As Rebellion Week continues, I confess to having some mixed feelings about this game. I have it pre-ordered and I know I'll have fun with it, but....

First, due to a chronic lack of opponents, I have to play most games solitaire. With so much secret information involved in this game, this will be difficult. Unlike many other game companies these days who seem to make an effort to include solitaire gameplay in their products, FFG on the whole leaves the solo player high and dry with most of their designs. That's their right, of course, but I wish it were otherwise. I still want to see a solo-playable, character-oriented Star Wars game--like the original card game was going to be until they redesigned it for two players--maybe a Star Wars version of the Warhammer Fantasy Adventure Card game, or something entirely new and innovative. With all the two-player and multi-player Star Wars games FFG now has out, surely it can put some design effort and production money into something for the legions of solo gamers to enjoy?

Second, the whole mission procedure seems a bit light and potentially boring. Being skill-oriented is one thing, but having you automatically succeed if you're not opposed takes so much drama and narrative out of the process. At the cost of a little more rules weight and game time, I think I'd have preferred using Mission cards, much like the combat cards, to determine what a hero confronts on a planet: difficult environment, angry mobs, double agents, malfunctioning equipment, special items, etc. Something that gave the mission some story content other than "match a skill icon and succeed, unless opposed by another leader, in which case, simply roll dice". I'm sure a lot of thought went into this, but for me, this is one area I feel there was too much simplification, perhaps to make the rules simpler or to speed up the game. The missions need more depth.

Third, where is the Force? How is it manifested in the game? Luke, Darth Vader, and Palpatine are all Force users; in Luke's case, it's an essential plot element. Just giving Luke as hero some skills and a tactical rating for space and ground doesn't cut it; he needs to have some access to Force powers, as does Vader. The Force is an essential part of Star Wars.

Fourth, what about the Jedi? Are Obi-Wan and Yoda in this game? How could they be left out? It's like leaving out Gandalf in LotR! Specifically, are there two Luke heroes, one pre-Yoda before he gains control of his Force powers, and one post-Yoda, the Luke we see in Return of the Jedi acting as a true Jedi and able to call upon the Force? What we've seen of the game so far doesn't seem to include this. Just having a card that says, "Force Powers, add an extra die roll or make a re-roll" or something like this (assuming such a card exists) doesn't cut it, in my opinion. Luke isn't simply another leader or hero, nor is Darth Vader. They are Jedi and Sith, for heaven's sake, and should have some special status or power in any game claiming to represent Star Wars.

I recognize there's still more to be revealed about the game, and it may be that my questions and mixed feelings will be resolved. I have great confidence in Corey as a designer; he has produced awesome games in the past, so I've got my fingers crossed. Still, as much as I've been looking forward to this game (for years, really), I'm beginning to feel this is Star Wars Lite and will fail to do one of the great story/myths of our time the justice it deserves. Obviously just one person's opinion, and I figure when I play it, on the rare occasions I can find n opponent, I'll enjoy it for what it is. But unless I'm mistaken (and I hope I am), I think I'll still be waiting and longing for the true Star Wars game.

(Of course, if my fears pan out, there's still room for expansions to add to the game and turn Star Wars Lite and Shallow into Star Wars Full and Deep.)

Here is an ongoing discussion on the subject: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/199609-not-as-excited-as-i-was/

1. I enjoy playing games solo too and there is a place for it, but i dont believe this is it as I think the hidden elements are at the core of what they are trying to achieve. That said, this does look to be a solid 2 player game so you only need to worry about finding 1 other player.

2. You may be right, but i think there will be a lot of nuanced gameplay decisions regarding how you use your leaders that makes it interesting. Do you send a leader with only 1 relevant symbol to a mission? How many leaders do you send on missions and how many do you hold back to oppose/defend?

3. The force has always been impactful at the personal level, but not so much at the grand galaxy-wide level that this game takes place in. Even in the much more expansive PC game the force was a pretty minor element. It does show up to a small degree, where if you complete the Seek Yoda mission, you get a ring that gives you a reroll (and Luke upgrades to a more powerful version).

