Publisher White Wizard is supporting the launch of a new stand alone expansion for its Star Realms card game called Star Realms:  Frontiers and six smaller Command Deck expansions by offering a Star Realms Kickstarter Prerelease Kit to participating retailers.  The new expansions are slated to release in December.

Like the original game, Star Realms: Frontiers combines elements of deck building games with the head-to-head conflict common to collectible card games.  As the head of a stellar empire, players acquire fleets of ships and bases through a deck-building mechanic before launching attacks to reduce their opponents’ “Authority” with the goal of knocking them out of the game.

The new game can be played on its own or combined with the original Star Realms and any of its expansions.  It includes an all-new 80-card trade deck, which features a number of abilities that are new to Star Realms, four staring decks, score cards, and rules for competitive, cooperative, and solo play.  The game is playable by 1 to 4 players, and the MSRP is $20.00.

In addition to Frontiers, White Wizard will release a series of small expansion sets called Command Decks.  Each Command Deck comes with 17 cards that feature one of the game’s factions:  The Alignment, the Alliance, the Coalition, the Pact, the Union, and the Unity.  Command Decks are MSRP $6.00 each.

White Wizard is hoping to attract support for the Kickstarter campaign it is running to fund the project by offering retailers a special Star Realms Kickstarter Prerelease Kit.  The Prerelease Kit comes with three full displays of Frontiers, a total of 18 copies of the game, along with a 12-unit display of each of the five Command Deck expansions.  In addition, the Prerelease Kit includes a dozen each of two Kickstarter-exclusive expansions: the 12-card Stellar Allies expansion pack (MSRP $5.00) and The Lost Fleet Command Deck.

The Star Realms Kickstarter Prerelease Kit will be available only to retailers who make a $1 pledge in support of the Kickstarter and fill out a sign-up form.  These retailers will then be offered the kits at a wholesale price of 50% off MSRP once the campaign is completed.  The Prerelease Kit will not include other Kickstarter exclusives and stretch goals.

Retailers who purchase the Prerelease Kit will receive their copies as part of the Kickstarter backer fulfillment, which is scheduled for December.  They will be shipped before the game is released into general distribution.  The Kickstarter campaign has easily reached its funding goals, having attracted $414,672 in pledged support from 5,827 backers as of this writing (an average of $71.16 per backer), with 23 days remaining in the campaign.

Star Realms was White Wizards’ first title, and it has proven to be both a commercial and critical success for the company, with three print runs in its first year of publication (see “‘Star Realms’ Passes 50,000 Units”) and earning the “Fan Favorite” award for “Best Card Game” at the 2015 Origins Game Fair (see “2015 Origins Award Winners”).  Last year, the company offered up a fantasy version of the game called Hero Realms (see “‘Hero Realms’ Comes to Trade”).