Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Oddly, I've found Navy to be somewhat gimped. If you're going for an aggressive strategy, you still have the fact that it's 4 LS vs. 3 DS objectives for the win. And if you dump your hand to play guys constantly (trooper focus), you won't have cards to win edge or resources for trooper assaults. Not to mention that if you attack, you're still looking at probably 3 minimum units to take anything down, leaving yourself open for counterattacks. Vehicles seem to do better simply because tallon roll and the generally higher blast marker per unit makes taking out 4 objectives by turn 3 not too rare in a goldfish situation, but if there's any resistance the odds fall dramatically. Against Navy both rebels and jedi can pretty much just run controlish (rebels have akbar, assault, heavy gun embankment, and in the case of vehicles xwing interceptor and heroic sacrifice) and pull out wins by counterattacking after killing your guys. Or they just eliminate your guys during the attack. I've also thought about trying to run kinda tempo-based (taking a couple quick objectives, then slowing up to defend or vice versa) but the gain from the first two objectives going down is so low that I found it not really worth it most of the time.

Also for those who are thinking luck plays a larger part in this than other card games, remember the big difference is that here you're drawing multiple cards a turn vs. 1 in something like magic (magic has other ways to draw, but typically you're just getting 1 a turn unless you play blue or something). I also think that part of the design is in the decision to sacrifice reliability (through redundancy of effects) vs. building "combo" elements. You can easily make decks focused around Leia and her interactions, but if you just see her as an occasional bonus in an already solid deck, you'll likely find more steady results. You just possibly have less chance of crazy 3 objective turns.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


One thing, make sure you're reading Attack Squadron right-you only gain targeted if you add a fate card (of which you're only running 6). I almost got burned by that once.

Also my problem with Navy in general is that if you swap out Endor Gambit and Defense Protocol for Fall of the Jedi and The Emperor's Web while running out of Navy identity, you've pretty much just made your deck better (and Sith). Any sort of hold them off strategy is just done better by Sith. Navy has to be aggressive for them to work it seems, as anything else the Sith will just be better at.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I kinda wish they'd get the deluxe expansion out before regionals. I like the game, but the environment is kinda stale with so few options. And with how deckbuilding works, the individual force packs don't have much impact.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I'm gonna disagree with the previous two and say that gameplay-wise, Star Wars is actually much more complex and has much more depth than Netrunner. The presence of Twist of Fate provides more bluffing potential than anything in Netrunner currently(the bluffing in Netrunner is entirely overblown). I also feel that at it's core, Star Wars is much more balanced between the factions. Although there's a few things that have been made that alter this a bit, Netrunner feels very much like "Dominion" to me-you build your deck, and take your turns with very little/no input from your opponent where Star Wars feels more like a traditional CCG. Netrunner plays out a lot like a math equation, or a puzzle you "solve" rather than a CCG. Deckbuilding is a bit more in-depth in Netrunner than Star Wars obviously since you're dealing with with 40+ individual cards rather than 10 but on the other hand, you have to evaluate an entire group of cards worth for Star Wars (the objective + 5 command deck cards) so your choices are a bit more important...in theory. Due to the nature of how the objective sets are released, there's honestly not that many variety between "good" decks currently.

I know it sounds like I'm being negative about Netrunner, but it's not really my intent. It's honestly a great game, it's just not really the same "type" of game as Star Wars. I just think people here have a way too high opinion of that game and like to gloss over the flaws. Basically, if you prefer more flexible deckbuilding, less interaction, and a more "puzzle-like" game I'd say Netrunner. But if you would prefer interactive, back-and-forth card game with more dynamic playing opportunities I'd say Star Wars easily.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Think that pod will rest on what the two vehicles do. The colonel really wants an aggressive deck, but the agenda I can def seeing being the backbone of a more defensive Navy deck.

I still don't like aggressive navy because in the end, LS only needs 3 objectives to win and gets to attack first, where DS is looking at 4. Sure, you can take "only" 3 objectives and still win as DS but in most situations I've seen, if you can take that many objectives while keeping defense enough to stop 3 of yours from falling AND keep up enough defense to let the dial do the rest of the work for you, you could've either took the 4th or won without the objectives anyways.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Feeple posted:

Dat Navy pod :allears:

A:NR vs. SW: I've actually discussed this with many of my locals, and I keep coming back to "In three years, I'll still be willing to play and buy Netrunner. I'm not sure I can say that for Star Wars."

