I am surprised no one posted this yet here.

We're too busy debating the canonical accuracy of the game's bits 'n bobs to waste our time watching a professional review of the game.

We're too busy debating the canonical accuracy of the game's bits 'n bobs to waste our time watching a professional review of the game.

LOL

We're too busy debating the canonical accuracy of the game's bits 'n bobs to waste our time watching a professional review of the game.

Ah the epically sad truth.

I am hoping that since these guys have a copy, that means the game will be releasing soon... there's a Con happening in my area in February and I hope I will be able to pick up the game there!

do you think they will release a gameplay video too?

Well, they were certainly....enthusiastic.

I watched it played live yesterday when Tom brought his copy down.

I'm hyped.

Reposting from the x-wing board. Full playthrough by the dice tower guys

Honestly, after watching that playthrough, I'm left kinda cold. I don't think Tom played particularly well, but it really seemed like it was all up to chance. Does the empire find the base in time, if they do, does the rebel player get a good draw for the second base so that the empire can't get to the new one in time.

Maybe what the actual cards do will change that impression. Still really excited to try it.

Yeah I have to say that I found this earlier and lasted about 10 minutes before Grumpy McBaldenbeard turned me off. I couldnt focus on what they were doing over the tangible level of annoyance or being pissed off or whatever his problem was.

I found that annoying to, but it does stop after 15 or so minutes. He never really shows any enthusiasm or joy in playing, but he stops whining. I did keep thinking through the whole thing "geez, why don't you read the rules before you record a game session".

In case people don't want to watch all 2 hours of it, here is a summary of how the game went. (Tom was the Imperial player with the hat, bald Sam was the Rebels)

That was bad. These aren't professional at all despite what they do for their job/hobby. Listening to that guy whine is like the same crap I have to deal with whenever our group plays IA.

Also, some pretty bad moves from the hat guy/imperial player. If you know the rebel player will fight for and try to rescue a certain leader, than capture that leader! Obviously that leader is of importance and the more times the rebel player spends trying to free the prisoner, the less time they have to do other things. Also, not having a leader attend that Death Star battle was pure stupidity. Ozzel would've been enough with his 2 space tactics, what else was he going to do that turn? Probably could've saved the Death Star and prevent 2 points. I don't even think he did anything with the Emperor that turn either... he was holding him to oppose the relocation mission, even though 1) its auto-resolve, 2) its logistics which the Emperor doesn't even have!

Hat guy clearly didn't know how relocating works, I don't know if this is the first time they've ever had to (apparently they've played multiple times... the imperial never winning... big surprise?) or else he wouldn't have brought EVERYTHING to the far corner of the board. Even the imperials in the movies weren't that stupid.

Reposting from the x-wing board. Full playthrough by the dice tower guys

Honestly, after watching that playthrough, I'm left kinda cold. I don't think Tom played particularly well, but it really seemed like it was all up to chance. Does the empire find the base in time, if they do, does the rebel player get a good draw for the second base so that the empire can't get to the new one in time.

One thing to consider here is that Sam got a huge advantage by playing the Infiltration mission incorrectly. When it succeeds, you are supposed to look at the top two objectives and put one of the top of the deck and another on the bottom (from the "Powerful Allies" preview ). Instead, each time he succeeded at that mission, he took one of the objectives into his hand. Since he was doing this basically every turn, this gave him far more objectives than he should have had otherwise, and so could score more points from them and end the game sooner. Had he been playing that mission correctly, he probably would have had 1 or 2 fewer points from objectives, giving Tom another turn or two to find and destroy the new rebel base.

Another thing to consider is that I think the Imperial player should probably try to cut down the luck factor of the rebel player moving their base by trying to get new probe cards as much as possible. I don't recall Tom ever doing the "Gather Intel" mission (maybe once at the beginning?); this can give the Imperial player 1-2 new probe cards each turn, really cutting down the possibilities if the rebel player moves bases.

