Star Wars Unlimited: Twin Suns and other Accessories
Every once in a while a Star Wars Unlimited box arrives at the house and I’m always excited to open them and check out the latest Star Wars Unlimited release. This time around, I was shocked to open the box and not find the newest release, but instead a bunch of accessories, both for the Twin Suns format, and a brand new base-health dial that I think will be a massive hit. Let’s take a look!
I am going to talk about the Star Wars Unlimited Damage Pad first as it’s the one accessory in the box that isn’t specific to the Twin Suns format. When the game originally launched, Fantasy Flight Game sent us over a pack of their acrylic tokens, and while these tokens were amazing, we felt there wasn’t enough damage tokens in the box to accommodate both unit damage and base damage. Obviously, purchasing two of the packs would solve htat problem, but would also give you a bunch of other tokens you really didn’t need so many of.
While I do think this has been somewhat rectified over time by providing damage counters in different denominations, I wasn’t expecting the solution GameGenic came up with next: the Damage Pad. The Damage Pad is a small plastic device that will tick up damage to a value of 49. The pad can accommodate both an unsleeved and sleeved base card, and is an amazing way to track damage on your base. A smaller dial inset into the base will controls the 10s column of the tracker, while an outer wheel controls the 1s column. It’s a pretty great design, although the dials are a bit stiffer than I would prefer. It’s not a huge deal, but with the pad I received, we did have to pick it up each time we wanted to add or take away damage.
GameGenic notes that this damage counter will work with other games, although the design of the product obviously aligns it with Star Wars Unlimited, due to both the design on the pad, as well as the location of the damage counter itself (upper left). Honestly, if you play Star Wars Unlimited a ton, purchasing one of these pads is a no-brainer.
Along with the Damage Pad, Fantasy Flight Games and GameGenic also sent over a bunch of Twin Suns specific accessories. The new acrylic game pieces pack looks very similar to the ones released for the game so far, but include the two new tokens you always use in Twin Suns: the Plan counter and the Blast counter. Also new to this pack is a set of 10 Sentinel tokens, which will help identify which characters on the field of play have the Sentinel keyword. GameGenic’s acrylic tokens have always been amazing quality, and that’s obviously consistent here. Again, if you are regularly playing the game, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t purchase a pack or two of these.
The Twin Suns format is highlighted by a number of different changes from the original game, but the key difference is that each player uses two leaders as opposed to one. With more players, more leaders per player just makes more sense. GameGenic has created a ton of deck boxes for their products, including softcases and hardcases. Their previous hard Deck Pods made for the original game featured a clear, thick plastic sleeve on the outside where players could store and show off the leader associated with the deck concealed inside the box. The new Deck Pods for Twin Suns now include two of these clear sleeves, one for each leader. And like the original boxes, the cards can remain in these sleeves (more like a thin case) when playing the game as well. For those with multiple Twin Suns decks, this is an important feature that will quickly allow them to see what deck they are grabbing.
We received a softcase as well, and while it lacks the flash of the hardcases, the cheaper price point and ability to hold and entire sleeved deck with tokens makes it an attractive option for more casual players. It’s worth noting that despite now showcase leaders on the outside of the box, the softcase box DOES include the same solid, plastic sleeves (again more like a thin case) that the Deck Pod does, which is nice to see.
GameGenic and Fantasy Flight Games make some awesome playmats, the Twin Suns mat is no exception. This is a massive mat to be sure – it barely fits on our upstairs dining room table – but as someone who loves having a mat that showcases where everything should go, it makes playing Star Wars Unlimited more enjoyable, at least for me. The quality on these mats from GameGenic are unparalleled in the industry in my opinion, and again, if you plan to play this a lot, I do highly recommend investing in this mat.
As this article has demonstrated, GameGenic and Fantasy Flight Games are once again putting consumers first with this wide range of products. The game itself was never broken, but when you look back on other Trading Card Game franchises that have done nothing for their consumers over the years outside of releasing new sets and some mats, I think these companies are setting a new standard to be followed.
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Article By Adam Roffel
