Next week sees Twilight of the Republic, the third set for Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) released to the world.
Obviously I’m keen to try the new starter decks, and start building Twin Suns decks with the new cards, or even upgrading my existing decks.
With Twin Suns being our preferred format for SWU. Allowing Dave, Marcin, and myself to play a multiplayer game. It is the SWU Commander.
However one thing I’ve noticed from our games is how they rarely go pass round seven.
Which means that it’s hardly worth even including any cards that cost seven or more. You won’t get to play them.
I’ve nearly arrived at the opinion that even six cost cards, possibly even five cost are dead cards in the deck. That the space in the deck taken up by anything that costly should be filled by lower cost options (if there are any).
I’m finding that these more expensive cards are more often when drawn placed face down as resources.
On rounds five and above being able to play two or three cards on the current phase is massive. You have options. Hopefully you have the cards in hand to respond to what your opponents are doing.
Do the Twin Suns rules need a tweak? Maybe double the health of the base, or add ten to the base health so the games (maybe) last a round or two longer.
If you have played SWU Twin Suns what are your experiences? Do your games last longer?
It’s Saturday morning. I’ve been awake from bloody early a.m. on my day off.
The status update of my McDonald’s breakfast seems stuck on “picking up my order”.
I’m just too knackered after my seven day tour of duty at work.
I’ve come out of it feeling battered emotionally. I won’t go into details but the frustration levels have been through the roof.
So I feel I’ve earnt this lazy start to my day off.
Yesterday Mini Rails arrived from Zatu without any problems. Which has been my experience with them every time I’ve ordered from them. That will shock some. But for me my experiences have been positive.
Also through the letter box came the new Zelda game The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Where I think for the first time you can actually play as Princess Zelda. Another entry in my long to play list.
Last night was a “get it to the table” night for Fenland Gamers. Which saw Marcin, Anthony, and myself play Marcin’s copy of Coimbra. Which frankly I’m shocked he owns based on its theme alone! It’s not exactly post apocalyptic.
However it’s a fun game that has dice drafting, and then using those dice to do something, with the value of the die being used determining the cost of what you purchase. Plus the colour of the die comes into play in a later stage of the round.
Each round player order changes based on number crowns each player has accumulated that round.
You have a bit of engine building going on with the cards you purchase. Add in also trying to move a pawn round a map to collect bonus tiles, and racing up four influence tracks to try to have the most in each. This a lot to try and do with the three dice you draft.
It’s also only four rounds and plays very quickly.
It is a fun game.
History will record Marcin won on a technicality.
Along with Mini Rails the final cards of my two new decks arrived.
Those two incomplete decks got an outing on Tuesday just gone when Marcin and I play Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) using our Twin Suns decks. I suppose you could say that this was the SWU equivalent of the popular MtG singleton (one one copy of a card) format Highlander.
The two incomplete decks worked well. Or I should say as intended. So I have three Twin Suns decks. Marcin has two. Which means if we have a fourth player join us we can lend them a deck if they have no deck of their own.
Two weeks ago was our first game of Star Wars Unlimited using the Twin Suns multiplayer rules and decks we built.
As my little announcement video below shows I was playing my Sabine Wren and Jyn Erso deck (you can see the deck list here).
I was up against two decks by Marcin. They were
The Mandalorian/Bo-Katan Kryze/Security Complex
Boba Fett/Cad Bane/Command Center
Dave and Marcin took turns playing the decks.
None of the three games we played this first time went beyond the seventh round. So very short games. Expensive cards to play were resources. There would be no chance to play them.
I won the first game, with my deck seemingly working to plan.
Marcin won the remaining two games.
Reflecting back I think although my base Jedha City with its ability while very handy to nullify a threat or reduce the impact. With its health being 25 instead of 30, I felt left me feeling a little more vulnerable.
Although I’m happy with the cost curve it felt I was lacking answers to the threats Marcin and Dave were posing in the two games Marcin won.
This week we once again played Twin Suns games. Dave had his own decks this time (I forgot to make a note of his leaders).
