I really hate DNFing books, so I will try to finish it, but yeah. The way they have stretched out the story of the Horus Heresy is just criminal at this point. I’m probably due a longer rant about this, though, so stay tuned! So there’s been no time for Star Wars, which has definitely been disappointing!
Of course, March is Adepticon, and we’ve had a whole slew of reveals for upcoming stuff from Games Workshop, including the official acknowledgement of 11th edition coming this summer. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but there was a lot of exciting stuff announced that looks very good. Atomic Mass Games have mainly been preoccupied with Star Wars Legion, with a massive announcement about the new Mandalorian faction that will be coming out almost as a tie-in to the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu movie out in May. I was disappointed by the lack of anything more for Shatterpoint beyond the bland corporate stuff that we saw last month, though I think it was interesting that someone online pointed out MCP also didn’t have anything new revealed, just a better look at things they had already announced.
Legion fans are most certainly doing very well out of AMG recently though, with a lot of very interesting things being shown off. At the weekend, I finally got round to my first proper game with Legion, using my fully-painted Rebel Alliance list, and I’m pleased to report that it was a massive amount of fun. I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, as I not only show off my minis but also share some thoughts about the game as a whole, so stay tuned for that!
So yeah, that was March. Fairly active, though quiet on the blog front. Hopefully April will see a bit more activity here, though, as I do have some catching up to do…
Hey everybody, This week has seen a fairly disappointing turn for one of my favourite miniatures games, as Atomic Mass Games issued a press release on Tuesday that gave some news about a restructure of both staff and their product lines. In short, they’re going to focus more on Marvel Crisis Protocol and Star Wars Legion, and Star Wars Shatterpoint is moving into what is described as “a specialist core game line”.
Now, I’m just getting started with Legion, but MCP is very firmly in there as a miniatures game that I enjoy. But man, the news about Shatterpoint is disappointing. Of course, it makes some amount of sense, especially if the internet chatter about Asmodee and the debt they inherited from Embracer Group is to be believed. However, I think the majority of my disappointment stems from the fact that the press release is so full of corporate-speak that it’s hard to tell what it really means.
To my mind, there are a couple of ways this could go. A lot of online doomsayers are heralding this as the end of Shatterpoint, due to AMG’s track record with how they handled both X-Wing and Armada. I genuinely don’t think this is the case, because AMG were basically saddled with these games by Asmodee when they split Fantasy Flight into pieces, and AMG were set up as “the miniatures studio”. They tried to do something with each game, nothing seemed to have been received well, so the game line was closed off. It’s very disappointing, but it’s hyperbole to say AMG kills games. Shatterpoint, as their own game line, stands a better chance of survival, I think.
However, that’s not to say it will necessarily survive. It’s entirely possible that a second outcome from all this will be they simply release what they have already announced, such as the Qui-Gon Jinn box and the sequel-era stuff, and then we’ll have radio silence as the game fades into the sunset.
My preferred outcome, of course, is that this promise holds true, and they do stick to a smaller release schedule of maybe two or three boxes twice a year, or something. My severe backlog for this game clearly shows that I haven’t had the time to even build a lot of stuff, let alone paint and play with it, so it’s hardly like I’m in desperate need for more content on a continual basis! This said, there are still so many characters that I am somewhat desperate to see included in the game, and it would be incredibly sad if we were to see the game go away without their inclusion. Saw Gerrera instantly springs to mind, as being one of the squad boxes that pretty much writes itself. I’ve written plenty of posts about squads I’d like to see, though, and I do hope we’ll continue to see new stuff, if only to get a few of these things.
AMG obviously needs to follow the sales, and if MCP and Legion are more lucrative than Shatterpoint, then that’s the world we live in. I hope that I can continue to play this game for a long time regardless of support, and fortunately I think James is of the same opinion that we will shatter some points for many years to come. A game is only dead if you don’t play it, of course, and as I’m seeing with Lord of the Rings LCG, some games continue on long after the product line has ended. It is probably a natural course of things that we’d primarily focus on the games that are seeing support, though, and so MCP will likely continue to win out in terms of games being played.
