Category Archives: star wars

star wars

Star Wars Unlimited two-player starter set experience

ccg/tcg, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night, star wars, Star Wars Unlimited

In my previous post I gave my impressions of the two-player starter set from FFG for Star Wars Unlimited.

So continuing on from that post I’m going to share my thoughts on playing Star Wars Unlimited using the two starter decks included in the starter set.

Both Diego and myself have played other competitive collectible and living card games such as Magic the Gathering, Android Netrunner (not sure if Diego has played this) and Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Obviously for this starter set to be playable by two-players as its name suggests, it has to come with two preconstructed decks that can be played straight out of the box. You’ll find the deck lists for both decks at the end of the post.

Every deck built for Star Wars Unlimited has to have a leader and base. They determine the cards you can play in your deck. You can play out of faction cards but there is an extra cost in doing so.

In this two-player starter the two leaders you get are Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

I love that the art for both is from the duel between them on Cloud City at the end of Empire.

I’ve not looked at all the cards in the decks. But there is one that ties in with this called “I am your father”.

Even the way the card works (above) is so thematic. Love it.

Luke’s base is the Aministrator’s Tower, and Vader’s is the Commander Center. Both 30 health, and add a third faction symbol.

Luke’s Base
Vader’s Base
The two bases

Obviously the game shares mechanics common to all ccgs. Such as exhausting cards (tapping in mtg), units coming in exhausted (summoning sickness), spending resources to play cards. You get the idea.

So coming from a ccg background it was very easy to pick up the game.

I did like that you draw two cards at the end of the round, and may play a card from hand face down to be used as a resource.

This for me this is a major difference to other games I’ve played. It also introduces a hard decision because once a card has been played face down as a resource there is no getting it back. Which card becomes a resource? Which do you hold on to? If you don’t play a resource it delays when your leader can come out, it limits what cards can be played. It has such big implications. Especially early on.

I also like the back and forth of actions. And the gamble of passing. On your turn you can pass, waiting to see what your opponent does. However if your opponent seizes the initiative, or passes also. That’s it the round has ended. Even if you wanted to do more! That’s the gamble.

Diego and I played a game with each deck.

The decks seem fairly evenly matched. Our first game was pretty close.

Although our second game was more one sided. But that was more down to the draw of cards. You get games like that. You just have to put the game behind you, and move on to the next one.

I liked playing Star Wars Unlimited with these decks. They were fun to play. Great decks to play casually with a friend over the kitchen table.

I’ll definitely buy the next sets two-player starter set. Hopefully they too will be as balanced.

Finally here are the two deck lists for the decks.

Deck list for both decks

It should be noted there are some cards in this starter set that are only available in the starter set, or in the op kit promo kits.

First impressions of the two-player starter set for Star Wars Unlimited

ccg/tcg, first look, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night, star wars, Star Wars Unlimited

Last night I got to play the two-player starter set for Star Wars Unlimited with Diego.

I have some mixed thoughts about the whole experience.

Let me just say up front I really like the game.

However I do have some issues with the quality of this product.

First up is the flimsy very thin card tokens included for tracking damage, first player, etc. That’s my issue they are so flimsy. I hate them. If you intend to get into the game you will want to upgrade these as a priority. Maybe that’s what the aim was. To “encourage” you to buy the GameGenic acrylic tokens. That’s if you can find anywhere that has them.

I was also very disappointed with the quality of the cards themselves. They too are very thin. You will be sleeving the cards. You have to. These are boarding on unusable. This means that opening boosters will be a bitter sweet experience. On one hand I’ll be excited about opening the packs, and the cards I pull. On the other repulsed by the poor quality of the card stock used.

The two folded paper playmats were as expected quality wise. I like they have the play areas on them. Plus act as a player aid with setup, what you can do on a turn, end of a round summary, plus keyword summary. All very handy for learning the game, and teaching it.

The quick start/learn to play booklet is nice and does the job well. We hardly had to refer to it.

The two cardboard deck boxes a nice touch that don’t need assembling. They are large enough to hold the cards sleeved.

