Star Wars Destiny - A Legacies Introduction and Booster Opening

Published: July 7, 2018 12:00 PM /

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Star Wars Destiny is a collectible card game from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) that uniquely blends a dice and card game into a great, fast paced competitive game. Star Wars Destiny has been going since 2016 and the next release, Way of the Force, has just become available in the USA and is releasing internationally over the next few weeks. We thought it would be a good time to look into this exciting product and look at the Star Wars Destiny Legacies starter products.

Bluffer's Guide to Star Wars Destiny

Star Wars Destiny currently has two Card Cycles, Awakenings and Legacies, of which both contain several releases.

Awakenings

  • Kylo Ren & Rey Starter sets
  • Awakenings Booster Packs
  • Spirit of Rebellion Booster Packs
  • Empire at War Booster Packs
Legacies
  • Luke Skywalker & Boba Fett Starter Sets
  • Two-Player Game
  • Rivals Draft Set
  • Legacies Booster Packs
  • Way of the Force Booster Packs
It's important to know which card cycle you are buying cards from right from the start if you are looking to play Star Wars Destiny anywhere outside of friendly games as there are different deck constructed formats. Buying into the latest release means you will be able to play in any format, but older releases might be restricted in certain constructed formats.  FFG have laid out an explanation in a post on their site.

Collectible Card Games (CCGs) are card games that are sold in a random format. In Star Wars Destiny, some products have fixed cards in them, the Starter Sets for example, but the booster packs contain 5 random cards of different rarities, which means that to get hold of the cards you need, multiple packs will need to be bought, singles sought online, or cards traded with other players. That said, you can get a lot of play simply out of the set starter packs if you don't want to take the collectible side further.

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The four characters from the Star Wars Destiny two-player starter set.

Star Wars Destiny is a card game that includes dice as a mechanic. The characters selected automatically have access to dice and more can be added with cards that include dice in their details. Games are divided into rounds of alternating actions. Actions include playing cards from your hand, activating characters or support units (which involves rolling their dice and any dice for equipment that they have attached to them and also using any abilities they might have), resolving dice that have already been rolled or claiming the battlefield (which ends your actions during the turn, but gives you first action next turn and the benefit detailed on the battlefield card).

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Star Wars Destiny double-sided quick reference cards with round actions and dice symbol details.

The dice that are rolled have a variety of different symbols printed on them, and each dice is unique to the card that they are included with. Dice symbols can be resolved to:

  • Damage to an enemy character
  • Discard cards from your opponent's hand
  • Remove resources from your opponent's pool (resources are used to purchase upgrades and effects)
  • Give shields to your characters
  • Add resources to your own pool
  • Turn other dice in your pool of dice, to sides of your choice
  • Activate special options listed on the card the dice is attached to
  • Or nothing if a blank symbol is rolled
swdestiny legacies 46
A selection of dice symbol examples from Star Wars Destiny.

To win Star Wars Destiny, players have to defeat the opposing enemy characters by doing damage equal to the number in the top right hand corner of their character card or if at the end of a round your opponent has no cards in their hand or deck they lose. Some decks work around this running your opponent out of cards mechanic, commonly known among card games as "milling your opponent" or simply, Mill.

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The counters for Star Wars Destiny. From left to right - 1 damage, 3 damage, 1 shield, 1 resource.

Decks are built around characters, which make up your team. The characters are either Heroes, Villains or Neutral and one of three colors (Red, Blue and Yellow). Characters have their points values listed on them and teams are created by combining characters of up to 30 points. Teams can only contain heroes and neutral characters, or villains and neutral characters. The decks are then made up of exactly 30 cards, but no more than 2 of any one card and can only contain the colors of the characters you have in your team. For example, if you have a red and blue character, you could only include red, blue, and neutral cards in your deck construction.

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Several different types of card included in the Star Wars Destiny Two-Player Starter Set.

Star Wars Destiny is a very interesting game to play, the back and forth with multiple action options each turn make it a lot more tactical than the cards and dice would have you believe and most importantly, it's incredibly fun. Each turn, the timing of your planned actions is as important as the actions themselves, for example, playing an upgrade card with a dice after you've activated the character and rolled the dice means that you won't get to use that dice that round, but you might need to activate a character to build up the resources you need through dice or an action in order to get the resources to meet the cost of the upgrade.

There are also control cards that can be used to remove or affect the results rolled on your opponent's dice before they can resolve them. Resolving dice is a very important mechanic and when I first read the rules I did wonder why the results of dice weren't resolved after straight after rolling and why it required an extra action to do so. But this interaction mechanic with dice after they're rolled and before they're resolved is very important and adds a signification amount of depth to Star Wars Destiny. For example, if your opponent rolls a ranged damage symbol, and several damage upgrade symbols that require the damage symbol to resolve themselves, only removing the main damage symbol can end a huge damage threat from your opponent. The reverse is also true, if you have rolled several damage upgrade symbols and no damage symbol, the results would be wasted, so having the option to reroll, which can be done through card and character special effects, or the focus dice symbol (which allows a player to change the dice faces of their own dice pool), or by discarding a card as an action (which lets you re-roll any amount of dice from your pool that you wish).

The order of creating your dice pool is also important, if a player has three characters, they might want to get all their dice in the pool in subsequent actions in order to give themselves sight of all their options and also allowing themselves a great re-roll opportunity by discarding a single card, but if you're playing against a control deck, rolling and then resolving dice one character at a time might be more beneficial. These decisions and planning are simply the initial considerations you will have to make as a Star Wars Destiny player, and they get deeper the more you play.

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All the contents of the Star Wars Destiny Two-Player Starter Set.

