Star. Wars. Rebellion. F. F. G. O. M. G.

It does get messy with all the leaders and missions...the game itself is really pretty easy mechanically, but sorting out who to send to do what is where it bogs down a bit.

But it's so cool to send somebody on a sabotage mission, they blow it, Boba Fett swoops in and captures them, and then you've got to stage a rescue mission to get them back.

The way this game uses worker placement is pretty brilliant. Argent had the different skills/abilities, but in this they interact with mission types and sometimes specific missions. Like if you send Luke on the mission to consult Yoda, he becomes Jedi Luke.

I also really like the Imperial projects...it's a neat way to bring in some evil schemes, secret plans and so forth beyond the standard mission deck.

Today I:
Turned Mon Mothma to the dark side
"Interrogated" Wedge Antilles
Told Han Solo it was his destiny to have lunch with me.
Then sent him on his way with a homing beacon.
And I blew up Naboo.

I really like the trend in FFG DoaM which really limits the component outside the board and player dashboards. I saw some guys playing SM Civ the other day, and THAT was bad....

YES, thank you, so glad they cut that shit out...30 decks of tiny cards, 10 decks of big cards, threat dials, dashboards, heart tokens, etc...other than mission cards there's not much apart from what goes on the board, I love that.

Ok, game 2 with the same buddy I played with Sunday, so we were able to get right into it. I played Rebels this time and won it on turn 8 thanks to the objective cards. So many awesome things happened I don't even know where to start.

- Leia totally bungled a sabotage mission so Vader captured her and Boba Fett shows up to put her in Carbonite. Obi Wan saves her.

- Luke made it to Dagobah and became Jedi Luke but then he got his ass captured by Vader too trying to run a demolition mission with General Dodonna. They were trying to keep an SSD from going online.

- Wedge was the man- won an epic space battle but lost a ground battle against General Veers...but then Crix Madine came in with one trooper on a transport and single-handedly won the planet (Toydaria).

- No superlasering...my friend really played hard for intelligence and didn't do much with the projects, using a lot of cards that pull out of the Probe Droid deck. And the card where you pretty much point and you have to say if the base is there or not. I posted up on Geonosis and never had to move.

- Mon Mothma did her diplomat job, getting systems on the Rebel side and brokering a deal at Utaupu to get an MC80 on the queue early. But the Emperor was busy turning systems against us with Rule By Fear.

- A lot more fighting and moving this time with plenty of tough situations.

The only thing I'm not 100% on is the combat. As usual with FFG, it's like two steps too far. I guess the Tactics cards are important to distinguish leadership (Wedge gets 3 space but only 1 ground, Veers is the opposite of that), but in play it still feels a little overcomplicated. Better than Forbidden Stars though.

It's a minor problem though in the scope of it. It's Star Wars "as you like it" and it is unquestionably one of the best in house things FFG has ever done.

Mike Barnes is slowly making me want to buy this, I am resisting though - and every time he badmouths combat in Forbidden Stars my resolve hardens, but I think this is a battle that I may not win.
Unfortunately everyone is posting excellent points on teh plus side for the game, doubly unfortunately it means around an $100 plus outlay.

I should be getting mine today. My brother is coming over tonight, so I'll let you know my thoughts.

For the record, I love Forbidden Stars, especially it's combat.

Keep talking, I like what I'm hearing. And it's probably my favorite designer.

Combat in Forbidden Stars is pretty herky jerky. In this game. its not so much that, as its just it slows play a little and it takes a bit of getting used to in terms of what types of units can do what. . But since its only 2P ( like WotR, the 4 person team game seems horribly contrived ) its not like there is downtime.

The neat thing is the first few times you do it, you start to see the value of combined arms, as well as a balanced force. Just like the movies, a force of capital ships or esp the Death Star w/o TIE fighters are more vulnerable than you would think.

I had a blast playing tonight in a 3 hour 15 minutes, 8 turns game as I won as the rebels against Malloc. I think the missions adds so much depth to each character. Boba Fet capturing Leia, Chewie flying down in the Falcon to lead an uprising and rescuing Leia, Han doing hit and run missions, Luke and Obi-Wan doing Jedi stuff, Wedge leading X-wing raids, Mon Mothma doing trade and diplomacy stuff, the Death Star blowing up planets.

