Star Wars: Rebellion: Asymmetric Conflict On A Galactic Scale
How does the Galactic Empire compare to the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars: Rebellion? Join us as we take a look!
The board game Star Wars: Rebellion from Fantasy Flight Games has a lot going on. We’ve talked about the basics and the different phases of the game. But now we want to take a look at just how different the experience will be when playing it as either the Empire or the Rebel player. These two sides do not start as equals – but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to tip the scales in your favor…
via Fantasy Flight Games
The Galactic Civil War that we see in the classic Star Wars trilogy is not a balanced fight. Far from it. The Galactic Empire enters the war with nearly every possible advantage. Its military boasts countless troops, ships, and pilots, and then it adds to these the unmatched firepower of its Star Destroyers and AT-AT Walkers. Where the Rebel Alliance has a secret base, the Empire has a weapon that can blow it up in an instant—along with the entire planet that houses it. By contrast, the Rebel Alliance starts as less than an underdog; it begins as a mere blip. Even by the time of A New Hope, General Tagge appears like a worrisome pessimist as he addresses the threat that the Rebels pose. His worries about the Rebel Alliance’s increasing strength are met with disdain by Admiral Motti and summarily dismissed by Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin.
While it is entirely possible you may not feel the disparity between the two sides until you sit down to your first game, the thrill that you take away from setup as the Imperial player—or the punch in the gut that you will suffer as the Rebel—is an important part of the game’s drama. Suddenly, it becomes clear that the Rebels are not about to win by conquering the galaxy; they can only hope that the galaxy will rise to support their fight for freedom.
To help illustrate the point—and to begin conveying a bit of the game’s astonishing narrative arc – we have created a few helpful diagrams:
Imperial vs. Rebel – Starting Units
Imperial vs. Rebel – Starting Positions
Note: These are just for the basic game – the advanced rules have new options.
These first two diagrams help to illustrate the tremendous military advantage the Empire enjoys at the game’s outset. However, you should not mistake this focus on the Empire’s early advantage as a suggestion that the Rebels are bound to catch up. In fact, the truth is that they are more likely than not to fall further behind in the production of additional military units.
Imperial vs. Rebel – Starting Resources
Of course, your starting units, positions, and resources are only the beginning of the stories you will weave over the course of your games of Star Wars: Rebellion. Still, in many ways, they set the tone for the action that will follow.
AdvertisementAs the Rebel player, you should by now be wondering how in the name of the Force you are supposed to topple an Empire whose military might so dramatically dwarfs your own. The answer is that you cannot. In Star Wars: Rebellion, the Rebel player never truly wins the Galactic Civil War. Instead, you aim to rally the rest of the galaxy to join you in your fight. If you succeed, you do not win the war immediately, but you turn the tide decisively in your favor.
As the Rebel player, there is almost zero chance that you can withstand Imperial bombardment long enough to win the game without accomplishing any of your objectives, so it is imperative that you incorporate them into your strategy. However, there is room to play around with how you use them.
Will you score your objectives immediately, one by one, as soon as you can? In this way, you avoid any chance that you let a valuable opportunity slip away from you, but it also makes your efforts slightly more predictable. You advance your cause in smaller increments, granting the Imperial player time to wake up to the threat.
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If you’d like to read up on just how exactly this battle for the galaxy shapes up, go READ THE FULL ARTICLE and get a better picture of this EPIC conflict. Star Wars: Rebellion – coming to a retailer near you, SOON!
Star Wars Rebellion: $99.95
Contents include:
- 1 game board (split in 2 halves)
- 170 plastic miniatures
- 25 leaders (with stands)
- 10 custom dice
- Over 170 cards
- 1 Learn to Play Booklet
- 1 Rules Reference
