Latest news with #ColdTactics
Geek Dad
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Dad
‘Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics' Adds Count Dooku and Admiral Thrawn To The Series
The Star Wars universe has some incredible heroes. However, what makes them great are some very evil villains. In fact, some of the greatest science fiction villains of all time are those from 'a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.' Seven years ago, a new game was released that let players take on the roles of Disney villains. Then in 2002, Star Wars Villainous was released where players could play as one of five iconic villains as they competed to be the most… villainous. Since that time, two expansions have been released to add an additional five villains to the mix. Now two more villains make their villainous debut, Count Dooku and Admiral Thrawn, in Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics . What Is Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics ? Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics is a stand-alone expansion for the card-based Star Wars Villainous strategy game. It is designed for 2 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 40 minutes to play. With other Star Wars Villainous games, up to six players can take part in a game. In the game, players take on the role of one of the villains and work to achieve their unique objectives before the other villains. The game includes a hand management mechanic with some 'take that' elements as well. It's currently available from Target with a suggested retail price of $19.99 for a copy of the game. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics was designed by Mike Mulvihill and published by Ravensburger, with illustrations by Johnny Morrow and Yuri Cameirana. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics Components Here is what you get inside the box: 2 Villain movers 2 Villain decks (30 cards each) 2 Fate decks (15 cards each) 2 Sector boards 2 Villain guides 2 Reference cards 25 Credit tokens 25 Ambition tokens 15 Strength tokens 4 Artifact tokens The villains are represented by their own sculpted movers which are used to show the location where a villain is on their realm. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics includes two unique movers. The two villain movers. The white Thrawn mover is a Target exclusive. Photo by Michael Knight. Each villain has their own sector made up of locations from their story. The sectors consist of four locations, each with four symbols for actions which can be taken by the villain when at that location. There is also a deep space location where space ships can be played. The sector boards also list the objective for the villain to help remind you what you must do to win the game. The two villain sector boards. Photo by Michael Knight. The villain cards are what you use to take control of your realm and work towards your objective. There are four basic types of villain cards in Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics Allies are characters who help you and can attack heroes that other villains may play on your realm. The number in the bottom left corner is their strength. Items are also placed in your realm and provide lasting effects. Effect and Condition cards are played immediately and then discarded. The number in the upper left corner of a villain card is the cost you must pay in credits or ambition in order to use that card. Each of these villains have some interesting villain cards. Some of them work well together. Photo by Michael Knight. Fate cards are unique to each villain and are played against you by other villains. Effect and item cards function similarly to those types of villain cards. Hero cards are similar to ally cards in that they represent characters. However, unlike allies, heroes are trying to prevent you from achieving your objective. They also have a strength number in the lower left corner. The fate cards can really hinder villains from obtaining their objectives–especially the restriction cards. Photo by Michael Knight. There is a villain guide included for each villain that explain in greater detail how that villain can win the game. It also offers tips to help you win and descriptions of how some of the cards in the villain deck work or interact with other cards. It is a good idea to read through the villain guide before you start playing. There is also a QR code on the back with a link to a quick video on how to play that specific villain. The guides for each of the villains. Photo by Michael Knight. The reference cards are useful reminders to use during play. One side lists all the action symbols from the sectors and explains each action. The opposite side lists the objectives for each of the two villains to remind you what your opponents must do to win. The two included reference cards. Photo by Michael Knight. Credit and Ambition tokens are used to represent two different types of currency in the game. The Artifact tokens are used by Thrawn while the Intimidation tokens are used by Count Dooku. There are five different types of tokens for these two villains. Photo by Michael Knight. How to Play Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics Ravensburger has created a video to quickly describe the rules for the Star Wars Villainous series. It can be found here. The Goal The goal of the game is to be the first to fulfill your villain's objectives. Setup At the start, each player chooses a villain and takes that villain's sector board, mover, villain deck, fate deck, villain guide, and a reference card. Open up the villain board and position it in front of you. Place the mover on the portrait of your villain on the left side. Shuffle our villain deck and place it face down to the left of your realm board. Draw four cards from your villain deck to form your starting hand and place them face