Preview of the new CCG in Insider 58

I'm looking at the Anakin Skywalker card from the Attack of the Clones set right now, and trust me, it is beautiful. It is "an unnumbered promo card" actually. It seems that there will be multiple versions of some characters that are capable of different specifi things.

The game uses counters and dice and seems to be mostly combat oriented.

I've got to read the article.

 

aye, but this seems to be less tiered characters than it does different powered of the same character, though that might be coming later. This is version "C" of Anakin in the picture.
The article hints at some mechanics.

 

Josh, did you see the image sent to the group?

 

No. I didn't think you were going to send it. Lemme go take another looksee..

 

Josh has the scan, but I asked him not to post it. email me and I'll explain what the fields are.

 

Actually I deleted it (and we have no message archive....grrrrrrrr).

 

Hmm, I don't really like the layout of the card. Wizards' previous games have had nicer looking layouts. But I like the idea of turn-based combat based on characters' speed values, and for some reason I like a roll of a d6 as opposed to a destiny draw on a card (I assume they're using a d6). And judging from Anakin's health level, the pace of combat and the game in general should be pretty good.

The thing is though, if this game is entirely based on character combat like Young Jedi, I'm not really going to get into it. And I really liked Decipher's use of locations.

 

there will be location cards. combat can occur in space as well as on the ground. There will be three theaters of combat. Ground and space are two of them. I haven't guessed the third, but you win the game by gaining control of two out of the three theaters.

according to the article, Wizards wants to maximize the artwork per car, so some will be wide screen looking, some portrait.

 

I really don't like the way this game looks. Maybe it's got something I'm not seeing here, but I don't like the dice-rolling instead of destiny-drawing. I liked being able to track your destinies and stock your deck with high draws. Rolling dice is just too random in my opinion. No level of skill involved. The card layout is also unattractive. And making all characters purple? Ugh. Maybe Magic players have been clamoring for purple cards, I don't know. But purple is my least favorite color, and that particular shade is pretty nasty. identifying characters by letter is pretty lame too. I wasn't a big fan of Decipher's recent trend of subtitling characters, but even Darth Maul, Young Apprentice sounds cooler than Darth Maul B. I still prefer coming up with an original name for each version. Sure you can run out pretty fast, but thems the breaks. It's still easier to remember card titles, and a lot of the time you end up with some pretty cool names (Son Of Skywalker was always one of my favorites). And speaking of subtitling, it was that trend that gypped us all out of a card we deserved in SWCCG: Master Yoda. Come on, "Yoda, Senior Council Member"? Bleh. But still better than Yoda H.

Maybe there's more to the game than meets the eye through this one card, but my favorite part of SWCCG was always the "go anywhere, do anything" feel it had, and how you didn't have to battle if you could avoid it. Most other games, where there's only one "location" that cards get played to, force combat. While that may be interactive, I like being able to choose my battles, something no game I know of other than SWCCG lets me do.

 

Well, as a longtime Star Wars and CCG player in general, here are some of my thoughts.

Build Cost: Depends on how build is used. I do think it will be though to top Decipher's system of force generation, where it is a dual edged sword.

Keywords/Card Name: Similar to almost all games, though the lettering is quite a change from Decipher's personas.

Card Text: It looks to be an improvement on Decipher. One problem I always had with SW:CCG is how the cards kept referencing other cards, be it a counter, or search, or some other mechanism. Though this is one card, it seems like it stands on its own more.

Affiliation: I am curious on how Wizards will set up decks, if they will be adversarial like the Decipher systems or more generic. I would guess adversarial, due to the nature of Star Wars. I like neutral cards. It can save space in a set and allow more cards where Decipher had to make versions for both sides.

Color: Though it is good to be able to quickly identify cards, I just am not too fond of the shades they chose.

Speed: This concept I really like. It allows for Jedi to whip battle droids because they are so much faster. I think it adds a great dynamic to a combat sequence.

Health: Here is the problem I have with this one. Let's say you have four Jedi like Anakin at a site. Each has a health of four. If all of them are damages three times, not killing them, that is 12 counters you need to haul around to play the game. Above all, a CCG to me needs to be portable. This does not help matters.

Power: Dice in a CCG to me are a fundamentally bad idea. Imagine playing a major tournament and you lose because of how you roll, not deck construction, not playing skill. Yes, part of the nature of CCGs are that they are random. But the trick is to minimize the effect of randomness through card combinations, deck design, and intelligent play. Dice rolls take all that away. Also, it goes again to portability. Hauling around at least five or more D6s is going to be a pain. *grins...reminds me a bit of my beloved West End SW:RPG.

Unique Indicator: While it will be nice not to have to deal with cards that only play on one persona, or questions of whether a card saying Chewie can play on Chewbacca, it seems awful bland and generic.

Overall Design: There is something about the card design that strikes me as trendy. I don't think it will hold up well in five years. Decipher's cards, to me, have always had a certain elegance in their design. After I quit playing (I kicked the cardboard crack habit) I would still visit the Decipher page and buy packs from time to time just to see what they were doing. That and I cannot believe they are using the generic toy logo for the backs. It looks like a first year graphic design student made it.

Overall: It looks like a faster game than SW:CCG, but with less complexity. I think gamers will miss it. My gut feeling is that Lucas made a bad move in shifting to Wizards, both in alienating the players and cutting off a game system Decipher had built. Eventually the proof is in the playing, though so far I am not too inclined to play.

 

I was just going to post a subject on this. The card looks too YJish to me. If one can judge by appearance, I'd say that this card game is going to bomb. I haven't seen anything about the game mechanics though.

