With all the talk about Star Wars: Unlimited in the last couple of weeks, I thought it might be worth looking at Fantasy Flight Games’ (FFG) other card game that they have released this year: Star Wars: The Deck Building Game. This is a two-player game, deisgned by Caleb Grace, that is all wrapped up in a single box; no boosters to buy, no extras or expansions (yet) and games take anywhere between half an hour to an hour. Now, like most, I was a huge fan of FFG’s Star Wars: Destiny, spending far too much money on cards, too much time on building decks and far too much time trying to track down rare cards, mats, and tokens. I say all this, not because I didn’t enjoy the game (I loved it) but because it contained some issues that fans were happy to deal with but then were angered by when the game ended abruptly. It also ended up having a release schedule that was just unmanageable for fans to keep up with both in terms of price and time. Knowing these issues, it’s interesting that for their first foray back into card games, FFG have gone with a self-contained deck builder.
So, what is the game like? Each player takes the side of either Empire or Rebellion and have a starting deck of cards. These allow you to either shoot, gain resources, or move the force towards you (I’ll explain that in a bit). Then down the middle is a market where players can either buy cards for their deck or destroy cards, they don’t want their opponent to have. Each player also has a selection of planets that form their base, and it is the opponent’s job to destroy three bases (or however many you agree for longer games) before you do to win the game. The general premise is very simple and when I was playing against my best bud Gav, we were up and running in a few more minutes. You draw five cards each round then resolve your cards in any order.
The cards themselves are a collection of Empire, Rebel and neutral, with a mix of characters, vehicles and starships, the latter working like a shield for your base (your opponent has to take them out before he can shoot the actual base). The artwork on these is the old tried and tested FFG artwork that can be seen running through many of their games. Now, one may say it needs updating, we’re so use to it. I am someone who has always loved the FFG artwork, and I really don’t mind it being used here. Also, having seen the artwork for Star Wars: unlimited, I’m happy this game doesn’t try to update to something different. There are a lot of cards in this set, so much that even after two games with Gav, we hadn’t even gone through every card available. The replay-ability in this set is huge, let alone trying to string certain combinations together.
The game itself flows beautifully, there is very little downtime between turns, particularly when both players know what they are doing. The market track is by far my favourite part of the game. Not only are you trying to gain cards to harness your deck, but you are also trying to stop your opponent getting the cards they need by destroying them (and usually getting a reward for doing so). As well as the marketplace, there are the planets. each player has a starting planet but after this first, you get to choose the planet you want to use. These each have abilities that lend themselves to certain play styles or how your deck formation has gone. On the second game I played as the Empire, I noticed that I was actually gathering a fair few neutral cards into my deck, so I then played a planet that helped me utilise these better. For what on the surface seems like a simple, straight forward game, there are actually quite a lot of decisions that have to be made. By the time of our second game, there were many times we were each having to pause to really think about the best strategy to do. Is it best to go straight for the base? Am I better taking out that particular character? Do I want to repair or buy something from the market? It was at this point that I realised just how much I was enjoying the game. There were decisions here I was continually making, that could either help me win or aid in my defeat.
The last part of the game is the force track. This is another track that you can manipulate with your cards to have the force on your side. This in turn, gives you some advantages on certain cards. The wording of this I thought could have been better, as there is a ‘the force is with you’ to then really having the force for an additional resource. Although it adds another dimension to the game, it was one that I pretty much ignored for our games and didn’t seem to impede me too much, I ended up winning both games!
We played two games back-to-back, with me once as the Rebels and once as the Empire. This was a game I really enjoyed. It was quick, easy to pick up and had a ton of variety in a single box. This is very easily compared to Star Realms, one of the best deck builders on the market. The big difference between the two (other than the theme) is the marketplace which really offers an interesting way to play and I’m sure will draw me back again. For me as a Star Wars fan, what really makes this a win for me is that I can buy a core box… and that’s it! There are going to inevitably be expansions, but as it stands, I have one box to buy. I don’t need to spend time constructing a deck or trying to obtain new cards, I can literally grab the box and start playing. Heck, I can’t actually wait for an expansion or two as the buy in cost is nowhere near what it would be for a trading card game. My only complaint are the tokens. You will notice that we are not using the official ‘tokens’ in our game (they are cubes), and to be honest are rather lack luster. Thankfully Gav had some of our old Destiny and Keyforge tokens (another FFG game) and they worked a treat, in fact better than what was supplied! Other than this, I think this is a strong addition to the Star Wars catalogue that is a great gateway for new gamers and a big money saver for those who are looking for a card game based in a a galaxy far, far away. If the news of Star Wars: Unlimited isn’t thrilling, this might just be what you’re looking for.
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