Intro to Star Wars Unlimited
Star Wars has a long history with gaming, especially with card games. Star Wars Unlimited is the newest in the line, letting players use ironic characters from the franchise to attack, and eventually destroy, their opponent’s base.
In Star Wars Unlimited, players choose a Leader card as well as a Base card. Between the two, you will have 3 Aspect icons, which help determine what cards to include in your deck, with 50 cards minimum. You can play cards of other Aspects, but will pay more resources to do so. As mentioned above, the goal of the game is to attack your opponent’s base to reduce it to 0 HP.
Decks consist of 3 types of cards: Units, which are used to attack your opponent’s base (or other units), Events, which have an effect then are immediately discarded, and Upgrades, which modify your units in some way. Most of the time, Units enter play Exhausted, which means waiting a turn before using them.
The game takes place over a series of rounds, with each round consisting of several different actions. Each turn starts with the Action Phase, which is the meat of the game. You can play cards, attack with units, use an action ability on a card in play, take the Initiative, or simply pass. When you play a card, you Exhaust a number of resources equal to the cost in the upper left corner of the card, plus an additional 2 for each Aspect your Leader or Base doesn’t provide.
When you attack, you Exhaust a Unit and state what the target is. Units fall into two types: Ground or Space, and can only attack units in the same arena or the enemy Base. Units deal damage equal to its power to the target, and if attacking something with a power value like a unit, receives that much damage in return. Anything with damage equal to or greater than its HP value is immediately defeated and sent to the discard pile (or ends the game if the defeated card is a Base).
The final 2 actions are related, so I will discuss them both. When you pass, you essentially do nothing. If both players pass consecutively, the round ends. Passing in a round does not prevent you from performing actions later in the round, it’s simply saying “I’m not doing anything just yet.” An exception to this is when a player Seizes the Initiative. Only one player can do this each turn, and when they do, they take the Initiative token, meaning they have the first action on the next round. The downside to this is that the player seizing the initiative must pass the rest of the round, giving their opponent ample time to build their board. As long as nobody has Seized the Initiative, any player can do so, even if they already have the Initiative token.
After both players pass, play turns to the Refresh phase. Both players do the following actions, starting with the player with Initiative. First, draw 2 cards from your deck. Then, you can choose 1 card from your hand to pay facedown in your Resource area. You are not obligated to, but it’s usually a good idea until you can use your Leader’s Epic Action. Finally, both players ready their exhausted cards. A new action phase begins, starting with the player with Initiative.
Since the deck minimum is 50 cards, in addition to your Base and Leader, smaller deck boxes are ideal for this game. The Prism 50 ct will hold a sleeved deck along with a few tokens, if you choose to play with them. Since counters and tokens are useful, having something to store them is helpful as well. Using something like a Prime X4 Deck Box will let you carry multiple decks along with dice and counters. Of course, you will need sleeves as well. Iridian sleeves are perfect for the game, along with Inner Sleeves if you choose to double-sleeve. Your leader is double-sided, so a Clear Sleeve is ideal for that card. If your deck box of choice has enough space, a Mini Snap may work even better.
Star Wars Unlimited is a simple, fast-paced game with a focus on quick action. The game is already popular, and the broad focus of characters an units available mean it’s easy to find your favorite character.