Wise Wizard Games Star Realms: Deckbuilding Card Game

Though there are an assortment of expansions for this Trading Card Game out there, you don't NEED any of them; this base set has all you require for a fully functional game. That said, I would recommend pairing it with the 'Colony Wars' expansion for a much-expanded experience.The game as played by the rules - assorted variants for assorted numbers of players are given in the provided rule sheets - is fun and reasonably easy to learn and get used to.However, I find one of the best things about it to be the fact that you can very easily come up with your own rules and your own game. The cards almost beg you to do so, in fact. (I've made various custom dice and tokens for it).The set consists of cards (with some very nice artwork) belonging to four factions vying to colonize and expand within the universe. The organic, so-called 'Blob' faction - whose rather beautiful bio-craft mostly look like weirdly mutated sea creatures - the Trade Federation, essentially just out to make a profit, the Machine Cult, mechanistic and more or less robotic, and the warmongering Star Empire... Totally love the Blob faction myself.The cards portray both spaceships for each faction and bases (planetary and orbital), each faction having different strengths but being basically evenly matched.Trade and alliances between factions can be fostered, as well as just trying to blast each other to perdition. The set also contains some cards featuring unaligned vessels that can be captured and employed by any faction - or used a space pirates or such, depending how you customize the game. There are also score cards.A cheap option as opposed to some TCGs (at the time of writing) and excellent value for money. A highly adaptable sci-fi TCG.With this and the Colony Wars Set, there's great scope for galactic adventure.

A great game, simple once you learn the rules and then infinitely replayable.We change the rules a bit sometimes to make things more difficult (i.e. we self-impose a no healing over 50hp rule so that you don't get obliterated purely based on an hp overwhelm, or we add in one Explorer card at the start to each player hand to make the pace pick up and the initial purchases faster).Easy to set up!My only one gripe I have is that some of the cards could make it more clear that their 'trash' symbol applies an effect, sometimes these can be confused with their allied abilities.

One of the best tabletop games I own (and I own lots); easy to play yet complex, a mix of strategy and chance, very addictive, compact and easy to carry around, awesome graphics. I gave this to my 18 year old cousin for Christmas, and it was his favourite present. All of us teenagers/young adults spent Christmas arguing over who got to play it next. Gives you a sense of a detailed universe with different space factions endlessly battling, and cities drifting in space and massive war ships, and rusty old transporter ships... Awesome. Plus the score-keeping method is revolutionary; your score is printed on cards, and when you gain or lose health you get change for your score cards like they're cash. We sometimes borrow the score cards for other games because they're so useful and fun. The game's only for two players, but if you buy a second starter deck (preferably a different one, so you get new ships and ports!) you can make it a two-player game. Basically every starter deck you add adds two players. There are many different ways to play multiplayer detailed inside the box. There are also expansions for the game, but it isn't necessary to buy them to have fun; you get SO many cards that you never run out of the deck during the game, and it takes several games before you'll see all of the cards. This makes the game highly replayable! All in all, definitely worth buying if you like tabletop games.

This was my first foray into this type of card game; a few points for people who haven't played games like this before, or like myself have only distant memories of the Pokemon TCG:* This box contains everything that is required to play for a two players. The contents of each box are identical and so if you want to play 4/6 player you'll need an extra pack (or two).* There are expansions available and, like the main deck, they are a fixed set of cards. The game doesn't doesn't feel incomplete without them and they are definitely optional.* It's worth having a practice game where both players play with an open hand if you aren't familiar with the game type; some of the rules take a bit of thinking through before you understand them!The game itself is well paced and has enough depth to allow different strategies to interact in a chaotic manor. Setup only takes a minute; with a game taking around 40 minutes (largely dependent on how quick each player is making decisions; we tend to take our time!).One other thing I will note is although the cards are good quality the box they come in is pretty flimsy; coupled with the fact it is about a centimeter bigger than the cards in each direction means the box quickly falls apart if transported in a rucksack! Consider buying a deckbox if you plan to transport them carelessly and frequently like me! A full deck with the 4 'Crisis' expansions fits neatly in a 200 card magic the gathering deckbox.In summary an enjoyable space themed two player deckbuilding game, which at around £12 is an excellent and cheap choice for a first deckbuilding game.

Great game. Very good value for money and the cards are self explanatory however I ordered the original base game Star Realms and received the expansion Colony Wars. Colony wars luckily is a stand alone expansion that can be integrated with the original game. So we played this one.We didn’t realise we had received the expansion until it was pointed out to us as we are new to these games.

Good fun game, I also really enjoy playing the game on the app when traveling.