Star Wars: Empire at War - Rebel Space Units

Star Wars: Empire at War - Rebellion Space Units
This is a hint / guide for Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

I like to run space battles with no unit losses (unless they are "free" units that are from, for example, space station garrisons), so you won't see tips like "keep calling for reinforcements".

My early fleet consisted of Sundered Heart (for anti-Fighter support), six Nebulon-B frigates, two Marauder corvettes, and one Fleet Commander. Sometimes this will work out to 23 points because the game doesn't always count Sundered Heart (heroes normally don't count toward the point total). The Nebulon-Bs are changed to Assault Frigates later, and when Raymus Antilles is removed from the game, Sundered Heart is swapped for a regular Corellian Corvette.
I kept the Corellian Corvette against TIE Bombers, and for the most part they survive alright. In the late game when you can build Mon Calamari capital ships, I took a chance and changed my fleet to five Mon Calamari Star Cruisers, two Marauders (who have to do double-duty as anti-fighter support after a battle), and one Fleet Commander. It works out not too badly.

I did not use fighters at all if possible because in larger battles they are hard to manage and it is easy to lose a few wings. A few losses are probably okay for the potential firepower of the Y-Wings, but my goal was to win without losses of units I bring into combat, either in Space or on Land. That said, check out this screenshot (played on Hard difficulty) where an Alliance space station, at just level 1 and with no support other than the garrison from its hangars defeats a lone Imperial Star Destroyer attacking the system, with considerable help from the Ion Cannon Blasts of the Y-Wings.



Z-95 Headhunter

I did not use this unit at all, as the shielded Corellian Corvette provides a lot of anti-fighter firepower combined with better staying power.

Corellian Corvette (CR90 Corvette)

• If you set them to target a unit, they sit still, making them easier targets. Try to keep them moving as they are small and hard to hit. A large gang of them has a lot of firepower to whittle down shields of larger enemy ships, but they can be vulnerable to the concentrated fire of Tartans if you're not paying attention. The AI tends to send them one at a time, however.
• You can easily have a large number of them and they can perform admirably, but if you try to move them all at once, they tend to fan out in a long row -- And while maneuvering into that row, some of them often forget the Move command and end up drifting off to attack something. Even if they don't, this formation tends to cause the ones moving to the edge positions to have to go around asteroid fields and nebulae and inadvertently get the attention of the enemy.

BTL Y-Wing Starfighter

This is a fragile unit in a space battle and has to be carefully protected in order to bring their Ion Cannon Blast to bear. You need a lot of them to disable a large ship in the first volley -- very useful if you can manage it, but the difficulty in setting it up, and for just one target, makes this power not worth the effort. It takes several shots to affect even a Tartan this way. This unit is generally superseded by either the Corellian Gunship or the Marauder-class Corvette.

T-65 X-Wing Starfighter

I did not use this unit at all, as the shielded Corellian Corvette provides a lot of anti-fighter firepower combined with better staying power.

Corellian Gunship (DP20 Frigate)

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials at Tech Level 2.
• The missiles ignore shields, and so are very good for taking out specific hardpoints, such as Shield Generators or Hangars. A gang of them are required to do this quickly, however, and that in turn takes up many points from your 25-point space combat limit.
• They are good against anything smaller than a Frigate only at close range, and only because the slow missiles are rapidly fired in a volley and have a limited tracking ability -- don't count on them to help you clear fighters or even Tartans.

Marauder-Class Corvette

In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials at Tech Level 2.
This unit works more or less like an Imperial Broadside Cruiser, except it is smaller and more maneuverable, though not by much.

EF76 Nebulon-B Escort Frigate

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials at Tech Level 2.
• Although you can get interesting Corvettes, this will be your main space fighting force in the early game because of their staying power and overall firepower. A gang of them is agile and fast enough to quickly descend on one of the slower Imperial cruisers and take it out -- or flee if they can't do it quickly enough. In contrast, an Acclamator or Victory Star Destroyer has very slow, wide, turns and needs other ships to successfully draw fire while it retreats.
• The Boost Shield Power ability only works if the shields haven't been completely depleted. If they have, you will have to wait until some of your shield regenerates.
• Although they are quite small, they still can't go through an asteroid field without damage. Listen for the captain to say "our shields won't protect us from the asteroid field" to know that your Move command will take at least one inside. You can still theoretically go through, but keep your shields up.

Assault Frigate Mark II

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials at Tech Level 3.
• Even six of these take a very long time to take down a single Imperial Star Destroyer. A good strategy is to send them forward and target the Engines, as they like to charge at your Marauders. By disabling engines, you let your Marauders keep firing missiles, which are practically necessary to take one down in a reasonable amount of time.
• Against two Imperial Star Destroyers, you will probably have to somehow separate them.
• Watch for very wide and stupid turns.
• The Boost Shield Power ability only works if the shields haven't been completely depleted. If they have, you will have to wait until some of your shield regenerates.

Mon Calamari Cruiser (MC80 Liberty type Star Cruiser)

• You get this technology after Mission 10 (Handle with Care!). You also get Admiral Ackbar's Home One, and four free Mon Calamari capital ships. By the time you build your own fleet, the Rebellion Campaign is practically over.
• Watch for very wide turns and very slow movement. You really need to make an early decision as to whether you want to pull one back or not.
• The Boost Shield Power ability only works if the shields haven't been completely depleted. If they have, you will have to wait until some of your shield regenerates.

RZ-1 A-Wing Interceptor

You get this technology after Mission 10 (Handle with Care!). By the time you build one, the Rebellion Campaign is practically over, so I did not try it during the campaign.

Star Wars: Empire At War - Rebel Ground Units

Star Wars: Empire at War - Rebellion Ground Units
This is a hint / guide for Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

The basic concept of any military unit, whether in Empire at War or in real life, is to project firepower. Each type of unit enables some other more vulnerable unit to project more firepower further. For example, infantry protect armor from being swarmed, so that armor can advance and protect artillery so they can deploy, so that buildings and infrastructure can be maintained to build star bases and ships.

Even so, I like to run ground battles with no unit losses (unless they are "free" units that are from, for example, captured facilities), so you won't see tips like "use your Speeder to find turrets and call down a bombing run" as you are likely to lose that Speeder.
That said, you can sometimes lose just part of a unit and still have a whole unit after the battle. Other times, the post-battle summary will not show that you have lost any units, but if you lost most of them (e.g., two out of three SPMA-Ts), you will find that the unit is actually destroyed. Bacta Healing Stations and Vehicle Repair Stations will not resurrect any wholly destroyed individuals of a squad.

An interesting advantage the Rebellion has is Raid Fleets. You cannot bring a Y-Wing with you, so you won't have Bombing Runs. But you can bypass an enemy fleet in orbit, and you destroy the space station if you capture the planet.
If you already control orbital space, you can still raid the planet if you start from another planet; and then draw on Bombing Runs or reinforcements with whatever you have in orbit. The advantage of this is you can land three units immediately instead of just one and having to call down reinforcements.

Rebel Soldier
Your basic infantry, and in general, they all work the same way:

• You need them to capture contest Reinforcement Points and Building Pads, and to capture and hold Abandoned buildings.
• When a unit comes under ranged weapons fire, the health bar shows the health of the current individual in the unit. When that bar is depleted, one individual dies. Weapons fire that does not have an area effect will kill one individual at a time. This is one of the reasons that infantry make such good cannon fodder: They actually take a tedious amount of time to kill without artillery.
• There are fewer individuals in a Rebellion infantry unit, but they are slightly more hardy. It makes no difference when they are being trampled or run over, however.
• Infantry are vulnerable to being walked over or run over (which hover-vehicles cannot do) and any individuals caught by this generally instantly die. Even units that walk into vehicles that could crush them will be considered crushed. From the very early game, the Imperials have tracked vehicles and walkers, and Rebellion infantry are vulnerable throughout the game.
• They cannot run and shoot at the same time. If they are charged, they may break and run to avoid being trampled. Generally they have more maneuverability than vehicles (which have to take time to turn) but can be rendered temporarily harmless this way if you to stop them from firing for a while (e.g., to retreat another injured unit).
• Because they must basically be killed by attrition, and can toggle their Take Cover ability to further improve their survivability, they are good for tying up enemy units if you are willing to accept losses due to attrition. Rebel soldiers are slightly more durable for this, as individuals have more health than individual stormtroopers (but squads have less individuals, and therefore put out less firepower).
• All infantry controlled by the AI tend to race for the round dugouts ringed by sandbags. While in their radius, units heal continuously. This is a great way to have them sit still to be walked over by your AT-ST.

