Finally got a chance to get this on the table this afternoon. Played a game with a friend of mine, first time either of us laid hands on the game. Since it was my copy of the game and I’d skimmed the cards before, I gave him the privilege of choosing his faction after reading through the manual and he went with the Rebels. We also used the first-time play setup from the manual and skipped the action cards as was recommended for the first game.
The first turn had the Imperial fleet blitzing for Mon Calamari and Kashyyyk as quickly as possible (having told the Rebels before the game started that this was exactly what was going to happen). Both planets were quickly subjugated as diplomatic efforts ramped up on Sullust to bring them fully into the fold. The Rebels worked instead on consolidating control of Naboo and Geonosis, acquiring their loyalty and pouring troops into them.
Battles were few and far between in the early game, with only a few Rebel uprisings on the numerous subjugated worlds the Empire was clinging to by force. The Empire focused on securing loyalty of as many systems as possible while maneuvering small fleets around the galaxy to secure as many worlds as possible against Rebel sneak attacks (and to validate that these worlds did not hide the Rebel base). Imperial probe droids were successful in turning up many of the outer worlds (with no population and, thus, not otherwise worth conquering) in the early game, which freed up forces to instead take over worlds with population that could contribute to the war effort in some way.
A wookiee uprising on Kashyyyk removed Imperial control and secured it for the Rebels, while the Empire could never be bothered to deploy any ships to retake it on account of it being an ineligible Rebel base location. Chewbacca embarked on a campaign of non-stop sabotage of critical Imperial worlds including Sullust (producing valuable land units which were in short supply) and Mon Calamari (restricting the flow of Star Destroyers). Despite this, the Rebels took an extremely long time acquiring a world capable of supporting Mon Calamari cruisers, and thus their fleet was never able to truly compete with any Imperial force.
The Death Star plans were also elusive, though this was by the Rebel player’s inexplicable choice. The Empire even attempted to steal back the plans but could not find them, settling instead for returning a 1 point objective that would have been satisfied later that turn. Mon Mothma, who had been captured in an earlier mission to Mon Calamari, was frozen in carbonite (adding one more turn to the length of the game) right before the Empire conducted a massive communications intercept operation. This forced the Rebel player to draw eight probe droid cards (of 12 remaining at that point) and give the Empire all of the cards drawn for systems with any Imperial presence. This narrowed the Rebel base’s location to one of four planets in the upper-right corner of the board. Naboo and Geonosis were heavily fortified, Ryloth was securely located behind those planets out of easy reach of the Empire, and Rodia which was completely defenseless and directly next to two Imperial strongholds.
Time was running out. The Imperial player had three turns left and a gigantic swarm of Rebels to cut through to finish the game. To win, the system with the Rebel base needed to be cleaned out, and once it was located there would be immediate ground/space reinforcements transferred from the hidden Rebel Base space to its actual on-board location which made a sneak attack practically impossible. Construction of a second Death Star had just finished on Mustafar, after being rushed to completion by Jerjerrod, and a superlaser attack card was available but not deployed (with only one having been used on Bothawui so far). Having decided they were quickly running out of time, the Empire pushed a carrier loaded with TIEs and stormtroopers to Rodia and landed on the planet’s surface, which forced the Rebel player to reveal it as his base (which was awkward given that a Death Star hovered over it for two turns earlier in the game without noticing). The reinforcements immediately deployed and wiped out the force, triggering two Rebel objectives and awarding enough points to make this the actual last turn of the game. If the base remained alive after the final Imperial leader acted, the Rebels would successfully run out the clock by default.
The Emperor himself, being the last free leader available, deployed to Rodia and brought the original Death Star with him. Since the Rebels had no fighters left due to the valiant sacrifice of the TIEs earlier, the Death Star wiped out the Rebels’ capital ship fleet, but could not target the ground forces due to not having the superlaser card in play. Thankfully, Boba Fett was assigned a planetary assault mission which allowed a strike force of AT-ATs, AT-STs and stormtroopers to deploy from anywhere in the galaxy to any other planet for a battle. Originally intended to strike Ryloth, out of reach of normal means, this card allowed the Imperials to perform an otherwise impossible movements and deploy against a woefully underprepared force of Rebel foot soldiers. Without airspeeder support, they were quickly annihilated with minimal losses, securing the entire system for the Empire and ending the game mere minutes before the disastrous defeat would have triggered.
The Rebels attempted to deceive the Empire with heavy troop concentrations on unrelated worlds, but failed to secure their base itself with adequate troop numbers in turn. The inability to react to the unexpected pinning of their base gave them no chance to stop the Imperial onslaught. There were numerous misplays on both sides but it was a lot of fun. Total gameplay time was around 4.5 hours, which was roughly what we expected. Tentative rematch in about a month with the sides switched and all the remaining rules added in (hopefully with fewer rules mistakes).
