The Basics of Playing and Protecting Star Wars Shatterpoint

Star Wars Shatterpoint is a small-scale skirmish based miniatures game by Atomic Mass Games, focusing on powerful heroes and villains. Using a mix of characters and units, players fight over objectives to fill their side of the struggle meter. The game uses a mix of oversized cards and minis to play, along with a slew of accessories.

Players create a squads by selecting a primary unit, which gives a point total to use on a secondary unit and support unit. Players make two of these squads to play. Each player brings a mission card and the associated struggle cards. These determine the objectives for each phase of the game. The first player flips the top card of their order deck, and either activates that unit, or puts the card in reserve if the reserve is empty. If they do, the next card is flipped, and that unit must be activated. An activated unit has 2 actions they can perform, such as moving, climbing, attacking, or using a special ability. When you reveal a Shatterpoint card, you may activate any unit, even a previously activated unit. The order discard pile shuffles after the deck runs out, which also refreshes Force tokens.

Play continues with alternating turns until one player moves the struggle marker onto a space occupied by one of their momentum tokens. They claim the current struggle, objective tokens flip to the inactive side, and the game moves to the next struggle. Play continues until a player wins 2 struggle cards. You can read the rulebook from the official site, or view a how to play video below.

There are two sizes of cards to deal with. First, character cards are about 4 by 6 inches, which fit perfectly in our 4×6 photo sleeves or toploaders. Which one you choose is mainly dependent on your own preferences. Toploaders offer more rigid protection, but also take up more physical space.

The order, stance, and struggle cards are all the same size. As these see constant handling during the course of play, my suggestion is to use the Tarot Sized Board Game Sleeves. This allows you to shuffle the cards as needed while still offering protection. And of course, the various tokens and dice can fit in Bit Boxes.

With its strict squad requirements, Star Wars Shatterpoint is perfect for Star Wars fans that aren’t dedicated to miniature gaming. Likewise, the relatively low cost of entry makes it a good starting point for anyone interested in hobby. It is a simple thing to buy just the squads you like without worrying about constant rules updates or upgrades.