Star Wars: Unlimited has a reputation for being quick to learn, and it's deserved. There are no complicated phases to memorize and no long list of exceptions. Here's everything you need to follow a game from start to finish.
The goal
Each player has a base. The first one to destroy their opponent's base wins. Everything else in the game serves that goal: your units attack the enemy base, and your opponent has to decide whether to block them or take the hit and swing back.
Setting up
- 1. Each player puts their base into play in the center of the table, facing their opponent's.
- 2. Your leader goes underneath your base, horizontal side (the non-unit side) faceup.
- 3. Randomly determine who starts with the initiative. That player takes the initiative counter.
- 4. Both players shuffle their decks and draw 6 cards.
- 5. Each player gets one mulligan: shuffle your entire hand back into your deck, then draw a new hand of 6. Careful, that second hand has to be kept as is.
- 6. Each player then picks 2 cards from their hand and places them facedown in front of them. Those are their starting resources.
A card placed as a resource becomes a payment method and nothing else. You can no longer use its abilities.
Resources: how you pay for things
A card's cost is the number in its top-left corner. To play it, you exhaust a number of resources equal to that cost, meaning you turn those cards sideways. An exhausted resource can't be used again until it's readied, or turned back upright, which happens at the end of every round.
This is the most important thing for a new player to internalize: your economy grows by one resource per round, and that growth sets the pace of the whole game.
How a round works
A round has only two phases.
The action phase. Players alternate, taking one single action at a time. Whoever holds the initiative counter goes first, then their opponent, and back and forth until both players have passed. One action at a time is what gives the game its constant back-and-forth.
The regroup phase. Draw, add a resource, ready everything. Detailed below.
The five actions
During the action phase you have exactly five options: play a card, attack with a unit, use an Action ability, take the initiative, or pass.
The three card types
Units enter play exhausted, which means they normally can't attack on the round they arrive. They go into either the ground arena or the space arena depending on their type. The two arenas sit on either side of your base, and the first unit played in the game determines which is which. Crucial point: a unit can only attack units in the same arena as itself.
If a unit has a "When Played" ability, it resolves immediately on arrival.
Upgrades attach to a unit by sliding underneath its card. They usually raise the unit's power and HP, the red and blue numbers. Some also carry an effect that only triggers on a specific character, which rewards thematic combinations.
Events produce their effect the moment they're played, then go to the discard pile.
Combat
To attack, you exhaust a ready unit you control and pick a target: either an enemy unit in the same arena, or your opponent's base.
Against a base, you deal damage equal to your unit's power, the red number.
Against a unit, both units simultaneously deal damage equal to their respective power. A unit is defeated when accumulated damage reaches its HP, the blue number. Damage taken but not fatal stays on the card as damage counters.
Three useful clarifications:
- "On Attack" abilities trigger before any damage is dealt.
- The Ambush ability lets a unit attack an enemy unit immediately after being played, despite entering play exhausted.
- A unit always exhausts when it attacks, even if another card is what allowed the attack.
Leaders
Your leader is your signature card, and it works in two stages.
On its horizontal side, it usually offers an Action ability you can use once per round.
It also has an Epic Action, which can only be used once per game. For every leader, that Epic Action deploys them as a unit, provided you control enough resources. If they're later defeated, they flip back to their horizontal side, and since the Epic Action is already spent, they can't be deployed again for the rest of the game. Their horizontal-side abilities do become available again.
The initiative
This is the subtlest action in the game, and the one new players overlook most.
Taking the initiative gives you the initiative counter, which guarantees you act first next round. In exchange, you automatically pass for the rest of the current action phase. Only one player can take the initiative each round.
Passing simply lets your opponent act. You can then choose to pass again or take a different action. As soon as both players have passed, whether by taking the initiative or by passing normally, the action phase ends.
The regroup phase
Three steps, in order, completed by both players.
- Draw 2 cards. Mandatory.
- Resource a card. You may put 1 card from your hand into play facedown as a resource. It's optional, but strongly recommended every round, at least until you have enough resources for your leader's Epic Action.
- Ready your cards. All your exhausted cards turn back upright: units, resources and leader.
Then it's back to the action phase, the initiative holder acts first, and the cycle repeats until a base falls.
That's it
The rules fit on one page, but that doesn't make the decisions easy. Choosing between hitting the base or clearing the arena, knowing when to sacrifice a good card to turn it into a resource, deciding exactly when to take the initiative: that's where the game is actually played.
Source:
https://starwarsunlimited.com/how-to-play?chapter=how-to-play
