Rebellion
Our final Tuesday game day with my buddy leaving for Zambia was yesterday, so he came over early. Somehow we had never taken the time to play Rebellion together.
Man oh man do I still love this game. So tense, so well balanced, very very fun. I finally figured out the best way to teach the game is to let the noob play the Empire, which is honestly quite a lot easier and more straightforward: just stomp around the board until you crush the Rebel base. Meanwhile the Rebel side is hard to play well. I won, but it was close, and it depended largely on my opponent not understanding how fast the clock can run once the Rebels start executing their missions and racking up propaganda victories. This is one of the few times my opinion differs really sharply from Shut Up & Sit Down, which IIRC thought the game was kind of same-y after a while. It’s probably true if you binge it for a few weeks, but once in a while is such a treat.
I had intended to bust out the Rise of the Empire expansion, which is when I discovered he’d never actually played the core game. So the stuff remains not-integrated into the basic set. Aaaand I’ve got the zenbins organizers, which sure enough, just cannot really accommodate the expansion stuff: too many new leaders and ship types. I think the cards mostly work just fine. I’ll be happy to buy new organizers if/when they figure out how to make it all fit.
The amount of chrome, the license & FFG’s more-is-more tendencies had me so prepared to be “meh” or “good-but-not great” about it, but they really hit this one out of the park. Rebellion is a great game. Especially with the expansion.
The more I play the more I like it, too. Like, it continues to reveal so many smart ideas. Every time we engage with the combat stuff I’m like damn this is smart.
If forced to choose I’d probably come down on the side of War of the Ring. But fortunately I don’t have to choose.
Ralph Mazza I have it and need to play it more! I won the first time and it didn’t feel especially tense. Then again I lost as the Rebels a lot before I figured them out and that wasn’t especially tense either.
So… something like a board-game version of Star Wars: Empire at War?
Paul, so often you will mention something that is already on my mind. I’m mainly an RPG guy, but the very Shut Up & Sit Down review you mention was playing on a loop at my FLGS yesterday. (I was there with my son, because he has tons of energy, but also a cold.) We were there for an hour so I heard the whole thing several times as my boy oohed and aahed over the excellent box art of today’s product.
The review seemed solidly lukewarm, so it’s interesting to have another perspective.
It’s such a good review! Maybe the most entertaining long form video I’ve seen from them.
I feel like their tastes are rarified the same way mine are for RPGs. Stuff I find objectionable or just meh is stuff that 99% of mainstream gamers adore. I’m not surprised they were lukewarm, because they’re evaluating it on play volume I’ll never achieve.