Adepticon is taking place in a month’s time, and AMG historically have used it as one of their main events to make announcements, so I am hopeful that we’ll get more meat on the bones of this press release at that point. Hopefully they will give us more of an indication as to what this means (quarterly releases, once a year drops, etc). I think it would be nice to have some element of reassurance for the community by revealing something else, if they have it, just so we know the game isn’t going to die once we have the sequel-era models…
Not part of the press release, but AMG have also announced a co-op version of Marvel Crisis Protocol, Alliances, which has new easy-build sculpts of iconic heroes that will be compatible with the main game. Interesting, especially as it looks like Warhammer Quest, so presumably can be played solo too, though I’m not sure if it’s something I’d want to pick up. The first box, coming in the summer, is all Spider-Folks and Green Goblin, but they’ve also teased X-Men vs Sentinels in a second box at the end of that video, so that’s interesting…
I just really hope they hold true to this promise for Shatterpoint remaining as part of the fold. I’ve been genuinely down about this since the release…
Hey everybody, It’s been a bit of a slow start so far, when it comes to Star Wars Legion. After getting the Rebel Alliance starter box for Christmas, I built all 30-odd miniatures over the course of about a week, but have been a bit nervous of doing anything with it since. I really want these models to look great when it comes to the tabletop, but I don’t want to agonise over them because I know that will mean progress will be too slow. There’s a lot to get through, after all!
I’ve determined to use this as an opportunity, though, to try to crack the use of Contrast paints. I had made some effort with these paints back when they came out, but despite using them for my Ossiarch Bonereapers army during the pandemic, I’m still not really happy with using them, and have fallen back time and again on using the techniques I’m used to. The definition in these new Rebel minis, though, is such that I think Contrasts will be really useful. And it probably doesn’t hurt that it’ll speed things up a lot!
None of this is to suggest that I just want to rush these out with a basic paint job, however. I think one of the good things about using Contrasts is they really demand good brush control. I normally slap on my base coats without too much care, but because these paints are acting more akin to shades or tints, you need to keep the light primer there to allow for the different parts to stand out. I’m really taking it slow, and trying my utmost to be careful, with the intention that I’ll be able to improve my brush control in general, not just when using these paints.
On Thursday, anyway, James and I had a hobby evening and got together for about six hours of miniatures painting. He’s doing the Empire side of things, and over the course of the evening, he managed to get started with about ten of the Scout Troopers, as well as Darth Vader himself. For my part, I have done some work on the first squad of Rebel Troopers, using a mix of Basilicanum Grey, Snakebite Leather, Skeleton Horde and Militarum Green on the fatigues, trying to get a nice mix to ensure they don’t all look uniform, while still keeping some vague feeling of belonging together as a unit.
I’m actually pretty pleased with the results so far, as well! Some paints cover nicer than others, and Skeleton Horde in particular looks like it might need multiple coats to achieve the look I want. However, I’m particularly impressed with how the detail on these guys has allowed them to look really good with minimal effort. I’ve gone for some blue tones with some of the trousers here, so Space Wolves Grey has been used on the squad leader for instance, and I think that should be really useful for things like denim on MCP minis, as well.
I think I’ve been most impressed, however, with how Guilliman Flesh looks for the faces. One coat looks really good as a fairly pale face, while 2-3 can help to make a pretty convincing Caucasian look. For the Twi’leks, I have used the usual acrylics to help with a wider colour palette, simply because I don’t have as many colours available as Contrasts at the minute. However, I think I’m definitely going to get some more soon, as this really seems to be a way forward.
I had initially thought that I would like to get this one squad finished by the end of February, but with how they’re looking after just one painting session (which, admittedly, we spent a lot of time waffling as well as painting!) I think I could possibly get another unit done, as well!
