Star Wars Risk

engineer Al wrote:

Green Lantern wrote: J-Lo.

Heh.

Well I ended up buying the Black Series edition, some small online toyshop stuck it on eBay with £1 opening price and few bid on it so picked it up for under half price of its RRP over here (£50). I've had a look at it now and they have spent a bit on the foam insert, obvously teh three main ship minis, the raised embossing on all the cardboard and a bit of foil treatment on the (admittedly thin) cards - but all the ship and figure plastics are pretty miserable, like something you'd get out of a Christmas cracker. I definitely wold not have even thought about paying full UK RRP for it and not sure if i'd pay your $US50 for it either - but haven't played it yet so you never know, the game play may be memorable enough to raise my opinion.

A shame. I was going to send it to you for Secret Satan.

I've played my Black Series copy 3 times now and like the game quite a bit. We have no seen the Rebels win yet (using the clarified rules on BGG for all games).

I'm also not convinced either side should even expend one action on the Luke/Vader battle.

charlest wrote: I've played my Black Series copy 3 times now and like the game quite a bit. We have no seen the Rebels win yet (using the clarified rules on BGG for all games).

I'm also not convinced either side should even expend one action on the Luke/Vader battle.

I won as Rebels. I used the Vader battle to pull it off too. Turning Vader got me a bunch of actions, which I spent on punching through the shield generator and the rest is easy pickins if you haven't been an idiot. The shield generators are the hardest part in my opinion, and rolling tons and tons of uninterrupted dice is how you can get through it.

charlest wrote: I'm also not convinced either side should even expend one action on the Luke/Vader battle.

Now that is a bit sad, especially now that I know it. Reminds me of playing Queen's Gambit against my lad earlier this year, he knew little about the game and as the Trade Fed player concentrated on Darth Maul killing both my Jedi and then, with the droids, wiping out all life in the Theed Palace - after my previous games playing all the game boards this made me look at the overall game a bit differently ... but I still like the bits !

SuperflyTNT wrote: A shame. I was going to send it to you for Secret Satan.

I definitely don't have Star Wars: Rebellion

jeb wrote:

charlest wrote: I've played my Black Series copy 3 times now and like the game quite a bit. We have no seen the Rebels win yet (using the clarified rules on BGG for all games).

I'm also not convinced either side should even expend one action on the Luke/Vader battle.

I won as Rebels. I used the Vader battle to pull it off too. Turning Vader got me a bunch of actions, which I spent on punching through the shield generator and the rest is easy pickins if you haven't been an idiot. The shield generators are the hardest part in my opinion, and rolling tons and tons of uninterrupted dice is how you can get through it.

You get 5 bonus cards if you turn Vader. You probably spend 4-6 cards getting to that point.

What was the Imperial player doing?

Here's what my limited experience has taught me is the best play for the Imperial player:

Play as many Death Star cards as possible as top priority early game. Blow the hell out of those Rebel cruisers with ships on them. You have a 66% chance to succeed and you get a bonus card. You will have gained 3-4 bonus cards by mid-game and decimated the Rebels reinforcements. Let him turn Vader.

Secondary concern is getting the SSD to the front lines. Then spam TIE actions the entire rest of the game. Spawn ALL the TIEs getting five dice attacks each time you spawn them. If your SSD is positioning in front of the Death Star and near the Rebel ship starting points, you'll decimate him, especially if he's not committing actions to the space battle and worrying about spending multiple cards to get 5 bonus cards. Get those bonus cards he's trying to get before him by actually destroying his ships.

Only put Stormtroopers on Endor when it gets to the end.

I think the Rebels can still win (I came close in one game) but I don't think the choices are as nuanced as Queen's Gambit.

I think focusing on the Jedi/Sith fight in QG is your best bet, but the thing is it doesn't give you bonus cards. So fighting the Gungans with spot duty can be beneficial.

