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ProfessorTomoe

Star Wars Rebellion

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The last thing I did for fun prior to coming back into the hospital was to learn how to play "Star Wars Rebellion," with my nearly 36-year-old son as my instructor. We played two games of it: an instructional game at first, followed by a full-on game afterward. He played the Empire and I played as the Rebels both times.

I've got to admit, for a very geeky game, I enjoyed the frak out of myself. Both games were close, albeit the second game (my first real game) was extremely close, coming down to the last roll of the dice during a battle for the ages on my well-hidden Rebel base to decide the game. We both had but one hit point left: I had one Rebel Trooper left standing, while he had one hit point left on an AT-AT. He got the lucky roll and took out my trooper on the very last possible roll, having broken out in a sweat during the fight. Wow.

The physical tabletop game was just that - it took up my entire kitchen table top, and then some. There were over a hundred pieces of highly detailed Star Wars characters in use, from X-wings and Y-wings through Rebel and Imperial troopers, through Super Star Destroyers, through the Death Star in various stages of construction. The game costs about $100 just because of the parts, my son says, and my wife has ordered for him a special foam-core insert for his game box that will help him organize his pieces when storing them.

As much as I enjoyed the game, I think my son enjoyed it even more. He was practically jubilant over the fact that he now had a "second person" with whom he could play one of his Star Wars games. :D He'd only been able to play them with a certain friend who is equally as geeky about Star Wars as he is. I don't know if I qualify as "geeky," but I at least know enough about the universe (or learned enough about the game) to be able to give him a good fight.

Amazon Smile link: https://smile.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Rebellion-Board-Game/dp/B017MLIGP0

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Good to see people getting into table top miniatures games that aren't Game's Workshop.  Has you son started painting the minis?

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3 hours ago, mlooney said:

Good to see people getting into table top miniatures games that aren't Game's Workshop.  Has you son started painting the minis?

Definitely have love/hate going for GW; they do what they do well, sort of, at least they are capable of it, but they gouge. I like a lot of their minis, especially older ones, and the weird scale does not bother me, it's cartoony, though and does not mix well with non-GW.

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I used to play "Epic" or their 6mm scale game.  Have 2 chapters of marines (one codex, one more vehicle oriented) and a similar amount of orks.  Haven't bought any of their products since Epic when out of print.  

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13 hours ago, mlooney said:

I used to play "Epic" or their 6mm scale game.  Have 2 chapters of marines (one codex, one more vehicle oriented) and a similar amount of orks.  Haven't bought any of their products since Epic when out of print.  

That has been a while.

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18 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That has been a while.

15 or so years.  I still haven't finishing painting my figures.  :-)

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9 hours ago, mlooney said:

15 or so years.  I still haven't finishing painting my figures.  :-)

You may be right, or you may have found an outlet that was selling out of production models. I recall buying GW epics on clearance in the 1990s after they were discontinued. With GW sometimes it's hard to tell; they briefly revive a line, or sell old stock through one of their other brandings.

Just reflecting on the models, I like their 40,000 line humans; I don't think anyone has done space troops better. I suppose Star Wars is competitive. The 40K Orks are kind of silly, but fun. I'm not a fan of their treatment of elves 40K especially. Robotic space skeletons ... why? Who are they trying to impress? Why not just be robots?  The Tyranids are awesome, you can drop those models into anything. You probably have.

The fantasy line is pretty solid but has many oddities, models that only work within the GW game and only while it is still current in the rules. Especially the large models. The races mostly work. I like the rank and file Skaven models. 

What I hate is the overall approach they take to pushing their wares. Frequent rule changes that seem more geared to selling new models than to improving the game. My take away is that they have the basis for good skirmish games, but not really for large battles unless you have a lot of cash to burn and way too much time on your hands (and Epics addressed this well, and then was discontinued.)

Battlefleet Gothic looked intriguing, I never got into it, but the style is unique, it does not appear to mesh well with anyone else's space gear.

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54 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

My take away is that they have the basis for good skirmish games, but not really for large battles unless you have a lot of cash to burn and way too much time on your hands (and Epics addressed this well, and then was discontinued.)

And then, to rub it in that Epic was dead, they came out with "Apocalypse", which was "mass battles" in 28mm scale. Even assuming you had 100 minis, that's only 20 stands of Epic, which is a small to medium army.  I am opposed the Apocalypse on something close to moral grounds.

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

And then, to rub it in that Epic was dead, they came out with "Apocalypse", which was "mass battles" in 28mm scale. Even assuming you had 100 minis, that's only 20 stands of Epic, which is a small to medium army.  I am opposed the Apocalypse on something close to moral grounds.

