VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION
Absolute Ascendancy
Star Wars Rebellion - Guide to Imperials 1 of 2
Description generated by Skrybot
The discussion delves into strategies and tactics for playing as the Imperials in the Star Wars Rebellion game, focusing on board positioning, fleet composition, key locations, and various mission cards like Probe Droid Initiative and Secure the Plans. Emphasis is placed on adapting to the Rebels' strategies, utilizing different cards effectively, and making strategic decisions to secure victory. Cards such as "Secure the Plans," "Exploit Weakness," "Stolen Intel," and "Imperial Might" are highlighted for their impact on gameplay, with a focus on timing and strategic decision-making to counter opponent actions and maximize effectiveness.
Transcription generated by Skrybot
Howdy! Welcome to Star Wars Rebellion, guide to playing as the Imperials. Because let me tell you one thing, imping ain't easy man. Believe me, I've played dozens upon dozens of games against various different opponents. And as the Imperials, you have to be able to adapt to what the Rebels are doing. And that's not always easy, you know.
different players have different strategies some like the turtles some like to attack a lot and having to react to all these different you know tactics and strategies it isn't always easy so i'm just going to run through well this is going to be quite detailed video i'm going to run through all the different sort of strategies tactics maneuvers i've come up with throughout the course of many many games of playing star wars rebellion I'm only going to be considering the Rise of the Empire expansion, so bear that in mind as well. With all that said, let us begin with board positioning. So if you take a look here, this is a board setup for a game that I'm about to play tomorrow.
I like to position my fleets such that I have three to four sort of major defensive key locations. and then the other three or so planets are completely vulnerable to attack. The thing is, you do not have enough starting units to fully cover all of your starting locations. It's just not possible. You're better off accepting that you are going to lose one or two planets at the beginning of the game, depending on how the rebels play of course. So with that said, three to four defensive locations is a good idea. And I like to have at least a minimum of three fighters in the sky and an assault carrier for a key defensive location. This allows you to pull off these two cards in tandem.
So the Rebel Starling Fleet, they have three fighters. So if you have four fighters in the system, that's great, because you can do swarm tactics turn one and deal two damage. I mean, this is one of the strongest cards that you can get for the space battles. So it's really powerful, do not waste this. But if you have at least three fighters, then turn one, you can play reinforcements, gain an extra TIE fighter, and prevent two black hits. If done correctly, this should allow you to have more fighters in the sky than your opponent for the second round of combat. If the rebel player or you choose not to retreat, have that second round.
Then on the ground, I like to have a minimum of five ground units for my key locations. So here, I have an AT-AT, AT-ST and three stormtroopers. Two AT-STs and three stormtroopers. then one AT-ST, two assault tanks, two stormtroopers. That is, you know, reasonably defended. To be honest, you could-you-in this location here, you can still lose the ground. Like, if they send everything in, you're still losing the ground battle here, and even here it's not looking too good to be honest. Yeah, they could still take the ground in any of these systems if the rebel player wanted to. They would suffer heavy losses, though. That's probably not in their best interests, because rebel units are more valuable than Imperial ones.
The reason for this is because Imperials tend to produce units at a much faster rate than the Rebels. Therefore, a Rebel trooper is more valuable than an Imperial stormtrooper. Now my Death Star in the construction, I've placed it in Tatooine for this game. Generally speaking, the best place is Dagger Bar, and the reason for that is because you want to block off Witter Power. Blocking this off is really important in most cases. I've played so many games that I like to mix it up a bit, so I've gone Tatooine this time. But like I said, majority of the time, just stick it on Dagger Bar. Seriously, just stick it on Dagger Bar.