Star Wars Destiny Two-Player Starter Set

The Star Wars Destiny Two-Player Starter Set, as the name suggests, has enough cards, dice and counters to be a perfect introduction to Star Wars Destiny. The decks included are twenty cards each, which isn't enough for any formal games of Star Wars Destiny, but it is more than enough to learn the game. The decks are very balanced and provide some interesting games including some solid introductory mechanics.

The two-player starter set cards are fixed in rarity, so every two-player starter set is the same. The cards in the set are very good and have value in the wider competitive side of Star Wars Destiny, most notably, the Kylo Ren character who is one of the most powerful in the currently available characters. If you are looking for an introduction to Star Wars Destiny, this is the perfect set and will set you up well for your collection. Our one issue with the two-player starter set is that if you want access two copies of the cards, or run the higher points character cards with two dice, two copies of the two-player starter set will have to be bought, which then means some waste in terms of counters and packaging, but in terms of a CCG it isn't a big deal, but would be less of an issue if the cards were available outside of the two-player starter set. As they're fixed and not available outside, it makes it compulsory to purchase two copies if you want to run those cards.

The above doesn't take away from how well produced the set is as a two-player introductory set, for which it is incredible. The set also stands very well as a sole product, even if you don't take Star Wars Destiny any further as you will still get hours of enjoyment out of the two decks.

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Star Wars Destiny Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett Starter Sets from the Legacies cycle.

Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett Legacies Starter Sets

Starter sets are the standard route into most CCGs, and the Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker are great sets to progress to after the Two-Player Starter set. The cards in both starter sets are fixed and as a result suffers from the same issue we have with the two-player starter set. There are cards in the starter sets that are starter set only cards, like Slave I, so if you want two copies of that card, you need to buy two-starter sets (or trade or buy a single card online) and also with the dice cards. Some character cards have two points values listed, the lower points value brings the character with one dice to your team, the higher value brings the character card with two identical dice to your team, meaning that you have to collect two copies of the card in order to get two dice. In the starter set, both Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker come with two dice each, but Han Solo, who is Starter Set only, only comes with one dice, so if you want to run the upgraded version of Han, you need to purchase two-starter sets (or again, trade for him or buy a single card online). I completely understand the collectability of CCGs, and the requirement to buy large amount of boosters to get access to the cards you want, but multiple purchases of starter sets feels odd, either the starter sets should come with two copies of the starter set only cards, or the cards should be available in booster packs.

All that said, even with the purchase of two of each starter set, the buy-in for the return is well worth it. Adding the cards from the two starter sets to the two-player starter set is a great next step in learning Star Wars Destiny and the new characters are fun to play. Fett and Solo are two of our favourite characters to play, Fett has a special dice roll ability of letting you do damage to an opposing character based on a number on one of their or your dice symbols. without resolving the dice. Solo lets you reroll one of your dice, or your opponents after you activate him, even the dice he rolls during activation.

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Boba Fett from the Star Wars Destiny Starter Set with both of his dice, alongside an event and two upgrade cards with their dice.

Star Wars Legacies Booster Packs

The next step in your Star Wars Destiny journey after the starter sets is to start buying booster packs. Each pack contains 5 cards, which includes 3 common, 1 uncommon and 1 rare or legendary. Legendaries are the hardest cards to get hold of, with 6 out of 36 in booster boxes containing legendary cards (the rest rare). As a result, buying whole sealed booster boxes guarantees at least 6 legendary cards, where as buying single booster packs gives you no guarantee of legendary cards.

We received a whole booster box to help us on our Star Wars Destiny journey and you can see the gallery below for the entire booster box unwrapping.

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Star Wars Destiny is an interesting, tactical and dynamic game and loads of fun to play. Fans of Star Wars will love the feel of the characters and cards and even non-Star Wars fans will find much to love in this CCG. The timing tactics and dice mechanic make it very interesting and add another random element to the CCG that makes every game interesting. Even just using the two-player starter set, or going head to head with a starter set each has a lot of replayability, which only opens up the more cards you add and deck options you begin to explore. The cards, dice and counters required, while not heavy or bulky, do require some table space and transportation, it's not a negative point, but those coming from CCGs that just require a deck and a life tracker will notice the difference as this blends other gaming elements with a CCG. The starter-limited only cards, forcing you to buy multiple starter products does take away slightly from the value, making multiple purchases seem forced, but the return for the buy in is still great.

There are 17 legendary cards in the Legacies set, meaning that if you wish to get a full set of 2 of each legendary card, you are looking at purchasing at least 6 booster boxes to get a total of 36 legendary cards (giving you two extra and requiring some great card pulling and trading). You can obviously buy singles, or trade multiple copies of other rarity cards, so buying 6 booster boxes isn't a requirement, it is just mentioned here for representation purposes. If you are just looking to play and have some deck options, adding a booster box after the starter sets will give you a solid amount of cards to begin, as you can see with out collection above.

 

We will continue to report on our Star Wars Destiny journey. We've begun putting our own decks together and we will regularly report on our collection, decks and games we play. Keep an eye on TechRaptor over the next few weeks as we will also be covering Way of the Force and incorporating the new cards into our decks.

Our collection currently sits at

  • Two-Player Starter Set
  • 1x Boba Fett Starter Set
  • 1x Luke Skywalker Starter Set
  • 1x Legacies Booster Box (36 booster packs) - containing the cards in the gallery above
 

These copy of the Star Wars Destiny Legacies products were provided by Asmodee UK.

 

Are you a Star Wars Destiny player? Which is your favourite Character to play? Which product did you use to begin your collection? Do you hve any tips for decks we could run with out current card collection? Let us know in the comments below.

 

 

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


A Potts TechRaptor
| Senior Tabletop Writer

Adam is a Tabletop Specialist for TechRaptor. He started writing for TechRaptor in 2017 and took over as Tabletop Editor in 2019 and has since stood down… More about Adam