So I managed to get this out as their second side mission wave - the players rushed vader and stun locked him and killed him by round 3. I did not manage to wound 1 of them and the optional deployment died before it could move from the spawn thanks to blast 2 being crazy. I am really not sure what I could have done differently. If I parked a trooper near vader he got blasted for 4 to 6 damage each round so no defence dice - all the red troopers did was live long enough to get shot 3 times.

Any one got some advice for this? I am being smashed by havoc shot.

How were the heroes so easily stunning Vader? He has 2 black defense dice and a re roll. It can be very hard to deal damage through that while retaining surges for stun. You were using the stun keyword correctly which requires damage be dealt in order to trigger it?

yes - the Jedi was removing a defence die and spending focus to let other characters re-roll attack dice vs vader. Having to rest to get back strain is an irrelevance when you can be ordered to take an action. Also she is not the only one with stun in the group and getting just 1 damage is not that hard.

While I am aware that you can only be stunned once (no stacking) as well - only getting 1 action on vader every round makes this scenario very hard - especially when the only one next to him is the wookie as the jedi has reach.

This game was a massive slaughter - made me wish I never bothered wasting the influence as they got a ton of credits out of it as well. Basically Vader did not get out of the first room - I don't think he even got past the doorway into their spawn.

Interesting. When I played, my players decided to rush Vader and after the first round, they realized it was a bad idea, but they felt committed, so they didn't go for timing Vader out.

I'm curious, you mentioned Blast and Diala, so I'm assuming the Rebels had Diala and Fenn. Who else was there?

What did you have with you? What Imperial Class were you playing with?

I deployed troopers - I only had medic from the trooper tree. I can see how the white die would have helped I could not get enough heals onto vader and they were clearing units next to him. They don't need to do much damage to blast so 3 attacks from fenn in one round means everything is dead (6 damage) they have Gideon, Fenn, Gaarkan and Diala.

With Gideon giving out 2 commands and shooting every turn the just went for the stun and blast damage with a minimum of 2 attacks every round for Fenn and Diala including a move. If Gideon stunned vader it just gave them a chance to get back focus on the Jedi instead of stunning him with surges.

Where did they get blast from? You do need to do dmg to blast

A couple things that might influence this, and I apologize that I'm going from memory here so I could be wrong. Gideon can only use Command once per activation, and Command only allows a Move or Attack action. He can't command them to Rest, for example. Many of the special abilities on cards can only be triggered during activation, so couldn't be used during the Command attack. I know Diala's is, not sure about Fenn's.

Where did they get blast from? You do need to do dmg to blast

Fenn has an upgrade that increases his take 1 strain to blast 1 to deal blast 2. He only needs 1 damage to blast. See below for the stupid combo.

A couple things that might influence this, and I apologize that I'm going from memory here so I could be wrong. Gideon can only use Command once per activation, and Command only allows a Move or Attack action. He can't command them to Rest, for example. Many of the special abilities on cards can only be triggered during activation, so couldn't be used during the Command attack. I know Diala's is, not sure about Fenn's.

Gideon has 2 strain for command - choose a player in 3 spaces that figure can interrupt to perform 1 more or 1 attack. He also has the xp upgrade to command so he can do a second command for free ( no action or extra strain required) provided you have performed a command action this activation.

So Gideon who can surge for stun if he damages shoots vader and either stuns if he does damage or recovers strain from his surges unless he is at 4 strain then his "optional action" ie instead of attacking: is to rest to clear strain. He can then order both Fenn and Diala to attack burning commands into Diala to try and force a stun or into Fenn if the stun is achieved so he can blast to clear troopers from around vader while blasting unstoppable damage into vader. This means on Fenn and Dialas activation they can either attack twice or rest and attack as required. The one time I moved vader away from them Gideon just ordered Diala twice to move and then attack so she still got 2 attacks and a rest in one phase.

All of this is possible from only 4xp for the heroes. Sure it requires some dice rolling but when you only need 1 damage to sneak through 1 defence die to stun vader it is not that hard. Vader having to choose to attack or move is frustrating. I tried to choke to force strain onto them but they just rested and swung again.

Did you get a chance to use Vader's reroll ability?