At any rate, I’m really pleased with how these guys are coming along so far!
These books, published for the 40th anniversary of each film of the original trilogy, seem to be the new canon answer to the anthologies like Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, albeit they include characters from the whole film, not just those specific scenes.
I’d initially dismissed these books, as I thought they’d just be throwaway stories about ‘second stormtrooper from the left’ and the like. I’ve seen quite a few of references to these books recently, though, which makes me think they could include some more significant nuggets than perhaps I’d initially thought.
The premise, 40 stories for each film, with a wide variety of authors, does mean that we’re potentially going to find some turkeys in amongst them. But I guess that was true of the old Bantam books, too.
These three celebrate the 40th anniversary of their respective movies, and of course, it won’t be for another 13 years until we have the same celebration of the prequels. Hopefully they’ll do something similar for the 30th anniversary though, so that they can kick off in 2029 instead…
For the time being, of course, I’m slap-bang in the middle of reading Brandon Sanderson, but I’m hoping to get to these in due course, at least!
Hey everybody, If you’ve been with me since December, you’ll know that I’ve been working my way through the 2020 series of Star Wars comics from Marvel. This encompasses four series – the main ongoing series (by Charles Soule), Darth Vader (by Greg Pak), Bounty Hunters (by Ethan Sacks) and Doctor Aphra (by Alyssa Wong). The ongoing series and the Vader series each run to 50 issues, while Bounty Hunters closed at 42, and Aphra ended with 40. Along the way, there were four crossover events, with a main book all written by Charles Soule, but all four series were also involved in each of these events. The overarching narrative was of the return of Qi’ra and the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, although that came and went as a trilogy, with the Dark Droids event forming the last crossover. With the Dark Droids series, we also saw the conclusion of both the Bounty Hunters and Doctor Aphra, so all that’s left now is two books for the ongoing series, and two for Darth Vader.
The Sith and the Skywalker is the penultimate book of the ongoing series, and I feel is quite erroneously named. It collects a two-part series that features Luke in his quest to purify the red kyber crystal he gained on Cristophsis, when he met the Fallanassi Gretta. He goes back to her for help, and together with her Auntie Feez they guide him through the meditation, after which the crystal emerges white.
The main meat of the book, though, is The Trial of Lando Calrissian, after his admission during the Dark Droids crossover that he stole the droid responsible for creating the new Alliance code. During the trial, Mon Mothma is abducted by a gang who demand a ransom for her, but as it happens Lando knows the gang, so gets Chewie to check through a list of known locations where they could be holding her. Lando is able to rescue Mon Mothma, though General Madine is all for pushing him through an airlock for treason. Of course, Lando gets off with essentially a massive fine to help the Rebel cause, but it was definitely one of the better storylines that I’ve read so far in this series, not least for Lando’s speech in his own defence.
