I would like to start this topic to exchange strategy tips that worked for you in your games while playing the rebels. Here is mine.

Surprise overtake of Coruscant:

This strategy might work if there are weak initial forces on Coruscant and other Core imperial worlds. It focuses your game on browsing through your objective deck to get Heart of the Empire as soon as possible.

You must place your base on a system adjacent to Coruscant. The best option to make this work is to start on Alderaan. In most of my games imps do not go to Alderaan. It is just not interesting for them. Gets them only one stormtrooper and mostly they just don´t believe that someone would place the base there.

Another key aspect is to lure them out. Make strongholds in both upper corners. Utapau, Geonosis and Mon Calamari are ideal. Drag all of the imp fleets away from the center at all costs. Use bluffs to convince them that your base is somewhere in a corner.

Timing is crucial. You must have the heart of the empire when imps crush you on both northern corners of the map. Then comes time for your surprise attack.

Empty your base and make a move on Coruscant with everything you have there. Take control of it as the last action thus denying the imps to time respond. Just remember to play rapid mobilization. Depending on the situation you can either return some units to the base or move the base. Decision influenced mostly by the proximity and stregth of the closest imperial fleet.

That should give the imps a hard time. They have to rush back quickly to take the Coruscant back. If you manage to hold it one more round or two victory shall come easy.

McMaron has a good idea here. That's a fun strategy to try and pull off. On the round where you plan to invade, you might have to soften up the target with a few missions first. Ostensibly, you might be able to pull off the ground combat objective card as well as Coruscant objective card in one round. With the time marker move, you'll go from a 6 - 13 to a 7-10 with the next round threatening yet another 3 point swing 8-8.

setting up forces on the rebel base space and on the board space is a great way to get the empire to overlook your main stronghold, they see your rebel base space and another fleet, and think you couldn't have possibly doubled up. it has always worked for me.

I am always working on two fronts when playing as a Rebel. One of those fronts never changes and that is Sabotage! (sup, sup, sup ) This keeps the Empire from getting too big and forces them to waste resources on fixing what I break. Limiting where they can deploy is actually the best part of this beastie plan.

The other front depends on the cards I draw. I need points to win the game. Developing a hit and run strike force is essential to these mission cards. Well timed diplomacy is a part of creating this force. The turn before new units are constructed is the time to gain loyalty in a planet (or two) that gives you a location you need and/or units you'll need for a strike team.

The other important part of building a strike team is the Empire should never see it coming. Take advantage of being able to move units from the Rebel base, but keep the size of the force stationed there small. Avoid having one main fleet on the map. Keep 2 or 3 that are small and easy to move, but just big enough that attacking it will come with heavy losses.

The final part of a hit and run squad is understanding there will be losses. You need those points soldier! Many Rebel units will die. Systems will be taken from and lost to the Empire. Remember the objective is not to defend systems or keep your units from being destroyed. All of these resources must be expendable in order to achieve your objective. Prepare, strike, retreat.

The Rebel strategy tends to be decided on the situation at the time but it should always revolve around achieving the objectives you have in hand. The best strategy I find is to be proactive rather than reactive. Make the Imperial player respond to what you are doing. Gain loyalty where you can as often as you can. The Imperials can try to suppress your efforts but that spreads them thin. When you've got them spread out, spring a surprise attack on a weak fleet or a subjugated planet. Sabotage or, if you can do it, blockade any planet that gives them ISDs or Carriers. If you can keep this up for through the first 4 turns you will really throw a wrench into the Imperial strategy. ISDs take a long time to produce. Any placed on the production track after turn 5 are almost not worth it.

What you must be wary of is the threat of a captured leader. The game can go south very fast if the Imperial player has the right missions to exploit a captured leader. If you gain Chewbacca, holding him in reserve oppose a capture attempt is a very good strategy.

What every it is you do as the Rebels, your strategy is 1) protect your base. 2) complete objectives.

I use the Turtle Strategy.

1. Deploy all ground troops and the transport in the base, place the cr90 and fighters somewhere that will cause the most head ache for the imperial player

2. Start building alliances with systems that build shield generators and air speeders, promptly sabotage them once they are subjugated.

3. Sabotage any subjugated system that build troopers
4. Leave dodonna or better intel leader in the leader pool initially to oppose Gather Intel.

5. Infiltrate like a boss

6. Recruit more intel leaders & build xwings if you have the choice, deploy all ground troops in the base as a priority then xwings. If you can't deploy the ground troops somewhere without them dying in the next turn, leave them on the build que.

7. Repeat steps 2-6 until level 2 objectives can be drawn (recruit Madine or someone with 3 ground tactics value), move the fleet around as needed.

8. Start rapid mobilisation to recall any ground troops that you couldn't deploy in the base but safely in other systems.

9. Start sabotaging systems around your rebel base

10. Once you have 6 rebel systems, start sniping loyal imperial systems that build ground troops with build alliance
11. Leader delay where applicable.

By the time the imperials discover where the rebel base is, it should be heavily fortified with hopefully at least 2 shield generators and a whole bunch of airspeeders. The systems around it are sabotaged preventing reinforcements and if you've done this correctly there shouldnt be a sizeable ATAT threat. If you are truly lucky the probe deck might be untouched so by the time they find you its too late to get there or the nearest forces are too weak to take you on. The only thing that will trump this of course is Super Laser Online. This is why you'll have xwings ready to go to try pull off the impossible with Luke (intel) and Death Star plans, or maybe a rapid mobilisation with false leads ready to go if you see the death star looming.

