Fantasy Flight just revealed a bunch of exciting new information at GenCon’s In-Flight Report — come check out our first real look at the new mechanics and some of the first Twilight of the Republic previews we’ve seen! There will undoubtedly be many more Twilight of the Republic previews as we enter “preview season proper”, but for now FFG has given us some great early info on the set and its rules and themes!
(For The Fifth Trooper’s past coverage of Fantasy Flight Games’s big TCG hit, Star Wars Unlimited — spanning all the way from before the game even launched — check out our archive here!)
Get Ready for the Clone Wars!
Twilight of the Republic previews have been sparse (until now) — all we’ve really known is that the set will be themed on the Clone Wars/”prequel era” of Star Wars. (This could somewhat be deduced from the title alone but was confirmed in an interview with Jeremy Zwirn around the game’s launch.) This era is very popular with many Star Wars fans and seems like a logical way to go.
Right now, it isn’t clear how much of the set will be focused on the Clone Wars era and shows in particular versus how much content we might see from The Phantom Menace — the currently convention-exclusive Darth Maul, Revenge at Last card seems to indicate that at least some cards in the new set may speak to that period, even though it’s technically before the Clone Wars proper.
That said, I think the Clone Wars will be the main focus of this set, so grab your DC-15 and get ready to blast some clankers — it’s time for large-scale battles between droids and clones, and this set’s new mechanics all seem to cater towards that theme of larger battles!
New Gameplay Mechanics from Twilight of the Republic Previews
We’ve now seen three new mechanics previewed for Twilight of the Republic — here I’ll try and summarize the new mechanics and discuss what implications they have for the rest of the game. In general, all three of these new mechanics seem to be oriented towards games with larger army sizes than we’ve seen thus far!
Token Units
I had speculated some time ago that the set would feature token units as a mechanic, as it would be thematically accurate to the set and similar mechanics exist in other popular card games, including FFG’s own 40k Conquest LCG (sadly no longer in print).
In particular, I’d surmised that we would see B1 Battle Droids as 1/1 token units and Clone Troopers as 2/2 token units, thus allowing both Heroism and Villainy builds to play with the new token mechanic while also being thematically on point for the era. Further, this would give us another two tokens to put on the backs of bases!
Well, I’m happy to say that my predictions were quite vindicated! Today’s previews show that this is happening pretty much exactly as I’d guessed (though the droid token is just called “Battle Droid”, not “B1 Battle Droid”) — there will be Battle Droid and Clone Trooper tokens, with the Battle Droid being a 1/1 with the Droid, Separatist, and Trooper traits, while the Clone Trooper is a 2/2 with the Clone, Republic, and Trooper traits.
In other games, token units offer an opportunity to create cards that generate other units, allowing one card to potentially create multiple units — for instance, take a look at the Battle Droid Escort, which gives you both it and a Battle Droid token when played, then another one when defeated!
These sorts of cards can be very efficient against “one-for-one” removal — if the opponent plays Open Fire to kill your Battle Droid Escort, you still have two 1/1 tokens on the field! Tokens also do great against “indirect” damage/removal effects like the Grey Squadron Y-Wing or Power of the Dark Side — no need to take damage on a powerful unit or defeat something big when you can sacrifice a puny token instead!
On the other hand, “mass removal” cards can be very strong against them — a single Bombing Run could wipe every Battle Droid you have off the field, though at least the Battle Droid Escort would create another one when defeated!
Further, token decks tend to benefit disproportionately from cards that buff all your units or have an effect that is relevant whenever a unit attacks, leaves play, or similar. Rallying Cry might not be that popular now, but if it buffs a big army of droids or clones that might be a different story!
Lastly, it remains to be seen whether adding these tokens means that the existing Experience and Shield tokens will not feature in the set. While it would be logical from a design perspective to omit Experience and Shields given that they might not have room for these tokens if Battle Droids and Clone Troopers are on the backs of the bases instead, there are some Clone Wars-era units that would definitely be thematic fits for these older tokens (I’m thinking of you, droidekas!) so I’m not sure what we’ll see there.
Coordinate
The next new mechanic we saw with these Twilight of the Republic previews is Coordinate, a mechanic that buffs your unit if you control three or more units. Units with Coordinate thus become more powerful when you have a more developed board, but are vulnerable to becoming weaker again if your board shrinks. This mechanic has thus far primarily been seen with Heroism cards, but I think there’s a good chance it will show up on some of the villains as well!
A good example card with Coordinate is the newly previewed Anakin Skywalker, Maverick Mentor. Anakin is a five cost 6/6 unit with good traits — already a good start — but when you have Coordinate enabled, he becomes even better, gaining the ability to draw a card with every attack! This could be especially nice because the card draw from this ability could mitigate the card disadvantage you incur by playing multiple small units.
It’s important to note that units with Coordinate count themselves — it’s not “three or more other units”, it’s just “three or more units”! This makes Coordinate more achievable than one might think at first glance, as you’ll only need two units other than your Coordinate piece to enable the ability.