PLEX Missile Trooper (uses the PLX-1 Portable Missile Launcher)

• The AI tends to split up a squad into the two groups of three, but I find they are best used in very large gangs where their concentrated and fairly rapid fire can quickly destroy lightly armored vehicles shortly after they are sighted and definitely before they can use their special abilities. Try to put them in a large enough swarm that you can drop a vehicle with a single volley. These larger groups do need to be protected against Scout Trooper thermal grenade drops (listen for grenade countdown beeps) and being crushed by TIE Maulers and AT-ST Walkers.
• The Missiles can be fired through the shield provided by an enemy's active Shield Generator. This means you do not have to enter a base to provide supporting fire.
• The Missiles have a small area effect, which makes them somewhat useful against Infantry -- but only at very close range because they are ridiculously inaccurate against infantry, sometimes flying very wide and very far.
• The Missiles travel quite quickly and have a guidance system that lets them make tight turns -- They are therefore very good at quickly bringing down a Scout Trooper making a suicide run to drop a thermal detonator.
• The Missiles fly NOE (nap-of-the-earth), and can go over hills, but the distance up and down counts toward the maximum range.
• Although like all Infantry they are weak against Anti-Infantry Turrets, each individual in the squad is surprisingly hardy against Anti-Vehicle Turrets, and a gang of PLEX Missile Troopers can quickly take down an Anti-Vehicle Turret. They can do the same to an Anti-Infantry Turret, but you are liable to lose several units because those Turrets will choose Infantry over Vehicles even if a Vehicle is closer.

T2-B Repulsor Tank

• These are "repulsors" because of the repulsorlift mechanism that lets them hover. They can go over water, which gives the Rebellion a mild early terrain advantage.
• Their shields regenerate quickly enough that you are practically invincible against single squads of basic infantry. You can therefore safely send a few against the various native dwellings and set them to first target the dwelling while ignoring fire from the natives. Eventually they will destroy the dwelling and then the natives (which respawn while the dwelling remains).
• Although somewhat fragile, they are still valuable throughout the Republic campaign as fast spotters and to help hold ground. If the enemy can be taken down with heavier firepower, they make great mobile shields by sitting in front to soak damage (for MPTLs, for example). Because their shields regenerate, they don't have to be run back to a Vehicle Repair Station very often. Also, their shields are very strong against Scout Trooper thermal grenades.
• They go down very quickly from a Barrage from an AT-ST Walker or a Saber Tank with boosted firepower; a blast from a self-destructing TIE Mauler will take down a shield instantly, and two TIE Maulers can clear whole squads of T2-B Repulsors that are too close together.
• A half squad of three individual PLEX Troopers (e.g., Pirate Missile Troops) can kill one T2-B in a single volley because the shields offer no protection. This makes them very fragile against pirates and in the early Rebellion campaign, land combat against pirates can result in a lot of losses. To increase survivability, take Tatooine as soon as possible for the galactic Combat Armor Level 1 upgrade. You will then only lose about half as much health.

MPTL-2a (Mobile Proton Torpedo Launcher)

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials by stealing the Heavy Factory technology.
• Probably the most overpowered unit, and the one you need to get first. Although the AI sends the Spotter Droids as advance scouts, they come with a radar Ping power, similar to the TIE Scout Sonar Ping in space. This means when you land on a planet, you generally only have to hold ground, wait for bombing runs, then ping to reveal the target location and thereby target a bombing run. Pirate-controlled planets do not have Shield technology, and rarely build Anti-Aircraft Turrets, and are therefore very easily taken out.
• Against the AI, these are very useful because AI units do not change their behavior when barraged: Static units will just continue to stand there. Use C-3PO or Rebel Infiltrators to keep long-range targets in view as the Spotter Droid Ping power lasts only a couple of seconds -- generally good for just one volley from the MPTL-2a.
• Because of the minimum range, you will probably want to have these hang back very far for safety. Enemy artillery can be somewhat neutralized by charging them because they un-deploy and flee until they are out of minimum range.
• There is some guidance to the torpedoes, and they will veer slightly to track a moving target. The best way to get out of their way is to run toward the MPTL-2a as the torpedoes don't double back.
• PLEX Troopers also use proton torpedoes, and their torpedoes ignore shields (personal shields on vehicles as well as area shields from a Shield Generator). MPTL-2a torpedoes are affected by shields. But when they strike a shield, they explode, and the blast from that explosion will affect targets not far behind the area shield from a Shield Generator. Although the visible blast is small, there is actually a wider splash that can easily take out a unit of infantry that isn't squarely hit by the torpedo.

T4-B Heavy Tank

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials by stealing the Heavy Factory technology and this tank technology later at Tech Level 3.
• The main problem with this unit is that the turret needs to turn in order to fire anything, and the turret turns very slowly. When you park it, make sure it is turned the correct way, or it will take about 1-2 seconds to turn its turret and track the target. It is essentially only good at hitting only targets that aren't moving sideways (so you don't need to turn the turret).
• It also has no shields, so while it can soak hits, it needs to be frequently pulled back to a Vehicle Repair Station. T2-B Repulsor Tanks have shields and, properly managed, can have longer field use before having to go back to a Vehicle Repair Station.

Rebel Infiltrator

• In the Rebellion campaign, you must steal this technology from the Imperials at Tech Level 3.
• These appear in the late game, and are specialized units. They have very line of sight and and range with their sniping rifles -- long enough to take out Turrets safely, so you can either use them as spotters for Mobile Proton Torpedo Launchers or more mobile and less vulnerable anti-turret units.
• The rate of fire with the sniping rifles is slow, but each shot can take out one unit of infantry or one Speeder Bike. If reflected back (e.g., by Darth Vader), a Rebel Infiltrator is instantly killed.
• Their thermal detonators ignore shields. Two thermal detonators is approximately equal to one Bombing Run and should be able to take out a native housing structure or Light Factory. Be careful of the slight delay after the detonators are thrown, during which the Rebel Infiltrator cannot move.
• They can outrun a lot of units -- they can definitely outrun infantry -- so you can literally do hit and run until you win. This is important if you have to take out an AT-AT, as you can run to the side or behind it (it has to turn to get target inside its arc of fire, cannot move backwards, and has a minimum range to its weapons fire), and get in close safely to plant thermal detonators. Two thermal detonators will likely blow off half an AT-AT's health, making it flee -- whereupon if you can you should move in all the vehicles to finish it off.
• TIE Maulers are slightly faster, but if you keep running, they will catch up just enough that IF both of you were stopped, your Rebel Infiltrators would be in the blast radius of their self-destruct. They will then typically choose to activate their self-destruct. Keep running.
• Against more agile vehicles, their Thermal Detonators are tricky to use as you are taking too many hits just to get close. A Saber Tank using its special ability to increase fire power can kill a Rebel Infiltrator with one shot, so they are best left for artillery. An AT-ST Walker typically stands still when using its Barrage ability even if targets have left the area, so you can possibly sidestep the Barrage area to plant thermal detonators and then run for it.

T-47 Airspeeder

• Although meant as a counter against AT-ATs, the T-47 Airspeeder makes an excellent scout as it is virtually indestructible unless they encounter Anti-Air defenses. Don't count on it being helpful offensively, however, as it circles around far too much to lay down any useful fire.

Field Commander
On the ground, Field Commanders are like infantry and can capture Reinforcement Points, Building Pads, and abandoned buildings. They just need to be present on the ground in order to impart bonuses (wider visual range, 25% more health).
You will probably want to park them somewhere safe and toggle the Take Cover ability that all infantry have. However, their Elite Guard has a strong attack that can drop enemy infantry individuals as quickly as Rebel Infiltrators.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Imperial Space Units

Star Wars: Empire at War - Imperial Space Units
This is a hint / guide for Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

I like to run space battles with no unit losses (unless they are "free" units that are from, for example, space station garrisons), so you won't see tips like "keep calling for reinforcements".
I also like to arrange fleets myself so I don't get the luck of the draw that can happen when you have a fleet that exceeds the 20 unit maximum and leave it up to the computer to determine your initial fleet on the battlefield. Unlike ground assaults (where you start with one unit and can choose the rest at the initial reinforcement point), you do not have control over what you start with in a space battle (although you do tend to get a mix of the types of units in the invasion fleet).
Arranging fleets yourself may mean that you are bringing no reinforcements with you, however.