The other good thing about sticking on Dagobah is that you have units in the system already, so that if you suspect the rebel player is going to play Seek Yoda, you've got your capture ready. You can just capture Luke immediately, because you've already got units in Dagobah. Or you should do, anyway. That's why Dagobah is a really good starting location, for those two reasons. And the camera's just. . .
going haywire apologies i don't know what happened there camera just kind of blanked out on me oh easy anyway so that's starting positions for you next up let's run through all of the missions i think it's another it's probably the next best place to go to so i'm going to just put this on the tripod let's just get some space here just very easily talk without a camera falling yeah that will happen okay let's begin so let's run through the starting missions you have capture rubble this is good obviously obviously this is good like some of the best imperial missions require you to have a captured leader so obviously a good card you probably don't want to play this turn one i mean it depends But, you know, typically my turn one play is I'll have two leaders on standby, maybe even three.
And then I'll either play, you know, Rule by Fear, maybe an R&D, probably not R&D though, Rule by Fear. If they have loads of, if they're turtling, go straight in for Gather Intel. If you can draw two probes, play this card. It will help you in the mid to late game, honestly. Whenever you get the opportunity to draw two cards off of this, you should play it. Even if it's turn one, you should just play this card, turn one. Eight units in the rubber base, play it. If they got even more, even better. But yeah. Rule by fear, like there's a strategy which involves just playing this every single turn. I don't tend to do that, but I do play it a lot.
And it is a good turn one play. Obviously in the later stages of the game it becomes very important to you know take loyalty off the rebels because they have quite a few there's a couple of objectives in there that require the rebel player to have x number of loyalty on the board so that's good for that. With R&D as well in the late stages of the game a smart rebel player will try and sabotage your systems which are adjacent to their base. So a combination of R&D and R&D and rule by fear allows you to remove those pesky sabotage markers.
It is two missions, you're taking two actions for one, but in the late stages of the game, it's so important that you're able to deploy your units where you need to place them. R&D, I don't tend to play this so much. Obviously, if my opponent's going heavy on sabotage, I will play it. And if the rebel player blocks off my space system, so I can't. . . produce Star Destroyers and Assault Carriers, then yeah, I'm going to start digging out those Super Star Destroyers and Interdictors with this card. So those are the main situations where I'll play this. I don't tend to play it turn 1. I might bluff it, though. One of my favourite plays, in fact, is this guy, Targ.
Putting Targ on capture turn 1. Because it's a good bluff, because most people will think he's on R&D. So if they are assigned to sabotage, if the rebel player has assigned someone to sabotage, and you've got tags sitting on this, they've probably got to go for one of your subjugated systems. And this is sneaky. Getting a capture with this guy is sneaky. Because if you've got Vader on standby, you can use him to oppose a mission maybe, and then bring this guy in for capture. Or you can use him as a move, move him into a system, which has a rebel. . . So. . .
a rebel leader and then go for the capture that which gives you uh four four dice rolls which is really good and sneaky one of my favorite plays uh before we go on with the other missions actually let's run through the starting action cards so there's six of them you get two uh the first one more dangerous than you realize this used to be good in the um the base set, with the expansion rules from Rise of the Empire, this card is not so good anymore because you can't use it early game, it is good in the late game, I give you that, there are some situations where you want to have this card in the late game you can grab 3 tactics and you can surprise your opponent with this, it can be good late game but generally speaking I don't want to see this, I don't want to see this card Next, Brilliant Admin.
This is okay. I used to play this early game, like turn one, but I've realized that's probably not such a good idea. Now I tend to wait until the late stages of the game. Maybe I'm trying to set up an Imperial Might and I want to get some extra units on the build queue, play this then. That will give, you know, you can just play this on like, you know, like Sullust for example, and then on the following turn play your Imperial Might and you can get another, you know, an AT-AT on the board, which is, you know, pretty solid. Again, but again, I don't really want to see this. It's not my favourite card. It's not the best. It's not bad, though. It's not terrible.
Next up, It Is Your Destiny. This is a nice insurance card to have against a rescue mission. It's nice to have. I think there are better cards that you can start with, but, you know, I'm not too upset if I draw this. It's nice to have, especially if you're trying to set up, like, two to three interrogation missions in one turn or something.
you know that's a lot you're a lot more comfortable trying to pull that off if you've got this in your hand with vader track them when i first saw this card i thought it was amazing it is good don't get me wrong it is definitely a good card but in my testing in my games i have found it can be a bit hit and miss there are some games where it's just been completely useless and then there's been I've won a game off of this card before, so it can be amazing, it can be really good. It's definitely one of the better starting action cards that you can get.