Combat came much easier over time. Deal cards, count up dice, roll dice, use cards, deal out damage, then defender attacks back. As Msample mentioned as you learn the game you'll start learning having mixed arms and a good leader is real important. I took down a Star Destroyer with mixed ships and Wedge in this game.

My only worry is how many plays before we know the decks too well. And will the game not be as fun after you ran through 5 or 6 times.

One question though. I keep hearing about xxx destroying death star, yyy kidnap zzz, and www rescue uuu. This seems really fun.

But would it be a routine to the game? I mean, those sounds awesome really. But it keeps happening. The first time that happens, wow cool. But it doesn't seem hard to accomplish (except destroying death star maybe...).

KingPut wrote: I had a blast playing tonight in a 3 hour 15 minutes, 8 turns game as I won as the rebels against Malloc. I think the missions adds so much depth to each character. Boba Fet capturing Leia, Chewie flying down in the Falcon to lead an uprising and rescuing Leia, Han doing hit and run missions, Luke and Obi-Wan doing Jedi stuff, Wedge leading X-wing raids, Mon Mothma doing trade and diplomacy stuff, the Death Star blowing up planets.

Combat came much easier over time. Deal cards, count up dice, roll dice, use cards, deal out damage, then defender attacks back. As Msample mentioned as you learn the game you'll start learning having mixed arms and a good leader is real important. I took down a Star Destroyer with mixed ships and Wedge in this game.

My only worry is how many plays before we know the decks too well. And will the game not be as fun after you ran through 5 or 6 times.

When I read your first paragraph my thought was will their have to be expansion packs to provide new missions to keep the game fresh.
Interesting to read that the combat seems like Forbidden Stars (dice and cards) except it doesn't run for three rounds, also it seems the 'one side attacks first then the other attacks back' seems a emulate that part from Horus Heresy - overall sounds interesting (been too busy to read the rules to see for myself).

Sevej wrote: One question though. I keep hearing about xxx destroying death star, yyy kidnap zzz, and www rescue uuu. This seems really fun.

But would it be a routine to the game? I mean, those sounds awesome really. But it keeps happening. The first time that happens, wow cool. But it doesn't seem hard to accomplish (except destroying death star maybe...).

It's FFG, it's Star Wars, there will be unneccery expansions until the game is completely bloated and unplayable.

I think your right about many of the missions becoming routine to the game. But it's like other licenses game Firefly, Lord of the Rings, Spatacus. For example Buffy, when Xander's hands Buffy a pool stick and Buffy dusts the Mayor the first time it awesome.
Then when you're play the a couple years later and it happens again it still fun but not quite as awesome.

I don't want to over sell the game. $75 -100 is expense for a game and to ship to the UK it's probably is more expensive. The biggest problem for most people will be that it's a long strategic 2 player game. So if War of the Ring, Forbidden Stars, etc. is sitting on shelf collecting dust, You might play this 3-4 times before it starts collecting dust. The one thing Rebellion has over WotR is that it's more accessible. A gaming wife or 12 year old kid who likes X-wing or Queens Gambit will enjoy Rebellion much more then WotR.

I played it last night. It's too early for sound, solid opinions, but I definitely had a blast and I really, really like the game.

I don't see things getting old (both with the missions and who is doing them) be as much of an issue. There were a lot of mission cards I didn't see in the 8 turns my game went. As as for who is doing what, that won't play out the same every time. You may not have that leader or you might have them but have something else very pressing that you need to have them get done. I'm pretty sure we all see the same shit happen in WotR and no one is complaining, I really don't see this being any different.

It's also new and we all have massive Star Wars boners right now, so we want to play the hell out of this, but like WotR, we'll eventually not play it all the time and it will seem fresh after periods of inactivity.

But I reiterate, I'm going to need a few more plays to be sure of anything aside from I really, really like it.

I wish I had someone to play this with. This would be like Dave Roswell and I playing our annual WAR OF THE RING spectacular. I can't tolerate that shit, to be honest. Having a game that can't get to the table is like having a condom in your wallet for 10 years. It's just pathetic hopefulness.