What Is Star Wars: Unlimited?
Star Wars: Unlimited is the latest trading card game developed by Fantasy Flight Games that puts you in the shoes of some of the strongest heroes and villains to battle for the fate of the galaxy. The game’s competitive environment in Europe is already thriving, with Sector Qualifiers hosted by our friends Organised Play Events, and the Regional Qualifier Europe in Lille, France, hosted by us. And the timing could not be better: the event is taking place from May 3rd to May the 4th!
Whether you are a fan of the Star Wars franchise or a fan of trading card games in general, you’ll love Star Wars: Unlimited. If you’ve wanted to learn how to play Star Wars: Unlimited then look no further – here is everything you need to know.
Alex Kivitz
Alex Kivitz
Alex Kivitz
The Basics - General Gameplay Loop and Deck Contents
Just like most games, the players are aiming to win, but how does that work in Star Wars: Unlimited? The aim of the game is to deal enough damage to your opponent’s base to destroy it. Star Wars: Unlimited is typically played one versus one, but there is also the multiplayer format that is also a lot of fun.
Each player constructs their own deck using one Leader card, one Base card, and at least 50 cards for their deck. The Leader and Base cards do not contribute to the deck total. Each deck must have at least 50 cards, however, there is no maximum deck size. Additionally, only 3 copies of each card are allowed in a deck.
Check all the info about the Star Wars: Unlimited – Regional Qualifier Europe! Tickets are now live!
The goal of the game is to deal damage equal to the amount of HP on your opponent’s Base and eliminate them from the game. Bases will generally have 30 health, however, there are special exceptions for bases with abilities that can increase or decrease the amount of health on that Base.
In most games, when your deck runs out you usually lose on the spot or when you go to draw a card. In Star Wars: Unlimited, whenever you go to draw a card and cannot, you take three damage to your Base. But how do we go about dealing damage and eliminating your opponents?
Aspects of Gameplay - Breaking Down Card Anatomy
In Star Wars: Unlimited, you play cards that can put units on the board, play powerful events to directly change the gamestate, or enhance your current units with powerful upgrades. Before we can talk about individual cards, we need to cover one quick thing about the unique resource system of deck building constraints Star Wars: Unlimited has.
In Star Wars: Unlimited, there are six Aspects. These aspects are Vigilance, Command, Aggression, Cunning, Heroism, and Villainy. In general, when building your deck your chosen Leader will provide two aspects and your Base will provide you with an additional one.
Let’s follow the example given by Star Wars: Unlimited themselves in their starter deck and use Luke Skywalker as our Leader and the Administrator’s Tower as our Base. Our deck now has access to the Cunning, Vigilance, and Heroism aspects. This means that we may play cards of these aspects without incurring any additional costs.
Leaders
Leader cards and Base cards both start the game already on the field. Leader cards are double sided with one side being horizontally oriented as the Leader side and the other being the Unit side.
You begin the game with your Leader on the horizontal Leader side. You’ll see what aspects it contributes to your deck in the top right corner. You also have access to your Leader’s ability all throughout the game.
Lastly, there is the Epic Action on the Leader card. Epic Actions are actions that can be performed only once per game. These Epic Actions that appear on Leader Cards will often be to deploy your Leader flipped over as a Unit into an arena. Notably, using an Epic Action does not cost resources. Epic Actions are immediately available once you reach the amount of resources necessary for the action. While it is on the Leader Unit side, it still contributes its aspects as normal. You cannot use the actions on the Leader side while it is deployed as a Unit.
When your Leader Unit is defeated, it is returned to the leader zone Exhausted. After this has happened, you cannot deploy your leader again if their deploy ability is an Epic Action – as it is restricted to one usage per game.
Units
Star Wars: Unlimited has the cool feature of having two separate arenas that players may battle in. There is the Ground arena and the Space arena. Looking at Han Solo – Reluctant Hero we see in the top right section it says Ground. This is where the unit is played. What this means is that Han can only attack other ground Units or the opponent’s base, unless stated otherwise by card effects. In the top left we see Han costs 7 resources and the Cunning and Heroism aspect to play.
When looking to play a card, you must exhaust resources equal to the number shown to pay for the cost of the card. You then look at the symbols below the number and check to see if you have access to the available aspects. Because your Leader Luke Skywalker – Faithful Friend provides you access to Heroism Aspect, and your Base provides you with the Cunning Aspect, you do not need to pay any additional costs. If you wanted to play Poe Dameron – Quick to Improvise however, he would cost you 5 resources, plus an additional 2 because you do not have access to the Aggression Aspect. Darth Vader – Commanding The First Legion would cost you a whopping 11 resources to play if you wanted to play him in this deck.
Underneath the artwork we see two numbers, one in red and one in blue. The red number is the units Power. It signifies how much damage they do when they attack or are attacked. The number in Blue is the units HP, the amount of damage it can take before being defeated. In between the units stats we see the units Traits. These traits don’t do anything inherently, they are there to be referenced by other cards for specific effects.
Events and Upgrades
Event cards function differently. Once you play an event card, you place it into the graveyard and resolve the effect on the card. These cards also have costs associated with them as well as aspect symbols. Overwhelming Barrage, for example, costs 5 and has the Command and Villainy aspects.
