It's not that just Chewbacca automatically picks up spice tokens it us that an elite figure automatically gains 1 success on any attribute test it performs. That goes for any mission in which an elite ally is available to perform an attribute test.

The main reason I worded it that way is, if I remember correctly, the mission says that Chewbacca automatically picks up spice tokens with an action and doesn't need to make an attribute test.

I'll have to double check when I get home but I do believe it is just that Chewbacca can action to test which due to the auto sucess equates to Chewbacca picking up the spice token as an action. It would seem pointless for FFG to give him that specific ability when he has it per the overall rules. But again I'm only somewhat sure on that.

@Stone37: I'm not sure if it happened during Aftermath or on the next mission, but at the end of the round all initial deployments were gone and threats were not enough to bring anything in. So they got 1 free round for shooting at doors. A similar situation happened on another mission, where the imperial reinforced a unit at the cost of 2 (or 3, I don't remember) threats but at the end of the same rounds all deployments were gone, and due to the reinforcement nothing could be brought in.

I don't think the imperial did anything catastrophic, but with the right combination of great hero team, smart rebel players, lucky rolls, maybe just plain choices on the imperial side, the heroes annihilated everything.

It seems to me that (at least in the first missions) this is not uncommon, at least for 3 heroes team. They are stronger because of the hero rewards, they still have 4 activations and just enough abilities to work fairly well.

The imperial side kept up just because missions are time limited. Just that.

This sounds like a *lot* of people are playing wrong, either by misunderstanding the rules or by not applying the right strategy to their game.

For the Rebels, victory in just about every map relies upon the right balance of attacking / objectives. Charging headlong to one while disregarding the other often ends up working poorly. I've made players pay for ignoring attacking by surrounding heroes one at a time as they run past and focus-firing them with my whole board and picking them off one at a time. I've also caused players to lose a map by getting them pre-occupied with killing all the riff-raff I threw out at them, wasting their time.

Also, I'm hearing crazy things like Imperials swarming Rebels with throngs of figures... Other than with the initial deployment - or if the Rebels are rushing objectives - this should rarely be the case, or at the very least it has been for us.

I'm getting the feeling Imperial players are reading all the rules and teaching the Rebels and it sounds like there are some rules that aren't being understood properly. The amount of threat being given every turn is NOT enough to facilitate swarms of Imp figures, especially early on in the game. 2 threat is a SINGLE stormtrooper or an Imperial Officer. That's it. Combined with the fact that if it isn't in your hand, you can't play it - or if your deployed group is FULL, you can't reinforce it - I have a hard time getting the idea that Imps are far out-numbering Rebs except in instances where Rebs are totally ignoring figs and trying to rush objectives.

@Daedalus: I can't comment on threat levels 4, but I really hope that things change. I'm speaking about my experience with threat levels 2-3. And of course, a plain/bad heroes team can still lose: if they move without aim, don't focus on 2 attacks, don't use strain for adjusting position, don't coordinate well.

The typical example is the "training" mission. It seems to be very imperial biased, if you don't use strain for moving and focus on attacking. Our group played it a lot but we forgot about this simple detail. Rebels' mission appeared impossible to win. They were always on the wrong side, lost attacks just for moving, etc. But then we remembered about that and we started to position well and attack as much as possible and the rebels mission appeared a lot more balanced.

Also, I'm hearing crazy things like Imperials swarming Rebels with throngs of figures... Other than with the initial deployment - or if the Rebels are rushing objectives - this should rarely be the case, or at the very least it has been for us.

I'm getting the feeling Imperial players are reading all the rules and teaching the Rebels and it sounds like there are some rules that aren't being understood properly. The amount of threat being given every turn is NOT enough to facilitate swarms of Imp figures, especially early on in the game. 2 threat is a SINGLE stormtrooper or an Imperial Officer. That's it. Combined with the fact that if it isn't in your hand, you can't play it - or if your deployed group is FULL, you can't reinforce it - I have a hard time getting the idea that Imps are far out-numbering Rebs except in instances where Rebs are totally ignoring figs and trying to rush objectives.

