Board Game Review: Star Wars Villainous – Power of the Dark Side

After adapting the world of Disney’s original villains for a new board game, Disney Villainous, the wizards at Ravensburger decided to start conquering other universes, first diving into Marvel’s vast store of villains, and now (after much hoping by many fans), they found themselves in a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars Villainous. Building off the core gameplay of the Disney Villainous series, while adding new complexions which both require time to learn but bring new strategies to bare, Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side is a worthy new Villainous venture and a great addition to the vast world of Star Wars board gaming.

I was introduced to Disney Villainous by my brother and his wife, two big board gamers with a collection that rivals the amount of books I own, and was quickly hooked. The idea of taking over the role of classic Disney villains and help them actually achieve their goals was an enticing one, while the gameplay that followed, which saw each of us have our own board but able to mess one another, was complex but engaging. More Villains were added in further expansions, with new mechanics and playstyles, and slowly we began to wonder what it would be like for the Villainous formula to come to different universes. I was able to introduce my wife to it, and we introduced it to some of her friends, and suddenly we had multi-hour game nights playing it with 6 people. And once again, we were wondering what else would work well with the Villainous formula, and while the eventual Marvel edition took a different approach (which we appreciated, but didn’t quite enjoy), the hope was a Star Wars version would happen at some point. When Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side was announced, it felt like our dreams were answered, but we couldn’t quite know it until we played it. Did it live up to expectations or fall down the reactor shaft alongside Palpatine? I’m happy to say, it lived up to expectations with a few surprises that have changed what we were used to just enough to make the Villainous formula feel fresh still.

In case you’re unaware of Villainous, I’ll do a quick run down of the game and how it plays. With Star Wars Villainous (SWV), a 2-4 player game, each player picks a Villain out of the 5 the set comes with: Asajj Ventress, Darth Vader, Moff Gideon, General Grievous, and Kylo Ren. Initially, we thought we could probably play with 5 people, but after our first 4-player session, it was clear due to some new game mechanics why it’s max 4 players at the moment, but I’ll talk more about that later. When you select your villain, you get your own game board, called a “Sector,” alongside the Villain Mover piece, a rule book for your Villain (which contains details on your win condition and how best to achieve it) and two decks of cards, your Villain Deck and your Fate Deck; there’s a lot of reading, but it’s worth it for such a rewarding, and very often fair feeling gameplay. The Villain Deck is your hand of cards, containing anything from Allies, Items, to Vehicles (a new mechanic) that will help you to your goal, while the Fate Deck is how the other Villains can mess with you, as when they “Fate” you, they get to peer at your cards and use the Heroes, Effects, and Hero Vehicles within to mess with your progress (or sometimes help your progress, depending on which character you take). While focusing on your board and your goals is paramount to success, making sure you keep track of the other players and their progress is important so they don’t come out of nowhere and end up winning just as you’re about to (which will still happen, try as hard as you might), so getting to know every Villain will help in future game sessions.

Don’t be surprised if your confused or it feels frustrating at first, especially if you’re starting with SWV over the Disney edition, as there’s even new mechanics to be mindful on top of the series’ stalwarts. Hopefully, the more you play, the more familiar you get with the gameplay and the gameplay of other Villains, while there are nuances to rules that aren’t always answered by the main rulebook, so consider checking out videos online for more clarity (we still do). Having played Disney Villainous, especially the first box, is a really great place to start and offered us a leg-up on the new additions, as it’s a little simpler than SWV, so consider it as well, but after playing SWV I can guarantee you’ll want to pick up Disney as well.

