Category Archives: star realms

star realms

Hulk Smash

apps, iOS, life, the universe, and everything, star realms

It’s been a while since I’ve racked up some massive damage to defeat an opponent in Star Realms.

So when I finally achieved a big hit that won me the game.

Well it had to be shared with the world via social media.

This is not the time or place to debate the eternal Star Realms issue of whether it’s morally right to over kill an opponent. And let’s just enjoy the delivery of lots of damage.

Really peeved I missed out on gaming this week due to the cold I had on my days off.

But the good news is I’m nearly over it, and I didn’t pass it on to mum.

Videos are starting to appear on YouTube for the second Dune Imperium expansion Immortality.

It looks interesting. But I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.

Obviously I’m going to get it.

But will it be a must include when playing expansion? Which I think the previous one was.

I can see the playtime going up, especially the analysis paralysis side with players.

We’ll find out once I get my grubby mitts on the new expansion and get it to the table with some willing participants.

And that game (whenever it is) will be using the newly laminated leader mats. Yes they were probably the first thing I laminated with my new laminator.

I hated how flimsy those leader mats were. But Direwolf aren’t the only publishers guilty of scrimping in this area. Now the issue is “solved”.

But that’s enough of my ramblings I’ll see you in the next post.

Tired and on autopilot, that’s my excuse…

apps, star realms

Below is a very short video I posted on Instagram today of a MASSIVE misplay in a game of Star Realms with my friend Freddy.

Instead of just smashing face and claiming victory I just…

Well I can’t explain it apart from I’m tired, and was just in autopilot mode taking my turns in the games I’m playing.

Look it’s been a looong day ok?

Just saviour the moment of this epic misplay below. If I get another turn and win there is no justice in the world. I don’t deserve to win after this.

I hope you had a chuckle at my expense. It’s the least I deserve.

UPDATE: 2 hours after posting!

I did in fact get another go! And this time I was ruthless and finished the game off.

So my epic misplay that we all had a good roflmao moment with went unpunished.

A crazy turn 1 play in Star Realms

apps, iOS, online play, star realms

Yesterday I had one of those insane starts to a game of Star Realms.

For those interested all 18 expansions are in play for this game.

I’m the starting player, which means I have an opening hand of three cards.

One crazy turn 1!

This may have not been the most optimal play, and as usual against this player I may go on and lose. But that doesn’t matter I managed to do this insane start buying the 8 cost Command Ship on turn 1. That’s just not possible normally.

As I’ve said on numerous occasions it’s crazy cool stuff like this that keeps the game fresh and surprising.

Now I just have to hope my opponent doesn’t see this little clip!

Command Decks Come To Star Realms App

apps, iOS, star realms

Last week saw an update to the Star Realms app released. Which saw the 18th expansion Command Decks introduced to the game for £6.99.

“Each Legendary Commander has a unique starting deck (that replaces the normal hand of Scouts and Vipers), and has two unique Gambit cards. They also have different starting Authority values and hand sizes. Each Command Deck has a powerful 8-cost ship that gets added to the trade deck at the start of the game.” (https://www.starrealms.com/star-realms-command-decks-now-in-star-realms-digital/)

This is the first time that I will have played with the Command Decks, despite owning the physical decks. The only time I seem to get to play the game in real life is with Nathan. And that hasn’t happened for a long time. So I’m pretty excited to be able to play with them now.

As stated in a recent post I’ve played over 10k games with the app now, and the expansions have helped keep the game fresh. Although I tend to play with every expansion selected, which allows for some crazy starts and plays. Sometimes it’s refreshing to play with just the core set, or with only a couple of expansions selected.

The least used, ok not used at all, side of the expansions for me is the campaign missions. So I can’t speak for that side of things. It could be argued I’m not getting maximum value out of my purchases. But the campaign side just doesn’t interest me.

What isn’t obvious when selecting the Command Decks expansion when making a challenge to another player is how to select which of the seven Command Decks you play with.

When you select the Command Deck expansion in the bottom left corner an avatar of the current selected Command Deck appears (shown above).

If you click on that avatar you are taken to the Command Deck selection screen (see below) where you can select the deck you wish to play with.

On that screen pressing the little question mark and you get the specific rules for that Command Deck.

It should be noted that which ever deck you select will be the default Command Deck you get whenever you accept or issue a challenge until you change it.

Compared to the other expansions and the cost of the full game this expansion is on the expensive side. But as with the others this is buy once and have everywhere! Which takes the sting out of it for me. This is one of my favourite things with Star Realms that my games in progress and purchases follow me to which ever platform I’m using. No need to buy again.

I’m sure that there will be one or two Command Decks that I will prefer over the others. But that’s something to discuss for another day (once I’ve played them all for starters).

Right I’m off to take my turns…

10k Games of Star Realms

apps, star realms

This morning I hit a major milestone in playing Star Realms using the rather excellent app.