The Rise of the Schism Imperial picks up from the end of the Vader instalment of Dark Droids, where Sly Moore has essentially been collecting disenfranchised Imperials with a beef against Vader, though who hold the Emperor accountable. These Imperials are part of Sly Moore’s “Schism”, and work together with Vader – and his newly-abducted Rebel super-soldiers – to consolidate his power base. The book culminates with Vader’s raid on Exegol, during which he kills a massive monster and steals a huge kyber crystal, via which he communicates with the Emperor, who finally lets him pursue Luke. It’s all very weird, I have to say, and while I have been trying to enjoy the Vader book, it’s definitely been very patchy of late. The whole thing with the Rebel super-soldiers was almost unbelievable, but the constant Vader vs the Emperor, and trying to establish a power base of his own, has been all over the place in this series. The one bright spot on the horizon is that the book ends with Sabé getting in touch with Luke…
The Vader run ends with volume ten, Phantoms, and we find out that Sabé wanted to test Luke to see if he had the same darkness within him that Vader does. Meanwhile, Sly Moore tips her hand when the Rebel super-soldiers manage to incapacitate Vader, and she reveals that she wishes to take Vader’s place at the Emperor’s side, so tracks down Luke to try to kill him. Vader manages to convince the super-soldiers that Luke, their hero, is in danger, and somehow they believe him, so everyone goes to the same planet, and obviously Luke makes it off alive. All of this has been yet another test from the Emperor though, and Sly Moore is still in his good graces while Vader resumes his place as the Emperor’s apprentice. There’s a bit of a montage of endings then, and among other things we get to see Sabé meet with Leia and offer her the chance to rule at Vader’s side, before she realises that Leia too is pure of heart and so leaves her to it. This was, if anything, an infuriating bit because of how short it was. In the Legends continuity, Sabé actually accompanied Leia to Alderaan and served as her weapons trainer, and I think there was an intent that Sabé was meant to be the reason why Leia believes she could still recall her mother’s face, etc. Here, though, Leia angrily recognises Sabé as a lieutenant of Vader, and also completely dismisses her idea of ruling the galaxy, then it’s over.
While I wanted to like the book, I felt that ultimately it didn’t go where I had perhaps wanted it to, as I thought we could have had some far more interesting scenes with Sabé and both Luke and Leia. Interestingly, though, Luke recognises the former handmaiden though I believe this was their first canon meeting…
The ongoing series then comes to a close with volume nine, The Path of Light. This is basically a two-part story that involves Leia and Luke investigating the disappearance of the Alderaan survivors’ fleet, along with Evaan Verlaine who returns after a bit of a gap. Evaan was first seen in the Princess Leia miniseries from 2015, and has since been retconned as Gold Three, who flew in the Battle of Scarif and was the lone returning Y-Wing from the first Death Star assault (replacing Keyan Farlander). I quite like her character, as she has hints of Deena Shan as well as Winter, although I think Amilyn Holdo has now more fully taken over the mantle of Winter. Anyway, the three of them fly to the last known location of the Survivors’ fleet, and it soon becomes clear that they have landed in a trap – laid by none other than Commander Zahra! Yes, she didn’t die way back in issue 26, but instead managed to get free, and traded her tactical expertise to some raiders in return for medical attention. She’s been leading them ever since, and has been determined to exact vengeance on Leia. Luke is able to see her off, and she escapes only to attempt to fly her starfighter directly at Leia, but a Mon Cal cruiser arrives and shoots her down. After the mission, Evaan receives a message from the Alderaanians saying they have decided to disperse and live their lives, which initially upsets Leia as she feels the final bastion of her people has gone, but eventually she is encouraged by the fact that life is moving on. As such, she determines to go rescue Han.
Issue 50 of the ongoing series is a bit of an outlier, as we jump forward in time and Luke is training Ben Solo on Ossus, and he tells him a story of the time when he was part of a team to assassinate Palpatine. There’s a Dark Side doohickey that needs some genetic material of the target, at which point it will do Dark Side stuff to “find” them, and kills not just that person, but everyone who they have ever been in contact with. Realising the billions of people the Emperor has been in contact with, they decide not to go through with it, but Chewie is determined to get revenge for Kashyyyk’s enslavement, and so the team give it different genetic material from a person long-dead to essentially turn the thing off. The story is meant as a lesson for Ben, but really, it was a fairly poor way to end the ongoing series.
Indeed, I think this mostly sums up my thoughts on the entire 40-odd books that I’ve been reading for the last 7 weeks! Let’s look at them in turn…
Doctor Aphra is mostly Aphra causing chaos, being a terrible person that we are presumably meant to cheer on or something. There were some interesting ideas as we wafted by the criminal underbelly of Canto Bight, but ultimately this was the series that I just did not enjoy. I guess I just don’t see how a “rogue archaeologist” could be wound up so closely with the big characters from the movies. It kinda made sense when Vader was initially looking to build a droid army to consolidate his power base in the initial 2015 run, and needed someone who could not only reprogram these droids, but also do the archaeology bit as well. But that initial premise has since been stretched so paper-thin that it’s now beyond irritating. I know there was another run that has been cancelled after a dozen issues or something, but until she has something better to offer, I just hope Aphra gets retired.