I'm not sure you can convince me spending 4 actions ONLY to get 5 bonus cards is a good strategy when the Imperial player has been decimating your fleet and gaining around 2-3 bonus cards himself. His bonus cards by the way are far more likely to chain into additional bonus cards since his prior actions have been damaging your fleet.

At this point, Rebel bonus cards also have a possibility of being completely useless. We drew a Y-Wing/Lightsaber bonus card in one game but all the Y-Wings were destroyed, and clearly we didn't need the Lightsaber as Vader was turned. That's a horrible feeling.

As I recall it was more like 3 cards to get Darth in range of the Turning, setting up for a hand where the Turning happens on segment 2 or 3 optionally. I.e., the first card of the segment is Lightsaber + who cares, the second is Saber/Darth, the third is Darth/Other. I'm not saying this is some genius move and I've broken the game and the Rebels win from now on. It was a strat I used in a game to much success.

I probably have 15-20 games in. Vader/Luke battle is totally worth it for the Rebels, which makes it worth it for the Empire to not let it happen. 5 actions while your opponent just sits there? That's HUGE for getting to the shield generator. Timed right, that could mean getting the shield generator down AND blowing up the Death Star before the Empire can do anything to stop it. Bonus cards = always worth it.

Now firing the Death Star on the other hand....

I also just go the black edition, pushed me over the edge of purchasing it...
Saw Drive Thru compare both, so I got it...

Gotta play it now... lol... maybe this weekend!

Josh Look wrote: I probably have 15-20 games in. Vader/Luke battle is totally worth it for the Rebels, which makes it worth it for the Empire to not let it happen. 5 actions while your opponent just sits there? That's HUGE for getting to the shield generator. Timed right, that could mean getting the shield generator down AND blowing up the Death Star before the Empire can do anything to stop it. Bonus cards = always worth it.

Now firing the Death Star on the other hand....

You are much more experienced than me so lets break this down and see what I'm missing.

First of all, are you playing with the clarified rules from BGG? It sounds like maybe not since you think the Death Star action is weak (your last sentence).

The Death Star action is the strongest action early game. You eliminate a Rebel fleet marker 66% of the time AND gain a bonus card. I think you should be opening with two Death Star attacks and one SSD action as Empire every single game if you have the cards (which you will most of the time).

You will average 1 bonus card on your first turn and if that's another Death Star attack your odds will be 2 bonus cards on the first turn. In that instance Rebel fleet will be in shambles.

I also don't get the logic that if Luke is worth it for the Rebels the Imperials should then try to stop them. Your progress on the Luke/Vader battle does not impede the other player so it's an all or nothing. If you try and stop Luke and fail, you've wasted multiple actions.

Beyond that, when do you start pushing the Luke battle? Early in the game?

Mathematically this will average out to 4-5 actions to get Vader down to 3 or less health (assuming you roll odds). It will take another action to turn Vader. So again, you're spending 5-6 actions on average to gain 5 bonus cards.

I've seen the argument that the bonus cards are stronger than regular actions because your opponent can't respond. What I haven't seen someone explain though is how a Rebel player spending actions on Luke is not responding to the Imperial player, thus boosting the power of the Imperial player's cards.

Are you slowly performing Luke actions? Like once per round?

Have you played with the Imperial player totally ignoring the Vader track and Endor track? You should totally ignore Endor until near the end, it's a waste of time.

The biggest issue I have is that the Rebel player is spending 5-6 actions on Luke with the ONLY result being 5 bonus cards. Meanwhile, during those 5-6 actions the Imperial player is decimating the Rebel fleet and earning his own bonus cards. Likewise, Imperial bonus cards seem to be slightly more useful, especially late game.

My experience has been similar to Charles': Luke/Vader seems like a waste of time for both.

Do people think maybe 4/5/6 bonus cards rather than 3/4/5 would make the battle worth fighting?

bfkiller wrote: My experience has been similar to Charles': Luke/Vader seems like a waste of time for both.

My experience reflects this too. After playing this a bit, there is no way that this even comes close to Queen's Gambit in terms of gameplay -- which is unfortunate, because I enjoy the characters and setting so much more.