The two games we played this time were longer games. I got the Krayt Dragon out! It won me the first game. I was surprised I got to play the card.
But I had no right winning that game. I was no able to keep a presence on any of the battlefields. It was mainly Dave and Marcin duking it out trying to position themselves for the win. I was just a bystander. Both couldn’t finish off the game by killing me because the other player would win. So they had to concentrate on getting slightly ahead on damaging the other players base.
Dave won game two with some great tactical play especially utilising his leaders to deliver a winning blow by knocking out Marcin. I had sat on cards that dealt with upgrades from my initial hand because of Marcin’s Mando deck.
I am really enjoying our games of Twin Suns.
I think now after five games I might look at what ramp I can possibly introduce to the deck.
As an exercise I might try and classify the cards in the deck by use, such as removal, etc. That might help me identify better areas I’m weak in.
I now have two decks nearly built. I’m just waiting for a handful of cards to arrive. Whilst the third deck that I was inspired to build is 60% complete.
Upon his return from doing some uncle duties first thing. Nath and I spent our last morning together playing a couple of games of you guessed it Star Wars Unlimited.
The first game went the same way as the previous evening. With me getting a comfortable win.
But our second game saw me in a position where if Nath had no answer I was going to win on turn seven. I had enough units in either battleground to deliver the winning blow.
Nath tapped all eight of his resources and defeated all my units! I had no cards in hand. I never recovered from this board wipe. Two turns later Nath just picked me off unable to defend myself to get the win.
Afterwards I started packing ready for the journey home.
The time always goes fast when I’m visiting Nath. Parting is always so hard. Even with Nath being an adult and towering over me, he’s still my little boy.
But part we must. At least I will be back in November and updating our decks or building new ones.
Waiting for me when I got home were the final two cards needed for my twin suns deck. That’s ready now for Tuesday.
Plus the board game Tribes of the Wind, which has a very Naussica Valley of the Wind vibe just from the box art alone. Can’t wait to try it.
Apparently Nath and the two attack chihuahuas Nico and Loki have one thing in common. That’s that they don’t like going out in the rain.
With the heavens pouring down Nath was adamant he would not be going for a walk in the rain. Despite me pointing out we have coats, and I have a tarp/poncho that could be used to keep us dry during the coffee stop. Nath remained unconvinced.
Instead we went into town.
Yes it was raining.
No Nath didn’t take a rain coat with him.
Yes after we had lunch at Burger King and made our way to the game shop he “borrowed” my umbrella.
Somehow at the game shop another booster box for Star Wars Unlimited Shadow of the Galaxy ended up in my possession.
After checking another couple of possible stores that on the off chance sold singles we headed home to crack open some packs.
We got some good pulls that went to building my Luke/Hera Twin Suns deck (details soon).
However as we were cracking open packs and sharing the cool cards we’d pulled (like foils, full art etc) I thought how cool it would be to do a mandalorian themed deck for Twin Suns. I think this would qualify as a tribal deck as we’d call it in MtG. Just the thought of the possibility was getting me excited.
Next thing I know I’m sorting out all of the mandalorian cards we’d pulled. And I’m sure I’ll bore you with a post about it in the near future too.
Earlier in the day (before we went to town) I taught Nath Dice Masters using the X-Men Forever campaign box. These campaign boxes are aimed at two players, and meant to give them everything they need to play.
Using the suggested cut down setup recommended in the included rules book I taught Nath how to play. I should say it’s impossible without the aid of a phone camera to work out what the setup is. The image is just too small and unreadable.
Nath won this first learning game.
I then separated the character cards into two piles. Villians in one, and X-Men in the other. Nath was then given the choice of which he’d like to play. He went bad guys.
We then built our 8 character teams, got the appropriate dice (another fault with this campaign box they got away with the bare minimum they could get away with).
After a very tactical game I managed to get to the position of being able to deliver a winning blow.
Later before tea (a roast dinner) and just chilling watching The Retirement Plan. Nath and I played a couple more games of Star Wars Unlimited.
