Session - Race For The Galaxy (Rebel vs Imperium)

21st of August 2011 (Sunday)

Game(s) Played:
RFTG



Player(s):
Mo
Nitsuj

Session – RFTG
[Game 1]
We decided to try the 2 Player Rebel vs Imperium variant suggested in the Rebel vs Imperium expansion rulebook. Basically one Player will start with the Rebel Cantina Start World and Rebel Alliance 6-Cost Development in hand whilst the other starts with the Imperium Warlord Start World &the Imperium Seat 6-Cost Development in hand.

Mo picked the Imperium to start but quickly regretted it looking at his starting hand. I don’t have a picture of his game end tableau, he insists on never immortalizing moments of his abysmal defeats, so I can’t really comment on his game except to say he spent a lot of it Exploring which I now come to see a pattern where spending more than 3 turns Exploring per game seems a precursor to defeat.

I put down Rebel Alliance very early in the game thanks to sold goods from Alpha Centauri and Mo’s incessant Exploring. Even so I just couldn’t build up the Military to launch an effective takeover of any of Mo’s Worlds. But through 1 Genes and 2 Alien Windfall Worlds, I managed to secure enough cards to place Pan Galactic Affluence (which gave me heck a lot of Prestige Points) and Galactic Imperium. Surprisingly the Military Power started coming in after placing Galactic Imperium which helped me at least launch my first successful takeover of Mo’s Alien Booby Trap World which gave me my third Alien World and one of the “Most Goals”.

My winning tableau… Mo swears revenge by saying he will get 79 points in the next game… Let’s take a look see

Results Of Game 1
Winna – Nitsuj (69 Points)
2nd – Mo (47 Points)

[Game 2]
And so Mo picks Imperium again and this was a brutal match. He farmed 6 Imperium cards, used Mining Conglomerate to farm cards through Production and all his other cards were Military giving him a nasty +12 to normal Military and +15 Military against Rebels. To top it off, he managed to place the Imperium Planet Buster (aka The Death Star) and proceeded to pound the living daylights out of at least 4 of my Military Worlds. He wrapped things up with an Alien Guardian (9 VPs).

Mo’s final winning tableau

I initially tried to match him Military for Military but just couldn’t keep ahead. I even had to use my Prestige Bonus to search for a World which luckily had some Military attached to it but just couldn’t even stay on par with him. At 4 Military Worlds I conceded that I would lose all of them and quickly turned to a Terraforming strategy with Golden Age Of Terraforming, Terraforming Engineers & Replicant Robots. With the big discounts on Settling and Retrofit & Salvage Inc giving me Development discounts, I managed to quickly pull ahead in terms of card numbers and 2x Consume my remaining turns.

Just wasn’t good enough

So yea, Mo got to within 1 point of his stated objective, but on overall scoring I still beat him 127 points – 125 points.

Results Of Game 2
Winna – Mo (78 Points)
2nd – Nitsuj (57 Points)