Hello,

I am new and I searched but did not see this in the forums. I have played so far four times (I know not a lot yet but I am working on that) and each time I have played a LS Jedi deck while my wife has played the DS Sith deck both straight out of the Core set. My wife has two out of four times gotten Vader out in the first turn which tipped the balance of the force to her because she made him a force thingy. Out of the other two games, it was two turns in and Vader was on the table. When he is there, he has been creaming my jedi. In fact, she won an edge battle on one, had a blaster on Vader and killed ObiWan Kenobi before I could even do anything. The one time that I did not see vader come out, I had issues drawing units which could have been the problem. But with her ability to seemingly get the balance on the dark side and gaining two Death Star spins a turn, I am cleaned up quickly.

So, what am I doing wrong? I am sure that the game, after all the development and play test, is not unbalanced. That means that I need to have some strategy that I am missing to help me have a chance. Either that or we are playing wrong.

While having my wife win makes her happy and I can get her to play more, I would love to have a fighting chance. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

JH

If she has Vader committed to the Force he should be getting two focus tokens every time he is focused to strike and if he is focused then he cannot be used during the force struggle to get it on her side during the turns she attacks with him as focused units do not contribute force icons to the Force struggle. Who do you have committed to the Force for your side ?

Are you adding focus tokens on to Vader with your tactics icons to shut him down for a turn or two ?

Are you attacking a lot ? sometimes ? Never ? Are you overcomitting and ending up with no defenders on her turn ?

Are you attacking her with Luke and using his targeted strike to add damage to Vader when Vader is focused and unable to defend ?

What is your deck and what is her deck ?

The more information you can provide the easier time we will have to help you. But really it just sounds like you need to play more. Dark side is easier to pick up than the strategy for the Light side just due to their win conditions.

Are you using just one core set? I think the Jedi pre-construct straight out of the box is the weakest of the 4. My recommendation is to not follow the deck list and make your own. Even with just one core you can do better. Then, don't feel the need to attack every turn. There is a clock ticking, but you should build your force before striking to avoid getting wiped. Hope that helps.

Part of it is that DS with an early main character is far easier to play than LS is due to the Death Star Dial. Also, in the preconstructed decks from the Core Set there are far fewer ways to deal with early mains than there would be in a normal constructed deck from 2 core sets. My recommendation would be that if you enjoy the game so far (other than the constant losing) to buy a second core set and build your own decks.

A second thought is that you're just not playing as well as your wife is. There's no good solution for 'fixing' your play without two key things: recording/documenting your games and posting it here AND just playing more to find out what strategies are working/not working for you.

I watched the video tutorial by Team Covenant and realized that we did have a couple of things wrongs. Probably the biggest is that if I attacked with Kenobi and she defended with Vader and I won the edge battle, I can first strike a focus token on Vader and then he can not strike me back. We have not been playing that way. Also, we have been adding the to the force struggle those who were focused which I see we can not do.

Also, it is possible my wife is better than me after all that is why I married her

I do love the game and will be picking up another core set to break off of pre-constructs and build my own. Just wanted to use the out of the box to get a feel for the game and I love the game.

Thanks

JH

Adding a second core set will greatly improve the experience (although we really enjoyed the core set decks as well!).

For the Jedi, Luke Skywalker is a monster and is amazing with a Lightsaber and two Trust Your Feelings dropped on him. In one game, he managed to wipe out my entire defensive force of 5 units and 1 undamaged objective in the same turn. His combination of Targeted Strike and being able to remove a Focus token on the DS turn makes him very powerful in attack and defence.

Don't always feel as if you need to declare defenders or attackers in every conflict phase. Sometimes, you may want to allow an undefended attack in order to allow your forces to strike back the next turn while the attackers are all focused out. Also, outside of Targeted Strike, units can only damage participating enemy units, so if you see too many blaster icons against you, you may want to just sit out the fight.

Also, it's never a bad thing to lose to the wife…

Keep playing, present themselves solutions will!

So, last night I playe after doing a couple of things to my light side approach:

• I changed to the Rebel Alliance
• I splashed a couple of Jedi so I have Luke and Yoda and Obiwan
• I used "Rebel Assualt" to help take the first turn drop of Darth Vader out of the picture.
• I decided that winning the edge battle is very important and did things like sacrifice Obiwan to the edge battle to win and made a big difference (like taking out Vader) having a unit go first.
• Did everything I could to have the force switch to the LS on my turn to slow down the DS

And I won I blogged about my win on my blog (Don’t Be Too Proud of This Technological Terror You’ve Constructed … The Ability to Win at a Star Wars Game is Insignificant Next to the Power of the Wife).

Now, my wife was not feeling all the well so my victory may or may not be the shape of things to come. But I was happy to see the LS actually be working.

I do have a strange situation that has occurred. I have played a total of 7 games with my wife and in 6 of those games she had a first turn drop of either Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine. I don't know how she can have such luck and it is luck because she has let me shuffle and/or cut and doing just about everything short of actually placing her cards in order and it just happens that she keeps getting one of those two cards (because we only have one core set right now) every time in the first draw. Very strange.

On the horizon, I am going to get a second core set so that I can make my decks better.

Thanks

JH

try listed below LS decks based on 2 core sets, they are very strong:

C. JEDI

2x A Hero's Journey
2x A Journey to Dagobah
2x Forgotten Heroes
2x In You Must Go
2x Secret of Yavin 4


D. REBELS

2x Mobilize the Squadrons
2x Draw Their Fire
2x The Defense of Yavin 4
2x The Rebel Fleet
2x Mission Brefing

Also, it is possible my wife is better than me after all that is why I married her

I do love the game and will be picking up another core set to break off of pre-constructs and build my own. Just wanted to use the out of the box to get a feel for the game and I love the game.

Thanks

JH

that is why I don't play games with my wife. She is super aggressive and I don't like bad blood …

I played again with my wife last night. She played the Sith Deck with the Boba Fett Objective in it and the neutral objective to get to ten. I played the Rebel Alliance with Han Solo Objective and a neutral. She drew the Emperor first turn but played him on the second turn due to resources. By my second turn, I managed to get our four total vehicles (two had XWing pictures, one was a YWing and the other I forget). I decided that with the emperor out and my chances of changing the balance of the force very small, I threw everything at her. She decided to not commit the Emperor because she only had one card in hand and it was one force blip and I had four cards in hand and lately I have been very aggressive about winning edge battles. That meant that I cremed through what she did send and wound up doing five total Blast damage to the Heart of the Empire. She conceded because on the next turn I could win the game. She was a bit upset but I was like, "We have played 10 games I have won only two, I think you should be happy!" Anyway, the rest of the night we played Parchessi, even though I wanted to play more STLCG

JH