Analyzing the Core Set - Jedi - Hero's Journey

Going to go through each faction's cards one by one and give you my breakdown and experience with them, starting today with the Jedi faction.

Generally, Jedi appear to have a few main themes:
1) Big Jedi - The thing that will make you want to play them.  Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda; all the big names are here and they are all powerful in their own way.
2) Shielding/Protecting Cards - Several Jedi Cards are based on Shielding, moving damage around or protecting your other cards, which helps keep the big Jedi beating down the dark side. Examples are Guardian of Peace, Counterstroke, The Secret of Yavin 4, and Last Minute Rescue
3) Character Enhancements - Jedi have more character enhancements than any other faction, and some of the most powerful pound for pound.

Jedi are very good once they are established on the board since their big named characters are all very annoying and it can be incredibly frustrating to remove them once they are out.  However, Jedi really are desperate for extra resources, especially early in the game, since a vast majority of their Events require at least 1 resource to play.  This can be a problem, because it can leave your big guns open to reprisal by the dark side if you dont constantly leave 1 Jedi resource open.  This makes getting to 5 resource right at the start of the game really important, since 5 allows you to play Luke, Yoda, or two other guys (since a vast majority of non-named Jedi cost 2) and still be able to Mind Trick or Counterstroke if needed or to simply put out Obi-Wan or the Redemption.  Jedi can also struggle early in the game if they dont get an early big character, since their smaller guys are really support and struggle with winning you edge battles and the force struggle since most have only 1 force icon and dont really have a lot of combat icons like other factions do.  If it starts off slow, its unlikely you will be able to recover without a dark side mistake.

Onto the cards themselves.  I will do each card in each Objective Set as a separate post, with general comments about the set as a whole.

Objective Set 1 - A Hero's Journey

Objective
A lot of people look at the 4 Damage Capacity and shudder, but you desperately need the 2 resource generation.  If this objective is one of your first 4, it guarantees you start with 5 resources, which is very needed for the reasons I already mentioned.  Also, this objective benefits a bit from other objectives protecting it, which I'll get to later.  I have seen Jedi decks that try to opt out of this objective, but I don't really see that as feasable, given the rest of the cards in the set.

Luke Skywalker
Your first and best beatstick.  A bargain at 4 cost for what you get.  Targeted Strike, 2 combat icons, 1 blast, and 1 edge blast makes him a serious threat whether your opponent defends or not.  His reaction ability is ultra-elite; it is better in most situations.  You can attack, remove the token and defend which is really nice, and his removing it on your opponents turn prior to refresh means he is hard to kill with Force Lightning unless he has defended already.  Alternatively, you can commit him to the force, and any time he gets tokens by attacking they will both be gone again by next turn, just like Elite.  The only time the ability is not as good as normal elite is when you need him to defend and be committed, since he wont get rid of the final token until your opponents turn, meaning he cant attack. Throw in 3 Damage Capacity, 3 force icons, and the Force User keyword and hes one of the best Jedi Characters available.

Twi'Lek Loyalist
A very cheap guy with two pretty nice edge-enabled icons.  This guy can be really annoying if unchecked, but is really mediocre if your opponent can be bothered to choke him out or simply dedicate a little trooper to put him down.  Nice to have that tactics icon though.  Is unfortunate that he didng get a force-related keyword, since it means some of the enhancements are not playable on him.

Jedi Lightsaber
A nice, cheap enhancement that really helps Luke and Yoda out a lot.  Its unfortunate that it can only be attached to Jedi-types, but is worth the cost and the card. In my opinion is best on Luke/Yoda since they make good use of the extra icons and arent as easy to kill, but can be played on most Jedi guys to help you take an objective

Trust Your Feelings
A little pricey at the cost of most of your characters (before reductions), but really strong on a lot of characters, particularly those with targeted strike.  The action can be used mid-battle to allow a character to strike twice or simply to allow you to attack twice by using it between battles.  Very strong card that can compound Jedi dominance or help you establish it.

Dagobah Training Ground
The standard limited resource.  Needed for all decks, but nothing special about this particular one.

Objective Set as a whole:
I view two of this set as required if you are going mainly Jedi affiliation in your deck.  Gives you everything you need in a Jedi set - Resources, a potential auto-start 5 resouces,  a big beater that can level the playing field early on against the dark side since they can't just ignore him, and some nice support cards, particularly Trust.  Also, this set is the only set that has 2 character enhancements in it, which is really important if you are planning on playing Yoda in any meaningful way, since he needs good enhancements to be effective.