It's a shame, because I like both a lot. The problem is Star Wars takes a lot longer as a game to develop than Netrunner does, as the pod mechanic means deck innovations are always significant, and therefore new deck archetypes (such as the Smug Jedi build that has been all the rage lately) take a while to come into play. Heck, we're just now seeing the ideas begin of Hoth centric decks, and we're two packs in.

I don't want to sound cruel or mean, because it's not meant to be. I do like this game and the pod mechanic is really neat (although frustrating sometimes when swapping out one or two pods,) but the game develops much slower in my opinion, and it's a different meta tempo than Netrunner is.

I think both games need some time to grow, honestly. GoT has a similar release schedule to Netrunner, and the meta for that is somewhat stable (prior to the recent restrictions, at least) when a new pack is released, barring something truly amazing. Also, the sheer number of cards has shown that some old/overlooked strategies, themes, and cards would come back into favor based on new releases. This is something I think is strong about the model in general.

However, I think Netrunner is far more constrained in cards that are available to create, and this is something I think SW will not have nearly the same problem with, and why I think the game will be better over the long term. To be honest, I'm frankly surprised how well Netrunner seems to have been received (especially in comparison to SW). I don't know if the old game is remembered more fondly than I expected or what, but I still think there's major systemic flaws with it's base design (which is what kept me out of the game as long as it did [the art eventually won me over, it's really an amazing looking game]). And already it seems like we're seeing "silver bullet" design which is really terrible design in general and doubly troubling when they haven't even made it past the first expansion block.

I'm more than willing to let both games develop and see where they go, but if I have to guess which I'll actually be playing longer, I'd have to go with SW. But I do think both have a decent chance, especially seeing the success of fantasy flight's other LCGs.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Bosushi! posted:

It's already been spoiled in the article. Nothing amazing.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Star-Wars-LCG/news/hoth-cycle/a-dark-time/mtv-7.png

This objective begs to be used in Sith control decks. Sith Vader with Force Chokes and Force Lightnings and now this pod = a ton of direct damage. The General has a non-edge dependent tactics icon which Sith always loves and the event adds some nice versatility.

Yeah that's what I was looking at it for, but the vehicle is really meh. The tactics icon is cool but he's also 4 resources in a deck that's often hungry for such.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Sith deck I run is 2x Fall, 2x Council, 2x Emperor's web, 2x Killing Cold, 1x Cruel Interrogations, 1x Shadows on the Ice

It works pretty well but like all Sith decks really needs Vader/Palpatine to shine (and optimally, both). It's a bit resource light though and I'm really trying to find a way to work in more resources. I was iffy on the Hoth objectives at first but chompers can really help stall an attack. Another option would be cutting Shadows and Cruel for to Motti pods, but you'd lose out on the wampas which often will onlly cost 1 resource for a pretty tough body.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Rockker posted:

I'm a big fan of FFG games (been playing AGoT for years, as well as Netrunner) so my group picked this up. Seemed like it felt fairly one-sided, once one side started to get an advantage it just snowballed from the there and things got out of hand. This was just with the core game though, are there any "board reset" cards that can be used?

The only real reset is "There Is No Hope", which is a dark side event that puts all units in play at the bottom of their owners' decks.

With just one core set though, you will often run into the situations you named as there will typically be 1 or 2 "bomb" cards in each deck, and if someone gets one out it's downhill fast if there's not an immediate answer.

This problem goes away somewhat with an additional core and the expansions, but currently what I see as the clear top 2 decks your focus is generally getting out one of your mains and protecting them as much as possible. The Jedi deck is pretty much based solely on getting out Han/Luke/Yoda and playing cards to protect them. The Sith isn't quite as reliant on Vader/Palpatine, but those two do have a profound effect on the game if they show up.

GrandpaPants posted:

Spoilers for A Dark Time are up: http://toptiergaming.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6480-a-dark-time-full-cards-w-images/

Nothing is really jumping out at me, though. But then again I haven't played this game in forever so who knows what sort of deck meta I'm missing.

The smugglers & spies pod I think could shift the meta a lot. Basically having a protect vehicle could let you do Rebel mains (using all the ships, of course). Alternately, having protect guys for all the 1 hit chaff ships Rebel has could be really strong.

alansmithee fucked around with this message at 17:42 on May 23, 2013

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Swagger Dagger posted:

Has anyone been brewing with the new pack? I've got a regional tomorrow and I'm still debating if I want to put A Dark Time for the Rebellion in my sith/navy deck. I miss the resources if I pull out the set with Motti, and the hand control if I pull cruel interrogations.

