Star Wars: The Card Game

Fantasy Flight has added yet another game to their “Living Card” roster, this time in the form of “Star Wars: The Card Game”. Having already invested a fair amount into the Lord of the Rings LCG and The Game of Thrones LCG, I wasn’t sure if my brain (or my wallet) could even handle signing on to yet ANOTHER Living Card game. But, ultimately, my inner Star Wars geek won out in the end and I picked up a copy. (I’m happy to report I haven’t regretted that decision!)

Gameplay:
Star Wars pits 2 players (One side playing as the light side, and one side playing the dark side) in an epic battle for the force.

The win conditions for each side differs, the Light side is trying to take out 3 Dark side objectives, before the Dark side can spin their Death Star dial up to 12 (which essentially acts as the game’s clock).
There are 6 factions available from which you can choose to construct you your decks with (3 for the Light and 3 for the Dark)

The Light Factions are: Jedi, Rebel Alliance, Smugglers and Spies
The Dark Factions are: Sith, Imperial Navy, Scum and Villainy.

From these factions, each player constructs an Objective Deck and a Command Deck (your draw deck). Each faction has its own unique play style, and the game’s deck building mechanic does allow you to splash in other factions into combo decks (but more on the whole deck building aspect in a bit)
Through a series of rounds, each side attempts to reach their respective goals through the playing of combating characters, events, and enhancements. But rather than explain the whole rulebook, let’s just get into what sets it apart from the others:

Components:
It pretty much goes without saying that if it’s coming from Fantasy Flight, it’s going to be quality. The glossy cards, the exceptional artwork, the beefy tokens… everything you’ve come to expect from FFG is here. A+ as always.

Old School Star Wars only:
It’s my understanding that as of this moment, FFG only has the rights for the original trilogy. So, this game is classic Star Wars. (Which I know will make many… many… fans happy). This is O.G. Star Wars as it should be! Luke, Han, Vader, Leia, Emperor, Boba Fett, Stormtroopers. No Jar Jar. No midiclorians. None of the things that make you want to rip the arms off a gundark. Just the good ol’ SW. There even appears to be elements of the Expanded Universe sprinkled in there too. (Yes, Mara Jade is on a few of the event cards… not directly called out by name, but that’s her alright). Is it possible that we’ll see other Timothy Zahn characters emerge? (An Admiral Thrawn perhaps??… hint hint FFG) . Only time will tell. So, if you had your heart set on reenacting Trade Federation embargoes, this may not be the game for you.

Different Objectives:
The light side is trying to take out the Empire’s objectives. The dark side is trying to charge up the Death Star laser clock of doom. Not only is this fitting for the theme of the movie but it also keeps the game fresh. (Often, my wife and I play our decks… then swap factions right after for our second game). Your mindset for how you tackle this game completely changes depending on what side you pick, and I think this is a huge plus for keeping the game fresh and interesting.

The Edge Battle:
Combat is a unique beast in this game for a few reasons. First, you don’t attack each other directly, you attack each other’s objectives. After attackers and defenders have been declared, you enter into a secret bid war mini-phase called the “Edge battle”. In a nutshell, almost every card in your hand provides an amount of force icons that you can use as bargaining chips for this phase. Starting with the attacker, he/she places one card face down into the edge stack. Then the defender has the option to place one, and this goes back and forth until both players pass. Then, each side reveals their stack and whoever has the most force icons wins the edge battle. Winning this edge battle affords you several perks. First, you win initiative and will get to strike first. Also, each character in the game has various icons depicting what types of attacks they can perform. Some icons are black and others are white. You always have access to the black icons, but the white ones are active ONLY if you win the edge battle. So, if you want to be in control and make your attack count, you better win that edge battle. In addition, the game also contains “fate cards”, which are typically “gotcha” cards that can only be played in the edge battle stack. At first, I thought this whole bluff thing was a little weird, but after you get used to it, the Edge battle adds a ton of tension to the game. (and often the most laughs)

The Draw mechanic:
When you begin the game, you have a starting reserve of 6 cards. When your draw phase begins, you have the option of discarding one card from your hand. Then you either draw up or discard down to your reserve. Now, you might be thinking “Okay, big deal” but I’d like to testify right now that this is what makes the game great. Add this mechanic to the fact that you can toss any amount of cards into the aforementioned Edge Battle means that you can ultimately control how fast or how slow you are burning through your draw pile. If you find yourself in a bind and NEED to get your Darth Vader A.S.A.P, then start chucking cards in some edge battles… heck, toss your whole hand if you need to, because you’ll be drawing a full 6 next turn. Hand management is a huge part of this game and having the ability the dictate the speed of your draw makes for some great decision making. (Any fellow Summoner Wars fans out there will already understand the concept of “Should I hold this awesome card for later on… or do I need to chuck it out now to serve my immediate goal?”)

