I’ve just finished watching the predictably excellent Star Wars: Andor Season 2 and, while it features my #1 Empire crush – heartless, venal worm in a cape Orson Krennic – the story ended without a glimpse of his deadly spherical brainchild, the Death Star. I’ll be re-watch Rogue One to get my giant death ball fix. But I’ve spotted another option, with not one but two balls I can hold in my hands: the infamous, long playing strategy board game Star Wars Rebellion has just gone to 20% discount on Amazon.
A permanent fixture in our list of the best Star Wars board games of all time (and, for mega Star Wars fans, probably one of the best board games in the world) 2016’s Rebellion is a deliciously expansive, asymmetric strategy game that sees you re-fight the Galactic Civil War of the original trilogy (oridge tridge, if you will) over the course of 2-4 hours.
One side dons the black robes of Sheev Palpatine and controls the Galactic Empire, starting with loads of armies and spacecraft to conquer with, while their opponent leads the rebellion from a secret base, wildly outnumbered, out-resourced, and surrounded on all sides.
The core gameplay – as explained by board game review supremos Shut Up & Sit Down in their vintage video above – operates as a standard territory control war board game: you move units around to control planets; planets generate factories, which generate more units, and so on.
But the spice comes in the asymmetry. The Empire can only win by finding and destroying the secret Rebel base – but all the Rebels have to do is survive, undiscovered, for a given number of turns (which it can shorten by completing sneaky objectives).
The actual combat isn’t the best. True aficionados can swap to external, custom games of Star Wars Legion or X-Wing to patch out that part (if you’ve got an extra few days to kill). But the overarching experience is pure Star Wars grand strategy, layered up with famous characters, iconic units, and side-quests and random events that trigger all kinds of movie reminiscent events, to throw your game off in different directions.
Plus, as a miniature painting addict, the selection of minis in the box is mouth-watering to me – even if they do come with legions of the Emperor’s finest mold lines to file off. Death Stars one and two? Yes please.
Star Wars: Rebellion is getting on a bit now, and copies can often cost you a bundle – at an RRP of over 100 bucks, it’s still an expensive box of bits. But with the current 20% discount on Amazon, it’ll set you back only $88; still a larger purchase, but a tempting deal for such a large scale strategy board game. UK readers get a smaller, but still solid, 7% discount.
If you (like me) are looking for a chunky Star Wars tabletop game fix to tide you over until those shockingly cheap new Star Wars Legion starter sets come out, Rebellion is a fine addition to your collection (no, General Grievous is not included, he is dead in this era, keep up).
If you’ve tried out Rebellion and have OPINIONS (good or bad) – or just want to trade spoiler-tagged hype about how good Andor Season 2 was (believe me, I’m right there with you) – come join the discussion in the Wargamer Discord community. We’re based on a very secret planet that’s neither Dantooine, nor Yavin, nor Hoth – come and have a guess, Tarkin!
Source: Wargamer