down in front of you. Now shuffle the cards in your fate deck and place it face down above your villain deck. Place the four types of tokens in separate piles in the center of the table so all players can reach it. Each player takes two power tokens for the start. Choose which player will go first, and then each player reads aloud their villain's objective to the other players. You are now ready to play the game. Once they have done this, it is now the next player's turn. A duel between Thrawn and Count Dooku all setup and ready to play. Photo by Michael Knight. Gameplay Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics is played in turns. During each player's turn, they go through three main steps. First the move their villain move to a different location in their sector. They cannot stay in the same location. Next they perform as many actions as they wish that are available at that location. Finally, if the player has fewer than four cards in their hand, they draw cards from their villain deck until they have four in their hand. Each location on the villain's sector has four action symbols. There are seven different types of actions. The Gain Power action lets the player take a number of power tokens from the cauldron equal to the number in the symbol. The Play a Card action allows a player to play one card from their hand. They can play one card for each symbol of this type they have in their current location. First a player must pay the power cost in the upper left corner of the card by returning that many power tokens to the cauldron. Ally and item cards are played to the bottom of the realm at any of the four locations. Effects and condition cards are played and then discarded immediately. The Fate action lets you choose another villain to target. Draw two cards from their fate deck. Choose one to play and then discard the other. If you play a hero card, place it on the top of one of the locations so that it covers and blocks the top two action symbols. While blocked, the villain cannot take an action at that location. Move an Item or Ally lets you take an item or ally already in your realm and move it to another location. Move a Hero lets you move a hero from one location to another in your realm. The Vanquish action lets you defeat a hero at a location where you have one more more allies. The ally must strength equal or greater than the hero in order to remove them from your realm. You can also must multiple allies at the same location as the hero and combine their strength to defeat the hero. Any allies whose strength was used to defeat a hero are discarded. Finally, the Discard cards action lets you discard any number of cards from your hand. This is a good way to get rid of cards you don't need so you can draw new ones at the end of your turn. Game End The game ends as soon as one villain achieves their objective. That player is the winner. Count Dooku wins by activating organizations through intimidation. Photo by Michael Knight. Why You Should Play Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics The Star Wars Villainous series is one of my favorite games along with Disney Villainous and Marvel Villainous , separate Villainous lines which are not compatible with each other or Star Wars Villainous . First off, the Star Wars Villainous games look incredible and have a cool table presence. The art on each card is original, but based on the movies and television shows from the Star Wars universe. I like how each villain has different objectives and as a result plays a bit differently. The villains in Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics are no exception. There are five organizations in Dooku's villain deck. Photo by Michael Knight. Count Dooku plays differently from the other Star Wars villains. In order to win, Dooku must have an active organization at each location. To accomplish this, the player must first play four different organizations from the Villain deck onto the four locations in his sector. Then, in order to activate an organization, the player must place a certain number of intimidation tokens on each organization. Once activated, the tokens are removed and the player can then use that organization's ability. Dooku can gain intimidation tokens by playing specific cards. However, the main way to gain and place intimidation tokens is by defeating heroes at the locations of the organizations. Dooku also has some interesting cards in his deck. For example, the Magna Guard ally cards are not discarded when they vanquish a hero but instead are returned to the player's hand. General Grievous provides additional intimidation when used to vanquish heroes. Thrawn is ready to occupy Ryloth. He already has the Kalikori artifact and positioned the 7th Fleet at the location. Now the player just needs to use an Ambition action and spend 4 Ambition tokens to flip over the location to the occupied side and move closer to victory. Photo by Michael Knight. I have been a fan of Admiral Thrawn since he was first introduced into the Star Wars universe back in 1991 in Timothy Zahn's novel, Heir to the Empire . After appearing only in novels and comics, Thrawn finally appeared on the small screen in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels and then in live-action in the Disney+ series Ashoka. Thrawn in the game draws on both of these series and his objective is to occupy all four locations. Since Thrawn always studies the cultures of the people he wishes to conquer, the player must get an artifact unique to each location. Next a 7th Fleet item card must be played to the location. Once the location is clear of heroes, then Thrawn can occupy the location and flip over the location on the sector board to show it is occupied. The process of occupying a location costs ambition tokens, so it is important to ensure you play cards that will help provide ambition. Thrawn's sector board has locations that can be flipped over to show when they have been occupied by the Empire. Photo by Michael Knight. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics also has a great way for players to interact with one another. In keeping with the Star Wars timeline, Count Dooku will never send Magna Guard to attack Admiral Thrawn and Thrawn will not use his flagship The Chimera to attack the Separatist fleet. Instead, the use of fate cards is a creative way for players to hinder each other's progress. When you take a fate action, you play cards from your opponent's fate deck against them. When playing against Dooku it is important to prevent him from gaining and using intimidation. Along those same lines, when playing against Thrawn, you want to prevent him from gaining ambition. There are some cards that will either prevent Thrwan from taking artifacts or return them to their location, frustrating Thrawn's progress. While Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics comes with only two villains, they are compatible with all of the other Star Wars Villainous games and expansions. These two bring the total number of villains in the series up to 12! By adding more villains, you can also bring the number of players up to six for a single game. I really enjoyed playing as both Count Dooku and Admiral Thrawn. They are impressive additions to the line-up of villains and have some very unique ways to play and win. That is one of the reasons I like all of the Villainous games–each villain is unique and has their own way of playing and winning that reflects them. If you have never played Star Wars Villainous , then Cold Tactics is a great place to start. It is considered an expand-alone game since you can play it with two players by itself or use it to expand the series. If you already have some of the series of games, then I highly recommend adding Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics to your collection. Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews. To subscribe to GeekDad's tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader. Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes. Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!
CNET
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
I've Seen the New Star Wars Villainous Expansion and Ahsoka Fans Are Going to Love It
Disney Villainous and its many iterations have been with us since 2018 and are consistently some of the best board games to give as a gift. The way the constantly evolves and reinvents itself is part of that allure, as well as the branding opportunities that Disney has at its disposal. Star Wars Villainous has been a favorite of mine for a long time -- I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, born on Star Wars Day -- and playing as the villains of the Star Wars universe is always fun. The latest expandalone to the base Star Wars Villainous game is on its way this summer, July 21 to be exact. It's called Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics, and it brings two new baddies for you to play: Count Dooku and Grand Admiral Thrawn, who gets the honor of being the box art. Before we get into more specifics, the word expandalone needs some explaining. Each of the Villainous expansions can be added to the full game, allowing you to pick and choose which villains you want to play in the larger format. They can also be played as two-player standalone games straight out of the box without ever having to own the original game. This gives you some freedom to only buy the villains you want and keep it a two-player game as well. Disney/Ravensburger Cold Tactics adds new win objectives for each of the two villains you can play. Count Dooku needs an active organization at each location in his sector. To do that, you'll need to defeat Jedi and convince those organizations to go from neutral to active. The images show three Jedi: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka Tano -- technically she's "no Jedi" but you get the idea -- as well as Ventress and Cade Bane as your allies. Having Ahsoka makes sense since the other villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, is expected to make an appearance in the new season of the Disney Plus show, Ahsoka. Disney/Ravensburger Admiral Thrawn, in all his blue glory, is the main villain of Cold Tactics and has a unique sector board. His objective is to occupy the four main locations on the board by deploying the seventh fleet and by collecting artifacts. Once you've occupied those locations, you can flip their tile to the "(occupied)" state. Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger are the heroes here to thwart you. Your allies include Morgan Elsbeth and Baylan Skoll, both of whom have appeared in the Ahsoka TV show. Cold Tactics feels like a more, well, tactical game than other iterations of Star Wars Villainous. This shouldn't be a shock if you're familiar with Admiral Thrawn. Whether you've read his books, enjoyed Star Wars: Rebels, or your only experience with him is from the Ahsoka TV show, you know tactics and strategy are his thing. The need to occupy or control locations is a fun mechanic, and I'm sure some of those pesky heroes will have ways to flip your board back again as you play. Villains' goals are often more localized -- collect eight lightsabers and defeat Luke Skywalker are two from the original game -- but both Dooku and Thrawn have much larger ambitions in this new expansion. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics will be available to purchase from Target on July 21, 2025, followed by Amazon on Aug. 1. The Target box has some exclusive parts, including a pearlescent shine to the Thrawn figure, so if you love exclusive stuff, be on the lookout for that on July 21. If you're at the UK Games Expo from May 30 to June 1, you can get a sneak peek at the game at the Ravensburger booth.
