The rules seem unclear on this, but if you bring space and ground units to a new planet, do you HAVE to land the ground units?

It seems like you do, but that seems to fly in the face of what happens when a Death Star blows up a planet with friendly units on the ground. Clearly, they can be carried... so you should be able to transport ground units past a rather heavily defended planet... but I can't find anything in the rules to back it up.

I'm sure I missed it... but can you help?

It's true that the rules aren't much clear regarding that, the only I could find is in the Learn to Play, page 7:

"Ground units in the system are placed on the planet art, while ships are placed in the space area around the planet."

It doesn't give a choice, the ground units always go to the ground theater (the planet art). A destroyed planet is kind of an exception, that's why it is specifically mentioned under the Destroyed Systems refference.

Right, which is bizarre, since you should be able to carry units through systems... but I guess the rules prohibit that.

We had the same question when we started playing, but the nature of the combats where you do not retreat until you have had both a space battle round then a land battle round answered it for us...

The only way to blockade incoming land units one system away is to play first and send ships in the system where the incoming ships are, and hope that your opponent is going to bring a leader to the combat, thus locking his ships in place for this turn...
Short of this, there is no way to prevent land units to land on a planet even if you have total superiority in space.

It's not quite thematic, but think of it mechanically like this:

Ground units are never located on ships in this game. They are merely carried from planet to planet.

It helps to think of a turn as weeks/months of time, rather than a 15min break between hyperspace jumps. Logistically, the full troop contingent would have just shuttled down to the planet, and set up temporary base there until being redeployed later that month/year.

Carrying capacity of the in-game starship units is simply for shuttling during the short jump (a few hours time, usually); anything longer than that, they gotta get off the boat.

Oh, I get it... it's just frustrating when your opponent has a planet with nothing in space... just 2 AT-ATs and some other junk... and you can't carry troops past them to get to the relatively undefended planets beyond it... (especially when going around is completely infeasible or impossible.

Setting up a planet with a ton of ground defenders should not, thematically, be a viable way to block an opponent... but I get it.

As the Empire, it's not a bad idea to shut down Rebel presence on a planet anyway, but I get how it can disrupt plans.

On 23.7.2017 at 6:40 PM, JasonRed3 said:

Oh, I get it... it's just frustrating when your opponent has a planet with nothing in space... just 2 AT-ATs and some other junk... and you can't carry troops past them to get to the relatively undefended planets beyond it... (especially when going around is completely infeasible or impossible.

Setting up a planet with a ton of ground defenders should not, thematically, be a viable way to block an opponent... but I get it.

You can get around it, by using the secret fleet missions or hidden mobilization (I don't know the names in english). Use the rebel base to your advantage.

On 7/23/2017 at 11:40 AM, JasonRed3 said:

Oh, I get it... it's just frustrating when your opponent has a planet with nothing in space... just 2 AT-ATs and some other junk... and you can't carry troops past them to get to the relatively undefended planets beyond it... (especially when going around is completely infeasible or impossible.

Setting up a planet with a ton of ground defenders should not, thematically, be a viable way to block an opponent... but I get it.

That's what hidden fleet, lead the assault team, plan the assault, start the evacuation, or behind enemy lines is for.

It seems that Escape Plan from expansion will allow to effectively bypass ground battle. Requires some preparation, though, so you can legally "retreat forward".