Basic training (InQuest)
Basic training: Simple strategies and deck designs for beginners is an article by Myles S. Hildebrand in InQuest #14 (June 1996, pages 57–60).[1]
BASIC training
SIMPLE STRATEGIES and DECK DESIGNS for BEGINNERS by Myles S. Hildebrand
Wanna blast your way through some Stormtroopers? How about showing that upstart Rebel Alliance who's really boss in this galaxy? Grab a few decks of Decipher's Star Wars: Customizable Card Game and read along!
The Basics
Regardless of whether you play the Light or Dark side, you're going to need a 60-card deck. A well-balanced deck will probably have:
- 12 to 15 space or planet locations
- 15 people, aliens and droids
- 10 starships
- Five devices or weapons
- Two to three vehicles
- 12 to 16 interrupts and effects
The basic tenet of Star Wars has always been the Force. In the card game, the Force circulates. Cards from the reserve deck (from which you draw) are activated and placed on the Force deck until needed to deploy characters, ships or interrupts.
Once used, the cards go to the used pile until the end of turn, when they're placed beneath the reserve deck to start the cycle again. If something is lost or destroyed, it's placed out of play in the lost pile. The goal of the game is to get all of your opponent's Force—his cards—into the lost pile.
Always beware of deploying too much because, even though you might have a great army in place, you may run out of cards to draw and then will be unable to hit enemies with your weapons or cause attrition damage.
You might think that if someone gets a good start in the game, his victory is inevitable. Not true. It's easy to come from behind. Many cards favor the underdog, especially the Rebels. The We're Doomed card halves the underdog's losses. Collision! and Friendly Fire take out attackers before they can do damage. The Dark side has many lone pilot or warrior cards that give a bonus to an outnumbered defender.
STAR WARS CUSTOMIZABLE CARD GAME
PUBLISHER: Decipher
DESIGNERS: Tom Braunlich and Rollie Tesh
GENRE: Space Opera
SET SIZE: 324 cards
RELEASE: December 1995
PACKAGING: 60-card starter decks; 15-card booster packs
SUGGESTED RETAIL: $9.50 per starter; $2 per boosterLocations
A lot can be gained from choosing the right starting location. Locations that give a bonus but won't let your opponent attack too soon are ideal. Since the Dark side always goes first, Death Star: War Room is an efficient place from which to intimidate. It has two Force icons for itself and none for the Light side. Counting the personal Force you generate, that means you start the game with three Force. The Light side won't be able to deploy troops to your site right away. If there's a leader in the war room it means that all the Rebel Trooper and Y-wing will be -1 in forfeit value later.
The Light side's Yavin 4: Massassi War Room has a similar forfeit bonus against TIEs and troopers, and only two light force icons. So unless you must choose the Yavin 4: Massassi Throne Room that allows the Rebels to start, the War Room is the Light card to use.
Some may argue that a location with both icons is better because you can quickly drain cards from an opponent. The problem with this is that you give your opponent an extra Force card each turn and they can deploy soldiers quickly. It's best to start on your own side of the galaxy.
Phases
Activate Phase: In this phase, you count up all the Force icons on your location cards. Move that many cards plus one extra representing your personal Force to your Force pile. Later on, you can spend from this pile to deploy other cards.
A card that adds to activations is the Rebels' Electrobinoculars, which allows you to spend two to draw a card off the top of your reserve deck, look at it, and decide whether to place it on the reserve, used or Force deck. The Imperial alien Labria does the same thing for free as long as you do not draw a vehicle or ship.
Control Phase: This is when you're allowed to drain one card from your opponent for every single Force icon he has at a location you control. Drained cards go to the lost pile and are effectively out of the game.
Some cards, such as vehicles, allow the opponent to move nearby characters to locations that you control, stopping the drain. Some characters, such as the Light side's Shistavanen Wolfman and the droid CZ-3 (Seezee-Three), allow movement to the site of a drain as a react. Be careful that you don't spend all your time chasing the drains! You might find yourself out of position or Force when he attacks.
Other cards have good, subtle effects during the control phase. The Light's alien Kabe steals weapons and Figrin D'an will usually allow you to retrieve a Force if your three cards beat the opponent's two in a card draw. The Imperial alien M'iiyoom Onith can make the Rebel show his hand and discard any males.
