I had a game the other day, and the Rebels dug themselves a hole that they never quite got out of. I am posting it here so that other people are aware.

This all came down to the first turn. The Imperials set up. Then the Rebels set up 80% of their forces next to the largest concentration of Imperial units.

The Rebels placed: Corvette, Transport, 2 Xs, 2Ys, 4 Infantry and 1 Speeder. The remaining units went in their base.

This was next to an Imperial space with a Star Destroyer, a Carrier, 2 TIEs, an AT-AT and 2 Stormtroopers.

The Rebs then sent Jan onto his action card to draw a card and assigned all remaining leaders to missions.

As the Imperial player, I saw, this and allocated two to missions and left two in my pool.

Anyhow, I jumped in with the Emperor in the lead and shredded the rebel forces, taking minimal loses. Since he had no spare leaders he did not get to draw any tactics cards or have the ability to retreat. He lost everything while I lost a few black hp units. (The mistake was setting up his fleet there AND not having any leaders in his leader pool)

At the end of the first turn what we each had gained was:

Rebels: Drew an extra Objective card, scouted the objective deck and had 2 systems under Rebel control. He took out a TIE and a 2 Stormtroopers (which were replaced in the refresh phase)

Imperials: Had 4 loyal systems, 4 subjugated systems, drew a project card and captured Mon Mothma. Took out the entire rebel starfleet and most of its ground forces.

Looking back it was basically game over at this point. Over the rest of the game the Rebels had plenty of Objective cards, but no agency to execute on them. The Imperials just slowly ground the Rebellion down, despite the rebs getting Luke upgraded to Jedi on the 2nd turn. The Imperials had enough of a lead that they could spare leaders to block key rebel missions. If we were more experienced, we would have just restarted the game at the end of the first turn. I mention it because it is a long game and being put in a no win situation from the get go is no fun.

At the end, the rebels did put up a decent defense of the rebel base, but the Emperor played "By My Design", which swung the battle from a slight rebel advantage to a huge imperial advantage. The Empire won at the start of turn 6.

That is a rough start, I don't know if I would have been able to recover from that.

I had a game where by turn three I had a leader captured, one turned to the darkside, and one in carbonite. That was about as fun as chewing on a bucket of nails, lol.

My first and only game so far, I deployed an X and Y wing in one of my systems on the far side of the map from my hidden base, and deployed the rest to my Base. I then spent the game slowly building my fleet on the far side, and in my Base. By the time the Empire realized where my Base was, the majority of his fleets were out of position, and the single fleet that could reach my Base's system couldn't defeat my fleet in Space combat. The only suggestion I would have, would be to keep the transport on the map, to allow troop movements.

Why would the Rebel player choose to deploy his meager forces in a system adjacent to the largest collection of Imperials? Why would the Rebel player commit all of his leaders to missions if he knew combat would be inevitable since he set up so close to the Imperials? Unless there is more to the story, this sounds like a case of very bad decisions on the Rebel's part, not a sign that the Rebels are weak.

Why would the Rebel player choose to deploy his meager forces in a system adjacent to the largest collection of Imperials? Why would the Rebel player commit all of his leaders to missions if he knew combat would be inevitable since he set up so close to the Imperials? Unless there is more to the story, this sounds like a case of very bad decisions on the Rebel's part, not a sign that the Rebels are weak.

I think you need to reread my post. I never said the Rebels are weak and that this was the result of a mistake that the Rebel player made. The whole point is for others to avoid making the same mistake.

I think I see were you got confused. When I use the phrase "Rough Game for the Rebellion", I am talking about a singular game we played, not the game overall. I think that's fairly clear when you read my post from the 1st sentence.