There seem to be a lot of topics with question marks in the titles, or that have generated a lot of negativity towards this game, and it hasn't yet been a week since we found out all this stuff. So I'd like to see if there is anyone who likes anything about this newfangled PvP model, rather than complaining that "it hasn't got x" or "y" or simply "it isn't the Decipher game!"

For me, I am chuffed with the fact that we get locations. I love that they have stuck with original artwork. Involving the artwork of the late, great Ralph McQuarrie on the "Jedi Training" objective has sent shivers down my spine. The edge battle seems really interesting too, not only just as a novel way of determining initiative etc, but it seems pretty thematic when you consider the Rebels were striking from the shadows, almost, so you don't necessarily know where they're going to come from. It seems we will be having neutral units (at least, the Human Replica Droid seems to be neutral from what I can see), which might be an interesting aspect, depending on the deckbuilding rules. Incorporating the EU has got me sold on this game to no end, I am enraptured by such cards as "Kuati Security Team", even the Dathomir cards

Anyone else?

I like the implied inclusion of Mara Jade via the card "The Hand's Blessing" (or whatever it is called).

I like that some of the Objective cards I read grant some bonuses/penalties in keeping with the theme, like Heart of the Empire being the "All or Nothing" win move for the Light Side if they can beat it. It looks like it has 10+ hit points though, so I'm sure it won't go down easy.

Coruscant Defense Fleet for keeping said Objective on the lockdown feels right.

The more I see of the cards, the more I'm starting to get a sense for the potential here. The demo vid we've all analyzed to death was a great peak in the door, but these new card pics are having me actually more interested now than I was before.

I really liked the artwork on the cards showing Vader in his meditation chamber. This is the reason I'm all for artwork vs movie stills; we can get pictures like that, which are more "between scenes" than just sticking to the same images we've seen since we were kids.

Honestly, for whatever reason, the game did not grab me while watching some of those demo videos, but between learning more of the rules from people on the forums here and BGG and seeing a ton of the cards themselves has really got me excited for this game again. There's some things that will take some getting used to, like one big generic battlefield instead of actual locations like SWCCG, or the unique deckbuilding rules, but all in all it seems like it's going to be very fun, very tactical, very replayable and a very good way to meet other Star Wars fans over.

One specific thing I'm very excited about, is that characters can be involved in battle using that 'activation' icon and thus can be involved even though they are not warriors or fighters per say. I forsee characters like Mon Mothma and General Crix Madine being able to strategically outmaneuver many Dark Side units by adding many activation tokens to them. Very cool, thematic way to include a lot of side characters from Star Wars.

And yes, I'm also loving that the EU seems to be decently involved in the setting and it may even get me to read a few more SWEU novels.

Very excited for this.

I also like the artwork, very much so.

That's about it, so far at least.

I like the game play itself, it comes out to be very fun with lots of tactical depth while not being too complicated.

I like the artwork.

I know I've been critical of a couple of aspects of the game, but overall I really like it.

I know I'm in the minority, but I love the deckbuilding mechanic. I think it has a lot going for it. First of all, it can ensure that some not-so-good cards will be used. That, in turn, maximizes player skill by forcing players to use that card effectively.

Second, the deckbuilding mechanic makes it so easy to build a deck and you can build it much faster. It will enable a lot of non-gamers to play this game and build their own deck because they only really need to choose ten cards and that builds their deck. Also, it allows you to begin deck-building with a beginner right away.

This is all at the cost of customization, but as new blocks are published, I think there will be enough variety to keep decks variable.

I'm really excited to get to the point where you're not just looking at synergies between cards, but synergies between objectives. Maybe there's an objective that works well with a card from a completely different block, but that block's objective then works well with a card from another block. That kind of strategy sounds very fun to me.

A final reason I like the deck-building mechanic: it's simple enough that you could conceivably build a brand new deck during a game night without spending half an hour to do it, adding much more variation to your games.

Budgernaut said:

This post won me over.

The above statement is likely superficial enough to sound like sarcasm, but I'm being totally sincere. I'm now not nearly as bummed about the "pod-building" mechanic as I've been since I learned about it. I guess I just needed to sit down and think about what was actually good about the mechanic.

