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Sabacc this is not!
Star Wars Unlimited is the new Star Wars trading card game to be released by Fantasy Flight Games, so think Pokemon, Magic The Gathering or Lorcana but in a Star Wars setting. The gameplay is smooth, relatively easy to pick up and more importantly fun and thematic as you pit two heroes against each other in a bid to destroy the other player’s base first.
Rather than buying traditional boosters, which is one route to building playable decks, with the release of each new set of Star Wars Unlimited a two player starter set has been released that contains two fully build and hopefully balanced decks that can be played off against each other without the need to invest in a lot of cards and spend a lot of money.
In the first set we had Luke vs Vader which I found to be really balanced and both decks had a good chance of winning, the second set featured the Mandalorian and Moff Gideon and honestly felt a little one sided and now we have Ahsoka vs Grievous.
The starter decks contain a combination of cards that are exclusive just to this box, including the two heroes and a number of cards which may be found in boosters. There are two new keywords added to the game with this set and these are called co-ordinate and exploit. The new abilities are based around having a certain number of units on the board, or destroying units you control to reduce the cost of a unit played. The new rules are not complicated to learn if you have played before, and are also not too complicated to pick up if you are brand new to the game.
How does it play?
If you’ve not played Star Wars Unlimited before, this is a really good starting point. As mentioned, it comes with two complete decks, as well as all the tokens and rules you will need to be able to play the game. As a quick overview, you will be playing units and events from hand, units can go into both space and ground areas and can target other units in that area, or the base of the opponent. All these cards come with a resource cost, and each round you will have the option to use cards from your hand as a resource, and those resources will carry from round to round so in the early rounds you will be playing cheaper small units, but can build up to bigger plays as the game progresses. Each leader in the game is unique and provides their own ability which can be used each turn, and those leaders can be deployed when you have a certain number of resources. This is obviously a really brief overview, but it is relatively simple and approachable at its core, and games will last around 20 minutes once you are familiar with the rules.
Is this the set you’re looking for?
I found this starter set to be considerably more balanced than the Shadows of the Galaxy starter set, although not quite as balanced as the Spark of Rebellion starter set, I find this set a little more fun with Ahsoka’s co-ordinate and Grievous’ exploit ability meaning that you’re continually vying for different strategies. This means that it is a little more complex than the first set with the additional rules but not by much, and not enough to mean that this couldn’t easily be your entry product into playing Star Wars Unlimited.
This starter set has a broad appeal, featuring two well loved characters from the prequel era to play as. It’s an excellent starter product that has everything you need to be played straight out of the box, and includes decks that could easily be expanded upon by buying a few boosters as well as playmats, tokens, deck boxes and a rules overview. It’s also a great purchase for those who are already committed to the game, containing a number of cards and the two leaders that can only be purchased through this set, outside of organised play. The art is fantastic and the card quality is good, except for the counters included in all the starter sets which are a little too thin for my liking. As mentioned the starter set includes two paper play mats to play on which highlight the different areas the cards can be played into and this a really helpful addition for those new to the game and if you’ve bought the previous starter sets, you will have 6 decks to play against each other which should all have a relatively similar power level.
I’ve been totally won over by Star Wars Unlimited so far, I’ve purchased all the starter sets and a few boxes. Locally, we’ve got a really well supported scene for the game, that means I get to play regularly, and if you’re interested in the game, I think these starter sets are the best way to go. Now you have the added choice of the Clone Wars setting, which for many was the era that got them into Star Wars and this absolutely gets that theme right. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money but are interested in the game, you can just pick this up and you’ve got everything you need to play against a friend, with the possibility to purchase other starter sets, or new cards to upgrade the decks if that’s the way you would like to go.