Additionally, Coordinate works across arenas — sure, Anakin can draw cards when fighting alongside Ahsoka and a bunch of Clone Troopers, but he also works when supported by friendly units in space!
Overall, the Coordinate mechanic looks like it could be strong, but may also prove “fragile” — if your opponent is able to “keep the board small”, your Coordinate cards won’t be able to operate at peak efficiency. On the other hand, Coordinate synergizes well with the game’s new token units, which will potentially allow you to set up multiple units at once — if Anakin is stuck on his own without any friendly units to enable Coordinate, just send in Captain Rex to back him up!
Time will tell whether Coordinate can be reliable enough (and if the effects themselves are powerful enough) to make up for its conditional nature, but I for one am cautiously optimistic!
Exploit X
Last but not least we have the dark side flavored Exploit X, a mechanic that allows you to discount a card by defeating up to X units you control! For each friendly unit you defeat, you can discount the card by two resources.
For example, this Hailfire Tank is overpriced by default at eight resources for a 7/6… but its Exploit 2 means that if you sacrifice two puny Battle Droids, you can instead get that same 7/6 statline for only four resources, likely a much scarier prospect for your opponent!
Battle Droid tokens, being just about the weakest units out there, provide a natural synergy with Exploit because they are not very valuable and hence easy to sacrifice — but don’t forget you can use Exploit with other units as well! Further, the unit you defeat via Exploit does not have to be ready, so to get the most value you could potentially attack with your units and then defeat them via Exploit later on in the turn.
One other note is that this mechanic seems like it could work especially well with When Defeated effects. Cards like K-2SO, Cassian’s Counterpart with powerful abilities that resolve when they are defeated sometimes languish because an opponent chooses not to defeat them — but Exploit means that you can defeat your own unit to trigger that effect on your timetable and get a nice discount to boot!
Thus far, we’ve only seen Exploit on “dark side” cards, and it remains to be seen whether it will appear on Heroic ones — thematically it seems perhaps less appropriate there, but time will tell!
Twilight of the Republic Previews: New Two-Player Starter
The new preview material also brought us a look at another two-player starter product! Like the Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader two-player starter from Spark of Rebellion or the Mandalorian vs. Moff Gideon two-player starter from Shadows of the Galaxy, Twilight of the Republic will feature another starter product with exclusive cards — this time the matchup is Ahsoka Tano vs. General Grievous!
Ahsoka Tano, Snips is a leader based around the new Coordinate mechanic. Both sides of her leader card benefit from Coordinate, as shown in this preview image from Fantasy Flight Games’s article:
Ahsoka’s leader side has a relatively tame ability, allowing a unit to attack with +1 power if you control three or more units. This ability is similar to that of Moff Gideon, Formidable Commander, but works even on larger units and units attacking bases — the downside though is that you need to enable Coordinate to use this at all.
When she deploys, Ahsoka is a 3/6 that arrives on five resources — not a super inspiring profile! However, if you have Coordinate enabled Ahsoka is a much more formidable 5/6 at five resources. That’s a truly strong profile and I think preventing Ahsoka from getting Coordinate up will be key for many decks’ strategies against her. It’s also worth noting that regardless of how many units you have in play when you deploy her, Ahsoka also has the very powerful Force keyword and hence can enable some powerful synergies with cards like Force Throw or Jedi Lightsaber!
General Grievous, on the other hand, has a more straightforward “trait synergy” ability — both sides of his leader card interact with the Droid trait (again as shown in this preview image from Fantasy Flight Games’s article:)
On his leader side, Grievous can give a Droid unit the powerful Sentinel keyword for a phase. Imagine an opponent being forced to attack a weak Battle Droid token instead of an important piece on your side of the board! Once he deploys, Grievous has a scary statline, as many leaders that deploy on six resources are 4/7 — Grievous ups the ante with an extra HP, meaning he can’t be immediately defeated by seven-damage effects like I Am Your Father or a four-strength unit using Surprise Strike!
Further, when Grievous attacks he can give a Droid unit not just Sentinel but also a power buff, thus both potentially increasing your attack power and making your unit an obstacle for opposing attacks at the same time. It’s worth noting that both of these abilities work in both the ground and space arenas — we haven’t seen any Droid space units yet, but I think there’s a good chance the classic droid starfighters will make an appearance in this set and if so Grievous will be able to buff them up as well!
Like FFG’s other two-player starters for Star Wars Unlimited, the one shown in these Twilight of the Republic previews will contain exclusive cards that can’t be found in normal boosters — in addition to Grievous and Ahsoka, we’ll see several other units, like this General’s Guardian, that will be found only in the starters (and presumably as Organized Play promos as well):
To check out all the cards FFG has shown for the set so far, you can look at their official gallery — I’ll also be uploading YouTube shorts discussing each of the previewed cards (as well as any new ones we see during preview season) over at my YouTube channel, so feel free to follow there for more on the latest Twilight of the Republic previews!
We’ll also have more information on other elements of the set — including some strategies for Limited play — here at The Fifth Trooper as we get closer to Twilight of the Republic’s launch in November. Stay tuned for more!
