The Good: Easy-to-play, Collectible value, Images
The Bad: Still has a load of recycled cards, Very small set, Most common possible recycled cards.
The Basics: The Star Wars Enhanced Premiere set provides players with character cards with their weapons and a shitton of cards they likely already have.
The most unfortunate aspect of the way Decipher marketed its Star Wars gaming cards was that when it differentiated between the limited and unlimited (printed many, many times) versions of their cards, players and collectors were often goaded into rebuying the same cards multiple times. In addition to deflating the value of the initial cards, the premiums Decipher used to try to lure fans into rebuying the same old stuff often did not hold their value. One of the exceptions to that was the Enhanced Premiere set of Star Wars cards.
To be sure, Enhanced Premiere is not just "Premiere" (reviewed here!), though it was not much more than that! The Enhanced Premiere boxes included packs from that set, but was essentially the six unique cards found in one of six Deluxe Draft Packs.
Basics/Set Composition
The Star Wars Customizable Card Game Enhanced Premiere set was not a true expansion and was the first of the "Enhanced" sets Decipher did. The Enhanced "Premiere" set is a 6 card set focusing on characters and weapons presented in The Empire Strikes Back. The set consists of 4 Light Side and 2 Dark Side cards which are all premium cards.
The 6 card set features 6 Characters With Weapons, all of whom are major characters – Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. This set is heavily balanced to the Light Side and has nothing incredibly new, just combines the principle characters with their weapons.
The deluxe draft pack comes with four packs of Premiere cards and one exclusive enhanced cards. Thus, in order to collect the full set, one has to buy six draft boxes to get all of the exclusive cards.
Playability
At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The starting purpose of the game is to drain your opponent of Force without depleting your own Force and to survive the trip around the Star Wars Universe with whatever your player throws at you. The basic idea is to assemble a sixty card deck (for beginners), lay out the board (spaceline) and play against an opponent. In laying out the board, players get the power from the Force they need to play other cards.
Locations form the board for the game and almost all of them have an indicator which puts into play Light Side and Dark Side Force points, which the player may then tap into to "buy" characters, ships, weapons and tactical cards to thwart their opponent. Events represent the obstacles that opponents can use to make the game more than just a basic search and kill game. The rulebook clearly defines what each deck must possess in terms of numbers of the card types. But basically, one starts by laying out a board, assembling a starship and its crew and traveling along the planets and through space to either crush the Empire or put down the Rebellion.
This is a very complex customizable card game, but it represents a level of gaming sophistication designed to appeal to younger adults and actually challenge them, which is a decent idea given the thematic complexity of the Star Wars universe. The problem, of course, is that most people who would be most stimulated by this game do not have the time or effort/interest to learn to play it. As a result, the late-teens that basically run the CCG players world seem to have had mixed impressions about this game.
The six cards in Enhanced Premiere are not nearly enough to actually play the game with. However, because they combine characters with their weapons, they can help one reduce their hand count and make gameplay easier!
Rules/Rule Changes
There is no rulebook in this set of cards. Instead, one has to get a revised rulebook from the Special Edition set (reviewed here!). In this set, there are no new card types or rules.
Highlights
Players, collectors and fans of Star Wars will appreciate the image quality of the situations from The Empire Strikes Back and the expanded Star Wars universe in Premiere, especially because this fleshes out the major heroes and villains in the Star Wars universe very well and adds a lot of flexibility and power to the Light Side player's experience. Most fans geeked out over the new Leia and the powerful Luke cards.
For a highlight, I go with Boba Fett With Blaster Rifle. The Dark Side Alien card features Boba Fett on Bespin. For only five Force, Boba Fett may be played with his weapons and enhanced play options. The image is cool and it is a card that adds 3 to any vehicle it pilots, making for a distinct and powerful card!
Collectibility
The Enhanced Premiere set has good collectability. Because the exclusive cards were only released in one printing (though later some of the cards were made into Reflections foils), the Enhanced Premiere set is one of the sets which was rare enough to retain its value, so most collectors are likely to be pleased with it. Unfortunately, the cards that come with the premiums are incredibly over-common.
Overview
The Star Wars Enhanced Premiere cards might recycle a great number of cards, but the set itself is cool, filled with powerful cards, and has retained its value!
This set culls material from The Empire Strikes Back, which is reviewed here!
This set was preceded by Death Star II (reviewed here!) and followed by the Star Wars CCG expansion "Tatooine," reviewed here!
5.5/10
For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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