I've been running a campaign for my girlfriend and my roommate, each controlling 2 heroes each for a standard 4 hero campaign. Last night that campaign, my first since I got my hands on this wonderful game, came to a close. We didn't ACTUALLY finish it all the way through, they conceded on the final mission when I told them what they had to do. I can't say I blame them... a brief recap.

Though they took a victory on Aftermath to kick things off, the momentum quickly swung my way as I went on to win the next 4 or 5 missions in a row. It wasn't until the double side missions after story mission 3 (going from memory here) that they were able to taste sweet victory again. Still, only winning the Introduction and 2 Story Missions does not make for powerful enough Rebel forces.

Many of the earlier games were very close, but a few of them were utter slaughters. I think the game is probably relatively well balanced, though that's hard to say having not yet played as the Rebels. I chalk up a lot of what to happened to the fact that I'm a seasoned gamer and they are relative "newbs".

These might be way off base, but I have a few tips for Rebel players based on what I saw across the table as an Imperial:

• Especially later in the campaign, as you start to get more gear/abilities, you must remember all your tricks. There were upgrades or gear that sat idle far too often. You spent the points/credits, USE IT!
• If you somehow end up in a completely hopeless scenario, make the best of it. Grab every crate you can get, sometimes 50 credits is the difference between the good gear and the great gear.
• Consider the abilities available to the TEAM and don't get too focused on your favorite hero. We nicknamed the campaign "Let the Wookie Go First" because my roommate was enamored with Gaarkhan and assumed that was also the best move.

...and finally, the most important one of all:

• The missions are NOT about killing Imperials, they are about completing mission objectives. Standing in your deployment zone doing double attacks is rarely the best course of action. Kill what you need to kill and KEEP MOVING.

I think we're starting a new campaign tonight, where they will each run one hero with the Legendary upgrade to see how it shakes out. Hopefully they have learned from going through it all once.

I have found through years of experience of playing games like D1e and D2e, continually moving forward is almost always a good thing. Allowing your group to get bogged down is not.

• Consider the abilities available to the TEAM and don't get too focused on your favorite hero. We nicknamed the campaign "Let the Wookie Go First" because my roommate was enamored with Gaarkhan and assumed that was also the best move.

Its hard to argue that moving 4-6 spaces and and attacking followed by a second attack as the 1st action a bad first move.

There are many opportunities where sending in Gaarkhan first is perfectly reasonable, true. However, I would argue that activating Fenn first is often more advantageous, as Blast can really make its presence felt before the Imperials have a chance to move. Plus, spending 4 strain to charge 6 spaces maxes him out early, which leads to earlier resting. Let the heroes with guns go first, have the Imperials bring themselves close enough for you to hit. Then you can save some strain and give yourself more options next turn.

In my experience so far, it seems that one of the best strategies for the Imperials is to crowd around 1 or 2 chokepoints or mission objectives - making it impossible for the rebels to interact with them and therefore necessary for them to constantly attack you. Your benefit there is that you'll be redeploying and they won't, but if they can't stand next to a terminal or objective, they can't interact with it.

It's won me more than a few missions. Cheap? Yes, but effective. Power in numbers! Doesn't work in all cases though...

Dear IronNerd...

Stop giving away our secrets and helping the Rebel scum.

Lovingly yours,

- Imperial players everywhere.

*SPOILERS*

I'm currently in a campaign playing as one of the Rebels, and after winning Aftermath (the first mission) we are now being slaughtered!

We attempted Mak's story mission and were all wounded after three rounds (that Royal Guard Champion carved us up).

Then we attempted the second main mission (the one with three terminals in different directions). We got one easily but the other two we didn't get. One was because our smuggler couldn't roll a surge result on the dice after four attempts (so unlucky basically) and the other was because the Imperial player deployed ALL of their reinforcements to the other one, where the Lone Wolf chap looked a bit forlorn.

