STAR WARS : THE CARD GAME REVIEW

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far way….

       STAR WARS: THE CARD GAME

Welcome to another posting here on Games Knight. This week Ciaran and Gravius review Star Wars: The Card game by Fantasy Flight.

Components

The game comes with 240 beautifully illustrated cards consisting of 117 light side cards, 117 dark side cards, 3 force cards (dark side), 3 force cards (light side).  In addition to the playing cards, the game also comes with 1 Death Star dial token, 42 damage tokens, 1 Balance of the Force token, 10 shield tokens and 44 focus tokens. All the components are well produced and fit the feel of the game very well.

Gravius - I agree, everything looks nice and shiny out of the box, just as it should. Tokens are your standard thick cardboard (which you'll recognise if you've played any Fantasy Flight Boardgames and the cards are akin to any good quality CCG such as Magic: The Gathering.

Ciaran-Fanatsy Flight always seem to get the presention aspect of their products spot on and this game is no exception. The cards have awesome artwork on them and I like the way they have printed qoutes from the original Star Ward triliogy onto each card.

That's no Moon, Its a space station.- Obi Wan Kenobi.

Game Overview

Star Wars: The Card Game is a game for two players. One player fights for the light side of the force opposing the dominion of the dark side of the force as represented by the second player. The core set includes four ready-to-play decks and it is these we have concentrated on for this review. The four ready-to-play decks in the core set are built round one light side or dark side affiliation (Rebel Alliance, Jedi, Imperial Navy and Sith) The core set is designed as a stand-alone product allowing players to enjoy many hours of exploring the various strategies the cards provide. When players are ready for more options they can then try their hand at customizing their own decks. Star Wars: The Card Game is a Living Card Game meaning the game is customizable as players can build their own decks from the core set or those sold separately in expansion packs.

Gravius - Living Card Game usually refers to the fact things will evolve, new cards will be created and released (occasionally this is based on results at certain tournaments etc, much as happened with the Legend of Five Rings LCG, but i've not seen anything on the interwebs to suggest this. Time will tell I guess).

Ciaran- Luckily for Gravius the Force is strong with me! There are 2 exspansion sets currently out for the Star Wars: The Card Game. The 1st Force exspansion set is the deluxe set which offers 100 new cards for players to heavily customize thier decks. The second Force exspansion set is 'The Hoth Cycle' set. This offers cards built around the battle on Hoth between the Rebels and the Galactic Empire. This looks to me like a great oppurtunity to get some narrative driven card game action on the go.

Playing The Game

Star Wars: The Card Game is played over many turns. Players alternate turns until a player wins the game.  Each player turn consists of six phases –

1)      Balance

2)      Refresh

3)      Draw

4)      Deployment

5)      Conflict

6)      Force

Balance Phase - This determines which side of the force is being favoured during the conflict, the light side or the dark side. Each side offers bonuses to the affiliated player of that side of the force. When the balance of the force favours the dark side of the force, the dark side player may advance the Death Star dial by one point. If the light side of the force is winning the balance, the light side player may deal one damage to a dark side objective.

Refresh Phase – During the refresh phase the active player takes the following steps in order. First he removes one focus token from each card in his play area and then removes all shield tokens from each card in his play area. After these two steps are done, the active player then replaces any missing objective cards to bring them back up to three objective cards in his play area.

Draw Phase – At the start of the game, each players reserve value is six meaning he starts with a hand of 6 cards. At the start of each draw phase, the active player may choose one card in his hand and discard it. The active player then draw cards from his command deck until his hand is back up to 6.
Gravius - I continually forgot about the discarding thing, however, it is a pretty useful mechanic for cycling through a useless hand without just having to sit there and get pummeled. (There have been plenty of games of Magic: The Gathering where I've sat with a hand of cards I can't play, or won't help, and would have killed to just throw one away and draw another.)

Deployment Phase – In the deployment phase, the active player is able to play unit and enhancement cards form his hand to his play area. All cards played must be paid for according to their resource card as marked on the card.

Conflict Phase – It is during this phase that an active player will attempt to destroy enemy objectives using cards he had deployed in his play area.

Force Phase – Using the Force cards, the active player may commit any unit cards in his area to the Force.  This is crucial in a players attempt to sway the balance of the force to his favour.

Winning The Game

The victory conditions for a light side player are as follows. If the light side player destroys 3 dark side objectives or of the dark side player must draw a card from his command deck or objective deck and that deck is empty, the light side player immediately wins the game.

A dark side victory is secured when The Death Star dial reaches 12 or the light side player must draw a card form his command deck or objective deck, but that deck is empty.

