Author: Timothy O'Brien
Category: game
Company/Publisher: West End Games
Cost: $18.00
Page count: 126
ISBN: 01187440113
Capsule Review by John Snyder on 02/27/98. Genre tags: none

I thought this book should've been done along time ago, along with the Jedi Knight Sourcebook. This book is everything you need for a rebel military campaign. This book, along with the rulebook would provide you with months and months of gaming information.

The Chapters...

Chapter One covers the usual story introduction, and some specforce (special forces) history, and what they do during the New Republic.

Chapter Two covers the life of the Specfore soldier, their jargon, ranks, daily life and training blurbs round out this chapter.

Chapter Three (here we go...) covers some of the meat and potatoes of the Specforce info. We learn troop movements, and hand signals (which most of us pick up from our military buddies or movies), but it's nice to have them on paper in front of you. This chapter covers different types of missions: Raids, ambushes, etc. and some good field tactics. Military campaign buffs will eat this book up with a fork! Rules for contaminated drinking water (don't drink the water!) and securing a zone.

Chapter Four (every player's dream) Equipment! New armors, gear, and gadgets! Optional Rules for climbing, communications, and ecumbrance. Some of the new gear includes: scopes, communicators, goggles, sensors, medkits, lockpicks, etc. Whew! (We're not even half done yet!)

Chapter Five details the transportation (new ships) for your Spec force pcs. Troop transports, shuttles, and pack animals. (Good chapter, just not as fun to read stats as it is to read about "securing a zone".

Chapter Six (yup-) weapons. This is one of the points that Star Wars has gone out of its way to avoid, an arms race. The new weapons here are, of course, variations of old ones. New weapons include up close and personal-garrotes, knives, stilettos, and batons. There are some new heavy weapons, grenades and artillery pieces. Good chapter, a specforce soldier needs tools to get the job done.

Chapter 7-8-9 Deal with Spec force Organization, and specific specforce units, and their bases. This is some real enjoyable reading.

Chapter 10 deals with The Enemy. Imperial troops, all of 'em. This chapter may reprint some info found in the rulebook and the Imperial Sourcebook, West End is famous for reprinting material. This actually isn't too bad though, even have the rad zone trooper and the storm commando. Cool. Not necessary, but cool.

The Last chapter deals with Specforce campaigns and some new spec force templates. The campaign ideas are sound, and the templates focus mainly on humans.

The art is good, a little loose, but it really works. The layout is clear and easy to read. The substance is exactly what you think it would/should be, there aren't too many off the wall surprises. The Star Wars game has always lacked a certain "grittiness", this supplement helps get across the extremely violent side of the commando lifestyle. A good and solid addition to any Star Wars Rebel Campaign. A universe as big as Star Wars can handle any type of playing style. Go ahead, fight the Empire, this is what it's all about.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)