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#105 Neimoidian, Trade Federation Pilot
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Entry: 9 November 1999
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy.
Compiled by jinnandtonic, November 1999.
Thoughts? You like this? You hate this? Email me!
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy is THE card strategy reference for Decipher's Young Jedi CCG. Starting with the first expansion, 'The Menace of Darth Maul', each individual card will be discussed until it can be discussed no further. Nevertheless, if I have missed something, email me at jinnandtonic@yahoo.com.au, and I will update it accordingly.
jinnandtonic's Grades:
Economy: C
The non-unique Neimoidian / Trade Federation Pilot is pretty uneconomical, overall. Deploying for one counter with a Power of 1, it has the standard scatter-gun spread of location bonuses on Tatooine. While it has a Destiny of 5, it could easily be 6, and a Damage of 2 means you will do your deck some harm if you lose more than one or two of them in battle. No thanks - Sith Probe Droids would be a much preferred option to this card.
Decipher: A
No complaints really. The image is nice, and the stats are okay, even if they make this card a touch redundant in comparison to the Sith Probe Droid / Spy Drone. The only real question-mark here are the location bonuses, which probably aren't really justified, although it is arguable whether a pilot would have such bonuses. Maybe he/she was trained for service on worlds such as Tatooine, so yeah, I guess it is okay after all.
Overall Usefulness: B
Probably not as useless as you might think, thanks mainly to the Battle Droid Blaster Rifle. Due to their being a distinct lack of Battle Droids in the red-dot category, this card can come in handy in a Dark Battle Droid theme deck. The Battle Droid Blaster Rifle gives bonuses to both Neimoidians and Battle Droids, which means that this card can be paired with your Battle Droid Squad / Assault Units for some serious tag-teaming. In your typical Dark deck however, players thinking of playing this card would be advised to think about cards like Destroyer Droid / Wheel Droid and the rare guys/gals (Aurra Sing, Maul) first. Unless you really need that high Destiny.
FLAVOR TEXT: "These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short." - Qui-Gon
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CARD FACTS:
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STARTER DECK INSERT, RED-DOT, NON-STACKABLE
Deploy: 1
Power: 1
Destiny: 5
Damage: 2
Power Bonuses:
Tatooine/Mos Espa: +1
Tatooine/Desert Landing Site: +1
Tatooine/Podrace Arena: +1
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SPECIFIC INTERACTING CARDS:
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Battle Droid Blaster Rifle
(#118, Menace of Darth Maul, Common, Orange-Dot)
This weapon gives any Battle Droid or Neimoidian a handy Power +1 and a Destiny ? draw in battle. With all the new Neimoidian characters in the Jedi Council expansion, this card will become even more useful. For the purposes of a Dark Battle Droid theme deck, it eliminates the problems associated with the lack of red-dot non-unique Battle Droids - just use a few of these guys instead!
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IN BRIEF:
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Neimoidian, Trade Federation Pilot is a fairly uneconomical card that you find in your MoDM starter decks, the Dark equivalent of Jawa / Bargainer. First comparisons with cards like Sith Probe Droid / Spy Drone or even the Pit Droids seem to indicate that this is a useless card, but a closer look reveals this is not necessarily the case. There are quite frankly, three reasons that you may want to use this card: (a) in a Dark Battle Droid theme; (b) to boost your deck's Average Destiny; (c) in a Dark Neimoidian theme primarily using cards from the Jedi Council expansion. While the latter will be investigated in the near future :), this card is still mighty useful in a Dark Battle Droid theme deck or a High Destiny deck, as will be described forthwith.
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GENERAL PLAY TIPS:
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Includes some rant from previous entries.
* A Battle Droid theme, focusing on Tatooine: Podrace Arena? Two copies of that new Jedi Council location to start with. Green is nice and easy, and we will throw in multiples of both Battle Droid: Officer / AAT Division and Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division. Blue is also a snap, with multiples of Battle Droid: Pilot / MTT Division and Battle Droid: Infantry / MTT Division mandatory. Obviously go for greater proportions for the Battle Droid: Officers in both the above categories. Red is a touch more difficult, but needless to say that copies of Battle Droid Squad / Assault Unit, Neimoidian / Trade Federation Pilot and perhaps everyone's favorite bounty hunter are ripe for the challenge. Mix in Battle Droid Blaster Rifles and Blaster Rifles for your arsenal (say, 5:5, or 6:4 / 7:3, depending on how many droids you wind up using),and In Complete Control (2-4), The Invasion Is On Schedule (1-2) and Opee Sea Killer for your Battle Card support. Have fun, conquer some planets, and say 'Roger Roger!' a lot. Mix in some Jedi Council droids based on Coruscant or even a few unique JC Neimoidians and you can have a two-pronged attack! Ace!
* Neimoidian / Trade Federation Pilot + Battle Droid Blaster Rifle + Opee Sea Killer + Destiny = 6 on Tatooine supplies you with a whopping 12 Power. With a bit of luck, enough to rid your opponent of one of those nasty Jedi Councillors. Read: 'ugly Jedi Councillors'.
* In the Menace of Darth Maul expansion, a Destiny of 5 is the best you are going to get in the red-dot category. So for those fun, fun, fun high Destiny decks, this card should be useful. Also a useful card in a 'cheap as chups' weenie breakthrough deck, although running our of cards is always a problem with such decks. Bah.
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ADDITIONS:
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Up to you. Think of anything else cool about his card, or combos that you have used to great effect? What about a particular game in which this card made you win? Send anything like that to jinnandtonic@angelfire.com and I'll add it here. Didn't particularly like the Neimoidians from the film. Or their silly accents.
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