I hit my 10,000th game of Star Realms.

I mainly play against friends. Hardly ever random opponents. Although from time to time I have partaken in the odd Arena game or two. Some of the rule changes used in Arena have been wild, and fun.

My stats for 10k games of Star Realms

I’m reasonably happy with the win percentage. Although I’d love it to be higher. But the cards hate me, and my friends happen to be really good players. Heck one of them is one of the games top players (they have two cards named after them in the game).

Having played so many games of Star Realms I can honestly say I still love the game. The addition of the expansions over the years has helped keep the game fresh.

The aim for the next 10k of games improve that win percentage.

If you fancy a game hit me up with a challenge.

Discard 8!

apps, iOS, star realms

I’ve not done one of these Star Realms posts in ages. Mind you I haven’t had a great deal to shout about. Although a 4 game winning streak against one of the games top players was pretty cool, and should warrant a post normally. However it didn’t as that player is still winning 2 games to every 1 of my wins!

Today I finished a game against one of my regular opponents, and achieved a first for me in Star Realms. Yep after nearly 9800 games of Star Realms it’s still possible to do things for the first time.

In the past I have had it so that an opponent has to discard 5 cards on their turn. Which basically means they have no next turn, as they are discarding their whole hand of cards (although with the new docking mechanic in the Frontiers Promo expansion they could have a 6th card, or the right event card they may have drawn an extra 2 cards). I’ve been on the receiving end of this once (yep only once in that many games, plenty of times had to discard 3 or 4 cards though) and it’s not fun. Unless you are dishing it out, then it’s funny!

But as the screen shot below shows in this game if my opponent had gotten to taken their next turn, they would have had to discard 8 cards! Naturally that is not possible under normal circumstances. And these were normal circumstances. No event card or docking mechanic shenanigans going on.

I’ve never ever before today forced a player to discard more than 5 cards. This is most definitely a record for me.

So for those interested here is the video of the game just finished.

What’s the maximum number of cards you have made some-one discard in Star Realms?

A couple of cool Star Realms moments

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As a brief break from the recent outbreak of poor MtG content. I have some really poor Star Realms content to compete with it.

If you look on my Instagram account you’ll see a very short test movie with no sound. But it uses two recent images I shared over there from a couple of recent games of Star Realms I’ve played.

Basically I was trying out the green screen stuff within the iOS version of iMovie.

This first image is from one of the early games with the new Frontiers Promos expansion. It shows the new Assimilator card which in the game I made use of it’s Allie ability and scrapped to steal The Ark from my opponents discard pile.

I felt so dirty after doing that. This is a new mechanic to the game. And one I’m pretty sure must have shocked my opponent when they watched my turn play out. Rightly I lost the game. But wow that feeling of guilt after playing it!

Next up was a first I believe for me in over nine thousand games. I remember forcing opponents to discard three or four cards at the start of their turn. But never their whole hand before.

It seems so odd that in so many games I’ve never done this before. Surely my memory is failing me on this one?

Naturally I tempted fate by screen grabbing the above and sharing it with my opponent on Facebook wishing them a great next turn. So basically I was a dick about it! Luckily fate didn’t hate me this time and I went on to win the game.

As for the test movie. I’m not sure where that is going. We’ll see where that ends up.

Star Realms App gets Frontiers Promos Expansion

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A new expansion called Frontiers Promos has just gone live in the Star Realms app.

You’ll need to update the app to get access to it.

As you can see from below this is the 17th digital expansion for the game.

I’m looking forward to buying the 9 cost Colossus. I’m not looking forward to being on the receiving end of it though.

Look I love Star Realms. I think that’s evident from the 9000 odd games I’ve played. Sadly my win rate isn’t great. Proving I’m a below average player.

This is a great deck builder. Which the many expansions just take to another level. Whether it’s more ships and bases, or events, heroes and missions.

The only draw back the game now has is for new players to get everything it’s not cheap. The only saving grace is that it’s buy once get everywhere (ie on all the platforms you can play Star Realms).

You can read more about the Frontiers Promos HERE, and see why that Colossus card looks scary.

A long long Star Realms game play video

star realms

I’ve not uploaded any boring Star Realms games for a long time. Thank god! I hear you shout.

Well sadly for you I’ve uploaded another one. Well to be more accurate 2 and a bit. But they are in one video.

There first is a game where I hit my opponent for a massive fifty odd damage in a single turn. I hadn’t done that much in a single turn for a long long time.

That’s followed by an epic game with Scott. Where he just wouldn’t die, and I thought at one point he was going to come back for the win.

Finally there is an Arena game from this morning where they conceded after it was blindingly obvious they were finished. It demonstrates the power of outposts which belong to the same faction that trigger each other’s faction ability.

So for your torture here is my latest Star Realms game play video…