FFG Article: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/5/5/rise-of-the-empire/

Aw yiss!

I wonder how long it takes them to realize that Rogue One wasn't a U-wing, it was an Imperial Cargo Shuttle.

Well, there's something a lot of people were adamant would never happen.

I'm glad I wasn't on the 'wrong side of history' on that one.

Awesome! I'm glad this is actually happening.

A ton of new units (more than I would have expected). Separate tactics decks for each faction, which suggests that they've taken into account some of the criticisms of the combat system. Entirely new mission decks for each faction.

I'm curious how much they've changed the core gameplay experience. They mention that using the new mission decks moves the timeline of the game to pre-ANH, when the first Death Star is under construction. Is this meant to then function as an "alternate start", with different missions to diversify the game? No new objectives seems to suggest that the basic win conditions are the same, at least.

My hope is that most of the components are modular: I want to mix and match new leaders with old ones, use new units with the original mission deck, etc. My hope too is that they've kept an eye towards streamlining things, or at least keeping the experience manageable. The game was already long, and if all this extra stuff just adds more complication and another hour or two onto the playtime then I'm not sure how often it will hit the table.

Looking forward to learning more!

I was hoping for a full combat replacement option but didn't think they would attempt it. Maybe the new faction tactics cards fully replace the original tactics cards? That may be enough to get rid of the original super clunky combat system.

@sionnach19, I'm with you on keeping it streamlined and manageable. Too many expansions crush the flow of a core game's elegance and Rebellion is already enough of a beast. I'm hoping all of the new components can just be added to all the existing components, except for my hope the new faction combat cards fully replacing the originals. There's nothing more clunky about an expansion that has you adding only a portion of the new cards before play and having to pull them out afterwards when the game is over. Very poor design for an expansion and too many expansions are doing this. Hopefully not the case with this one!

1 hour ago, Zefirus said:

I wonder how long it takes them to realize that Rogue One wasn't a U-wing, it was an Imperial Cargo Shuttle.

It's the squad's name, not the ship's name.

Rebellion is such a good game, I hope these rules are modular. It doesn't need much. I'll be curiously watching as they reveal more of this one.

1 hour ago, Glucose98 said:

Rebellion is such a good game, I hope these rules are modular. It doesn't need much. I'll be curiously watching as they reveal more of this one.

I think so. I mean there's always the possibility of picking just the rules from the expansion that you like.

I am curious of what Jabba can do for the Empire. We already know the four leaders new for the Rebellion: Jyn Erso, Chirrut Imwe, Cassian Andor and Saw Gererra.

The ones for the Imps will be interesting, but since they hinted at Rebels, I think that Thrawn is a given. We currently only know of Krennic and Jabba.

I am actually sad, that the Rebels stuff isn't featured more prominently in this expansion. I'd love to have Hera and Sabine as leaders, with special missions on Mandalore and Ryloth.

Also that planetary shield generator is gonna suck for the rebs, I am sure of it

Someone on Board Game Geek pointed out you can see a new Imperial leader portrait on the card "Discredit Rebellion" and it looks to be Admiral Motti, the guy Vader force chokes in a New Hope. Makes me worried that the final leader may not be Thrawn.

I agree, I would have liked to seen some of the Rogue One stuff condensed to introduce some characters from Rebels. The fan-made expansion I had been kicking around prior to this news included "Rogue One" and "Spectre Squadron" as leaders, representing the entire group. You have room for Saw and Krennic, but also make space for folks like Ahsoka, Thrawn, the Inquisitor, etc.

I'm hoping or Thrawn as one of the Imperial leaders. It would have been nice to see Chirrut Imwe replaced with Hera though, he was cool and all but not really a leader. I buy that Jyn was since she led the Scarrif mission and Cassian is also a good choice but Imwe was a guardian of the Wills and had little to really do with the Rebellion aside from the one Scarrif mission. So far the only Rebels thing looks to be the Interdictor.

As for Jabba, they mentioned in the article that he can feed one of the captured characters to a Sarlac, so more options to reduce the Rebel's leaders.

For the miniatures, I'm guessing that the Vanguard is a ground Y-Wing meant to hit the Imperial vehicles, the turret is an AA turret so maybe 2 black dice, not sure about the others. Maybe the shield generator prevents the rebels from starting a fight there unless they actually move a fleet there?

Pretty excited for this. Tho the article creates more questions than it answers.

The units are pretty cool. It looks like the units will either have an ability or they will use the new green dice in order to differeniate them from the base units. It looks like the green dice have only explosion symbols (and probably a tactics symbol), so it will hit anything. I like how this will make the build phase more interesting.

Overall, i am pretty excited for this.

4 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Well, there's something a lot of people were adamant would never happen.

I'm glad I wasn't on the 'wrong side of history' on that one.

Well to be fair if you take a look at FFG's business practices this was inevitable. I was surprised at the amount of adamant denial and self-deception of even mentioning the concept. Sure I can see people being upset of the idea of buying more products to supplement a $100 board game. But the whole attack and say that this will never happen to justify some personal prejudice is just baffling. But then again when you study human behavior (especially social behavior) you realized that while humans may be intelligent they are under no obligation to use such intelligence.

