We were fortunate enough to get to sit down with Corey Konieczka for a full length, one on one demo of the upcoming Star Wars LCG! You can see the full video on our website. Among other things, we discovered that:

- This is set to release in Q4 of this year
- It's a standard LCG, offering a once a month expansion
- Each player brings 10 objective cards that determine the contents of your deck
- Each 'side' has three factions as it were (imperial, sith, smuggler for dark side)
- The game is awesome

Enjoy!

Zach

Awesome! Well done and thank you!

Great, great video. Thank you so much! I really wish we had something like this last year.

Some thoughts about the game: I find I like it, but I think that's more the theme than the mechanics. I really do not like the edge battles. That mechanic seems like it will really take some getting used to. Also, the game seems really complicated and by complicated, I mean I don't think my wife would pick up on it very well. While I think I could have convinced her to play last year's version with me, I think I have no hope of getting her to play this with me, which means I really don't know if I'll have anyone to play this, limiting my ability to justify a purchase.

One thing a really liked was the deck-building. I think it is absolutely amazing. If there's another game like that out there, I've never heard of it. It seems very easy, very fun, and quite strategic. The only draw back I can see is that in tournaments perhaps more decks will end up being exactly the same than you would see with standard deck-building rules, but since I probably won't play in tournaments, that doesn't affect me really.

So: edge battles -1, deck-building +1, end result = 0. I'm not persuaded one way or the other at this point on whether this game is worth a huge investment. I will probably get the core set just to make sure.

But on the topic of the core set, if only 4 decks are included in the core (a la Warhammer: Invasion) I wonder which two factions will not be included. I have a feeling it's the Scoundrels/Spies and the Scum/Villains decks. I'll be sad if that's the case since those are the types of cards I've been looking forward to most in the Star Wars LCG. Just have to wait and see.

Again, thanks for the video.

I was able to play a demo game yesterday and overall I enjoyed the game. It had an acceptable level of tactical complexity (though coming from the Decipher SWCCG, it's still a step down). The edge battle mechanic works interestingly. It sets up some tension between wanting to win the edge and wanting to keep cards to play them. It works out well enough thanks to drawing up to your hand limit each turn. As for the deck building, I'm not really a fan. I think I'm really going to miss the detailed fidling around with my decks that Magic or SWCCG allows.

zachbunn said:

Wait, what? Smugglers are dark side? That seems a little counter-intuitive. Seeing as the Empire is the official government and all, why is it smuggling if you're allied with authorities?

RJM said:

If I'm remembering correctly from the video, the Dark Side factions are Imperial, Sith, and Scum & Villainy. The Light Side factions are Rebel, Jedi, and Smugglers & Spies.

ImmortalJedi said:

Yup, just watched it all the way through. Looks like zachbunn just misspoke. I'll forgive him in light of the excellent video full of info.

That demo has actually got me really excited for this game now!

This time last year, I was looking forward to having the Star Wars LCG as a "game for me", where I don't need the hassle of arranging a game night and stuff, I could just break it out whenever I want without having to schedule in friends and possible time off work etc. Now, I'm actually thinking this game might be worth all that hassle, because it looks great! At first, watching the demo, I felt a bit "meh" about it all, it seemed to be really odd and stuff, but as it went on and you get to see just how the game works, it's looking really cool - dare I say, a totally groundbreaking LCG experience?!

The deckbuilding thing I'm still not particularly struck on for a long-term LCG thing, but I'm hopeful that it could be awesome. If you have five player cards and one objective card in a 6-card "pod", and you can have up to two objective cards the same, then that'll shut off complaints about card distribution and the infamous 3x model etc etc etc, which can be nothing but a good thing, but it makes me wonder how the Force Packs, or whatever they're going to call them now (seeing as how noncommittal Corey was on that name), will be constructed. Presumably each pack will have ten new objectives, to make up the standard 60-card format, but will it be five light-side and five dark-side, or one pack light side and one dark side? The latter could help a lot of people who complain about other games' distributions. I'm expecting there to be deluxe expansions that focus on the affiliations, which could be tremendous, anyway!

