Ralltir Heavy Assault

Normally, you should be starting with Mobilization Points, Oppressive Enforcement, and Imperial Arrest Order (depending on what your opponent is using, you may have to switch out Oppressive Enforcement for something else).	On the FIRST TURN, deploy the Death Star II Docking Bay with Imperial Arrest Order (if it is not in there, take out Spaceport Docking Bay), a Ralltir site with Ralltir Operations (which one depends on your tastes and the situation, but I recommend the Prefect’s Office in most cases), and if the Executor is in there, bring it into hand with Mobilization Points (it is one less destiny-1 and, of course, you may easily need it).  If you have a cheap Imperial, you MAY want to deploy him to the docking bay for extra Force.  If you have the Imperials you need to flip your objective (unless all three are low-deploy), save you Force if not, you will probably have to draw some cards to get what you need.

I generally consider midgame to start whenever Ralltir is flipped.  Every control phase that you have extra Force (which SHOULD be almost every one), pull out whatever cards you need from your deck.	Most importantly (especially if Ou Nee Tay is out), bring out reacting vehicles.  They go a long way in helping you control Ralltir.  Get footholds on any docking bays you can this is pretty important to Force activation.  You should be activating about as much as your opponent (EXEPTION Ou Nee Tay and choke decks), as the docking bays will max up some more Force (it sounds small, but it really does help) and your opponent will have trouble doing much to you if they don’t have Force icons on other planets, in most cases.  You should start trying to get out combos (such as the AT-ST’s with pilots or cannons, Emperor Palpatine + Overseeing It Personally, We’re In Attack Position Now + generals/commanders).  Lastly, concentrate on dealing damage directly from draining and cards that are similar to drains (ex We’re In Attack Position Now).  This deck is heavy on physical cards (characters, vehicles, and starships) to hold your opponent at bay you open yourself to some risk if you go chasing them with only the intent of trying to battle them to death.  Even with this in mind, you should not FEAR battling, just don’t go looking for it if you don’t have to.  I should mention that, for when you are battling, the destiny in this deck overall is fairly low keep that in mind when you plan things.  However, as low destiny as it is, a good deal of those low destinies DO come out during the midgame.  The destiny will still be low, but there are several good "floater" destinies in this deck, which just happen to pop up every once in a while, though it doesn’t look like it would.  When you are battling, I would stick to low-ability characters with weapons, for the most part, and depend upon the battle destiny bonus from Ralltir Ops.  If this is still causing problems, just use the high-power cards to pound them into the ground it works fairly well a lot of times when all else fails.

Not all games actually reach the endgame many times, though not always, you will be able to catch your opponent off guard and deal them a massive blow in a battle.  If this happens, and hasn’t happened against you, there is no reason why you should be losing.  Usually, you will be ahead in Life Force with you opponent possibly catching up.  The biggest things here are to keep In The Hands Of The Empire from being flipped back and from trying to smother their drains.  To smother their drains, use In The Hands Of The Empire and, if needed, Imperial Decree and Come Here You Big Coward.  You will probably want to control a FEW key non-Ralltir locations while keeping up your Ralltir defense.  It is almost impossible for you to lose as long as their drains are fairly low and if you keep a solid defense.  If you come into the endgame losing (probably from being smashed in a battle), you will have to concentrate a little more on Ralltir.  The biggest thing here is not so much as stopping their drains as it is making sure that yours are much higher (if you noticed, those few sites can really pack a good deal of damage per turn).	Go offensive only if Ralltir is secured.  You will probably want to smother their drains as much as possible, but keeping in mind that your character/vehicle/starship support will probably be small, restricting your ability to control those few key sites.

