View Single Post
Old 01-12-2018, 08:50 AM   #4
SolemnGolem
 
SolemnGolem's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: The Hall of Fallen Columns
Default Re: Star Wars Rebellion (and addon Rise of the Empire)

This question has been out there for a bit, so I thought I'd weigh in with my thoughts, especially on the issue of base game vs. expansion.

Combat:

The base game is one of my favorite games, although I felt that combat was a bit too swingy (if you have a leader in the system, you can draw a number of randomized tactics cards if they have a battle score for the proper theater of war - so Vader could draw 2 cards for space combat and 3 cards for ground combat). These would introduce unpredictable elements into your battles.

The expansion makes combat a little different, as you look through a deck of exhaustible advanced tactics cards and choose one to play at the start of every combat turn (similar to the House member cards from Game of Thrones 2nd ed at the start of battle). Your leader can now reroll a number of dice equal to their battle score. Also, the crossed-saber die result now allows the rolling player to remove one damage of that color. The attacking side is somewhat disadvantaged in this iteration of the game, as the crossed-saber (1 in 6) is useless for them on the first turn of battle.

In the bigger picture strategy, this may make the Rebels' mid-game objectives harder, since they usually focus on guerrilla attacks ("destroy X hp of units in a combat you initiated"). In the late game, it will assuredly make the Imperials' final attack on the Rebel base harder.

This also makes a "turtle at the base" Rebel strategy even stronger, although it does theoretically weaken an opening strategy of "strike the Empire's fleet with all your units on the first action".

There is an Imperial tactic card that allows for automatic capture of a Rebel leader. There is also a Rebel tactic card that allows for outright elimination of an Imperial leader. I have learned from harsh experience that getting hit with the Rebel tactic card and losing one of your leaders even before your first turn (because you sent Tarkin to defend a fleet against a Rebel attack and then he died) is not a fun way to start the game. (But see missions below.)

Leaders:

The expansion comes with four more leaders per side, and the skills are a little different. The expansion's idiosyncratic die is a green die, which has two faces with a direct-hit ("exploding planet") symbol, and 4 blank faces. Thus, its leaders also have minor skills, which count as a full skill point when determining eligibility to initiate a mission, but which roll only the green dice per skill point, making for a lower likelihood of success compared to a major skill.

The expansion also codifies an explicit rule that neither player may ever have more than eight leaders in their leadership pool. If they exceed this number, they must discard leaders until they are at eight. The interesting corollary to this is that Han Solo's mission from the base deck (which automatically gains Chewbacca or Lando Calrissian, bringing the Rebel player's leader total to nine) is no longer so powerful, although it can be useful if the Empire knocks out a leader.

However, note that this limit of eight applies only to the leader pool. If the Rebels are down one leader, e.g. due to capture, carbonite, or Lure of the Dark Side, those leaders are NOT in their leader pool and thus can be ignored against the limit of eight. Also, the Empire gets one Action card that can be played by Motti or Jabba, and which allows them to have nine leaders.

Missions:

The expansion comes with many more missions for both sides. However, one set of the missions is marked with a Darth Vader icon. Each player must choose a compiled mission deck that contains all leader-specific missions PLUS one of either (a) these Darth Vader expansion missions, or (b) the original game's missions.

In my experience, the Darth Vader expansion missions have a somewhat greater focus more on manipulating leaders - adding them early, taking them out, capturing or killing them, etc. It's possible that both sides could recruit replacement leaders to bring their total to eight even after they've lost some through death or capture.

There is one category of missions and objectives which deal with placing marker tokens on the board, with different effects if removed (usually by the enemy having a ground unit or units unopposed on that system). One Imperial mission will eliminate the Death Star's weakness temporarily - the Empire can Secure the Plans by putting a marker on a world. Unless the Rebels can remove the marker, the Death Star cannot be destroyed. The Rebels have Rebel Cells, an objective that places a marker on a Rebel loyal world and the Rebels gain one reputation per turn that it's still there.

I haven't played enough games to really get a sense of how this affects balance, although Rebel Cells has come up twice and proven pretty instrumental to either a decisive Rebel victory or a very narrow Rebel victory. (One game it was placed on Ryloth with the Imperials nowhere near it, and many turns later the game just fizzled out despite a heroic Veers mission that teleported AT-AT/AT-ST/stormtroopers in a desperate assault.)

Objectives:

The Rebels also have some new Objectives, although the Objectives deck is randomized in such a way that they still have only five per Stage (15 in total). In many ways, this is my least favorite strategic addition to the game - originally, the Empire and Rebels only had to account for the 15 objectives. Now, with the expansion, they have to account for the new missions, and also for the fact that not all the missions will even be present in the game due to initial setup randomization.

New units:

For the most part, these only use the green dice, but the three green dice can exceed the "roll five dice black, five dice red maximum" limitation of the base game. A player who wants to build up a truly overwhelming force can now put in 3 green, 5 red, 5 black. As mentioned above, the green dice only do "direct hit" damage, and there are two faces on the dice that feature this. They can therefore menace both the small units (black damage) and the large units (red damage). Rebels get a U Wing fighter which is like an X Wing that can carry 1 unit. They also get a structure (Golan Turret) which can inflict damage in ground combat. Finally, they get a Nebulon Frigate which takes 3 red damage and deals 2 green.

Imperials have an Assault Tank (take 1 red, deal 1 green), TIE Striker (take 1 black, deal 1 green), and Interdictor Cruiser (take 3 red, deal 2 green, prevent Rebels from retreating). They also get a Shield Bunker, which has no combat stats but which protects Death Star in orbit, and which can also allow deployment to remote systems, potentially removing a huge logistical bottleneck in the Imperial late game strategy ("now I've found the base, now how do I concentrate enough forces to capture the damn thing?")

DSUC starting variant:

The Imperials can also opt to start the game with a Death Star Under Construction (and a DS on Build step 3) plus a few additional units. At first blush, this would appear to remove most of the early game's "invincible Death Star" fleet movements for the Empire, as it would be built closer to the dangerous Phase 2 Objectives with the Death Star Plans. I've read some meta strategy that says this setup gives the Empire additional strength, by allowing them to build it in the Dagobah system, place troops there, and then move quickly to Utapau (which is otherwise a fairly safe Rebel haven for at least the first two turns of the game, ensuring that they can put a Mon Calamari Cruiser on the build queue).

Thrawn is not in this game expansion, although Interdictor Cruisers are.

Last edited by SolemnGolem; 01-12-2018 at 06:07 PM. Reason: Headings
SolemnGolem is offline   Reply With Quote