How to Play Star Wars: Unlimited: Your First Game, Step by Step

The first thing to learn in Star Wars: Unlimited is that you do not take an entire turn while your opponent watches. You take one action, then they get an action. Playing a unit, attacking with it, and using an ability are separate decisions, with opportunities for your opponent to act between them.

That rhythm is the heart of the game. This walkthrough covers an ordinary two-player learning game with ready-made decks. Use the instructions on your actual cards when they change a general rule; multiplayer formats have additional procedures.

In this guide: setup and card basics; choosing resources; actions and combat; leaders and initiative; a three-round practice game; a short video tutorial; common mistakes.

Know what is on the table

Your base is what you defend: when damage reaches its printed HP, you lose. Your leader starts outside the main deck and gives you an ability and aspect icons. The shuffled main deck supplies units, events, and upgrades. A fixed deck saves you having to build that list before learning.

Read a unit in this order: resource cost, aspect icons, arena, power, HP, and ability text. Power is the combat damage it normally deals; HP is the damage it can sustain before defeat. A 3-power, 4-HP unit does not lose power after taking two damage. It still hits for three unless another effect changes that value.

Ready means upright and available for a cost requiring exhaustion. Exhausted means turned sideways. It does not mean defeated, disabled, or unable to defend. Your ground and space arenas are separate places for units; resources belong in their own row, not among the units.

1. Set up a game you can finish

Each player needs a complete deck, a leader, a base, and a way to track damage. Put the bases opposite one another, leave room for a ground arena and a space arena, and place each leader with its horizontal, non-unit side faceup. Keep tokens and the initiative counter within reach.

Randomly choose a player; that player decides who starts with initiative. The initiative holder decides about a mulligan first. Shuffle and draw six cards each. You may take one mulligan: shuffle the entire opening hand back and draw six replacements, which you must keep. Then choose two cards from your hand and put them facedown as ready resources. They pay for future plays; you are giving up access to those cards as ordinary cards while they remain resources.

For your first hand, look for something useful you can afford early. An impressive expensive card is a poor consolation if the rest of your hand leaves you watching the opponent develop. With preconstructed decks, spend your first games learning which cards you can afford to set aside.

Which two cards should become your opening resources?

Imagine an opening six with two affordable units, a useful three-cost play, an expensive late-game unit, a situational event, and an upgrade that needs a suitable host. I would first consider resourcing the expensive unit and whichever situational card has the least immediate purpose. That preserves an opening action and a follow-up. This is an example of a decision process, not a rule that expensive cards are always disposable.

Before keeping a hand, identify the two resources and your first affordable play. Then ask what you can do after adding the third resource. If the answer is “nothing until I draw the perfect card,” a mulligan deserves serious consideration. You replace the whole hand, so weighing a risky keep means comparing it with an unknown replacement hand, not imagining you can exchange only the bad cards.

You can normally inspect your own facedown resources. Their printed abilities and colors do not operate as though they were faceup cards in play. A resource pays one resource regardless of what card is underneath; aspects come from the appropriate faceup cards, chiefly the leader and base. Special abilities can move or play resourced cards, but ordinary resourcing is a real sacrifice of access.

2. Alternate single actions

The initiative holder acts first. On your action you can play a card, attack with a unit, use an action ability, take the initiative if it is still available this round, or pass. Finish the action and its resulting effects, then give your opponent their action.

To play a card, pay its cost by exhausting ready resources: turn them sideways. A three-cost card normally needs three available resources. Your leader and base provide aspect icons; for each required aspect icon you are missing, the usual penalty is two additional resources. A duplicate aspect requirement needs duplicate matching icons. For a first game, leave the supplied decks intact rather than introducing unfamiliar penalties through substitutions.

A unit normally enters exhausted in its printed arena. Events resolve and go to the discard pile. Upgrades attach as instructed; many attach to units, while newer mechanics such as Fortify can attach upgrades to a base. Read targeting restrictions before paying.

Costs and aspects: a worked example

Suppose your leader and base supply one Command icon, one Heroism icon, and one Aggression icon between them. A three-cost card requiring Command and Heroism normally costs three. A three-cost card requiring two Command icons has one unmatched requirement and normally costs five. Having a Command unit already in play does not ordinarily add its icon to what your leader and base provide.

Resources are not spent out of existence: exhaust three to pay three, and you still control those three resources. If you have five total and spend three, you have two ready resources left. Both numbers matter: two is what you can still pay with; five is what counts toward a leader's deployment threshold.

Let an action finish before the next player acts

When you play a unit, resolve its relevant entry abilities before handing over the action. Your opponent does not ordinarily interrupt halfway through the play by announcing an unrelated action. On the other hand, playing an ordinary exhausted unit does not grant an immediate normal attack. That later attack is another action, once the unit is ready or an ability permits it.

