Look at the size of that box!
Yes, it's a bigger than normal box. Kudos to my FedEx driver for dragging all those cases into the store, by hand.
Regardless of how I think about the X-Wing fiasco, I am genuinely excited about this game ever since they announced it. Now that it's actually in my hands, let's crack it open and see what's inside this freakishly big box.
Okay, this is nice. You can clearly see there are some thoughts being put into this. The first thing you see is the Star Wars Shatterpoint logo on a black background, pretty classy, I must say.
I was actually very impressed by this move. A double sided backdrop for you to take pictures with, complete with instructions! So after your minis are all painted, (or just assembled, you do you, I don't judge) you can take some nice pictures with a thematic backdrop. Very nice. I like that.
The next layer was the core rules, and a single sheet of tokens. I already read through the rulebook when AMG released it online, but I still think it's essential for them to include a full rulebook because I personally find it easier to go through the pages of a physical book when I'm looking up rules.
After popping all the tokens out, I find them not as good as the old FFG quality, but these will serve the purpose. Not exactly a negative here.
Before we get to the main event, the miniatures, let's talk about the rest of the components. In the box we will find a Struggle Tracker and tokens that are used with it, Grey Attack Dice and Blue Defense Dice. Double sided Character Cards and their corresponding Stance Cards (which I personally think is the one of highlights for this game). Order Cards for all the Units including 2x Shatterpoint Cards, one for each player. 1x Mission Card and 9x Struggle Cards for this specific mission.
13 Sprues of Terrain! Oh my goodness!
Terrains, a lot of it (but I still scratch-built 3 piles of rocks to add to my demo table). I spent and hour or two putting everything together. The gantries can be assembled into different length. All the towers, buildings, and the gantries become a set of modular terrain set. You can have a different battlefield setup every time you play. Creative players will definitely enjoy the building opportunity. I can see this set of terrain, and upcoming terrain sets be used for games like Stargrave, or anything with a sci-fi setting. Yes, you will be paying a premium for these sets, but these are damn good terrains.
This is all the terrain pieces put together with extra parts in the middle. The mat is a 3"x3" Star Wars Legion mat. Pretty nice coverage out of the core set.
I also put together a few bases of rock formation of various sizes, just to add more variety to the board. It's just basic foam board as a base, and insulation foam cut to pillar shape of different lengths, basing paste of your preferred brand. Nothing too fancy.
With everything painted, the board looks like this. I airbrushed everything with some drybrushing here and there. Picked out the details on the panels, and you are all set to play!
With everything painted, the board looks like this. I airbrushed everything with some drybrushing here and there. Picked out the details on the panels, and you are all set to play!I still remember building the Marvel Crisis Protocol models...
I was kind of dreading to build the minis, because I am still haunted by the horror of the Marvel Crisis Protocol minis from the Core Set a few years ago. But I was again pleasantly surprised by the layout of the parts and how well everything fits together... until I started building the B1 Droids and Tactical Droid.Let's first talk about the part I love when it comes to building these models:
1) All the parts for one character are placed right next to each other. It saves so much time when it comes to locating parts. This is huge for me, because I build a lot of Games Workshop minis, spending at least 40% of the build time just searching for parts on the sprues. I know the Games Workshop sprues are "optimized for maximum profit", but customer experience is important too... Okay back to talking about Shatterpoint...
2) All the models fits together PERFECTLY (again, the droids are a different story).
3) The proportions and poses of these minis are gorgeous. Brilliantly designed and sculpted. I have to give credit to AMG this time for these lovely models.
2) All the models fits together PERFECTLY (again, the droids are a different story).
3) The proportions and poses of these minis are gorgeous. Brilliantly designed and sculpted. I have to give credit to AMG this time for these lovely models.