I’m sure this is the part that most people have been waiting to read.  Yes, Ou Nee Tay is quite annoying, and it has caused major redesigns in this deck.	Generally, the deck plays Ou Nee Tay by using reacts.  You will notice that there are five vehicles, all with reacting ability.  The three AT-STs generally just use their pilots/cannons to create cover for the characters at any site.  The Skiff is used to house the powerful characters.	By putting them on a "centralized" Skiff, their power can be placed anywhere on the board that you wish.  If you wanted, you could put in even another Skiff or two and characters that allow you to move it for free, add to its power, or add destinies.  I like Skiffs because they hold six passengers (that is why I don’t use Racing Skiffs), can react, allow the passengers to act as if they weren’t on a vehicle at all, and most importantly, if the Skiff is destroyed, they can jump off.  That is the first part.  The second part is the Prefect’s Office with Expand The Empire.  Now, all Imperials are Power AND Forfeit +3.  Nice defense.	If the opponent uses Rebels, it shouldn’t be too bad if they are a heavy alien deck (especially Eloms), then the game may be in for rough times.  However, with the Super Power Boost (Power +3/Forfeit + either 3 or 5, depending on ability) and the massive react with the Skiff, you should be able to fight back decently.

I assume RTP is the best deck to start with, as it tends to be the cause of some of Ralltir’s most heated games.  As almost all my friends, along with me, have used many variations of this deck, I could probably type several pages on countering this deck, but you would probably fall asleep, and then I would either not get your review, or if I got you mad because I made you oversleep, you would give me a bad review.  Anyway, the first thing you want to do against Rescue The Princess is flip your objective before theirs (not too hard in most cases).	You may want to get out Come Here You Big Coward to stop that drain of three (-1 from Ops) they will get if they release Prisoner 2187 during their control phase.  Most importantly, you want to establish the heaviest drain you possibly can.  This is pretty easy usually because most RTP decks use heavy deploy primes.  Even with Ou Nee Tay, deploy may still be a problem.  Take advantage of their docking bays (they will probably be doing the same) for extra Force.  If it all pulls together, by the time Leia gets to the War Room, you will hitting them for something like 8 Force a turn.  When she gets back, be prepared for heavy resistance.  Keep many forfeit fodder characters with the Emperor, Vader, and Tarkin they have no immunity to attrition and cannot be re-deployed if lost from battle (you need the Emperor for Overseeing It Personally, and if you get to the endgame, you will definitely want Vader and Tarkin).  If possible, you may want to launch a sneak attack against Leia (Mara with stick and Dr. Evazan alone can be pretty harmful), but don’t expect her to be gone forever not by a long shot.  Because of re-deployment of Leia, if RTP is popular in your area, you may want to add Danikko Jerikko, Amanim, and/or Young Fool to make sure that Leia stays off the table if she is lost.  Lastly, remember Boring Conversation Anyway and Shut Him Up Or Shut Him Down (especially Shut Him Up Or Shut Him Down) well, if you take a look, they cancel many of the cards that are associated with Rescue The Princess.  If you can’t keep up with the Death Star Plans, be SURE that you get out Something Special Planned For Them, or you will stand almost no chance.

This deck is somewhat in hiding due to Security Precautions, but I still find it useful to talk about.	First of all, this deck contains Security Precautions, so you will obviously already have some advantage here.	The major thing against a Hidden Base deck, aside form Security Precautions, is to ALWAYS make sure the In The Hands Of The Empire is working.	As long as it is, you will be pulling out needed cards, and most importantly, the drain -1.  There are only three Light Side systems (unless they use bonuses or cards that prevent their drains from being modified) that they can still drain at  Kessel, Kiffex, and Coruscant.  For space battles, you main key is the bounty hunter/ship cards.  They are super deadly to Hidden Base decks.  Between them, you can get three battle destinies, canceling of opponent’s immunity to attrition, +1 to your battle destiny for each ship they have (as you can see, Dengar/Punishing One is a big one), and Ralltir Ops adds extra to your destiny.  Try to stay away from their main fleets.	There isn’t too much reason to be engaging them if they aren’t threatening you too much, just probe Ralltir (prevents battle damage) and park the Executor with a high-forfeit pilot or two on it many Hidden Base decks are trying to cancel its immunity with interrupts.  Of course, don’t pull out your battleground systems (unless you want/need to deploy We’re In Attack Position Now, which isn’t very unlikely), because the Rebels are able to drain at both of them.  If you can control to systems, you Imperial Decree to limit their draining even more.  If they play Strikeforce, it is unlikely that they will be able to control a battleground site against you and still maintain space it the extremely rare chance they do, just try to win a space battle not super easy, but its possible.  However, I very highly recommend that you go for stopping their control of a site, as they will be much weaker on the ground and you have much more ground forces than space forces.  As long as Strikerforce is not out and you keep heavy control of Ralltir, they should have very low drains every turn.  That generally covers stopping them on the ground, just mass up a high Force drain (it should be fairly easy, because they won’t be able to do much to stop you).  After your drains are either at/nearly at double digits, there isn’t much left that they can do.  That’s all there is to the super-powerful Hidden Base deck.  Oh, yeah, if this deck is popular in your area, you may want to get some weapons into this deck, not to mention Crossfire to cancel out S-Foils.