Overall I think value wise this is a great starter set. However quality wise of the cards and tokens it feels cheap and that FFG are cutting corners to cut costs and maximise profit.

In another post I’ll talk more about the play experience of Star Wars Unlimited using this two-player starter set.

Why I jumped down another rabbit hole willingly!

ccg/tcg, star wars, Star Wars Unlimited

I think I need to justify to myself why I jumped willingly into the Star Wars Unlimited rabbit hole.

There was an “interesting” approach to playing Star Wars Unlimited in the latest Rolling Dice Taking Names (RDTN) podcast (episode 317). A group of boardgame content creators are playing the game (online I assume with webcams). They are started off with one of the starter decks, playing them first. Then once a week opening 3 boosters and modifying the starter deck with the cards gained.

Now I like the idea however 3 packs a week sounds expensive. That’s £15 a week! I think with interested parties at Fenland Gamers it could be slightly modified to say 3 packs every couple of weeks or once a month.

It was this that kinda sold the idea of getting the game. I thought I could do this super casually with Nathan.

Then when my car was being repaired to get it through its MOT I walked into Lynn town centre.

Something I hadn’t done for over a decade.

After popping into CEX and picking up the original two seasons of Twin Peaks on dvd for a silly low price. I happened to wander past the Waterstones window. in that window they were promoting Star Wars Unlimited and that they had prerelease kits.

That tempted me big time.

But when I looked inside I couldn’t see any prerelease kits on display. So I asked the young lady behind the counter. Who kindly checked out back and found their last one.

So I got the two-player starter and prerelease kit. With the intent to play them with Nathan.

I let Nathan know I’d bought it. He’s checked the game out at his local game store and thinks it looks pretty good. So he’s excited to play it when I next visit.

The two boxes both currently remain unopened. But the two-player starter might get opened soon to play with others and learn the game.

In the meantime between buying the above and writing this post a booster box containing 24 boosters may have been purchased and sitting unopened on a shelf.

I have suggested to the Fenland Gamers ccg/lcg/tcg players the above RDTN format. I have one taker since posting on the clubs discord server this morning. I added the idea of a league for it. Give everyone in the league two weeks or even a month to get their game played and report the result. That should give folks enough time to organise and play the game taking into account life and such.

Despite having a booster box I’m treating Star Wars Unlimited as a casual game for me. I’m not even sure what local game store support the game has. I think the RDTN format hits a happy sweet spot of being competitive but limiting the amount spent, and stopping those with deeper pockets buying the best cards. A casual competitive format?!

So there you have it I blame RDTN for luring me down this rabbit hole.

‘T was in the darkest depths of Mordor

Game day, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, star wars

I spent a very enjoyable few hours today round Jeff’s playing LoTR themed games punctuated with a delicious bowl of chicken and mushroom curry.

We started our gaming with War of the Ring the card game.

Jeff played the free peoples of Middle Earth. Whilst for a change for me from the last couple of plays I’ve had I was the minions of Sauron.

Mordor won in the end by a narrow couple of points.

Jeff was a little unsure of the game and thought he needed a few more plays to decide. But he thought it had potential.

Our second game after a break for lunch (the chicken and mushroom curry washed down with coffee) was LoTR the living card game revised core.

We played the introductory scenario seeing as it was Jeff’s first time with the game.

Luckily Jeff had done some homework and had watched a couple of YouTube how to play videos. So no teaching required.

Jeff chose the starter decks for our play and went elves, leaving me dwarves.

I’ve already written about this introductory scenario so I’m not going to repeat myself here.

Suffice to say the combined might of the dwarves and elves won.

Unsurprisingly Jeff really liked LoTR LCG. I had a strong suspicion he might. After all Jeff loves Arkham Horror LCG and they are similar mechanically.

Which reminds me the previous evening John and I met up and played Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

John played Obi Wan, whilst I went with Ashoka against Ventress. We played at the padawan difficulty (3 missions).

Even though the game was brutal against us and beat us (we needed another two turns minimum to win) Jonathan enjoyed this implementation of the pandemic engine.