9 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Well to be fair if you take a look at FFG's business practices this was inevitable. I was surprised at the amount of adamant denial and self-deception of even mentioning the concept. Sure I can see people being upset of the idea of buying more products to supplement a $100 board game. But the whole attack and say that this will never happen to justify some personal prejudice is just baffling. But then again when you study human behavior (especially social behavior) you realized that while humans may be intelligent they are under no obligation to use such intelligence.

Be careful you don't break your arm patting yourself on the back for your smarts.

1 minute ago, Marinealver said:

Well to be fair if you take a look at FFG's business practices this was inevitable. I was surprised at the amount of adamant denial and self-deception of even mentioning the concept. Sure I can see people being upset of the idea of buying more products to supplement a $100 board game. But the whole attack and say that this will never happen to justify some personal prejudice is just baffling. But then again when you study human behavior (especially social behavior) you realized that while humans may be intelligent they are under no obligation to use such intelligence.

Also, the naysayer is strong in some people.

I'll just add this to my mental list, which began when they were absolutely sure there would be no third faction in X-Wing, or boarding actions in Armada.

5 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Well, there's something a lot of people were adamant would never happen.

I'm glad I wasn't on the 'wrong side of history' on that one.

Yeah, wasn't there something like "Rebellion will never get an expansion, because its symbol is SW03"? : )

Shouldn't this be called "Rise of the Rebellion"? I mean, the Empire rose quite awhile before Rogue One. While the Rebellion had been around already as well, Rogue One was at least when they started to make the hits that mattered. ;P

12 hours ago, Bron Ander Haltern said:

Yeah, wasn't there something like "Rebellion will never get an expansion, because its symbol is SW03"? : )

The new number is "SW04". Although it was the usual pattern to plan expansions before release.

This looks so cool!

I had a look at the cards, my favourite two one are:

EWOKS! But no ewok units (says "play if at least 9 systems have rebel loyalty")

and Promotion. A whole free leader! Oh yiss!

The jabba-only action card:

Quote

Post bounty

Use after any leader fails a mission in this leader’s system

Attach the bounty ring to any rebel leader that does not have a ring in this system.

When that leader is captured, the Rebels lose 1 reputation

Cirrut/Jyn card: (why jyn?)

Quote

Trust in the Force

Place this leader in a subjugated system.

Gain 1 loyalty and destroy one triangle unit in this system.

Decisive victory (objective) (has the Ghost [from rebels] pictured)

Quote

1 reputation | Combat

Play after you win a ground combat and a space combat in the same system.

as an aside, Jabba has no combat values.

Finally, when someone finds out what the vader symbol on some of the missions does, tell me!

I wasn't too sure that Rebellion would get an expansion pack but it's cool that it will get bigger. Rogue One is a pretty good source, considering the scenario of a Heist, the Battle of Scarif and the Partisans on Jedha. Rebels on the other hand, well Thrawn is definitly a must have character for the Empire. This character had a huge influence in Star Wars over decades and his realistic look from the 6'' Black Series figure is pretty good (the Rebels version on the other hand looks.. pretty bad). So I would love to see Thrawn. Apart from that, I am surprised this Expansion is called "Rise of the Empire". Rogue One is set around a time where the Empire is facing more and more resistance, so it would be more fitting to call it "Crumble of the Empire", since the rise is between 15-20 years in the past.

I am curious how the new canon with books, games and comics and not just the movies or Filoniverse will influence the future of FFG products. I think it could be very cool to have a future expansion in the Post-Endor times with characters like Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, the coming Inferno Squad and Poe Damerons Parents and a retreating Empire against a young New Republic.

With the leader I agree with Animewarsdude. Hera was a General in Rogue One, while Chirrut as much as I like him, was just some random temple guard. Also why not make use of Draven or Raddus? Rogue One and Pre-ANH is more than Jyns suicide squad.

4 hours ago, IrishCyborg said:

Finally, when someone finds out what the vader symbol on some of the missions does, tell me!

I think it will be a mechanism for whether that card could be added to the existing mission decks. There is probably a use only the original, use only the expansion, or use a "hybrid" version that the little Vaders help determine. I thought maybe it was a symbol for the expansion but it isn't on all the cards. Perhaps it ties in in some way to the smaller skill icons on the new leaders?

I agree that Chirrut as a leader is a little wierd but I think he is a better fit for a leader with 1 yellow (2 small yellow), 2 spec ops leader than Hera (who i think would be something like White, Blue, Blue, Yellow). That said, Chirrut "establishing trade relations" doesnt make perfect sense either.

11 hours ago, IrishCyborg said:

Finally, when someone finds out what the vader symbol on some of the missions does, tell me!