These were comfortable games for me with Nath not really able to mount any real defence to hold in and get back in the game. It wasn’t one sided my base took damage. It’s just I was able to smash face before Nath found any answers.
Despite the disappointment of not going for a walk. We had a great day.
Yesterday I travelled south to visit Nathan for a couple of days. After unpacking I realised what I had forgotten to pack.
On the drive down I knew I had forgotten something. Everybody has that nagging feeling when they set off somewhere.
It wasn’t until I had unpacked and was getting the Star Wars Unlimited stuff out to show Nathan when I realised I had indeed left something at home.
Sitting back at home are the four starter decks from the two starter kits.
Luckily I hadn’t forgotten the prerelease kit and two booster boxes.
But what were we to do?
Opening the prerelease kit we chose a leader each from the promo Luke and Vader cards that were in it. Nath went Vader, which left me with Luke.
We then cracked open the six boosters in the prerelease kit, followed by opening the Spark of Rebellion booster box, and cracking open the packs inside.
Nath really enjoyed opening the packs and discovering full art cards, foils, or foil full art cards. He had caught the habit most MtG players have. That crack addition of opening packs and seeing what is inside. It’s so addictive.
Afterwards we separated the cards by their aspect and then built decks for our respective leaders.
It was a great evening sharing the experience of cracking open packs and building a deck with our pulls.
Later I went through the remaining cards to see if I had any that I needed for my Luke and Hera (I now have a rather sweet full art card of Hera) Twin Suns deck. I found 22 cards that I needed. Cutting down on any imminent purchases to finish the deck off.
This morning once Nath had gotten back from his babysitting duties for his baby niece I taught him Star Wars Unlimited.
After meeting up with my aunt and uncle in Guildford, Nath and I played a couple more games of Star Wars Unlimited.
This time my deck worked and I was able to get two comfortable wins.
Between games Nath wanted to crack open the Shadows of the Galaxy so I caved and let him. Although I didn’t get a Mando card that I needed for the Twin Suns deck I did get another Krayt Dragon (I did purchase my other copy).
Which means I pulled a £40 odd card. Which I definitely plan to use in the Vader/Tarkin deck.
We ended up playing a fourth game. Nath wanted the opportunity to pull things back.
It was a very tense game with Nath hanging in by the skin of his teeth before grabbing victory from the impending jaws of defeat.
I think it can only be said that we’ve had a great day.
So here we are with my first Twin Suns deck, and also my first ever deck for Star Wars Unlimited.
Unlike building a Commander deck where I have a rough idea of the number of cards of each type I need to have in a deck, such as the amount of removal, ramp, etc.
I have no idea what is optimal for a Twin Suns deck.
Just under half (22 cards) of this deck are events. It has a single upgrade. Only seven space units, and twenty ground units.
Oh before I go any further I do need to issue a boiler plate DISCLAIMER. At no point should this post, the deck, be taken seriously. I have no idea whatsoever if the deck is any good, or even works. I’m still in the process of getting the cards needed. I then need to play it a few times. Contemplate on how the deck did, make changes. Rinse and repeat. In other words like all other decks I’ve built in other games, it’s a living deck.
Let’s start with my two leaders for this Twin Suns deck and the base.
So the theme of this deck is trying to get as much secondary value out of an attack as possible. Particularly targeting opponents bases. Sabine gives me that. Jyn and the base I hope works well with her by allowing me to keep Sabine (and other attackers) out doing their thing for longer by reducing or even eliminating the damage taken in attacking another unit. So I can remove threats and whittle down the bases health.
Let’s get started with the showing you the initial cards that make up this deck. I’ll start with the ground units.
Ground Units
I’m not expecting to get a chance to play the Krayt Dragon. But if I do it’s going to be hilarious. Especially if I bounce back everyone’s battlegrounds to their hands before hand. But there is no ramp in this deck. So eight rounds before I get to play it.
Space Units
If there is an area I think I’m light on it’s here.