In the Empire Campaign, as planets become available, some are immediately under Rebel control, and given enough time (or sometimes right away), they will send raid fleets or beseige a system. Typically, you can head both of these off by quickly invading and controlling space. You just need to blockade a planet to prevent them from building ships or preparing raid fleets. Pirate systems never proactively attack, so are not an issue. Once the space above all Rebel planets is controlled, you can take your time with the other planets.
Raid fleets are annoying because they could theoretically attack any planet, they ignore your orbiting fleet, and you lose your space station if you lose the planet.
Because of this, instead of trying to garrison every planet with a fleet and ground forces, you can just have a few fleets ready to attack, one strong army of ground units to take planets, and garrisons only on planets near those that are not yet revealed (since they might turn out to be Rebel-controlled and ready with raid fleets).
If you are worried about unexpected attacks taking key planets (like a planet with multiple factories that can take long time to rebuild; or one of the four shipyards that can make capital ships), maintain a garrison at just those planets.

Tartan-Class Patrol Cruiser
I hardly ever use Tartans because they lack the staying power of the Acclamators which are available at the same time, and also do not have the firepower to really take down anything useful. In theory, their greater maneuverability suggests it might be possible to make blitzes using large groups of them, but even a group of 10 (which total 20 units, the maximum you can field at one time) can't quickly destroy a Nebulon-B frigate and at least one might be shot down in the meantime. In a firefight, you will likely end up having to micromanage a retreat.
You could use them defensively against fighter swarms, but in such a case, going for an Acclamator instead gives you additional firepower and TIE garrisons.

Acclamator I-Class Assault Ship
Your basic invasion fleet ship until Victory Star Destroyers and Broadside Cruisers. Around the time this is available, your invasion fleets can be 19 points: One Fleet Commander plus six Acclamators. Later on, swap the Acclamators for Victory Star Destroyers as they are both weighted at 3 population units.

Keep the TIEs close by as you don't have many of them. If, at the end of a battle, all that are left of the enemy are starfighter wings and you don't have any starfighters of your own, it will take a very long time before the Acclamators gun them down.
Bombers are basically useless to send into battle because they tend to beeline for the target, during which time enemy ships can apparently very easily project their movement and cut them down. Sending them on long trips like this is also suicidal against anything that uses missiles, because when missiles explode, they take whole wings of fighters with them.

Acclamators are also the first of the cruisers that give you Bombing Runs, which are important not only because they can destroy almost any building in one run if directly targeted, but they are carpet bombing runs that can clear units or other buildings along their path. Also, after the first bombing run, you can usually see the other buildings on the planet shaded in on the map. By their outlines, you can often sort-of guess what type of building it is.

Victory-Class Star Destroyer
These take the place of Acclamators as the basic invasion fleet and work more or less in the same way. In the late game, the Rebellion tends to have a lot of corvettes hunting for your Broadsides, so in the early invasion they are actually escorts for your Broadsides until those are exhausted and the Broadsides can commence bombardment of the space station. Charge Marauder missile corvettes, as there tend to be quite a lot of them and they fire outside of your weapons range.

Broadside-Class Cruiser KDB-1
To understand why the Broadside Cruiser is so powerful, you need to watch what happens with its missiles. When you target a location to Barrage or a particular ship, it will fire missiles. These missiles can hit anything that gets in their way and damage them with an explosion. Those missiles that reach the location targeted (even if a ship was targeted and has now moved away) will explode. Explosions have an area of effect and can destroy clouds of fighters.
Individually, the missiles are dangerous but a ship with strong shields can hold them off. It is when an area is barraged or a target takes a lot of hits that you will see shields torn down very quickly.

When these become available, you can arrange your fleets with one Fleet Commander, plus four Victory Star Destroyers and three Broadsides (19 points), or five Victorys and two Broadsides (20 points). Add a TIE Scout as soon as they are available.

There is an incredible amount of area firepower here, and it can operate outside of regular visual range. However, the Rebellion (especially during Space Station sieges, where they have endless corvettes) will send Corellian Corvettes on suicide runs against your Broadsides, and will position their own missile-firing ships to attack your own (somehow detecting you beyond the usual visual range).

You can use a TIE Scout's Ping ability to momentarily reveal space and in that second or so designate a target for the Broadside's Barrage ability. Typically, however, this puts you dangerously close to a station and you have to be quick to pull them back if they are charged by even a Corellian Corvette.

Space station sieges become totally different affairs once Broadside Cruisers are available: Instead of trying to survive the station's onslaught and carefully retreating large cruisers, now you can destroy support ships and reinforcements and then bombard the station from afar -- The station's level and firepower is therefore meaningless.
What makes it tricky in the late game is trying to keep your Broadside Cruisers alive and having reduced covering fire because Ion Cannons keep disabling your Star Destroyers (fortunately, Broadside Cruisers are not targeted). If you push forward, you will likely lose Star Destroyers when the larger frigates, cruisers, and capital ships of the Rebellion charge to defend the station. If you hang back, you will be whittled away by attrition.

In the late game, send in Darth Vader to keep the Rebellion busy. First, survive the initial wave of corvettes and Marauders. Send Darth Vader to take out Marauder Corvettes and DP20 Gunships. Then try to keep him close to the station, taking out corvettes. While Darth Vader is near the station, that area is of course revealed, and therefore you can use your Broadside Cruisers on it.
Hit the Space Station first and take out the Shield Generator and the Hangar. But DO NOT destroy the station -- While the station remains, the Rebellion will keep their larger ships in a Defense mode, limiting how far they move away. Once the station is destroyed, they will come after you, and if there are too many, you will probably lose ships. On Hard Difficulty, the Rebellion will use their ship's power to boost shields, which often gives them enough staying power to destroy or seriously damage a large ship before they are shot down trying to escape.
From afar, hit the frigates and cruisers. Sometimes one will be drawn out and they will charge the Broadside Cruisers. Pull the Broadside back immediately behind your Star Destroyers to let the Star Destroyers draw fire.
When there are only one or two of the larger ships left, you are safe to destroy the Space Station if you like.

TIE Scout (TIE/sr Starfighter)

• Every fleet should have one of these as soon as they are available. The first squadron does not count toward the 20 unit total.
• When using the Sensor Ping, you can only click on empty space. When the crosshair is yellow with a big "X" over it, it means you are hovering your mouse over some sort of unit -- either fighters, a larger ship, or a star base.
• Because it can safely use the Sensor Ping from anywhere on the battle map to see any other location, you can accurately determine what the enemy has fielded, and retreat from battle if necessary before any combat has taken place.

Interdictor Cruiser (Immobilizer 418 Cruiser)

In the Imperial Campaign, these are generally useful only for the specific missions in which you are basically told you need one. Their Missile Jamming ability was of dubious use in my experience. Like the Gravity Well generator, the Interdictor cannot move while using it. Also, even with reduced accuracy, missiles explode and the blast radius is good enough: It can still take out flights of fighters or hurt small ships nearby, and larger ships can't evade barrages anyway unless they start moving while the missile volley is far away.

Imperial Star Destroyer (Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer)

They can only be built at Fondor, Kuat, Mon Calamari, or Sullust, so take Emperor Palpatine on tour and queue 5 at a time.
Basically bigger Victory Star Destroyers. At 4 points each, you will have to reconfigure your fleets. Having at least two Broadsides is still a fairly good deal as they allow you to stand off and make the enemy come to you, so a configuration might be 1 Fleet Commander, 2 Broadsides, 1 Victory Star Destroyer, and 3 Imperial Star Destroyers, plus 1 TIE Scout (the first of which does not count toward the 20 points in a space battle unless you bring it in as a Reinforcement).
You could also instead have 3 Broadside Cruisers and 3 Imperial Star Destroyers.

The Tractor Beam is useful when you have supporting units, as it basically prevents a small ship from fleeing. This means you can hold a ship still while Broadsides or other ships bombard it with greater accuracy since it's not moving and can't dodge fire.
The Tractor Beam also slowly pulls the ship closer, which can mean bringing it closer to your fleet, but it will also mean that eventually it is pulled above your ship, and the weapons on the Star Destroyer's bow can't fire on it.
In our games, we found that using the tractor beam on any Corellian Corvette caused some sort of game error, possibly resulting in an infinite calculation loop because the game started to slow down to a stutter, and savegames were corrupted.

Fleet Commander

A single Fleet Commander is recommended for any fleet for the increased visual range and increased vehicle health. You can have any number in a fleet and only the first one counts toward the unit cap of 20, but they will all sit in the same ship. The Fleet Commander sits in the biggest ship you have (including the Death Star, although that is a piece of the background and cannot be interacted with).