The Bounty Hunters was initially very confusing but, as time went on, I think I got into it somewhat. It was very much tied into the crossovers, as we’re dealing with the galactic underworld during the time of Crimson Dawn and the syndicate wars, but it was interesting to get to spend some more time with those hunters from the bridge of the Executor. There was some promise along the way, when we saw Inferno Squad deployed to take out Valance, but ultimately I think this one was only marginally better than the Aphra run.
The ongoing series felt very good to start with, as we were dealing with the fallout from the Battle of Hoth and the fact that the Alliance fleet had scattered, but couldn’t regroup due to the fact that their code had been cracked. Unfortunately, this plot point was hastily solved to make way for the series of crossovers, and so we’ve ended up with a series of throwaway adventures on the whole. The idea of Luke needing to search out more Jedi lore is a bit weird as it had me asking “why doesn’t he just go back to Yoda?” There’s an attempt to hand-wave this as “Yoda isn’t answering my Force-call” or somesuch, but really, I think the biggest problem we have here is that tradition dictates there is a year between Empire and Jedi, and for that entire year, the Rebels are just dithering about, not really making any move to rescue Han, and Luke makes no attempt to return to Yoda. It makes me wonder whether George initially had planned for only a couple of weeks to elapse between the two films, because it really stretches the imagination.
Finally, the Darth Vader series started out so strong. Indeed, it was reading this book that got me back into the Marvel comics as a whole, because I had mainly checked out back in 2016 or 2017 when they were getting a bit too silly. The idea of Sabé leading a pro-Naboo faction that was determined to have justice for Padmé was just awesome in my mind, and the push and pull there was very interesting. As time went on, though, and we had all the crossovers, I think the Sabé storyline got a bit lost, and the constant power struggle between Vader and the Emperor went on perhaps a bit too long. There’s definitely some good stories in here, and I like the inclusion of the likes of Sly Moore and Ochi of Bestoon, but I do believe if Greg Pak had been given more freedom to create his story, rather than “you need to hit these four crossover points” (and, quite possibly, “you need to tie into Exegol and stuff”), we could have had something more interesting.
Aside from the Amidalans, I also really enjoyed the fact that Kitster and the other slave children make an appearance, and one of the pseudo-endings in the tenth book involves Kitster and Wald returning to Tatooine and freeing their former slave-friends, so that we have the whole gang of kids from Episode I reunited, reminiscing about their childhoods and wondering what happened to Anakin. I thought this was actually pretty perfect, as you can just imagine it’s the sort of thing that kids brought up in hardship would be like.
Out of all of these books, I think I would probably re-read the Vader run, but do it by itself rather than peppering in all of the others. I might return to the ongoing series one of these days as well, because I feel that my summary just now might be doing it a disservice, though the fact that nothing really stands out for me beyond Lando’s defence speech during his trial is perhaps telling…
At any rate, this post has gone on long enough now, so I’ll stop my rambling nonsense!
A ten episode series that is set in the early years of the Empire, and sees Maul attempt to rebuild his criminal empire, it should be fun. Of course, we have another Jedi who has escaped Order 66 involved, but we’ve also got that Inquisitor from the Ahsoka show, and a world “untouched by the Empire”.
Should be an interesting watch! I’m looking forward to it, at any rate!
