On of my favorite deckbuilder. I always a have a copy to bring at friend's and when they enjoy it, I leave it. Cheap price to have them hooked on crack ;)
This game hits the table allot for solo play here. Somehow it's always a fun quick deckbuilding experience. And I love the variation in the solo bosses
Yellow is a nasty faction. They do a lot of damage AND have the opponent discard cards (huge with a default 5 hand size). And, when they combo it's lights out. But, I think Blue may be the strongest faction because they 'heal'.
They're definitely trouble. But they don't have any healing, and they can't scrap for consistency. Play with a group of 3, and you might find yourself healing yourself while chipping away at their Authority. And once you get to late game, the damage you can deal is often more than enough to destroy their bases, while you can also place up bases to defend yourself. And have one player focus on Trade Feds for healing. Once you get there, even when Empire gets 20 to 30 damage a turn, it's actually not that bad. Because by that time, you got on average 10 to 15 defense a turn, 10 to 15 heals a turn, and 10 to 15 damage a turn, between all 3 players. Between the ability of Blobs to stack up so much damage, Trade Feds to heal for so much and buy tons of stuff, and Bots to scrap for consistency...honestly it's not so bad. What does suck though is getting a handful of bad hands, which can really screw up your mid game and allow the Empire to cripple you. But because of Trade Feds late game healing, even that's not a huge issue. I played this as a team of 3, and it wasn't that hard on Veteran difficulty, though I think we may have accidentally fudged some things due to just how much drawing the Empire does. Every turn, we were able to put up bases for defense, and it didn't even matter that much that Empire was destroying them all on his turn, because that meant our bases were protecting our Authority. Likewise, it didn't matter all that much that Empire was putting up 3 to 4 bases a turn, because we'd often have more than enough to destroy them all and still deal some damage. It was more a game of attrition. Honestly, I found Nemesis to be a tougher challenge, primarily for how it gets stronger each turn. So it's a race against time to defeat it before it gets so strong that we can't defend anymore. And it has abilities for random high damage, and also healing. For a good chunk of that game, Nemesis was healing to full health while dealing so much damage to us, so it felt like we'd lose no matter what. But as we stacked up more damage, heals, and defenses, we started gaining hope. Thanks to one player focusing exclusively on Trade Feds, we managed to hang on long enough to take the Nemesis down to zero. It helped that by the time we reached late game, there weren't many Trade Fed cards left in the trade deck for the Nemesis to heal with.
I think Defy the Empire is unbalanced. Once the yellow gets few cars then their ability to keep drawing cards is too strong. I think to balance it maybe in the a.i. deck 5/6 yellow card should be replaced by other factions cards with the same cost.
0:00 - Introduction
1:00 - Set-Up
2:52 - Basics of Play
5:11 - Defy the Empire
14:09 - Pirates of the Dark Star
I picked this up since I already played the base game and it's a great addition. The solo play options are really fun and challenging.
I fully agree. Tons of play in a little box.
On of my favorite deckbuilder. I always a have a copy to bring at friend's and when they enjoy it, I leave it. Cheap price to have them hooked on crack ;)
Awesome! Yeah, at that price, it's like "you want to borrow it? I'll just buy you one..." :)
This game hits the table allot for solo play here. Somehow it's always a fun quick deckbuilding experience. And I love the variation in the solo bosses
Such a great value!
thank you as always for the content!
Thank you, Matt. Glad you are enjoying it!
Yellow is a nasty faction. They do a lot of damage AND have the opponent discard cards (huge with a default 5 hand size). And, when they combo it's lights out. But, I think Blue may be the strongest faction because they 'heal'.
Yeah, agree on both of those. Though green just pounds you with mondo damage... they can all be rough.
They're definitely trouble. But they don't have any healing, and they can't scrap for consistency. Play with a group of 3, and you might find yourself healing yourself while chipping away at their Authority. And once you get to late game, the damage you can deal is often more than enough to destroy their bases, while you can also place up bases to defend yourself. And have one player focus on Trade Feds for healing. Once you get there, even when Empire gets 20 to 30 damage a turn, it's actually not that bad. Because by that time, you got on average 10 to 15 defense a turn, 10 to 15 heals a turn, and 10 to 15 damage a turn, between all 3 players.
Between the ability of Blobs to stack up so much damage, Trade Feds to heal for so much and buy tons of stuff, and Bots to scrap for consistency...honestly it's not so bad. What does suck though is getting a handful of bad hands, which can really screw up your mid game and allow the Empire to cripple you. But because of Trade Feds late game healing, even that's not a huge issue.
I played this as a team of 3, and it wasn't that hard on Veteran difficulty, though I think we may have accidentally fudged some things due to just how much drawing the Empire does. Every turn, we were able to put up bases for defense, and it didn't even matter that much that Empire was destroying them all on his turn, because that meant our bases were protecting our Authority. Likewise, it didn't matter all that much that Empire was putting up 3 to 4 bases a turn, because we'd often have more than enough to destroy them all and still deal some damage. It was more a game of attrition.
Honestly, I found Nemesis to be a tougher challenge, primarily for how it gets stronger each turn. So it's a race against time to defeat it before it gets so strong that we can't defend anymore. And it has abilities for random high damage, and also healing. For a good chunk of that game, Nemesis was healing to full health while dealing so much damage to us, so it felt like we'd lose no matter what. But as we stacked up more damage, heals, and defenses, we started gaining hope. Thanks to one player focusing exclusively on Trade Feds, we managed to hang on long enough to take the Nemesis down to zero. It helped that by the time we reached late game, there weren't many Trade Fed cards left in the trade deck for the Nemesis to heal with.
I think Defy the Empire is unbalanced. Once the yellow gets few cars then their ability to keep drawing cards is too strong. I think to balance it maybe in the a.i. deck 5/6 yellow card should be replaced by other factions cards with the same cost.
Good call!