Especially if you play this turn 1, you get a free attack and an extra movement turn 1, that is pretty good. Early promotion? There's a lot of debate about this card. People like it, people don't like it. You know, sacrifice. To play this card, you have to sacrifice Tarkin's action turn one, which means you've only got three leaders to do stuff on turn one against the Rebel Players four. You're an action behind on turn one. In exchange, though, for the rest of the game, you're, you know, barring that nothing else happens, you're one leader ahead until. . . Turn 5, I want to say? Yes, turn 5. Rebellion is not a game that's won on turn 1.
Even if you put yourself at a disadvantage turn 1, you're in a bad situation or whatever, because the rebel player's been able to do more stuff than you, you can catch up. Rebellion is not decided in turn 1 most of the time. So early promotion is very much about setting up your mid to late game. It's subtle. That's why I like this card. I would much rather prefer to set up my mid to late game and sacrifice my turn one. But that's my opinion. I can totally understand people who don't like this card. If you don't like it, just toss it out and hope you get a better one. It's fine as well. And finally, according to my design, I mean, this is amazing.
Of all the six starting action cards, this is the one I pray I get every single game. It's just so good. So good. A lot of opponents, they like to do a powerful Alpha Strike turn one with the Rebel Fleet. Suddenly, you turn the tables. You send Palpatine in to oppose or whatever, drop this card, and. . . Wow. You've just stolen three of their dice. One red and two black dice are just removed from their attack pool. For both space and ground for the first round of combat. It's just amazing. The verbal player thinks they've got a chance of winning that battle, and suddenly you've just turned the tables on them. Losing three dice is a seriously big deal.
And not to mention, Palpatine is such a good leader. One of your strongest leaders for. . . for dice rerolls it's got three space rerolls and two ground rerolls it's solid solid definitely the one card that i want to you know if i could pick my two starting action cards i'd pick this every single time and then probably early promotion or you know track them or it is your destiny maybe one of these three this one every time and one of these three right let's go back to our missions then so i've talked about the starting ones let's go through the signature missions next detained This is okay, it's not amazing. I usually like to use this to try and capture Mothma actually.
Mothma is notoriously hard to get because she's often doing build alliance and she's often out of range, just can't reach her. So I like to detain her for a turn and then you know move a fleet in on the next turn to try and capture her. Because if you capture Mothma, Mothma and Palpatine are the only two leaders that have a solid three diplomacy icons. So if you capture Mothma and you just have Palpatine on standby, it becomes very difficult for the rebel player to play Build Alliance. So that's why this can be pretty good. In the late stages of the game, it can be good to prevent a key leader from. . .
return into the rebel leader pool if you're trying to take the base for example and they have a lot of ground force you may want to try and or they have a lot of space force you may want to try and play this card on a black bar for example preventing going back for your next turn moving on draw them out fantastic card design i really really like this card it's it's so good as long as the verbal rebel player has at least two leaders on standby you're guaranteed to pull this off. And this combos very nicely with the Shin card as well which goes with Krennic's Finest.
But yeah this is such a good card, such a good design, it's really good for setting up a capture as well and yes it's fantastic stuff it's also good to set up on, what's it called? Jabba's signature mission. Make an example, because if you've got Imperial units in a remote system, play this card there, capture them and then send them to the pits basically. Really good card, especially late game. In the late game, that's when the rebel player often has a couple of leaders hanging around on standby. You can so disrupt them by playing this. Pump them down. Very simple effect. You know, destroy two units. It's good. It's a good card. I like to use this if the rebel player blockades one of my systems early on.