Okay, so maybe it isn't a valid strategy early on, but I was at threat level of 3 for Under Siege and Vader's Obsession.

Let's be clear, I'm not saying you will have so many groups that you will wipe out the Rebels in a single round. All I'm saying is that you want to shoot for having minimum of 4 groups at a time and more if you can. Sometimes this means you activate a squad earlier since you know it's going to get defeated. In some missions, this doesn't matter. In others, having free reign to move and attack when the heroes are done activating can be a huge boon.

Also, I'm hearing crazy things like Imperials swarming Rebels with throngs of figures... Other than with the initial deployment - or if the Rebels are rushing objectives - this should rarely be the case, or at the very least it has been for us.

I'm getting the feeling Imperial players are reading all the rules and teaching the Rebels and it sounds like there are some rules that aren't being understood properly. The amount of threat being given every turn is NOT enough to facilitate swarms of Imp figures, especially early on in the game. 2 threat is a SINGLE stormtrooper or an Imperial Officer. That's it. Combined with the fact that if it isn't in your hand, you can't play it - or if your deployed group is FULL, you can't reinforce it - I have a hard time getting the idea that Imps are far out-numbering Rebs except in instances where Rebs are totally ignoring figs and trying to rush objectives.

Keep in mind that people are talking about swarming the rebels in the later missions when you're getting 4+ threat a turn. The only time I have really swarmed the rebels and slaughtered them was the only mission the rebel players decided to bring an ally along (Han). That extra threat (plus the extra for the start of the side mission) let me deploy all of my open groups. I'm fairly certain we are understanding the rules correctly.

The amount of threat being given every turn is NOT enough to facilitate swarms of Imp figures, especially early on in the game. 2 threat is a SINGLE stormtrooper or an Imperial Officer. That's it. Combined with the fact that if it isn't in your hand, you can't play it - or if your deployed group is FULL, you can't reinforce it - I have a hard time getting the idea that Imps are far out-numbering Rebs except in instances where Rebs are totally ignoring figs and trying to rush objectives.

I totally agree. On the first missions, you get 2 threats per round. That's a single stormtrooper figure per round. But on an average round, the heroes can kill lots of those. And most of the times, if they are not stupid, they focus on removing the entire group so you have to wait for more round instead of reinforcing a single group continuously.

Another really true thing is stat it often happened that the group was full, but each figure was badly damaged due to blast and cleave. So, no reinforcement and no new deployment.

i'm not saying the game is unbalanced. There are other factors to count in, such as time limits, events, etc. But in the first mission, it seems to me that the imperials simply can't keep up. I also understand that their purpose is not to eliminate heroes, but just to delay them. Still, most of them can't stand a round so their best use is to build a "figures wall", which comes with its own problems too, such as covering LOS.

And even "figures walls" have their problems since heroes can just move past them for an extra point or two of movement. I've found that blocking is very difficult in this game because of how you can move diagonally and move through enemy figures.

minor spoilers ahead:

I honestly don't see how anyone can think the time limit is spot on. Please tell me how you were able to reach all 3 terminals in only 7 rounds in one of the story missions. They're behind locked doors that require damage to be destroyed (and get a defense die) and are spread so far apart, it takes several rounds just to get from one to the next. That by itself is bad enough without the ridiculously powerful reinforcements that appear in that one.

If you are talking about the missions I believe you are (the one with 3 different colored terminals?) then I won that mission as the Imperial player. However, it was a very close one, the rebels managed to finish my early initial deployments within the first few rounds while heading for the first two terminals (they split up, only 2 heroes). They both managed to activate the terminals (despite the fact that for one of them it was their weak attribute, took 2 rolls to get it). I did manage to wound one of them and wounded the second one the turn before they would have reached the terminal (I think it was round 5, but it's been awhile). It most certainly wasn't the time limit holding them back on that mission. If it's a different mission you are talking about then I suppose you can disregard this.

