Star Wars: The Clone Wars - How To Play

[Music] hi and welcome to watch it played my name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to five player Star Wars the Clone Wars designed by Alexander ortloff and published by z-man games who helped sponsor this video based on some of the concepts from the popular pandemic board game system designed by Matt leacock here we're going to be heading into all new territory as Jedi generals facing off against separatist Droid forces we'll have to work together to complete missions that can turn the tide of this war so join me at the table and let's learn how to play to set up put this game board in the center of the play area then on the Zero space of this threat track set one of these markers and on this Invasion track set the other one onto the far left space nearby also create a supply of these Droid and blockade pieces which I'm storing in a tray that I have have the game comes with four villains you'll pick one to play against collecting its villain sheet and its model for your first game they recommend choosing Assange of Interest we'll need her model soon but we can set it aside for now place your chosen villains sheet by the spot indicated for it here ensuring that the side marked with a finale setup is set face down each villain also has a six card deck showing their picture on the back which she'll Shuffle face down into the space for it here if your villain shows an effect with this exclamation mark symbol also set this reminder token on top of its deck otherwise this token can be returned to the Box some villains will have additional setup instructions in this area and if the villain you're using does resolve those as well now find The Invasion cards which have this back and from them locate the two Mission Planet cards which look like this setting them face up into the discard pile for them here is in either order then Shuffle the rest of the deck face down into its position here then draw two Invasion cards and place three droids from the supply onto the planets of the board they each show an invasion card shows a silhouette of all the planets shown on the board with the planet that it represents marked in red to make it easy to find for example this shows that the planet is near the top right and sure enough we find it right here so we set three droids there putting three Droids on the planet of the other card we revealed as well now draw two more invasions and on each of their planets add two droids so we put two here and we'll also place two here then draw one more card and add a single Droid onto its Planet so it looks something like this when you're done then you'll draw one final card on its Planet at a single Droid and your villains model in our case asajj Ventress now put all six of the invasion cards you drew face up into their marked discard pile here each player now picks one of these seven included Jedi taking its card and matching miniature in this video we'll set up a game for two players picking Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu now Shuffle together these reference cards and Deal One randomly to each player flip over your reference and then place your Jedi figure on the starting planet that it shows here so in this case we'll go to Naboo the cards with this back make up the squad deck shuffle and set it face down by the spot for it here dealing four cards to each player in a four or five player game but only three cards to each player if you have only two or three players cards you have are always considered to be in play and will go face up in front of you where everyone can see them next Shuffle the mission deck which has cards with this back and then using this table found in the rule book deal a number of them based on your chosen level of difficulty if you want you can include more than six Mission cards for an extra challenge but we'll choose the Jedi Knight level taking four missions and returning the rest unseen back to the Box the missions we took are set face down unseen by the board here then we flip the top Mission face up into this first orange mission space and then locate the planet indicated on it setting this orange Mission marker on that matching Planet this will indicate which planet players need to travel to to complete this Mission and we'll learn about completing missions later also if a mission you reveal has a when drawn effect resolve it now in this case we're told to add a blockade from the supply to this planet then draw a second mission and set it into the white mission space adding this white Mission marker to that planet now give the player with the high ground this die making them the first player or you can just choose someone randomly and that's the setup in Star Wars the Clone Wars you and the other players will be working together to complete all of the missions that were placed beside the board during the setup in this case we have four of them once we've completed all four we'll have one last mission to complete in order to defeat the villain however the villain the enemy droids and various other challenges will stand in our way attempting to prevent us from achieving our goals so we'll have to be smart about our strategies the game is played over a series of turns starting with the first player and going clockwise around and around the table and on your turn you'll perform four steps starting with readying cards as we'll see later some cards in front of you may become exhausted which means they'll have been rotated sideways during the Ready Step of your turn you now ready all of those cards by turning them upright again on your very first turn you won't have any readying to do but keep this step in mind for for future turns now though we move on to the next step of your turn performing up to four actions there are a variety of them but just know that you can do these actions in any order and even perform the same action more than once counting each time you resolve it as one of your four actions so let's learn about each type starting with flying to perform this action move your Jedi from the planet it's currently on to any Planet connected to it by one of these lines and just note that droids blockades and villains do not affect a Jedi's ability to move when flying you or any other Jedi on the planet you're leaving from can use one of these transport Squad cards they may have remember Squad cards are kept face up in front of you and you can choose to use one when it applies by turning it sideways which exhausts it once exhausted you can't use that card again but remember at the start of your next turn you'll ready all of your cards making them available again by using a transport card your Jedi can move twice in a single action but you may only use at most One Transport per fly action you take and remember if another Jedi is also on the planet you're departing from they can instead exhaust their transport card to let you double your move so that's the fly action now let's skip down and learn about the reinforce action which lets you draw one card from