Wield Immeasurable Power

Allies of Necessity Is Now Available for Star Wars™: The Card Game

Allies of Necessity, the first Force Pack in the Alliances cycle for Star Wars™: The Card Game, is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore!

Chief among the new cards it introduces are its ten new affiliation cards. And just as was the case after the Death Star first unleashed its superlaser upon Jedha City, the galaxy will never again be the same. These affiliation cards don't just encourage the exploration of new deck archetypes; they reward your exploration with immeasurable power.

While the Force Pack's eight new objective sets (two copies each of four different sets) each suggest different ways you might explore alliances between your side's affiliations, these affiliation cards actually mandate those alliances. Then they offer you extra card draw, extra resources, or extra actions.

  • For example, the Jedi can increase their hand size with Guardians of Justice (Allies of Necessity, 2063) while the Sith and Scum can do so with Galactic Enforcers (Allies of Necessity, 2069), and Imperial Contractors (Allies of Necessity, 2074).
  • No Questions Asked (Allies of Necessity, 2064) and Any Methods Necessary (Allies of Necessity, 2072) are just two of the affiliation cards you might play if you're looking to quickly gather enough resources to play such powerful characters as Obi-Wan or IG-88.
  • And the Rebel Alliance and Imperial Navy can maintain their focus on the Galactic Civil War by mobilizing their units with Fighters for Freedom (Allies of Necessity, 2065) and Dark Masters (Allies of Necessity, 2071).

Altogether, these new affiliation cards promote such exciting new deck types that it's almost hard to remember the Force Pack is also filled with such iconic and fan-favorite characters as Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Director Krennic, and Doctor Aphra.

With so much greatness blasting into the game at just the very beginning of the Alliances cycle, where should you even start? What does the pack offer if you're not looking to play with the new affiliation cards?

We asked two-time World Champion Mick Cipra for some of his favorite ideas, and he was more than happy to share—continuing with the experimental deck-builds that he began in his earlier preview of the expansion.

Two-Time World Champion Mick Cipra on His New Alliances

This is the first Force Pack in what looks to be one heckuva cycle!

One of the first things I want to do is flood the board with Troopers by using the Reaction abilities on Immeasurable Power (Allies of Necessity, 264-1) and Scout Troopers (Solo's Command, 187-3).

Immeasurable Power

Total Cards: (60)

Affiliation:
Imperial Navy

Objective: (10)
1x Corporate Exploitation (Core)
2x Immeasurable Power (Allies of Necessity)
1x Sabotage in the Snow (Assault on Echo Base)
1x The Last Grand Admiral (Chain of Command)
2x The Emperor’s Legion (Solo’s Command)
2x Protect the Generator (Press the Attack)
1x Pattern Analysis (A Wretched Hive)

Unit: (32)
5x Espo Trooper (Core Set)
2x Director Krennic (Allies of Necessity)
6x Death Trooper (Allies of Necessity)
1x Snowtrooper (Assault on Echo Base)
1x Snowtrooper Vanguard (Assault on Echo Base)
1x Grand Admiral Thrawn (Chain of Command)
2x Noghri Bodyguard (Chain of Command)
2x Lieutenant Renz (Solo’s Command)
4x Scout Trooper (Solo’s Command)
2x Colonel Dyer (Press the Attack)
4x Endor AT-ST (Press the Attack)
1x Agent Kallus (A Wretched Hive)
1x Academy Engineer (A Wretched Hive)

Enhancement: (10)
2x Assembly Area (Allies of Necessity)
2x Forward Command Post (Assault on Echo Base)
2x Endor Command Post (Press the Attack)
2x Promotion (Press the Attack)
1x Squad Leader (A Wretched Hive)
1x T-7 Ion Disruptor (A Wretched Hive)

Event: (1)
1x Chain of Command (Chain of Command)

Fate: (5)
1x Battle of Hoth (Assault on Echo Base)
1x Supporting Fire (Chain of Command)
2x Secret Objective (Solo’s Command)
1x Well Equipped (A Wretched Hive)

Mission: (2)
2x Prepared Ambush (Solo’s Command)

There's no new affiliation card for this deck. It's all about trying to flood the board, and once your board gets large enough, playing Promotion on Grand Admiral Thrawn or Director Krennic will allow you to trap the light side's attacks, gumming them up in your massive network of tactics icons—my favorite way of playing the game…

Mercenary Contacts

In my previous article, I mentioned that one of the things I love about this game is the array of choices you have after you draw up to six cards each turn. The new affiliation card, Mercenary Contacts (Allies of Necessity, 2068) ups that number to seven. That’s more than worth building around.

The Guardians of Justice affiliation card lets you do the same thing, but this deck wants to play with both the new Captain Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso sets. They work well together, and—more importantly—both their sets come with Allies of Necessity, which looks like one bonkers new fate card. The best way to test out how good this fate card is is to jam as many copies of it in a deck as you can.

