Star Wars Bounty Hunters Card Game Review

The tabletop market is full of Star Wars-themed games, some of them incredible representations of the setting. From roleplaying and card games to the fantastic miniatures games by Atomic Mass Games, players can easily recreate epic Star Wars battles. It's easy to throw the Star Wars name on a product, but harder to embed the theme in the mechanics and make it feel like a Star Wars game. In this article, we're going to look at the all-new Star Wars Bounty Hunters, a fast-paced card drafting game. Does it feel like a Star Wars game, or is it just a skin over the mechanics?

How Does Star Wars Bounty Hunters Play?

In Star Wars Bounty Hunters, players draw a hand of 5 cards, choose one to play, and then pass the rest to the player on their left, and receive 4 cards from the player on their right, they then draw another card, play a card, and pass again. Play continues this way until 4 contracts are won, and then scores from across a range of areas are totaled up and the winner is declared.

The cards that drive the game are drawn from 4 different decks:

• Target - Target cards are the core of Star Wars Bounty Hunters, they're made up of famous characters from across the Star Wars Universe, and they contain 3 different shield values that must be beaten to collect the bounty, and the points they earn if scored.
• Bounty Hunters - Bounty Hunters can be played for free against contracts (and you can also play them without a contract to prepare for one) and they have attack values that are used to defeat the shields on Target cards. Bounty Hunters also contain a negative score, which is deducted from the contract points scored.
• Contract - Contract cards contain combinations of Target cards that can earn you bonuses if scored together.
• Jawa Market - This deck contains droids, who work similarly to Bounty Hunters (they just need to be paid for rather than being free to play), and Crates, which earn points at the end of the game, and bonus points for the player with the most crates.

Each turn in Star Wars Bounty Hunters happens simultaneously, with players receiving their cards, drawing, and then playing. This format keeps games fast-flowing but can be stalled if players start to analyze every single option. The four decks create a weird dynamic that if you see a card you want in the hand already, you don't want to draw a possibly great card from the Jawa Market or Target Deck, and would rather load the hand with Bounty Hunter cards (which although are free to play, tend to be worse than droids because of the negative points they have) or contract cards (which generally aren't worth the extra effort of trying to score until later in the game). But then if you do fill the hand with duff cards, you will still get that hand back eventually when it passes back to you.

To get around this, we tried a few variations of the rules. Passing the cards face down and drawing before seeing, which is too random as to which deck to draw from, and if you shuffle all the cards into a single deck, it also creates too random an element to be enjoyable. We also tried shuffling the contract and target cards into a single deck, and the bounty hunters and Jawa deck into a single deck, which created an element of randomness, but also meant that you weren't deliberately stuffing the hand you passed to your opponent.

A better way to fix it would have been to make the contract cards more worthwhile, the extra couple of points they give you are rarely worth the effort, and buffing the Bounty Hunters slightly (the stars of the game's title) to balance them better against the droids which even though they cost to play, are usually equal to or better than the Bounty Hunters, but without the negative points modifier.

What's The Theme Like In Star Wars Bounty Hunters?

Other than the art on the cards, and the rough power across the cards (Boba Fett has great stats and Grogu earns you very high points for capturing the target), the theme is a skin across the mechanics. It could be anything and it would still work.

If you're really into Star Wars, then there's something to be said about using famous bounty hunters and droids to chase down the good guys of the Star Wars universe, but if you want some depth to your theme, then Star Wars Bounty Hunters is very light.

What Are Our Final Thoughts On Star Wars Bounty Hunters?

The theme for Star Wars Bounty Hunters is just a skin over the mechanics, which could be forgiven if it was an incredible drafting game, but the balance between the 4 card types feels off, which then throws off the drafting element of it. This also complicates it for younger players, which the artwork looks like it's aimed at, as not understanding the complexities of the different card types and playing tactically, mean that it can be a frustrating game for younger players.

I can't help thinking that if it was a single deck, with each card having a few options for use, that would have worked better, but in its current state it just felt strange to play. In the test games we played, we usually ended up with hands full of cards you didn't want, and just alternating between burning a card for credits, and hoping to draw a droid the next turn.

Should I Buy Star Wars Bounty Hunters?

If you really really love Star Wars, then you will be able to get behind Star Wars Bounty Hunters, but for the rest, it's neither a great tactical drafting game, nor a quick fun-filled easy game, and treads a weird line between the 2 types, while not having the great bits of either.

The copy of Star Wars Bounty Hunters used in the creation of this review was provided by Asmodee UK.