@Budge and @Kaic,

Yeah, I hear you guys. Despite my wanting to play every day, I haven't been able to get that much play time in and haven't seen four threat yet. Having said that, an upgrade or two - and really utilizing the hero upgrades properly - can go a very long way for the heroes in the 3 threat missions.

My 3-player group consists of Gaarkhan, Diala and Jyn. They won aftermath without too much trouble and Jyn gota DL-44 pistol, needless to say the side mission easily went in their favour. Third mission was mine because Gaarkhan was holding out to upgrade to Rampage and the Vibroblade that was picked up went to Diala, who tried to play brawler instead of tank. Next mission will have Gaarkhan with Rampage and Gauntlets, Jyn with Cheap Shot and a DL-44 and Diala with a Vibroblade and her upgrade that makes her reroll a nightmare to deal with. Pretty sure the next mission is going in the Rebs favour if they play to their characters' strengths.

@Taun, I totally agree. The first round seems to be favoured towards the Rebs and that's cool with me. As per the figure wall, it may not feel very awesome to just delay the Rebs, but I choose to see it more of a 'thumbing your nose' kind of idea. You can blast my troopers all day long, but if you can't get to these terminals in time, it won't matter! Muahahahaha!

For Under Siege, I planned for a Nexu which, combined with the Imperial Officer was able to jump from the deployment point to the room in the opposite corner in one round, allowing me to take over one of the five rooms.

Let me understand, at the end of a round you deployed nexu + officer. On the next round, you left the officer and nexu as last moving figures. You activated the officier for giving a move to the nexu toward the door, then the nexu activated and with 2 moves ended the round in the room (which one?). Were all doors already opened? Also Nexu is large, were the corridors empty of heroes?

@Kaic, that was also the mission that I won in my campaign... But I won that mission based on poor execution from the players as well as bad luck on one of the terminals. Jyn (heavy tech attribute) took two activations to clear the tech terminal with an unlucky roll with no surges and Diala got wounded early thanks over-straining for moves instead of keeping strain for tanking.

As for Aftermath, it is tough. It came down to the wire for me. I forgot to give the second terminal the +3 health before it got blown up. I had two left and the heroes were coming in hard. I surrounded the final terminal so nobody could get adjacent to it and it had only 2 health left. With only Mak left at the end of round 6, they pretty much gave up. But I showed them that if he took diagonals and 2 strain, he could get next to wall that had the terminal on the other side. I then showed them the rule that allowed them Mak to shoot around the corner. The fact that the terminal got +1 block for being adjacent to an Imperial figure is the one thing that let the final terminal survive.

For Under Siege, I planned for a Nexu which, combined with the Imperial Officer was able to jump from the deployment point to the room in the opposite corner in one round, allowing me to take over one of the five rooms.

Let me understand, at the end of a round you deployed nexu + officer. On the next round, you left the officer and nexu as last moving figures. You activated the officier for giving a move to the nexu toward the door, then the nexu activated and with 2 moves ended the round in the room (which one?). Were all doors already opened? Also Nexu is large, were the corridors empty of heroes?

Yes, by that point, I had opened the right door and the left door (if looking at the campaign guide). The Nexu moved into the far, skinny hallway after all other figures had activated. That corridor was open because the heroes were busy contesting the first room to the left of the door I entered. By that point, I had wounded Gaarkhan, so he didn't count for securing the room, meaning the other heroes had to come support him or else they would lose the room.

I actually lost that mission, though. In the final round, I needed Vader to wound the last healthy hero, but they used a wounded hero to block my path, so I was one movement point shy of getting Vader where he needed to be.

And even "figures walls" have their problems since heroes can just move past them for an extra point or two of movement. I've found that blocking is very difficult in this game because of how you can move diagonally and move through enemy figures.

Well, maybe "double" figures wall can still work. Each movement must end on an unoccupied square, so if the heroes don't start exactly in front of the wall they may have problems. Still, it is not difficult for them to use some strain, get in position and then move.