Depending on what else you run, I'd say you're probably right about sticking with Motti's pod since DS seems to want resources more than LS. I think the cards in the pod themselves are only meh, but do add a bit of aggression to regular Sith builds (and after trying Devastator pods, I'm less than impressed). I think my Sith deck will end up something like 2x Vader, Palp, Council, Dark Time, 1x Motti and 1x...Rancor! Both of the units in there help to activate everything in Dark Time, and Rancor helps a lot against guardian shenanigans (on top of it's massive HP and blaster damage). The enhancement isn't bad either, especially since dropping it on Vader/Palp means you can commit to the force more freely. And IIRC the agenda itself has 2 resources so you get a bit of a boost there. I really like the Cruel pod, but unless you're running 2 I just don't see the impact (also I really hate fear).

Also took second at another regional. Only 3 rounds (plus champion round), but I made a couple of big misplays that would've gave me the outright win without needing tiebreaker round so I was somewhat disappointed. My old LS Jedi deck is being retired, as it just doesn't have enough threats to do anything consistently ( 2x Luke, Han, Yoda, Guardian, Old Ben's). Probably gonna go cookie cutter and replace old ben's spirit with the echo chamber pod (although I'm also tempted to drop yoda for obi wan). I think 2x Luke/Han are almost a must, as targeted strike (and their abilities) are just too strong. And with so much tied into two characters, the guardian pod seems a natural add. I'd say those are more important to LS than Vader/Palp to DS.

With all that said, I definitely think that we're finally getting to the point where there will be less cookie cutter decks. Navy is starting to seem more viable, and I think the new smugglers pod will help Rebels a lot (since you can protect all your vehicles). Really excited about the big box coming out, as I'm thinking it'll finally convince me to put away Luke/Han (or, more likely, run 3x Smugglers pods with them instead of 3x Jedi).

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


tijag posted:

What's tough is that with the Jedi/SS deck you take Luke/Yoda/C3PO and it will be hard to drop any of those objectives.

Luke's pod : Trust Your Feelings and Luke Skywalker
Yoda's pod : In You Must Go, resource, Counter-stroke, and even Yoda [for locking down the force]
C3PO's pod : C3PO, Guardian x2, Twist of Fate, Lightsaber Deflection

Putting Han and Echo Caverns in this deck just make it extremely consistent and resilient to many play styles. I think the natural counter to this deck is going to be capture decks, which will shift the meta significantly when they become viable.

Ehh, I'm not sure about the capture being all that much of a counter, because IIRC the renegade squadron frees someone every time you strike with it, and there's not too much that captures vehicles.

I will say that dropping Yoda's pod is a big issue though, for many of the reasons you named. He's also only 3 vs. Obi Wan's 5, and has a resource so swapping those out is gonna hurt generation.

Depending on what they get, I could see big ship navy actually being threatening. Sometimes Echo Caverns has trouble generating much objective kill (especially if you're not able to snatch icons of characters which you'd have less of running big navy), so you have a shot at racing. And the big ships have enough wounds and other defenses to take some targeted strikes back in the swings. I swear I head the next pack will have a super star destroyer or something, which would let you run 8 total capital ships without coruscant fleet (not locking you into the identity).

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I think the big thing for making a good Scum deck is to have enough pressure to back up your capture stuff. You have to shorten the game before LS starts taking all their crap back from your objectives. I'm not quire sure if this is best accomplished by adding in some Sith stuff to get you higher force users (maybe splash for Palpatine?) or just being more aggressive yourself in blowing up objectives.

Either way really like the way the new set is looking. I think there's a lot of options for deckbuilding now, even within the various factions.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


alg posted:

The main problems with my capture deck: Boba Fett basically sucks. Captured can be canceled. Lack of resources to play relatively expensive cards.

Yeah Fett is still junk. Han's arguably the best character in the game (either him or Motti imo), but Fett is just horrible. Few icons, low health, and ability isn't really all that good.

