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#101 Battle Droid: Pilot, AAT Division
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Entry: 28 October 1999
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy.
Compiled by jinnandtonic, October 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.
This entry is practically the same as that for #97 Battle Droid: Pilot / MTT Division. No shock, considering that #101 and #97 are identical sans the Destiny, appearance of the card and the dot-colour!
jinnandtonic's Grades:
Economy: B
Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division is an okay-ish card. Like all the other Battle Droids in the green-dot category, it has a Destiny of 3 rather than 4. Deploying for the standard 2 Power, for the standard 2 Deploy, this card is not special in any space or form. A scattergun spread of location bonuses on Tatooine, and a Damage of 1 is also standard issue for budding non-unique YJCCG characters everywhere. Okay, but you can do better if you want to focus on a single location.
Decipher: B+
First off, this card is almost a carbon copy of #97 Battle Droid: Pilot / MTT Division, with only a couple of subtle differences. Destiny is a bit lower, and the dot-color is green rather than blue, but otherwise...perfect match! While this reduction is Destiny does not seem to have been done for any reason significantly related to the differences between AAT and MTT Divisions, there is an important reason for the difference. The green-dot category is practically owned by non-unique characters, whereas the blue-dot category is stuffed with plenty of powerful uniques. So it is technically sacrificial to include Battle Droids in the place of uniques in the latter category, hence the higher Destiny. Get it? Ah, doesn't matter. I didn't either.
Overall Usefulness: B
Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division is probably not as useful as you would think, for a variety of reasons. For starters, in competitive decks, the scatter-gun spread of location bonuses is not very useful. The green-dot category is where decks based on non-unique character hordes win their battles, and why not grab that extra Power +1 at your location of choice, with a different Battle Droid than this one? Second, the Destiny of this card (3) is not great. It is probably low enough to convince you to use a different character of you are not specifically concentrating on Battle Droids with your deck theme.
FLAVOR TEXT: Battle droid pilots are distinguished by the blue coloring of their body armor.
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CARD FACTS:
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COMMON, GREEN-DOT, NON-STACKABLE
Deploy: 2
Power: 2
Destiny: 3
Damage: 1
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]
The Battle Droid Blaster Rifle is an integral part of any Battle Droid theme deck, giving your faceless minions Power +1 and a Destiny ? draw in battle. A Destiny of 4 is good enough, although you will probably still want to squeeze a couple of Blaster Rifles in just to give your deck's Average Destiny that additional boost.
In Complete Control
[#125, Menace of Darth Maul, Common, Yellow-Dot}
The card that was the staple of Starter Deck-fresh YJCCG decks is still fairly good. It gives Power +2 in battle to any non-unique Battle Droid. Sure, not as much as Opee Sea Killer, but arguably just as good due to the flexibility it allows. One of these can be just enough to knock over that Qui-Gon and claim a planetary victory. Bwah-hah-hah!
The Invasion Is On Schedule
[#131, Menace of Darth Maul, Common, Yellow-Dot}
It is unfortunately a bit Gungan Curiosity for my liking (being essentially the same as that Light card), but this card is still worth including. It allows any three non-unique Battle Droids to fight together in battle. 1-2 copies maximum, I would suggest - it is still a card that can win you a game from nowhere.
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IN BRIEF:
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The design and stats of Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division probably sum up a lot of what YJCCG is all about. Not terribly effective by itself, not a YJCCG Shivan Dragon or a Charizard, not even remotely close to a SWCCG Limited Premiere Darth Vader (no kidding). But ten of these in a deck, with the right combination of other cards, can win you a tournament. And they happen to be a lot cheaper and easier to come across than the aforementioned cards! This particular card will likely decrease in usefulness and frequency of usage as YJCCG evolves, and focused location bonuses become more and more the key to success. But it will never be completely useless and overlooked, like some cards in other CCGs I will not mention here.
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GENERAL PLAY TIPS:
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* A Battle Droid theme? You mean you aren't sure how to slap one together?? Oh, alright. Briefly, and you can see how a slightly different deck is built in more detail in The Deck Theme Dictionary. Lets focus on Tatooine: Desert Landing Site, including two copies of that for starters. Green is nice and easy, and we will throw in multiples of both Battle Droid: Pilot / MTT Division and Battle Droid: Infantry / MTT Division. Blue is also a snap, with multiples of Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division and Battle Droid: Infantry / AAT Division mandatory. Red is a touch more difficult, but needless to say that copies of Battle Droid Squad / Assault Unit 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.
* Battle Droid: Pilot / AAT Division x3 + The Invasion Is On Schedule + Battle Droid Blaster Rifle + Destiny = 6 on Tatooine: 16 Power. Speaks for itself, methinks.
* Just a thought: when all the locations are out for both sides, maybe there will be an opportunity for a deck theme that messes with your opponent's location bonuses by using characters with bonuses at all sites at a particular system. You could repeatedly switch locations, ruining your opponent's strategy. Neat idea, huh?
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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@yahoo.com.au and I'll add it here. Location, Location, Location. How about a Battle Card that allows you to change the location mid-battle? Not logical, but fun.
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