Death Star

In the Imperial Campaign, the Death Star exists on the map as part of the background and cannot be interacted with. It counts as 15 points toward the 20 point engagement limit, but comes with a garrison of 2 Tartans and 2 Victory Star Destroyers.
Whenever you enter space combat with the Death Star, you have 80 seconds before you can fire it and destroy the planet. Doing so does not destroy the enemy fleet, and once you have destroyed the planet, you cannot Retreat from battle.

In the Rebellion Campaign, after Mission 11 the Death Star destroys Alderaan, and then will usually head to either Coruscant (if you have taken it) or possibly Kuat. Unless it goes to Yavin IV (where the critical Death Star-defeating heroes are located), you will have to somehow defeat the Death Star's garrison (and escort, if any) within 80 seconds to save a planet. This is practically impossible because even if you destroy all cruisers and frigates, it could take you longer than that to destroy the TIE fighters buzzing around.

Star Wars: Empire At War - Imperial Ground Units

Star Wars: Empire at War - Imperial Ground Units
This is a hint / guide for Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

The basic concept of any military unit, whether in Empire at War or in real life, is to project firepower. Each type of unit enables some other more vulnerable unit to project more firepower further. For example, infantry protect armor from being swarmed, so that armor can advance and protect artillery so they can deploy, so that buildings and infrastructure can be maintained to build star bases and ships.

Even so, I like to run ground battles with no unit losses (unless they are "free" units that are from, for example, captured facilities), so you won't see tips like "use your Speeder to find turrets and call down a bombing run" as you are likely to lose that Speeder.
That said, you can sometimes lose just part of a unit and still have a whole unit after the battle. Other times, the post-battle summary will not show that you have lost any units, but if you lost most of them (e.g., two out of three SPMA-Ts), you will find that the unit is actually destroyed. Bacta Healing Stations and Vehicle Repair Stations will not resurrect any wholly destroyed individuals of a squad.

For land invasions, bring a wide variety of units and put them in orbit. Send down the unit you want on the ground first (usually Darth Vader for the Imperial Campaign). You can still access (through Reinforcement points) all the units in space, so having a wide variety of units gives you flexibility during the mission.

Stormtrooper Platoon
Your basic infantry, and in general, they all work the same way:

• You need them to capture contest Reinforcement Points and Building Pads, and to capture and hold Abandoned buildings.
• When a unit comes under ranged weapons fire, the health bar shows the health of the current individual in the unit. When that bar is depleted, one individual dies. Weapons fire that does not have an area effect will kill one individual at a time. This is one of the reasons that infantry make such good cannon fodder: They actually take a tedious amount of time to kill.
• Infantry are vulnerable to being walked over or run over and any individuals caught by this generally instantly die. Even units that walk into tracked vehicles (but not Walkers) that could crush them will be considered crushed. However, the Rebellion has mostly repulsor lift vehicles and cannot use this tactic. Late in the game, they will have tracked vehicles, but these are very slow-moving. (That said, infantry have done idiot things like walk INTO a T4-B Heavy Tank, thereby killing themselves).
• They cannot run and shoot at the same time. If they are charged, they may break and run to avoid being trampled. Generally they have more maneuverability than vehicles (which have to take time to turn) but can be rendered temporarily harmless this way if you to stop them from firing for a while (e.g., to retreat another injured unit).
• Because they must basically be killed by attrition, and can toggle their Take Cover ability to further improve their survivability, they are good for tying up enemy units if you are willing to accept losses due to attrition (e.g., If you are getting free Stormtroopers from AT-ATs anyway). If so, you can then either call down bombing runs or then call in your armor and artillery.
• All infantry controlled by the AI tend to race for the round dugouts ringed by sandbags. While in their radius, units heal continuously. This is a great way to have them sit still to be walked over by your AT-ST.

Scout Trooper (on 74-Z Speeder Bike)

• Another micromanagement-required unit to use except as a sacrifice piece to target a bombing run. They do move very very quickly, can go over water, and can potentially scout and flee before getting killed. However, a few lucky hits will kill them, Anti-Vehicle Turrets can always hit them no matter how fast they are going, and you only get two per squad (although the rider will dismount when their speeder is destroyed).
• They can drop thermal detonators, but the time delay makes these somewhat tricky to use against even slow moving infantry. It does, however, generally force them to move. The blast radius looks small, but can flatten a lot of infantry (especially human natives). Dismounted Scout Troopers cannot drop thermal detonators.
• Although produced from Barracks, Scout Troopers do not count as Infantry -- They cannot capture Abandoned Buildings, Reinforcement Points, or Building Pads.

TIE Mauler (TIE ap-1)
I personally don't like to use them because of the micromanagement required.

• They are less armored than the AT-STs and therefore may require more retreating of individual vehicles, which in turn can cause a lot of battlefield traffic jams.
• They do not fire when moving. Heavier mechanized units are typically able to do this.
• They move quite quickly and therefore are good for charging infantry to stop them from firing (because they are fleeing) and running them over. But they are still hard to turn so you may want to plot a path that takes them farther out and turn them in relative safety before coming back for another pass. This is obviously not always possible as you may well be moving them ahead into more enemy units.
• Their special ability causes an individual to explode. This is theoretically useful if you are probably going to lose the unit anyway, but in practice it is hard to time well because the countdown takes a long time, and in the meantime, if they are destroyed by gunfire or other damage, the self-destruct will not take effect.
• The AI has an annoying habit of using the self-destruct ability very frequently. The burst is quite powerful -- it can bring down a T2-B Repulsor Tank's shield immediately.

AT-ST Walker (All Terrain Scout Transport)

• Even into the late game, AT-ST Walkers will do most of your fighting (unless you solo with Vader for land conquests, which is very doable), but they are remarkably fragile against even Anti-Infantry Turrets. You might be fast enough to pull one back, but in general the slow turning process means you will probably lose it as soon as an Anti-Infantry or Anti-Vehicle Turret turns its attention on it.
• They can take a few hits from PLEX Troopers, but you will likely want to pull the targeted unit back immediately so that the troopers eventually pick another Walker. This way, you distribute damage and all your Walkers survive.
• They move slowly enough that infantry can sometimes run away from being squashed unless you commit to a long, uninterrupted run and the infantry you are after don't take too many turns. So you need to be cautious about chasing infantry lest you move them into trouble and can't maneuver them away. Even so, infantry tend to flee from a charge and can't fire on the run, so this is a possible counter to a PLEX Trooper ambush.
• Their Barrage Area ability is great against infantry because it can hit many units at once. Typically, infantry go down one individual at a time when they come under fire.
• Their Barrage Area ability is also strong against vehicles, which are large and take lots of hits. A single AT-ST can do a lot of damage against a whole squad of T2-B tanks, even when they start out with shields up.
• AT-STs can actually be better than TIE Maulers for stomping infantry because one or two groups can present a wide front that's hard to avoid.
• If you use basic right-click to attack, the front units will stop as soon as they are in range -- this means second rank units will be forced to walk around them, which in turn means they have to half-turn first. It can therefore take a long time for the rear rank to be in position to Barrage (they cannot move while using this ability).
• They are also prone to traffic jams, especially when you are turning one individual around. This happens even in small groups because of the game's pathfinding.
• Despite their drawbacks, they are your most heavily armored unit in the early game and therefore have the staying power to make up the bulk of your land forces if you aim to have your land invasion force pull through with no losses. Even in the later game when Repulsor Tanks are available, the are still a comparable unit and can be deployed in the rare instances when environmental conditions prohibit the use of hover vehicles.

2-M Saber-class Repulsor Tank

Repulsor Tanks are anti-armor pieces with more overall durability on the field if properly managed. They are "repulsor" because of the repulsorlift mechanism that lets them float.

• Even in the late game when Repulsor Tanks are avalable, AT-ST Walkers are comparable and superior for taking down infantry and lightly armored targets because of their ability to squash infantry and their Barrage ability.
• What Repulsor Tanks do have over AT-ST Walkers is superior movement and regenerating shields. The shields mean that if you can swap in and out two units, you can let each team regenerate their shields before re-entering. With AT-STs, you have to head all the way back to a Vehicle Repair Station.
• Their Boost Weapon Power ability can increase firepower, but it reduces their shield regeneration, and therefore is best used early when shields are at maximum. Shield regeneration is pretty slow anyway, so it's not like you're missing out.
• The shields are ignored by the rockets from PLEX Troopers -- so against PLEX Troopers, AT-ST Walkers still have a lot more durability.
• Charging infantry with a Repulsor Tank does not necessarily cause them to break as they would when charged by walkers or tracked vehicles -- probably because you can't squash infantry with a hover tank.
• Charging artillery that needs to deploy tends to make them undeploy and flee. Because Repulsors, like AT-ST Walkers, can move and shoot at the same time, you can sometimes neutralize artillery in this way.
• Repulsor Tanks cannot go over cliffs or mountains, but they can go offshore onto water. On maps with a lot of water, like Bestine, you can regroup offshore until the shields regenerate, or scout for enemy fortifications from unexpected directions and call for bombing runs.