Also, the Espo troopers are actually decent. At the regionals my friend and I went to awhile ago, I suggested he throw it in and he liked it a lot. Having just a bunch of free spuds is not a bad thing, especially when you're running boosters. And it frees up the other pods to pack larger guys without worrying so much about getting as much chaff to feed all your trooper boosters.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Even with his armor he's just meh (in comparison to just putting his armor on a different character). Decks running characters that are actually problems will have at the least guardians, if not shields. And his ability is useless to anything ship-focused. On top of it, his icons are junk. He'd be better if his symbols mirrored Han's (so they weren't edge-dependent.

I think most of the unique Scum guys have been good, besides Fett.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

I will probably order a second set.

What do you recommend changing? I'm not particularly happy with the Asteroid Sanctuary objective. It would probably be replaced with another Questionable Contacts. Otherwise I'm not really sure. Another Raise the Stakes or Trust Me could go in; not sure which one I like more. Raise the Stakes I think is a stronger card if I'm doing a split attack against all the objectives, but I don't really know how feasible that actually is until I start playing more.

The first game I had a very low amount of blaster icons on my cards so I couldn't actually kill his defenders so I'd attack and nothing would happen since his guy would already be focused from attacking me and my guy would have no icons. There was usually only one battle where we'd commit cards to the edge so he'd usually beat me on that. So I also tried to add in more characters that had black blaster icons.

Asteroid Sanctuary is extremely good. There's not one card in there that's bad. If anything, drop Hit & Run for another Questionable Contacts (Han is arguably the best unit in the game). Since you have a lot of important characters, adding one Chewy pod would be good, and maybe one of the pod with the Guardians of Peace. Raise the Stakes and Opening Moves can be cut for those. If you do add those, switch to Jedi affiliation (so you can always play your guardians).

Resources are fairly important, but a lot of good decks can run essentially just off the 4 you're mostly guaranteed. I think resources have gotten more important as they've released more events. It's very good to be able to drop a unit (or two), and still have something left open for tricks.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

Why is Hit and Run not good? The objective itself seems amazing. Secret Informant is expensive but being able to get a double use out of a Target of Opportunity(or two) certainly seems to justify the cost, along side 3 strong Fate cards. I basically saw the Secret Informants as a bomb along side a couple Target of Opportunities.

Asteroid Sanctuary; the objective itself doesn't seem particularly strong.
Millenium Falcon is good, but expensive.
Twist of fate obviously pretty strong.
Bamboozle is good, but also a bit expensive.
CC Guest Quarters is solid.
CC Operative seems quite good.

Opening Moves for The Secret of Yavin 4 and switching my affiliation to Jedi just to have the resource to always play from it is a solid idea though. None of the cards in Opening Moves were particularly good in the deck.

Also the Wookiee Life Debt I can replace Raise the Stakes with now, I guess I am probably overestimating how many battles will be unopposed.

I think you're overrating direct objective damage a bit. Asteroid Sanctuary is pretty much better in every way that Hit and Run-they both trigger off the same condition whereas one lets you draw a card the other just pings an engaged objective. Sanctuary also gets you a typed resource (important if you want to play more than one thing a turn) and another health.

As for the cards themselves, both have twisted fate so that's a wash. Secret Informants are really bad. They cost 3 with only one health and lackluster icons. 1 health characters have an extremely low life expectancy so typically need to be very powerful and/or have a non-combat ability to make them worthwhile at 3 cost. Think about it this way-for the 3 you pay for them, you're in general going to get a blast/blaster, with occasionally one more blast or blaster icon (from the target of opportunity or heat of battle you play). There's numerous dudes at that value who just have those icons base. Also although having some fate cards is definitely good, too much focus on them leaves you open not only to twists, but not having enough actual...stuff.

As for the other cards in Asteroid Sanctuary, you yourself seem to admit they're all good. You mention Bamboozle being expensive, but you come with the Guest Quarters right in the pack to help finance it. And as for the Falcon being expensive, it is and it isn't. It's almost a super-combat trick since you can drop someone else in by returning it. Lets you strike, then replace with someone to attack again or defend. And it helps win edge even when opposed due to it's innate. Just an all-around good card.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

I ended up keeping Asteroid Sanctuary. I replaced Trust Me and Opening Moves with Wookie Life Debt, then swtiched to Jedi affiliation and added in A Journey to Dagobah.

I still really like the Secret Informats as a finisher being able to deal a lot of damage before icons are used is great. Even if I lose the battle itself I think it's quite good.