Here is all the characters and units built. So let's talk about the Droids. I really can't blame AMG for how annoying these droids are because that's how they look in Star Wars and there nothing much they can do about it. With that said, the joints were a pain to glue together. You will just have to hold the pieces together until the glue set, there's no way around that. I also highly recommend when you are building the B1s, do NOT clip off the back of their head until you are ready to glue it on, or there might be a chance you will lose the part and never find it again. I had one piece magically disappeared on me. No amount of furniture moving and sweeping could help me find the lost piece.
Rob at Bearbox Studios took time out of his busy schedule to paint the Force Users for the store. Huge thanks to Rob!
Ready to play?
Rob at Bearbox Studios took time out of his busy schedule to paint the Force Users for the store. Huge thanks to Rob! Ready to play?
First of all, I want to address those who said "It's just going to be Marvel Crisis Protocol with a Star Wars skin" before having a chance to play the game and read the rulebook: No, it's not like Marvel Crisis Protocol at all.This game has a lot more "verticality" during gameplay. If the play area is populated with a decent amount of terrain pieces, you might actually have to climb and jump to the right levels to claim the objectives.
The game is build on a Tug-o-War mechanic where you are constantly pulling the Struggle Token in the middle towards your side on the Struggle Tracker. The more objectives you control, the further the Struggle Token move to your side at the end of your turn. If you pull the Struggle Token far enough to your side that it overlap your Momentum Token, you win a Struggle. The player who first win two Struggles would win the game. Of course there are things that you can do during the game that will shorten the distant between the Struggle Token and your Momentum Token, such as Wounding an enemy unit.
I am not going into every detail about rules and how to play the game, because learning to play the game is part of the fun. So I will just share what I think is unique about this game:
1) The abilities on each unit cards are very interesting and loyal to the characters, like Anakin's "This is where the fun begins" ability, and of course, Jedi will Deflect some blaster bolts from time to time.
2) I absolutely love the Stance Cards of the units. For Primary Characters, they can switch between different Stance, allowing them a higher level of tactical flexibility depending on what situation they are in. While Secondary and Support units only have one Stance on their cards, they can still spend the successes from their attack rolls on different effects depending on what the players want to do to their targets.
3) The game doesn't really have a "Round" structure. Players keep activating their units alternatively. When their Order Deck runs out, they reshuffle and start drawing the top card for a unit to activate. The game just keeps flowing forward with one less thing for the players to keep track of. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the game flows really natural and smoothly.
4) After a Struggle is won, the mission changes drastically so both players have to adapt to a whole new board state. The mission that came with the core set is probably the first of many different other missions. Lots of room to make the game even more interesting.
So yes, I guess I like an Atomic Mass Games game...
So yes, I guess I like an Atomic Mass Games game...
I do see a lot of potential with this game. The minis are gorgeous, really good looking. The core game mechanics are not at all hard to learn, while there is enough depth with all the Stance Cards and abilities. With the Obi-wan Squad and Count Dooku Squad coming out with the Core Set on launch day (June 2nd), there will be even more varieties in Strike Team composition.
Since this game is an Atomic Mass Games original creation, so I am pretty sure any future additions to this games will be more in line with their original vision. Probably won't see another X-Wing/Armada situation. All my previous gripes with AMG aside, I have to say they created a pretty fun game. I ran a few demo games and played a game myself, and I honestly enjoy the gameplay, a lot. If I can give it a chance, you can give it a try too.
Thanks for reading through this long review. Please reach out through email, text, phone if you have any questions, or want to request a demo game.
Since this game is an Atomic Mass Games original creation, so I am pretty sure any future additions to this games will be more in line with their original vision. Probably won't see another X-Wing/Armada situation. All my previous gripes with AMG aside, I have to say they created a pretty fun game. I ran a few demo games and played a game myself, and I honestly enjoy the gameplay, a lot. If I can give it a chance, you can give it a try too.
Thanks for reading through this long review. Please reach out through email, text, phone if you have any questions, or want to request a demo game.
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Author : Solon Wong
Lover of dungeon crawl games. Mediocre miniature painter. Foolishly stumbled into owning and running a game store, now he barely has time to do either...