Update: Star Realms Deluxe Nova Collection has launched on Kickstarter, and the campaign will run for 15 days. There is only one pledge tier and the slightly cheaper early bird option: this gets you a lot of foil cards, 6 score dials, a game board, a deluxe box, and a challenge board made for solo play.
Our preview post below was published on January 14.
Star Realms is getting a deluxe treatment. Tomorrow White Wizard Games will launch their Star Realms Deluxe NOVA Collection campaign. As the Gambit promo set is included, you can play this SF deck-builder solo. It's also perfect for playing the Star Realms Solo Challenges by ShaunGamer, on BGG.
The NOVA Collection is a big box with over 250 foil cards, containing:
Star Realms base game
Promo pack 1
Gambit set
Crisis: Bases & Battleships
Crisis: Events
Crisis: Fleets & Fortresses
Crisis: Heroes
Cosmic Gambit set
It also includes score dials, that are a big improvement over the cards from the original version.
The 2018 standalone release Star Realms: Frontiers may look more interesting to solo players, as it includes eight solo challenges against different bosses right out of the box. But do take a look at ShaunGamer's challenges before you decide. And of course you'd also miss out on the foam block.
Apparently portability isn't an issue, the campaign is over-funded. Foil is shiny, Raz! And that's all that matters. :D
This is really the weirdest thing (hold on, I didn't say stupid, I'm learning to be polite! Although I really mean stupid) for this game. It removes all the portable aspect of the game, it has the most abysmal insert you can think of for an expandable card game, and it completely denies the fact that the main reason Star Realms, being an awful design, is successful, is because it's portable and cheap.
Heck, they took heavy inspiration from Ascension but failed to observe that the yearly collections came with an easy to carry box.
Duh. DUH!
We'll see prices tomorrow. And if there will be any stretch goals. The playmat sure is a missed chance. I missed the Frontiers campaign, sounds good. But I've got the small box retail version, and that's enough for me right now.
As someone who got in on the Frontiers KS, I don't need this – I have non-foil cards, a playmat and a huge box already. And even some foam blocks! And if I were a new player, I'd be quite dubious about going all-in on what seems likely to be quite an expensive box compared with the Frontiers box. Still, I guess they know their market…
— RogerBW (Firedrake)