I have had two gaming sessions with two of my oldest and closest gaming friends. Who these days I don’t get to game with as often as I’d like. So to get to spend quality time with them sharing great games was a Summer highlight.

Star Wars Unlimited Some Thoughts

news, rant, star wars

Last week FFG dropped a teaser trailer (embedded below) on YouTube for a new Star Wars collectible card game (ccg) called Star Wars Unlimited that is coming out in 2024.

And you know what the world needs is more opinion based on the very scarce information that is out there from the over represented demographic that I am part of.

I know nothing about the game play, price model, etc. So what follows is pure speculation and blue sky thinking.

FFG are not strangers to the ccg model (Star Wars Destiny, Keyforge) despite being more known for creating the lcg model and using that.

But there are a few hurdles FFG need to over come to make Star Wars Unlimited a success that isn’t just a flash in the pan.

These are the same hurdles that the Disney Lorcana ccg will also have to overcome when it comes out later this year.

The first hurdle being supply of the initial release. FFG have not had a good record on this front. Grossly underestimating demand, and long delays before getting more produced and into shops will damage the sales and take up of the game. It happened to Star Wars Destiny and also to some extent Keyforge. New players need to be able to easily get their hands on the game after trying it. FFG haven’t had a great record on this front so far.

Next up is the release schedule of the sets/expansions. Another area FFG did not have much success with in the past. But then neither have Plaid Hat Games with Ashes, or Wizkids with Dice Masters. Wizkids and FFG had delays that clashed with the following set. So you ended up with small delays between sets, no time to explore the new stuff. It ended up messy and expensive. With Ashes it was long long delays between sets that helped kill it off.

FFG also need to get the number of sets released in a year right. Which I believe is going to be three. WotC in their attempt to gauge more money from players have been releasing a ridiculous amount to product in a year. For me and my wallet I think FFG have hit the right amount to release.

Organised play (OP) is one area I think FFG have always been weak. But going from the YouTube video (below) it looks like they have learnt a lot from WotC.

I’d like to see more about the prize support. But with pre-releases being a thing now, draft, limited formats. We are in for more of an MtG experience I hope.

I’ve yet to see what the Lorcana plans are for OP. But OP is the life blood of the game that along with the availability will determine if the game has legs (if we assume the game play is good).

Rotation. There has to be rotation. Which sets are legal for the Unlimited version of standard and for how long. Obviously there has to be their eternal format as well where all cards can be played. Plus how will they handle bannings? But I’m sure they will release those details in the following months.

I think if they can solve these issues then we should have a hit on our hands that won’t be more than a flash in the pan.

I have some thoughts on the first look video contents but they are for another day.

The living legend that is…

Game day, star wars

It was supposed to be the next Group 2 D&D session today. However due to that thing the government is in denial about and would rather you forget about, we were once again going to be down by 50% of the group.

So I suggested we play a three player game of Star Wars Outer Rim instead.

I knew that the other two had never played the game before. But that didn’t stop me adding in the Unfinished Business expansion.

After all it added more cards to the various decks that the game uses. More characters to play as. Favours (not used) and Ambitions. Plus Core World end tiles allowing the Galaxy to be crossed.

I was going to just use the extra cards and core worlds but after watching a review by Luke Hector I decided to use the Ambition cards as well. The logic being they would give new players a focus on what to do on their turns and for the game.

Here are the characters and Ambition cards selected.

  • Jyn Erso – Living Legend (Me)
  • Han Solo – Renowned Smuggler (Shane)
  • Maz Kanata – Crime Lord (Anthony)

We were playing first to eight fame points plus complete their ambition card.

After an early but brief lead on the fame points. I was trailing on that front until a late surge towards the end which put me in front again.

I was the last to upgrade their ship.

As for the new stuff. I liked the ambition cards, especially how they gave a direction/focus.

The core worlds certainly aided in making the outer rim smaller, and quicker to navigate from one end to the other.

In the end we ended our game not because of a winner but due to running out of time.

Although Shane and myself both had two ambition tokens on our cards, I had nine fame to his eight. So I claimed the victory. Another half hour or two turns I’d have won normally.