 

Young Jedi? Not at all. If anything, it looks like Jedi Knights.

And even if it did look like Young Jedi or Jedi Knights, is that so bad? Those are two great (and great looking) games! I wouldn't mind that at all.

Actually, if you look at it objectively, the card is relatively unique, and doesn't resemble any of Decipher's Star Wars CCGs.

Someone earlier compared this to SW:CCG's card layout, and felt that SW:CCG's was better. I disagree. I LOVE SW:CCG, but the card layout and design is not that great. From a collector's standpoint, the artwork is too small; the picture only takes up about 1/3 of the card. Decipher has been producing much better looking cards with Young Jedi and Jedi Knights (and Admiral's Orders cards for SW:CCG), and this card from WOTC looks better too.

My thoughts on specific card elements and implied game mechanics:

Build Cost: Force Generation in SW:CCG is a classic game mechanic. Jedi Knights' Force Cards and LOTR's Twilight Pool are good mechanics, too. Hopefully Build Cost will be similar to these, and not like the way Magic:TG does it.

Affiliation: Glad to see Light, Dark and Neutral cards. I wouldn't read too much into deck building from this. It could be that the intent is for each player to build one light and one dark deck, like SW:CCG/YJ/JK. But it could also be a single deck with both affiliations, like LOTR. We'll see.

Card Text: I like having as little as possible game text on a card. SW:CCG is overkill.

Color: Well, every Decipher Star Wars card game used color schemes, why not WOTC?

Speed: Hmmm, this could be an interesting game mechanic. I'm interested in this one. But "Speed" doesn't seem like a good term for it. And unfortunately, "Speed" is abbreviated "S" and that can be confused with "Strength"!

Power (and <ugh!> Dice): I play X-Men TCG. It's fun enough, but the dice are cumbersome. Not only do you end up rolling nine dice at a time, you have a dice chart to tell you what each roll does! This doesn't sound as bad as X-Men, but it doesn't sound that good, either. 5 dice? I assume Obi-Wan would be a 6 or 7. A roll of 4, 5 or 6 to hit? Why not just flip 5 coins? Oh, then it would be too much like Pokemon, wouldn't it. Thumbs down on the whole dice thing.

Health: I like LOTR's "vitality" and this looks just like it. It took me the longest time to figure out in SW:CCG a "lost" character is not necessarily a "dead" character -- "death" was reserved for "out of play" characters. I like the idea of a character having a health number, and once their health is depleted, you can't use them any more for the rest of the game. It makes you more careful about your resources. I don't mind tokens -- a pocket full of spare change will do the trick. But I prefer beads like LOTR over cardboard tokens ... like Pokemon and X-Men for example.

Unique Indicator: Doesn't really stand out. I don't think it's going to be that useful. But hopefully it won't need to be.

Well, that's about it. Overall, I think the card looks good. Most of the gameplay implied sounds good. I'm really disappointed in the dice, but I'm still going to give this new game a try.

 

as far as card design goes, I love how the image practically bleeds to the edges. In D's the image wasalways constrained to this tiny window in the card. Here the art is about 50/50 with game material..

And the card backs... I love it... it's classic. I don't think a first year art student could come up with it because first year art students would try to be bold and flashy. This is simple, refined, and classic, dare I say nostalgic.Also ambiguous. Tell me, is that Anakin or Luke?

 

Agreed, coins would be more suitable in this case...

As for "speed", WOTC should have went ahead and called it "initiative", because this is almost exactly the same ordering mechanic that one would see in D&D.

Actually, if they ported over the most important D&D combat mechanics I would have been happier

Anakin deals 2d6+5 damage! Or something like that.

 

close to what I was expecting 1stAD.

I think initiative is too hard a word for your average ccg player to understand.

 

*grins...nah...all the CCG players I know would know initiative. It is the Pokemon players they are aiming for that wouldn't know it...

 

In response to what a few other posters have said:

I liked having Decipher's cards which referenced other cards. Cards that stand alone often don't play as cohesively as those which specifically reference each other. And to whoever said they like having as little text as possible, did you mean as little text or as few words to express that text? I'm all for fewer words to express the same card function, but only because it leaves more room in the text box for more card functions! Text is the real meat of any card, it's what makes games exciting!

 

remember that this is a promo card, hence the less than stellar textual power.

 

One big thing that bothers me. The description text. As a collector I really loved the fact that you could get info on the character or the ship, etc (even the most obscure one could get a story and a name). Now all what you are going say is: "Well...cool...another imperial Helmsman Z... (putting in the "to burn" pile)". And citations? What's cool in citations? Learning citations-related-jokes to tell in conventions? It's becoming just like Magic. You have a character you never heard of in your entire life and all you get is a stupid 3rd grade poem! Wow! Now I don't find any reason to continue in collecting this...

Emperor (or a guy who shouldn't be posting here anymore)

 

I have no interest in seeing useless EU information on cards like, "This trooper has trouble with the ladies..." or "This particular starfighter was built at the shipyards at..."

That's why all the characters with built-in weapons appealed to me, all they had were simple one-liners in the lore box.

 

I always liked how in SWCCG, lore and game text were in two different boxes, so the size of one didn't encroach on the other. I suppose the upside is that if you really need a lot of room for the game text, you can not have any lore. Of course, if you wanted lore (the names, the connections, and of course the jokes), that could be another downside.

 

Is the theatre information in the Insider 58 article? Can you scan or post that or at least email it to me? Jedibaca@hotmail.com