Finally, as Tom himself mentioned, it's probably important to keep the mission that lets the Imperial player drop an AT-AT, AT-ST, and two stormtroopers anywhere until the rebel player moves, so that if the rebel player moves somewhere, if the Imperial player has a good guess at where they could be (having drawn lots of probe cards), the Imperial player can easily destroy that new base next turn.

In short, Tom played poorly and Sam whined.

And these are the guys who get advance copies.

Also, not having a leader attend that Death Star battle was pure stupidity.

While I agree with most of your criticisms, this part isn't as cut and dried. If he had sent a leader to try and protect the Death Star, the DS wouldn't have been able to move that round. He recognized that he was on the clock and that it was going to come down to a single turn, if the DS had survived but been delayed for a single turn, it would have been just as effective for the Rebels as destroying it was. His only hope was to not send a leader and hope he got lucky.

IMO, his big mistake was using the DS as a front line, offensive unit. It looks like you should be keeping the DS as a reserve unit and just floating around the middle of the board until you where it needs to go. Tom's biggest problem was that his DS super fleet was, literally, the entire board length away from where the base ended up being.

Also, not having a leader attend that Death Star battle was pure stupidity.

While I agree with most of your criticisms, this part isn't as cut and dried. If he had sent a leader to try and protect the Death Star, the DS wouldn't have been able to move that round. He recognized that he was on the clock and that it was going to come down to a single turn, if the DS had survived but been delayed for a single turn, it would have been just as effective for the Rebels as destroying it was. His only hope was to not send a leader and hope he got lucky.

IMO, his big mistake was using the DS as a front line, offensive unit. It looks like you should be keeping the DS as a reserve unit and just floating around the middle of the board until you where it needs to go. Tom's biggest problem was that his DS super fleet was, literally, the entire board length away from where the base ended up being.

Yes, but he could've prevented the destruction of the Death Star. Even if it couldn't move that turn (and thus be used for it's intended purpose that game... which wasn't needed when he had ALL those forces already by Ryloth) he could've still prevented the rebel player scoring those 2 points and bought him another turn or two for the subsequent relocation.

Tom has never positioned himself as a tactical genius or an amazing boardgame player.

This sounded like it was their 2nd or 3rd game.

As such, they goofed up a couple of things. Tom's biggest mistake was sending literally EVERYTHING he had to one location. He knew full well that they could relocate the base, he understood the timing issue, he just failed to realize that it was a resolve mission. They goofed that up a couple times where they were assigning more than 1 person to resolve missions and such.

Simple fact is that this is a typical ameritrash FFG title. A ton of pieces, a ton of cards, and a couple metric tons of rules. It takes a few games to work out all the kinks and catch those issue.

We gain immensely by seeing this kind of stuff. Sure, they made mistakes, but we caught them and can commit them to memory. The first couple plays will be way smoother for us as a result.

Were there mistakes? Yes. Were there more efficient strategies? Yes. But it's also pretty easy to armchair quarterback a professional poker tournament. Being at the table is a little different.

This is far more entertaining, informational, and has far less errors than the other playthroughs I've seen.

The worse thing about the playthrough is that Tom and Sam are both very 'flat'.

They're playing the game and their just so happens to be camera's in the room. They're not actively trying to present or sell the game.

You wait until SU&SD do their review - you'll be excited after seeing that.

The worse thing about the playthrough is that Tom and Sam are both very 'flat'.

They're playing the game and their just so happens to be camera's in the room. They're not actively trying to present or sell the game.

You wait until SU&SD do their review - you'll be excited after seeing that.

Yeah Dice Tower playthroughs are always pretty awful. They do a decent job at the actual review process but just setting up a camera is not worth watching. Besides the fact that Sam is constantly whining about everything it becomes really really really offputting. Thankfully more professional reviewers will be getting copies and putting up some quality content soon.

FFG should pay Dice Tower to NOT post play-throughs of their games. Yikes that was a lot of bickering. Are they sure they enjoy playing board games?!?

