Star Wars Rebellion

This quite possibly be the best game that has come out this year!  I have half a dozen games under my belt so far.  Such a great game!

I mostly play newbies, so I have only lost one game.  I was the imperials when I lost that game.  To me the game is pretty balanced.  It just takes a radically different mind set when playing the Rebels.  The game is a damn near perfect mix of Axis and Allies and GMT’s COIN series.

My two basic Empire strategies are expand and torture.  The first one involves holding back your leaders in order to command fleets.  The other involves capturing and missions that thin the probe deck.

The torture strategy depends heavily on drawing the right cards and leaders.  The expand strategy can be done regardless of card draws.

Either way, you have to take away rebel loyal systems because so many of ther objectives key off of rebel loyalty.

Also the ONLY acceptable time to blow up a planet with the death star is when destroying a planet you KNOW is the base.  Otherwise it’s a liability.

Oh, more often than not the rebel base is on an unpopulated planet because Empire players don’t want to go there.

Does this help?  I can dive deeper if you want.

There is a level 3 objective that gives the Rebels X reputation points where X is the number of blown away systems.

Even when I know a remote system is much more likely to hold the base, I still subconsciously avoid them because of what you said.  It’s harder to get my fleet going.

Most missions aren’t worth it.  And the project deck is almost worthless.  It’s just a shiny object to distract you.

Boba Fett kicks ass….  but only for capture missions and opposing intelligence missions.  Him not being able to command fleets is a huge liability.  Recruit him wisely.

The game is fantastic, I love it. The asymmetry is well thought out the thematic elements shine for me as a big SW fan.

Between the random game setup, mission draws and recruitment no two games are the same, so the game stays fresh.

In terms of strategies, they do boil down to conservative and aggressive approaches for both sides.  An aggressive Rebel player engages the Empire to gain combat objectives as well as blockading and sabotaging systems to choke Imperial supply lines. The benefit here is Sabotage can be run every turn and is not dependent on specific missions.

A passive Rebel player can play Infiltration to tailor the game to missions drawn by looking for objectives that mesh with the game situation. The player can use a large fleet to either defend the base or draw attention from the Empire. An offshoot of this is playing Rapid Mobilization every turn to cycle the deck for future moves by putting eligible move on the bottom. Of course one can play Infiltration and Sabotage liberally every turn as a hybrid.

For the Empire expansion in all directions is common, but some players like to use Rule by Fear every turn to either make systems loyal or more importantly remove Rebel loyalty from subjugated systems to prevent the many diplomacy related objectives. I would argue the Imperial player should play R&D at least twice a game, preferably early, since many of the projects can be useful to build -like a Super Star Destroyer- or to get a valuable logistics card to deploy extra units in advance of an attack on the Rebel Base.

When the opportunity comes the Empire should pursue capture and interrogation since there are so many good possibilities:
-Lose reputation through Carbon Freezing
-Gain an extra leader through Lure of the Dark Side (hard to pull off on Luke since he’ll often be protected by a savvy Rebel player)
-Remove an objective from the Rebel player’s hand (can be critical to remove a gimme one late game)
-Locate the base through Homing Beacon or Interrogation Droid

Just my two cents. Boardgamegeek is already running Play by Forum games using a Vassal module.

I’ve played over ten in person and one online, and while I don’t have an exact tally in my head I have to say it’s been virtually 50/50, and that is in line with FFG’s initial survey:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/7/1/what-of-the-rebellion/

My experience with recruitment is very similar, Fett is a must for the Empire and Han can get the Rebels an extra leader or the Falcon.

The big question players have is which faction should be used for introducing the game. Having numerical superiority is good for a new player so it feels like he or she’s in control as opposed to the outgunned Rebels. It does make sense for new players to see the objective deck before starting the game so they have some idea about what missions to perform as the Rebels and what to guard against as the Empire.

I think it’s better to introduce players as the Empire.  This is because the Empire could do a lot better with a typical “dudes-on-a-map” strategies.  You really have to think like a guerilla warrior when playing as the Rebels.

Just got this and familiarising myself with the rules.

Lovely minis, classic theme, and I like how the rules are shaping up. Using leaders as the mechanism for moving things around is nice.

The boardgamegeek ranking system never lies :)

Cred

That may tilt the game too much into the Empire’s favor…  Let us know what your findings are.

Yes, they count towards your hand limit.

Have you been dumping all of the units at the system where the base is once they change systems?  For example if there are a crap ton of units on Yavin 4 and then move to Hoth, the units do NOT go to Hoth.  They stay on Yavin 4.

I find having to start fresh makes it easier for the Empire to destroy the base when they find it again.  I crushed a player as the Empire once even after they changed their base twice.

Having said all that, a -1 rep each time they change bases is better than a summation loss of rep points.