Board Game Review — Star Wars Rebellion
Star Wars Rebellion is a 2–4 player game that takes about 3 hours to play. This game takes place during the Original Trilogy. One player (or team if you have more than 2 players) will assume the role of the Empire will the other player/team is the Rebels. At the beginning of the game, the Rebels secretly choose one of 32 planets to house the Rebel base. The Empire then has 15 turns (or less depending on the Rebel’s actions) to find the Rebel base and destroy it.
The Empire and the Rebels take turns assigning leaders (such as Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Princess Leia, Han Solo etc.) to missions or to planetary systems so they can move their forces there. Once a leader is placed in a planetary system, that player can no longer move their forces out of that system. Players can also try to stop the enemy from completing a mission by sending one of their leaders to intercept the mission. The Empire and the Rebels play the game very differently.
The Empire has access to many more resources from the beginning of the game than the Rebels do. They control more planets and end up producing a large army. Additionally, the Empire sends probes out every round which tell them what planet the Rebel base is NOT on. The Empire also has the ability to capture Rebel leaders and sometimes freeze them in carbonite or turn them to the dark side.
The Rebels have the advantage of drawing an extra card every round. Also, they are able to quickly deploy forces and show up where the Empire is not expecting them. The Rebels can often force the Empire to use their leaders in less than optimal ways and can make the Empire choose between moving to a system or trying to stop a Rebel mission.
I love this game and I rated it 9/10. I think it is one of the best games I have played based off an intellectual property. This game is really thematic and feels like stepping into the Original Trilogy. While this game is on the heavy side and takes some time to learn, the game goes pretty quickly and the 3 hours the game takes to play flies by. I would recommend this game to people who enjoy asymmetrical gameplay and epic war games.
