Third Consecutive Hutt Victory (sort of)

The usual suspects conspired to meet at Ric's place for tamales and burritos while Marlene was out of town.  Twas a good thing that we only had a couple beers and a bottle of Cab -- lesson learned from last week. 

After eating our fill, we had the usual crazy dice rolls before things settled down with Ric as Peetza da Hutt, Kent as the e-vile Emperor, and I was stuck with the luzer Rebels.  The setup was a little strange with the Storm Troopers and the Rebels giving the Hutts two shots at claiming their fifth resource planet, which they eventually accepted. 

The Emperor placed his first starbase on Sluis Van but both failed to sweep the Wild Spaces clear of Hutts and to block the Wild Spaces with the Death Star.  Then the Rebels had an exceptional round with 8 consecutive victories as they rolled from Bespin all the way to Topowara.  It looked like the Empire was already on the way down.

But the Storm Troopers slowly fought their way back from the brink of defeat, blew up Sullust and Rodia, and pretty much hammered the Rebels back into place.  The Force Meter got pushed to the extreme darkside, so faction cards flooded in. 

But while that was going on, the Hutts amassed 15 planets, 7 then 8 of them resource planets.  When they cashed in a huge straight and thought to win the game, a single Rebel garrison at Bespin held off 7 invading Hutts and denied them victory.  But with 5 new faction cards, time was running out.

The Empire made a valiant attempt to halt the Hutt swarms, but was thwarted at Nar Shaddar by a stubborn Hutt resistance.  The Rebels abandoned the Ison Corridor and made a desperate effort to take out the Emperor, but they guessed poorly and only knocked out a couple ordinary starbases.  The Hutts were able to capitalize on the resulting weakness and their superiority in faction cards to bring on board 7 + 4 legions to finish off the lightly held Imperial resource planets. 

Victory Hutts.