Ok I have played through 4 missions as the Imps and I have lost all of them. I am beginning to to not want to play seeing how the imps do not get any exp for any of those 4 missions whether they win them or not all they get is to spend influence points that give you a 1 time use card? IDK maybe I am just a bad player, but it seems that the players will always win. Letting the players attack twice is one of the main things that seems op and the imps don't get that unless the card says otherwise.

Maybe I am the only one if so does anyone have any tips for the imperial player because right now I am getting frustrated with this game.

The Imperial player gets experience as it says that "all players receive 1 XP." The Imperial player is a "player".

So far the rebels have only won once in our campaign, and barely at that. All things considered the Imperials have been crushing them over and over.

I like seeing threads like this. Lots of people say Rebels are OP, manybothers say the Imperials are OP. A good number say that it's balanced.

Seems like a decently designed game when complaints are all over the board.

But as the above poster said. The Imperial playervis also a "player", so you also gain the XP.

We have played three missions and the rebels are ahead 3 - 2. But on two of the rebel victories it was within one turn and had some lucky roles.

I see the role as the imperial play the same as being the Dungeon master in DnD. Its not about winning but letting the players have a fun experience, that includes me. I dont hold back either they need to earn the win. I enjoy every second of playing the imperials. Setting up the mission reading the story parts to the players.

The first few missions, with threat 2-3, favour the rebels.

These missions have short time limits to make up for the lack of threat.

When the amount of threat per round increases they start to favour the imperials.

Interesting. It's 3-1 Rebels favor right now for us. We could not figure out a way to win the first mission though and we played it twice. As far as we could tell the only way to do it was with a very specific team and a fair bit of luck. I suppose we'll have to try it again some time. And each mission seems fairly balanced we suspect, but there's a lot of minis game skill on the players side in our current campaign.

It never helps when your Imp Player never rolls lower than two dodge on the black die, for sure.

UGH. We started over three times last night. Man that guy is consistent.

As the Imperial player I am currently undefeated. But then again I've only played Aftermath so far!

The dice were heavily in my favor though. One officer stalled the rebels for an entire turn by rolling evade after evade after evade.... all the while, standing next to a terminal, making it more difficult to ignore the officer. I tend to feel guilty when I do that well.

As others have stated, you should have gotten xp for each of those missions. That might be part of the reason you are having so much trouble. So far, I have lost both games I have played as the imperial player, but both of them came down to the last turn. So, I feel that it is pretty balanced.

We have played three missions and the rebels are ahead 3 - 2. But on two of the rebel victories it was within one turn and had some lucky roles.

This post made me chuckle. You played a total of 3 missions, and the rebels are ahead 3-2? What?!

This must be the new math included in the Common Core. No wonder no one over the age of 30 likes it.

I don't know what to think of this post. Surely, the games are close and not dominated by the Rebels. Here are some suggestions:

1) Think about objectives. This is the most important part of the game. Woundin heroes can be important, but don't play this game like a gun fight. You need to figure out what the Rebels are doing and get in their way. Try to Stun them to remove their actions.

2) Carefully plan which open groups to bring. Which groups will you be able to deploy by turn 1? By turn 2? Also, don't forget you'll want to reinforce groups that are already deployed, so consider that when planning how you will use Threat during the mission.

3) Focus fire. If it comes to a point where wounding is your only option, target one character and take it down. For example, Gaarkhan can't get Focused if he's already focused, so you want to point as many guns as you can at him when you decide to take the Wookiee down.

4) Don't miss your triggers. In other words, don't forget the abilities and Surge abilities on the deployment cards. Remembering to Stun, Bleed, or add Strain can make a huge difference. Also don't forget to trigger events from the campaign guide because those events are what give the Imperial player his power.

5) Try to deploy lots of groups. If you outnumber the heroes, you can have a few activations where you can react to their movement without them getting in the way.

6) Stay out of your way. Carefully think about movement. Don't move your full movement points by default. Sometimes a group you will activate later in the round will need to get to where your Stormtrooper is now sitting because you moved all 4 spaces instead of 3. In such cases, don't forget you could move 3, fire, and move back one space to open room for your figures to occupy in the future.

I hope some of these help. Good luck in your future missions!

Everything Budgernaut said is terrific and I'll add a couple.

Remember that the game is often objective based in some shape or form. As the Imperials, your goal is to see to it that the Rebels don't achieve that objective. Dead rebels do no objectives, surely... But at the same time, it's very beneficial to clutter up the way to the objective. Sometimes it's worth ducking back for cover rather than sticking your neck out as Imperials.

As an example... In Aftermath, after the Rebels take their first activtion, I like to use the storm troopers right away to shoot whoever is closest / in range and then retreat with backs to the door. This allows them to protect the door / clog things up and hopefully allow them to survive long enough to allow you to reinforce the squad instead of losing them and waiting for 6 threat to bring them back.

Don't forget, your probe droid is a HUGE asset (favourite early fig, for sure) being able to take 5 health worth of damage while healing himself on attack. If anyone should be sticking their neck out, it's the probe droid.

The first few games in any game can go either way, especially until you fully comprehend the rules.

