Category Archives: ccg/tcg

Pimped Out

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

Well that’s the way it felt playing Star Wars Unlimited last night.

I’d finally sleeved the starter kit decks. I used the Gamegenic matte sleeves. Which to be honest about I felt a little underwhelmed by the quality of them. They were no Dragon Shield sleeves. But they were cheaper than the Dragon Shields. I used my usual Mayday Premium sleeves for the leader and base cards.

Obviously we had official Gamegenic playmats, a two player and single player. These have the various play areas used in the game marked out on them. Great for teaching the game. But also handy for more experienced players too. Cuts out any confusion.

Finally after what seems like an age we no longer had to play using the bloody awful tokens/counters from the starter kits. Instead we had the much much better official acrylic tokens from Gamegenic. So that I have enough for our sessions I did buy three sets.

I also have two extra acrylic tokens that I got off Etsy from a UK seller, a Blast and Plan token. These two tokens are used when playing Twin Suns. Something we plan to do. However as you will read further down also useful for last night.

Once again it was Marcin, Dave, and myself playing the starter kit decks as if they were from a Game Night Kit.

Obviously we used the same Twin Suns rule for the game ending as last time. But this time we added in the Twin Suns counter rule.

With the Twin Suns counter rule “the “Take the Initiative” action has been replaced with the “Take an Available Counter” action.” taken from FFG Twin Suns counter pdf.

So how does this work? “a player may still take the Initiative counter in order to go first at the beginning of the next action phase. However, two new counters provide additional options. You may put your opponents on notice by taking the Blast counter, which deals 1 damage to each enemy base. Or if you need to dig a bit deeper in your deck, take the Plan counter, which allows you to draw a card, then put a card from your hand on the bottom of your deck. Remember, you can only take one counter, but you may choose any of the three which haven’t been taken yet.
Choose wisely! Taking a counter means you are finished taking actions for the round.” taken from FFG Twin Suns counter pdf.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere, and for the life of me I can’t remember where. That when setting up with the counters in Twin Suns for a three player game it was suggested that you only use one of the counters. That during setup players vote for the one they want to keep.

Dave had a cunning plan last night. Let Marcin and I beat crap out of each other, and then as one of us lay bloodied on the floor swoop in and deliver the winning blow. It was a pretty successful plan really because he won all three games that we played.

Playing with the acrylic tokens really did enhance the whole experience. It’s a tactile thing.

The two extra counters were a great addition. They worked really well. End your turn in a phase now had a meaningful decision attached to it.

Finally I did spend yesterday afternoon putting together a Twin Suns deck for the Sabine and Jyn deck. I’ve no idea if the deck is good or works. I won’t find that out until I play it. I’ve ordered the majority of the cards for it from Magic Madhouse. There were about ten they didn’t have in stock. I might just use proxies for the missing ones until I can get them. There will be a post about this with the deck list etc in a day or two.

Lcg/tcg/ccg night returns

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

Sadly neither Marcin or Diego were able to make the restart of the lcg/tcg/ccg night. But Dave was.

It’d been a long day for me. To be at work for 6am I need to get up at 4:30. Or 4:45 if I’m feeling particularly lazy. Having started at 6am, these last three days I’ve been finishing at 3pm.

After getting home just before 4pm, I had a bath and nearly fell asleep. Yeah I was that tired.

I threw the two starter sets you can get for Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) into a bag along with the two player game mat.

After pleasantries, getting refreshments, and having to apologise for the very poor quality of the starter set components (they are shocking) we chose our decks from the Spark of Rebellion starter set.

Dave went Vader, which means I played Luke.

The first game went my way. It wasn’t one sided by all means. It was a bit to and fro, with each player having moments having the upper hand.

We stayed with our respective deck choices, and played a second game.

Dave definitely had the upper hand in this game. For the majority of the game I felt I was just holding on for dear life. Delaying the inevitable.

Finally Dave managed to deliver the winning blow.

Our third game was going to be with the second starter set that goes with the latest set Shadows of the Galaxy.

Dave played the Moth Gideon deck whilst I had the Mandalorian deck.

These decks were completely new to me. I had no idea what the focus of them were. I’d avoided any talk online about them.

I had to mulligan my opening hand and the resulting six cards still left me lacking a turn one play or even a decent turn two play. My turn one action was taking the initiative token.

Yeah I was on the backfoot right from the start.

Whilst my deck continued to hate me giving me no synergy between cards I had, no combos etc. Dave’s was just delivering him the goodies to overwhelm me, remove any defences/threats I could muster. In the end he just totally destroyed me.

I know within SWU there is targeted removal of one for or another. But I would have loved a board wipe card in this game. Maybe that’ll come in future releases.

Our fourth and final game saw the tables turned. I was getting upgrades, went all Voltron on Mando once he was out (I had him hitting for eight points of damage and a final winning 9). Dave was struggling to keep up or deal with the heavily upgraded Mando.

I do really like these starter decks. They are great fun to play. Seem relatively balanced. Great design on the player mats with the helpful player aids. But as pointed out these decks are let down by poor component quality.

I’m currently (as you have seen) using these like MtG duel decks for casual play with friends.

I had a great evening playing SWU with Dave.

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.