@cleardave: Indeed, which is why I support your solution of giving starfighters a Flying-type keyword effect, and then allowing certain characters to ignore this effect with their own keyword effect that counteracts this. C-3PO would be unable to do any good against a TIE Fighter. Yoda, on the other hand, would pull that same TIE Fighter right out of the sky and send it crashing into the swamp, doing his best to keep his slimy mudhole of a home intact.

Luckily, blocking doesn't work the same way as it does in MtG.  For instance, the demo of Red 5 had 3 [objective damage] icons and 2 health.  If the Dark Side blocks it and doesn't win the edge battle, Red 5 strikes first and does all 3 of its objective damage to the objective it was attacking.  If the Dark Side does win the edge battle but its blockers can neither do 2 unit damage to Red 5 (killing it) nor place a focus token on it (preventing it from striking), Red 5 can once again do its 3 objective damage to the objective it was attacking.  The only thing such blocks do for the Dark Side are prevent the Light Side from getting the one extra objective damage they would get for having an unopposed blocker.

Of course, this actually causes some other weird situations.  Per one of the designers, in general characters are better at unit damage and starships are better at objective damage.  This is not always true (for instance, the Coruscant Defense Fleet could only defend and do unit damage), but is generally true.  The end result is that characters make better blockers of starships than other starships… which is just messed up.

Thanks to dbmeboy for the details on the demo. Honestly, the more concrete details I hear about this game, the less I like it. Unless they come up with some major revisions before release, I will probably pass on this game. This time last year, I was pumped about it but their changes have made me very hesitant. The worst things are the over-use of tokens, the lack of differentiation between ships and people, and the restrictive deck building.

 Those are the exact 3 reasons that I'm hesitant about the game.  Still, the game itself plays well so I'll probably give it a shot. As for the space/ground thing, the designer I talked to (who was familiar with SWCCG) said that keeping them in one theater and not having any blocking restrictions or such was a deliberate choice to increase interaction. That way a ground deck and a space deck don't end up being a pair or solitaire decks racing. Personally, I think their wacky deck construction rules could have taken care of that (it wouldn't be hard to make it impossible to build single theater decks).

 If it was a deliberate decision, then it was a deliberate dumb decision. Mixing starships and characters in the same battles without a 'piloting' mechanic is one of the worst decisions I've ever heard. Thematically it makes no sense. Its like the designers got lazy and decided to give up on finding interesting methods to interact the two. 

They got my hopes up with the switch to PvP. Then they smashed them with this. 

 There is something of a piloting mechanic. Some characters can optionally be played as enhancements to starships instead of as characters which then add combat relevant icons to that ship.

 That's marginally better then. Still, C-3PO blocking a TIE Fighter is a reason to be skeptical. I know that they haven't finalized and released everything yet, but even knowing that that is a possibility makes me question purchasing the game.

 I was pretty disappointed that this wasn't going to be cooperative at first.  I don't have many friends that like card games and the rules are just too complex for my girlfriend.  However, after watching this video I will at least pick up the core box for rare times when my gaming group wants to do something different.  I'm actually pretty excited to play a demo or three of this at SWCVI.

gokubb said:

Based on actual gameplay, C-3PO doesn't "block" a TIE Fighter, he "interacts" with it.  The specific icons each unit has will dictate how they "interact".  Since C-3PO does not have the blaster icon, he would not be able to do any damage to a TIE fighter.  Based on the movies, it seems reasonable that a droid might be able to "disable" a vehicle or ship based on electrical or programming means.  This would be represented by the Tactics Icon and would involve putting a focus token on the TIE fighter

 Yeah, while C-3PO can "block" a starship which is messed up flavor-wise, in game play that block would do next-to nothing. C-3PO has no combat icons so he would do nothing to the starship except prevent it from doing its extra 1 objective damage for being unopposed (and even that assumes that the starship doesn't do at least 1 unit damage and kill 3PO). However, an interrogation droid could successfully block Red 5, which is only slightly less messed up. I'll try to post a more detailed combat rules summary later.

As promised, here's a more detailed explanation of combat in SW: LCG as shown at GenCon.