As imperial, I was erroneously taking 2x threat every round and the Rebel were failing miserably. In a fairly balanced game, any misinterpretation can easily swing it either way. In your case, not receiving xp put a severe penalty on yourself. I know I spent probably 10 minutes after the first mission looking to where Imperials even gained xp..... then I noticed it said 'all players' and not 'all heroes'. Yea the rulebook could really use some clarification sometimes.

Thx for the responses. It kinda sucks to play 3 missions only to realize I get exp too, lol. I guess I have more exp to spend for the next fight.

It just means you get 4 xp to spend after the next mission, saving up for a 4 xp class ability is a valid tactic. You may not have done it intentionally but you sacrificed early campaign strength to have a much stronger game from now on.

Played mission 1 of the campaign with 4 Rebel players and lost. We only needed to damage a terminal 1 more time to win. I feel like we had a fair chance of winning that mission. it was fun and challenging and considering we were all noobs, I'd say it's a fairly balanced.

I only played Aftermath so far and thought it felt very balanced. I thought for sure I was going to hand the Rebels a defeat when they had Gaarkhan open the blaster door and he was the last hero in that round to activate, I chose to have the door reclose so that they had to destroy it to gain entry into the interior. I think they thought it was game over as well, however once they got inside my dice rolls sucked Bantha poodoo and they ended up beating me with the last hero to activate in round 5. In the end I had wounded Garrkhan, had Diala down to 2 health, Gideon down to half and Mak didn't receive a single wound (get the feeling he is going to be a pain in my imperial ass). Thought it was very fun and am looking forward to playing out the rest of the campaign.

Another quick tip for Imperial players (this was said in another thread, but I can't remember which one or I would credit the poster):

The biggest weapon the Imperial player has at his disposal is information. Between sessions, you will know what the next two missions will be (one story, and one side). Take twenty minutes and study them. Figure out how much threat you can generate by what turn and pick appropriate open groups. Check where your deployment points are relative to objective locations and plan accordingly. Just being comfortable with the specifics of the mission and the layout of the tiles will give you a huge advantage over the Rebel players.

We played "Sorry About the Mess" the other night and I thought my players were going to kill me after rolling a "Dodge" on six consecutive attacks against Gerrin!

"As Imperial, I was erroneously taking 2x Threat every round and the rebels were failing miserably."

Wait - I thought that's how it worked? At the end of each round, add the Threat for the mission (ie. 2 in Aftermath) to the Threat counter. I don't have the rulebook with me, but I thought it's how it worked?

We're playing our first game tomorrow and I'd like to get stuff like this right!

I think he was trying to say that he was taking double the threat that he was supposed to (4 instead of 2). You are correct, you should be gaining threat equal to the threat level during the status phase of every round.

Aye, I was taking 4 instead of 2. I was mis-reading the special setup block where you're supposed to take 2x before the first round and spend accordingly (on side missions mainly).... then normal threat every round.

I find hard to tell that the game is unbalanced. So far, our rebels are so strong that should I have to give an opinion now, I'd say they are favored, but I'll wait to see how the entire campaign evolves. The imperials are up against Gaark, Fenn and Mak. Very well rounded group and very durable. It's all up to their double attack and the secondary "recovery" powers. Our heroes try always to attack twice and use strain to move, or, when they need speed, move + strain move + attack.

Fenn as lone wolf can slowly remove strain and even heal. He can also give 3 additional move points to himself or to another hero (tactical movement). Most of the times, he can just use that to position and attack twice.

Mak is a great sniper. He constantly stays at 4+ distance, so he can use covert to get ambush. Also, disengage can give him 3 extra move points (so he can position and fire twice).

Gaark is unstoppable. He ends up wounded on every mission, but it's not a problem. Charge is great for giving him 2 attacks per round, has a lot of health and does a lot of damage. With cleave and double attack he's capable of taking out 1 healthy and 1 wounded figure per round.

So far, they seem very strong. They build up soak, but then they recover it all with one rest. Even so, in that round they can still move(with strain or powers)+attack, or just attack. They focus on removing wounded and eliminating groups. Major threats (such as e-web) are killed first (usually 1 Gaark + 1 other attack is enough to destroy a new e-web).

Imperials have hard time to stand up and the heroes often managed to dispatch all initial deployments in a few rounds. It even happened once that the imperial didn't have anything to do. Not enough threat to bring in some unit, and all initial deploy units gone.

I saw Budgernaut's suggestions but I find it hard to follow them, at least in the first stages of the campaign. How can you plan deployments for round 1? Even at round 2, you just have 4 threats. The worst problem for the empire, though, is that the only way to stop heroes is to make a figures wall. Too bad there is no opportunity attack.

At the moment the only thing that helped the empire to save the face is limited time. Heroes have to hurry, but they managed to do fairly well. Imperial units fall as flies and obstacles make using some units really difficult or sub-optimal (ex: e-web).

I also find difficult to understand how can you outnumber heroes. At threat 2, it takes 3 rounds to bring in a reinforcement, and often the deploy point is a bit far away from the actions. What happens is that at round 2 all initial deployments are dead, round 3 is empty, and at its end imperial can bring in some stormtroopers or an e-web. But the troopers alone can't survive. They just put up a match when they are in numbers.

So, good advices in theory, but in practice I don't know how imperial can put them in act. Maybe he should flee and wait till round 3 to bring some more units in?