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When you think of Star Wars, you probably think of the Jedi order and Darth Vader. But bounty hunters like Greedo and Boba Fett were introduced almost as early, and now you can become a bounty hunter yourself withStar Wars: Unlimited’s bounty mechanic. But you can’t go running off to the Outer Rim without knowing what bounties are and how to collect them!
Bounties provide a payoff for eliminating specific units that your opponent controls, giving you an incentive to attack the unit instead of the base. But are they worth it? And how can you use them?
What Is Bounty?
Originally introduced in Shadows of the Galaxy,bounty is a mechanic that incentivizes players to attack opposing units to gain an advantage. While Boba Fett collected a bounty of over 200,000 Imperial credits for capturing Han Solo, you’ll have to settle for drawing a few cards or readying some resources as payment for the bounties on your opponent’s units.
Whenever a unit with the Bounty ability is defeated or captured,the opposing player may resolve the triggered ability described after the Bounty keyword. This ranges from drawing a card to gaining a resource to dealing damage to your opponent’s base.
In a Twin Suns game, the player who defeated or captured the unit gets the Bounty. If you defeat your own unit, you get to decide which opponent gets the Bounty.
Bounty is a drawback that can give your opponent an advantage, but it may also be used todistract them from attacking your base. There are also several cards thatgive another unit a bounty, allowing you to put a price on an opposing unit’s head before you attack or capture it.
How To Use Bounty
Why would you play cards that provide your opponent with an advantage?Drawbacks such as Bounty are often included on cards to offset an advantageover other options. A unit might have a lower cost than other units with the same HP and Power, creating a level of risk for playing strong units earlier in the game.
A good way tovisualize this is by comparing vanilla units to units with the same resource cost that have Bounty. you’re able to see the difference between Warzone Lieutenant, with Power and HP of two each, and Cartel Turncoat, with two Power, three HP, and the Bounty of giving your opponent a card when they defeat it.
“Vanilla” units are units with no abilities or effects.
Some units come into play with Bounties, like Han Solo in A New Hope, but these don’t come out of nowhere; if there’s a Bounty on your head, it’s because someone wants you taken out. To implement this in Star Wars: Unlimited,several upgrades and units include the ability to put a Bounty on another unit, which allows you to earn rewards for defeating or capturing units that you’ll already want to remove.
Upgrades like Death Mark can be attached to your opponent’s unitsright before you attack or capture them, allowing you to reap extra rewards for eliminating them. Several, such as Guild Target and Wanted, are even free to play.
If you’re playing with Bounty upgrades,there are several units that benefit from your opponent’s Bounties. Trandoshan Hunters, for example, gains an Experience token if one of your opponent’s units has a Bounty, coming into play stronger just because you put a target on your opponent’s head.
Best Cards With Bounty
The Client is relatively cheap and tanky, costing only three to play and coming in with five HP and a Shield token. The Client is a problem that your opponent will need to deal with quickly sinceit can also place temporary Bounties on your opponent’s units to heal your own base.
Strategically,The Client can serve as a distractionearly, as your opponent focuses on it rather than attacking your base to prevent you from healing it later. Later in the game, you can use it to recover from those early attacks, once again forcing your opponent to shift focus to The Client.
If you’re about to defeat a particularly valuable unit, Unrefusable Offer lets youplay their unit under your own controland have it ready immediately. you may use that unit to attack their base or attack another unit with freedom, since it will be defeated during the regroup phase.
Unrefusable Offer also allows you topick out units with important effects when they enter or leave play, such as placing a token on another of your units, drawing cards, or readying resources.
Val is the rare unit that you’ll want to be defeated; Val’s Bounty allows your opponent to deal three damage to any unit, but she also hasa When Defeated ability that gives two Experience tokens to one of your other units. This presents your opponent with a tough choice: Should they attack Val to remove the threat she presents and get the Bounty, or ignore her while she attacks their base every turn?
Bounty Hunter’s Quarry costs one resource, but the Bounty it attaches to a unit allows you tosearch the top five or ten cards of your deck for any unit that costs three or less and play it for free. This can provide a lot of value, as it enables you to play a unit that costs three times what you’re paying for it.
Stolen Landspeeder may not be a great card, but it’s an interesting one that could become a useful combo piece. Stolen Landspeeder is a three Power, two HP ground unit that only costs one resource, butit comes into play under your opponent’s control. However, the Bounty returns it to play under your control, with an Experience counter.
This unit’s ability allows you tocombo it with your own units with When Defeated abilities. For example, playing Stolen Landspeeder for one resource, then attacking it with a damaged Val will allow you to play your Stolen Landspeeder with an Experience token and gain two more Experience tokens for another unit.