So, overall, it looks fantastic. Whether it actually is fantastic will remain to be seen. As will its longevity. I mean, the "Jedi" affiliation, if it's set in the Galactic Civil War still, would be exhausted pretty quickly given how many Jedi are actually around then.

I still hold out much hope of seeing the original game as some sort of standalone thing, too

Great to have some news at last and the art on the cards looks better than I had hoped.

I'm not worried by complexity - I still enjoy playing Dune ccg & Middle Earth ccg. I'd be more worried if it turned out to be a light game.

I'll probably not buy straight away as if it's not as good as Star Wars ccg, I'll just stick with that.

It may take a few expansions to tell what the game is capable of becoming.

[yawn]

Looks pretty boring. The only kind of interesting thing is the different objective mechanics. The rest of the gameplay seems pretty flat.

It was more interesting when it was the co-op version.

I don't know. This just doesn't sizzle for me.

The game doesn't do anything for me. I'm a huge fan of the Decipher SW game, but rarely play anymore, and have been playing L5R since Imperial Edition.I was hoping this game would scratch the SW CCG itch.

It doesn't seem to have any SW thematic feel like the SWCCG has, such as battling for Hoth or battling on Cloud City or trying to turn Luke or do a Death Star run. I see none of that. It's just a beat-em-up game. I guess that's ok if you're into that sort of thing, but what a major step down from SWCCG.

The objectives are "holdings" from L5R, but not done as well it seems to me on the surface. Very limiting as well. You know your opponent will be nerfed at 5 points. Likewise you. It seems they like having a lot of limiting controls in this game, dictating what cards MUST be used, which lead me to my next point.

I'm concerned that as soon as I see objective cards in play that I will know exactly what my opponent will have in his deck because he is forced to build his deck around them. And vice versa. Again, very limiting.

Am I the only one who dislikes artwork for a SW card game, wanting instead photos from the movies? (Ok, Decipher was crazy with using every frame of film in their games.) I get the point how artwork allows more possibilities, but it just doesn't feel right. A niggle.

ASFAIK this game was cobbled together very quickly as a replacement to satisfy contracts with Lucas. I think it shows.

I could be wrong. I'm just going on gut reaction. But I have a bad feeling about this.

Swampfox said:

This. Exactly this. I watched the video and it could be any theme on those cards. I think they had a great game shaping up with the Co-op version that had that Star Wars feel. This is just a token-counting, punch-out game. I DO like the artwork, but that's about it.

I'm quite pleased with how the Objective cards turned out. They're very much the way I saw such a card type working for this game. I used the term "Mission cards," but I think "Objective cards" works just as well if not better (since it's possible to have long-term goals that are much larger than a single mission).

Swampfox said:

I agree that this game is a little lackluster for me at the moment, but as for this statement, when the game starts, you'll know 15/50 of your opponents cards. He'll still have plenty more to surprise you with. But then again, that's 15 more cards you know he has than if you had traditional deck-building.

Swampfox said:

I actually thought the art was pretty neat, but that's just my opinion. It's cool to see the characters come to life in new poses.

I think this game feels more like Decipher's old Jedi Knights game in the simplicity of its execution. I don't know about anyone else here, but we loved playing Jedi Knights back in the day, when we were getting too intense with SWCCG matches.

I think it's still too early to judge too harshly. The video demo shows Jedi vs Sith, so only a third of the factions available. I'm betting we'll see lots more interesting stuff, hopefully very thematic as well, from Rebels and Imperials, Scoundrels and Scum. Jedi and Sith are probably the most iconic of the six to go down well in a demo, but in this timeframe I wouldn't really expect that much greatness from them, thematically.