Overall, the game look simplistic enough to not feel bogged down with rules, but has enough moving parts to keep it strategic. It very much looks like Star Wars take on Axis and Allies. Looking forward to this game!

Speaking of Axis and Allies, for the bigger battles, it looks like the game needed something like this:

FFG should pay Dice Tower to NOT post play-throughs of their games. Yikes that was a lot of bickering. Are they sure they enjoy playing board games?!?

Overall, the game look simplistic enough to not feel bogged down with rules, but has enough moving parts to keep it strategic. It very much looks like Star Wars take on Axis and Allies. Looking forward to this game!

Speaking of Axis and Allies, for the bigger battles, it looks like the game needed something like this:

Agreed, I'm planning on making something like that was a sort of battleground for larger battles.

What is that, and what does it do?

That's the Axis and Allies battle board. You place the matching units in the matching places. So for each tank and infantry the defender has, he rolls a die. If the number on the die matches the unit strength or below, it scores a hit.

The board was really useful because units had different offensive and defensive strength (infantry defend at 2, attack at 1), and large battles ended up having a TON of dice involved. Leaving 20 units of variable strength on the gameboard would make it hard to determine the correct amount of dice and target numbers.

While it would be handy to move large battles off the main board for clarity sake, I don't know if a battle board is needed. Don't get me wrong, it won't hurt. If one is available, I may even try it...in fact I'll probably head over to BGG and request someone to make it.

Here's some things to think about.

Rebellion battles will likely be smaller than Axis and Allies battles. Attack strength stays the same for offense and defense. Instead of having a target number you have to roll, each unit has a certain number of each color of dice it rolls. The HP type of the units is also important. You're limited to 5 of each dice color.

I'm thinking each type of unit needs it's own spot on the battle board (since no one has the same attack type/numbers). Attack dice towards the center of the board, HP die towards the outside edge.

It may make figuring out the total attack dice, and assigning hits a little easier.

I think the video is like so many other board game videos need to be, less off topic chit-chat and more focus on the game strategy, theme, and rules would be an improvement. Tell me a story and convey the rules while doing it.

Calling this game Ameritrash when it has not been released yet, seems harsh. I am new to board gaming and find that most of the eurogames I have played to be lacking. It's like the player who puts the least effort into the game can come out winning the whole thing all the while the game is constantly paused with chit-chat. I hope this game requires more attention and strategy.

Ameritrash is most often used not as a negative term, but as a descriptive term. FFG is the king of Ameritrash. Their World of Warcraft game, with the expansions took 2-3 kitchen tables worth of space to contain. It takes longer to set up than it does to play.

Ameritrash was originally a negative term, but it's something that people now use with pride.

Go back a few years and you have 2 types of games. Euro games that were elegant, easy to learn, tough to master, usually pretty deep in strategy despite their simplistic style. The boards were generally small, and the pieces few. The game resolved around predicting the opponents moves, and predicting how to counter them.

American games were boring rehashed stuff that hadn't changed in decades (monopoly, life, RISK, random roll to move junk).

American companies starting designing a new style of game, but their path to deep meaningful play was to throw a TON of options at the players. Those options mean lots and lots of pieces. Content, and package weight was the determining factor for how much depth a game had. Early Ameritrash was trash, that depended on that mass of plastic to have any value. Over time and refinement, those styles of games have come a long ways and are actually pretty deep and stimulating. They never reduced the amount of plastic though, so the name stuck, although now it's more of a pleasant friendly ribbing than an insult.

I expect Rebellion to be a great game, however, I think it would qualify as Ameritrash.

Massive two part board. 153 plastic miniatures representing 16 or 17 different types of units. 25 leaders with stands. 10 custom dice. Over 170 cards (spread between 7 different decks of cards). 2 player reference cards. 2 manuals.

It's not quite on the scale of world of warcraft though...thank god. That was the Ameritrash king.

Seriously, check out the content list for that game. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17223/world-warcraft-boardgame

And that's just the base game.