Deploy Phase: Here you decide what to put where. Star Destroyers require eight Force to deploy whereas a starfighter might only require one. You can only deploy where you have an icon or presence, unless you use a spy to go in first and lead the way for your troops.
The card Presence Of The Force adds both Dark and Light Force icons to a site, which is good for increasing a Force drain or allowing a deploy. After the first few turns, be leery of using all your Force to deploy everything or you won't be able to fire weapons, move as a react or save up to put out something big. Keeping a few extra Force can also make an opponent think you have a good interrupt in hand.
If you have a lot of locations out and put characters on them, you will drain a lot of cards away but be vulnerable to a strong counterattack. If you sit on a few sites too long, your cards might be drained away or you'll have huge battles between deeply entrenched forces.
Needless to say, if you don't want to fight, you can just sit back and drain your rival's life away, but hey, Luke didn't become a Jedi by sitting in a La-Z-Boy at the ol' moisture farm.
The next phase is battle, but since it's so important, we'll deal with it in a separate section.
Move Phase: Here you get to (can you guess? yes) move your characters at a cost of Force. Remember: battle first, then move. You're going to have to plan ahead in this game because after you've moved, your cards have to sit there until your next turn.
Draw Phase: The only way to bring more cards in hand is to draw unused Force cards. Maybe it's Vader down there, maybe just a droid, but you're going to have to draw sometime. Remember to keep some Force around for later, though.
STAR WARS Card Dissection
A. Name: Your favorites from the great trilogy are mentioned in this space.
B. Icon: This handy visual reference tells you if the card's rebel, Imperial, alien or whatever.
C. Destiny Number: The randomizing element of Star Wars—better than dice.
D. Lore: Interesting info about your card.
E. Power: What you're gonna use to blast the pants off your foe.
F. Ability: The supremo stat for using devices and draining Force. You can't leave home without it.
G. Force Sensitivity: "The Force is strong in this one." But stronger in some than others.
H. Text: The nuts and bolt of this guy.
I. Deploy Cost: It takes Force to get these characters out, and this white box says how much.
J. Forfeit Cost: This black box indicates how much you can save in Force by giving up this guy. (Quite a lot.)
K. Additional Icons: More nice graphics to tell you what else this guy can do.the DECK
If you were buying a bucket o' packs looking for those main characters you crave so badly, you'd probably have more commons than you'd know what to do with. Well, here's the deck for you, and it works for both Imperials and Rebels.
These common ships and troopers deploy for free if there's a leader of ability three or more present. Play the leader on the capital ship and shuttle the troopers to the planet as needed or deploy on a planet site and use Nabrun Leids/Elis Helrot interrupts to transport cheaply.
This is a great Force-draining deck, but light on weapons and destiny. Don't give up the ghost, though: Overwhelm quickly with cheap deployments and Force drains, especially if you add some vehicles. Extra strength comes from the unique leaders who are often skilled pilots and warriors.
The strength of the Dark side is in the Bantha/Tusken combo. Tuskens gain strength in numbers—up to 10 power for four at one site. But Banthas (creature vehicles) give +1 to every Tusken. So, four Tuskens and four Banthas at one site is 10 power for the Tuskens, 16 in Bantha bonuses for the Tuskens, and four power from the Banthas themselves—a total of 30! The Banthas are vehicles yet also have five ability. This means that two of them alone can give presence to a site. Quite a nice mobile attack force.
The Jawas are good because they require one Force from an opponent in order to play, which is annoying. You eat his Force and he gets nothing for it. If you have Tatooine: Jawa Camp on the table, you can deploy Jawas at a cost only to you, which might be necessary early in the game.
Ingredients
Light Side
12 Tatooine planet sites
3 Tatooine space sites
5 X-wing
3 Proton Torpedoes
1 Sandcrawler
2 Landspeeders
4 Jawa
1 Owen Lars
1 Beru Lars
1 Luke Skywalker
1 Obi-Wan Kenobi
1 Beru StewDark Side
12 Tatooine planet sites
3 Tatooine space sites
5 TIE Advanced x1
3 Boosted TIE Cannon
1 Sandcrawler
4 Bantha
2 Jawa
8 Tusken Raider
1 Dathcha
1 WuherBattle Phase
The battle phase can be quite tricky. About half of the interrupts in the game can seriously affect the outcome.
