When Disney Lorcana was announced, the hottest thing at Gen Con, I wasn’t that interested. I like TCG (Trading Card Games) but a simple Disney themed game wasn’t that interesting to me. Then Fantasy Flight Games came along and announced Star Wars: Unlimited, and I was immediately intrigued. So my top event that I was looking forward to at Gen Con was Star Wars: Unlimited. I got into an event for it, but was it worth it?

How To Play Star Wars: Unlimited

Let’s start by going over some details on it because how will you know what it’s about if I don’t do that. Star Wars: Unlimited, in the form I played it, is a two player head to head card battling game. You each can build a deck, they had decks for us, that you use to try and knock the other players base down to zero hit points. So it is pretty standard for a head to head battling game that way.

Star Wars: Unlimited is broken into two parts of a round. There is a regroup phase and an action phase. During the regroup phase you either draw your initial hand, six cards, and play two of them face down as resources, or you draw two cards and optionally play one down as a resource.

The other part is the action phase. In the action phase players take turns doing single actions. There are five things you can do. You can play a card by spending resources for it’s cost. This is either an unit card or an event card. You can attack, either an enemy unit or enemy base. You can activate an ability on a character, generally your epic characters. Another option is pass for that action, and you can play more after that. Or you claim initiative and pass for the round so you can be the first player to activate next round.

What I Want To See More Of

Cards and Deck Building

I don’t have lowlights for this. A demo event is going to show you a curated sample of the game. And the sample that I saw, spoiler, was fun. But I think it’s worth talking about what I didn’t see as well. The big thing, and it’s one thing, but very big, is I didn’t see the pool of cards and deck building.

You show up to a demo there isn’t time to build a deck. I totally understand that. Nor is it useful to show you a lot of cards that you won’t use. But that is a question to the game. As I play more, how do I deck build, is it easy or not? And what abilities are there or combos on cards that I might not have seen? I expect a fair number.

My one knock might be that it wasn’t that full of combos and it is pretty simple. Then again, so was Magic the Gathering when it first came out. So I think it’s fair that it should be.

Epic Actions

One of the big things about the game is that you get heroes with epic actions. Kind of the hero that you build your deck around. They start out in play but only doing a basic action. For Darth Vader it is pinging away damage at the base. For Luke Skywalker it’s shielding your units so they can be attacked without taking damage.

This does tie into the deck building or construction aspect as well. I thought that Luke’s action worked well with the deck building. Vader’s a bit less so. But when you got your hero into play, it is not fully satisfying, or at least they don’t stay on the board long. You put them into play and they are a target because they hit big. So you bring them in, take out a troop or do a big swing on the base and they die.

I think that there is a timing element for it. So I think there is more to explore. But I wish they felt a bit more epic or stuck around a little bit longer. On the upside, when they do die, you get them back. Not to put into play again. But to do that basic action still. So your main hero is still influencing the board.

What I Liked

Resources

Let’s start out with resources. Because I think this is one of the smartest things about the game. If you play Magic the Gathering you know it is possible to have all the resources in a hand or none. It is possible to start out strong and then never get another land if you got a bad shuffle.

Star Wars: Unlimited makes sure that it does away with that. You always can play down a resource. A resource is just a unit or event card that you play face down. So you give up something in order to be able to play out more. Sometimes you look at your hand and you don’t want to give up anything because that’d mean that you lose a card you really want to play. When you play it as a resource, it stays as a resource.

Action

The action economy is another area that I liked. It is much simpler than Magic the Gathering. There is no, I play X, you play Y, I counter Y, you play Z and we resolve them in order. I take an action and resolve it and then you take an action.

This really makes the game move faster. It is also a lot faster because if I want, I can ignore your troops. You also can ignore my troops. I attack your base, you don’t get a choice to block. My attack is at your base and your base takes damage. If you attack a troop, I don’t declare a block to help that troop, we both just take damage and you likely knock out my troop.

For some, this might be too simple. As a Magic player I kept on thinking I needed to play or react to more. The answer is no, it is not something that I need to do. The downside is there isn’t anything I do to save a unit if it’s being attacked. Upside is, actions are quick and the game moves.

Game Length

The game moves fast, let’s just say that. In an hour we played two games and got taught the game. I like that speed for the game, I sit down and knock out a game. I think that it might take longer as you build decks with more bigger threats in it, but overall, it is going to keep being a fast game.

Keywords

Finally, let’s talk about keywords. Right now there are not many keywords. That makes the game simple to play. Even as more are added, you don’t need to use too many on a single turn. Most characters give you one thing to do while they attack. Again this is an area that I think is going to be expanded upon. Eventually units will do two things when they are more epic.

But the big thing that I like is I read off one thing and that is it. I don’t need to spend a ton of time explaining anything. I read off my ability when I use it and you can learn it. Or if not the first time shortly there after. It’s a very smooth system, thus far.

Initial Impressions on Star Wars: Unlimited

I like the game. I expect to play this one when it comes out and to collect it some. The system is very accessible. I think between Star Wars: Unlimited next year and Lorcana this year there are good TCG’s to get into. The Star Wars theme is just way more exciting for me.

What I wonder a bit about is the variety in the game. I expect that there is going to be a lot of variety. But when it comes to how it played at the demo, it felt like there is less variety. The two games that we played, the light side, me, won. Now, is that a flaw with the game? I don’t know about that, it is possible it was just players. But I want variety in a TCG, so hopefully I can get that in the game.

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