Upgrades are similar to Units in that they stay in the arena when played. Upgrades, when played, are attached to Units. Some upgrades may specify what they can and cannot be attached to in the ability text. You may play upgrades on any unit, including your opponents. In addition to the ability text box and the costs, we see the red and blue icons are now modifiers to your unit’s stats. Looking at Fallen Lightsaber, for example, the attached unit gets an additional 3 power and 3 health. We also see that it cannot be attached to a Vehicle unit, and if it is attached to a Force unit, the unit gets an additional bonus.
Now that we’ve seen the various cards in Star Wars: Unlimited, let’s set up for your first game!
Setting Up Your First Game
Let’s take a look at the game board and walk through setting up the game. You’ll notice you have zones for your Base and your Leader in the centre. Some game mats have designated Ground and Space arenas on either side of the Base zone, but in general, as long as players know which side is which, it’s all the same.
Below the Leader and the two arenas is the Resource Zone. This is where your resources go during the game. Next to the Resource Zone we have the Deck and Discard Pile. After setting up their Base and Leader, the players will randomly choose one player. That player will then decide if they would like to start the game with The Initiative or have their opponent begin with it. The Initiative is part of the unique gameplay loop of Star Wars: Unlimited that we’ll cover in just a moment.
After The Initiative is handed out, players shuffle and draw six cards from their decks. Players may choose to mulligan their starting hand once by shuffling their drawn cards into their deck and drawing another 6 cards. Players may only do this once. After that, players choose and place two cards face down into their Resource Zone. There are no restrictions to cards you may place into your resources and the aspect of the card does not matter. After the resources are placed, we can now begin the game!
Actions & Initiative - How Rounds and Turns Are Played
In Star Wars: Unlimited gameplay is not played through your traditional turns. Here players share a round, taking single actions back and forth. In-game rounds consist of the Action Phase and the Regroup Phase. Most of the gameplay will take place in the Action Phase.
Action Phase
In the Action Phase, players take turns performing actions back and forth until both players take the Pass action in succession. The person with the initiative token will always begin the action phase by taking the first action. But what are the actions available to you?
Players as an action may:
- Play a Card
- Attack With a Unit
- Activate An Ability
- Pass
- Take The Initiative
Playing a Card
Playing a Card is as simple as paying for the cost of the card and resolving its effects. Let’s take a look at R2-D2. The 1 in the top left signifies its cost. To pay for the cost, you exhaust that many resource cards and play it into the appropriate arena exhausted. In SWU, everything enters exhausted. If you were to play an Upgrade Card, you would attach it to a unit. Event cards go directly to the Discard Pile.
Attacking With a Unit
Units in Star Wars: Unlimited may attack as long as the attacking unit is ready when declaring the attack. With units entering the field exhausted, they cannot attack the turn you play them unless you have a way to ready that unit. To declare an attack, you simply choose a unit to attack with, declare a legal target, and exhaust the unit. If you are attacking an opponent’s base, you simply deal damage equal to the power of your unit. If you are attacking another unit your opponent controls, the units deal damage to each other simultaneously.
In Star Wars: Unlimited, damage is tracked using damage counters. These counters once placed are not removed as turns and rounds end, they are only removed by effects that allow you to do so. In this way, damage is “sticky”.
Activating an Action Ability
By activating an ability, you use your action to perform an action that is on a printed card. This could be any action or even an Epic Action. Some base cards like Tarkintown, and leaders like Obi-Wan Kenobi have Epic Actions that are once per game actions. These still are your dedicated actions, however. As you can see on Obi-Wan as well, he has a regular action he can perform as well.
Passing
To take the Pass Action is to essentially say, “I’m going to do nothing with my action, you may act again”. The dangerous part about this is if your opponent then also takes the Pass Action or Takes The Initiative. While sometimes it can be correct to wait for your opponent to take an action before you interact, it does have its risks.
Taking the Initiative
The final action to touch on is Taking the Initiative. Only one player may take the initiative a round. When you Take the Initiative as an action you get the Initiative token if you do not have it, and keep the Initiative token if you already have it. You will also be the player to take the first action in the next Action Phase. Additionally, by Taking the Initiative, you are only allowed to take the Pass action for the rest of the round.
Regroup Phase
Once both players have taken the Pass action in succession, the Action Phase ends and the Regroup Phase begins. The Regroup phase is where players do a lot of their cleanup, resolve their lasting effects, and set up for the next Action Phase.
When the Regroup Phase begins, both players draw two cards. Then, each player may put up to one card from their hand exhausted into their resource zone. The card placed into the resource zone does not have to be one of the two cards that were drawn, it can be any card from your hand.
Once both players have chosen to resource a card or not, players ready all their cards by turning them to their upright position. Once all cards and resources are ready, the Action phase begins again and the player with the Initiative Token takes the first action.
Unlimited Possibilities
With everything we have touched on in this article, you are now ready to explore the game of Star Wars: Unlimited and take your next steps in battling for the fate of the galaxy. Whether or not you want to pick up one of the two-player starter kits or want to build your own decks around your favorite characters, we look forward to hearing about your success in the game.
If you really want to share the love for Star Wars: Unlimited, you can look forward to the Regional Qualifiers Europe on the weekend of May the 4th to celebrate Star Wars in all its glory. We look forward to seeing you all there.
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