SPMA-T (Self-Propelled Medium Artillery)

• Against the AI, these are very useful because AI units typically do not change their behavior when barraged: Static units will just continue to stand there. You can further take advantage of this if you can see the entire land map (which is revealed to you when you destroy all enemy structures and any units that exited the structure).
• Because of the minimum range, you will probably want to have these hang back very far for safety. Enemy artillery can be somewhat neutralized by charging them because they un-deploy and flee until they are out of minimum range.
• Later on, when you get AT-ATs, you can use the free Stormtroopers to scout targets for you and engage them so they stay put to be bombarded. More likely, however, you will be using the AT-AT to soak enemy artillery fire.
• Because of how awkwardly they move and turn, SPMA-Ts are best used deployed. Move them to cover forward units and deploy them, then leave them alone to automatically fire. If you use right-click to target for them, they might undeploy just to move a few steps ahead to be in range (or worse, start turning in order to move those few steps). Once Deployed, they can fire in any direction without having to turn.
• There is typically a half-second or more delay between firing and the shots landing. Typically this means a forward-moving squad of infantry will probably only be half-hit by a barrage from a single SPMA-T.

AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport)

During the Imperial Campaign, you get to play with one of these in Mission 7 (A New Weapon of War) and you can quickly discover the many weaknesses and drawbacks:

• There seems to be some sort of bug or delay when you choose a target for it. You can try to pause the game and right-click at the target you want repeatedly in order to get the AT-AT to fire at the correct one.
• They turn very, very, slowly. Try not to have to double back for anything and be careful of charging infantry since you are committing yourself to a new position for quite some time. They also have an irritating tendency to start turning even when there isn't any need to.
• They need a lot of room even to move forward. Other units often give way to them, but they are just as likely to sit still until those units move out of the way.
• When a target is inside minimum range, it will not automatically adjust its position. Therefore, if infantry or a vehicle gets into that range, the AT-AT is helpless. Deploy stormtroopers ahead of the AT-AT to engage the enemy instead of simply using the Defend command. Have SPMA-Ts behind the AT-AT to help clear units clustered too close to the AT-AT.
• When deploying Stormtroopers, the AT-AT cannot move or fire. Afterwards, watch for it to start turning on its own.
• An AT-AT has an expanded visual radius (which can be further expanded by having a Field Commander). This is far enough to see turrets before they fire, and an AT-AT can safely take them out from a distance.

Around the time you get the AT-AT, you will probably be contending with a lot of Rebellion MPTL-2a Mobile Proton Torpedo Launchers. Take point with the AT-AT's free Stormtroopers and the AT-AT itself. Draw fire and return fire. Don't try to reposition your SPMA-Ts to counterfire as it will probably be too late and your AT-AT will take too much damage. Instead, clear them quickly with the AT-AT (it will probably take three volleys) and let the SPMA-Ts clear any other units that move too close to the AT-AT. If you group your SPMA-Ts in threes or more, they can kill the sturdy T4-B Heavy Tanks more efficiently than the AT-AT.

AT-AA Walker (All Terrain Anti-Aircraft)

In the late game, the Rebellion will almost always build both Airspeeders (great for scouting too) and Mobile Proton Torpedo Launchers, both of which can be AT-AT killers. You need the AT-AA Walker to protect your AT-ATs as they can't always be near a Building Pad with an Anti-Aircraft Turret.

The flak cannons on the AT-AA are highly inaccurate and quite weak, but have various advantages: They fire quite frequently, they have a wide burst area effect (so they can hit whole squads of infantry), infantry seem to run from it, they out-range turrets, and very slightly out-range Turbolasers. Against buildings and turrets, their accuracy goes up a lot. In the absence of anything else, you could use a group of AT-AAs to provide close-range cover fire for AT-ATs they are following anyway.

Their Missile Jamming field is 100% effective in deflecting rockets away, making them go around its radius. However, the effective radius is tight and quite hard to use. I find that trying to position them to cover an AT-AT is more liable to cause me to lose the unit to other types of fire or to artillery while trying to move the AT-AA out of the way during the field's cool-down period. Using it also causes the AT-AA to stop moving, and you cannot prematurely turn it off. It is probably best used to protect itself while escorting an AT-AT taking point against artillery.

Field Commander
On the ground, Field Commanders are like infantry and can capture Reinforcement Points, Building Pads, and abandoned buildings. They just need to be present on the ground in order to impart bonuses (wider visual range, 25% more health).
You will probably want to park them somewhere safe and toggle the Take Cover ability that all infantry have. However, their Elite Guard has a strong attack that can drop enemy infantry individuals as quickly as Rebel Infiltrators.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Han Solo, Chewbacca, Millennium Falcon

Star Wars: Empire at War - Han Solo
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land

Their Sprint works only when they are already moving.

Their weapons (Han Solo's modified DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol; Chewbacca's Bowcaster) can kill one individual of infantry per shot, but the range is less than that of regular infantry.

When Chewbacca takes over a vehicle, it is immediately restored to full health and full shields. When he exits, it is immediately destroyed. He can use the Self-Destruct ability of TIE Maulers and still exit safely.
As mentioned on the Carida map, Chewbacca can sneak about in a vehicle until he attacks.

Star Wars: Empire at War - C3PO and R2D2

Star Wars: Empire at War - C-3PO and R2-D2
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land

• They count as 0 points toward your Unit Capacity. You might as well take them because they are hardy enough to soak a few hits, and their sight range is longer than your other units -- They can spot an Anti-Infantry Turret before it fires; they can see an Anti-Vehicle Turret at the same range as it is allowed to fire.
• Their Repair ability can affect Turrets on Build Pads, but not other types of buildings on Build Pads (e.g., Vehicle Repair Stations or Bacta Healing Stations).
• Their Repair ability takes a fixed amount of time, but also restores any Vehicle or Turret to full health no matter how much damage they had sustained. Shields are not regenerated.
• They are healed by Vehicle Repair Stations instead of Bacta Healing Stations, and do not benefit from infantry dugouts.
• They have no ability to attack anything other than by taking over enemy Turrets. You can shield them briefly from enemy turrets by moving another unit up first, but they still won't last long against a Turret, especially an Anti-Infantry Turret. It is probably best to send them in while a Build Pad is still constructing a Turret. However, if you do try to take an active Turret, move them right up to the base of the Turret first, thereby putting them behind the Turret's minimum range so they can't be shot at while they hack it.

In Space

• They are stealth units and you can bring them into orbit to spy on the enemy the same way you can bring a Smuggler or Bounty Hunter into orbit.
• Even if you bring them with your space invasion force, they do not appear in the space battle map.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Mon Mothma

Star Wars: Empire at War - Mon Mothma
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land

It is not possible to bring Mon Mothma into a land battle to attack a planet.

In Space
You start with her in the Rebellion Campaign, so take her on tour immediately and queue as much as you can each time to get the 25% cost discount.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Raymus Antilles / Sundered Heart

Star Wars: Empire at War - Raymus Antilles / Sundered Heart
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land

It is not possible to bring Raymus Antilles into a land battle to attack a planet.

In Space
Raymus Antilles pilots a slightly larger CR-90 Corvette, the Sundered Heart, which according to Star Wars lore has various upgrades and add-ons, including an Energy Flux Device on which the Weaken Enemy power is based. Because Corvettes are fragile to begin with, this is probably best used in synergy with the ability of the larger Rebellion ships to boost their shields temporarily.
Sundered Heart is listed as being 2 Population Points, but sometimes does not count toward the 25-point total you can bring into space combat.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Emperor Palpatine

Star Wars: Empire at War - Emperor Palpatine
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Emperor Palpatine's build-cost discount is on top of any discount you may get from having certain planets. It does not stack with Colonel Veer's discount for AT Walkers. And because items in the build queue are pre-paid, you may as well keep him on the move, going on a survey of all the planets, especially as in the late game, a space station can cost 6000 credits and an Imperial Star Destroyer more than half that (plus you'll want to queue a lot of them).