The biggest problem of most people trying to play one of these decks is that, because their drains are fairly low, they won’t spend the 3 Force (Battle Plan is almost always out) to drain them.	You definitely want to keep the pressure on.  Start out with Something Special Planned For Them instead of Oppressive Enforcement (you may need this if they flip their objective, though).  You do not want SSPFT to be lost, or else, if they have heavy interrupt retrieval, you are dead that is why you start with it.  As soon as possible, you want to be draining both space and ground We’re In Attack Position Now doing maximum damage Come Here You Big Coward out to make it much harder to retrieve.  These are important  Do not be lazy about these.  Once these are set up, hopefully you will be mounting a steady supply of damage.  People try to catch the apprentice before the objective flips... if they are slow, you can try, but a good, fast deck will be finished before you can get a descent character(s) down.  Instead, just damage and drain, damage and drain.  No matter how good the deck is, this really puts a lot of pressure on this deck as it already uses up a large amount of cards just getting set up.  Even if they do flip, their retrieval will be hard to get (Come Here You Big Coward) and limited (Something Special Planned For Them).  While you are doing your damage, make sure that you keep a powerful defense of the Ralltir locations Dagobah decks usually have descent destinies, high activation, and powerful characters you could lose a lot of Force if you are careless, and if they flip Ralltir back and get a descent force there, it may be hard to flip Ralltir back.

Sorry, I’ve really never feared operatives.  Compared to the Ralltir objective, this is almost insignificant.  A force moving across the planet can claim control of it in little time.  The only one to worry about is if they play Ralltir.  I have never played this before to know, but as this deck is high-powered, the low-powered usual Light Side operatives decks will have a good deal of trouble.  At the least, you won’t see many since this is the most countered objective in the game.

This objective is not really good enough to really try to beat out No Escape, but if you do play it, it shouldn’t be too hard of a game.  Both decks try to meet the same ends, but Ralltir bonuses your battle destinies and allows you to search for cards.  Dantooine only gives the squadron bonuses.	I would try to keep Dantooine flipped (the best way is to quickly send a force to the Dantooine system as it is mostly squadrons, they will find it very difficult to destroy this blockade).  However, this deck still shouldn’t be much of a problem, because it is generally a pushover on ground on either side and it has to be flipped to stand a chance in the air.

I doubt that there is much to worry about against this deck the objective does very little.  Start out with Imperial Decree instead of Oppressive Enforcement.	That will cancel out Pucumir Thryss and all the annoying Cloud Drain bonuses.  You should have a fairly easy time outpowering them, except in the Clouds.  You may have a lot of starfighters, but be careful of those power 5 (if Maneuvering Flaps is out) Cloud Cars.  Hopefully, because of Imperial Decree and In The Hands Of The Empire, you won’t even have to bother with the Clouds and most sites.  The biggest threat comes from sabaac.  You will want to take over the Casino and keep Lando killed as much as possible.  You will still be at a disadvantage and sabaac and will probably have to just suck up the Force loss.  If sabaac concerns you, just throw in a copy or two of There’ll Be Hell To Pay not only will they became practically lost interrupts, but that extra Force to play sabaac will add up.

