After a Month's Hiatus...

We resumed Star Wars Risk last night.  Frankly, we were all a little surprised that we remembered how to play after 5 weeks off.  Between my travel, Dad's death, more travel, and Ric's travel, we've had an unprecedented gap in Thursday night activity.  

Kent chose the Hutts, Ric the Empire, and I was left with the tattered Rebel forces.  Right away we should have known things would be different--the Hutts had a strong set up on 4 resource systems, there were no Storm Troopers in the Mid Rim, no Rebels in the Outer Rim.  My forces were almost completely linked.  The Hutts were well placed to expand into the critical Mid Rim resource planets, although the Death Star at Ord Mantell posed a significant problem.  The Empire had all but one system in the Outer Rim but were otherwise spread a bit thin. 

Even in the first turn, things broke just right for the Rebels.  By putting all in-coming reinforcements into the Wild Space, they were able to eliminate the single Imperial legion and the 3 Hutts stationed in the region. 

Even so, the Hutts responded with an initial assault that captured Balmorra.  Unfortunately for Kent the Hutt, a second attack directed at Tatooine fell one system short and resulted in a second set of casualties. Despite these setbacks, the Hutts did manage to climb up to 8 resource planets in later turns before the Rebels knocked them back down. 

The e-vile Empire managed to take the Outer Rim in its initial turn and things looked reasonable for them.  Unfortunately, a Rebel counterattack out of the Elrood Sector succeeded in taking Mon Calamari and denying them their sector bonus. 

After that, things were all in the cards... the Rebel cards.  From Mon Calamari they were able to use "One in a Million" and destroy the Death Star.  One card let them add +2 to attack dice and resulted in the destruction of a starbase.  Then a faction card straight gave them a huge boost in troops for a major assault on the scattered, individual Imperial garrisons. 

Left with only two systems, the Empire was forced to double up on starbases on Yavin 4 during the fourth turn.  A second faction card straight let the Rebels attack this concentration and when it fell, the Emperor was revealed.