The Games Knight Jedi Council

Ciaran > Wow! I mean wow! What a game! I will get the obvious stuff out the way first, yes I am a Star Wars fan so this was always going to appeal to me but if you took the Star Wars brand out of this game I would still be a fan. Again Fantasy Flight delivers on the presentation of the product. The playing cards are well presented and have an easy anatomy to identify key information relating to playing the game.  All the other components are well made and easy to use making this a game you can get into very quickly. Before reviewing this product I and Gravius had two sessions playing this game trying out each affiliation in the core set. We had the basics nailed down after our first game and by the time we had our second session the speed of play was fast and furious.  The game mechanics are very well thought out in my opinion which offers players great strategic options and challenging tactical games. And what makes the game so great in my opinion is that it is very fun! For two Star Wars fans like me and Gravius this lent itself to a great night of banter. We had a really good crack playing this game quoting classic Star wars quotes and the like and generally had some fun.  Another aspect which I think is great about this product is its replayability value. The core set alone will give you hours of varied game play but it also includes two additional affiliations to give you the chance to custom build a deck. This combines with the extra options future expansion packs will bring, the options and playability of the game shows the benefits of a LCG product and offers real value for money. It is this last factor that makes me give this game a 5/5 rating, value for money and good playability value is a rare combination in gaming these days so when we get it we should laud it. Hats off to Fantasy Flight for this product, the Force is unusually strong with them that much is clear. (Sorry had to get one quote in!)

Gravius > I'll start by saying i'm a fan of Collectible Card Games (CCG) in general. I've played MtG for years, although less so recently (but that is mostly down to the astonishing increase in the amount of money players in my local area are willing to spend on a deck, an amount I'm definitely not willing to match just to take second at Friday Night Magic!). Anyway, as a fan of these kind of games (The Babylon 5 card game being another) I have to say I'm relatively impressed with Star Wars: The Card Game (although it could do with a catchier title). 
Interesting Mechanics 
In my exprience the mechanics are fairly standard, get resources to pay for guys, use guys to slap some face. However, there are a few things here that are pretty good. 
Firstly I like the time limit on the game. In essence, due to the death star dial, a game will never last more than 12 turns. Every turn, therefore, provides you with a conundrum whether you're light or dark side. Not whether to attack or not, but how much can you get away with committing without being stomped in your opponents turn. Sitting around just won't cut it in this game and that makes it more entertaining, to me at least.
The other mechanic I'd like to mention is the 'edge of battle' phase which happens after one side has declared an attack. In this phase players bid, with the cards in their hands, (all of which have a relevant value for this bit, regardless of what type of card they may be) in secret, with the highest bidder gaining the 'edge'. Gaining the edge allows your cards to use extra skills that are only available when they have won edge, and also allows you declare who is attacking what first, giving you the opportunity to take an opponents card out of play before it gets to deal damage. Needless to say, winning edge is important. However, every card you commit to 'edge' is gone after that. It doesn't come back to your hand, it goes straight to the 'graveyard', 'discard pile' or whatever other card game dead-stuff pile you wish. Bearing in mind you only have 6 cards in hand, and only draw at the start of your turn this part of the game provides plenty of tough decisions. Say you play a couple of cards during your deployment phase, now you've only got 4 in hand for edge. During edge you use 3 as your really want to win it. Now you've got only got 1 for your opponents turn. When it comes to his attack and your feel like you really need to win this edge too, you've only got 1 card, which probably wont cut it. Not to mention the fact that the cards you're commiting to edge could be character cards you'd also like to be on the board slapping face. Every single turn has a difficult decision to be made, and I get the impression it's really hard to just autopilot to victory in this game and that I like. 
Summary
I'm very impressed with this game, I thought it was really enjoyable and had enough strategic depth to make it feel like I contributed to the games I won more than my cards did (a feeling I don't often get with certain MtG decks, you know who you are!).
Everything I've said so far is based on the preconstructed decks that are in the Star Wars: The Card Game box. My next step is to try my hand at building a few decks of my own (using only the cards from that box) and see what I can come up with. The interesting thing here is that rather than just picking your favourite 60 or so cards, you choose 'objective cards'. These objective cards have 8 or so cards associated with them that go to make up your deck. You're still customising your decks based on the cards you like, but you're never going to get only the best, as your favourite card for a certain combo will always come with 7 or so others you may not like as much. This sounds an interesting idea to try and keep the balance (of the force, hehe) or it may simply prove to be too restricting and end up creating decks too similar to each other but I'm sure I'll enjoy finding out at the very least, and I'll be sure to report back at some point with my findings.
Overall, I had a blast with this game, and am excited about playing it again, and I can't really ask for much more than that can I?
4/5 (and if the deck building works really well I'd up that to 5/5)

You will find I am full of suprises. -Luke Skywalker