4. In the time period this game takes place in, there are no Jedi. ObiWan is probably a character in the game tho (not all of the characters have revealed), Yoda is represented in the Seek Yoda Mission, and Luke can become a Jedi by completing said mission.

This game is not going to be for everyone, but I hope you give it a fair shot.

Deadwolf, thanks. I appreciate your comments, and I'll definitely give it a shot. Your comments give me "a New Hope"! A question: Where did you read about the "Seek Yoda" mission and the more powerful upgraded Luke as Jedi? Obviously, I've missed this, and I thought I'd read everything about this game!

If you go to the rebellion product page and click "read more", there is information not found in the articles.

Thanks. I have read that page over a dozen times since November, and I never noticed the "Seek Yoda" mission. Shows how your eyes can skip over things and miss them.

The game is based on the old PC game. While missions could fail without opposition, it really didn't happen much if you sent the right people for the right missions. While I totally agree with what you are saying, my guess is any complications here would have caused issues for gameplay. With a limited timeline to play the game, throwing chance into something that is an automatic success severely tips the cost/benefit analysis. A character with 1 skill for the mission is successful now. With challenges in place, you can't use that character for that mission. People now only send the 3 skill people on that mission, and they basically automatically complete the mission anyways. What you've really done is just add several steps to mission completion and only restricted the choices the players have. Now they only use a handful of characters for missions, this gives them more to oppose missions making them even harder. All of this means fewer completed missions making it harder for either side to complete objectives in the limited timeline of the game.

So instead, you just have countering missions, which adds an interesting element to the game with bluffs and feints, and the need to predict the enemies plans.

Just don't think of the character as directly countering the mission, but simply overseeing the effort to counter them. Palpatine doesn't show up to directly stop Leia's diplomatic mission face to face, he schemes behind the scene. He sends agents to disrupt meetings, he has Leia's allies assassinated, etc. His counter, and his rolls are those challenges.

Uncountered missions are things just going smoothly as planned.

The force played almost no part in that game other than to give force users more power in their abilities. As Deadwolf pointed out, there is a force training event that can be played with or without Luke (keep in mind that Luke may not even join your team in this game, but Luke gets more power out of it than others).

Solo players do get the shaft, but that stands for the vast majority of games. Sure, some designers give a single player variant, but they tend to be whittled down and don't give the full game experience anyways. With practice and personal control, you can train yourself to play games like this solo also. I used to play the various Axis and Allies games solo all the time. You just have to learn to only make decisions based off the known info to that 'player'. Just 'role play' that player and ignore the meta-gaming element. It's actually a great way to practice games like this and learn the rules.

Nicely put, kmanweiss. Yes, that's pretty much how I play games solo anyway: creative, controlled schizophrenia!

Your analysis of the play effects is a good one, and I appreciate it. I can absolutely see the logic here. I just miss more of the personal dramatic element, I think (which is what IA provides anyway) and would have liked to see the missions more meaty. It's why I'd like to see a Star Wars version of WFACG.

Thanks again, everyone.

Creative, controlled schizophrenia

There is something I never once in my short life ever thought about.

I'm not one to complain. Therefore, I will refrain from complaining about the people who complain.

Nicely put, kmanweiss. Yes, that's pretty much how I play games solo anyway: creative, controlled schizophrenia!

Your analysis of the play effects is a good one, and I appreciate it. I can absolutely see the logic here. I just miss more of the personal dramatic element, I think (which is what IA provides anyway) and would have liked to see the missions more meaty. It's why I'd like to see a Star Wars version of WFACG.

Thanks again, everyone.

I do understand your point; one of the delights of Freedom in the Galaxy was all the wild stuff that could happen on missions, and it provided a really strong narrative element to the game. Unfortunately Mission Resolution was also one reason why the game took age and ages to play. So I don't blame FFG for going for more abstract in this case.