I got in two games yesterday and Blockade Runner was the MVP. My opponent was doing a Sith/Navy deck and came out with high cost targets early in both games, so he was unable to defend his objectives from it at all. The first game I followed up with Chewbacca and then double striked Vader the turn after he came out to kill him off. A good learning game, his deck should have been more defensive than it was, he was being a bit more aggressive than he should have been and as such he couldn't use his guys on defense. Second game I had the Blockade Runner again and followed it up with the Falcon and did exactly what you guys are talking about, I sent it into battle, focused it, then returned it to my hand to play Han, and then had Han attack a different objective. Very strong.

Rules question: Focus token. If you have a focus token you can do anything, attack/defend/commit to the force/use action or reaction on the card UNLESS that action requires you to put a focus token on it. Correct?

If I'm overrating objective damage because it's effective against my opponent, what should he be doing to lower my opinion of it?

Blockade runner is a nightmare to deal with, especially for someone just starting off.

As for overrating direct objective damage and the Secret Informers, pretty much if your opponent runs a basic sith deck (with 2 cores) that should be a strong enough lesson. Vader force choking out 2 informants with one card isn't nice. Or an on-point twist of fate. Or blowing everything to kill one objective, then having nothing left to defend with.

Although here's the thing-Smugglers stuff is so strong that having one pod with a couple bad cards won't do much when you're not playing really good decks. It's almost comical how strong Smugglers stuff is compared to Scum (and really the rest of LS). You could make an argument that 5 of the top 10 pods are all Smugglers (I'd throw in the guardian pod, emperor, vader, luke, and...ok maybe 6 of the top 10). They just get so many good cards, and have few real duds.

I think the pod system is one of the things that really adds some complexity to deck building (in theory, at least) since it causes so many tradeoffs. There are a lot of pods I'd like to try, but they just have a couple dud cards that make including them just not worth it.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


tijag posted:

I did not like Netrunner. I thought the mechanics were cool, but I had no empathy for the cards.

I love Star Wars, and now with Edge of Darkness out, the card pool is getting very interesting. There are only 2 more packs in this cycle [12ish more objectives] and there does seem to be a lot of interesting deck types out there for various play styles. I think SW is a very very fun game.

To add on this, I think Netrunner cards are awesome (the art/flavor just on the cards is 50% of why I started playing). I find the mechanics of the game interesting from an abstract level, but I find much of the playing and deckbuilding tedious and dull. Playing corp in netrunner is like playing the world's worst tower defense game. Playing runner is like playing dominion/thunderstone/ascension in reverse-you're not adding cards from a tableau to create a deck engine, you're taking cards from a deck to create your tableau engine.

Star Wars though, I think has a lot of fun gameplay, as well as the growing cardpool starting to finally allow more deck variety. It's very interactive, although I'm personally not a fan of the victory conditions (in that I think it's way too advantageous for DS to just turtle up, and LS has really only the one way to win)

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Swagger Dagger posted:

This depends on how you're playing, because the tournament rules make it so purely defensive DS decks have a very hard time winning due to the tiebreaker rules.

This doesn't really help in a kitchen table situation, but there are still plenty of way for the LS to take and keep the force with the expanded card pool, extending your clock significantly. The game is pretty balanced, except that smugglers are borderline broken post-EoD.

The tiebreaker is a good point, but I think that's more a failing of the tourney system than anything. I actually like they incentivized more aggressive DS, but I still think they're largely unstable (also as an aside, they've really done nothing to help the fighter subtype, which kinda sucks since a lot of attention was given to capital ships and tropers). And even then, I think it's better to have a deck with a higher chance of winning (which more control style decks in general do), than to attempt to play assuming you'll lose your LS match and need a riskier, more aggro DS.

And the LS is always the aggressor, simply due to the fact that if the DS gets a 12th turn, they autowin. There's no real "control" LS, there's pure aggro and more tempo-based aggro.

I do agree with you though about balance-I think LS needed a little boost but Smugglers are a bit over the top. It's cool if you're a big SW fan you can play Han/Chewy/Falcon/Lando and have a deck that's gonna curbstomp most people, but it's maybe not the best from a balance perspective.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Bosushi! posted:

At least one guy in my local scene refuses to even acknowledge its existence because "I played the Decipher version."

Some of the other critiques are just really misguided, such as "All the Darkside has to do is wait so many turns and win."

Every critique involves a player that hasn't even given it a try.