the squad deck when you gain a squad card it goes face up in front of you and remember any cards you have are considered to be in play as soon as you draw them we've already seen how the transport card is used and we'll talk about the other types throughout this video but for now just know if you ever have more than seven Squad cards in front of you you must immediately discard any of them until you're back down to seven cards we'll learn more about the cards labeled as allies later but when you need to get back down to seven cards you can choose to play and resolve any allies you have at that moment which in turn discards them as it says here removing them from your hand also note if you ever need to draw a card from the squad deck and it's empty reshuffle its discard pile into a new deck and then draw from it as necessary now let's go back and learn about this attack action which you'll use to try to remove enemies from the planet you're currently in as we'll see enemies can cause problems later in your turn so attacking and getting them off the board is usually a good idea to help explain how attacking works just know I'm going to be adding some extra pieces to the board and moving things around to help with the examples I want to show to attack roll this die and for each of these symbols showing on the side rolled deal one damage to an enemy on your planet divided as you like so here I can assign two points of damage droids have one Health blockades have two and your villain's health is printed on their right here so asajj has three once a Droid or blockade has taken damage equal to its Health return it to the supply if you defeat the villain return it to its card however to defeat a piece it must take all of the required damage in a single action in other words if I used one damage from this die to defeat this Droid I'd remove it from the board but if I assign the remaining one damage to asajj that's not enough to defeat her so nothing happens after my attack action is over she would be restored to full health however After Rolling the die you can boost the attack using Squad cards you may have in front of you cards labeled as assault like these two here or as stealth like the two we see here both have the same effect they add an extra damage to an attack happening on your planet the catch is that you can only pick one type of attack to use in other words I can add to the attack by using any amount of my salt cards or any amount of my stealth cards but I can't use a combination of both and remember anytime you use Squad cards for their effects you must exhaust them by rotating them sideways so to finish this example if I use the damage from this die assigning one to defeat a Droid and the other to cause one damage to asajj I might then exhaust these two assault cards I have to do the remaining two damage to assage to defeat her but that's not all if another player had their Jedi on the space as well they can use any cards they have to also boost the damage as long as they match the same type that I used so this player might choose to exhaust these two assault cards they have to remove these two remaining droids now keep in mind if I hadn't boosted the attack at all then the other player who is on this planet could instead choose to boost it with stealth cards the important thing to understand is that you can't ever come combine stealth and assault cards in the same attack action either way after resolving any damage caused to enemies total all of the enemies left on the planet and any of these damage symbols on the die you rolled and for each you suffer one damage so let's say one Droid was remaining that means I'd suffer one two damage but just know only the person taking their turn can suffer damage even if another player helped in the attack by using Squad cards they do not take any damage for each point of damage you take you must discard one card from in front of you and those cards can be ready or exhausted so in this case maybe I'd remove these two if you ever take more damage than you have cards extra damage is just ignored however anytime you would take damage you and or other players on your planet can exhaust any combination of armor cards like this one and each will prevent one damage to Jedi on that planet it so as Obi-Wan if I was meant to take two damage but Mace Windu was also on my planet and exhausted their armor I'd only have to take one damage okay with attacking explained now let's look at the attempt Mission action this is an action you can take when on a planet showing either of these Mission markers and their color indicates which of these two face submissions you're attempting for example if we were here we'd be attempting this orange Mission however you can't attempt a mission if a blockade or the villain is on the planet so we'll assume neither of them are to start attempting the mission first roll the die each of these symbols contribute to the number of them you need to succeed in the mission as shown here so far we have three keep in mind some missions may have an attempt Mission effect which must be taken into consideration first either way any number of Jedi on the mission can now contribute Squad cards to a assist and let's assume that we have both Jedi here to contribute Jedi can choose to exhaust any combination of squad cards they have matching the symbols showing on the mission in this area so in this case any transport or stealth cards let's say I contribute a stealth and a transport and the other player contributes a transport if you create a total between the successes rolled and cards contributed that is equal to or greater than this value the mission is a success and you resolve it to do that first the Jedi currently taking their turn suffers one damage for each of these damage symbols on the die rolled and in the mission area here remember when you take damage you must discard one Squad card you have for each but also remember any Jedi on that planet can exhaust armor cards they have to prevent one point of damage each after damage is taken if any you then resolve any when completed effect on the Mission card this one doesn't have a when completed effect but here's an example of a mission that does with the mission complete now return it to the box and replace it with the top card from the mission deck moving the related Mission marker to the New Missions Target Planet also resolve any when drawn effect the mission may have if you get to the point where the mission deck is empty and you complete one of the face up missions just put both of the target tokens on the remaining missions Planet when all of the missions have been completed you'll face the villains finale Mission and attempt to win the game but we'll learn about that later on the other hand if you fail to complete the mission you attempted because you couldn't generate enough success symbols the Jedi currently taking their turn suffers one damage for each damage symbol on the die but ignores any damage symbols showing on the mission card itself the mission will remain in place