well, got the demo today, played and completed the tutoreal with relative ease.

i then attempted conquest mode, defeated the empire (lost my frigate and my two corvettes) and managed to destroy the station with my X-wings, Y-wings and Han, chewie.

The came the ground battle, about 30 seconds in about 4 speeder bikes come in and plant thermal detonators destoying 2 of my tanks before i had even explored the map yet. I then braught in some infantry and decided to explore. then it hit me, an AT-AT along with some AT-STs and a huge turret. I had no chance but to call retreat. I managed to get out with less than 1 squad of infantry, with Han and chewie gone :(

is this normal? the space battle was retativly easy but the ground battle. I had no chance.

Its hard going and you have to explore the map. Use your allies - humans and jawas to capture the reinforcement points close to them - also look out for build pads. Get Chewie to capture the AT AT and use that against the Empire

DMUK

Speed is also important. The enemy gets "garrison units" which will respawn until the end of days (AT-ST and Stormtroopers). This is why you don't see them in your "kills" at the end of the mission. The attacker, on the other hand, only has the units that were brought to the battle. If you take it slow and "turtle" the endless waves of AT-ST and Stormtroopers will eventually take their toll.

At first try I also had to get used to the speed of the land battle. Though it may seem fast, for me it gave a realistic POV. I mean, what army would sit back and let you land units on their front lawn?

As soon as it starts, send down reinforcements, time is of the essence. And make sure to capture the reinforcment points ASAP as they allow more units to arrive down from space.

There are capturable pads in the demo map? Where?

There is one in directly north of the Empire base. Also directly to the west of your starting landing point, there is a mercenary camp which you can use to purcahse upgrades for your ground forces. And a little bit further then that is a Sand Raider camp which you can destroy for a quick cash infusion.

The space part was fairly easy, I built max space units, and a couple of troopers.
Went into the astroidfield with 4 x-wing flights, 3-Y-wing flights, 2 CR90 Corvettes, 2 Nebulon-B Frigates and the Millenium Falcon.

Once I was spotted my tactic kinda went all to hell and I ended up charging in everything I had. :p

Anyway, lost a frigate, all y-wings, 2 complete x-wing flights, and almost all fighters in the other 2 flights.

Started to produce ships and ground troops, and went to Tatooine, only to realize, there are no enemy space units above Tattoine. :D

Oh well, so I landed my troops, and started to look around. But before I knew it I was under attack and lost almost all my troops that I had initially landed.
Took about 10 minutes before I had the upperhand, found the artillery excellent against pretty much everything, when I was able to protect them well enough that is. ;)
Captured the left Control Point first, landed some more troops and tanks to secure it, then went for the right one. Once I had that one, I positioned my remaining artillery behind the power generator. Had 1 group left of 3 or 4 that I brought with me. I lost those in the initial battle before and during the time I fought and captured the AT-AT. Once the power was out and shields was down, I sent my bombers to take out the light vehicle factory.

After that it was just a matter of mopping up the remaining resistance.

Yeah, I was surpised by the Imperial blitz too. They took out my entire initial force except for Chewie, who was able to hook up with the civilians on the planet and capture some reinforcement points. Artillery is my new best friend.:D Boba Fett scared the heck out of me the first time he landed right in the middle of my troops and used his flamethrower. Wow.

For the space battle, I did exactly what you did, Jan. And had pretty much the same result. The second time around, I did a little experimenting and just sent 4 frigates, which were cut to shreds. Then I sent 5 corvettes with the Falcon in. The corvettes were able to knock out the Acclamator and a turbolaser battery on the VSD before I lost them all. In the end, I destroyed the station and VSD with just the Falcon!

Um yeah...I had just about the same experiance...
I hit the asteroids, lost a frigate and all my y-wings and for a moment thought I had lost everything once that star destroyer started punching holes in my fleet. Started producing replacement units like mad and had a massive fleet and was going to pulverize them...only to realize Tat had no fleet. Oh well...I land and get mobbed. I'm sitting there in shock trying to think of how to react, notice jawas and humans and mobilize their forces...it's all chaotic, I didn't reinforce centrally, so they were able to divide my forces and pick them apart. The AT-AT didn't last long after I took it over and niether did chewie. At this point I deployed my artillery and before the transport ship had even LEFT both of them were destroyed. I wasn't very thrilled. lol
Now I'm pretty much just running for my life and very glad that the imperial AI doesn't have the full beefed out attack AI or else a few more of those AT-STs and I would have been done for. Got my forces running across the map, regrouped with Jawas and Civilians by a pad to the north and did a jig because of the bacta and repair pads. heheh. Got everybody restrengthened, all out attacked the shield generator and then bombed the heck out of everything with y-wings.

I was most definately NOT prepared for that. heheh.
Great demo :)