-Will

Nicely put, kmanweiss. Yes, that's pretty much how I play games solo anyway: creative, controlled schizophrenia!

Creative, controlled schizophrenia. LOL

I'm going to use that in the future.

I will just throw in my agreement that we do need a solo/co-op Star Wars game. I still feel gutted by the change to the LCG.

With this game, though, I have no desire to turn it into a solo game. It's not because of the difficulty with all of the hidden information, it's more the fact that I'd like a solo/co-op Star Wars game to be on a smaller scale than galactic conquest.

Bah. The last thing the world needs are more cooperative games.

Just throwing it out there you could always talk to the person you are playing with and just roll dice equal to the value of the trait and have to roll a number of successes equal to the mission's value to succeed in doing the mission.

So say you try to do this mission, you roll a number of dice equal to the leader's Spec ops rating. As the mission has a rating of one you only need to roll 1 success to complete the mission.

Just by War of the Ring instead. No doubt it IS Soooooo much better at this point of the reveal. The feel is similar but go with the perfect classic. If the Star Wars theme is so important to you vs Lord of the Ring you need to get over that quick as WOTR is a 10/10 and considered by the BGG community to be one of the best thematic games ever--so you don't have to take my word for it. I was very excited for my friend to get this game but now I have become very very meh on it because of all the problems/concerns the OP mentions.

I would have loved to see more of a Twilight struggle War of the Ring mesh. Now that would have been awesome.

Just throwing it out there you could always talk to the person you are playing with and just roll dice equal to the value of the trait and have to roll a number of successes equal to the mission's value to succeed in doing the mission.

So say you try to do this mission, you roll a number of dice equal to the leader's Spec ops rating. As the mission has a rating of one you only need to roll 1 success to complete the mission.

If the mission is unopposed it automatically succeeds. The leader doing the mission must have the same number of symbols as the number next to the mission symbol.

If the opponent wishes to oppose it, the opposing leader and the leader must roll dice equal to their respective symbols. If the original leader rolls the higher, mission successful. If the opposing leader rolls higher or ties, missions failed.

Hope this clears things up.

Just throwing it out there you could always talk to the person you are playing with and just roll dice equal to the value of the trait and have to roll a number of successes equal to the mission's value to succeed in doing the mission.

So say you try to do this mission, you roll a number of dice equal to the leader's Spec ops rating. As the mission has a rating of one you only need to roll 1 success to complete the mission.

If the mission is unopposed it automatically succeeds. The leader doing the mission must have the same number of symbols as the number next to the mission symbol.

If the opponent wishes to oppose it, the opposing leader and the leader must roll dice equal to their respective symbols. If the original leader rolls the higher, mission successful. If the opposing leader rolls higher or ties, missions failed.

Hope this clears things up.

I know that, some one complained about the missions being too easy if you simply succeed, so here is just a simple thing people can do if they don't like how it is out of the box. Which is why I started the post with "Just throwing it out there you could always talk to the person you are playing with..."

Some of the artwork isn't working out for me, not because of its quality (FFG's Star Wars artwork has consistently been phenomenal across all properties), but because its usage sometimes doesn't quite match up with the gameplay.

For example:

This is the wrong art choice for the card, IMO. A card with the title of "Lure of the Dark Side" should feature Darth Vader or the Emperor tempting Luke. My personal pick would be the iconic moment of Palpatine patting Luke's lightsaber. "You want this, don't you." A card with this image ought to be something that allows him to directly affect local enemy units and/or leaders in some way.

This card can only be played when there is at least one Rebel unit and no Imperial units on Coruscant. But in the image, I count several Imperial units and no Rebel units on Coruscant.

I realize this is rather nitpicky, and I don't think either of these or the few others I've noticed will affect my enjoyment of the game. Just some things that bug me a little bit, and if I'm being honest, for me it wouldn't feel quite like Star Wars if there weren't a bunch of little things that bugged me about it.