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Forbes
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Alistair Petrie Talks The Joy Of Games And Playing Star Wars Unlimited
Alistair Petrie attends an event celebrating the latest Star Wars Unlimited card set Legends of the ... More Force. Many people get into games they love to play. But few people get to be a card in the game they are playing. When I asked Alistair Petrie, who played Imperial General Draven in Star Wars: Rogue One and Andor about his favorite card in Star Wars: Unlimited, he gave me, perhaps, the most obvious answer. 'When the team sort of said, oh, you're a card in the game,' said Petrie, 'that was well, obviously, I need to play that as fast as possible. Thankfully, they had several in front of me, which they were very sweet to allow me to sign for people, which was great,' Petrie got a chance to learn and play Star Wars Unlimited as part of the game's rollout of its latest expansion, Legends of the Force. This expansion introduces several Jedi, Sith and other masters of the mystical power in the Star Wars universe. Several cards have the Force trait which expands into the new mechanic for the set. Certain cards within the set, such as bases, give the player a Force token when they are played or used. The player can spend the Force token to activate powerful special abilities on Jedi Masters and Sith Lord. It's very challenging to resist saying 'use the Force' in the tone of Obi-Wan Kenobi whenever it happens during a game. The General Draven card appeared in the Jump to Lightspeed set. Appearing in the game is just another fascinating aspect of being a part of the Star Wars franchise. It also takes the actor back to when he was young and how playing games brought his family together. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder 'My father was in the military,' said Petrie, '[So my] formative years were spent in the Middle East in Saudi Arabia, where my father was a pilot. Access to television was pretty minimal. If there were movies to be watched. It was sort of old school VHS or Betamax, which was sort of fairly hard to get hold of. You know, the great sort of global world of streaming in which we now live wasn't really accessible. It was just my mother and father and me. Evenings were spent effectively playing all the traditional simple board games, which was sort of all I knew in a sense. I didn't feel I was sort of missing out on some great world of a screen life that other people had. As a result, there [were] a lot of board games that we played and friends would come over and we would play.' That early exposure to games stayed with Petrie throughout his life. It helped him make friends and build his community as an actor. Then, in the early 90s, he got a chance to play the forefather of collectable card games, Magic: The Gathering. 'When I was first in Los Angeles in about 1992 and my closest friend who I was living with had his brother-in-law and he had a friend and basically these people used to gather at the house and they would play Magic,' said Petrie. 'I knew nothing about Magic. I'd heard of it, but it felt incredible. Sid, my great mate, played it as well as Dungeons and Dragons in his school days. I was sort of always intimidated by them because I thought I didn't know where to start. I didn't know how to kind of join a game. I didn't know where to access almost a beginner's group, really. But the appeal was always there. Due to the gorgeous generosity of my closest friend, when this gathering arrived on Thursday evening at this house in Los Angeles I went along. They were so brilliantly patient with me and no question was too stupid. So I started to play, started to play magic and it felt very complicated, but equally they made it very accessible. And the thing that really struck me, like all board games, you have two, four, however many six people gathering around the table and playing and talking. Being part of something sort of collective that felt sort of inclusive, competitively, inclusive, if that makes sense. There was something, forgive the pun, inherently magic about that. It's so beautifully focused and people gather together for this one specific purpose. It's not about winning or losing, it's about, it's about the process of playing. I think there's something rather wonderful in that.' The cinematic nature of the game appealed to me most when I first started playing it. Like most of the sets, Legends of the Force draws across the many time periods and different media of Star Wars, from the films to the shows to the books and everything in between. It allows for all sorts of unexpected combinations, like Darth Maul facing off against Kylo Ren. 'What sort of pulls you,' said Petrie, '[is] you're playing Star Wars Unlimited and there it is in front of you. But every other kind of legacy is sort of surrounding you like some kind of other visual effect. Your head is in that cloud while you play it. So it kind of comes to life. If you break it down to its constituent parts, it's a map on a table anyway that you can play it pretty much anywhere because it's so portable. That's the other glorious thing about it. You roll it up. Couple of boxes in your bag, you're done. You can take it. You can go anywhere with it. The epicness suddenly just unfolds before you as you literally just pop it on a crate.' Later this month, the first ever Star Wars Unlimited Galactic Championship will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Venetian Resort. In addition to a tournament drawing the best players from around the world the event will feature experiences for players and Star Wars fans alike. They'll be opportunities for trading, trying out new games and even photo ops with some of the most famous ships in the galaxy. Star Wars Unlimited: Legends of the Force is available from Fantasy Flight Games, through online retailers and Friendly Local Gaming Stores. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Forbes