It's also good once you've revealed the base. You know, being able to take out. . . And what do we call it? An air speeder or a corvette is solid. It's a solid play. Especially those air speeders, they're really annoying with those tow cables and shield generator reusing tow cables shenanigans. It's a good card. Planetary Conquest, in my opinion, the best Imperial mission in the deck. Just because it's such a game-ender. It's such a total game ender if you pull this off. Once you know where the base is, as long as they don't have any air units, obviously it depends how well defended it is, but you're sending an AT-AT, an AT-ST, and two Stormtroopers. That's pretty heavy firepower. The card just wins games.
It just wins games. And it's quite easy, even without having Veers on board. Assign Vader to this, that's three fists. It's probably going to go through. Really good card.
retrieve the plans yeah this is good really good um you know you get to see your opponent's hand of objectives and take their best one and put it to the bottom of the deck they're not going to see it again just yeah not much to say really it's nice that it's a fist mission because rebel players are weak on fists imperials are strong on fists rebel players are strong on intel eyes and imperials are weak on eyes for like bounty all right this is amazing it's a one-off but you can capture anyone i just use this to capture more usually but you know it varies depending on the game state i mean this is an incredibly good mission it's unexpected as well you know the rebel player thinks they're safe and you know something you've captured one of their people It's fun to assign both of these on one turn as well.
So, you know, if the regular capture fails, you've got this to capture someone. Solid card. And moving on to Diplomacy. Double our efforts. I don't like this card. It's okay. It can come in handy, but. . . Yeah, I'm not a fan. Not a fan of it, to be honest. Not going to say too much about it. Fear will keep them in line. Okay, this is amazing. This is so good. I try and use this to wipe off Rebel Loyalty off the board. You know, this is one of the cards you want to see turn one. You see this card turn one, you're just laughing. So good. Imperial Propaganda. Again, this card is amazing.
Especially if your opponent is trying to get off. object and um i think there's one or two objectives which require um the player to have um some you know have a full a full region of loyalty so this just completely spits in the face of that Make an example, it's too difficult to pull this off, like, um, Lure of the Darkside just does this so much better. However, there are some instances where, you know, you set up a combination of cards, or, you know, you can pull this off, but most of the time I think it's just too cumbersome to do so and not worth the effort. Ah, yes, of course, Lure of the Darkside. Incredible, incredible card. Playing this card gives a leader swing of two.
You still want the leaders, and they go down the leader, you go up a leader. Card is so, so good. If you draw this early, you want to get this off as soon as you can, basically. Maximize that advantage. And then Signature Intel Missions. Probe Droid Initiative. Fantastic card. I try and hold on to this until I hopefully recruit Admiral Ozzel. Because being able to draw four probes instead of two is just, you know. . . To be fair, drawing two probes is good. Drawing four is just ridiculous. You speed up your game by two turns. It's so good. Such a good card. Long range probe? This is okay, it's not bad.
I essentially think of this as a third copy of deployment. When you're trying to find the base. There can be situations where you have a 50% chance of where the base is. This is good in those situations. Maybe also there's a location that's kind of out of your way to get to. You could get there, but you'd be moving your fleet in the opposite direction from where you would like to go, for example. This is good for those situations, you know, to tick it off the list. And it's risk-free in terms of deployment. You know, if you do find the base, you are at risk of getting an untimely demise by a confrontation.
This won't initiate any battles, so it's safer to scout out where the base is. Secure the plans. This is good. It's a good card, don't get me wrong. It's sneaky good, though. I play this on the whim. If I've got the opportunity to play it, I will. Obviously, if I know my opponent has definitely got Death Star in their sights, then I'll play this. But most of the time I play it, it's kind of on the whim. I'm like, well, I might as well play this mission, because I don't have much else better to do. And just in case, it's a nice bit of security to have.
And you know, once you play this, it becomes very difficult for the Rebel player to target the Death Star. Ideally though, you want to play this when the Rebel player already has drawn into the Death Star. If you play this too early on, then the Rebel player can just scry the Death Star plans away via an infiltration. The best scenario is when they already have the Death Star plans in their hand and then you play this you know you just you just taken out one of their objectives, you just neutered one of their objectives that's the best case scenario for playing this card. Interrogation Droid incredible just such an incredible card one of the best cards for. . .
