Card of the Week: Somebody Wake Up Hicks By "Richard F. Cozzi" ------------ Hello all and welcome to my weekly card reviews. It is here we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of specific cards in the game and how best to use them. This weeks card is : Name: Somebody Wake Up Hicks Restrictions: None Effect: Ready one character. Costs 1* (*=combat pool) Caption: Your not going to get anything done sleeping In order to effectively evaluate this card, we must first look at what causes a character to rotate in the first place. According to pg 22 in the rulebook, a character must rotate to perform a main action. These include: declaring an attack; searching; activating certain cards; picking up items; dropping items (except in the movement or search rounds); and moving another character.Personally, I've very rarely rotated a character for the last three actions so this review will concentrate on the first three. Attacking- According to the rulebook, you rotate when you declare an attack. Therefore, you would play this card immediatly after one of your characters declares an attack, to get a free attack (the character would declare his first attack, then play the card, and rotate to declare another attack - against the same or different target). This is almost necessary when playing predator and confronting a squad of marines. However, the card could also be used to increase bonuses in attacks. For example, Sgt. Bass can rotate to give all marines (including himself) a +1 to hit. Play this card on him after he rotates and he too can attack this turn. Play this card on Hicks and he could rotate to ready two marines instead of one. Search - When searching, normally only one supporting character or item can be found. With using this card, now two can be found. This is the best use of this card (imho) for aliens, especially early in the game when it is most important to build up your forces. Likewise, when playing marines, being able to find two weapons a turn early in the game can give you the advantage because you can circulate them among your people during the movement phase and have an armed squad by the combat phase. Activating Card Effects - This is where the card really shines. Most good event cards force you to rotate to activate them (ie overwatch, dodge and roll). With this card and one combat pool, that is no longer a detriment. Likewise, some cards can force you to rotate (ie Dead End). Somebody Wake Up Hicks effectively negates these. In Summary, Somebody Wake Up Hicks is probably the most versitile card in the game. It can be used effectively by all races and at almost all times. For the one combat pool expenditure, it is underpriced for its usefulness. Imho, each deck should have three of these in them as a rule, not an exception. Here are a few combos I'll leave you with: Marines - Overwatch + Somebody Wake Up Hicks ; Very effective against predator, considering you move first and can hit him before he gets to hide again from his camo suit. Aliens - 2 supporting characters + Somebody Wake Up Hicks ; Finding two supporting characters a turn can give the aliens an advantage. Use carpe corpus (1 or 2) to turn the civies into a tasty snack. Predator - Predator Ship or Shuttle Or Mothership + Somebody Wake Up Hicks ; Think how cool it would be to have both your camo suit and plasma caster on you by the end of the first turn!! I do it almost everytime I play. Next Week : Dwindling Options