We decided to attempt Lone Wolf's story mission. We recovered two of the bombs in the first turn (yay!), strapped them to the AT-ST and blew it up shortly after. Two of our characters were already wounded by this point (the Imperial player had summoned some elite Stormtroopers and along with one of his cards, they could attack twice) and when the AT-ST blew up it did four damage to the two remaining un-wounded characters. They got wounded shortly afterwards.

As far as I know, we are playing all the rules correctly. All of us are veteran gamers and have a good grasp of the game mechanics, so I don't think it's a 'newb' issue. The missions just seem really hard for the Rebels to win (and we are not just trying to kill all the Imperials we encounter).

Since all of the missions seem to end in an Imperial win if all of the Rebels are wounded, there seems to be a certain amount of wisdom in reducing the incoming fire to a manageable level (E-Web Engineers need to be burst down, for example), whilst at the same time constantly moving forwards to the objectives.

Anyway, it amazes me that many people seem to be struggling with the Imperials. To me, they seem very capable of winning every mission with little difficulty. However, we are still quite early on in our campaign, so things may change, but with the increased rewards to the Imperial player for winning, it seems to be stacked against us.

Still been fun though!

Dear IronNerd...

Stop giving away our secrets and helping the Rebel scum.

Lovingly yours,

- Imperial players everywhere.

I like my Rebels to have false hope. I want to see the gleam in their eyes, that joy that comes from being so close. Then I like to put their hopes and dreams in a little cardboard box and drive over it with a steamroller. An Imperial steamroller. It's more fun that way.

We kicked off a new campaign last night, using 2 heroes with the Legendary upgrade instead of the 4 heroes. So far, it seems to be far more effective for the Rebels. We'll see how it goes when they have to deal with 3 separate objectives in the next mission, but they can move much faster and more efficiently when there are only 2 of them. I almost had them wounded in the first mission, but double activating means they can potentially rest a single hero 4 times in one round. Combine that with 22 health, and they're tough to take down.

*SPOILERS*

I'm currently in a campaign playing as one of the Rebels, and after winning Aftermath (the first mission) we are now being slaughtered!

We attempted Mak's story mission and were all wounded after three rounds (that Royal Guard Champion carved us up).

Then we attempted the second main mission (the one with three terminals in different directions). We got one easily but the other two we didn't get. One was because our smuggler couldn't roll a surge result on the dice after four attempts (so unlucky basically) and the other was because the Imperial player deployed ALL of their reinforcements to the other one, where the Lone Wolf chap looked a bit forlorn.

We decided to attempt Lone Wolf's story mission. We recovered two of the bombs in the first turn (yay!), strapped them to the AT-ST and blew it up shortly after. Two of our characters were already wounded by this point (the Imperial player had summoned some elite Stormtroopers and along with one of his cards, they could attack twice) and when the AT-ST blew up it did four damage to the two remaining un-wounded characters. They got wounded shortly afterwards.

As far as I know, we are playing all the rules correctly. All of us are veteran gamers and have a good grasp of the game mechanics, so I don't think it's a 'newb' issue. The missions just seem really hard for the Rebels to win (and we are not just trying to kill all the Imperials we encounter).

Since all of the missions seem to end in an Imperial win if all of the Rebels are wounded, there seems to be a certain amount of wisdom in reducing the incoming fire to a manageable level (E-Web Engineers need to be burst down, for example), whilst at the same time constantly moving forwards to the objectives.

Anyway, it amazes me that many people seem to be struggling with the Imperials. To me, they seem very capable of winning every mission with little difficulty. However, we are still quite early on in our campaign, so things may change, but with the increased rewards to the Imperial player for winning, it seems to be stacked against us.

Still been fun though!

Without really seeing everything being played or knowing the details, either your Imperial is very lucky or somebody is doing something wrong. The missions you talked about shouldn't be blow-outs, especially so early in the game. 2 / 3 threat shouldn't be too overwhelming at this point.

Are you guys maxing out your cash and buying inbetween missions? Are you upgrading your characters and making use of your upgrades? Gear and upgrades REALLY cause a power swing for a player (both Rebel AND Imperial) and it seems very early in the campaign for your Imp player to be crushing you guys. Fights should still be somewhat close at this point, if not weighted a little in Rebs favour.