Events
I like that there are “board wipes”, and “targeted removal” cards. I have both types in this deck. I can’t wait to combo Evacuate with The Chads of War. That will be hilarious. I’ve also got a little discard action going on with a card or two. The shenanigans these cards will cause are me, and the sort of thing I like to do with my decks.
The basic idea is disrupt my opponents enough to put my plan into action.
Upgrades
My one and only upgrade, and it’s a bounty.
Obviously the idea is to play it on an opposing unit.
Card Cost Curve!
All cards
I’m happy with this curve. With over half the deck being cards I can play turn one, by turn four approximately ninety percent plus of the deck is playable. By turn four also it’s possible to play up to three cards depending on the hand I have.
It should come as no surprise that breaking the cost down by the three card types that the spread matches roughly the overall pattern.
Ground Units
Space Units
Events
I have high hopes that this is a good basis to build from. But only actual games with the deck will prove that now.
I’m waiting on six cards to arrive and then the deck will be ready.
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.
So the other night I went and bought all the current leaders and bases for Star Wars Unlimited. Which is approximately 35 leaders, and 20 bases. It was actually 31 leaders I bought because Magic Madhouse didn’t have the starter set leaders in stock as singles.
I didn’t really need them anyway. Which saved me money. Plus those four cards it appears are the more expensive costing pounds each instead of pence each.
That was the surprising bit that these cards were so cheap.
What follows are some initial pairings of leaders and bases that I think synergise or compliment each other.
My first pairing is Chewbacca and Fennec Shand. I’d like to use the Energy Conversion Lab base with them. But I’m not sure the deck building rules allow that (need to look into it more).
The current thinking for this deck is all about getting out units and using them straight away to attack, or protect the base.
Grand Moff Tarkington and Darth Vader, paired up with the Tarkintown base make up an “aggro” deck!
Hopefully Luke Skywalker, Hera Syndulla, Spectre Two, and the base Security Complex will give me the counter to the aggro deck by spamming out shield tokens.
Finally the deck I’m excited about because this is kinda aggro as well but will be all about doing damage to bases as the result of doing an action. Sabine Wren paired up with Jyn Erso and the base Jedha City should allow that. I see Jyn and the base removing the amount of damage taken, and keeping Sabine alive.
Now I have to choose which cards the decks need. Then try and buy them. That’s where the real cost will come in.
Tuesday night was our weekly lcg/tcg/ccg game night. This week Marcin, Dave, and myself played a couple of games of multi player Star Wars Unlimited (SWU).
SWU has a multi player format called Twin Suns. Twin Suns is basically the SWU Commander. Like Commander it’s a singleton format, ie only allowed one copy of a card in the deck.
Sadly I have not built any decks for Twin Suns. I’d love to see FFG copy WotC and release Twin Suns precon decks just like WotC release Commander decks but not as frequently as WotC release them. But I digress.
So how did we play a multi player game?
I used the starter decks like they were decks in the MtG Game Night Kit. Which was the inspiration for this idea.
So we each chose a starter deck (Dave went Vader, Marcin went Mando, and I went Luke) and played the game as a free for all.
The one rule I borrowed from Twin Suns was how the game ends.
“Once one player is eliminated, the game will end once the current phase ends. The player with the most HP remaining on their base at the end of the current phase wins the game.” taken from the Comprehensive Rules by FFGp46
We had a blast playing SWU this way.
It had that Commander vibe to it. But you are very much aware how much damage your opponents have on their bases. It’s a deciding factor on when or if you try and take out an opponent. Obviously you don’t want to knock someone out if you have more damage than the other remaining player. So you are hoping that you’re not too vulnerable to get knocked out, whilst the other player hopefully gets some damage to their base putting you in a potential winning position.
I won the first game, whilst Dave won the second. But in both games could have been won by any of us. They were that close.
Obviously I’d like to try the Twin Suns format. But I don’t have the cards to build some for us to use. I’d also like to have some “battle decks” but I suffer from the same issue as that for the Twin Suns decks.