Yeah a lot of people are kinda lazy about it. I do think it's catching on some though, and may get a bump when the new movie comes out (even though to my knowledge they're not allowed to use anything from the new ones). And I actually prefer this quite a bit to the Decipher version-I liked a lot of the ideas of that game but I think the cards themselves ended up lacking. And their way of patching every mistake with silver bullet cards, and bonus decks, and anti-bonus-deck bonus decks, and silver-bullet silver-bullets, and anti-bonus deck silver bullet bonus decks, etc.

Netrunner has issues indeed, and I have to admit I'm not exactly enthralled with the game currently, but I've yet to get rid of my stuff for it (besides, keeping up with this, netrunner, and AGoT is still cheaper than playing Magic would be)

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

Do you mean graphically? Because the original L5R cards were pretty ugly.

I actually think the original L5R cards look nice. It wasn't the cleanest design, but I think it had a lot of style. I thought the template they went to afterwards is too plain and dull, especially for the setting.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Feeple posted:

Unfortunately, agreed. I loved playing the Decipher games in high school, but looking back it was atrocious design. Imagine a player wanting to get in on the game around Jabba's Palace release. There are tons of rules the core set never addresses, far too many objective decks you won't see until you run headlong into, and piles of silver bullets everywhere. The strength of the license at the time kept it going for as long as it did, and I cannot concieve how those guys keep playing with that fan community.

A few people I know are still pretty big into the game, and one tried to teach me once and every time I tried to do something it seemed like he'd tell me about some hidden rule (that apparently wasn't even in rulebooks!) or some weird card interactions or just bizarre things. Granted, his decks weren't set up for necessarily teaching the game, but it was just so ridiculously convoluted.

Although that being said, I don't think I would have minded something that differentiated between scale, if not unit type. Like anything smaller does max 1 damage, or something (to get past situations like those mentioned in the thread title).

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PJOmega posted:

Since I know that box will have some tournament legal cards, is there anything in the card face to let us see which ones are not tourney legal? Is it the "D" in front of the objective set?

Yeah I'm guessing it's the "D". Also, it looks like all the cards are numbered, not just objective sets.

I think it will be interesting, but I have to admit I would've just preferred another regular set to this. Although I remember when the game was first being talked about it was supposed to be co-op (similar to their LotR LCG) so I imagine if that was true that this box set will actually be similar to their initial concept.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

I'm all about some game swag, and that Balance of the Force token that was given to regionals winner was drat cool.

However it was not $280USD cool.

Good luck guy. I wouldn't pay $100 for it, but I'm sure you'll get at least that much.

I would sell mine for half that instantly. I just don't think there's that much of a market for SWLCG stuff unfortunately. I wish this was the game that had gotten super popular rather than Netrunner.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PJOmega posted:

Was reading the rulebook to check a ruling that was made at a recent tourney (in my favor, against my wishes, as weird as that sounds).

Found this gem that has been completely overlooked in my group.


Emphasis mine.

I wanted to point it out in case anyone has missed that shield tokens can prevent damage or focus tokens, not only damage. We certainly have been missing on the latter.

Also, I'll double check the rules concern here for you guys.

Player A is attacking with a 1 hp unit. Player B assigns Darth Vader to defend, who is committed to the force. During the edge battle, player B plays Heat of Battle, killing player A's only attacking unit. Is Darth Vader still considered to be participating, therefore having to strike and take 2x focus tokens?

I said yes, my opponent said no, judge was called, judge ruled the combat wasn't happening anymore so Vader didn't have to strike. My opponent had a ready unit with tactics, and had Vader been forced to strike (getting 2x focus tokens), then my opponent could have attacked with the other unit, locking down my Vader for a turn.

That's actually a very important distinction, because shields can prevent tactics icons from focusing units. Very important to keep in mind in situations where you have say, guardian of peace defending Han. Since you can only protect damage, not focus icons, it's often still useful to shield up Han in that case just to make sure he gets to strike.

Also in your other example I'm fairly certain the judge got it wrong. This is no different than attacking with no defender, or using Lando to send home the only opposing unit.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


It's not necessarily about being "offensive Sith"-she is still heavy defensive as she'll be blowing up dudes. Also even in the most defensive of Sith decks you really want something that can shorten the game by blowing up objectives (which is pretty much the idea behind the big red bus deckstyles-sith control stuff plus a couple of things that are heavy offensive for when you've cleared/locked down the board and want to finish quick). I daresay she's almost good enough to be a Smugglers & Spies character.

