Rebellion in the Rim Campaign and a Glimpse Behind the Process

Let's talk Rebellion in the Rim.
Based on a comment on the Fighting Fleets: Whale Hunting article, I wanted to talk about an aspect we've mentioned in comments but figured now might be worth writing down.

Thanks for the comment, hope you don't mind I'm pulling it into its own article....

So I'll say that we were part of the testing cycle for Rebellion in the Rim (our names are in the book and everything!).  Eric and I did the best we could to make sure that the cards that came out were good for everyone.  But neither of us have played in a RitR campaign since it came out.  Some of that is due to time and helping friends prepare for NoVA and then the Regionals season and the sadly (Canceled? Postponed? A third option?) Worlds from a little more than a month ago.  So we haven't been able to devote a lot of time to actually playing the campaign in the wild, with our friends and everything.  I know our friend Jack has played a campaign or two, and we have a few locals who have as well, and I've started up one on Vassal with several friends (we just hit the Pivotal Battle of Act 1, and my 6th level human druid just learned.... oh, it's only interesting to me, huh).

When Eric and I write articles, we try to make sure we're giving you the best information we can at either the time of release or after we've played with it a bit.  This is why some articles take a bit to write (I remember Eric's Palpatine games for 3-4 weeks in a row as he tried to nail down EXACTLY the niche Palp wanted, and I did the same thing when Raddus released), and why we go back and make changes, so you guys can have good information (let me remind you that at one time I recommended Z95s as part of an SFC.  I'm doing the best I can, guys).

Hmm, he recommends using Leia in a real fleet.  This man needs help.

I'll say that the RitR campaign I'm playing is QUITE fun, but I don't know nearly enough about it to recommend what planets to take, what ships/what fleets to build, what you want when for uniques, etc., etc.  I haven't even done that Pivotal yet, so I can't even start there either.  At this point (5/4/2020, happy Star Wars Day everyone!), Eric and I have no plans to write about the campaign beyond this article.  Obviously this was a lie, several months later.

There's cool builds that are fun, and 200 point battles that start with a max of 2 unique squadrons per fleet make a SFC force actually worth taking and it does pretty well.  The commander abilities are all pretty cool and I can see reasons to take many of them.  It's an enjoyable time.... but I don't have a mastery of it at all.  And I don't want to provide you guys "bad" information based on my one experience with it ("Well, John said every Rebel should start with Mygeeto...").  I also worry somewhat that people will start taking any builds for fleets/bases we recommend for a start as gospel and then everyone's campaign devolves into the same 3 fleets on both sides.  Mustrum's comment above gets to the heart of why I enjoy RitR: It is interesting to see how people adapt to restrictions and see what approaches they find.  Rebellion in the Rim seems to me to be more about trying crazy stuff and enjoying the ships you have/get and what you can build/cobble together from them out of the upgrades you can afford to make your own personal fighting force.  Name your ships, fall in love with them, win or lose the campaign, and then rerack and do it all again.  My Assault Frigate was hanging on by a thread in my last game, and I was just trying to dodge Onager arcs for 3 turns.  I ended on 1-2 hull and no shields, and it was just as much fun as any "real" game I've played in the last year.

Do I recommend playing the campaign? Yes, heavily.  Are we planning on writing about it and adding bits to every article about how X does in such a format? We are not.   LIES! DARNED LIES!  This may change based on how many RitR games I get in over the next 2-3 months and how long COVID is going to keep us in quarantine, but for now, the best thing I can say is that if you want to both learn a system for online gaming (2 ships and 4ish squads is a lot easier to get the system than 5 ships and 8 squads alright!) and want to hang out with your friends playing some zany lists and objectives, Rebellion in the Rim is a super fun way of doing so.  If anything changes in this, we'll be sure to let you know.