Useless Card Reveiw #2: Mining Droids
Hello. This is the second edition of my Useless Card Review Series of articles. In these, I will take a card that is considered useless and show how it can be quite useful. If anyone has any requests, please e-mail me at gveers@hotmail.com.
The card today is actually two cards, the mining droids. There are two mining droids, LIN-V8K (Light) and LIN-V8M (Dark). These droids have no power, and a deploy of two. Luckily, their forfeit is 4, but their special ability is what takes the cake. They can lay AND diffuse mines.
Mining droids have been looked over since the start of the game. Basicaly, they could only lay timer mines. The new mining droid rules in Hoth didn't do much to boost them either, even though there were now minefields and two new mines. These poor little guys need to be rescued.
The main good thing about mines is a phychological warfare. Since you can lay duds in minefields, your opponent might think you are bluffing. However, if you aren't, he will loose a bunch of people. They can go crazy trying to decide if you are bluffing or not. There is also the box-in strategy. What do you do when there are minefields surrounding your opponent's main army? Go in and lay a timer mine or two. They cannot battle your droid, so you are safe.
Think about this situation (Light):
- You have a medium hand, a turn's worth of force and a Huge opposing army ready to march on your spread out forces.
- You deploy Crash Site Memorial for free.
- You deploy a mining droid on the left of your opponent's army for 2 force.
- You deploy a mining droid on the right of your opponent's army for 2 force.
- You deploy some mines or duds face-down (in minefield configuration) OR some Infantry or Vehicle mines face-up, on each side of your unwitting opponent.
- Use one force to move one mining droid to your opponent's army.
- You use some of your force to move some of your army into a better defensive position.
- End your turn.
- Next deploy phase, your opponent should be too scared by your minefield to move his sitting ducks, aka his army.
- Lay 2 or 3 timer mines!
- Next turn of yours, instead of a large army ready to march on you, you have little pieces of army scattered around. If they ran, they encountered your minefield, and if they stayed, the timer mines got them. All of the mines that you lost can go directly to Crash Site Memorial to be used again!
- Use your army to pick up the pieces, and the mining droids for forfeit magnets, and then put them in Crash Site Memorial!
What do you think? For 5 force and a few turns, you destroyed a huge opponent's army, with almost no risk to yourself! All the cards you lost went to Crash Site Memorial to be used again. If you played dark, then insead of Crash Site Memorial, you could use Advosze (remember him from #1?). He could pay for the whole party! With Spaceport Speeders and Droid Merchants, you can get even more benifit.
From now on, when you think you will play a ground deck, consider adding in some Mines and Mining Droids. They can realy pay off. Belive me, I've done it myself. DO try this at home, and see how you do! Thank you for reading. See you next time.
The mining droids are sold by Star Cards R Us for $0.05 each.