Hey everybody, We’re getting close to the end now! Dark Droids is the fourth and final crossover event for the four Star Wars comic book series from 2020, and feels like a much bigger event, along the lines of War of the Bounty Hunters from earlier in the series. I say this because, while each of the four series has its own “Dark Droids” crossover volume, we also have the main five-issue miniseries, and a tie-in miniseries as well. It’s interesting how these crossovers have worked as each series moved on, from War of the Bounty Hunters where each series included some shared panels with the main event, through Crimson Reign and Hidden Empire where the links became more loose, until finally we’re here, where each book simply seems to allude to the main event without giving us a re-telling. I think I mentioned it in War of the Bounty Hunters, but it reminded me a lot of how the old Bantam “Tales from…” books worked, as each short story necessarily included movie scenes like Han shooting Greedo, or Luke being thrown to the floor by Ponda Baba.
Anyway!
The main event is basically a droid supervirus taking over. It ties directly to the Spark Eternal from the Doctor Aphra run inhabiting the ancient piece of tech that had been held in the Fermata Cage, whereupon it develops into an ancient consciousness named the Scourge. This consciousness takes over droids at first on a Star Destroyer, but somehow a mouse droid finds its way to the Rebellion, and Threepio gets “infected”. Over the course of the book, the Scourge begins to take over all manner of droids, and seeks to move “from the metal to the meat”, and place its consciousness into humans. Lobot, Magna Tolvan and Beilert Valance are all taken over, as cyborgs and hybroids are all deemed to be suitable hosts, and the Scourge takes over a communications hub to further its plans. Of course, Lando is determined to save his friend, and leads the gang to the hub where they are all briefly infected by the virus, before the Scourge master-host is destroyed, shutting down the hive mind.
There’s an interesting subplot about self-awakened droids led by a droid called Ajax Sigma, who has created a sort of haven for similar droids to live out their lives peacefully without subjugation. The Scourge is seen as a threat to that, since everyone is aware of the fact that there’s something wrong with the droids… As it happens, Artoo leads a droid team to Ajax to ask for his help, which includes the lies of Triple Zero and Beetee, which is the plot of the D-Squad tie-in book. That book manages to stretch out a couple of panels from the main event into a four-part miniseries of its own, but is entertaining enough, I suppose!
The storyline reminds me of elements from Legends continuity, mainly the plot from The New Rebellion where Kueller uses droids “because they’re everywhere”. In some ways, it’s quite ingenious because nobody thinks about droids because they’re so pervasive. However, the placement of this story feels somewhat weird, because it’s actually a pretty huge event – killer droids trying to take over the galaxy? There would be ramifications to that, which by rights should be felt for a long time after the fact. However, this story is supposed to take place in the weeks or months before Return of the Jedi, and despite the fact that Threepio was taken over by the hive mind thing, everyone just carries on like normal in the movie? Obviously the reason for that is because this series came out 40 years after the movie was made, but it disappointed me because it disturbs the timeline!
The ongoing series takes the Dark Droids story and places Lando and Lobot firmly at the centre of things. Lando realises that the Talky droid they used to develop a new comms code way back in volume 2 is going to be crucial to helping Lobot overcome the negative effects of his implants, so they head off to Jabba’s palace and rescue it. While there, Lando is able to walk right up to Han on the wall because Jabba and his retinue are off sailing the Dune Sea, and yet he doesn’t do anything to rescue Han because he’s concerned he doesn’t have the ability to deal with hibernation sickness or whatever. Feels a bit flimsy, that. Anyway, the Talky heals Lobot and all of Lando’s dodgy dealings come out when he gets back to the fleet, which sets up the next arc, where Lando will be put on trial by the Alliance… It’ll be interesting to see how they handle this, because again, we’re close in the timeline to Episode VI, and we need to go from Lando being in the brig to General Lando being in charge of the Death Star Assault? Hm.