Irokenics, do you just keep stacking forces on the base? Doesn't this just make it easier for the Imps to find you. If you peak over the 7 unit limit on the base, you are making it a forgone conclusion that the Imps will know your location by turn 6 at most by just doing 1 mission a turn (and stay below 12 units on the base). Any of the other non-starter missions that affect probes or base location knowledge will only make this quicker.

I'm not shutting down the turtle strategy all together, but stocking a lot of forces on your base just make it easier for them to discover the base via probes and shut down any sort of RM to a new base. False leads is a possibility, but not a sure thing by even round 7. And even if you get and use FL, it may not do much to help your situation.

The turtle can still work, if you get the proper objective card, can shut down ground production, and they don't build additional DSs, but with you sabotaging like mad, they'll likely be doing R&D like mad in return.

The defensive wall of Sabotaging nearby systems in advance of an Imperial attack can be a good play for sure. It makes it harder for them to build/deploy forces for the invasion while also wasting their actions. But doing it too early will only choreograph your location making it even easier to find you.

As an Imp player opposing you, I admit it would be a highly frustrating game, but I'm not sure if it would be a Rebel win.

Cycling the objective deck is critical, since you it allows you to tailor your strategy to the starting conditions. Goes without saying you'll need the Death Star Plans as soon as possible. You should be able to get early Infiltrations in, which should go unopposed by a small Imperial leader pool (Vader could always attempt a capture but it's one fewer move for the Empire).

I agree that there can be diminishing returns to early Sabotages since the Imperial player should be playing R&D early on to get a Superlaser Online or a SSD. By midgame projects are not nearly as useful because of the lead time for big projects, so Sabotaging is doubly effective as a way to stall the Empire.

One thing I've found is the Rebels can win in many different ways: last week I won as the Rebels despite no fleet presence after an ill-fated attack on a Star Destroyer but a heavy emphasis and then lost as the Empire later when the Rebels amassed a big enough fleet to take on my forces despite being cornered and having limited popular support.

I also like to start with a small force in a neutral system to get a head start on diplomacy.

Irokenics, do you just keep stacking forces on the base? Doesn't this just make it easier for the Imps to find you. If you peak over the 7 unit limit on the base, you are making it a forgone conclusion that the Imps will know your location by turn 6 at most by just doing 1 mission a turn (and stay below 12 units on the base). Any of the other non-starter missions that affect probes or base location knowledge will only make this quicker.

I'm not shutting down the turtle strategy all together, but stocking a lot of forces on your base just make it easier for them to discover the base via probes and shut down any sort of RM to a new base. False leads is a possibility, but not a sure thing by even round 7. And even if you get and use FL, it may not do much to help your situation.

Hence Step 4. If the imperial player is sending an Intel skill leader to Gather Intel their options are Palpatine and Tarkin. Leaving Dodonna to oppose until you get someone better like say Obiwan. Of course the imperial player can blindside you or send two leaders or whatever, this is a win for you as a rebel as they can be considered further delaying the empire to dedicate these resources. What I am saying is majority of the time if you have someone to oppose Gather Intel it will stretch it out to at least turn 9. Which by this stage if they have found you then they will still need to spend more time to gather a battle group so they can wipe you out before the game ends. Don't forget if you're doing this right you'd have completed 2-4 objectives by this stage.

The turtle can still work, if you get the proper objective card, can shut down ground production, and they don't build additional DSs, but with you sabotaging like mad, they'll likely be doing R&D like mad in return.

The defensive wall of Sabotaging nearby systems in advance of an Imperial attack can be a good play for sure. It makes it harder for them to build/deploy forces for the invasion while also wasting their actions. But doing it too early will only choreograph your location making it even easier to find you.

Hence you sabotage Subjugated systems, especially like Bespin and Bothwui that produce ATSTs on build que 1 and only need a subjugation for production. You cannot R&D a subjugated system just so you know, this also helps you complete the Cut Supply Lines objective. In addition you start defense sabotage when you know the Imperial player knows where you are. Remember its going to take them a couple of turns to get to you. Heck, a neat trick i've done once was sabotage a system the rebel base was on in the begining of the game and the imperial player thought none the wiser!

End of the day what you are doing is you are either forcing the Imperial player to spend more leaders trying to gather Intel through missions which means his forces arent moving OR spreading out thin to try find you, which gives you a huge advantage.

And like i said before the only thing that puts the hurt on this strategy is pretty much Super Laser Online.

I have done the turtle strategy in a less regimented way. Basically you double build on your base, slow down imperials in your area, try to get some adjacent systems loyal for even more build (which also slows down Imperials). If you want to be clever make it seem like you are double building at a second location across the board. Its less about the Imperials finding your base and more about the Imperials not having enough units in the area to take your base or rather when they do have enough in the area, you have already won the game.

A lot of rebel strategy is highly dependent on initial base locations and Imperial troop placement. You can't just decide to turtle until you see where the Imperials are and how they are deployed.

One of the neat things about the turtle strategy is that it looks a lot like the strategy where you bluff build up forces on the board in one region while your base is in an entirely different region. So keep them guessing.

lol. As the Imperial player, I guess Endor as the rebel base and was correct, but I went after Nal Hutt instead. Endor had absolutely nothing on it and I had a carrier and a single trooper in a nearby system. My strategy was to take as many 1 build systems as possible and support with just a few larger ground/space units. I tried to change some subjugated to loyalty, but I was often beat out at the dice roll. The emperor was too obvious.