Let's commiserate: Risk SW edition

Finally got this; black edition for $24 shipped. What a game. It doesn't totally replace Queens Gambit but it is definitely a kissing cousin.

I definitely like it more than Rebellion if only because setup and learning is so much easier.

THOUGHTS? Anyone still playing this?

We played it to death over the fall last year, pretty much every week. I still like it a lot, even admitting that the light sabre duel isn't really worth pushing.

It's fine but has too many problems to really cement itself as a classic. As JEM mentions, the lightsaber duel is not worth pursuing, and the Imperial strategy of moving up the SSD and spamming TIE fighters (which get to attack when they deploy) is too strong and game breaking. After we tried to beat this strategy several times it's been shelved and never returned to.

This makes it far inferior to Queen's Gambit for me.

I know the popular response here is that you shouldn't be strategically dissecting a Risk Star Wars game that's this light. That's fine, but I personally believe you can design a light thematic game without huge holes in it.

No way this is better Rebellion. Rebellion is a phenomenal game that encompasses the entirety of the Star Wars original trilogy elegantly, while including a somewhat innovative mission system. The only clunky part of Rebellion is the combat, and even that's not horrible IMO.

I played it a lot for a couple of months and then once we worked out it has a reasonably strong winning strategy I traded it out. I don't get 2 player sessions that often and it was taking up time for other games. I had the Black edition (got it cheap ... for the UK) but would only buy the plain edition again, and only if it was cheap.

Did the rules ever stabilize ? Soon after release there was some basic questions over whether the Empire could move the Executor and spam TIEs and attack in once action, as well as whether they got bonus cards for destroying the off map deployment tiles. The game was already borderline Empire favored, the rulings that allowed these things pushed it too far in the Empires favor IMO. Yes it has the virtue of quick set up, but the game play is just not that interesting.

Between that and the irrelevance of the Jedi side battle, I lost interest after a half dozen plays.

I think Rebellion has pretty much fired Queens Gambit for me. And once you get the rules down, you can finish a game in about three hours. Not that long at all , at least in my book.

From what I understand the rules allowing you to spam/attack with TIEs and receive bonus cards for blowing up fleet tokens were the last version released/stated. Even those were just clarifications in the forums as there was never an official update to the rules from the publisher.

I'll go to bat for this game a little. It's not some deep game, but I do think it's been something of a victim of groupthink. I think the lightsaber battle is worth pursuing in some situations, for example. If you get the cards for it early, you can barrel through it and that five-card bonus is a big deal. Likewise, I don't think the standard strategies for each side are as degenerate as people say they are. If the Imperial player knows you'll spam the shield generator, or the Rebel player knows you'll put a TIE shield between the Rebs and the Deathstar, then they need to respond to it, I think.

I dunno, talking about strategies like this is not my forte, and I won't pretend to have as much experience as other people here. But I don't feel like this game is as thin as other people say it is.

*edit* Rebellion is definitely the better game though, and it's not all that close.

Don't compare it to REBELLION, please, that's really unfair. "Which is the better roll-and-move, CANDYLAND or TALISMAN? Hmm..."

It's fun and airy. And I'll hang out with San and say, yeah, do that Saber battle sometimes. Five cards is HUGE and can break it wide open for the Rebels. If I would pishposh anything it's the Falcon. I have yet to see a strat that makes that work in some reasonable way.

Yes five cards is huge - but you often have to spend at least that many cards to get them. So its a wash at best unless you get really lucky and/or combine it with event cards that do auto hits on the other side.

The real value is that those five cards come out right next to each other. That can be a big swing, well worth the investment sometimes I think.

The problem though is that if the Imperials are spamming TIEs and eating up your fleets, you could have dead cards come out in those free cards.

Additionally, each card you play to the lightsaber battle gives the Imperials two cards in a row. Once they get their SSD spam going you don't want to give them any actions without response because they start building up bonus cards left and right.

It may be group think, but I've played solo and against other people, specifically trying to beat the SSD spam TIEs in the space right in front of the death star strat and nothing really competes with it. After two deploys you're rolling max attack dice and Rebel ships just wither. Soon bonus cards start to pour in as you're clearing spaces.

Not sure if it proves anything but multiple groups have reported this problem and people went so far as to write up session reports on BGG trying to emphasize the issues to those who doubted. So if it's groupthink, it's happening to many groups.