The interesting deck building:
At first, I wasn’t sure if the deck building in this game was a “pro” or a “con”. I’ve since very much warmed up to it. Here is how it works: When building a deck, you select an Objective card which goes in your objective deck. That objective card, however, is only 1 of 6 of a set. There are 5 other cards that are tied to the objective which go into your draw deck. A standard tournament deck contains 10 objectives, so by default, your draw deck contains the 50 corresponding cards. When building a deck, you can’t break up any of the cards within in its “pod” separately. They are an “all or nothing” set. What this equates to is if there’s a card in your deck that you’re not a huge fan of and would like to remove, you have to pull the whole set and swap in a new “pod”. Some might find this style easier and some might find this restrictive. Personally, I just think it’s cool because it’s something I’ve never really seen before. Once you play this game, you quickly realize that in order to be successful, you’ll need certain cards to play out and others that are either block fodder or that are just fuel for an edge battle, and I really feel that the pods have been designed keeping this mind. As time goes on, more and more pods will be released, so anyone with the initial feeling of this being “too restricted” will most likely fade.

Concerns / Things you might want to Consider:

Token madness:
This game does have a bunch of tokens going for it. When a card is focused (i.e. tapped/knelt/spent) it is indicated by placing a focus token on it. This requires quite a lot of focus tokens to be out on the board, which can be a little hairy. It’s not a big deal once you get used to it (and is a necessary evil since cards can be exhausted for multiple turns and you need a way to indicate this), but by the time you add in the damage tokens and the shield tokens… well, you’ve certainly got a lot of tokens on the table.

Two cores sets required to be competitive:
With 1 core set, you’ll certainly have enough to start playing (and having tons of fun), but there’s only enough cards to really get 4 of the 6 factions going. If you are serious into playing competitive tournament decks, it’s a given that you’ll want to be running multiples of your best cards, and a single copy of a Vader or a Yoda just isn’t going to cut it. Fortunately, you can only ever run 2 of the same objective, so 2 cores would be all you’d ever need.

Some rule legal jams are still prevalent:
This game is still in its infancy (as of the time of this review – Late January 2013) and there is already a need for FFG to get a FAQ out there. For the most part, the game plays quickly and pretty straight forward, but there are some cards and rules that have conflicts and until an errata or FAQ gets posted you may have to come up with some house rules to deal with them. (Don’t believe me? Just head over to the FFG Forum and read through the 6 plus pages of circular argument that is the “Trench Run” card and you’ll know what I’m talking about”). In other games, if you come across a broken card, no biggie, just don’t run it, but in Star Wars, one card is connected to the pod. Pulling that 1 out means pulling out its 5 buddies. FFG is always good about resolving these issues and coming out with FAQs, so eventually this will be a non-issue. But for today, you’ll just have to live with it.

The “cinematic” sticklers:
There are no restrictions on characters or vehicles being able to attack/defend one another. What this means is you might have an Ewok defend against a Tie Fighter or Luke attacking a Star Destroyer. I’m sure you can already hear the inevitable fanboy complaint of “What did Luke do? Fly through space and cut the ship in half with his lightsaber?” The best counter I’ve heard to this argument came from the “Smuggler’s Den” podcast (I’m not affiliated with them or anything… it’s just a cool Star Wars LCG podcast that I highly recommend). They framed it in a way that explained “Han went to Endor in Return of the Jedi, and his actions shutting down the shields enabled the fleet to blow up the 2nd death star. So, in that regard, Han beat the Death Star”. When viewing the game through this “cinematic” lens, it may help you come to terms with what looks like a “silly battle” on the table. OR you could just lighten up, it’s just a fun card game in the Star Wars universe.

Limited Factions: The core set only comes with 1 pod for the light side faction “Spies and Smugglers” and 1 pod for the dark side “Scum and Villainy”. Unless you have multiple copies of the core set, it’s pretty much useless to try to include these in any deck builds at this time. Which is a DRAG because Han Solo is in the one set and Boba Fett is in the other! Obviously as the chapter pack expansions come out, these factions will become more prevalent, but just know that if you only have 1 core set, these are pretty much just a tease for the moment!

Too Long – Didn’t Read:
To wrap up, this game is quite fun and has a ton of interesting game play mechanics. The more we play it, the more the subtle decisions and their impact start to emerge. I’m certainly hooked and can’t wait for the expansions. When we first started playing the game, it felt like the Dark Side was winning way too often, but once you start to master the finer aspects of playing the game, it’s actually surprisingly balanced. Many of our games come down to the wire and often hinges on a single intense edge battle! (Which is followed by shouts of glee combined with moans of despair!)

But, with it being a brand new game, there are a few rule issues that still need to be addressed, but I’m fully confident that FFG will get everything hammered out. Some diehards might get hung-up on the fact that characters can fight spaceships, but that’s for the nerf herders to lose sleep over… not for the gamers just looking for a fun card game.

The essence of Star Wars is here in spades. The art is amazing. The components are top notch. The deck building is innovative. It’s highly possible that this might take over as our new top LCG! The next time you are heading to Tachi Station to pick up some power converters and blue milk for your Aunt, make sure to pick up a copy or two of this sweet game!