Above Water
by C. J. Williams

Utapau. P-38 starfighters fly in and out and Veractyls climb up the rocks, racing into a hanger jutting out over a chasm, their Utapauan riders swaying on their saddles. Below, a swamp speeder skims slowly over the surface of the swampy bottom of the pit. One of the troopers sitting in it points and then the speeder takes off at breakneck speed, firing deadly blasts into a group of droids in the distance. There's no escape for even the speediest droid.

Imagine turning the Rancor in your Creature deck into a formidable force to be reckoned with by giving it the ability to heal itself, and likewise with your Krayt Dragon. Or maybe you would like to keep your Executor (A) or even your Death Star II (A) alive a little longer. Have you been looking to protect your Creature Space units, or make Sando Aqua Monster worth playing to make an Aquatic deck? Maybe you just need to stall in one of those arenas. Our first card is just what you need.

Utapau Landing Platform is an excellent card for any medium to big unit deck, especially for the light side. Toss in Luke's Garage and Han Enchained, and you can protect a large unit for a long time. It would take a concentrated attack to get rid of the unit before you can use this combo.

Bongo Sub is still a good go-to unit to grab your Aquatic Locations. Use it to dig out Utapau Landing Platform, or you can use it to bring out Utapau Sinkhole to help out the new Swamp Speeder.

If you thought the Droid Tri-Fighter was a great card, the light side's Swamp Speeder is excellent for any deck using an Aquatic Location. Using the aforementioned Utapau Landing Platform, you can use this unit to make attacks while you heal your large unit. Then, during a round when your large unit is fresh and ready to take damage, your opponent focuses all their firepower on it to try to take it out, and your little Swamp Speeders pull an open season on your opponent's units with their Critical Hit 2.

With Utapau Sinkhole in the Ground arena and Rebel Command Center in the Character arena or a speed booster, two of these Swamp Speeders can even get a first strike on Sebulba's Podracer and take it out before the Dug can even attack. Of course, they fall flat against the Patrol Mode Vulture Droid, but with their Critical Hit 2, they have a chance to do some damage with the one die they roll. However, toss on a Wedge Antilles (B) and a Swamp Speeder now has a strong chance of getting a Critical Hit, and you can protect it with auto-prevention.

There are two other Aquatic cards in the set and many more cards that will benefit from them. You can also look forward to six more Utapau cards and fourteen Republic cards.

Join us next time when metal-clad Imperial and Republic units face off.

Thoughts or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.

About the Author
C. J. has been a player of the game since 2003 and is currently the Text Finalization Leader of the IDC Rules Sub-committee. He has written seven articles for Rebelbasers.com and is the SWTCG Hope of the Jedi tournament coordinator and founder of the Free-League. C. J. Williams has been a member of both the Wizards and Rebelbasers forums since January of 2004, posting under the name Corjay.