Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Star Wars CCG: Battle Phase Explained


I recently read the rules on the Battle Phase for the Star Wars CCG. Its a pretty complicated sequence of events that I thought could use some clarification. I managed to get confused multiple times with the concepts of weapon hits, attrition, and battle damage. I'm writing this for me but since you've dropped in maybe you'll find it helpful as well.
As is typical with the internet you can find this information in several places such as Boardgamegeek.com or the Star Wars CCG Community. Why would I bother to write it down if examples exist elsewhere? Well its for me really. The internet does a great job of providing information but not such a great job organizing information and since this is my gaming blog I'm putting it here.

How Battle Works
To even start a battle the attacker needs to spend 1 Force (moving from Force pile to Used pile) and both players need to have presence at the location, meaning an ability of 1 or greater.
Before we get into the details of weapon hits and attrition lets just focus on the basic mechanics. Battle is resolved by comparing Power to Power. Each of you adds up your power and adds any "battle destiny" to achieve their total. A player may draw one "battle destiny" if they have a total Ability of 4 or greater present at the site. To draw battle destiny flip over the top card from your Reserve pile (to your used pile) and note the number in the upper right corner, that value is your battle destiny number.
Total Power = Power + Battle Destiny
The loser of the battle loses Force equal to the difference of (Power + Battle Destiny) versus (Power + Battle Destiny).
Now instead of losing Force from your hand or one of your piles you may forfeit a card on the table to reduce the loss of Force by that card's forfeit value. The forfeit value is located in the lower left in the black rectangle. If the forfeit value is greater than the Force loss required then you still forfeit the entire card (goes to the Lost pile) and the difference in value is lost. If the forfeit value is less than the Force loss required then you must make up the difference by losing additional Force or forfeiting another card from the table.
Now lets talk attrition. Do you remember the Battle Destiny draw earlier? Each player's total Battle Destiny causes attrition for the other player. Each player must forfeit enough cards (including hit cards - we'll get to that in a bit) to satisfy attrition. Even the winner is affected by attrition. If you have no cards left to forfeit or your remaining cards are immune to attrition then any remaining attrition is ignored. Note that some cards say "immune to attrition < x". In this case "x" is the total attrition value.
Weapon hits are resolved at the beginning of the battle phase. You do not need a weapon to initiate a battle. If a character, starship, or vehicle is hit by a weapon then it is turned sideways and must be forfeited as part of battle resolution. Any cards forfeited as a result of weapon hits also count their forfeit value toward attrition.
I'll give some examples shortly but first I want to clear up some confusion I had about weapon hits. When I read the rules I was concerned about weapon hits being too powerful. I mean couldn't I lose Vader to a blaster shot? Well you could but not likely. Weapons are pretty well balanced because of the way they work. Most weapons require you to draw destiny (note this is not destiny that counts toward Battle Destiny). If the destiny drawn + some modifier is greater than the target's defense value then your target is hit and turned sideways. The defense value of a character is equal to its ability. Lets look at the Vader example. Let's say I use my blaster rifle to target your Vader. I need to draw a destiny value of 6 to remove Vader from the table. The average destiny value of a card from Premiere is 3. Odds are pretty good that your high Ability characters are going to be safe from unmodified blaster fire.


Before we move into examples i wanted to mention something about destiny modifiers. Some cards allow you to modify the destiny value by either drawing another card or modifying the number. "Add one destiny" means that an additional destiny card is drawn and added to the total destiny. "Add 1 to destiny" means that +1 is added to the total destiny.

Battle Example 1

I took this example from a post on Boardgamegeek because I thought it was pretty clear.


Let's say you attack me with Darth Vader (Power 6, Ability 6) and a Stormtrooper (Power 1, Ability 1). All I have at that location is Luke Skywalker (Power 3, Ability 4). We each check to see if we have Ability of 4 or greater; we both do (you have 7 total, and I have 4).
You draw your Destiny, and pull a Location card. Notice that Location cards have no Destiny number on them; this translates to "0". However Vader adds 1 to destiny so your Battle Destiny is 1. Luke gets lucky and pulls a card with "2" as its Destiny value. We each place our revealed Destiny in the Used Pile. Your total Power is 8 ( 7 + 0 + 1 ); mine is 5 (Luke's 3 power plus the "2" for Destiny I drew). Subtracting 5 from 8 is 3 which is the amount of Force I have to lose for the difference.
I do not have to lose force, I could choose to sacrifice Luke, who has 7 Forfeit. This doesn't allow me to win the battle; the extra Forfeit is lost...but all I lose is Luke, and no cards from Hand or one of my piles. I will probably chose to lose 3 Force just the same as I like Luke.
Next up is attrition. Your battle destiny was 1 and mine was 2. I have attrition to satisfy but Luke is immune to attrition < 3. You also have attrition to satisfy. You must forfeit a value equal to or greater than 2. Now Vader is immune to attrition < 5 so you are not required to forfeit him. The stormtrooper on the other hand is not immune to attrition and must be forfeited.

Battle Example 2



Now lets say you attack me with Darth Vader (Power 6, Ability 6), two Stormtroopers (Power 1, Ability 1) one equipped with a blaster. All I have at the location is Luke Skywalker (Power 3, Ability 4) and Kal'falnl C'ndros (Power 1, Ability 1). We resolve weapons first. You activate your blaster, target Kal'falnl C'ndros and draw destiny getting a value of 2. Kal'falnl is hit and turned sideways for later resolution.
Next we draw battle destiny. You draw your battle destiny and pull a 3 and then add Vader's 1. I draw battle destiny and also pull a 3. Your total power is 12 (6 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 1); mine is 7 (3 + 1 + 3). I lose and need to pay 5 force either by losing cards from my pile or forfeiting cards in play.
Since Kal'falnl is hit I must forfeit her even if there was no attrition for me to pay; i do not have a choice. When I forfeit Kal'falnl her value will count toward attrition and battle damage. She has a forfeit value of 5. Your battle destiny total of 4 means I must forfeit a card worth at least 4 to cover attrition. Forfeiting Kal'falnl will satisfy this since she's worth 5. Since I lost the battle by 5 forfeiting Kal'falnl will also satisfy my battle damage total.
You must also satisfy attrition by forfeiting cards worth at least 3 due to my battle destiny draw. Since Stormtroopers only have a forfeit value of 2 you must forfeit both to satisfy attrition.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you! I have never understood attrition in the game up until now!

    ReplyDelete