On Land

• Like Darth Vader, the Emperor can reflect laser fire. So, when his health is high, he is basically immune to any amount of light laser fire (e.g., from infantry or natives) coming his way. He can therefore draw their fire, and when they've clumped together nicely, you can move in close to use his Force Corruption power (which has a very wide radius and a very slow recharge rate) to his side or kill them en-masse with his Force Lightning, which has remarkable range and wide triangular area of effect.
• Those close to him are affected by some sort of Dark Force effect that appears to eventually kill them. Units that are Force Corrupted will also slowly die, but more quickly--so use them quickly.
• Both infantry and land vehicles can be converted by Force Corruption, but not turrets, buildings, or T-47 Air Speeders.
• Emperor Palpatine counts as Infantry except when it comes to dugouts -- Unlike regular infantry, he does not benefit from the constant healing provided.
• Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader can attack buildings and turrets from a distance, but they cannot both do so simultaneously -- One will move in and use their light saber.
• Force Lightning only works on infantry.

In Space
In space combat, the Emperor is attached to a cruiser but grants no special powers.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Colonel Veers

Star Wars: Empire at War - Colonel Veers
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land

When you first get Colonel Veers in the Imperial Campaign, he comes with his own AT-AT, which means you can get going right away with land conquests without having to wait for an Advanced Factory to build you some AT-ATs. Carefully managed, just his one AT-AT can see you through comfortably.

His Maximum Firepower special ability only has a small area effect, and is probably better used to take down a critical building quickly (like a shield generator or power generator) or to rescue a unit in a hurry.

Although the tooltip says he is a Field Commander, he does not provide the same benefits.

In Space

You only have to park him in orbit to get the discount on All-Terrain Walkers. And because items in the build queue are pre-paid, you do not have to sit him on a planet while the Walkers (AT-ST, AT-AT, or AT-AA) are building. Emperor Palpatine does not further reduce the cost.

Star Wars: Empire At War - Darth Vader

Star Wars: Empire at War - Darth Vader
This is a hint / walkthrough for a hero in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

On Land
At a first glance, Darth Vader acts like a basic tank that's really hard to kill, but watch him carefully and you'll see that the more health he has, the more useful he is, so don't necessarily exhaust him and then run for the Bacta Healing Station (he regenerates, but very slowly, and possibly only when he successfully deflects laser fire; on Thyferra).

• Vader can deflect laser fire. He does so more frequently and successfully when his health is higher. Sometimes, the fire reflects back at the attacker (so against lightly armored vehicles, he can actually just stand from afar and reflect blaster fire back until they are destroyed), but sometimes it ricochets and randomly hits something else -- possibly your own unit.
• His Force Crush prevents a vehicle from moving or firing, so a dangerous vehicle can be pinned and rendered harmless while other units are moved up to assist.
• When Vader attacks an Anti-Infantry Turret or Anti-Vehicle Turret, if his health is near-maximum, that Turret cannot fire while he has his attention on crushing it with the Force (this is the animation -- NOT the Force Crush ability, which works only against vehicles). In such a case, you can neutralize a turret and move up other units to help him take it down quickly.
• When his health is less, the Turret can fire back, and he can also try to deflect the fire. The less health he has, the more successfully the Turret will hit him. It is tricky to support him at this time because the Turret will often change targets to hit something less vulnerable than Vader, and may well kill it even with Vader hampering it.
• Darth Vader counts as Infantry except when it comes to dugouts -- Unlike regular infantry, he does not benefit from the constant healing provided.
• Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader can attack buildings and turrets from a distance, but they cannot both do so simultaneously -- One will move in and use their light saber.

In Space
As long as you keep an eye on the number of wingmen he has, Darth Vader in his TIE Advanced x1 is essentially indestructible. He is so indestructible that you can send him in solo to destroy a Pirate Asteroid Base or Class 1 Rebellion Space Station.

Note that his wingmen are easily destroyed if he flees in a straight line and there is weapons fire right at him. Instead, you will probably have to micromanage and zig-zag your way out of weapons fire. Be careful when you have the battle on accelerated time and Darth Vader is engaging a Corellian Corvette, as they have a lot of lasers in each volley, and a lucky spread can decimate his wingmen.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Yavin 4

Star Wars: Empire at War - Yavin 4
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign

Space Battle

Nothing special.

Land Battle

A tough mission because you start with only three units, and Building Pads are far away, so you have to move quickly before your units die from attrition.
Start with Emperor Palpatine. Secure the building pads at the first Reinforcement Point and build one Vehicle Repair Station and one Anti-Infantry Turret. For initial reinforcements, get an AT-AT and an AT-AA to protect it against Speeders and provide covering long-range covering fire with flak cannons. Get Stormtroopers from the AT-AT as soon as it is safe to do so.
You can also try swapping the AT-AAs with SPMA-Ts and instead of an Anti-Infantry Turret, build an Anti-Aircraft Turret.
While the initial forces hold the reinforcement point, move Palpatine to the second Reinforcement Point to get two more units. Typically there will be a sizable force there. If you are lucky and are not under fire from artillery, you can try dashing Palpatine in and Force Corrupting most of them in one go. Otherwise, call a Bombing Run and run back to a Bacta Healing Tank.
Once you have secured two more points of Unit Capacity from that second Reinforcement Point, bring down an SPMA-T (or an AT-AA if you chose an SPMA-T to support the AT-AT) -- but bring it down at the initial Reinforcement Point, not the new one. For the last unit, choose anything you like. I typically take a Field Commander for the additional sight range and unit health.
If it is safe to do so, bring Palpatine back. You can now take either the short road to the northwest -- and generally face stiffer opposition coming straight down from the base -- or loop around to the second Reinforcement Point, which has several Building Pads, then continue your final push into the base. Just proceed cautiously and heal your units when you come to a building pad. Keep your units close but with the AT-AT always in front to soak artillery fire you can't avoid. Try to keep your Stormtroopers as you need them to cover your armor and artillery if the enemy gets too close.

There is a Rebel Training Facility marked as a star in the southwest corner. It is not a mission objective, but the tooltip will say it is useful to destroy. It is not clear what destroying it does for the campaign.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Wayland

Star Wars: Empire at War - Wayland
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Rebellion Campaign
Wayland is the site for Mission 2 (Interpreting the Network).

Space Battle
There is no space battle for Wayland. After the land mission, you can return to take Wayland without resistance.

Land Battle
You start with one free unit of Rebel Infantry. It is not added to your forces after the mission.

Even if you take over all the Reinforcement Points, the mission scripts the landing of Imperial reinforcements and they arrive even if they do not have any Reinforcements Points. If you brought a Y-Wing Bomber (which is handy against the various Anti-Infantry turrets on this map), you can probably destroy one set of reinforcements just as they land. I recommend clearing the TIE Maulers in the northwest.

I recommend bringing a lot of PLEX Troopers. When the Imperial reinforcements arrive, destroy their vehicles then retreat your PLEX Troopers to the central Build Pad in the Imperial base area, where you can heal them with a Bacta Healing Station.

After the land mission, you can return to take the planet without resistance.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Vergesso Asteroids

Star Wars: Empire at War - Vergesso Asteroids
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign
Available in Mission 5 (Subjugating Geonosis) / Tech Level 2.

Space Battle
If you charge in with your Acclamators, you will probably lose them. The problem is the asteroids right in front of you: They will cause the larger vessels in your fleet to divide and go around, and when they emerge, you will essentially be letting the pirate fleet phalanx "cross the T" -- That is, direct a lot more firepower at you and at one vessel at a time.

Instead, send Darth Vader in to annoy them and try to lure them out by firing on them (but watch his wingman count!). If they break ranks and slowly head for you, they will now encounter the same problem with having to split up and reach you one at a time. Make sure you have a bit of room behind you so that you can pull back any large ship that is heavily damaged until their shields can recharge. Once a ship is no longer in the front, the enemy will probably choose a closer target.
Be patient and let them call in as many reinforcements as they like, then take down their base.

If you still have a lot of trouble with this battle (and the pirate bases will start to be like this -- cruiser phalanxes), defer it until Tech Level 2 when you can get Broadside Cruisers.
The tactic here is to simply stay put. Scout ahead with Darth Vader, who also then keeps the pirate fighters engaged. Now that the fog of war is lifted over the pirate frigate formation, bombard the pirate fleet from afar using the Broadside's bombard ability. The explosions in the bombardment area will also destroy small ships like pirate fighters. If any cruisers survive, they come toward your ships heavily damaged and you can pick them off with Darth Vader or your cruisers.

If you wait till Tech Level 3, the phalanx makes a juicy target for a Broadside Cruiser barrage.

Rebellion Campaign
The Vergesso_Asteroids is the site of Mission 8 (Needle in a Haystack).