I was looking into this, and noticed that all the missions with "Vader" symbols are 1 Logistics "Resolve" missions. I wonder if that might be a clue as to how they function -- these missions all seem pretty powerful, and it's a huge advantage to have them keyed to "Resolve" instead of "Attempt" so that they automatically succeed. Perhaps the Vader symbol introduces some sort of negative trade off, that leads to an advantage or benefit for your opponent when you resolve one of these missions. It becomes a way to balance these powerful missions with appropriate risks/downsides, while still guaranteeing that they can be performed.

I like Frimmel's idea that it serves as a key telling us which parts of the expansion are modular or not, but that raises other questions -- the Vader symbol doesn't appear alongside any character specific missions. If the Vader symbols show which mission cards can be imported to standard games of Rebellion, does that mean that none of the leaders are modular?

Another possibility is that it feeds into the game's victory conditions, timeline, or something like that. Perhaps there is a new "Vader" token which is added to the timeline, and performing missions with the Vader symbol changes its position. The token could represent the growing might of the Empire, so the more daring the Rebellion is (or the more quickly the Empire develops the Death Star) the stronger the response from the Empire.

An even crazier possibility is that it is tied to Vader himself -- he may no longer be a starting hero, but a "special" one that only appears when the circumstances warrant it. The Vader symbols might be the way to determine where the Dark Lord shows up, representing him appearing to thwart the Rebels when they do something really crazy. In this instance, there's a chance that an alternate Vader is the fourth unrevealed Imperial leader (which would fit the fourth leader needing to be a General instead of an Admiral).

I really have no idea, just spitballing But wanted to point out that the Vader missions which we've seen so far are all 1 Logstics resolve, and I suspect that might have something to do with it.

Don't count on Thrawn being in this. If you reread the article, it really only mentions Rebels once, briefly, with this sentence, " Inspired largely by the characters and events of Rogue One , Rise of the Empire introduces a plethora of new heroes, villains, starships, troopers, and vehicles from that film, alongside other characters, ships, and events from Star Wars: Rebels and the classic trilogy, plus new missions that add more drama and intrigue to your games." Seems to me this is saying, the majority of what you are getting is from Rogue One, but we tossed in a few things from Rebels along with more content from the original trilogy as well. I suspect that Rebels reference was put in there largely to explain the existence of the Interdictor in this expansion (perhaps some mission cards as well). I suspect that what we are seeing here is simply the first expansion to this game. The next one will be a Rebels based expansion and we will see people like Thrawn, Minister Tua, Admiral Konstantine and the Grand Inquisitor against Hera, Sato and whoever else they deem "leader" enough to make their way in (Kanan, Sabine?). Now that we know they are willing to make expansions, there is no reason to believe this will be the only one. Rebels will get it's day, after season 4 (and the show) is over and we know who everything that happened and who the best "leader" options will be.

1 hour ago, Xindell said:

Don't count on Thrawn being in this. If you reread the article, it really only mentions Rebels once, briefly, with this sentence, " Inspired largely by the characters and events of Rogue One , Rise of the Empire introduces a plethora of new heroes, villains, starships, troopers, and vehicles from that film, alongside other characters, ships, and events from Star Wars: Rebels and the classic trilogy, plus new missions that add more drama and intrigue to your games." Seems to me this is saying, the majority of what you are getting is from Rogue One, but we tossed in a few things from Rebels along with more content from the original trilogy as well. I suspect that Rebels reference was put in there largely to explain the existence of the Interdictor in this expansion (perhaps some mission cards as well). I suspect that what we are seeing here is simply the first expansion to this game. The next one will be a Rebels based expansion and we will see people like Thrawn, Minister Tua, Admiral Konstantine and the Grand Inquisitor against Hera, Sato and whoever else they deem "leader" enough to make their way in (Kanan, Sabine?). Now that we know they are willing to make expansions, there is no reason to believe this will be the only one. Rebels will get it's day, after season 4 (and the show) is over and we know who everything that happened and who the best "leader" options will be.

I (sadly) think you're right about Thrawn, though for a different reason: as someone pointed out, the new leaders will likely have to maintain the parity between Generals and Admirals for multiplayer variants.

• Rebels: Jyn and Cassian are Admirals, Chirrut and Saw (presumably) are Generals.
• Empire: Jabba is a General, and Krennic is an Admiral... we also see a third Empire leader portrait on one of the cards (likely Admiral Motti) who is also an Admiral.

Assuming they maintain parity, and that they wouldn't do something silly like make Grand Admiral Thrawn a ground commander; it doesn't seem like Thrawn will be included in the game. The last Imperial leader, whoever they are, will probably be a General.

That said, I'm skeptical about an entire expansion dedicated to Rebellion unless it was something radically different. I doubt they would come up with even more new missions, and new units wouldn't really be desirable (it will become too cumbersome to keep track of everything!). Perhaps a smaller scale expansion with new leaders/action cards, and perhaps some way to change the board to swap out certain systems and change the borders?

About the small icons, maybe you use green dice for those? So Jyn on an intel mission rolls 1 regular dice and 2 green?