December 5, 2024

#UnboxingDay ~ Star Wars: The Clone Wars – A Pandemic System Game from Z-Man Games

RockyMountainNavy, 17 November 2022

“Begun, the Clone War has…” – Yoda

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – A Pandemic System Game by Alexander Ortloff from Z-Man Games is based on Matt Leacock’s Pandemic System. In this cooperative boardgame player are Jedi Generals fighting against the Separatist Droid Army led by an evil Sith villain. Fight the hordes, accomplish missions, and face down the big, bad villain in a final all out battle…before time runs out and Order 66 is called!

My copy was acquired through my FLGS, Huzzah Hobbies in Northern Virginia. To say Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released “under the radar” is a bit of an understatement; I saw a tweet from Z-Man Games announcing the release but when I asked my FLGS they didn’t know anything about it. As a matter of fact, it was not in their distributors catalog. I could have bought a copy at Target but I gave my FLGS a chance and a mere week later it arrived. Good thing I ordered though my FLGS as I got the free Promo Pack too!

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars box back

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a cooperative boardgame that is based on the Pandemic System by designer Matt Leacock. It is the latest in the Pandemic family of games, and personally my third variation of the series that I own.

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My Pandemic “Family”

As you can see from the above photo, Star Wars: The Clone Wars comes in a deeper box that is filled to the top when opened.

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Brimming with content…

 

The reason Star Wars: The Clone Wars comes in a deeper box is because it needs to store the plastic Jedi General and Villain figures.

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Plastic figures

 

In addition to the cards, Star Wars: The Clone Wars also has plastic droids and tokens for play. Yes, there is even a d12 die in there with similar symbology used for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from Fantasy Flight Games. Given both Fantasy Flight Games and Z-Man Games are owned by Asmodee this is not unexpected…

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Cards and tokens and dice…oh my!

 

Set up, Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes up a moderate amount of table space. The Promo Pack is another droid army set in a more tan color that is a bit darker than the Jedi Generals. Seeing how the in-box dark purple droids get lost on the dark background of the board, the replacement set will probably be used in my future games.

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Where are those Little Purple Army Droids?

 

We have already played a few games of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the RockyMountainNavy Boys have given it an unqualified thumbs up. It’s Pandemic but with a nice, highly thematic set of twists. My early reactions are very positive, and my quibbles to date minor (such as I wish the final Threat Level box—meaning game lost—was labeled “Order 66”). That said, I expect this game to land on the RockyMountainNavy gaming table more than a few times this coming winter.

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“The force is strong with this one.” – Darth Vader

 


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