I know what you mean. There is a difference between 'providing a service', 'addressing a demand', 'producing a desired object', and 'gouging', 'manipulating the market', 'milking it for all it is worth' (and well beyond).

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9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I know what you mean. There is a difference between 'providing a service', 'addressing a demand', 'producing a desired object', and 'gouging', 'manipulating the market', 'milking it for all it is worth' (and well beyond).

Well GW has come along way from the days that they showed you how to make a grav tank out of a empty deodorant case and a plastic spoon. And not is a good way. 

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I got to have a little fun at my son's expense with Star Wars Rebellion at the core this past week. After my wife and I went to the arm surgeon's office to get my hand and elbow stitches out, we bought lunch and brought it over to my son's house for him and his wife. As we were wrapping up and getting close to the time we had to leave, I asked, "So! Is it about now when we break out a game of Star Wars Rebellion?" <evil grin> I got quite a commotion from everyone else in the room. Much fun.

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Back when I lived in Oklahoma and had a car I played "Command Decision" which is a WWII miniatures game.  They claimed that if the players were used to the rules, it ran in close to real time.  Each turn was 15 minutes long and each figure represented a platoon.  Normally a game lasted 10 turns or so.

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6 hours ago, mlooney said:

Back when I lived in Oklahoma and had a car I played "Command Decision" which is a WWII miniatures game.  They claimed that if the players were used to the rules, it ran in close to real time.  Each turn was 15 minutes long and each figure represented a platoon.  Normally a game lasted 10 turns or so.

Star Wars Rebellion's turns take a bit longer. The actual action stage of a turn usually takes around 10 minutes or so, but there's a lot of peripheral action and accounting that goes on with each turn. Things like choosing who's going to go on a mission, where they're going to go, choosing side missions, how you're going to misdirect the enemy (Rebellion) or uncover their misdirection (Empire), moving ships/personnel between planets, building more ships, but wait! there's more. It's all very involved, and that doesn't even include blowing up planets with the Death Star. I don't think I've made it to 8 turns yet playing as the Rebellion, and I haven't had a chance to play as the Empire.

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Of course the set of war gaming rules I "cut my teeth on", Tractics, each turn is 15 minutes in time, but fire and movement is less than a minutes worth, assuming that your figures are doing a lot of taking cover and that sort of thing.  A turn, with limited number of tanks, guns and infantry takes about 30-45 minutes to play out, total for both sides, assuming you have a referee for things like hidden movement and spotting.  Each shot by an anti-tank system takes 3 rolls to see the effect.  1) to hit, 2) location of hit 3) damaged caused by hit.  Depending on damage there may be a 4th or 5th roll, for effect on engine of the vehicle and moral of the occupants.  It's quite complex.  It really play out like a RPG with a very deadly combat results system, with the players taking the roll of a squad or platoon leader.

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I play a lot of tabletop games, but war games in particular are not popular with my crew. It has been ages since I played one. My first was AH Squad Leader.

 

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On 12/2/2022 at 10:17 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

I play a lot of tabletop games, but war games in particular are not popular with my crew. It has been ages since I played one. My first was AH Squad Leader.

If you're playing the side of the Rebellion, then Star Wars Rebellion is more of an "Avoid War" game. :P Seriously, there's much more in the way of subterfuge and secret missions if you're running the Rebellion. If you want war, then the Empire side is the side for you, with all the "search and destroy" goals.

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1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

If you're playing the side of the Rebellion, then Star Wars Rebellion is more of an "Avoid War" game. :P Seriously, there's much more in the way of subterfuge and secret missions if you're running the Rebellion. If you want war, then the Empire side is the side for you, with all the "search and destroy" goals.

I had assumed that SWR was a set of rules for combat in the Star Wars universe, not a board game.  Not sure why, I just did.

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11 hours ago, mlooney said:

I had assumed that SWR was a set of rules for combat in the Star Wars universe, not a board game.  Not sure why, I just did.

 

Not all 'board games' have an actual board. The boundaries are fuzzy. Boardgame Geek lumps in many tabletop games that are not focused on progress on a board.

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On 12/5/2022 at 3:16 AM, mlooney said:

A quick google shows that it's a board game with 2 actual boards.

Hmm? No, there's just one board. It's a farking huge board, but it's just one board. Perhaps the listing is showing 2 boards because you have to put two boards side-by-side to make the single table-devouring gameplay board...?

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4 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Hmm? No, there's just one board. It's a farking huge board, but it's just one board. Perhaps the listing is showing 2 boards because you have to put two boards side-by-side to make the single table-devouring gameplay board...?

I suspect that is the case.  Lots of wargames have isometric boards where you combine them to make larger boards.  Squad leader coming to mind.  This has lead reviewers to say "n boards" even if they only go together one way.

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