First, some card anatomy.  Each unit card has a health value in the bottom left corner of the card.  This is how much damage they can take before dying.  Most units also have a series of black and white symbols the represent their offensive capabilities in battle.  Those symbols are a blaster (unit damage), a star (objective damage), and a targeting symbol ("tactical" damage).  The symbols also come in two varieties, white background and black background.  The difference is that symbols with white backgrounds are only active if you win the "edge battle."  Finally, all cards have a series of white dots along their left side which are used for edge battles and committing to the force.

To start a conflict, the active player chooses one or more of his units that do not have focus tokens on them and declares which opponents objective they are attacking.  The defending player can then choose any or all of his units that do not have focus tokens and declare them as "blocking."

Next, the two players engage in an "edge battle" to see who gets the edge in the conflict.  To begin, the attacking player chooses a card from their hand and places it face down.  Then the defending player gets a turn to do the same.  Once both players pass consecutively (ie Player A passes and then Player B passes), the edge battle resolves.  The face down cards are revealed and the white dots (force icons) along the sides are totaled with the highest total winning the edge battle (defender wins ties).  Additionally, some cards have special effects that only happen when they are revealed in edge battles (and cannot otherwise be played).  After the winner of the edge battle is determined, the cards used are discarded.

In addition to "turning on" the white background icons on their characters, the winner of the edge battle also gets to strike first.  To do this, they choose one of their participating units without a focus token and "exhaust" them (by placing a focus token on them).  That character then deals all of its damage symbols to defending targets.  For instance, they can choose a participating unit on the opposing side to place damage tokens on equal to their number of blaster icons, they can place a number of focus tokens on enemy units (participating or not) equal to their number of "tactical" icons, and (if the attacking player) they can deal damage to the defending objective equal to their number of objective damage icons.  This all happens at once.  After that, it goes to the opposing player's turn and alternates back and forth until all participating units have a focus token.

After all units have finished, the attacking player deals one extra damage to the defending objective if they still have attacking units but the defender has no defending units.

Once the conflict has resolved, the active player may declare another attack on a different objective.  They may only attack each of their opponents objectives once each turn.

This of course makes perfect sense to me as I've written it, but let me know if you're confused about something and I'll try to explain it better.

After hearing that, it sounds like it could just as easily be a World War II game or any theme for that matter. The artwork is pretty good, though.

 Thanks for that dbmeboy. So, if I have one of the units that can deal damage to an objective, how does someone defend against that specific unit when I declare it attacking an objective? Or does the defender just have the ability to choose someone to step in front of it like most games? If so, does the defending units need a certain symbol to do that?

I totally agree with everyone saying these game mechanics could be for any theme. Where is the "Star Wars" besides the pictures on the cards?

If you are going to "throw in" starships, they should interact together. Maybe some of the objectives can only be attacked by starships. I am not saying characters like C-3PO can not affect starships, but they should not be able to block them. 

I hope the deck construction that we see in the demo is only one way/one format to play the game. Advanced rules you can use any cards, etc.

Mattr0polis said:

There are a few ways to defend against a unit that deals damage to an objective.  As an example, let's take Red 5.  In the demo at least, Red 5 had 2 health and did 3 objective damage (all black backgrounded).  If Red 5 is attacking and is not blocked it will do 4 damage to an objective (3 icons + 1 for being unopposed).  If Red 5 is attacking and is blocked by a dark side unit with no icons at all, it would only do 3 damage.  If the dark side defender has 2 unit damage icons (eg Darth Vader) and the dark side wins the edge battle, then Vader could strike first and destroy Red 5 before Red 5 could damage the objective.  If the dark side player has a blocking unit with a tactics icon, like the Interrogation Droid, and they won the edge battle, the droid could strike first and place a focus icon on Red 5, keeping Red 5 from being able to strike.  If multiple units are attacking and defending, the players alternate striking and each unit may strike at any participating unit (the tactics symbol being unique in that it can be used on any unit, not just participating units… though that may change).  Does that help?

As far as flavor goes… yeah, the conflict mechanics at least don't do much to help with the Star Wars feel.  For the most part they don't hinder it either (with the single theater combat being the exception).