Space Battle
This mission is fairly straightforward if you do not panic and if you do NOT listen to Han Solo talking about taking out TIE Fighters quickly when spotted. If you hang around to do that, it generally just attracts more attention. After a short while, if you are still in the area, an Imperial Star Destroyer and several TIE Scouts magically appear and the Star Destroyer will tractor beam the Millennium Falcon.

Don't bother trying to hide in the nebulae. At the start of the mission, watch the minimap for an opening between the patrols (that go counterclockwise visiting the depots you have to check) an slip in. Proceed in a counterclockwise fashion and check each depot. If you engage or are engaged by TIEs, just leave them and head to the next depot. More than likely, they will somehow lose sight or lose interest.

You might end up missing a depot but will eventually come to one where there are TIE Scouts flying around it and not moving. Don't try to engage the Scouts. Just park the Millennium Falcon there and finish the mission. You are automatically extracted during the cutscene.

If you do this mission without wasting time, you won't have to encounter Boba Fett, whose Slave-1 has a strong attack and can easily outlast the Falcon in a dogfight.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Thyferra

Star Wars: Empire at War - Thyferra
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign
Land battle is the start of the Imperial Campaign.

Space Battle

No space battle.

Land Battle

Land Battle
This mission (and just about every other land conquest) is pretty straightforward if you let Vader take point, and you are in fact less likely to lose any units if you solo with Vader and keep his health up.

Keep the stormtroopers far back. Once Vader is engaged, move up the AT-STs to support him. Often, ranged units that have chosen targets already will stay put, so you can immediately move the AT-STs up and use their barrage ability.

When you come up to the power generator (although the model is a DSS-02 shield generator), WAIT. Naturally, the Rebels will know when their shield is down, so you should expect retaliation. Take control of the reinforcement point. Reinforcements come down automatically. Move the stormtroopers to the rear to destroy the generator. Arrange your AT-STs near the Build Pad, which should build a Vehicle Repair Station. Have the TIE Maulers behind them and to the flank, ready to run forward against infantry. Move Vader far up front to bait the enemy first, allowing you to choose targets for your AT-STs.
Only once you have everything in place should you have the stormtroopers destroy the generator.

Just before you finish, if you no longer need anything you've built, sell it for credits since you can't take it with you.

Rebellion Campaign

Space Battle
Land Battle

PLACEHOLDER
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
CONTENT COMING SOON

Star Wars: Empire at War - Tatooine

Star Wars: Empire at War - Tatooine
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign
In Mission 11 (Capturing a Princess) you need to use an Interdictor to stop Princess Leia from escaping to hyperspace, and an Imperial Star Destroyer to tractor her ship in.
In our play on Hard Difficulty, this mission was tricky because of a bug that occurs when a Corellian Corvette is caught by an Imperial Star Destroyer tractor beam.

Space Battle

There are asteroids apparently in your way between the west side where you start and the east side where the pirates are located, but you can fly through this without your large cruisers having to swing wide. There are three Interdictors here for free and they are easily saved by moving them immediately through and behind your fleet. Keep your fleet together and head east over the pirate base, but not into it as your large cruisers will take a lot of damage from flying through the asteroids there.
(Incidentally, it is theoretically possible to slowly go through an asteroid field as you will only take damage when your ship is in motion -- so, you could wait for your shields to regenerate in between moving slowly).

When you have entered the nebula, turn all your ships around except for one Interdictor, which you should move to the southeastern edge of the nebula. When Darth Vader gives you the go-ahead to move out to capture the Princess, don't move anything except that one Interdictor. Move it out of the nebula's southeastern side (far away from any Rebel ships and with the nebula between them) and turn on the Gravity Well and the Missile Jammer. The Interdictor cannot move with the Gravity Well on, so it is very vulnerable. On top of this, the Rebellion ships in this mission have a tendency to go for your Gravity Well generator.

At this point, do NOT move your ships out of the Nebula, or the Rebellion fleet will come for you. They will also call in Mon Calamari capital ships (up to two, depending on how many Rebel ships you have destroyed). Instead, survive the first wave (mostly corvettes going for your Broadsides as usual, and your Interdictors if they spot them) and continue to hide in the nebula. Distract their missile-firing Marauders with Darth Vader, who can destroy them quite quickly.
Hiding in the nebula has another advantage -- It disables special abilities. Your own special abilities are to reduce shields and increase weapons fire. Not very useful unless you can be assured that you don't need those shields. The special ability of the Rebellion's larger vessels is to increase shields, and that can give them enough staying power to reach and destroy your Broadsides. If they enter the nebula, you won't have to deal with that and your massed forces in the nebula should be able to destroy them in short order.

Your objective now is to wait for their heavy reinforcements and repel them. When the first Mon Calamari capital ship comes, you may want to have either your Imperial Star Destroyer out front (provided to you because you need a Tractor Beam) or near the front and move back whatever ships have been barraged by the Mon Calamari and move your Imperial Star Destroyer up next, thus soaking the fire with the shields from two ships.
Once the Mon Calamari ship has lost its shields (hopefully quickly, because of your Broadside Cruisers), it will turn around and flee to the west. Stay in the nebula.
When Darth Vader has destroyed enough Marauders, or after another Nebulon-B or Assault Frigate has made a run toward the nebula, a second Mon Calamari will probably come. Cripple it in the same way. When your shields are back up to strength, venture out carefully to finish them off.

Interestingly, the remaining smaller vessels (even Assault Frigates) kept to the northern edge of the space battle field, possibly because they couldn't find the lone Interdictor with its Gravity Well on.

Once the Mon Calamari capital ships are clear, we can get back to the mission. Since the Gravity Well is still active, Princess Leia in the Tantive IV cannot jump to hyperspace. According to the mission objectives, you need to pick her up. Do NOT do so without first making sure you have a good save of your game.
When we played it on Hard, tractoring in the Tantive IV caused the game to stutter and ultimately crash. Save games made after tractoring in the ship were corrupt and trying to load them also crashed the game.

Instead, leave Princess Leia alone and go for the remaining ships. When you have destroyed one or two, a Rebellion hyperspace countdown will start -- even though your Gravity Well is still active. Once they flee, you will be announced victorious. The game will return to the Galaxy Map and the dialogues will proceed as if you had captured Princess Leia.

Note that during this mission, Princess Leia's Corellian Gunship Tantive IV acts like any other gunship and will attack you. However, it is basically indestructible. Once it has been reduced to 0 Hull, it will flee and not return fire. Your ships and TIE fighters don't know it cannot be destroyed and will continue to attack it unless you recall them.

Rebellion Campaign

Tatooine is a critical planet for the Rebellion as it gives Combat Armor Level 1 for Rebellion tanks -- in turn key to greatly increasing the survivability of T2-B Repulsor Tanks.

Land Battle

Watch out for the several environmental hazards here:

• A Sarlacc in the northwest. Each time it sweeps its tentacle, it grabs one individual from an infantry unit.
• A Rancor in the northeast. If you leave it alone, it will probably eventually go to the native human settlement nearby.
• A Tusken Raider settlement in the southwest.
• Twisters -- If these sweep through infantry, they can immediately kill a few.

Use a lot of natives to draw fire from PLEX Troopers. Use your PLEX Troopers to take down enemy vehicles, then move in T2-Bs to occupy Stormtroopers. If possible, push through to the Shield Generator and destroy it, then call a Bombing Run on the Light Factories (when we did this land campaign, there were two).

Star Wars: Empire at War - Sullust

Star Wars: Empire at War - Sullust
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign

Space Battle
Land Battle
The entrance to where you start is conveniently close to the Abandoned factory (just to the west) which you can seize from the pirates to produce a few Swamp Speeders. You only get one build, so you can abandon the factory afterwards.
Or, you can do an AT-ST Walker blitzkreig toward the buildings in the northwest. One of the reasons you can do this with just Darth Vader and AT-STs from just the initial Reinforcement Point is because AT-STs can walk and shoot at the same time. Darth Vader takes point to soak PLEX missiles. By continually walking forward, you squash almost all the infantry in your way using your AT-STs. The typically lightly-armored Rebel vehicles at this early tech level can be taken down by the continuous AT-ST weapons fire.
One of the main advantages of a blitzkrieg is that you can run past the Building Pads before the pirates can use them to build turrets. Turrets will slow your advance considerably as you will have to wait for Darth Vader or a bombing run to clear them (or take losses doing so yourself).

Star Wars: Empire at War - Shola

Star Wars: Empire at War - Shola
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign
One of the final five (Rebellion-controlled) planets in the Imperial Campaign.

Space Battle

Nothing special.

Land Battle

The infantry-damaging environmental effect does not affect heroes. Against infantry, you will need a Bacta Healing Station to stave off the effect indefinitely. Even a dugout, which provides constant healing, will not be enough to completely negate its effects.

