by BananaCrapshoot

Hello Troopers, I hope you all are doing well. Welcome back to Space Arena Ground Arena (SAGA) where we cover Star Wars Unlimited from the Ground up into Space. It’s been a good bit of time since our last article and I have been wanting to cover this one. I want to take a look at how the Leader works in Star Wars Unlimited and compare and contrast it with how that same type of card or mechanic works in some other card games I have played. The general idea of the Leader card is that’s who you play the game as, you embody that character throughout the game and build your deck around that character.

To start off I just want to go over quickly how the leader works in Star Wars Unlimited in case someone reading doesn’t know. Your leader starts in side with the horizontal side face up. This side of the card has abilities or actions you can take but doesn’t attack like a normal unit. These units have Epic Actions which can be used once per game to deploy as a ready unit onto the field. These Epic Actions come online when you have a certain number of resources in play. You don’t have to spend resources to deploy them. When deployed the card can then attack the opponents base or other units. When the leader unit is defeated you flip it back over to the horizontal side and exhaust it. One thing to note is you can use your front side action (if applicable) and exhaust the leader before deploying it, since it enters play ready as a unit you can sort of double dip of the game text on your leader allows. Your leader also provides 2 aspect icons used for deckbuilding. I

The first game we will look at for comparison is VS System 2PCG. While the goal of SWU is to defeat your opponents base, in VS2PCG the goal is to KO your opponents Main Character (MC) their version of the leader. There are some strong similarities between the two. When deployed SWU leaders and the MC both have attack power and health values. Both have abilities on their cards they can use. The biggest difference is the MC is in play as a unit from the start of the game so you can attack with them from round 1. The MC also has a third Defense value stat. Almost all of them also have a level up condition, it’s different for each MC but when a certain condition is met you gain 1 XP counter and when you hit the threshold listed on the card you level up into a stronger version of that character. This while being different you can compare the the deploying of your leader and think of it as the leader “leveling up” to become a unit. The MC doesn’t really affect deckbuilding because VS system 2PCG does notn have an aspect or color system most games have. What they do have is team affiliations which function differently from aspects in SWU.

The next game we will run some comparisons to is the Dragon Ball Super Card game. These leaders don’t open up colors for deckbuilding but synergies most times with cards found in that same color. Dbs leaders can attack from the jump and awaken after their awaken condition is met, the most common is once you take so much damage you can flip to your awakened side and either ready resources, draw cards, or a combo of both and the leader gains higher attack values and different or upgrades abilities. Again this is different from SWU leaders since they start kind of passive and have to be deployed to attack. Dbs gives themselves room to play with their awaken trigger conditions. That’s something I would like to see in SWU is different things triggering the ability to use your Epic Action. There is a lot of design space there to play with.

Now we will attempt to tackle Flesh and Blood. Flesh and blood the hero card itself does not enter the attack chain but you have equipment and weapons that do. The FaB hero has health and abilities but you use the equipment / weapons and cards from hand for attacking. The FaB hero also is what determines your available card pool for deckbuilding. The gameplay of FaB is so unique and different from almost every other card game that this one is hard to hit many similarities. Other than the deckbuilding opening up and embodying that character it is a vastly different, but still fun experience.

Next we will look at a digital card game, DC Duel Force, while still in beta their Leader system is really interesting and worth comparing to SWU. So in DCDF you play with 2 leader characters, they give you your aspects or colors for deckbuilding. Your leaders do not attack as normal units. They gain 1 charge per turn and once they hit a charge threshold they can activate their leaders and use their ability. The abilities vary per leader obviously but some like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman gain attack power when they are activated and Can attack like a unit that turn. Now once the turn is over they lose that attack power but they can attack again later in a few turns when you have enough chargers again. Some other leaders summon other units to the field.

Personally I can’t think of and haven’t played another game with the Leader/Hero mechanic that designed it the way SWU did where you start more passively affecting the game then BAM you deploy as a unit and actively affect the game. There’s a lot of elegant simplistic depth to the leader mechanisms we have available to us. I think one of the things that will create skill gaps is knowing when the correct time to deploy is.

Thanks for stopping by, I think that does it for this one. Let me know what you think about how Leaders work in SWU and what leader you are most looking forward to playing. We will see you in the arenas.