That distinction explains why “I play this, then attack, then use my leader” is often an unsafe announcement. Your opponent gets opportunities between those separate actions. Describe one action, finish it, then reassess the battlefield after their response.

3. Attack in the right arena

Normally, choose a ready unit, exhaust it, and attack an enemy unit in the same arena or the enemy base. A ground unit does not normally attack a space unit. Either arena can threaten the base, which makes an undefended space lane important even while the ground looks crowded.

When units fight, they normally deal their power to one another simultaneously. An exhausted defender still deals combat damage. Damage remains afterward: the regroup phase readies units but does not automatically heal them. A unit with damage equal to or greater than its HP is defeated.

Here is an invented example with no abilities involved. Your 3-power, 4-HP unit attacks an enemy 2-power, 3-HP unit. The defender takes three damage and is defeated; your attacker takes two damage and survives with those two damage counters still on it. If your unit already had two damage, both would be defeated.

Against a base, the attacker normally deals its power without receiving a combat hit back. The objective is to defeat that base, but trading into a threatening unit can prevent more damage than rushing the base gains. Check keywords such as Sentinel before selecting a target.

Keywords that change a fight

• Sentinel: an enemy Sentinel normally forces attacks in its own arena toward a Sentinel instead of the base or a non-Sentinel unit. A ground Sentinel does not protect the base from an ordinary space attacker.
• Saboteur: lets its attacker ignore Sentinel and defeats Shield tokens on the defender through its attack ability. Read the exact timing before calculating damage.
• Ambush: can ready a unit and make it attack an enemy unit as part of entering play. It is not permission to attack the base immediately. If there is no eligible enemy unit, do not assume you get a free ready.
• Shielded: supplies a Shield token when its trigger resolves. A Shield token prevents the next damage its attached unit would take, then is defeated; it is not a permanent extra HP point.
• Overwhelm: an attacking unit can send excess combat damage beyond what is needed to defeat its defender to that defender's base. Ordinary excess damage is otherwise wasted.

For example, a 5-power Overwhelm attacker hitting an unshielded unit with three remaining HP normally deals three to that unit and two to its base. The defender still hits back. Without Overwhelm, defeating that unit would not send the spare two damage anywhere.

Should you attack the unit or the base?

Start with the next round, not only the current damage total. Removing a 3-power enemy now might prevent it attacking your base this round and again next round. But if your attacks can defeat the enemy base before that unit matters, spending them on a trade could throw away the win.

Compare remaining HP, available attacks in both arenas, and what the opponent can do before your next action. Do not count an exhausted attacker as an available ordinary attack. Do not count three separate attacks as guaranteed when the opponent can remove a unit between them. B3's starting advice is to favor clean, useful trades while learning, then deliberately test when racing the base is better.

4. Use leaders without confusing a threshold with a payment

A leader can contribute before it becomes a unit. Read its action costs carefully: an ability may require resources, exhausting the leader, or both. An action ability is an action of its own, not a free addition to playing a card.

The deploy Epic Action typically asks whether you control enough resources. That threshold is not a resource payment: exhausting resources for another play does not stop them counting as resources you control. Check the individual leader’s requirement, since leaders can differ.

Deployment brings the leader into play as a ready leader unit under the normal procedure. Its deploy Epic Action is once per game. If that leader unit is defeated, return it to its non-unit side as directed; you do not get a fresh deployment simply because another round begins.

A five-resource leader turn

Suppose your leader deploys at five resources. You begin with five ready resources, play a five-cost unit, and exhaust all five. You still control five, so you can use that leader's deploy Epic Action on a later action this phase. Your opponent gets an action between the unit play and the deployment. Deployment normally readies the leader unit, but attacking with it still needs a subsequent action unless an ability specifically combines those steps.

An exhausted non-unit leader can still deploy if its Epic Action does not require exhausting it and its condition is met. If the deployed leader is defeated, it returns to its leader side exhausted and loses its damage; its upgrades are discarded as appropriate. The once-per-game deployment stays used. Losing the leader unit is therefore a substantial opportunity cost even when its non-unit ability can help again later.

5. Understand passing before claiming initiative

Passing yields your current action. If the opponent acts, you can act again when the opportunity returns. If both players pass consecutively, the action phase ends.

Taking initiative is a stronger commitment. You secure the first action next round and automatically pass for the rest of this action phase. Your opponent may still have several useful actions left. Only one player takes initiative in a round; keeping the counter from the previous round does not reserve it automatically.

Ask one question before claiming it: “What could they still do after I stop?” Going first next round can be valuable, but leaving an available attack unused can be expensive. Those two facts make initiative a decision rather than a chore at the end of a turn.

Two initiative decisions that look similar but are not

Finish first: you have a ready 3-power unit, and the opponent has claimed initiative with no further actions available. You can usually take that useful attack before passing. The phase has not ended just because someone took the counter.

