With Star Wars Rebellion: Rise of the Empire hitting shelves today, I got to thinking (a dangerous habit, to be sure)- could we see anything more for this game in the future?
Rebellion was one of my favorite games of 2016, and while I really was excited about the possibility of more content in the future, I understood the common sentiment that the game itself was so carefully balanced and asymmetrical that any expansions were unlikely and could actually be harmful to the game. Another common criticism that I could understand (though not necessarily agree with) was the idea that there wasn't a whole lot of reason to add new units to the game.
Luckily, FFG seemed to anticipate that, and gave the new units in Rise of the Empire a new green attack die. Rather than acting the same as the previous blue and red attack dies, the green die has four blank sides and two direct hits. That means that it's likely not to do damage, but any damage that it does give is pretty versatile. Because of that, I like to think of the green die units as "support" units- you don't want your entire army made up of them, but they're great for lending firepower to an existing force.
So, I think FFG actually did a good job of bringing in new units with a strong flavor and unique mechanics. The question I'm wondering now is: could they do it again?
Now that FFG has gone sort of outside the box and gave us something other than the standard attack die, I think we can really start speculating on further mechanics that this game could see. For the purposes of this article, I'm going to generally steer away from adding things only for specific themes, other than some musings on types of units that could fit the new changes we could bring to the game. We all know it would be cool to have Thrawn, Starkiller, or Kyle Katarn as leaders in the next game, but what I'm specifically looking for is what they could bring to the table.
"Strike" Units
Somewhat like the "First Strike" ability in Magic the Gathering (I may or may not lose cred for that reference), I imagine Strike units adding one more die type to the game- perhaps a yellow one. This die, I think, could be even less reliable than the green one, having only a single Critical hit symbol on it. However, it also comes with a powerful ability- see, yellow die are rolled before the other die, and any damage done by a yellow die is applied before all other damage that turn. Additionally, units that receive damage equal to their health during this phase are immediately defeated without the opportunity of blocking. This means that you can help whittle down an enemy force before the attack can truly even begin- or, if you're in a few rounds of combat already, you can possibly put the last hit on an enemy capital ship without giving the enemy a chance to block it or attack again.
Thematically, I think Strike units could be represented by any unit that can deal damage to its targets quickly or from a great distance.
So, if we had one unit for each faction in each theater, we might see:
A-Wing
TIE Interceptor
Rebel Speeder Bike
Scout Trooper
Hero Units
Given the fact that we now have a Leader cap at eight, as well as more flexibility in drawing leaders via Rise of the Empire and an increased ability to eliminate enemy leaders, I think that games have the potential to afford players the ability to make their leader teams with a little more customization. However, the more often we add new leader to the game via expansions, the more often we're going to start diluting the chances that we'll get the leaders we want. Characters like Admiral Motti and Ozzel are cool, but sometimes you just want to earn Boba Fett as a leader.
To help cycle through leaders, I propose an idea- with a further increased ability to draw new leader cards (maybe even a "recruit new leader" starting card), we should also have the ability to "discard" a leader and draw its hero unit. For instance, I could discard Wedge Antilles to put a Rogue Three mini into play- or perhaps I could discard Thrawn (still holding out for this Chiss in the future) to put in his Chimera Star Destroyer. Ideally, each hero would get their own mini in some form or another. Some could even get structures, such as Tarkin yielding a Tarkin Initiative base that could increase production speed of projects, or Jan Dodonna giving us a Massai Temple that could allow for an instant switching of the Rebel Base.
Basically, the point of this would be to allow games to include more iconic characters, and not be limited to eight per side, while still maintaining the leader cap.
Structures and Abilities
One of my favorite additions to the Rise of the Empire set is the Interdictor. The ability to prevent a Rebel retreat is so cruelly Imperial, and I love it for that. The cinematic combat also looks like it'll do a fantastic job of adding some flair to combat, but I'd love to see more units with built in abilities as well, rather than simple dice stats.
I don't have a ton of suggestions on this one, to be totally honest, but I feel like a lot of them should be structures. Maybe Imperial anti-air turrets that could prevent Air Speeders from rolling attacks as long as they're still up. Or, perhaps a Rebel bacta tank that could heal one damage on any ground unit on that planet after each round of combat. A gravity well generator for the Rebels could be a neat strategy too- similar to the Interdictor, but I think it could have some great uses, including acting as an intimidation factor at the Rebel Base, and perhaps making the Empire think twice about landing on that unexplored planet quite yet.
Well, those are just some ideas on what I wouldn't mind seeing in the future. Another thing I think would be cool are ships that could bypass some hyperspace lanes, allowing for much quicker travel- but as I said earlier in this post, any addition could destabalize the game, and adding quicker movement may be the most efficient way to do that.
Anyway, I'm very excited to finally get my hands on Rise of the Empire, and I hope you are too.
Also, if you have your own idea on how Rebellion can continue to innovate, drop an answer in the comments. I'd love to see what other bright minds could come up with!
May the Force be with you!
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- Thomas
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