Now I just need to deal with the thematic strangeness of saccing C-3PO to block an Imperial attack run.

MarthWMaster said:

I assure, you I'm not being sarcastic at all. I'm glad you can see some good points in my arguments, because I was positive I was going to get bashed by someone for saying how I felt.

Budgernaut said:

I'm actually quite impressed that we've all made it this far, especially on the subject of this pod building deck thing, with some good discussion back and forth about the pro's and con's of each.

We should all be proud of ourselves for keeping it civil, despite the obvious contentious nature of the subject.

cleardave said:

When I posted, I hadn't yet read the new thread on pod-based deckbuilding. It's even more heated than I thought, but at least it hasn't come to personal attacks yet.

Anyway, back to things we like about the game.

I'm so pleased more people than me are liking lots about this game

So I sat down for a demo of this game Sunday with a buddy of mine. I have been playing Thrones for a 8 months and he has never played any card game. We both came away impressed. First, he enjoyed the pod building mechanic because of how easier it made deck building. I actually liked it because it was different. I did not want a reskin of AGOT.

Second, I enjoyed the edge battles because they added a bit of drama and trickery to the game. It was expessially amusing when he played an event card that made us have to discard all edge cards played and redo it after I had committed some high value cards.

Third, the objective mechanic was really neat. It felt very different but I could also see how it will make some very interesting deck building considerations via special abilities and value.

Gearjock said:

I think this sums it up pretty well. I like that each of the LCG's is its own deal. AGoT and CoC being the closest in style in terms of two players squaring off face to face with a row of cards. Even then, Thrones has the different conflict types (Intrigue, etc), and CoC has you fighting over scoring points on the same story cards.

Invasion has this RTS vibe with building your own base up in different ways, and LotR is a Co-Op story narrative.

Netrunner is a very asymmetrical game, with a Corp and Runner player, which Star Wars seems to have the most in common with, mechanically, because you couldn't theoretically run up against a mirror match like you could in the games above.

I think with the co-op version we were going to get, people were right in saying it was too close to LotR, whereas this PvP model, love it or hate it, will have a different flavour than the other competitive LCG's in FFG's current lineup, Netrunner included. That's the main reason I can see FFG pulling the plug on it behind the scenes. I would love if one day, they did a nice article on the details of the design change, ideally when the new game comes out, to really highlight how they arrived at the final product, which will hopefully be enjoyable for us to play.

I don't really know how I feel about the game. I didn't like the demo video. I don't like the pod building. There are too many tokens. On another thread, I said I didn't like the artwork, but I may back that down because once I thought it over, I realized it is very much like Ray McQuarrie and once I see it in person I may like it.

herozeromes said:

From my experience watching other people play in person and then playing it myself, the game plays much better than it looks. I wasn't impressed at all from watching it, but once I sat down to play for a little bit I ended up really liking it. So for what it's worth, even if you don't like the video you should find somebody who has it and give it a try when it comes out.

Listing some of the aspects that look appealing to me, based on what what shown in the video demos and pictures on the web, I will mostly duplicate things already written. Anyway, here is a short list:

- emphasis on deck and card management (especially: dual use of cards (deployed and used in battles or force, or used for edge), and multiple focus tokens) that should make the gameplay interesting and competive, even with basic decks;

- a streamlined take at deck-building (with the so-called Pods) that have many good points: it should allow us for more games (less preparation time!), it shifts the emphasis of the game towars finding how to use the synergies in you deck (instead of finding before the game what are the best combos), it permits casual games with other players that are not particularly in this game;

- Objectives wich appear as a good way to have both relevant locations and themes in the game, and which let this game be far different from the old Decipher's SW CCG.

Overall, what I like are the aspects of this proposed game that make it different from the existing LCGs/CCGs.

Finally, the art is OK and the use of EU is fine too.

I'm loving the overall feel of the game. Another topic has a list of some of the Pods and the thematic element in them is awesome. The pod deck building aspect of the game makes it to where the game should stay competitive unlike some other CCG's or LCG's out there right now. This is a day 1 buy for me for sure.