We next move to Doctor Aphra, and the Dark Droids volume brings her series to a close here with a total of 40 issues. It’s a bit of a fragmented storyline, which sees Aphra having kidnapped Luke to help her open the way to a lost Jedi temple, which she hopes to plunder. Later on, she leads a rescue mission to save Magna Tolvan from the Scourge, along the way bringing down TaggeCo. I haven’t been the biggest fan of this series, and despite how closely Aphra is linked to most of these crossovers, I think my overriding opinion of the Dark Droids volume was “not her again”. I think the fact that she’s able to kidnap Luke, who at this point is meant to be growing in his power in the Force, seems very much like it shouldn’t have worked, so therefore increases that feeling of Mary Sue-ness Aphra has. She just doesn’t seem to belong in the Star Wars universe, which I know sounds ridiculous as we’re talking about a vast galaxy of possible here, but even so. It all just feels a little out of place, and ultimately just feels like a let-down.
The Bounty Hunters also sees its run close, after reaching a total of 42 issues. The ongoing series had Lobot, and Aphra had Magna Tolvan; the Bounty Hunters therefore focuses on Valance being taken over by the Scourge, and T’onga’s crew attempts to track him down as she feels a compunction to rescue him. I must admit to feeling quite annoyed as this series went on, because I was actually siding with Bossk. Valance was already losing his humanity after the Empire had first replaced his human heart with some kind of mechanical pump, but after wiping his memories of the possibility that he had seen plans for Death Star II, his processors had been damaged or something, so that he was slowly losing any memory of being anything other than a cyborg. T’onga is determined to prevent that, but it seems to be costing her crew, and new recruit Khel Tanna kinda leads a mutiny against her. Of course, they’re able to rescue Valance, and the final issue collected here gives us a fun adventure as Valance walks into Jabba’s Palace, as part of a plan with the Rebellion to draw off Jabba’s new superweapon, an enormous battle droid that could have caused havoc for their rescue mission. Everyone then goes off into the sunset, with T’onga planning to open a bar for bounty hunters… as you do…
Lastly, we come to the Vader crossover. The Executor is struck down by the Scourge, so Admiral Corleque is sent by Mas Amedda to destroy the ship, preferably with Vader on board. There’s a load of Vader montages where he’s blasting droids, and it all gets really confusing for the most part, but Vader – and the Executor – survive, Admiral Corleque is fired upon, though he does survive to make it into the next story arc. Back on Mustafar, the droid infection follows Vader and takes over one of the massive Octuparra droids still on-planet, but its real goal is to take over Vader himself, as he is of course “more machine than man”. However, Vader is able to control the infection within him, and ultimately rejects the Scourge. Along the way, there’s more Emperor vs Vader baiting, which is getting pretty old by this point, but the book ends with Sly Moore, Corleque, and former Governor Tauntaza wondering whether the Emperor or Vader is to blame for the problems in the Empire, and whether they should attempt to recruit Vader to help overthrow the Emperor…
Of all the crossovers in the 2020 run, Dark Droids is simultaneously the best in terms of its core idea, but also the messiest in how each of the series interweaves with it. Ultimately, the thing I find most annoying about it is that it’s a massive event, but it necessarily fizzles out to nothing because the media that happens immediately afterwards – Return of the Jedi – makes no mention of it. I think it would have been better if it was smaller in scale, but referenced an older event that was more widespread. That way, the main event could have taken place in the High Republic or something, then the main thing here was an attempt to stop the same thing happening again. As it is, I think it’s too odd that all the droids rise up and all of the main movie characters are possessed by a hybrid-droid intelligence, then a few weeks later they’ve moved on like it’s no big deal.
Though I suppose real-world events have shown that we can move from crisis to crisis in the past year, and find it difficult to keep up or remember just what happened.
I’ve read a lot of favourable reviews of the overall event, but having now made it through everything, I think this one being so messy as regards how it all worked out has left me feeling overall negatively towards it. At least we’ve now had both Doctor Aphra and Bounty Hunters conclude, so we only have the main ongoing series, and Darth Vader (two books each) before we conclude the entire 2020 run of Star Wars comics from Marvel. Stay tuned, we’re almost there!
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