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Every Game Of Star Wars Unlimited Is A Climactic Cinematic Battle
The month of May is a big one for fans of Star Wars. At the beginning is May the Fourth, which went from a silly pun holiday to an important pop culture day for new releases and announcements of upcoming movies and shows. The original film was released on May 25th, 1977 and has changed the world ever since. I spent a lot of my fan time this month playing Star Wars Unlimited from Fantasy Flight Games. It's a trading card game in the modern style featuring characters, locations, ships, droids and more from all across the Star Wars universe. Asmodee North America sent along some Star Wars Unlimited materials for this review. Star Wars Unlimited is a fast paced card game where players build decks around specific people and places from the various films, TV shows and books about Star Wars. Players face off with a simple goal to reduce their opponent's hit points to zero first. The game takes place on two arenas of land and space and players must balance their attacks and defenses on both sides of the board. Cards are also used as resources in the game. Generally this means the card is out of play, though there are some cards that can be brought back at the right time. This setup keeps the bad start of many games like this to a minimum. Each release comes with a pair of decks built around specific Star Wars personalities. Additional leader and base cards are available in booster packs for fans who want to construct their own deck. The booster packs also have cards geared for collectors such as foils, full bleed art and alternate art options. The leaders offer specific bonuses but they are also part of the game clock. At a certain point, each leader can come out onto the field and start doing massive damage to their opponents. Deploying a leader at just the right time can swing the momentum of a game or drive a victory home. The first set of Star Wars Unlimited cards focuses on the classic era in and around Star Wars: A New Hope. There are a lot of iconic characters in the set. The starter features a classic clash between the father and son duo of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader as the pre-built decks. One of the things that's helped Star Wars stand out as a franchise is that it's not afraid to explore the seedier side of the galaxy. That's the focus of this expansion which allows players to bring in criminals, syndicates and other morally ambiguous characters from the franchise. The pre-built decks here feature The Mandalorian (and Grogu, of course) facing off against Moff Gideon. The Clone Wars get their time in the sun with this expansion. There are a lot of great ground side cards in this expansion plus plenty of Jedi and Sith at the height of their power. Ahsoka Tano and General Grievous lead the pre-built decks in this expansion. This period and the prequels remain controversial to many Star Wars fans. The good news here is that this expansion is one of the easiest and most inexpensive to find online because of those feelings. Fans that want to get into this game without a big investment should look for these boxes. This expansion focuses on pilots and starships. Cool rides from several different eras get their own cards here. Han Solo and Boba Fett face off in the spotlight decks which are sold individually rather than a combined starter. Jump to Lightspeed marks the first series that sells Carbonite Boosters. These premium booster packs feature more of the collector style cards per pack. Fans who want to find the perfect centerpiece for their deck or a high value card they can flip to other players should check these out. The upcoming expansion expected in July draws from the massive history of the Jedi. Characters come from the High Republic era all the way down to the sequel trilogy. Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul are at the head of this release's spotlight decks. The dual battlefields capture the feeling of the final act of the best Star Wars movies where the action cut back and forth between a massive space battle and individual heroes slugging it out on the ground. Developing the skill of knowing when to strike an opponent's cards versus when to hit the base is the key to winning the game. Every expansion adds a new keyword mechanic but the cards are very good at explaining what it does on the card rather than forcing players to pause while they look up a rule. Gamegenic continues to do excellent work with its premium game accessories. The Xtra Wide Game Mat helped me keep my cards straight on the table while featuring my favorite ship in the Star Wars fleet. The Premium Tokens made it easier to read the game state from across the table. Everybody has a favorite Star Wars character. With every expansion, more and more leader cards come out, which makes it very easy to build decks around nearly any named character. While it's not an effective deck for me yet, I really enjoyed building one around the dual leader of Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious which really mirrors the future Emperor's two-faced ways during the Clone Wars. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder One of my favorite things to do with a box of boosters is sit with family and friends and open them together. It lets everyone show off their Star Wars knowledge by identifying where a specific card is from. It also leans into the trading aspect of the trading card game when foils and other special cards come out of a pack. The first ever Galactic Champion of Star Wars Unlimited will be determined in Las Vegas on July 25-27th, 2025. Check your local game store for more information as well as Organized Play opportunities.