Yeah, probably the best card for finding the Rebel base when you're playing with the expansion deck, which you should be doing. Apart from Carbon Freezing, that's probably the only card you're going to miss by playing the expansion deck for the Imperials. So the only other card that trumps this, which is from the base set, is what's called Homing Beacon. apologies for the rain it's uh yeah really but anyway we will we will press on yeah um homing beacon is probably the only card that's better than this for finding the base uh let's move on to oh yeah this discredit rebellion uh yeah What can I even say about this? This card is honestly such a joke card. I don't like it at all.
Having said that, I have actually played this with Admiral Motti and managed to make the Rubble player lose a reputation because they rolled a lightsaber. It's quite nice, I mean, I think. There's about a 38% chance, I think, if you have Admiral Motti do the mission of them losing a reputation.
yeah it's one of those missions where if i really don't have much else to do then yeah i'll play it but you know it's it's not great it's not a great mission i'll be i'll be straight up and now on to the the generic missions we have two copies of exploit weakness this is a good card um being able to randomly take one you get to see the objective as well randomly reveal an objective place it back on top of the deck it's solid. Ideally you want to play this after your opponent has done an infiltration. The risk with that though is that if the opponent rescues the leader, their captured leader first, then you might miss the boat and not be able to play this card at all.
It's a risk versus reward type thing. But yeah, the best case scenario you play it after they've infiltrated. break their will yeah this card this car it's a good card the effect is good it's nice that they have a fail safety for to return to your hand look it's really falling down now okay i'll have to shout a little bit but the uh the thing is like i said earlier imperials are strong on fists rebels are not so counting all skill icons plays against this card It would have been so much better if it was just, you know, you just look at the fists and then determine the success of the mission.
The effect is decent though, you know, being out of the wiping region off the board, you know, that will really quicken your search. So it is a good card. Carbon freezing is undoubtedly superior, but you know, it's not terrible. It's not a terrible replacement. Two copies of deployment.
this is good for i i mainly use this card to try and find the base um it's also good for putting deploying units into remote systems building a shield bunker and then setting up an imperial might i'll talk more about that later but yeah one of the key cards for setting up that combo is deployment message from high command amazing um you know you get you gain loyalty in the system and you get your leader leaders potentially back to your leader pool you know you can really screw with um with the uh level player of this card you can deceive them you can make them think that you've got no more leaders to move around but then bam suddenly you've returned one or two back to your leader pool you know you're ready to go very solid card and finally the intel ones Two copies of Stolen Intel.
This is a good card. It's subtle. Drawing one probe, yeah, it doesn't seem like much, but it can rack up, it can be the difference when you get to those later stages of the game. And the ability to discard an opponent's mission is good. It's underrated. It is a good ability. If the Rebel player is using the expansion missions, try and hold onto this. Until they've potentially played their reconnaissance so you can discard their mission they've taken back So you know you neutralize their then use and you draw for it.
That's Very solid if you can pull that off Where the bait this is good? It can be a little bit awkward to play if you've got the if you capture the leader in a In a system where you don't have many units but being able to weaken the forces on the rebel base is so worthwhile so it's it's it's worth setting this up you know mid to late game trying to pull this card off you know you can take you can take away two of their um uh air speeders and suddenly you don't have to worry about toe cables anymore so it's it's strong for that You can also maybe remove one of their Mon Cal Cruisers, that can make a big difference for the space battle. Yeah, things like that.
The card is a good card, a lot of potential. Two copies of Imperial Might. I mean, this is a game-ending amazing card. The Imperials have needed a card like this for so long. I mean, they had the one copy of Planetary Conquest, but this really. . . And the Shield Bunkers in general have been much needed mechanics. or the imperial player so the idea with this is um you know the shield bunks allow you to deploy remote systems so let's just say that the rubber base was an endor you know i've i don't know moved some force over to um bespin but then the uh verbal players sabotage.
S K R Y B O T
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