A great afternoon gaming.

Bouncing round the Outer Rim

star wars

What a way to start two days off work.

I hadn’t played a game with Gavin since March (that was when I got him hooked on Survive Escape from Atlantis). So when he asked at the start of the week if I wanted to go round one day this week to play a game I jumped at the chance.

Gavin had a request to try Star Wars Outer Rim. I was more than happy to get it back to the table. Plus we could do our game trade.

This morning was the prearranged time for our gaming.

One day I’ll get to play Star Wars Outer Rim with the higher player counts. But I still like it as a two player game.

In this game I played Jyn Erso (Rogue One) whilst Gavin played Lando Calrissian. We were also playing to eight fame points instead of the default ten. The quick start rules recommend this for a first game, after it that was the case for Gavin. Plus I’d only played the game once before. So I needed to refresh my memory on some of the rules.

I took the early fame lead by reaching my characters goal first.

During the game I think I was being thematically true to my character by swapping ships regularly. As you can see in the photo above I ended up in Fett’s ship or would have been if I had got a chance to complete the ships goal.

Gavin definitely got the ship that was thematically true for Lando, and managed to complete the goal to turn it into the legendary Millennium Falcon to make it more so.

During all this ship hopping Gavin managed to take the fame lead with a massive turn that grabbed him two fame points in a single turn.

I was playing catch up.

Luckily there were patrol ships I could attack to get money and fame points for.

As I was fighting patrols Gavin was getting closer to victory.

If Gavin hadn’t snatched his last fame point to claim victory I’d have won. I know that is a boastful thing to say. But my next turn would have seen me attack Gavin’s character. Which if I’d won (and the chances were good on that) I’d have gained two fame points and a final score of nine (and not the seven I had when Gavin grabbed his eighth fame point).

Why were the chances good on me winning a combat with Gavin? Between my ships ability, Jyn’s ability, and a crew members ability, I’d have started combat with plus one critical hit (worth two hits), Gavin would be rolling one less combat die, and thanks to a crew ability I could turn blank sides to eye symbols, which I could then turn one into a hit! Oh and in the patrol combats I took part in Gavin was not rolling well. Even on his skill tests his dice rolling was challenging Jonathan for the title of “the dice hate me” king.

If that combat had happened that would have been our first bit of player interaction of the game!

Neither of us went for any bounties either. Which might have made the chances of interacting higher if one of the bounties was for a crew member.

But we both had a good time. Gavin enjoyed the game. But would never get it to the table at home. So his sealed copy will be going up for sale/trade. Let’s face it I have it, and he’ll play my copy. As we were today.

Me? Payday will see me ordering the new (and only), just out Unfinished Business expansion for it. It was a given I’d be getting this anyway. I like the game. But more importantly Nathan likes it. So adding more to a game he likes is a no brainer.

Our small bit of wheeling and dealing saw me swap my copy of Flash Point and expansions for a copy of Tinners Trail plus expansion box.

A great mornings gaming and trading. Thanks Gavin.

May the 4th Be With You – Star Wars Day 2021

star wars

May the 4th Be With You!

Yep it’s that time of year again. I love that my birthday sits smack damn in the middle of two days that celebrate great franchises that I enjoy a lot.

Naturally I plan to watch something Star Wars related today. Which will definitely include watching the latest addition to the Star Wars universe The Bad Batch. Which I believe is a spin off from the Clone Wars animated series.

I also believe the first episode released today is an extra long episode. Which then gets the second episode released on Friday, and is about 20-25 minutes in duration. And like all other Disney+ series will see new episodes drop on Fridays after that.

I might then rewatch both seasons of The Mandalorian. I love that series. Great stories, great characters, and it feels like Star Wars while introducing new characters.

Some of the images I shared on social media to celebrate the day.

Sadly there will be no Star Wars themed board gaming. Well we know why.

Will be interesting to see what announcements are made, especially on the board and video gaming fronts.