In general, attack in force or not at all. Two equally matched combatants will do less real harm to each other than you'd think, unless a lot of weapons are involved, in which case everything dies.
After the attacker pays one Force to start the rumble, the first of the three steps is to fire weapons. (Having the Dark alien Feltipern Trevagg present greatly increases the cost of an attack, so he's nice to defend with.) Both attacker and defender can take pot shots to see if anything gets hit and will die at the end of the turn. Say your Stormtrooper fires his blaster at a Rebel guard. You draw the top card off your reserve deck and look at it. In the top right corner is a number from one to six (locations are rated zero). You get a three. Since that's more than the guard's ability of one, the guard is hit and will die later.
These "destiny draws" are one of the most intriguing things in the game. Since most of the rare or powerful cards have low destiny numbers, there's little sense in stocking them. In fact, common interrupts, events and devices have the highest destiny numbers.
The second step is to total the power on both sides. If any side has total ability of four or more, the player can make a destiny draw and add that number to his power. Then you compare. Say it's the Empire's 11 vs. the Rebellion's six. By subtracting the numbers, we find that the Alliance has to take five battle damage.
This is why ganging up is so great. If eight Rebel troopers attack one Stormtrooper, the power (without a destiny draw) is eight vs. one, so the Imperials have to eat seven damage, which is solved by discarding from his piles, hand or the battle site. Add in a destiny draw of, say, four, and the loss of that lone Stormtrooper caused the Dark side to lose 11 cards!
The third step is attrition, or casualties of the battle. Remember that destiny draw of four in the example with the eight Rebel troopers? Well, the Empire must forfeit that amount of cards from the battle site. That's so he can't keep his battle force in place just by throwing away cards in hand.
Some characters are immune to destiny less than a certain amount. Vader is one of these. If he was in the above battle, he'd still be around—and really pissed!
One of the best combinations for the Dark side is Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba (the two guys Obi-Wan Kenobi sliced in the Cantina). The doctor boosts Ponda's power by three and can immediately "operate" on hit characters, which sends them out of the scene. That way, they aren't around for the power tally or to settle attrition. It definitely swings things in the Empire's favor. If you have these warriors or the regenerating Myo, you'd have to be high not to play them!
The Rebels have a few tricks of their own. The Mantellian Savrip effect allows you to use the forfeit values of cards from your hand. This means that instead of tossing away eight cards, you toss away one Corellian Corvette. As well, Talz deploys for one but forfeits for four and can be sacrificed instead of hit characters. So if a good warrior is hit, Talz takes the fall and you keep your warrior.
Parting Advice
Unlike the Boy Scouts, you don't need to prepare for all contingencies. "But what if my Obi has to fight his Vader and I need a Krayt Dragon Howl to...?" Blah, blah, blah. If you stock your deck with "what if" cards, you have very little flexibility. If you want a card that cancels specific interrupts or events, use Alters and Sense cards, which counter them all.
The most important thing is to have fun. That way the Force will always be with you.
Myles S. Hildebrand is an addictions counselor in rural Manitoba, Canada, who is hooked on the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" universes.
The Card to Get
Why is Darth Vader so powerful?
He might cost a lot, but he's a bitchin' pilot and warrior, he's got a power of six, and his ability of six guarantees successful Sense and Alters. He increases attrition damage and he's got so many boost and interrupt cards you'd have to be crazy not to play him in a Dark deck. Besides, how seductive could the Dark side of the Force be without the Dark Lord of the Sith?
The Playing Field
1. Character Cards: The boys or girls who will win or lose the game for ya.
2. Systems: Planets or space cards to which sites are linked.
3. Sites: The places within a system where your characters or vehicles can be played.
4. Starships: The way characters move between systems.
5. Used Pile: Where the cards from your force pile go after they're used.
6. Reserve Deck: The customized deck you bring into the game.
7. Force Pile: Where cards from your reserve deck go so you can use them as Force.
8. Lost Pile: Where destroyed cards go.
See also
External links
- Inquest 14 Jun 1996, Internet Archive
References
- ↑ Myles S. Hildebrand, "Basic training: Simple strategies and deck designs for beginners", InQuest #14 (June 1996), pp. 57–60. Scan: Inquest 14 Jun 1996, Internet Archive.