Dear IronNerd...

Stop giving away our secrets and helping the Rebel scum.

Lovingly yours,

- Imperial players everywhere.

I like my Rebels to have false hope. I want to see the gleam in their eyes, that joy that comes from being so close. Then I like to put their hopes and dreams in a little cardboard box and drive over it with a steamroller. An Imperial steamroller. It's more fun that way.

We kicked off a new campaign last night, using 2 heroes with the Legendary upgrade instead of the 4 heroes. So far, it seems to be far more effective for the Rebels. We'll see how it goes when they have to deal with 3 separate objectives in the next mission, but they can move much faster and more efficiently when there are only 2 of them. I almost had them wounded in the first mission, but double activating means they can potentially rest a single hero 4 times in one round. Combine that with 22 health, and they're tough to take down.

Ahh, I see know. Very good.

Right then, as you were!

Without really seeing everything being played or knowing the details, either your Imperial is very lucky or somebody is doing something wrong. The missions you talked about shouldn't be blow-outs, especially so early in the game. 2 / 3 threat shouldn't be too overwhelming at this point.

Are you guys maxing out your cash and buying inbetween missions? Are you upgrading your characters and making use of your upgrades? Gear and upgrades REALLY cause a power swing for a player (both Rebel AND Imperial) and it seems very early in the campaign for your Imp player to be crushing you guys. Fights should still be somewhat close at this point, if not weighted a little in Rebs favour.

Yeah we've been spending all of our credits on upgrades whenever possible. The smuggler in particular is tooled up. Some of us have saved up our experience points (4 from 4 missions) and bought one of our 4pt cards, but others spent theirs immediately.

Like I said, still having fun, but it's been a bit disheartening for both of our players when we failed their story missions completely.

Without really seeing everything being played or knowing the details, either your Imperial is very lucky or somebody is doing something wrong. The missions you talked about shouldn't be blow-outs, especially so early in the game. 2 / 3 threat shouldn't be too overwhelming at this point.

Are you guys maxing out your cash and buying inbetween missions? Are you upgrading your characters and making use of your upgrades? Gear and upgrades REALLY cause a power swing for a player (both Rebel AND Imperial) and it seems very early in the campaign for your Imp player to be crushing you guys. Fights should still be somewhat close at this point, if not weighted a little in Rebs favour.

Yeah we've been spending all of our credits on upgrades whenever possible. The smuggler in particular is tooled up. Some of us have saved up our experience points (4 from 4 missions) and bought one of our 4pt cards, but others spent theirs immediately.

Like I said, still having fun, but it's been a bit disheartening for both of our players when we failed their story missions completely.

Pretty sure this is the issue. Saving those upgrades is really tough. My Rebs saved XP for upgrades and lost the two missions they didn't upgrade. (two of three players saved up) Next mission was a deciding win in their favour.

Some Rebels have great early upgrades like Diala's Force Adept but other like Gideon are probably better to save up. Saving up for an expensive ability could pay off more than getting a minor boost early.

What kinds of loot do you buy/save for?

Obviously weapons are good but I really like the attachments "Balanced hilt" and "Tac Display" and these are only available in Tier 1.

I have not bought armor or equipment cards as they don't seem that strong.

Coming from the Imperial side, I find the armor to be quite strong. This is a game about beating the clock, and the armor tends to make me dedicate *one more* attack than I expected to finish off a hero. That throws off my whole tempo and could be the difference between victory and timing out. Then again, I've yet to play the Rebel side.

Coming from the Imperial side, I find the armor to be quite strong. This is a game about beating the clock, and the armor tends to make me dedicate *one more* attack than I expected to finish off a hero. That throws off my whole tempo and could be the difference between victory and timing out. Then again, I've yet to play the Rebel side.

That's a really good point. I think Rebel players tend to look at it and think, "Man, I'm still gonna get wounded if I take that." They think about their own figure and not about how they play a role in the overall team strategy.