Meanwhile Rebels have to sink actions into the shield generator at some point and you're just laying waste.

charlest wrote: It's fine but has too many problems to really cement itself as a classic. As JEM mentions, the lightsaber duel is not worth pursuing, and the Imperial strategy of moving up the SSD and spamming TIE fighters (which get to attack when they deploy) is too strong and game breaking. After we tried to beat this strategy several times it's been shelved and never returned to.

This makes it far inferior to Queen's Gambit for me.

I know the popular response here is that you shouldn't be strategically dissecting a Risk Star Wars game that's this light. That's fine, but I personally believe you can design a light thematic game without huge holes in it.

No way this is better Rebellion. Rebellion is a phenomenal game that encompasses the entirety of the Star Wars original trilogy elegantly, while including a somewhat innovative mission system. The only clunky part of Rebellion is the combat, and even that's not horrible IMO.

I've played it 8 times now, so maybe I'm not the best to be talking about it, but I've found the lightsaber battle to be incredibly powerful. I Redeemed Vader last game and it gave me the extra cards I needed to strip two sections of fighters, which gave me two cards I needed to disable the shield and move my Y-Wings in for the Death Star kill. Granted, I whiffed on the Death Star, but still, 6 free turns came from it.

Also, that whole SSD spam attack is fine and dandy, but I've found the best way to counter it is to spend all your time and energy wiping out the Executor ASAP to limit the enemy's ability to use fighters. It's actually so powerful a move that my wife and I agree that the real game-breaker is that the Death Star can't launch fighters. That's just stupid.

charlest wrote: After two deploys you're rolling max attack dice and Rebel ships just wither. Soon bonus cards start to pour in as you're clearing spaces.

Not sure if it proves anything but multiple groups have reported this problem and people went so far as to write up session reports on BGG trying to emphasize the issues to those who doubted. So if it's groupthink, it's happening to many groups.

Meanwhile Rebels have to sink actions into the shield generator at some point and you're just laying waste.

The thing I find interesting is that nobody has brought up the idea of mixed fleets. I always combine all of my rebels into groups loaded with X, Y, and B wings so that they CAN'T clear spaces easily. When they start to wither, I bring in the Falcon (which is the worst single figure in the game) to act as a buffer/meatshield.

Still LOVE this game. It's a stone cold, mass market ameritrash classic!

I'll just leave this right here....

fortressat.com/articles-boardgame-review...service-announcement

SuperflyTNT wrote:

charlest wrote: After two deploys you're rolling max attack dice and Rebel ships just wither. Soon bonus cards start to pour in as you're clearing spaces.

Not sure if it proves anything but multiple groups have reported this problem and people went so far as to write up session reports on BGG trying to emphasize the issues to those who doubted. So if it's groupthink, it's happening to many groups.

Meanwhile Rebels have to sink actions into the shield generator at some point and you're just laying waste.

The thing I find interesting is that nobody has brought up the idea of mixed fleets. I always combine all of my rebels into groups loaded with X, Y, and B wings so that they CAN'T clear spaces easily. When they start to wither, I bring in the Falcon (which is the worst single figure in the game) to act as a buffer/meatshield.

Mixed Fleets are a thing, but generally you get less attacks because your clusters of individual types are smaller. An opponent amassing next to the space your spamming TIEs from? Welcome that like every time. Those ships will whither under 2-3 five dice attacks every single turn.

We did the math on this and destroying the Executor is certainly the thing to do, but the opponent should get somewhere around 24 TIEs deployed before you can do that. They will have destroyed a lot of your ships by then (something like 15 ships I think? plus bonus cards possibly) and your fleet will be rough as hell. Good luck.

Also concerning your lightsaber reply. Yes, the bonus cards are strong. Mathematically, I believe it takes 5-6 cards to get those "free" cards. Meanwhile, the Empire is tearing you up and leaving you in ruins, likely generating their own bonus cards which chain.

I really wish we could play this online and demonstrate some of this stuff. I don't want the SSD strategy to be broke. I (as well as others on BGG), spent a great deal of time trying to defeat it knowing full well it was coming. The best I was able to get to was like a 20% rebel win percentage. That's knowing exactly what the Imperial player will do.