Two new concepts dominate the additional mechanics introduced in SWV. For starters, there’s Ambition, a type of currency in a sense (which looks like the First Order symbol), as the game claims is needed since, “Not everything can be bought or manipulated with Credits.” To play cards, not only will you need to be at a location in your Sector that has a Play a Card or Ambition Action, you’ll need the require cost to play it, which is either in Credits or Ambition. You gain one Ambition at the start of your turn but can gain more depending on various cards you might have, but the pool of Ambition dries up once all the tokens are taken (which is why I understand, based on how many tokens come with the game, that this is max 4 players). That means you can hoard Ambition to stall your opponents, or you might need a lot of it to help you win (at least two Villains require you to pay at least 5 to 6 Ambition to Win after other conditions are met). Having two types of currency to weigh using, especially when there isn’t always an Ambition or Play a Card space at every location in your Sector, seems to slow down the game a bit, giving you more to consider with you next move but also so other players can follow along much easier. Playing DV, after dozen and dozens of play session, there are still moments where someone wins out of the blue almost, as it’s not always easy to tell when someone is close, though they started fixing that through each expansion, and two currencies is the next step on making it easier for other players to follow your moves, while many actions and win conditions for Villains have to be played in a way any player can track progress.

The other new concept is Vehicles, which create a brand-new location for players to move their Villain to in their Sector. Ally Vehicles have Action spots and a Abilities, which is activated every time the Villain visits (for example, Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced X1 allows him to gain 2 Ambition every time he visits), making them rather powerful locations to have in play. Other players can block the Vehicles by Fating and placing Hero Vehicles (the Millennium Falcon swoops in against Vader) in play, Engaging said Ally Vehicle, meaning now the Action spots are unplayable, but the Vehicle’s Ability remains. Disengaging your Ally Vehicle from the Hero one, using a Move a Card action, allows you to use everything on it again, but you can only draw up to three cards at the start of your next turn instead of the usual four (two Hero Vehicles not Engaged means only two cards in your hand!). To remove a Hero Vehicle from your Sector, you have to use a Vanquish spot (which is typically used to pits Allies against Heroes on your main Sector locations), but both your ship and one Hero ship are removed. In our three games so far, it’s become much clearer Vehicles can be a powerful tool, because at first they felt extraneous and unimportant, but sometimes the benefits they provide, even if you have to limit your own hand, far outweigh the negatives.

Of the 5 Villains, 2 stand out on the opposite side of the difficulty spectrum to play. Darth Vader, who has won two of four games we’ve played so far (he was used in three), has been the easiest to win with, and making sure to fate the player often is a necessary strategy to stop the Sith Lord. Kylo Ren, who was used by my wife in three games and my brother in one (the first win with the character), is the most difficult, as he must move 6 markers to the Dark Side of the Force through various means, though Kylo’s Fate deck feels more weighted against him than Vader’s (Rey is particularly effective against Kylo). Asajj Ventress has Missions to complete, unique to her in this batch, and difficulty stems from which ones you end up attempting, so she’s more middle-of-the-hyperspace-lane to play (pro-tip: the top Ambition action in your Mission, usually finding a playing Heroes to your Sector, means you find all the ones named, not one at a time). Moff Gideon, who I have played twice now, has a lot to gather to the Villain side of his board to win, but has a lot of powerful, but expensive tools to steal Grogu and experiment on the little guy. And General Grievous, who has been played twice, can take a moment to get going (there’s a rather deadly Fate card that can hinder him immensely), but using his Vehicle can quickly turn around having no lightsabers collected to having 4 or more quick, the ultimate goal being 8 lightsabers (I got up to 7 in my turn as him). Each Villain feels unique, with different gameplay and objectives, that offer a rewarding feeling when you master how best to play them. If you’ve played DV, you might notice inspirations for Villains here from its various options, which is another reason that players of that will have less difficulty playing SWV or choosing to play the Disney version afterwards will be rewarding.