While I am, to some extent, still in mourning for the game-that-was, on reflection I think it did feel a bit too much like the other LCGs. Lord of the Rings is the obvious one, of course, but also the idea of card functions depending on which zone they're employed to is straight from Warhammer. If anything could have been said to have been cobbled together to satisfy the Lucas licence, I would have said it would be that one. While my immediate reaction to reading darksbane's report was "how very like Cthulhu", having now seen it in action, it doesn't actually feel like that at all. I think some thought has gone into it, and I'm actually pretty pleased to see that FFG staff haven't been sat on their hands since that announcement in February, and the long silence can now be explained away by them being too busy.

I should probably say at this point, however, that I've never played another Star Wars card game before, so don't have the luxury of comparing it to the Decipher one. While everyone seems to hold that game as the absolute benchmark and nothing will ever be as good etc etc ad nauseum, is anyone qualified to compare it with the Wizards game of the early 2000s? Is the LCG, at least, better than that?

The game definitely looks better than the WotC version.

This video did show me one thing I was hoping for: The use of the Force. However, I do not like the "gambling" component that they use with edge battles. I know they were trying to do something with Force draws that WASN'T Destiny, but I think, for me, this game has missed the mark. I will have to talk to my wife and see what she thinks about it, since she would be the one that I would play with. She may just say she'd rather play the one I already have (Decipher). I am definitely getting X-Wing and all the expansions. That game looks AWESOME. It's funny, because when they were both announced at last year's GenCon, I had the exact opposite reaction.

herozeromes said:

I'll have to see more of the game in action to decide for sure, but I think there's an interesting tactical component in the bidding for the edge battles. If you're defending, you can more aggressively bid cards, because as soon as the battle is over, your turn comes up and you can refill your hand. When you go to attack, your opponent may have depleted their hand and will be relatively powerless to stop you.

The other side to that, is that you have to discard the cards you were bidding with, so you may have some tough choices to make when some of those sweet game changer cards show up in your hand. It may be worth letting the damage go through.

Another thing I noticed is how you can pass on a bid, then see what your opponent does, then opt to pass again OR play a card after. I believe I heard Corey say that a player must pass twice in a row for the bidding to end. So in effect, it could play out like this;

Me: play a card

You: play a card

Me: pass

You: pass

Me: play a card

etc

I like the fact that, unlike the WotC game, it's the Light Side that's racing against the clock, rather than the Dark Side. And it's a separate mechanic, rather than something built into the gameplay itself, so that fan variants can be imagined. Furthermore, even though the so-called "Death Star Dial" is tied thematically to the Classic Era, I could see this mechanic justifiably existing in other periods as well. For instance:

• OR: The heroes of the Republic has to find and destroy the Star Forge before its fleet lays waste to the civilized galaxy.
• RotE: The Jedi must bring the Clone Wars to an end before Darth Sidious is able to form his Empire and initiate the Jedi Purge.

Obviously these scenarios are too specific to describe every match-up, especially given the freedom players have in constructing their decks (give or take the impact of Objectives in determining deck composition). Regardless, whatever the in-universe explanation, it should always be the heroes who are fighting a desperate battle against time, while the villains sit and laugh at the Light Side's insignificant fight for justice.

MarthWMaster said:

YES! This is it precisely!

cleardave said:

Pis it each player must pass twice, or that there must be two consecutive passes like in go. I assume that it's like go, because that works when one person can see that it's over but the otheperson wants to play it out. So they keep going for a bit and it's clear to the first guy that it is still over and he passes again, but if the second player still thinks he can change the outcome, he is still allowed to go, and there for the first player is as wel

I am really looking forward to play this game. It looks like fun. I just hope i can talk my gaming buddies into buying it.

I just hope FFG will make rules for 2 vs. 2 games (and perhaps 3 vs. 3) but that is perhaps to much to ask?

Smilingknight said:

From what I gathered based off of the demo vid, a player would have to pass twice consecutively in order for bidding to end.

I'm also very much hoping for 2v2 rules to come out at some point. I'd love to see some proper multi player star wars games taking off.