Secure the next action: you have a fragile ready attacker that cannot survive another enemy hit, and going first next round would let it make a decisive attack. Claiming initiative may protect that next-round opportunity, but you must price in everything the opponent can still do now. Initiative does not ready your units or end their action phase immediately.

Passing can also be a useful probe, but it has teeth: if the opponent passes immediately after you, the phase ends. Do not pass expecting a guaranteed later chance to spend your resources.

6. Regroup, then repeat

Complete the regroup steps in order: both players draw two cards, may put one card from hand facedown and exhausted as a resource, then ready their exhausted cards. Drawing is mandatory; adding the resource is optional. Early resource growth usually matters because it opens plays and deployment thresholds, but resourcing a particular card is still a choice.

The player with initiative begins the next action phase. Continue until a base is defeated. For your first match, read abilities aloud and keep the damage visible. Afterward, discuss one decision about a resource, one attack target, and one initiative claim. That is enough material to make the next game more deliberate.

A three-round practice game you can follow

This simplified, invented example uses unnamed units with no abilities. It demonstrates procedure rather than claiming a real deck contains these exact stat lines. Both bases have 30 HP. Alex begins with initiative. Both players resource twice during setup, leaving four cards in hand.

Round one: two resources

1. Alex pays two for a ground unit with 2 power and 3 HP. It enters exhausted.
2. Bea pays two for a ground unit with 3 power and 2 HP. It also enters exhausted.
3. Neither has a useful affordable action. Alex claims initiative; Bea then passes. No ordinary attacks occur because neither new unit is ready.
4. During regroup both draw two, may add one card as an exhausted resource, and ready their cards. They choose to add one, reaching three resources each.

Round two: trade now or develop first?

Alex's unit can attack first. If it attacks Bea's unit, both are defeated: Alex deals two to a 2-HP defender, while Bea deals three to a 3-HP attacker. If Alex instead plays another card first, Bea could use her action to attack. The same trade might occur, or Bea could choose to hit the base. “Develop first” gives the opponent a choice that “attack now” might remove.

For this example Alex takes the mutual trade. Bea plays a three-cost space unit with 2 power and 3 HP. Alex plays a three-cost ground unit with 3 power and 4 HP. Both enter exhausted. Bea claims initiative; Alex passes. Regroup brings two more cards and, because both choose to resource, four total resources each.

Round three: the arenas split the problem

Bea acts first and attacks Alex's base with the space unit for two. Alex's ground unit cannot normally attack that space unit. Alex can strike Bea's base for three, play a space answer if one is available, or use an appropriate card ability. A ground-only plan has no automatic answer simply because it has the larger unit.

After Alex attacks the base, imagine both develop another unit and Bea later takes initiative. Alex still gets any remaining legal actions before passing. In regroup they can reach five resources; at the next action phase, a leader requiring five resources could become available. That is why the first few resource choices shape more than your immediate purchases.

Watch the basics in under nine minutes

Master Set Madness’s How to Play Star Wars: Unlimited In Under 10 Minutes runs 8 minutes 45 seconds. It covers setup, resources, playing cards, combat, initiative, and regroup in a compact introduction. Watch it here, then use the written examples above to work through your first game.

Video by Master Set Madness. Open the original video if the player is unavailable. This July 2024 tutorial teaches the core game; consult the current rules and our set guides for later mechanics.

Useful moments: 1:31 — taking actions · 3:35 — combat · 5:35 — abilities and initiative · 7:13 — regroup and winning.

After watching: set up two complete decks and play a round. Explain what you pay, what resolves during that action, and when your opponent acts next. Return to the combat and initiative examples above when a decision is unclear.

Common first-game questions

• Can I attack with a unit I just played? Not ordinarily while it is exhausted. Ambush and other explicit abilities can change this.
• Does a defender need to be ready? No. An exhausted defender normally deals combat damage too.
• Does regroup heal units? No. Track their damage across rounds.
• Can I play a card on the opponent's action? Not as an unrelated ordinary action. Resolve triggered abilities at their proper timing, then wait for your action.
• Can I resource more than one card in regroup? The normal optional regroup step allows one, not any number. Card abilities may create exceptions.
• Do I need to keep growing forever? No. Adding a resource is optional. Early growth usually unlocks plays; later, keeping both drawn cards can be more valuable once you have the resources your hand needs.

For the first session, keep the decks unchanged and finish a game. For the second, pick one habit to improve. I would start with announcing how many ready resources remain after each purchase; it prevents a surprising number of impossible plans.

Rules checked October 19, 2026 against the official learning guide and current rules page. The latter lists Comprehensive Rules 9.0 and current errata. This guide teaches the core procedure; card-specific exceptions still matter.

Continue: Choose your first purchase · Explore B3’s Star Wars: Unlimited hub.