BoardGameArchiveHow to Play Star Wars: Rebellion – Missions, Leaders & Hidden Base
Learn Star Wars: Rebellion base-game rules: assign leaders, attempt missions, activate systems, move fleets, fight battles, probe for the hidden Rebel base and score objectives.
Star Wars: Rebellion is an asymmetric hidden-information conflict. The Empire searches for and tries to destroy the Rebel base; the Rebels s
Star Wars: Rebellion is an asymmetric hidden-information conflict. The Empire searches for and tries to destroy the Rebel base; the Rebels survive long enough to gain enough reputation through objectives.
At a glance
Learn Star Wars: Rebellion base-game rules: assign leaders, attempt missions, activate systems, move fleets, fight battles, probe for the hidden Rebel base and score objectives.
About this guide
Star Wars: Rebellion is an asymmetric hidden-information conflict. The Empire searches for and tries to destroy the Rebel base; the Rebels survive long enough to gain enough reputation through objectives.
What this guide covers
Assignment Phase
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Command Phase
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Missions
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System activation
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Scope: Fantasy Flight Games base game; Rise of the Empire excluded.
Assignment Phase
Players secretly assign leaders to mission cards or leave them in the leader pool for later system activations.
Command Phase
Players alternate resolving missions or using unassigned leaders to activate systems.
Missions
Mission cards drive diplomacy, sabotage, intelligence, production, capture and other asymmetric effects. Opposing leaders can attempt to oppose eligible missions.
System activation
Place a leader in a system to move adjacent fleets and ground forces into it, then resolve combat where opposing units meet.
Imperial search
The Empire uses probe cards and information to eliminate systems from consideration and narrow the location of the hidden Rebel base.
Rebel objectives
The Rebels complete objective cards to improve reputation and shorten the survival clock.
Refresh Phase
Retrieve leaders, build units, draw mission/objective cards and advance the time marker under the base-game sequence.
A round of Rebellion: illustrated sequence
In the Assignment Phase, each player places available leaders on eligible missions, keeping some in the leader pool if they want to activate systems later. In the Command Phase, players alternate taking actions: resolving an assigned mission or using an eligible leader to activate a system. In the Refresh Phase, leaders are recovered and the time, units and cards advance according to the rulebook.
Illustrative turn: the Rebel player might attempt a diplomatic mission in one system, while the Imperial player assigns a leader to oppose it. Later, an unassigned Imperial leader could activate a different system to move a fleet. The decisions are asymmetric: one side is hiding information, while the other is trying to narrow the search.
Probe cards and the hidden Rebel base
At setup, the Rebels secretly establish their base. The Empire gathers information, including probe cards, to rule out possible systems. A system appearing in Imperial probe information cannot be the hidden base under the normal setup mechanism. The Rebels may use their own information and missions to frustrate the search.
The Empire does not win merely by guessing a location. The relevant victory condition requires locating and eliminating the Rebel base as specified in the rules; the Rebels are trying to survive until reputation and the time marker meet the winning condition.
Practical advice: as the Empire, maintain a visible list of candidate systems you have eliminated. As the Rebels, avoid treating an apparently remote base as permanently safe once the Imperial probe deck has been substantially explored.
System activation versus missions
A mission uses leaders assigned to a specific card and resolves that card’s instructions, potentially with an opposing leader contesting it. A system activation uses an eligible leader from the leader pool to move forces into the chosen system and initiate combat when opposing units are present. These are not interchangeable ways of using the same leader.
Moving units through space is limited by transport, adjacent systems and leader restrictions. Do not assume every unit in every adjacent system can be moved freely. The precise eligibility rules determine whether a fleet can actually reach the target system.
Five first-game errors to avoid
- Assigning every leader: leaving none in the pool can restrict later system activations.
- Forgetting opposition: eligible leaders can oppose many mission attempts.
- Using probe cards as public board markers: information about the hidden base follows its own secret-information rules.
- Confusing the factions’ victory conditions: the Empire searches and destroys; the Rebels gain reputation and survive.
- Mixing expansion rules: Rise of the Empire adds components and changes not covered here.
Scope: Fantasy Flight Games’ base game. See our detailed hidden-base rules for the endgame.
Victory
The Empire wins by finding and destroying the Rebel base. The Rebels win by bringing reputation and time together under the objective system.