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West End tends to publish two types of Star Wars supplements: detailed supplements and adventures designed as complete campaign settings and catalogs of people, places, and gear designed to be used in a variety of campaigns. "Hideouts & Strongholds" is of the latter, providing 22 locales that can be dropped into a campaign for use as hideouts, strongholds, meeting spots, markets, and waystations.

Each locale is described with an overview, map, room descriptions, principal NPC, and an adventure idea. The locales include asteroid bases (fortified and primative), battle station, a crashed starship, deep sea plant, desert oasis, fortified compound, fortress, glacier base, Imperial rapid deployment station, island hideout, lunar surface station, rebel outpost, recon field base, safehouses, starport, urban sewer system, volcano base, and waterfall cavern. Each local is presented as either a rebel, Imperial, pirate, or smuggler base, but the descriptions can easily be converted to another use. The maps for these locales are all first rate, and the art, starting with the McQuarrie cover, is up to West End's usual high standards.

"Hideouts & Strongholds" also includes rules for attacking structures and a new advanced skill. Structures are attacked using walker scale. When this came up in my campaign a few months ago, I wasn't sure how to play it out. Now I know. This is an easy to use rule that makes moderating an attack on a structure a cinch (Just when I was starting to lose faith in the value of the walker scale). The new advanced skill is (A) Engineering, with specializations by type (armor, capital ship, civil/industrial, computer, droid, ground vehicle, hover vehicle, installation, repulsorlift, space transports, starfighter, walker, weapons, and you can probably think of others). The various (A) Engineering skills are used to design and build structures, and each specialization has one or more prerequisite skills. Detailed rules are provided for using Installation Engineering (or Base Engineering (as oppossed to base Engineering), West End apparently couldn't decide which name to use) to ! build bases (although Civil Engineering could be used to do most of the same work and it has less demanding prerequisites). Also included are detailed stats on weapons, shields, sensors, and other types of base equipment.

My primary complaint with "Hideouts & Strongholds" is that much of the detailed information is generally worthless (but you won't have to ask for directions to the refresher). And, continuing in West End's tradition of mapping the isolated areas of the galaxy, most of these locales are out in the boondocks. Plus, few of these locals have landing pads that can handle medium freighters and it is amazing how much equipment corporations have abandoned across the galaxy.

My biggest gripe with "Hideouts & Strongholds," though, is the price. The content just doesn't justify the $22 price tag, and it doesn't begin to compare to the better Star Wars supplements. If they'd priced it at $19.99, they'd probably have sold enough additional copies to make up most of the difference. Still, it is a useful supplement for the dedicated Star Wars GM. Most of the locales are ideal for plugging into a campaign when you need to quickly detail a location.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Hideouts & Strongholds<
Author: Sterling Hershey Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games Cost: $21.95 Page count: 144 Playtest Review by Jeb Boyt on 05/19/98. Genre tags: none	West End tends to publish two types of Star Wars supplements: detailed supplements and adventures designed as complete campaign settings and catalogs of people, places, and gear designed to be used in a variety of campaigns. "Hideouts & Strongholds" is of the latter, providing 22 locales that can be dropped into a campaign for use as hideouts, strongholds, meeting spots, markets, and waystations. Each locale is described with an overview, map, room descriptions, principal NPC, and an adventure idea. The locales include asteroid bases (fortified and primative), battle station, a crashed starship, deep sea plant, desert oasis, fortified compound, fortress, glacier base, Imperial rapid deployment station, island hideout, lunar surface station, rebel outpost, recon field base, safehouses, starport, urban sewer system, volcano base, and waterfall cavern. Each local is presented as either a rebel, Imperial, pirate, or smuggler base, but the descriptions can easily be converted to another use. The maps for these locales are all first rate, and the art, starting with the McQuarrie cover, is up to West End's usual high standards. "Hideouts & Strongholds" also includes rules for attacking structures and a new advanced skill. Structures are attacked using walker scale. When this came up in my campaign a few months ago, I wasn't sure how to play it out. Now I know. This is an easy to use rule that makes moderating an attack on a structure a cinch (Just when I was starting to lose faith in the value of the walker scale). The new advanced skill is (A) Engineering, with specializations by type (armor, capital ship, civil/industrial, computer, droid, ground vehicle, hover vehicle, installation, repulsorlift, space transports, starfighter, walker, weapons, and you can probably think of others). The various (A) Engineering skills are used to design and build structures, and each specialization has one or more prerequisite skills. Detailed rules are provided for using Installation Engineering (or Base Engineering (as oppossed to base Engineering), West End apparently couldn't decide which name to use) to ! build bases (although Civil Engineering could be used to do most of the same work and it has less demanding prerequisites). Also included are detailed stats on weapons, shields, sensors, and other types of base equipment. My primary complaint with "Hideouts & Strongholds" is that much of the detailed information is generally worthless (but you won't have to ask for directions to the refresher). And, continuing in West End's tradition of mapping the isolated areas of the galaxy, most of these locales are out in the boondocks. Plus, few of these locals have landing pads that can handle medium freighters and it is amazing how much equipment corporations have abandoned across the galaxy. My biggest gripe with "Hideouts & Strongholds," though, is the price. The content just doesn't justify the $22 price tag, and it doesn't begin to compare to the better Star Wars supplements. If they'd priced it at $19.99, they'd probably have sold enough additional copies to make up most of the difference. Still, it is a useful supplement for the dedicated Star Wars GM. Most of the locales are ideal for plugging into a campaign when you need to quickly detail a location. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)

Hideouts & Strongholds<