Shola has several Turbolasers, against which your AT-AT does not have enough range to take out safely. If you do not have SPMA-Ts, you can use one AT-AA at a time -- their flak cannons have just enough range to be outside the firing range of a Turbolaser, but if you order more than one unit to attack, one or more units may end up positioning themselves a bit too far ahead, or drift into range while maneuvering into position.

Rebellion Campaign

Space Battle
Land Battle

PLACEHOLDER
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
CONTENT COMING SOON

Star Wars: Empire at War - Nal Hutta

Star Wars: Empire at War - Nal Hutta
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Although the mission briefing only says that the Hutts will engage if encountered, if you destroy all the Hutt Palaces you get 500 credits.
The big slug-like Hutts can deal a lot of damage in hand-to-hand combat, even against Darth Vader.

Star Wars: Empire at War - Mon Calamari

Star Wars: Empire at War - Mon Calamari
This is a hint / walkthrough for a planet in Star Wars: Empire at War. The index of all our guides for Empire at War is here.

Imperial Campaign
Available in Mission 6 (Attack on Mon Calamari) / Tech Level 3. Starts under Rebel control. Conquer Mon Calamari (the system name; the homeworld/planet name is actually "Dac") early as part of preventing the Rebels from building raid fleets if you can. The mission does not end until you capture the planet.

Space Battle
This will probably be your most difficult space battle in the Imperial campaign to this point, because of the scripted arrival of two Mon Calamari Star Cruisers -- capital ships whose shields, staying power, and fire power all outclass anything you can build at this point.
As soon as you destroy a Nebulon-B Escort Frigate or a Marauder Corvette, they come in like reinforcements. (Anything smaller won't count. Curiously, you can destroy the Class 3 space station and they still won't come).
The distance will be just inside the fog of war, in the direction of your fleet's entry point. During the brief cutscene, they open fire and you do not have the chance to abort the cutscene to issue new orders. Especially if your fleet is very close and already damaged by other fighting, you could very well lose a Victory Star Destroyer during their entrance cutscene.

I actually lucked out a couple of times and successfully completed this mission with six Acclamators, one Broadside Cruiser, and NO losses (on Medium difficulty, where the AI doesn't always use special unit abilities) coming out of the battle, even with the Mon Calamari appearing right in their midst. A second try with four Victory Star Destroyers and three Broadside Cruisers (on Hard difficulty) yielded better and less scary results. The main factors are staying power, drawing fire, and Broadside Cruisers.

The Mon Calamari will tear down shields very quickly -- in a matter of seconds, in fact. The first ship being targeted will probably have to be moved back immediately. For every other cruiser, if their shields are gone, you might as well use their Boost Weapon Power ability.
Your Acclamators or Victory Star Destroyers need to have a lot of staying power because they still need to be in front of your Broadside Cruisers so they can maintain fire and bombard as soon as possible.

Depending on the distance at which the Mon Calamari appear, you may want to make a decision to immediately turn your fleet around, and instead engage the Mon Calamari with Darth Vader and a cloud of fighters. (You can also take down one capital ship and do this distraction later on the one further away). This combination should turn the Mon Calamari's attention on them, and you will know this if they start to turn around. Head for the space station while pulling your fleet out of their visual range. Once they are at the station, the two huge masses make easy targets for the Broadside Cruisers to barrage or even just fire normally.

Having Broadside Cruisers give you even more firepower than a Mon Calamari capital ship -- if you can deploy them safely. And with the Mon Calamari and the space station being all so large, they make the perfect targets. Use the area barrages whenever possible. Anything in the way of the missile's flight path can be hit, so you don't have to target the nearest one first. Even with just three Broadsides, once those slow missiles connect, you'll see how quickly the shields come down and the hull falls apart. Don't bother targeting anything in particular (not even the space station shield generator, which is actually a narrow target that's hard to hit even in by a barrage).

When your fleet first arrives, move them to the left edge and inch them up to be closer to level with the space station: still out of sight but the shortest distance between them and your Broadside Cruisers. This is important because if you need to cover your Broadside Cruisers, you don't want them to be too far from your cruisers.
If you can somehow destroy the space station without triggering the Mon Calamari, you won't have to worry about being in the crossfire. Otherwise, if you have to retreat, go further up and try not to stray to the right and into range of the space station's guns.

Once the Mon Calamari are destroyed, the Rebels will jump to hyperspace if the space station is also destroyed. It doesn't make any difference, but if you want the little cutscene to accompany the Imperial gloating after the mission, you need to leave the space station alone for the moment and clear out all units (use Darth Vader and fighters for this, and search the corners/edges where heavily damaged ships might be hiding). Once the space station is the only thing left, destroy it. You can safely do a Broadside Cruiser barrage from outside the space station's range.

Rebellion Campaign
Mon Calamari is available after successfully completing Mission 4 (Kessel Rescue). It is automatically reverted to your control after Mission 10 (Handle With Care!). If it is already in your control, you do not lose anything there.

Space Battle
On Hard Difficulty, the Imperials start with a strong space fleet of 31 points, including a lot of Tartan Cruisers. Two Acclamators from this fleet start slightly southwest of center, and almost immediately see the Rebellion fleet entering from the southwest. There are also TIE Scouts to (presumably) help them locate you with their Sensor Pings.

There are nebulae near the entry point which frequently causes ships to go around instead of through, so be careful of this.

Despite the rough start, this battle is doable early in the game with Nebulon-B Frigates. My early fleet was Sundered Heart, six Nebulon-B Frigates, and two Marauder Corvettes (which have to be protected against Tartan suicide runs). Once the first Acclamators are out of the way, you have time to reposition your Marauders to a safer position. Watch for Tartans suddenly coming out of the nebulae where you can't detect them.

Land Battle

By the time I had control of orbital space, the land map had the entire Imperial base under a shield, including the Power Generator.
Just inside the shield on the causeway are two Build Pads. If the Imperials put an Anti-Infantry Turret on one of them, you are unlikely to win this land battle without any losses. The main problem is that these Build Pads are just inside the shield, and only your PLEX Troopers can shoot through the shield, but they would be in range of Turrets.
(That said, if you can send a horde of natives to a turret, getting one or two inside the Turret's minimum range means you can have those units eventually take down the turret since the Turret can't fire on you, and if the other Build Pad has a turret, you would be out of range. However, the Imperials tend to send sorties out to defend those turrets.)

There are two ways to do this land battle. The hectic blitzkreig way without MPTL-2a artillery, and the patient way with MPTL-2a support. Either way, you can do so without unit losses (lots of Mon Calamari dead, however).

The basic tactic is to swarm the Imperial base with Mon Calamari. This will be hard because the Imperials start with a horde of infantry. Herd the Mon Calamari toward one Build Pad just inside the shield, and when the Imperials are busy there, sneak a small unit of them to the other pad and build an Anti-Infantry Turret. You may need to target the turret yourself so that it attacks the units you need to take down quickly, instead of leaving it to do its own thing.

Once you have an Anti-Infantry Turret, move some T2-B Repulsor Tanks and PLEX Troopers in to help the turret and secure the other Build Pad. Once the Imperials' ground troops have been exhausted, they will only have garrison troops, and these will stay inside their base unless you get too close.

Once you secure the other Build Pad, you will probably want to quickly put an Anti-Vehicle Turret there. When ready, advance to the end of the bridge. Watch out for the Imperials having built Turrets at the Build Pads there as well. They are less of an issue because you are now under the area Shield, but can still be challenging to do.

With Turret support, you should be able to push the Imperials back, take out the Shield Generator quickly with your PLEX Troopers, and do a Bombing Run for the rest.

If you can bring an MPTL, this mission can proceed at a more relaxed pace because you just need to survive the initial wave of infantry. The Imperials will probably build Turrets at the bridge, but the two turrets just inside the area Shield are still vulnerable to the MPTL. Although the torpedoes from an MPTL volley cannot penetrate the shield, they explode when they hit and the turrets will be in the blast radius (although you cannot see the blast). They will therefore go down in short order and you can try to advance under the shield.

Once your MPTLs are under the shield, they do not have to move far to be in range of the Power Generator to the south. Once that is destroyed, Bombing Runs can do the rest while you hold ground (easily done with your MPTLs).

On the north side of the Imperial base is a ramp leading into the water -- You can access this with your T2-B Repulsor Tanks and draw some fire away, but without support, they will get scrapped by AT-STs and 2-M Saber Repulsor Tanks. In general, the Imperials will not follow you out onto the water although they can with the 2-M Sabers and Scout Troopers.