Actually, if we're going with the implied prior assumption that all canon material is relevant, despite the LCG's fixture in the Classic Era, then Palpatine is absolutely this game's Shagga as we learn in TFU, going out of his way to bring his adversaries together in order to crush them in one fell swoop, only to inadvertently trigger the formation of the Rebellion that ultimately destroys him and his Empire. That's what we call a plan backfiring.

Hehe. Why dont we try to get back on topic? :) I'd like to hear ideas about different ways to use the vehicle/character/space mechanic in a -good- way in this LCG. How would you make a division work? 

 Here's a question: how much do we know about the available Vehicles in the game? This post on cardgamedb has a bunch of images from the GenCon demo, and among the cards I see only four vehicles: Coruscant Defense Fleet, Redemption, Advanced TIE, and Darth Vader's Advanced Tie.

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/index.html/_/star-wars/star-wars-the-card-game-images-galore-r273

The demo decks were all the same Jedi and Sith decks, correct? The two factions that are likely to be heavy on vehicles are the Rebel Alliance and the Imperial Navy, and without more information on what kind of cards those factions have, it's hard to say how the interaction between vehicles and everything else will really work. Even if there's nothing in the basics of the rules that segregate vehicle and character combat, we might see cards with passive effects that still enforce such a segregation.

If there're more spoilers floating around which provide more information on vehicles, then all this speculation might be for nothing.

I agree, it may all be for nothing when we see more cards. X-Wings and TIE fighters may have a special keyword, such as Pilot, that means "can only target/be targeted by other Pilot units" that precludes any silliness. But as regards this "silliness", I really don't mind it. I think your hand/deck represents the might of your chosen faction, and having that might represented by character units or ship units isn't really a concern for me. 

Which I suppose is just a roundabout way of saying "yay for abstraction!" 

Having recently started with X-Wing though, for those who don't know there are almost two sets of rules included in that game - the Quick Start rules, and the Proper rules. Quick Start seems to ignore a hell of a lot of the tactical side of the game, and emphasizes how the basic mechanics of the game work. So maybe we'll see something similar with this game - a set of instructions for how the game works in terms of getting damage on your opponent's objectives, and then the Real stuff that involves the finer points of the game. And maybe it was these hypothetical Quick Start rules they were using to demo the game at GenCon to make it appeal to the largest number of folks possible.

The other thing I keep thinking of is a comparison to the Lord of the Rings LCG. I would probably not get into this game if it was demo'd to me using, for example, Foundations of Stone. Not that it isn't fun, but there's just too much going on. It makes sense for the game to be simple at first, and then add mechanics as it goes along. That's what I think will be happening here.     

For me this is an issue, and a great one.

But… since FFG gave me a new fantastic and awesome game called Android: Netrunner, I guess this 'more-of-the-same-lame-game' of Star Wars LCG will drive by my side and I'll not even notice it!

I believe that AEG's L5R card game deals with this by saying the "fight" or "combat" value of a character represents an army or a force that character personally controls/commands.  You could imagine that Luke's or whoever's combat value also represents a detachment or a few fighters at his personal disposal.

While it doesn't make sense in all cases, I believe it could pass for most issues.

ChaosChild said:

Yes. He was so ruthlessly efficient that he was done in by a blind man and a walking carpet. ;) This was after he basically did no legwork in capturing said blind man. Don't mean to yank your chain. I just never got why Boba Fett was so cool outside his mask and jet pack.

Vader is super efficient, R2 or Han feel like the combo style players, and Yoda feels like the story archetype to me. Watch FFG throw us all for a loop by  labeling the archetypes as jawas, sandpeople, and ewoks,.

On topic. What what what?!  As a formerly avid player of good ol' SW:CCG, this info is…a bit unsettling. But, I haven't seen the game in action, so I'll just laugh to myself about Luke fighting a Star Destroyer in the detention block of the Death Star. I feel the way characters, vehicles, and starships interacted in SW:CCG was pretty great and it made sense, too.

qwertyuiop said:

My three favorite Star Wars races! I would be so happy if they named the archetypes that way. Don't even care which kind of playstyle "Ewoks" are, I would play nothing but "Ewok" decks.

I'm serious too, I love the Ewoks, unabashedly and whole-heartedly. I know they're pretty unpopular with a lot of fans, but I'm really hoping that FFG has some Ewok cards incoming.

The person vs. ship combats are a bit goofy, but no more so than what you run into in a lot of other games.  In the Call of Cthulhu LCG the police can arrest a tentacled monster from another dimension and put it in jail, how does that make sense?  No, this isn't a killer issue for me.

What I'm more concerned with is that from what I've seen so far the gameplay doesn't impress me that much and the deck building I think I have to say *IS* an absolute killer for me.  It looks to me as if FFG wants to position this game as being a casual LCG, for the wider public of gamers who may find building decks from scratch to be kind of intimidating.  Hey guys!  Come buy our game where the deck builds itself for you, all you need to do is choose a few buildings and the deck magically appears.

I can see that, and it's completely worth doing too.  For one thing, the casual audience is pretty big.  For another, this game won't cannibalize sales of other LCGs as much because of less overlap in the target groups.  I've heard the argument that at some point FFG can't do too many LCG's simply because most people can only afford the cost and time to collect X number of them, and eventually you're just moving players from one game to another.  Aiming this at people outside the normal demographic solves this problem.

But, as a member of the hardcore LCGer's crowd, it's not for me.  No problem, I've got Call of Cthulhu and Netrunner to keep me busy until the next next LCG game comes out.

alpha5099 said:

yub yub

dboeren said:

I really don't get this argument about deckbuilding. If anything, I think that this approach is even more challenging than the standard method where you get to pick every card. You have to balance so much more when picking cards by pod like this, you can't just pack your deck with the perfect mix you have to take the rough with the smooth and play around it. Deckbuilding may be quicker, but I think it will actually take more thought and skill (both when deckbuilding and playing).

Now if that's too difficult for you and you'd rather stick with the traditional deckbuilding approach then that's fine too. 

alpha5099 said:

Definitely want the option to build an Ewok deck. 

ChaosChild said:

(Continuing to derail this thread so that it'll just be about Ewoks.)

Assuming Ewoks do appear in the game (and I'd be surprised if there weren't at least one or two, they're an iconic race from the Original Trilogy and fit easily on the Light Side), I'd be interested which faction they could end up in. Jedi is obviously right out.* Smugglers and Spies might fit, as that seems like sort of the hodge podge faction of people and races that don't fit elsewhere, but they certainly aren't either smugglers or spies. I could see them perhaps showing up as members of the Rebel Alliance; they certainly played a large role in the Battle of Endor.

Any Ewok card should absolutely have some absurd ability that makes them completely outclass scout troopers and AT-STs.

* Unless they give us this guy: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unidentified_Ewok_Jedi

El Chino said:

Still doesn't work for the Rancor vs. Redemption scenario, which remains the iconic example. Unless it happens to be a particularly tactical Rancor, with a bit of political pull. But I find that a murky prospect at best.

dboeren said:

I don't know, certanly the pod building gives you less distinct choices but I don't think that means the choices are going to necessarily be any less important or difficult. Sure a casual player will be able to put together a deck quickly but the hardcore player will have extremely difficult choices of evaluating cards as a group instead of individually. Personally I think the deck building for Star Wars will be even more challenging than a normal card game because you are going to be forced to make tradeoffs in every deck you construct.