Behind the Cards: Delta Squad
By Brian Weeks

Fall of the Republic introduced a number of popular figures from Revenge of the Sith. To provide a better understanding of these characters, we offer the following accounts - the histories behind the units in your deck.

Best of the Best

"I feel genuinely sorry for any hostile who has the misfortune to face Delta Squad in combat."
- Sergeant Walon Vau

Delta Squad was an elite clone commando unit and was part of the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. This unit played instrumental roles in the Battle of Geonosis and many other missions leading up to the Battle of Kashyyyk. Delta Squad consisted of four commandos: Boss (RC-1138), Fixer (RC-1140), Sev (RC-1207) and Scorch (RC-1262). Delta Squad is an Expanded Universe (EU) creation appearing in games (Republic Commando) and books (Republic Commando: Hard Contact, Republic Commando: Triple Zero).

Training
Delta Squad was trained by the ruthless and efficient Sergeant Walon Vau. Vau, a Mandalorian, believed that in order for his commandos to survive in combat, he must train them as harshly as possible - to do anything less would compromise their training. When Vau felt that a commando was too soft, he gave that trainee a choice: he must fight either one of his clone brothers or Vau himself. Only one commando ever chose Vau. Seen as brutal by many, his training practices made Delta Squad an aggressive, but supremely efficient, unit. The Mandalorian sergeant took great pride in his squads' consistently superb performance, both in live-fire exercises on Kamino and later during their deployment in the Clone Wars.

Missions
Battle of Geonosis
During Zero Hour on Geonosis, the Deltas were inserted individually but swiftly joined forces to assassinate the Geonosian Sun Fac. They then were instrumental in destroying a droid factory and breached a Separatist core ship and managed to steal CIS codes, with no losses of their own. During the mission, the Deltas witnessed General Grievous's fighter fleeing the planet. At the time, the Deltas were unaware of who the fighter belonged to.

Other Missions
Delta Squad was involved in many more missions before the end of the Clone Wars. Missions involving assassinations, espionage, infiltration and reconnaissance were specialties for these commandoes. From Coruscant to Kashyyyk, Delta Squad was usually called in for the more difficult missions and though unorthodox in their methods, they always got the job done. (This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikia article "Delta Squad".)

IDC Development
For the Fall of the Republic expansion, Delta Squad makes its first ever appearance in the Star Wars: TCG game. The Card Development (CD) Sub-committee has stated it had several reasons for wanting to include this off-screen, EU unit. First and foremost was the EU factor. It's just always fun to develop off-screen units for the TCG. Second, being that the Delta Squad was EU, CD knew that for the first time in SW:TCG history an "art graphic" would have to be used for the unit image. In other words, card images not screen captured from the movies. They also knew, from in-depth discussions, that future IDC sets may include these "art graphics" (can anyone say "Clone Wars Cartoon"? It has been discussed.). So, a test would be needed. How would the TCG player react to a card with an artwork image? So far, response has been very positive and CD was very pleased with the image chosen by the Graphic Design Sub-committee.

Delta Squad, at 7 build, 50 speed, 5 power and 4 health, is a pretty sturdy unit. But add in Accuracy 1 and Critical Hit 1, this unit gets even better. But some player comments have been lackluster. "Compare it to the Gungan Kaadu Squad. It's just not as good." I would have to argue that point. It may have one less health than the Gungan Kaadu Squad, but you get a bonus for that one less health - a Clone subtype. CD originally had the Delta Squad at 5 health, but because Delta Squad could benefit from any Clone benefits (Lama Su, Taun We or Felucia Battlegrounds for example), the Playtesting Sub-committee suggested lowering the health or removing the Clone subtype. You know which suggestion CD took.

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About the Author
Brian Weeks (aka Skywlkr) has been playing the Star Wars TCG since its introduction at Celebration 2 in 2002. After playing the demo game and introducing it to RedneckJedi and Darthwalls, Team 'Dude Where's My Card' was created. He competed in three qualifiers, yet the closest he ever ranked was eighth. As a member on Rebelbasers, SWDuelist and a writer for the now defunct Diehard Online, he has tried to promote the game through information and interaction.

He is married, has a three year old son, is an architect, has been the Treasurer and Newsletter Editor for five years for JediOKC (an Oklahoma City based Star Wars Fan Club), was the IDC Card Development Chairperson for Fall of the Republic and is now the IDC Public Affairs Chairperson. Despite all that, he still has time to introduce the game to new players…KEEP THE GAME ALIVE.