CNET
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
I've Seen the New Star Wars Villainous Expansion and Ashoka Fans Are Going to Love It
Disney Villainous and its many iterations have been with us since 2018 and are consistently some of the best board games to give as a gift. The way the constantly evolves and reinvents itself is part of that allure, as well as the branding opportunities that Disney has at its disposal. Star Wars Villainous has been a favorite of mine for a long time -- I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, born on Star Wars Day -- and playing as the villains of the Star Wars universe is always fun. The latest expandalone to the base Star Wars Villainous game is on its way this summer, July 21 to be exact. It's called Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics, and it brings two new baddies for you to play: Count Dooku and Grand Admiral Thrawn, who gets the honor of being the box art. Before we get into more specifics, the word expandalone needs some explaining. Each of the Villainous expansions can be added to the full game, allowing you to pick and choose which villains you want to play in the larger format. They can also be played as two-player standalone games straight out of the box without ever having to own the original game. This gives you some freedom to only buy the villains you want and keep it a two-player game as well. Disney / Ravensburger Cold Tactics adds new win objectives for each of the two villains you can play. Count Dooku needs an active organization at each location in his sector. To do that, you'll need to defeat Jedi and convince those organizations to go from neutral to active. The images show three Jedi: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ashoka Tano -- technically she's "no Jedi" but you get the idea -- as well as Ventress and Cade Bane as your allies. Having Ashoka makes sense since the other villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, is expected to make an appearance in the new season of the Disney Plus show, Ashoka. Disney / Ravensburger Admiral Thrawn, in all his blue glory, is the main villain of Cold Tactics and has a unique sector board. His objective is to occupy the four main locations on the board by deploying the seventh fleet and by collecting artifacts. Once you've occupied those locations, you can flip their tile to the "(occupied)" state. Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger are the heroes here to thwart you. Your allies include Morgan Elsbeth and Baylan Skoll, both of whom have appeared in the Ashoka TV show. Cold Tactics feels like a more, well, tactical game than other iterations of Star Wars Villainous. This shouldn't be a shock if you're familiar with Admiral Thrawn. Whether you've read his books, enjoyed Star Wars: Rebels, or your only experience with him is from the Ahsoka TV show, you know tactics and strategy are his thing. The need to occupy or control locations is a fun mechanic, and I'm sure some of those pesky heroes will have ways to flip your board back again as you play. Villains' goals are often more localized -- collect eight lightsabers and defeat Luke Skywalker are two from the original game -- but both Dooku and Thrawn have much larger ambitions in this new expansion. Star Wars Villainous: Cold Tactics will be available to purchase from Target on July 21, 2025, followed by Amazon on Aug. 1. The Target box has some exclusive parts, including a pearlescent shine to the Thrawn figure, so if you love exclusive stuff, be on the lookout for that on July 21.