and players can attempt to complete it on a future action even within the same turn to wrap up missions I'll just point out that unlike performing an attack action there's no problem playing a combination of assault and stealth cards together when attempting a mission that calls for both with that we've covered all of the actions you can take during the due for Action step of your turn but there are a couple of other things we should be aware of here each player's Jedi card will have a unique special ability here and you can do this once during each of your do for action steps and it does not use up one of your four actions just keep in mind you cannot resolve its effect in the middle of another action you're currently performing or during another player's turn I should also point out this other type of squad card you may play in front of you allies unlike other Squad cards you must discard these to use their effects you can do this at any time even on another player's turn unless the card says otherwise just keep in in mind if an ally is exhausted by some other effect it cannot be used until it's readied also note using an ally does not cost you one of your actions and that covers all the possibilities during your due for Action step now you can do fewer than four actions if you want but once you're done it's then time for the activate villain step of your turn some villains like Assange Ventress will have an effect that also includes this exclamation mark symbol this means that you resolve that effect at the beginning of each villain phase and this token sits on top of the villain's deck as an extra reminder of this in our case it says that if interest is on a planet that contains either the white or orange Mission marker you advance threat which is represented by moving this token down one space on the threat track then whether the villain has an exclamation mark effect or not you draw and resolve the top top card of their villain deck here sometimes these will have different effects to resolve based on the state of the board for example if Ventress is currently on the board then this effect here says that you move her one planet towards the closest mission on the other hand if Ventress wasn't on the board because the Jedis had attacked and removed her instead this effect tells you to now Place Ventress on the planet represented by this symbol when you see this symbol it's referring to the planet currently showing face up on the invasion discard pile here so in a case like this the Kurt is telling us to put Ventress on Alderaan if a villain card only shows an effect for when the villain is on the board and the villain is not on the board then nothing happens on the other hand if an effect has no mention of whether or not it's resolved based on the location of the villain then you resolve it whether or not the villain is on the board for example in this case adventurous is on the board you first resolve this top effect but then whether she is or not you'll resolve this effect no matter which villain you're facing they each have a planet Under Siege card in their deck so let's see how this works first as it indicates here advance The Invasion marker if the marker is already on the final space of its track when you would need to advance it Advance the threat track marker one space instead now this is bad because if this marker ever reaches this final space the players all lose next as it says here draw and discard the bottom card of this Invasion deck and then fill the planet that it shows so that it contains three droids so if this planet already had one Droid on it we'd just add two more then as the final step it says to shuffle the entire Invasion discard pile and set it on top of the invasion deck and that covers the main cards to be aware of in the villain deck any we haven't gone over specifically are explained on the cards themselves also if you ever need to draw a villain card and his deck is empty just Shuffle its discard pile into a new draw deck and that's how you resolve the activate villain step of your turn which brings us to the final step invading planets here you check to see what value the marker is currently highlighting on The Invasion track in this case three then one at a time you flip that many cards from the top of the invasion deck into the discard pile and as they're flipped place a single Droid on the matching planet in this case this one is added here if you ever flip over a mission Planet Invasion card like this one you target the planet that has the matching colored Mission token so the added Droid would go here if a planet already has three Droids on it when you would need to place a fourth don't place the extra Droid but instead resolve an occupation to do this first Advance the threat marker one space then Place one blockade from the supply onto the targeted Planet instead of adding a fourth Droid to it if you ever need to place a blockade and there are none left in the supply Advance the threat marker one space per blockade you should have placed but couldn't well a planet has a blockade Jedi there cannot affect missions or affect or attack droids or villains there in any way until the blockade has been removed first usually by attacking it with two damage once the blockade is removed any additional damage you may have left to assign can now Target the other pieces there with that understood we've now covered what happens during the invade Planet step but just know if you ever need to place a Droid and there are none left in the supply Advance the threat meter one space for each Droid you should have placed but couldn't and in the rare case that The Invasion deck is empty when you need to draw Shuffle its discard pile into a new deck and continue drawing as necessary with the invade Planet step over the next player in clockwise order takes their their turn and around and around the table turns will continue with players trying to complete all of the missions once all of them have been fulfilled and there are no cards here immediately flip over your villain's sheet and resolve all of the finale setup instructions here from here on out only this side of the villain sheet applies where it will also tell you how to complete the finale and win in this case we must satisfy the conditions of this Mission located on the planet Celeste if we do we all immediately win the game on the other hand if at any point in the game the threat marker reaches the bottom of its track the players immediately all lose and don't forget you can play facing different villains for new challenges and if you'd like to play solo you'll find those rules here but I'll leave them for you to discover on your own otherwise that's everything you need to know to play Star Wars the Clone Wars if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and low and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get a notification anytime we post a new video and if you'd like to support us directly you can join our patreon team which I'll have linked below but until next time thanks for watching