A New Hutt Year

Memorable things from last night's game:

• Catastrophic failure of defense of Bffasch on turn 1.  (Rebel Leader Wood attacked a mass of Sith Lord Horak's troops with a slightly more massive force.  Wood blew the defense away with hardly a loss.) 
• Counterattack through the Core Worlds.  (The Empire struck back and nearly conquered the Core Worlds.  Eventually they did capture the El'Rood Sector for 2 turns.) 
• 5 7s in a row by Kent.  (Unspeakably good luck was bad luck for his opponents.)
• Numerous lost opportunities (4-2-2 wins out over 3-1, etc.  Disgustingly poor dice rolls at many key junctures in the game.)
• Numerous thin defenses stopped overwhelming forces.  (Time and again, important offenses were stymied by the casualties caused by one or a very few defenders.) 
• El'Rood Sector and Wild Space.  (Both were captured.  Both were sooner (Rebel control of Wild Space) or later (Empire in El'Rood) invaded, thus revoking the sector bonuses.) 
• Fall of the Mid Rim to the Hutts.  (The Green Hoard was able to sweep away resistance in the Mid Rim, giving Peetza da Hutt 5 easy resource planets from which to launch his eventual victory.) 
• Failure of the Rebels to attack the Hutts.  (The Rebel leader preferred to give the victory to the Hutts rather than let the Empire win.) 
• Hutt victory when the Rebels were one turn away from victory.  (Had the Hutts not prevailed, the Rebels surely would've captured the Emperor's starbase.)

Victory -- Hutts... again. 

A Missing December Post

Although pizza arrived 30 minutes late, the game commenced more or less on schedule Dec. 18th.  Much wine and whiskey was consumed.  Dice were rolled.  Legions fought and were victorious or vanquished.  Somewhere along the way, Ric bested Kent and I.  Delirious with joy, he took the coveted Funky Chicken Trophy home. 

Ringing out the Old and Ringing in the New

Friday December 5

Peetza arrived about 45 minutes late after a day-trip to Taos and back.  Horak the Hutt, Rebel Ric, and Sith Lord Wood battled until exhaustion set in around 11:30.  Despite being fortified by gringo chile, we called it a draw.

Thursday January 1

Same forces again, due to the luck of the draw in choosing fondue forks.  Ham, broccoli, yellow squash, baguette, mushrooms, merlot-soaked pears, melted cheese made for good eats.  Ric came out with all guns blazing and sent the Empire reeling.  Something like 8 systems captured with only two Rebel losses.  The Hutts did their gradual Hutt thing, snagging a couple stragglers and getting two faction cards.  The Empire limps along with terrible dice rolls, but manages to get three cards with help from the Force Meter.  Turn 2 is much the same, except the Sith pushes the Force Meter deeper into the dark while the Hutts eliminate the few Imperial garrisons at Omwat and Arbra to take the Wild Space. 

By turn 3 the Rebels have taken the Ison Corridor, but the Hutts are able to turn in a faction card straight and capture Bespin.  In later turns, while the Empire is still weak, the Hutts run up to 7 resource planets and poise themselves for a run for victory, but they weaken the Rebels, who might also win, significantly in the process.  The Empire starts to slowly gather its strength.  Eventually, they are able to destroy a large Hutt garrison at Elom, which simultaneously denies them their sector bonus.  

The Force Meter stays pegged on the dark side.  The Rebels have a set of lousy dice rolls against the Hutts that break their momentum before they can engage the Stormtroopers.  The Hutts are looking at having to reduce several starbases before they can garner 10 resource planets.  Good Hutt cards help them resist assaults from both opponents.  The Empire simply hunkers down behind a bevvy of starbases in the Mid Rim. 

Finally, turn 7 arrives with an Imperial faction card straight (their second in a row) and they run the board on the dozen or so Rebels systems that are left.  Not needed:  their ace in the hole--a blowie-uppie card for the last Rebel outpost in the Mid Rim.  Clearly, the extra cards from the skewed Force Meter was a tremendous asset to the Empire.

Victory:  Stormtroopers.