I’ve spoken a lot about how to play and what playing is like, but is it fun? Are all these new additions enjoyable? As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’d argue they are, though it might not feel like it at first. The first game I played was just me and my wife, her as Kylo and myself playing Asajj. I won, but I’d put an asterisk next to it, as I took an action but was not sure if I technically could (I’ve reached out to Ravensburger for some clarification, as I couldn’t find any in any videos online, but have yet to receive a response) and adjusting to the new mechanics from DV play led to some frustrations (watching a video did help here and there). We didn’t realize she had picked the toughest character, but despite that and our frustrations, we both wanted to play more, and had a much better time when my brother came over and joined us for the second game (he won as Darth Vader, like I mentioned before). It was a much more enjoyable playthrough, as teaching him helped us learn some aspects better and his board gaming experience aided clarifications. Our third game, we had his wife join in remotely (she’s out of state for work), laying out her board on our table and tracking Ambition/Credits with our bucket of tokens, and not only did we make it work, it was probably the best game of SWV we’d played yet. Our longest, most balanced game was our fourth, which was myself as General Grievous, my brother as Kylo Ren, and my wife as Darth Vader, and our familiarity with these characters really helped us challenge one another. Like most games with such unique rules for every player to focus on, it took some getting used to, but it quickly became a joy to play. I really hope it sells well and expansions follow soon, bringing other Villains to play (and more Ambition tokens so we can try 5-6 player games), as Star Wars Villainous is an enjoyable new addition to the Villainous family with lots of room to grow.

Here are a few other things:

• I love the designs for the Villain mover pieces! They incorporate a few things about each character, while the new technique for filling them that results in different interiors in each box, was a nice change up from the DV movers. The bucket for the tokens was my only disappointment within the box, as it’s a little plastic thing, like the Marvel Villainous got, whereas DV had a studier feeling bucket; I understand it was probably the easiest place to save costs and keep the price of the game down.
• The artwork for each Villain, their Sector, and their cards are fantastic!! I’ve never been disappointed by that in DV and its expansions and I’m not surprised I wasn’t either for SWV! Often it’s hard to tell the artwork’s NOT a screenshot from either one of the films or The Clone Wars TV show, it’s just that good. I don’t know who did all of the artwork, but we do know who did Asajj Ventress’: Uzuri Art! You might recognize her and her work, as she continues to stun with great Star Wars, Marvel, and more pieces!
• Even the back of the cards I really like, from DV to SWV, as it’s a short, sweet summation of the characters and their goals. It’s inspired me to make one for Doctor Aphra, who I don’t think would be considered for an expansion (she’s not really a villain), but I’d love it if she was.
• Typical expansions come with 3 three new Villains, and it’s not always been ones we’ve expected (like the Horned King from 1985’s The Black Cauldron, a movie I didn’t even more existed), but I don’t know if they’d plumb the depths of Star Wars’ villains just yet for the first expansion. Assuming they’ll go for recognizable ones, I’d say the first expansion could potentially include Grand Admiral Thrawn, Darth Maul, and Grand Moff Tarkin. If it gets more than one expansion, I could start to see them diving into the books and comics for more inspiration, and I’d really hope to see someone like Marchion Ro and the Nihil from The High Republic included at one point, while going into Legends could prove fun, maybe bringing in the Yuuzhan Vong somehow. For now, it’s all speculation, but we’ll be tracking updates on Star Wars Villainous so the first we hear of an expansion, we’ll have the news on the site!
• As I mentioned, checking out videos for help with clarifications or if seeing someone play is much easier for you, here’s one I relied on to answer some of my questions on the new aspects introduced for SWV: Watch it Played’s How to Play Star Wars Villainous video. If you want a character-by-character breakdown, I’ve found these videos by Lord of the Board on YouTube to be very useful.  And since we were able to make it work with someone playing remotely, if you’d like myself and even my wife to join a session, we’d love to help or have more people to play with!

Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side is great new addition to the Villainous family of games from Ravensburger, and while it might take some getting used to for new and old players alike, the inclusion of some complex but rewarding new mechanics elevate the experience.

+ Great selection of Villains with unique goals

+ Complex, yet rewarding gameplay

+ Encourages replay

– Little nuances bring frustrations

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.