The card is like Heat of Battle (Core Set, 65) and Target of Opportunity (Core Set, 133) rolled into one—with two caveats: you need two units that don’t share an affiliation, and you have to be able to resolve their strikes. These caveats might prove too limiting, but I suspect the card's still amazing.

Total Cards: (72)

Affiliation:
Smugglers and Spies: Mercenary Contacts

Objective: (12)
2x Asteroid Sanctuary (Edge of Darkness)
2x Mission to Talay (Galactic Ambitions)
2x The Last Warrior (A Wretched Hive)
2x Haunting the Empire (Power of the Force)
2x Pushing Back the Empire (Allies of Necessity)
2x Spirit of Rebellion (Allies of Necessity)

Unit: (28)
2x Millennium Falcon (Edge of Darkness)
2x Cloud City Operative (Edge of Darkness)
2x Mon Mothma (Galactic Ambitions)
2x Kyle Katarn (Galactic Ambitions)
2x Zeb Orrelios (A Wretched Hive)
2x Freelance Slicer (A Wretched Hive)
2x Hera Syndulla (Power of the Force)
2x Ghost (Power of the Force)
2x Phantom (Power of the Force)
2x Captain Cassian Andor (Allies of Necessity)
4x Rebel Saboteur (Allies of Necessity)
2x Jyn Erso (Allies of Necessity)
2x Crafty Smuggler (Allies of Necessity)

Enhancement: (14)
2x Cloud City Guest Quarters (Edge of Darkness)
2x Inspiring Presence (Galactic Ambitions)
2x Concussion Rifle (Galactic Ambitions)
2x Bo-Rifle (A Wretched Hive)
2x Improvised Defenses (A Wretched Hive)
2x Hidden Outpost (Power of the Force)
2x Necessary Alliances (Allies of Necessity)

Event: (8)
2x Bamboozle (Edge of Darkness)
2x Rebel for Hire (Galactic Ambitions)
2x Teamwork (Allies of Necessity)
2x Well-Laid Ambush (Allies of Necessity)

Fate: (8)
2x Twist of Fate (Edge of Darkness)
2x Well Equipped (A Wretched Hive)
4x Allies of Necessity (Allies of Necessity)

Mission: (2)
2x Call to Action (Power of the Force)

This deck also wants to test if Rebel for Hire makes the Mission to Talay set go up in value as it finds more Leaders in the card pool. Able to trigger off of Mon Mothma, Hera Syndulla, and Captain Cassian Andor, this deck can tutor for mains like Rebel Kyle Katarn, the Ghost, the Phantom, or one of the four Rebel Saboteurs.

And Rebel Saboteur is crazy. Rebels get an in-faction cancel. Four of them!

Tired of having your board blown up by Moment of Triumph (Imperial Entanglements, 178-5) or Force Storm (Heroes and Legends, 100-5)? Discard a Rebel Saboteur! Unless the dark side seriously adapts to hybrid decks, you can expect this guy to cancel a lot of Force Lightning (Core Set, 23-5), Captured (Edge of Darkness, 80-6), and the Reactions from Colonel Yularen (Imperial Entanglements, 180-2) and the Chimaera (Imperial Entanglements, 179-2), as well. Plus, as a unit, the Rebel Saboteur has a black gun, white bomb, and shielding all for the cost of two?!

This character makes me want to dust off the old Asteroid Base… Seriously, though, this guy is likely to be meta-defining.

Finally, this Smuggler deck is designed to test if the multi-striking between Cassian and Jyn is as good as it looks on paper—or if it’s too much of a pipe dream. The Phantom will help prevent them from being destroyed before they can strike, and Bamboozle can help if you get focused down. But then the dark side might simply decide that some engagements are too rich for their blood—good risk adverse play, trademark of an experienced player! Here, though, Jyn comes with Well-Laid Ambush which can help clear out arrogant, hands-off characters like Emperor Palpatine and Grand Moff Tarkin.

The Spirit of Rebellion soars high with this deck, which consequently makes it look like it will be a miserable objective to play against!

Will these two decks accomplish all the things they set out to do? I don't even know if it matters. I only know one truth: it’s time for the deck-building to begin!

Faith in Your Friends

Emperor Palpatine told Luke Skywalker that his faith in his friends was his weakness, but it was ultimately Luke who prevailed—not on his own, of course, nor solely with the aid of his friends. It was only Darth Vader's intervention that prevented Luke Skywalker's demise and toppled the Emperor, but it's almost impossible to think Darth Vader would have turned against his dark master were it not for Luke's faith in others.

Now, Star Wars: The Card Game gives you more reason to put your faith in others, as well. The Alliances cycle focuses on the bonds between the game's different affiliations—bonds of friendship, of loyalty, of duty, and of mercenary interest. Even service yielded out of fear. And the Allies of Necessity Force Pack kicks off this cycle with a bang as it introduces ten new affiliation cards to spur a frenzy of deck-building and experimentation.

How will you pursue your fight for the galaxy? Put your faith in your friends—and your dark overlords—with Allies of Necessity (SWC37), now available at retailers and online through our webstore!

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