Star Wars: Bounty Hunters

• Designer: Frederic Henry
• Publisher: Zygomatic
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20-30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by distributor, Asmodee NA

Star Wars: Bounty Hunters is a light strategy game, in which players compete to be the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. Players have three goals which will help them earn points: capturing targets, completing contracts, and purchasing droids and crates at the Jawa market. There is no down-time in this drafting game: everyone plays at the same time. 

To set up the game, the 4 different decks (green, red, blue and grey) are shuffled and placed on the table.  Beneath each deck is a Zone card of matching color.  Players draw one card from each of the four decks to generate their starting hand of four cards.

Each turn, players pick a card from one of the available piles (targets, hunters, contracts, and Jawa market); thus giving them a hand of 5 cards. Then, all players simultaneously choose a card from their hand; placing it face down on the table in front of them.  They will either play or sell this chosen card. If they sell the card, it is simply discarded to the matching discard pile, and the player takes 1 Credit token.  If they play the card, there are a few options.  If it does not have a cost, it is placed upright and activated immediately.  If it does have a cost (because it is a Jawa Market card), the cost can be paid in credits to activate it.  Alternatively, you can place this card sideways, reserving it – you do not have to pay any costs now.  Then, you have the option of activating any previously reserved cards by paying their cost now.  Finally, all players pass their remaining hand to their left-hand neighbor.

Target cards have defense values, while bounty hunter and droid cards have attack values. To capture a target, players must equal or exceed the target’s three defense values by placing bounty hunter and droid cards in front of their targets. There is no cost to play bounty hunter cards from your hand, but they come with a point penalty at the end of the game.  Droids cost money to activate, but they do not have any associated penalty. Once a target is defeated, it is placed horizontally on top of all the cards used to capture it, and it will score points as seen in the upper left corner.   Capturing a Target card may also get you Credits or a Contract card.

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Players may also fill contracts by choosing contract cards. These grant bonus points for capturing specific targets and purchasing crates.  The top half of the card generally scores 1 point for each card captured that matches what is shown.  The bottom half of the card gives you bonus points for specific combinations of cards (and cards can score for both the top and bottom criteria on your contract card).

The first player to capture 4 targets earns bonuses, and this triggers the final 2 turns. Using the scorepad, players count the points they earned from capturing targets, filling contracts, and purchasing crates, and they deduct points they spent to hire hunters. The player with the most points is declared the best bounty hunter in the galaxy!

My thoughts on the game

Well, I’m surprisingly not a big Star Wars fan, but I know a lot of people who are – so I have lots of potential playing partners for this game.  I’m not overly familiar with the publisher, Zygomatic, so I was interested to see what they did with the Star Wars IP.  Interestingly, I like the fact that the Bounty Hunters are the protagonists in this one…

Here, you draft a card each turn from your (ever-changing) hand, trying to capture those Rebel scum.  You can take the cheap route and use free-to-play Bounty Hunters that come with some VP penalties, or you can save up your coin to play droids.  Essentially, you have to decide between time and VP penalties…  You’ll more likely than not have to sell a card (which takes up your entire turn) to get a coin, and then use that coin on a later turn to allow you to play a card with a casting cost.  Some of the Targets can be worth as much as 18 points, so you’ll definitely still get a decent score even if you use a lot of Bounty Hunters…

The contracts can be extremely lucrative too.  If you are lucky, you can get multiple contracts that reward you for the same character; and I’ve seen players only capture two Rebels and then compete for the win by plunking down contract after contract that rewards for one or both of their captures…

Each turn, you get some interesting decisions to make – and it all depends on what four cards are handed to you.  A lot of times, if I find a card that I like, I try to draft something that I think the next person doesn’t want, if only to limit their choices.  After all, I’m not going to see that hand until it gets back around the table… so hopefully it’ll be gone by the time it gets back to me.  Other times, I’m fishing for a card that I want, so I draw and pray.

We have come up with a system where everyone chooses their card and puts it face down on the table – then when everyone has chosen, players simultaneously do what they are going to do with the card.  We have chosen to do this mostly for timing purposes.  When we didn’t do it, faster players would end up “ahead” of other players, and we got out of sync.  By all resolving at the same time, everyone stays on the same round, and it just seems to work better for us.

A lot of my family members love Star Wars, so I’m pretty sure that I’ll be showing this off over summer picnics and get togethers.  It’s pretty easy to teach/learn, and generally just a few example fights as I explain the rules helps everyone understand what to do.  I suspect that by the end of the summer, I’ll end up gifting this to one of them as I’m sure that it will be a hit with the Star Wars junkies that I know.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor