Hey guys,

What are you thoughts on the different victory conditions? At first I thought the objective idea of having a random deck of objectives that players try to damage to win was awesome, until the death star thing was mentioned and the different win conditions.

Thematically, while this could represent different things in different periods of the storyline, it is still tying the underline thematics to the original three movies. Of which only two have the death star focus. Really unsure why this was implemented, what's wrong with the empire just trying to take out the rebels objective to remove the potential for them to grow as a threat, vs the rebels trying to take down imperial operations to grow their own influence? It's not like there would be a single objective for 'destroy the death star' so the win condition is either empire builds a death star vs rebels stop three imperial operations? Unsure how 'having the force' would help with building a death star. Also limits the overall number of turns in a game, which may have it's uses but long games can be fun as well…

Apologies, I don't mean to rant. Game looks interesting but this seemed the biggest let down for me, somewhat limiting the games potential and sticking with the 'gimicky' touch which FFG seem to insist upon. Thoughts?

As much as I happen to like the Death Star Dial mechanic, as I've mentioned in another thread, I would not be at all surprised if the whole concept disappeared by the time the final game is released. It does feel like an unnecessary complication, which a game with so much riding on its success certainly does not need.

Also, don't let the name of the dial affect your interpretation of what it represents. The Death Star itself will be represented by its own card; the Death Star Dial merely represents the Empire's growing strength and the dire consequences for the galaxy. It has no inherent link to the battle station and, as you say, it could represent different things in different eras.

In all likelihood, the "Death Star Dial" as we've seen it could be changed out for something else depending on your faction. While it makes sense for the Sith/Empire to be building a Death Star, it wouldn't tie in as well, thematically, with a Scum and Villainy deck. Maybe there's another thing brewing around behind the scenes where each faction has a different countdown clock?

Who knows, really, based on the GenCon demos. It could even be just a general "Terror Track" like Arkham Horror to show the bad guys getting stronger.

Also, I'm sure there must be some odd cards that allow the Light Side to retard the progress of the Death Star Dial.

Long games can be fun, if there's a good battle brewing, but I can't stand long games that are basically a slow attrition fest where it's going to take another 5-7 slow turns for you to chip out your opponent's deck/life force/whatever to win the game. At least moving that dial along in various ways keeps the focus on action and moving along.

Long games are also not that fun if it's clear that you're on the losing slope with no way to recover. Better to get it over with and start the next game.

It's like playing Street Fighter, and getting the life lead in a round and just laming out your opponent for the last 30 seconds, but even that's all over in a minute or so, so you won't be waiting long.

Anyways, back to the dial; there's certainly potential for different Dark Side factions to have a longer or shorter amount of ticks to get to the win, and hopefully in the final product, if there is a generic tracker piece included, that it's not literally a Death Star.

I like the idea of the rebels trying to beat the Empire and win objectives while the Empire sits there fending them off while they try to build the ultimate power in the galaxy. Having them be able to attack rebel objectives while still doing this seems entirely thematic from my own viewpoint. Though I do concede that does depend on exactly what the objectives are. I haven't been able to see a good-enough close-up of the card text to see exactly what these cards have on them. One rebel one looks like Mos Eisley or somesuch, it seems to be labelled "A Hero's Journey", so the Empire destroying it could be seen as them successfully undermining said journey. To me, I don't feel it's quite the random mechanic that some folks seem to be saying it is - yes, the films all have awesome battle sequences, but for most of the time, each side is trying to outmanoeuvre the other, so having them depriving them of resources, interrupting their heroic journeys, or whatever, is a good enough way of representing that in something as abstract as a card game.

I do like the Dial as well. I think it's a wonderfully camp and cheesy way of representing the growing power of the Empire and their dominance of the galaxy, almost as camp as some of the script was…

I don't like the point that, with the same game mechanics, each player has a different win condition. It would be nice having both player winning by objectives, and wuld be nice having both players winning by reaching some point in the dial (somethig like pulling back and forth the dial). Or even both. I like games with several victory ways (like L5R) and most LCG are lacking this chance.

The different win conditions whons makes me think about problem fighting same faction decks or unbalancing cards.

Well, in this game it's impossible to fight the same faction against itself, because someone has to be dark side and someone has to be light side.

I wonder why there are factions in this game. It seems like a weird setting to have factions for, IMO.

Because people like to build decks around particular themes, sets and scenes from the films.

I like the deathstar dial. And I like that there are different win conditions. the rebels have to do one thing. The imperials something else. They don't work in the same way so why would they play in the same way.

Alternatively I could see the dial being a marker for the game perfect for tournament play. Rather than imperial victory when it reaches the 12th turn both players lose. Or count up the missions each have destroyed and then characters etc.