“Less gravity. Fewer worries. Life is good in Heinlein!”
Welcome to the moon, a strange and alien place. From the moment you first set foot, you notice the gravity is different, the air distinctly smells recycled, and though you can’t quite put your finger on it, you know the rules feel different…
First Contact , the third Data Pack in the Lunar Cycle for Android: Netrunner , is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore !
With its sixty cards (three copies each of twenty different cards), First Contact shakes up the contests between Corp and Runner by introducing three new region upgrades, mythic ice, new traps, resources, and a new Anarch identity, all of which continue to enhance the cycle’s exploration a new meat space – the moon.
For the different Corps and Runners invested in the game’s high-stakes cyberstruggles, the moon presents a wide range of unique challenges, risks, and rewards. In fact, if it’s your first time in Heinlein, you might think the rules are altogether different. Of course, they’re not different. Nor have they broken, but in the moon’s reduced gravity, they bend quite nicely.
Running on the Moon
Everyone knows how you conduct a run. You build an icebreaker suite and crunch your way through ice subroutines, you do your legwork and bypass security measures by logging directly into the servers, or you charge straight ahead and hope the ice you crash into won’t kill you before you redirect your run and catch the Corp with its defenses down on another server. These are well-established facts. We’ve had thousands upon thousands of runs, and these are how they happen.
…Except, of course, if you’re Quetzal ( First Contact , 52). Then, you slip into Corp servers with little more than a program like Paintbrush ( Double Time , 108) and a set of e3 Feedback Implants ( Trace Amount , 24).
The only Runner to this point to feature a built-in ability to break an ice subroutine, Quetzal forces the Corp to adapt quickly or risk coughing up its most valuable secrets. Most ice that force the Runner into hard stops during the early game are provided by barrier ice such as Paper Wall ( Mala Tempora , 59) and Bastion ( Creation and Control , 26). Quetzal punches big holes in most of these. In fact, the Corps would be forced to think about abandoning barrier ice altogether were it not for the fact that Quetzal can only use her ability once per turn. Thus, it’s still possible to build a wall that can block this free spirit… as long as it’s two walls thick.
They Know Who You Are
Of course, it’s not just the Runners who want to play by their own rules. After all, the Corps built Heinlein, and they run it. They own it, and they know who you are.
In First Contact , NBN gains two cards that further position it as the leading name in consumer data collection and targeted messaging.
First of all, so long as it remains rezzed, The News Now Hour ( First Contact , 45) prevents the Runner from playing any currents . These strange new events first appeared in The Spaces Between and remain in play – and in effect – until the Corp plays its own current or scores an agenda. By removing the Runner’s ability to play currents , NBN lends greater resilience to its own. So long as The News Now Hour is broadcasting, the Runner can’t trash NBN’s currents except by stealing an agenda or first running on The News Now Hour and trashing it before, finally, playing its own current .
Why does this matter? If NBN can establish an undisputed control of the airwaves, it can fill them with currents like Manhunt (First Contact, 46), which can cause massive headaches for Runners hoping to avoid tags… Of course, Runners who don’t pay to dodge the tags or ditch them risk suffering a whole lot more than the loss of a couple credits. They might find their bank accounts closed, or they might learn that the oft-used Scorched Earth policy ( Core Set , 99) isn’t limited just to Earth.
Once You Make Contact, You’re in up to Your Teeth
In Heinlein, you can find pretty much anything you’d dream to find, but there are also plenty of things that might find you. Will you be the hunter or the prey? Will you play by your opponent’s rules, or will you play by your own? The stakes shot up as soon as you set foot on the moon.
Head to your local retailer today to pick up your copy of First Contact , or order it online through our webstore !
Based on the classic card game designed by Richard Garfield,
Android: Netrunner The Card Game
is a game for two players set in the dystopian future of
Android
. It pits monolothic megacorps against subversive netrunners in a high-stakes struggle for the control of valuable data.