Overall, the the most annoying thing is how easily heroes can get rid of strain. They can use it to pull off some amazing moves, then they can remove all the strain by just attacking on a single round and resting (and sometimes moving is not needed), or simply calming down a bit (Fenn).

And even "figures walls" have their problems since heroes can just move past them for an extra point or two of movement. I've found that blocking is very difficult in this game because of how you can move diagonally and move through enemy figures.

Well, maybe "double" figures wall can still work. Each movement must end on an unoccupied square, so if the heroes don't start exactly in front of the wall they may have problems. Still, it is not difficult for them to use some strain, get in position and then move.

Overall, the the most annoying thing is how easily heroes can get rid of strain. They can use it to pull off some amazing moves, then they can remove all the strain by just attacking on a single round and resting (and sometimes moving is not needed), or simply calming down a bit (Fenn).

Yeah, depending on the heroes and their gear, strain is pretty easy to get rid of. I find - as with a lot of stuff in the game - it seems very balanced. Strain isn't a resource to just throw around whenever you want, because a good Imp player will make you pay for it. I will bait the Rebs by leaving my Imps five or six spaces away to make them use their strain for movement as opposed to using strain for special abilities. Sometimes they fall for it, sometimes they don't take the bait.

As for Aftermath, it is tough. It came down to the wire for me. I forgot to give the second terminal the +3 health before it got blown up. I had two left and the heroes were coming in hard.

In my case, closing the door proved to be more useful. This cut out one of the heroes and denied them of his help in killing the terminals.

I actually lost that mission, though. In the final round, I needed Vader to wound the last healthy hero, but they used a wounded hero to block my path, so I was one movement point shy of getting Vader where he needed to be.

Too bad! Nice report, btw.

As for Aftermath, it is tough. It came down to the wire for me. I forgot to give the second terminal the +3 health before it got blown up. I had two left and the heroes were coming in hard.

In my case, closing the door proved to be more useful. This cut out one of the heroes and denied them of his help in killing the terminals.

That would have been the most helpful, but I completely blanked on triggering anything at the end of that round. When I remembered, the heroes were already inside and one terminal was taken out, so I just added the health to the remaining two.

That would have been the most helpful, but I completely blanked on triggering anything at the end of that round. When I remembered, the heroes were already inside and one terminal was taken out, so I just added the health to the remaining two.

Ouch... It happens, btw. I totally forgot about "show of force". Imperials are a bit more complex to handle: so many units, effects, details. Heroes have a simpler task.

I haven't seen any long lasting threads on tactics or missions, aside from references here and there or some comments on units. It seems that playing groups are all working separately toward their goals. That's odd...

There is so much to discuss:

- units

- upgrades

- missions

I'm still in the early stages of my campaign with my kids, but if the campaign does prove to be too heavily stacked in the Imperials' favor, then I have a couple of possible house-rule solutions in mind:

• Remove the round limit. Instead, the Imperial player gains double the normal Threat at the end of that round and afterward. We've found that most missions end with the Rebels needing just another round or 2 (and heavily wounded), so this at least gives them a chance. It also eliminates some of the "race-against-time" complaint that some people have mentioned.
• Add an extra round or 2 to every mission that has a round limit. I'd prefer the other one (because it allows for more combat), but this could work if necessary.

Remember that this is YOUR game and so you can make adjustments if you think those adjustments would improve the game experience. I would still recommend playing it through first with the original settings, so that you can get a good sense of how balanced things are.

I'm still in the early stages of my campaign with my kids, but if the campaign does prove to be too heavily stacked in the Imperials' favor, then I have a couple of possible house-rule solutions in mind:

• Remove the round limit. Instead, the Imperial player gains double the normal Threat at the end of that round and afterward. We've found that most missions end with the Rebels needing just another round or 2 (and heavily wounded), so this at least gives them a chance. It also eliminates some of the "race-against-time" complaint that some people have mentioned.
• Add an extra round or 2 to every mission that has a round limit. I'd prefer the other one (because it allows for more combat), but this could work if necessary.

