The official Star Wars Unlimited website has released a lot of cryptic teasers about what fans should expect to see in the TCG's next set, Legends of the Force. While there's not much concrete to go on, keen-eyed fans have identified that the character in one art piece is Jedi Master Avar Kriss, a character who lived centuries the Skywalker Saga.
Legends of the Force will be the fifth set for Star Wars Unlimited, and will go on sale on July 11. According to designers Tylor Parrott and Elijah Montoya, it "represents the most eras and source materials of any set so far, reaching back before the prequels". Thanks to fans in the r/starwarsunlimited subreddit who quickly identified art of Avar Kriss, a main character in The High Republic book series, we know at least one time period.
The High Republic is the newest and least explored era for the setting, and it hasn't shown up in Star Wars board games at all. It occurs around two hundred years before the prequel films, and we've only seen the very end of it in The Acolyte TV series.
The High Republic era would also explain another card which has been hinted at. The teaser article mentions "a Vehicle unit that gets stronger while you control a Lightsaber upgrade". This seems like a reference to a Jedi Vector, a snub-fighter model from the High Republic era with weapon systems that could only be activated by the pilot inserting their lightsaber as a key – they can be seen swooping through the background of Kriss' art.
Where Jump to Lightspeed was all about space units, Legends of the Force is all about force users; there are more Jedi units than Vehicles in the set, and 'Jedi' is the second most common trait on cards after 'Force'. Accompanying those knights will be ten lightsabers, including "multiple different common designs".
The set also promises some interesting shakeups to leaders. "Four different leaders in this set care explicitly about playing non-unit cards or about including them in your deck"; perhaps we'll see a leader more focused on Events in the hand than Units on the field.
There's also the news that "the difference in deployment costs between the highest-cost leader and the lowest-cost leader in the set is five". That means the set could contain the game's cheapest to deploy leaders (not counting deploying Po Dameron as a space vehicle attachment) for three resources or less, or its most expensive at nine.
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Whether you're a big fan of the High Republic era, or there's another niche setting you think Legends of the Force needs to visit, we'd love to hear from you. Come and join us in the Wargamer Discord Server!