Star Wars: Shatterpoint

[mikewicked]

Hoping there won't be any issues with just popping another Star Wars miniatures game topic in here.

Huzzah, got Shatterpoint to the table on Friday night.
I thought i took more pics than this (and a couple of these weren't taken by me) but evidently i was wrong - and annoyingly most of these are just teasing another mate, who couldn't join us for beers and games - so pretty useless from the game perspective...

Table Setup - slightly smaller than standard (meant to be 3'x3') but my table isn't 3' wide, and i didn't have my topper on hand:

My Opponent's squad - I didn't take a pic of mine, but i used Ahsoka, and the Clan Kryze Mandalorians

Initially we played by laying down Wounded units - this isn't the way (you probably could if you really wanted to - there's no game reason to, or not to, but obviously less issue with model/paint damage if you don't.)

first unit eliminated was mine 😞 :

We decided to play a "half-game" where we used only 1 squad each, rather than two, as you're meant to.
I don't know how balanced it is this way - I did lose, however with that said, i didn't feel out of step with my opponent's squad - in fact, the game came down to the last 2 or 3 turns - had i had better dice luck in my last turn, i'd have won - had my opponent had worse dice luck in his last (winning) turn, I would have had one more turn, and won.

Had fun - the rules are generally pretty straight forward, although there are some confusing moments that mostly come through terminology used in this game vs others - ie: Damaged, Wounded and Injured - and i guess we weren't the only ones, as some How to Plays i've watched before, and since, as well as BatReps, have gotten it wrong too.

There is also Units vs Characters - basically each stat card is considered a unit - but each model is a character. some Units (stat cards) can have more than one Character (model). those multi-character units all activate as one - but after we finished the game, we considered whether the combat was *meant* to be that they share a dice-pool for attacks, and even though they get essentially 2 attacks, we wondered if it was *meant* to be you allocate X dice from the first Character/Model, and Y from the other - but no, we played it correctly, and they both get to roll the full complement of dice against each target - which felt very powerful, considering they are nameless Units.
They do share a health pool, so damage against one damages both, but even so...

I have also worked out we played a couple of rules wrong - or rather, just didn't include them.
First - you don't score struggle points in your first activation of the game. We did - i don't know how much this matters.
Second - you don't have to be by a controlled objective to score struggle points from it. Once you have Controlled it - you keep earning Struggle Points as long as your opponent hasn't subsequently gained control of it. this does open up a more aggressive game, i think - as you don't need to hold characters at the back to control an objective that's far away from the action - which is nice.

So - although i don't think we made too many errors - the rulebook is rather annoying.
I mean, I am mostly a GW Games player, so i'm well used to cross-referencing rules across one, sometimes multiple books - but the Shatterpoint Rules are under 50 pages in length - and it feels really ineffiencient. a simple example is the status conditions a Character can acquire through the game - there's a good table on the back that shows what each symbol means in terms of what the condition is called - but it's just a dump of all of them without explaining what they mean, or sometimes how they are acquired - and the rulebook has them in multiple places through the book.
I do now note that there is an "Icon Reference" PDF on the AMG/SWSP website, which does also include what they mean - so that's probably something that will be added in a future printing.

There was also a long moment of confusion at the start of Phase 2 of the game, where the Objectives were given different symbols on the card compared to Phase 1. we ended up having to find a BatRep that explained this (all the HTPs we watched only dealt with the game as far as the first phase - or at least how to win a phase - and then basically said "and it's a best of three phase game, so if you win 1 and 2, it ends, if you win 1, lose 2, then you start phase 3).
There is an Errata which does mention that this explanation was simply not published in the Core Box - basically before every activation you roll a defense dice, and whatever symbol you roll, that objective is worth 2 points, rather than 1.

An additional errata addition to the Online Core Rules PDF - is confirmation that the game will include Original and Sequel Trilogy eras of content:

Previously, only the first two were confirmed - which spans the Prequel Trilogy, and everything up to A New Hope. (Technically ending with Rogue One - even though that is set only days before ANH...)
Nice. 🙂

Final complaint - the Core Rules PDF is not searchable. you can select all the words, so there's probably a simple PDF edit that can be made to fix this, but come on...

Anyway - i should stop writing this novel. 😛
I enjoyed the game - i'm hoping my opponent did too, and we can play a full-sized game now we understand the basics - and it can give me another avenue for throwing out my cash. 😉 

[mikewicked]

Another game of Shatterpoint last night - i guess technically the first full game, using 2 squads per side, as intended.
I played Maul and Ventress.

quicker game on the whole, but still finding flaws in the rulebook... i think we paused 3 times to find an answer online when we couldn't find it in the rulebook, and only one of those cases was there a page reference that showed it was actually written down (just unfortunate formatting hid the answer...)
I'm half tempted to try re-structure the rulebook text to something that works with my organisational preferences, but we'll see.

anyway - game was good - was nice to *feel* the game, and how fluffy each character feels relative to their Clone Wars characterisation. Maul gets more powerful as he takes damage, Ventress has more of a dualist nature, better at damage mitigation and punishing misses in melee (while Anakin and Ahsoka will deflect missed ranged attacks)

however there's also a noticeable disconnect in how each primary plays vs the secondary and supports.
I don't know if i'll be able to explain it well, but basically each squad is made of a primary, a secondary, and 2 support models - the primaries are (as far as i have seen) a Jedi, Sith, or other force user - but the synergies really only work in the secondary and support characters.
It's not a bad thing i suppose - and i guess fits into their nature in the shows/films as lone operatives at the head of a bigger battle - plus it does make list-building a bit more open, even if (so far) there's not really a reason to break up the secondaries from their supports - but that is only speaking of 4 squads... it is a bit of a shame there's no legit way to review the stats of other units to see which boxes are worth buying to build the synergies. (i'm sure something will get made soon enough...)

i already have some other expansions in mind for what to buy next - Obi-Wan, Grevious and Dooku all look great. Cad Bane was also just announced, i think the first primary who isn't a force user, so that might be interesting. and Mace Windu round out the current sets that caught my eye... i'll have to see if i can pace myself, i guess...

anyway - i won, but another very tight game, and really does well to avoid those feel bad moments that some of the swingier games can fall victim to. here's some pics:
 

[Krefey]

I've liked what I've played of Shatterpoint so far.  Although for me, it's more a beer & pretzels game.  I can see it being more competitive once more squads are released though and as more interactions open up.

 

You're correct about the Primaries not really meshing with the secondary and support characters though.  I think Dooku is the only one that really does and even then, only a little.  I haven't got Grievous yet though and I need to double check the grand inquisitor.

 

Also, Grievous technically isn't a force user 😛

[mikewicked]

16 hours ago, Krefey said:

Grievous technically isn't a force user

ha, correct, and i've no excuse really given the context of how i said that. i assume i was initially going to say Lightsaber user, and changed my mind based on Force Generation, or something.

i did find this website:
https://shatterpointdb.com/
after my last game night with the game, which lists all the character cards, so you can see which are strong, etc.
I'm really only a beer and pretzels player too, so i've read them more as how have the designers captured each's flavour, and they have done well - it does seem to already have a decent competitive scene though, i guess it doesn't hurt that AMG likely took lessons learned from MCP into this.

there are already too many squads i want (Grievous, Obi-Wan, Dooku, Mace Windu - and i don't *not want* the rest, just that these 4 are the ones i've whittled it down to) - and i recently looked into the squads announced at Adepticon earlier in the year, and there are more coming... gonna have to make a decision about how deep down the rabbit hole i take this one...

[Krefey]

I'm keen for the Cad Bane set when it gets released 😛  I think I currently have all the others except Grievous that are currently available...I don't need help, honest.

[chromedog]

On 8/10/2023 at 8:51 PM, Krefey said:

I've liked what I've played of Shatterpoint so far.  Although for me, it's more a beer & pretzels game.  I can see it being more competitive once more squads are released though and as more interactions open up.

 

You're correct about the Primaries not really meshing with the secondary and support characters though.  I think Dooku is the only one that really does and even then, only a little.  I haven't got Grievous yet though and I need to double check the grand inquisitor.

 

Also, Grievous technically isn't a force user 😛

Yup, he was trained to fight with a lightsaber by Dooku, but he ISN'T a force user.  Non-Force users can't hope to defeat a fully trained master in a fair fight - but Grievous is more a "Blendo" with lightsabers than a fair fight - and Dooku did teach him a bunch of dirty anti-jedi tricks.