I can’t tell you exactly what to expect with this deck.  It could be extremely easy or a fighting game to the end.  Either way, you only have two aliens, and they, by coincidence, work pretty well for starting (Mara and Evazan).  Get the saber on Mara on the first turn, and then Evazan will back her up with instant kills.  You may need backup eventually.  From what I have seen of most of these decks, most of the fighting will take place on Ralltir.  It’s just a normal flip, battle, battle, battle kind of deck.  As you are playing on Ralltir, you should have an extreme advantage on it.  I can’t really recommend more than that.  You just have to pay attention and battle/drain them to death.  Just be a little careful about Han this objective isn’t extremely painful but it could be a thorn in your paw. THERE IS GOOD IN HIM/ I CAN SAVE HIM

I have to admit, a game against this deck could be rather close.  I would try to keep Luke uncaptured as long as possible, but I can almost guarantee that it will happen eventually.  Generally, as with most decks against TIGIH, you have to focus on NOT LOSING battles.  The strategies listed for Ou Nee Tay work best that way, your forces are almost everywhere on Ralltir at once.  It is unlikely that they will be able to do any draining if you have In The Hands Of The Empire going, so make that a high priority.  Aside from battling and keeping it flipped, its just a game of keeping the drain up.  If this deck is popular in your area, I would add Human Shields and card(s) to place lost characters out of play.  Use Human Shield to forfeit the captured Jedi, then place him out of play (you may not even need the out of play), and no more Luke

I haven’t had any experience against this deck, but here is what I can expect.  First of all, this is going to be a battling kind of deck, but with low-life aliens probably, so be ready for it.	Don’t forget Evazan and the AT-ST Cannon.	You shouldn’t be too worried if all they do is stay at a few Tatooine sites.  You may not be able to modify their drain if they use the Effects from Jabba’s Palace Sealed Deck, but if they only have a few sites, you can generally out-drain them.  If they spread out, battle at the weak links.	Pretty much as simple as that, as far as I can see.  Like I said, I haven’t played it yet, so I don’t know.  This is a basic strategy against a lot of those character swarm decks.

These decks aren’t very popular anymore, so you may never have to deal with them.	If you do, focus on Ralltir.  They, of course, will seek you out.  These games could go either way.  It all really depends on how well the two of you are at battling.	Get down in dirty in the fights, and use Mobilization Points to its maximum potential.	You will probably want to use Imperial Decree instead of Oppressive Enforcement this can be used to stop Revolution.  Like I said, aside from that, its mainly just a game of whom can battle whom the hardest.  If you truly fear these decks, you can add in Image Of The Dark Lord (use it on Ralltir if their activation sites are all on one planet, or use it on their sites if the same planet this will waste their characters) to lower their activation and a Bubo or two to eat up their creatures and characters.  That’s about all I can say.

Awe man this is truly a deck to be afraid of at its full potential.  Hopefully, you will never be forced to face one as they are very weak against the now-popular all-alien Dark decks.  If you do happen to come across one, its all about defending Ralltir.  Defense first, drain second in most cases.  Don’t be caught off guard.  Evazan, repeating guns, Sith Vader, all valuable assets (add more in here if this is popular it is definitely worth consideration in a popular area).  After you get up a strong defense with several reacting cards, then start to max up your draining.  As long as you keep up the solid defense, you shouldn’t have much trouble winning.

I’ve matched up against a few of these in the past.  They are becoming somewhat popular (at least in my area), so you have a good chance of facing one of these.  Start out with Imperial Decree instead of Oppressive Enforcement.  Then, get heavy control of the 4th Marker and the next Hoth site in.	You should have no trouble winning as long as your objective stays flipped and those sites stay controlled (their drain is totally massacred).	Be ready for a ground, but don’t be too afraid of it, because most of their forces will be dedicated to EBO and space.  Of course, if you get the chance, just plain canceling EBO might help, but be very careful of them attacking your spread-out forces when you are inside the shield.  For this reason, I advise just keeping some forces at the first two sites and ignoring canceling the Effect.	For more information, see sections of Hidden Base that do not involve Security Precautions.