A Pipe Dream

RPG, star wars

Despite the failure of the ‘experiment’ with our gaming group to find like minded people interested in playing/trying Paranoia or Judge Dredd: Worlds of 2000 A.D. (which was a little disappointing) I still dream of playing them and other RPGs at some point.

Despite Disney’s best attempts with the last two instalments of the trilogy, and less than subtle messages in the media, I’m still a big Star Wars fan. So it’s only natural that I’d want to play an RPG set in the Star Wars universe.

One of the options available to me is the FFG developed Star Wars RPG.

There are three versions of this to play depending on the focus your want for your characters. In Age of Rebellion you join the surprisingly the rebellion in it’s fight against the Empire. Edge of the Empire focuses more on smuggling and bounty hunting. Force and Destiny allows you to play Jedi and Sith. All three share the same core mechanics, and use custom dice from FFG (similar but not the same as the Genesys dice). The Star Wars RPG system is basically what the Genesys was based upon, but made more generic.

There is a Force Awakens intro box set that allows players to dip their toes before deciding if/which of the above three tracks they want to follow. There used to be a similar one that wasn’t tied in to a movie as well I believe.

Another option is the original 1987 Star Wars RPG that FFG reprinted a couple years back now to celebrate its anniversary. Which I do own. Which is a plus over the FFG one briefly discussed above.

There was an RPG between these two that I think was by WotC and was a d20 system. It should be possible to find second hand copies of this on the likes of eBay.

It’s nice to have these official versions, whether in print or not. They have done all the heavy lifting for you. But if you don’t want to use them there are other systems out there such as WOIN: N.E.W. , Genesys(!), Fate etc. However this option would require a bit, ok a lot of effort in advance. Luckily there is a wealthy of source material available on the Star Wars universe to help. However for me at the moment this is a route I’d like to avoid.

The nice thing about playing a Star Wars RPG in this day and age is what can be used by the GM and players during a session.

One option is the use of Star Wars Lego, especially the minifigures as a change from traditional miniatures.

But on the traditional miniatures front we are spoilt with what we can get. With the Imperial Assault game and it’s expansions there are a tonne of great minis available. The only drawback with this option is that the game has now come to the end of its life and no longer being printed by FFG. So that may push up the price of copies of the game and its expansions. Luckily for me I have 80% of what’s available. I think I’m only missing the last big expansion and the mini ones that accompanied its release.

FFG also have Star Wars Legion their skirmish game which has slightly larger sized minis. But this is is still being supported, so easier to get. The draw back for me on this is the assembling the miniatures.

With X-Wing and Armada it’s actually possible to use the models from these two miniature games to do space combat with in a session. Naturally the X-Wing models would be used for dog fight encounters, whilst Armada gives that more tactical higher level option. I like the idea of being able to run different types of space encounters. Unless you are buying the bigger ships, a lot of the models are really affordable, and prepainted. Although I’m now regretting getting rid of my X-Wing stuff.

It’s never been a better time to play a Star Wars RPG with all that we have available these days. Stuff we could only dream off back in the eighties.

Other RPGs I’d love to try that are based around an existing IP are the new Alien RPG, The Expanse RPG, and the Elite Dangerous RPG (yes based on the video game). I have the rules as a pdf for the first two but not the last one. Maybe one day.

Lego Star Wars Advent Days 1 – 4 2017

lego minifigs, star wars

Slight delay to getting this years Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar (Amazon apparently think Prime means longer than next day. It arrived today.

So here are the first 4 days worth of Lego action.

I’ll post daily on Instagram the contents, and then every 3 or 4 days on here so that I’m not spamming here too much.

Have I said what a huge fan of Twin Peaks I was?

Back in the late eighties, early nineties when it first aired I was addicted. Even as I’m writing this on my iPhone the haunting theme music for the show is playing in my head.

My Christmas viewing will be rewatching the original series, and the brand new episodes that got shown earlier in the year. I might even throw in the Fire Walk With Me movie.

Anyhow Funko bought out a set of Pop Vinyl figures for the series. With the latest arrival of the Comic Con exclusive (below) I now have the set (include the chase figure for the Giant).