Remember that this is YOUR game and so you can make adjustments if you think those adjustments would improve the game experience. I would still recommend playing it through first with the original settings, so that you can get a good sense of how balanced things are.

Cheers man! You inspired me with your idea. See my goal is to have a good expirience and to be honest I'm not a player who gets his kicks by seeing the Rebel Players loosing all the time. I think I'll go with those two:

• Exceeding the limit

​ Round limit can be exceeded but comes at a cost of increasing Threat. Take the mission "Aftermath" for example. It has a round limit of 6. If Rebel Players cannot manage to reach their objective in 6 rounds, they can decide to go on. In that case the Imperial Player does follow the steps in status phase of the actual round with one exception. When he gains threat he does not only gain the Threat-level ensured by the Campaign-sheet, he gets the missions Threat-level plus the missions Threat-level als Threat points for deploy. For the following status phase this Threat becommees the new basis for calculating Threat. When he gains Threat again, he simply adds the campaigns Threat-level to that base.

Example:

Aftermath has a Threat-level of 2. If the Rebel Players wish to go for round 7 at the end of round 6, the Imperial Player would gain Threat-level 2 + Threat-level 2 (the bonus for round 7) which addds up to a Threat of 4.

This Threat (of 4) is now the new base for calculating Threat in the Status Phase of round 7 (if the Rebel Players want to go for round 8). Lets assume Rebels want to.

Status phase round 7, gain Threat step:

Threat-level (from round 6) = 4 + Threat-level from Campaign-sheet = 2 adds up to 6 Threat in total for deployment at the end of round 7. Again this Threat (of 6) would becomme the base for calculating Threat in the next Status Phase end of round 8.

This way Rebel Players have the oppurtunity to exceed the forseen round limit but the longer this goes on, the more the Imperial Player will be able to field troops to stop them. This will allow players to exceed but will not give them enough time to rest as much as they want and start from the beginning without the Imperial Player haven a chance to interfere. In addition keep in mind that Threat-level increases over the course of a campaing.

• Playing with 5 Rebel Heroes .

This is a bit edgy because this rule will need you as Imperial Player to monitor the progress of your Rebel Players but should work well enough.

When playing with a 5th Rebel Hero, look for the Deployment Costs on his Deploy Card. Divide that costs in half (round down) and spread those points as even as possible over all rounds of the mission, assigning each round at least one point. Repeat this procedure as long as you have points left and always start from round 1. Those points are additional Threat you receive in the Status Phase as a bouns to compensate for the 5th Hero.

If playing in combination with "Exceeding the limit"-rule ​this additional Threat does not count towards any calcultaion for additional Threat!

In missions which do not have a round limit, divide the costs for the Hero in half (round down) and receive all of them during the mission set up as an additional deployment, following the normal rules for this. You cannot save or carry over any points if you choose not to deploy any additional group or figure. You can spend all of those points in addition to any mission effects and other Threat-points but if you have points left, they will not carry over.

Still you'll have to monitor your Rebel Players progress and power creep. Since the campaign seem to be in imperial favour at the end, you should not encounter any disadvantages whis this rule. Gaining only half the Threat-cost for a hero seems to be unfair but this rule is made to give Rebel Players an advantage. If you fell like having no chance against their power in later missions, simply go with 2/3 of the points rounded up or all of them. But keep in mind that everything in this game is balnced out to Threat-points and having to many of them as a Imperial Player can easily destroy a Rebels dream of victory

Dont forget those rules are house rules and not official. There is no guarantee that they will work and balance things out. Feel free to try them out and experiment with them. If you do, some feedback would be highly appreciated, since this is our desperate hour here

Like a wise man said before: Remember that this is YOUR game and so you can make adjustments if you think those adjustments would improve the game expirience.

May the Force be with you.