I've been wanting to share this one for awhile but with Halloween and Creepmas, it got put on the back burner. I actually got this back at the end of September for my birthday. We're also in the middle of getting an expected 5" of snow, so it seems as good a time as any!
The game came out last year and I remember seeing the box art among the new LEGO sets at the end of 2011. It was going to be the first Star Wars LEGO board game and based on one of the best scenes in the Trilogy, so it was something I was looking forward to getting.
So why didn't I get it until September 2013? The answer: Hasbro. You see, Hasbro has exclusive rights to produce Star Wars board games in the US. When the game didn't hit shelves in 2012, I sort of forgot about it until I decided to find out what happened to it.
We now join your ice planet invasion, already in progress...
It shouldn't be a shock when I tell you that you have to assemble most of the game and pieces. The object is to land one of your pieces on the opposing base location or wipe them out...all of them. Since the board is LEGO, it allows you to set it up in a number of different ways provided in the instructions. Each player starts with four units on the board. There's optional rules to bring in reinforcements too.
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You have two actions per turn which consist of Move or Attack. Pieces can move only one space per action. While each of the blue or grey squares is a space, you must follow the paths. Different units have different attack ranges and some units can only attack on the diagonals. Attacking does not have to follow the pathways and can even be done over gaps.
Attacks are resolved using a special LEGO die. 4 out of 6 sides have a red square that scores a hit which removes a troop from a unit. Vehicles can still function for one more hit after their troops are removed. If you roll the special symbols (above) it's called a Force hit. If you roll this while attacking with Luke or Vader, you summon the Force to destroy an entire unit in one shot! Oh, the plastic humanity!
And that's pretty much it. The optional reinforcement rules allow you to spend both your actions to call in a new unit, some of which have familiar faces. The other heroic microfigs can reroll the attack die if they score a Force hit to try and do more damage.
The microfigures and units are the real stars of the game so let's get to know them.
Here are the Rebel forces!
Left to right we have: Luke leading a couple of troops, Han, a squad of 4 Rebels, a 2-man Snowspeeder, Chewie, a 2-man turret and a tauntaun.
And in this corner, the Empire!
Again left to right: Vader leading snowtroopers, General Veers, an AT-AT, Boba Fett (what? he wasn't even at Hoth?!), a 2-man blaster cannon, an AT-ST, and a squad of 4 snowtroopers.
And here's a close up of the AT-AT. It amazes me how the LEGO folks figure out ways to make iconic things so tiny and still be recognizable. If you look, you can see they used what would normally be binoculars to make the AT-AT's feet.
And just so you can see why these are called microfigures, here they are next to a regular size LEGO minifigure. They are too cute!
This is a game designed with kids in mind, so it doesn't have very deep strategy, although it does have a little more than I would have thought at first glance. With some lucky die rolls, you might be able to storm in and take the enemy base but you can also position your units to get overlapping fields of fire and wait for the bigger units to get in your cross-hairs. And really, it's just fun moving the pieces around and making all the sound effects!
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