This might be our favorite custom deck of all time. This was among a group of decks we developed shortly after Episode III came out. We’re always tinkering with how COWARDLY DEFENSE should work but regardless, it’s fun.
What does this deck do: Starts out strong, weakens as its arms get cut off. Lots of direct damage. Moves around the board.
Last change: January 2014.
We restored COWARDLY DEFENSE to letting the Magna Guards defend the attack.
GRIEVOUS, JEDI HUNTER
by Roman F & Geektopia. Uses some ideas from Rich Pizor and Scott Hagarty & Robert Oyung
Grievous
16 HP, 4 Arms*
*For each 4 HP of damage Grievous receives, he loses an arm.
Melee
22 cards
Blue Deck
2 Magnaguards
5 HP Each
Melee
9 cards
Minor Blue Deck
Grievous – 12 Talent Cards
3x JEDI HUNTER
A2*. Multiply this value by the number of arms Grievous currently has.
3x GENERAL’S ORDERS
Move Grievous up to 5 spaces. Then move Magnaguard 1 up to 5 spaces. Then move Magnaguard 2 up to 5 spaces. Draw a card.
2x COWARDLY DEFENSE
D*. *If any Magnaguards are still alive, Grievous exchanges places with one of them, and takes no damage from the attack. Instead, the moved Magnaguard becomes the target of the attack and all its effects and may defend.
2x TWIRLING SABER CHANCE
Move Grievous up to 3 spaces. Any characters adjacent to any square in Grievous’ path (includes starting and ending spaces) receive 3 damage (only once per character).
1x YOU LOSE JEDI
A5. After this attack is resolved, move Grievous to any unoccupied space.
1x UNORTHODOX ATTACK
A6. Any defense played against this card is reduced in half, rounding down.
Why “Jedi Hunter Grievous?” There are several other Grievous decks out there, including the 2 referenced above, ours is more “Jedi Hunter” than “General”.
Theme: Strong early, fades late, cowardly
Path to Victory: JEDI HUNTER + COWARDLY DEFENSE early, TWIRLING SABER CHARGE + YOU LOSE JEDI late
Strengths: High attacks, direct damage, solid defense, solid movement, strong minors
Weaknesses: Weakens as the game goes on
Strategy: Engage, retreat, engage
Test Level: Very High
Tier: 2
Inspiration: We tried for some combination of the Clone Wars Season 3 and Episode 3, and borg’d ideas from Rich Pizor, and Scott Hagarty & Robert Oyung, into a version we like. This is one of the most fun custom decks we play with.
Playing Grievous: Grievous is very strong early but fades late. COWARDLY DEFENSE allows Grievous to run up into battle and tactfully retreat. You want to use JEDI HUNTER early and save YOU LOSE JEDI and UNORTHODOX ATTACK for later. The Magnaguards are very powerful, you need to get something out of them, so don’t sacrifice them early by playing COWARDLY DEFENSE. Use them for offense or defense, but make sure you use them.
Playing against Grievous: You MUST hurt him early. Any sort of direct damage from a distance, use it on him to weaken JEDI HUNTER. If Grievous hides behind his Magnaguards, go after them to take away his COWARDLY DEFENSE. If he can get 1-2 Jedi Hunters off before losing any arms, he’s awfully hard to beat. If you can knock 2 arms off before he uses JEDI HUNTER, he’ll have a hard time beating you.
This was selected for the 10-Year Anniversary set, but COWARDLY DEFENSE was tweaked back to its former form after that set was released.
Want more Grievous?
The 10YA Version is slightly less powerful than this version due to not having the COWARDLY DEFENSE tweak.
Sultan’s finished 2nd in the 10YA vote and is also very good.
Thanks for making all of this available! By the way, the “YOU LOSE JEDI” card has some text problems – it says “Play when Card is attacking” and the character name is shown (below the picture) as “New Card”.
Thanks Jeff, I cleaned that up and re-posted it.
I play cowardly defense can be used if the guards are out, just can’t switch places.
Use it as what, D0? Nope, can’t use it at all.
Hello,
First off I just rebought this game to re live my child hood and found this site, this is awesome. Socondly, I donwloaded several of the PDFs and they wont print at the print shop I am taking them to. They error. Any idea what we are doing wrong?
What is a vassel deck?
Thanks again,
Hi Alex, thanks for your interest. There’s still more Epic Duels at the wiki: http://epicduels.pbworks.com/w/page/9779461/FrontPage
I’m not sure what problems the print store is having. Are they using an old version of Adobe Reader or something? I don’t have trouble accessing the .PDFs from my old home computer. You can save yourself a lot of money by buying 110 lb. cardstock from the office store and printing yourself, but it’s up to you.
Vassal is an online platform that allows you to play board games online. I think there may be more advanced technology now, people write about “Tabletop Simulator” and hardly anyone plays SW Epic Duels on Vassal anymore, but it’s still there if you want to use it.
What program do you use and how do you line up back and front. Also do you have a file with each individual card? Any thoughts on how best to do this. Money is not an object
What program, for printing? Adobe Reader is all you need and pretty much every machine has one.
I’ve never had much trouble lining up the backs. It’s not perfect but it’s almost always close enough.
You can go to a local print store like a Fed Ex Office if money is no object. They will get great results but expensive.
I just use my home printer, very good results, cheaper but still not cheap.
Love this deck, but I tried to print it out at a print shop and got an error. Has anyone else experienced this and found a workaround? I would print the 10YA version but I prefer the stronger version of cowardly defense.
Hi Matt, thanks for your interest and sorry you’re having trouble. I’m not sure what to say about that one. I can confirm that I don’t have any problems viewing the file so I’m not sure why the print shop is having problems printing it. I wonder if something happened to the .PDF when I married the cards with the custom battle (hit point) card? I would need more specific info to figure this out.
I posted this comment on the Anakin sith page as well, but I’m just looking for more ways to get into this game.
This page is so cool, my friends and I have been getting SUPER into epic duels the past few months and we’re looking to update our decks to keep things exciting, how would you go about finding physical copies of these decks, figurines, and character sheets?? I would love to find and buy an Anakin Sith and General Grevious if you have any suggestions of websites or other locations!
I also read these comments and it seems like a lot of people print off character cards themselves?? if you could give a brief explanation it would be SO appreciated, thank you very much!
Hi Ethan, thanks for your interest. You’re at the the right place, here and the Wiki. You will find all the decks and character sheets you need here and there. I would go to the characters section and explore the characters you’re really interested in.
http://epicduels.pbworks.com/w/page/9779461/FrontPage
As for figures, yeah that’s a challenge but start here, and go ahead and post any questions you might have:
http://epicduels.pbworks.com/w/page/140072670/Figures
Happy dueling!