WARS TCG

WARS TCG
Full name	WARS Trading Card Game
Publisher	Decipher
First set	Incursion (6 October 2004)
Last set	Nowhere to Hide (7 January 2005)
Status	Hiatus, May 2005
Inspired by	Star Wars CCG

WARS TCG (WARS Trading Card Game) is Decipher's 2004 science-fiction card game. After Lucasfilm did not renew the Star Wars CCG license, Decipher built a new setting and reused the SWCCG turn, Force-pile economy, location control, and battle structure so existing Star Wars players could sit down without learning a different game.

It is not a Star Wars product. It is on this wiki because it is the game Decipher offered Star Wars CCG players as a replacement, using that system's bones.

Incursion-era introduction booklet cover. Earther, Gongen, Maverick, Shi, and Quay share the frame.

History

Decipher stopped publishing Star Wars CCG, Young Jedi, and Jedi Knights effective 31 December 2001. The company kept other CCGs and in 2004 announced an original-property card game that used modified SWCCG mechanics. Working titles moved from WARS: The Mumon Rip to WARS: The Mumon Rift to WARS Trading Card Game before Gen Con 2004.

Game Players Network carried an early public leak: on 16 March 2004 Tim McKnight wrote from the GAMA retailer summit that Decipher was "bringing back the Star Wars CCG mechanic" in a game that fall, without naming a license.

Incursion released 6 October 2004 (330 cards: 110 rare, 110 uncommon, 100 common, plus starter-only cards and premium foils). Four 60-card starters and 15-card boosters (36 packs per box) were the SKUs. Nowhere to Hide followed 7 January 2005 (167 cards).

A third set, Edge of a Sword, was written, art-cropped, and playtested; Decipher did not ship it. Playtest files later circulated. Further names on a late-2004 plan were Motion of Mind and Eye of Insight. In May 2005 the game was placed on hiatus after sales and pre-orders for set 3 did not justify continuing.

Chuck Kallenbach (a Star Wars CCG designer) wrote WARS fiction and rules-adjacent copy. Michael A. Stackpole wrote early short stories. John Howe designed the Quay. The printed introduction booklet is dated 10 November 2004, version 1.1.

Setting

The booklet's premise: it is the 24th century. Three human factions already fight in Earth's Solar System when a rift — the Mumon Rift — admits a new planet and two alien races.

• Earthers — Earth under the Central Governance Corporation
• Gongen — East Asian colonists on Mars, renamed Gongen after a 2071 disaster on Earth
• Mavericks — Outer Rim independents, often cybernetic
• Shi — advanced psychic aliens
• Quay — chitinous tribal slave race

Kizen are individuals with special abilities; on cards they are a character keyword. Independent cards work for any faction. Color, texture, and support icons along the left edge mark affiliation.

Mechanics (for a Star Wars player)

Incursion rulebook turn strip. The six phases match SWCCG; "energy" is the Force pile.

The Incursion rulebook's turn is the Star Wars turn with the nouns changed:

Phase	WARS	Star Wars CCG analogue
1	Activate — move energy from reserve to active pile	Activate Force
2	Control — drain energy at each location you control	Control / Force drain
3	Deploy — play cards from hand	Deploy
4	Battle — battle destiny, attrition, power, loss	Battle
5	Move — ships and units	Move
6	Draw — from the top of the active pile	Draw

Battle still has destiny, attrition, power, and loss steps. Interrupts still respond; WARS names the response window a stack.

Differences a Star Wars player hits immediately:

• There are five factions (plus Independent), not Light and Dark. Support icons on the left edge replace Light/Dark icons. Icons are a requirement, not a spend.
• Energy is Force. Reserve / active / used piles remain.
• Assets play like Effects (some sit under an opponent's location).
• Orders are a new type (compare Admiral's Order / Epic Event more than Interrupts).
• NōBots are a unit type next to characters, vehicles, and ships.
• Encampments are sites that can also sit under another location and grant icons only to your side.
• Battle vocabulary: casualty is Force lost from a lost battle; damage is "hit"; defense is forfeit.
• Locations still matter: sectors, stations, sites, related-location drains.

Starters were 60 cards, same as constructed Star Wars. Boosters were 15 cards (1 rare or foil plus 14 common/uncommon).

Sets

Set	Date	Cards	Notes
Incursion	6 October 2004	330	Base set; four named starters; 15-card boosters
Nowhere to Hide	7 January 2005	167	Adds Captain (ship + matching character: immune to attrition)
Edge of a Sword	unreleased (planned May 2005)	~167	Playtest files and scans later public
Motion of Mind	unreleased (planned Sep 2005)	—	Named on a 2004 schedule
Eye of Insight	unreleased (planned Jan 2006)	—	Named on a 2004 schedule

Pictures

Incursion card faces keep the SWCCG information density: destiny in the corners, lore under the title, type line, stats, game text, collector number. The back drops the Star Wars logo for aurora-over-space and the five faction names.

Sample Incursion faces (interrupt, asset, character, location, ship, order). Scans from the community encyclopedia of the printed set.

Card back.

Later fiction

Decipher published free short stories to sell the setting. Mongoose released a WARS Roleplaying Game in 2005. After the TCG stopped, Grail Quest Books and later Arcbeatle Press licensed fiction (The Battle of Phobos, WARSONG). That material is outside this wiki's SWCCG job; the card game itself ended in 2005.

See also

• Decipher and the Star Wars CCG Lucasfilm license
• Game Players Network — GAMA leak of the SWCCG mechanic returning
• Creators of SWCCG — overlapping Decipher staff
• History of the Players Committee — what Star Wars players actually did after 2001

Sources

• Incursion Rulebook (Decipher PDF)
• Nowhere to Hide Rulebook (Decipher PDF)
• WARS TCG — An Introduction to the Story (10 November 2004)
• WARS TCG card scans and documentation (Internet Archive)
• Comprehensive Rules 1.5
• The War Store WARS TCG page (Wayback, 15 December 2007)
• GPN news (GAMA mechanic leak, 16 March 2004)
• WARS Trading Card Game (Wikipedia, tertiary)