Rest of the objective set is decent, but not amazing. Lightsaber is good if you get it on Mara, the protectors are solid but unspectacular, and I'm not a big fan of rage due to it's cost and restrictions. That said, I'm definitely gonna run her in my Sith build (although that's getting really tight now, with 2x Vader, Palp, and 2x Council)

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PJOmega posted:

Oh totally understand, they are nice to look at. Is no one selling them for a reasonable price online? I know the force coins go for stupid money.

Just curious, how much do the coins go for?

Also about the regional IDs, I don't believe they're acrylic. Or at least mine weren't.

I am wondering about the force chokes though, as they're in a couple of pods. How are they numbered?

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Carteret posted:

Here is what the coins have sold for on ebay.

And they aren't acrylic, but I can't find a set for cheaper than 40 bucks. I'm still looking!

The Force Chokes are numbered for set 19 (Vader Pod, not Emperor)

Yeah the regional cards aren't acrylic, they're 2 sided. I actually had a couple of sets and 2 playmats, but I sold one of the playmats. Also tempted to sell my coin, didn't know they were going that high...

And I hope the multiplayer set does boost interest in the game, although I'm not particularly interested in it at all. I really think the core mechanics are solid, but for whatever reason it just hasn't gotten the traction I'd expect from the license.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PaybackJack posted:

I'm actually not too unhappy with it. The Imperial Inquisitors are basically a resource with added benefits, Jerec isn't amazing but he's got decent HP and his ability is pretty annoying. I think Echoes of the Force has some potential as well for super control decks.

You'd still be filling your deck with a lot of mediocre cards if you want 2 Force Storm, and as it is I think Sith run low on slots (since at this point 6+ pods seem pretty much mandatory).

That being said Force Storm is a super-hard counter for some decks. I'm also wondering how that works with stuff like Guardians-I'd think they wouldn't be able to protect since all the damage is done simultaneously but I'm not totally sure how that interaction would work.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


PJOmega posted:

Protect let's you put an amount of damage up to lethal, so you can't soak 20 damage onto a 2 health guardian.
I understand that. I was speaking more to the ability to move 2 damage from another char onto the guardian. I don't know if there's been another card that deals damage to multiple targets at once which is why I was wondering. I don't think you can, but I could see them also adding a phantom window where you're allowed to resolve damage in the order you choose from one effect or something bizarre.

Also I'm not THAT impressed with the pod. Han, Falcon, Chewie are still better I think (that said you could argue two of those are near the top of best pods in the game... ). It's really good, and I think if you're running mono it's a strong consideration but I'm not sure if it's an auto. Again that speaks to the strength of smugglers rather than it's weakness.

It would be nice though if they'd start adding some sort of support like this for scum :(

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I think that the pod system gives less choice, but makes more choices meaningful. However I do believe that with that in mind, they really needed to get new sets out sooner so it would actually feel like there's more choice. Even though the starter had like 36 or whatever pods, that's being divided between two mutually exclusive sides, with 2 main and one partial (which has since been expanded, but still) faction per side. So even though each choice is meaningful, you only start with a pool of 18 or so to choose from (and in actual play it's going to be more limited since you'll likely not be doing a total mix of factions). The first cycle added some nice stuff, but still only about 12(?) more options per side. Then it was the deluxe expansion and then...nothing.

And as for it being shallow, I'm not entirely sure the comparison is fair but it always seems to come up-Netrunner has gameplay that's way more shallow and bland than Star Wars by a mile. The best thing it has going is the art (which is amazing and most of the reason I started playing). I know it's popular in other places but it's really died a lot around here. Of course, SW never got much off the ground :(. Which is unfortunate, since I think it's mechanically the better game, but it just never seemed to get much going.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I have everything sleeved. I use some of the FF Star Wars sleeves for objective backs, and just KMC (I think) white/black for the cards in the pod. Then everything is in number order in long boxes. The FF sleves are slightly bigger so you can tell right where the pods end and just pull them out when needed.

I tried binders, but it was much more annoying for deckbuilding. You don't get to see every card like you would in a binder, but building decks is typically easier online anyways. It's also a lot better for storing. Also with how few cards they've released the cost for sleeves hasn't been too bad.

  • Locked thread