Star Wars Unlimited Card Reveal: Rebel Pathfinder

Previously, I’ve written about the reasons why I’m excited to play Star Wars Unlimited, the new Star Wars TCG releasing sometime in 2024. In the time since then, Fantasy Flight Games has been giving cards to content creators to reveal. I’m sure that the official website will eventually have all of the cards for viewing, but in the meantime, you can find the collected reveals at SWUDB.

Fantasy Flight Games was kind enough to also give us a card to reveal, so without any further ado, it’s my honor to show you Rebel Pathfinder.

Let’s begin with a few superficial observations. First, the art on this card is really cool. In particular, I really like the “fall” vibes of the environment, which we don’t often see in Star Wars. When we see a forest, it’s usually green foliage à la Endor in Return of the Jedi and the Ewok movies, so this is a neat departure from the norm.

In terms of lore, we’ve seen Rebel Pathfinders in both Rogue One (the troops who volunteer to accompany Jyn to Scarif) and Return of the Jedi (the commando team who attempt to sabotage the shield generator on Endor). They’re special forces units who specialize in infiltration, sabotage, and recon.

In terms of game mechanics, this is the first card revealed with the SABOTEUR keyword (at least as of writing this article). The reminder for Saboteur on the card text reads, “When this unit attacks, ignore Sentinel and defeat the defender’s Shields.” The definition of Saboteur in the quick-start rules expands on this a little further, clarifying, “When this unit attacks, ignore the Sentinel keyword on enemy units and defeat all Shield tokens on the defender (before dealing damage).” In other words, the Pathfinder is able to remove shield tokens for their target before applying damage to it.

For a brief explanation, units with Sentinel essentially act as bodyguards, protecting other units by forcing attacking units to target them instead. Shields are able to soak any amount of damage for a unit.

The Rebel Pathfinder card does a great job of marrying lore and game mechanics (and art). They’re essentially sniping a target from cover and are able to strike secretly before their quarry can prepare any defenses.

Even though we’ve only seen a limited amount of the cardpool so far, we can already see potential synergies with other cards.

First, the Rebel Pathfinder shares an aspect (Heroism) with both of the revealed Rebel leaders so far. When you play a card, you need to pay 2 extra resources for it if it doesn’t match the aspect icons provided by your hero and base, so in this case, there’s no additional cost penalty for playing the Pathfinder if you’re using Luke or Leia as your leader.

With the potential strength of the Saboteur keyword, your opponent may very likely attempt to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Luke offers the ability to grant them a Shield token in both his horizontal and deployed states.

More intriguingly, Leia sets up the possibility of using the Pathfinder to attack first, stripping the shields off of a target, then following up with another Rebel unit to take advantage of its lack of defenses.

Surprise Strike (revealed by the Unplayable channel on YouTube) offers a way for the Pathfinder to attack with a +3 attack boost. A 5 power attack that ignores Sentinel and removes Shields seems pretty potent at this point in terms of what we’ve seen of the game.

We’re still very early in the card reveals for Star Wars Unlimited: Spark of Rebellion, but I’m liking what I’m seeing and chomping at the bit to see the rest of the set!

---

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank FFG for allowing us to reveal this card. We’re looking forward to seeing the other upcoming reveals for Star Wars Unlimited. Keep an eye on the official Star Wars Unlimited website for more news and information!