With Star Wars Unlimited having piqued the interest of seasoned and new Trading Card Game (or TCG) players alike, it has done well to be as accessible and welcoming to fans who may be unfamiliar with TCGs, while still offering plenty of depth and scope in its gameplay and deck building for much more experienced players.
Of course, if you are a newer player, you might be caught off guard by what can sometimes feel like quite a relentless pace of releases when it comes to TCGs and new sets being launched. Though the publisher of Star Wars Unlimited, Fantasy Flight Games, have taken quite a measured approach with their release schedule so as not to overwhelm or put off a new player base just as they’re mastering the current sets of cards, it can still be quite mind-blowing when an entirely new expansion arrives.
Shadows of the Galaxy is here, being the second set for Star Wars Unlimited after the launch set, Spark of Rebellion. You can check out the card list for the first set here, and the second set here. You’ll notice that cards in Spark of Rebellion featured keywords, giving units and other types of card special abilities that players could utilise during play. We have a guide featuring a full list of keywords, so you can see exactly how each one works.
There are two new keywords in Shadows of the Galaxy, and they’re slightly more complex to use than most of the keywords in Spark of Rebellion. So if you’re a player who’s new to TCGs and you need some assistance with how these two unusual keywords work, we here at Card Gamer are here to help. Let’s check out the Bounty and Smuggle keywords in Star Wars Unlimited: Shadows of the Galaxy!
How Does The Bounty Keyword Work In Star Wars Unlimited?
You’ll mostly find Bounty keywords on Upgrade cards, such as the two examples pictured above. On the left, we have Wanted, an Upgrade card that uses the yellow coloured, Cunning aspect (take a look at our guide to aspects in Star Wars Unlimited for more details). On the right is Public Enemy, an Upgrade card that uses the blue coloured, Vigilance aspect.
As each of these are Upgrades, they work in exactly the same way that other Upgrade cards work, in that you attach them to unit cards. However, whereas Upgrades usually give a Power and/or HP bonus (note the red and blue circles with +0 in them at the bottom of each card) to the units they’re attached to, Bounty will instead give a bonus to the opponent, once the card that has a Bounty is defeated.
So for example, you might want to use your current action to attach Wanted to an enemy unit; then, after your opponent has taken their action, you can use your turn to attack and defeat the unit you’ve attached the Wanted card too. When that unit is defeated, the Bounty ability is carried out; in the case of Wanted, that ability is as follows: Bounty – Ready 2 friendly resources.
That means you can immediately ready 2 of your resources; if you were to have used Public Enemy instead of Wanted, the resulting bonus is worded as follows on the card: Bounty – Give a Shield token to a unit. So you’d be able to use a Shield for any unit (it doesn’t have to be one of your own, though it’s unlikely you’d Shield an enemy unit unless it’s part of an elaborate combo strategy!).
Note also that it states on these cards that the Bounty applies if the attached unit is defeated or captured; capturing is a new mechanic to Star Wars Unlimited as of Shadows of the Galaxy, but not a new keyword; we’ll cover this after we’ve looked at Smuggle, just so you’re fully armed for your next Star Wars Unlimited game!
Bounty isn’t always given to a unit in the form of an Upgrade, as you can see from this Jabba the Hutt Leader card. Jabba’s ability allows him to exhaust and then give a chosen unit Bounty for the duration of the phase. If that unit is then defeated or captured, the next unit Jabba’s owner plays will cost 1 resource less. Though not tracked with a physical card, the fact that this only lasts for a phase and that Jabba will be exhausted (that is, turned sideways) should be enough of a reminder for players that a unit has been given a Bounty, but it may be worth using a token or other marker to ensure that players don’t forget who has the keyword applied.
How Does The Smuggle Keyword Work In Star Wars Unlimited?
Two examples of the Smuggle keyword are pictured above; Privateer Crew has the green coloured, Command aspect, and Pirate Battle Tank is a green and black card, with the Command and Villainy aspects.
In Star Wars Unlimited, you can use any card as a resource, simply by placing it face down in your resource row. If you do that with any cards from Spark of Rebellion, you won’t be able to use the card during the course of the game again.
However, Shadows of the Galaxy introduces the Smuggle keyword, which allows players to bring cards into play, directly from their resource row! It’s a very exciting new keyword, given that you’d often have agonising decisions early on, when it came to choosing which cards you’d essentially lose access to for the rest of the game. Now that doesn’t have to be the case at all, and you might even get a bonus for using the Smuggle keyword to bring a card into play too!
Privateer Crew is a 2 cost card that you might not have considered using as a resource; after all, you’ll have two resources in play on your first turn, generally, so it’s a game that you can make use of almost immediately if it’s in your hand. However, if you do use it as a resource and then use Smuggle, which means you can put it into play from your resource row, it has a cost of 6 (note that you’ll still need 6 resources to use Smuggle with this card), and also gains 3 Experience tokens when it arrives in the Ground Arena. With each Experience token granting Privateer Crew an extra +1/+1 to Power and HP, if you’re patient with it you’ll have a 5 Power, 5 HP card in play!
Pirate Battle Tank is a 6 cost card, but that changes to 7 if you use Smuggle to bring it back from your resource row. Though it doesn’t bestow any further bonuses upon the card if you do use Smuggle to bring it into play, what’s worth noting is the card’s high cost if you just want to play it normally. If you have Pirate Battle Tank in your hand at the beginning of the game, it’s going to be a while before you can play it anyway, so the strategic move is to use it as a resource, knowing that you can bring it back into play when you can afford it!
Note also that, when you use Smuggle, the card you’re smuggling is replaced in your resource row by the top card of your deck, which goes straight into play as a resource, face down. It’s an added risk, because you may lose access to a card which can prove useful at that particular stage of the game, but it does mean that you don’t miss out on the number of resources you have access to when you use the Smuggle keyword.
What Is Capturing In Star Wars Unlimited?
Though, as we’ve mentioned, capture isn’t a keyword, it is an entirely new mechanic for Star Wars Unlimited, as of the Shadows of the Galaxy set. When a card uses capture, it takes a specific enemy unit and places it face down underneath the capturing card. The captured card then returns to its owner, face up, if the capturing card leaves play for any reason.
We have an example of the capturing mechanic on a card, with The Mandalorian’s Rifle Upgrade card in the image above. This card is a fairly standard upgrade, giving +3 Power to the unit it’s attached to. If, however, you attach it to The Mandalorian himself, you can then capture an exhausted enemy unit (note that it can’t be a Leader). Other cards may have the capture mechanic, and it may work in slightly different ways for them, but in general, they’ll work in roughly the same way as it does for The Mandalorian’s Rifle card.
So there you have it; you’re now fully armed with all of the details you need to make use of the new keywords and mechanics from the Shadows of the Galaxy set. You can check out our thoughts on the Shadows of the Galaxy starter in our review; we hope that this information has been of use, and may the Force be with you!
