Chapter 1 is Military Heroes and encompasses all kinds of new player options. There are nine new species, most of which have a military bent: Barabel, Dashade, Lurmen, Taung, Thakwaash, Trianii, Yevetha, Yuzzem, and Zygerrian. I should mention that this book could accurately be described as "splatbook for military-themed heroes, and also new stuff from the Clone Wars series." Hence the Lurmen, who are noted for their pacifism, and the Zygerrians, known as galactic slavers (though they appeared in the comics, not the TV series). Barabels are mighty impressive — natural weapons, natural armor, darkvision, radiation resistance, stun resistance, AND reroll Persuasion checks to intimidate — and Dashades are mighty good at fighting Force-users due to their inborn resistance to Use the Force checks.
Then there are talents. Jedi get two new talents: Cover Escape, which helps allies when you use Block and Deflect to protect them, and Prime Targets, which lets you deal an extra die of damage to targets who haven't been attacked since your last turn.
The Noble gets the Anticipation talent tree, which is pretty useful. It's all about helping your allies anticipate enemies' actions — like the Forewarn Allies talent, which gives your friends a +2 bonus on attack and damage for attacks of opportunity, and Get Down, which lets you knock your allies prone when they're targeted by a ranged attack. They also get two new talents for the Leadership tree — the unfortunately named Commanding Presence (which is also the name of a soldier talent in Force Unleashed), which is otherwise pretty good, and the very good Tactical Savvy, which lets you add your Intelligence modifier to the result of any Force Point an ally rolls. Really, really powerful.
The Scoundrel gets the Brigand talent tree, which is all about tripping up opponents. Cheap Trick lets you reroll Deception checks to feint, and Quick Strike lets you get an extra attack in during the first round of combat. They also get some new talents that boost the Sneak Attack talents, most notably Backstabber, which lets you deal Sneak Attack damage when flanking. But this particular talent gives me a little bit of worry about power creep: there's an identical talent already out (Advantageous Positioning), except it's an Assassin prestige class talent and it has a prerequisite (the Shift talent) before you can even take it. Backstabber is only once per round, so you can't do it on, say, an attack of opportunity, but how often are you flanking on an attack of opportunity?
The Scout gets some new Camouflage talents which greatly boost sniping by giving concealment or making targets flat-footed. They also get the Advance Patrol talents, which are kind of generic. They're not bad, but they're not particularly flavorful, either.
The Soldier gets two new talent trees — the Shockboxer and Veteran — as well as a new talent apiece for Commando and Weapon Specialist. Shockboxer is all about close-up attacks and penalizing your opponents for missing you in melee. (Gobmush in particular would like the Retaliation Jab talent.) Veteran is kind of all over the place, but it's primarily about keeping yourself alive. Battlefield Remedy is nice for Treat Injury; Tested in Battle improves your second wind; Seen It All protects you against fear effects, for example.
While talents left me a little lukewarm, I'm all about the new feats, which are pretty much across-the-board awesome. Bantha Herder is an oddly named but fantastic feat that lets you move around targets of ranged attacks. Never Surrender is a great option for characters with Endurance trained (*cough*Gobmush*cough*); the first time you'd be knocked down to 0 hit points in an encounter, you can make an Endurance check (with a DC equal to the damage taken) to stay at 1 hit point instead. Mission Specialist lets you pick a skill — all of your allies who aren't trained in it get a +2 bonus to it. It's a good way to shore up any deficiencies in the party.
There's a group of weapon-focused feats (Disabler, Pistoleer, Riflemaster, and Sport Hunter) that greatly improve certain weapons. Disabler, for example, focuses on ion weapons, and gives you a bigger blast radius with ion grenades and d8s instead of d6s when using ion pistols. They make some less-used weapons more useful (I'd use the sporting blaster pistol more often if I could reroll 1s on damage!), even slugthrowers.
There's also a subset of feats that mimic D&D's "choose your stat for defenses" shtick. Force of Personality lets you use Charisma for your Will; Predictive Defense lets you use Intelligence for Reflex; and Resilient Strength lets you use Strength for Fortitude. For the capper, Fight Through Pain lets you use your Will Defense to determine your damage threshold.
There's a set of Martial Arts feats that each feature a particular style (Echani, Hijkata, K'tara, K'thri, Stava, Tae-Jitsu, Teras Kasi, and Wrruushi) and are extraordinarily useful if you plan on being a martial artist. There's also the super-cool Team Feats, which get more useful the more people in the party have them. They all give a +3 bonus (doesn't stack with Skill Focus), +1 for each ally who has the feat. And they all give something extra, too — the Perception one, Wary Sentries, lets you take 10 on Perception checks all the time, and Medical Team, the Treat Injury feat, increases the healing when you're aided by someone else with the same feat. All in all, very cool, and I'm very impressed with Team Feats.
There's some new prestige class talents for the Elite Trooper and Gunslinger. The Elite Trooper gets the Squad Leader talent tree (unfortunately named just like a Soldier talent tree in Clone Wars), which gives healthy bonuses to all your allies. These are pretty powerful and can make the Elite Trooper a little more of a team player. The Gunslinger gets the Sharpshooter talent tree, which is all about shooting things from far away. They're really good and give a nice boost to aiming (Yvegeny, take note), though they're most effective from farther away.
One new prestige class is introduced in the book: the Martial Arts Master. Do you like beating up on people with your bare hands (and wearing only light or no armor)? Then you will love this prestige class. It's got some stringent requirements (4 specific feats and a talent from one of two trees), but it's well worth it. For completists, you also gain access to the Master of Teras Kasi tree from Threat of the Galaxy. This provides all sort of unique ways to beat the crap out of people.
