A Tale of Two Losses

Sides:

• Horak the Hutt
• Sith Lord LaBan
• General Kent

Game the First

As the game's first turns unfolded, the Rebels made modest gains while the Hutts found no weaknesses to exploit.  As luck would have it, the e-vile Emperor came out on the first turn.  Ric placed him on Eriadu. 

Rebel faction cards quickly pushed the Force Meter one step away from the complete Light Side.  On turn 3 the Rebels invaded Sullust with the aim of taking the Eriadu starbase, just to nudge the Force Meter one more notch.  When Eriadu fell and the Empire was found, it was game over at a ridiculously early hour. 

Victory:  Rebels.

Game the Second

Since the first game collapsed so quickly and there will be no galactic warfare next week, we elected to try a second go at it.  Here's a little of the action taken with Google Glass.

This time the Rebels were thwarted by incessant rolls of 6s by the Sith Lord.  Despite this expense, most of the Outer Rim fell into their control.  With the Rebels significantly weakened, the Hutts took out the singleton garrisons on the way to Tatooine and garnered two faction cards.  The Empire gamely counter-attacked the Rebels and took an easy Hutt. 

On the second turn the Rebels attacked again at great cost to themselves.  The Hutts climbed to seven resource planets and garnered three more faction cards of the same type.  The Storm Troopers held their ground and even destroyed Arbra and it's large Rebel force.  By the third turn, the Hutt hand would look like this: 

Since Retreat and Mine Fields are particularly weak options, the Hutts instead built up a fleet of capital ships.  These in turn got them up to eight systems and a silly set of faction cards: 

In the end, the capital ship flush plus six additional legions from a well-played Sarlacc Pit card gave the Hutts the edge they needed.  A three-pronged assault, cleared the Mid Rim, captured Balmorra, and threatened victory in the El'Rood Sector.  Attacks from Bespin to Sullust were repulsed at Correlia, but the small garrison at Duro was able to break through for the win

Victory:  Hutts.