Any veterans out there who who can tell me how the old Kickers worked/

Thanks!

If you have a Kicker in your hand when you are a main player during the planning phase, you put it face down next to you encounter card and reveal them at the same time. If you revealed an attack card, the value of it is multiplied by the value of the kicker (there were also useless kickers like the X1 Kicker, used mainly to bluff your opponent since he could see ahead of time that you were playing a Kicker) and that becomes the face value of your card. If you played a Negotiate with a Kicker and your opponent played an attack card then the amount of compensation you take from him is multiplied by the value of the Kicker (if you played a negative Kicker then he takes compensation from you). If you play a Negotiate with a Kicker and your opponent also played a Negotiate then the amount of ships your opponent loses from an unsuccessful deal is multiplied by the value of your Kicker (and if you played a negative Kicker then the number of ships you lose is increased which could prove to be an excellent strategy as Masochist). In the huge Mayfair deck there were nine Kickers and one Kicker Zap.

Basically, Kickers are Reinforcements that you play ahead of time, multiplying the value of the encounter card. There have been x2 and x3 Kickers, as well as the aforementioned x1 and things like x0 and negatives (which cause non-attack effects to be reversed - if you play an N and a x-2, you lose and give the winner twice the compensation you deserve).

Thanks guys!

Kicker Zap sounds good, I hope they print one in this expansion. I wonder if they'd put it in the main deck or the Reward deck.

I actually think Kicker Zap is a bad idea. There are so few Kickers in the game, and (in this new incarnation) you have to work harder to get them, so this is not a good place for a cheap thwarter card. There was never any kind of Kicker Zap in Eon, and it was not needed; the mechanic worked very well (and was fun) as originally designed. Kicker Zap is yet another dubious invention of the Mayfair edition; Mayfair had a pattern of throwing in all kinds of new things that were obvious (brainless) to design — Hand Zap, Destiny Zap, New Moon — but added little to no value to (or even detracted from) the game.

Sorry that last sentence was hard to read ... anybody know why the forum software deleted my dashes?

Agreed. Sometimes, you have to let the "nuclear bomb" go unthwarted, otherwise the game will go on forever.

We don't know how many Kickers there are going to be in this edition, but the fact that they come in a shallow thirty two card deck should make them easier, not harder to draw. I've never seen a game without plenty of defensive allies; and now there is even more incentive (though admittedly a deterrent for the defensive main player to invite). Anyway, I think kickers will be common enough that Kicker Zap will rarely be a dead card.

I agree they are not needed, but neither are Kickers in the first place . FFGs edition doesn't really need anything - it's just wonderful as is. I guess we need that sixth colour (six can't play without it), and maybe even a seventh. Anything else, though more than welcome, is not needed IMHO. Also the game will seem incomplete until we get Hazards, as they are referenced on page seven of the rules. Personally I like for every tactic to be hosable. Destiny Zap sounds awesome!

As for the game going on forever, Kickers can be used defensively and Zaps can be used on the offense, so I don't buy that argument.

Out of the one hundred and fifty or so cards in the full Mayfair deck, Kickers didn't come up too often and Kicker zaps (the one in the whole deck) almost never came into play. With that in mind Kickers will probably work into gameplay fairly differently in this edition, or at least I would guess so from the differences in deck distribution just between the main decks so far.

It's entirely possible (since they did it with the Battlestar Galactica expansion), they'll include new versions of some cards with expanded reach, to replace old ones. I would not be surpised if Card Zap was revised to include Kickers and Rifts.

Big Head Zach said:

Card Zap only hits Artifacts and Flares. It doesn't affect Reinforcements, so I'd be surprised if it affects Kickers. They might errata it to include Rifts, and/or make a new Zap to negate Reinforcements or Kickers.

Deleted — I didn't realize I was repeating myself. :-(