Chapter 2 is Hardware. There's some great weapons in here. Melee weapons are darkstick, entrenching tool, fire blade, shockboxing gloves, shock stick (a very nice tool for knocking people unconscious), static pike, and vibrolance. Ranged weapons are the ascension gun, sidearm blaster pistol, variable and heavy variable blaster rifle (very cool weapons that force you to keep track of ammo, but let you spend more shots to deal higher damage dice), repeating crossbow, flame cannon (a bigger flamethrower that requires a tripod), radiation grenades (some nasty "dirty bombs"), smoke grenades, interchangeable weapon system (a 3-in-1 weapon that can be a blaster rifle, sniper rifle, or anti-armor rifle), mortar launcher, rotary blaster cannon, scatter gun, tactical tractor beam (very cool!) and targeting laser. There's four new kinds of mines: antipersonnel, detonite cord, ion mines, and limpet mines (just slap them on a vehicle and watch them explode). There's also a good amount of armor that incorporates the modification rules from Scum and Villainy: Barabel microbe armor, biohazard suit, camo scout armor, Katarn-class commando armor (which may be the best medium armor in the game), Rebel Alliance marine armor, stalker armor, and a stun cloak (note: the stun cloak does not stun you, it stuns anyone who tries to grapple you).
There's also a whole lot of normal equipment: anti-rad dose, camouflage netting (Yes! It's real, Kelif!), camouflage poncho, com scrambler, tightbeam comlink, communications scanner, cryogenic pouch, droid diagnostic, field food processor, personal field shelter (or "tent," as we call them on Earth), plasma bridge, proximity flare, radiation detector, targeting beacon, triangulation visor, and vacuum survival pouch. Everything you need for your very own military operation. Expect some of these things to appear soon in our campaign.
The book also includes advanced cybernetics. Want a targeting eye, a built-in neck comlink, or a handy brain computer like Lobot? Now they're possible, although I should note that there's a hefty chance of implant rejection. There's also rules for spending a Destiny Point when you die to survive long enough to have a chance of cyborg implants to keep you alive, a la Darth Vader or General Grievous. (There are ways you can die without being able to spend a Force Point to survive, if you fail a Constitution check poorly enough after already falling unconscious.) There's also some nice cross-promotion with Scum and Villainy, as cybernetic prosthetics can now be modified (Yvegeny, again, rejoice).
The chapter features new droids: the A-series medical droid (Grievous' droid from the Clone Wars episode "Lair of Grievous"), the KDY-4 tech droid, Chiba DR-10 protocol droid, B2-AA air assault super battle droid (the jet pack droids from the episode "Jedi Crash"), the Eradicator-series battle droid, the purge trooper (from The Force Unleashed), sniper droideka, tactical droids (the eponymous droid commanders from the Clone Wars cartoon), the Vigilant 2X Picket Droid, the CLL-M2 Ordnance Lifter, and the MR-200 Series Minesweeper.
There's also some new animals in the section: the carrier butterfly (used to relay messages), new mounts bolotaur and gelagrub, and vicious beasts like the gutkurr (seen in episode "The Innocents of Ryloth"), mastif phalone, nek, roggwart (seen in "Lair of Grievous"), and Gamorr's own watch-beast.
There's not a whole lot of new vehicles or ships — some Clone Wars and Force Unleashed stuff — but the book does contain rules for "vehicle fire" effects, similar to tactical fire for capital starships. Want to have AT-ATs in your fights without worrying about one lucky hit killing a player? Now you can. The chapter concludes with rules for gear requisitions (for a military campaign) and rules for rank and privilege in a military organization.
Chapter 3 is Military Campaigns. It's got a lot of military jargon, as well as detailed write-throughs of how to play a campaign where all the characters are in the military. It concludes with a detailed write-up of the ultimate military campaign, playing as the Galactic Empire. It talks about how to play Imperials who aren't all bad guys, and gives some adventure hooks for an Imperial campaign, whether it's Imps versus aliens, Rebels, or other Imperials. The chapter concludes with a Battlefield Encounter Tool Kit, with stats for some things found on common battlefields (mines, automated sentry guns, razor wire) and rules for artillery strikes, mortars, and orbital bombardment, finishing up with a Random Mission Generator.
Chapter 4 is Military Units, and talks about various military groups in different times of Star Wars history. There's no stats with any of these, but they're pretty evocative and talk about military groups can vary their tactics, membership, and objectives. There's the Ailon Nova Guard, Churhee's Riflemen, Hapan Royal Guard, Kaleesh Kolkpravis, Katarn Commandos, Lightning Squadron, Mandalorian Protectors, Mistryl Shadow Guard, Nimbus Commandos, Onderon Beast Riders, Republic Rocket-Jumpers, Senate Guard/Senate Commandos, Sun Guards of Thyrsus, Trianii Rangers, and Wraith Squadron.
Chapter 5 is Bases and Battlestations. It's full of rules for interior combat of all kinds. It's got blueprints for a lot of common rooms (barracks, hangar bay, command bridge, etc.) as well as DCs for things you would commonly find in them. It's very similar to what appeared in the Galactic Campaign Guide for the old rules set, and it's a welcome addition to the game. It's also packed full of rules for alarms of all kinds, blast doors, computer systems, and traps of all kinds. (Finally, rules for carbon freezing!)
I won't get too much into Chapter 6, Military Encounters (which includes several mini-adventures of varying levels), or Chapter 7, Operation: First Breach (a small campaign set during the Clone Wars), but suffice to say I'm impressed.
All in all a good book — not too impressed with the talents, but the feats are pretty nice, and this book is a GM's dream come true with all of its rules for bases and battlestations. You'd best believe I plan to incorporate some of this stuff into the campaign.
