Dangerous Covenants is a source book for Edge of the Empire about the Hired Gun characters. As such it includes new rules specific to Hired Gun characters. It is 96 beautiful color pages as we’ve come to expect from Fantasy Flight, divided into 3 sections.
The first section contains new character customization options. First are specifically Hired Gun background flair such as Obligation ideas and backgrounds. Next is the bit most useful to any new character – the new races. Hired Gun favoring races are presented here in the Aqualish, the Klatooinian, and the Weequay. While usable by any character class they are all focused and at their best as Hired Guns.
Next are three new specializations for Hired guns (or anyone who wants to subclass in): the Enforcer, the Demolitionist, and the Heavy. The Enforcer is a Hired Gun who likes to intimidate as much as he actually attacks the enemy. The Demolitionist blows things up good, as you’d expect. And the Heavy not only uses the largest guns they can find but also has talents to make sure they are even bigger than what anyone else can be running around with.
Rounding out the chapter are the Hired Gun signature abilities. As I said in my review of the Explorer book, these to me are the selling point to existing Hired Guns, giving great options for high-powered or long running campaigns. Here Hired guns have a choice between an ability to simply wipe all the pawns off the board in a given combat, or find themselves with a giant ability to soak up damage and keep rolling. Both are very powerful abilities if used cleverly.
Chapter 2 has all the new toys a Hired Gun might want. It has lots of ranged weapons (including a slew of options for the Heavy to be running around with), Armor, Explosives, Gear, Enhancements, and plenty of Vehicles and Ships. All the new options a party planning to load for bear might be looking for.
Chapter 3 is the GM chapter. It has tons of advice for the GM to incorporate Hired Guns into their game, or even have a party of nothing but Hired Guns. My favorite is the section on “Running Cinematic Combat” which gives great advice on how to run combats in your Edge of the Empire game and have them *feel* like combats in Star Wars. For a GM that alone might be worth the price of admission.
At the end I found this a very good pickup for your Hired Gun character to give plenty of exciting new options to them. A GM will likely want to read it for the advice on how to incorporate the Hired Guns into the campaign. If you’re playing a Hired Gun I’d pick it up for the signature abilities if nothing else.
May the Force be with you!