Star Wars: Destiny @ EGX 2016

At the close of my first day of EGX, I decided to take a break from blockbuster triple-A video games and head to my happy place: a board game section run by Esdevium Games. There I had a chance to play the much anticipated Star Wars: Destiny. This is a 2 player collectible dice and card game, designed by Corey Konieczka and Lukas Lingering, and published by Fantasy Flight Games, which will bring together characters from the entire Star Wars saga – yes, including The Force Awakens.

While anything with Star Wars in the title makes me giddy with excitement, and adding Fantasy Flight Games credentials to the list makes me even happier, I had my reservations about the game. Mainly because my first introduction to it were the die, with (what it initially looked like) stickers with artwork glued to plastic dice. Spoilt by the beautiful dice from the games like Dice Masters, it was safe to say that this first introduction to Star Wars: Destiny was not a pleasant one. However, once I sat down to play and had the components in my hands, it was quite a different picture. The die are still not my favourite physical component of the game, but their quality is much better than I originally perceived. The artwork is actually printed on the dice and then it has a layer of plastic over it, making it looker slicker.

First impressions and die aside, I loved absolutely everything else about Star Wars: Destiny.

In my demo, we started with two characters each, representing the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force. I had Finn and Rey, while Kylo and a Stormtrooper (unsurprisingly, the Stormtrooper dice fell on the miss side quite often) faced me on the other side of the table. Each character has their own die and special powers, and they can have additional equipment and shields added to them as the game goes on.

The rules of play are very simple. Every player performs one action at the time, until no other actions can be performed. The person who runs out of actions first has the first turn of the next round.  The character cards are on the table, while additional cards can be played throughout the turn from your hand of five cards. The hand gets renewed from a set deck at the end of the turn. The cards add actions, equipment or additional companions that are played on the table and stay in play until the end of the game. The objective is to eliminate the opponent’s characters. This is mainly done through die actions, where each side contains; either a type of an attack – melee or ranged – or signifies; acquiring a resource, re-rolling the dice, focusing an ability or other similar actions. There is also spare damage, resource and shield tokens that help keep track of the state of the character’s throughout the game.

It is surprising how fast paced and dynamic the game is due to its one player – one action mechanic. The rules are really easy to learn and grasp, even within the first several turns of the game. However, the simplicity of action allows the space for a lot of strategy and careful curation of not only the cards played down on the table, but also in each player’s hand. The five card limit, makes the decision on which cards to play, keep or discard (discarding a card allows to re-roll one of the die in play) quite hard. As the base game’s card supply is quite limited in the diversity of its actions and abilities, a card played at the wrong time or discarded too quickly, has a significant impact and could turn the tide of the game. This helped to keep the stakes in the game high throughout.

Finally, the card artwork is absolutely gorgeous. It depicts a variety of characters and scenes from the Star Wars saga. The style, which is not completely realistic, strikes the right balance between sketchy and real and has a very Star Wars universe ‘feel’.

To be released later this year, Star Wars: Destiny starter packs consists of Kylo and Rey sets, with nine dice and twenty-four cards. Awakening booster packs can be purchased separately and they contain an additional one die and five new cards.

Tags: board games, Collective games, Corey Konieczka, Fantasy Flight Games, Lukas Litzsinger, Star Wars