Xcerus, this isn't going to work if you keep stringing us along with pertinent information. We can't provide useful input if we don't have the full story available. Thus we are stuck postulating that rules are being missed, particularly when you make a statement like

"They don't need to so damage to blast"

Now clearly there is a typo in there, but what you wrote makes it seem like you are making a rules error, so of course someone will bring that up.

If you want help figuring something out you can't start the thread without telling us even when the mission took place (you vaguely alluded to it), what heroes, what equipment, upgrades on both sides, etc.

Can't you use an elite Imperial officer to give an extra attack to Vader? I don't have the rules there, but IIRC, he is only restriced to move by himself, but can still be ordered to attack.

Did you get a chance to use Vader's reroll ability?

Xcerus, this isn't going to work if you keep stringing us along with pertinent information. We can't provide useful input if we don't have the full story available. Thus we are stuck postulating that rules are being missed, particularly when you make a statement like

"They don't need to so damage to blast"

Can't you use an elite Imperial officer to give an extra attack to Vader? I don't have the rules there, but IIRC, he is only restriced to move by himself, but can still be ordered to attack.

Edit: apparently typos from my phone are also abundant.

The first thing jumped out at me about your post is that if they are blasting/cleaving free damage into Vader don't position your troops to allow that.

Royal Guard's Stun would prevent that hero from being commanded and require an action to remove. A Nexu bleed would cause an extra damage if they were commanded and again an action to remove.

Loosing 3 Elite Storm Troopers with Medic in one activation is either really bad luck or something wrong is being done.

Perhaps it was just a bad luck mission.

The first thing jumped out at me about your post is that if they are blasting/cleaving free damage into Vader don't position your troops to allow that.

Royal Guard's Stun would prevent that hero from being commanded and require an action to remove. A Nexu bleed would cause an extra damage if they were commanded and again an action to remove.

Loosing 3 Elite Storm Troopers with Medic in one activation is either really bad luck or something wrong is being done.

Perhaps it was just a bad luck mission.

Good advice there - I moved them next to vader so he could divert attacks from him onto them as their first 2 activations just whaled on vader. Then Fenn activated and blew 2 of them away then was commanded to attack again killing the last one. Vader was stunned on 10 damage at the end of turn 1. 6 of that was from Blast 2.

I got worked - uh, tricked.

My opponent made sure Vader was too far from the objective by the start of round 5 that even if I had sprinted him there, he wouldn't have made it before the buzzer. I felt like a complete idiot...

I'll be including more officers in my open groups from now on, I can tell you...

He won't win that easily again. Oh no...

I'll be including more officers in my open groups from now on, I can tell you...

In this particular mission, Imperial Officers cannot move Darth Vader, but as a general rule, yes, they are quite powerful.

I'll be including more officers in my open groups from now on, I can tell you...

In this particular mission, Imperial Officers cannot move Darth Vader, but as a general rule, yes, they are quite powerful.

I remember that now. Right. Okay, so no cure for this except that I need to stop being an idiot and think ahead.

Cruel part is, I had plenty of firepower and time to finish it right, but I just forgot that one detail...

I'll be including more officers in my open groups from now on, I can tell you...

In this particular mission, Imperial Officers cannot move Darth Vader, but as a general rule, yes, they are quite powerful.

A nice red officer however can let vader take an attack out of turn and then move twice when his activation comes up

I can't really tell but were you removing Vader defense die for her attack or for all attacks. Pretty sure its just for hers

I can't really tell but were you removing Vader defense die for her attack or for all attacks. Pretty sure its just for hers

Just for her attack. She would swing at him until he was stunned (usually 1 attack) and then rest to recover strain if she needed to or just hit him again.

If she failed to land a hit and stun then Gideon would order her to attack again and if that failed (which it did once) Gideon would attack and try to stun which he did.

This was preceeded by Fenn opening fire on the storm troopers I had put next to vader killing two a round and using his Blast 2 for 1 strain to hit vader for 4 damage without vader getting a defence die. If Gideon has not orderd the jedi to attack then he would order Fenn getting an extra 2 blast damage onto vader.

Taking 4 to 6 damage a round that you can't stop means you have between 3 to 5 rounds before vader is dead from 1 hero. Never mind the damage done from the other 3 heroes.

I think the point of a red officer would have made a difference here because I would have been able to move him up to Gideon and then attack him even with the stun. It is a lesson in what cards to take I guess.

On the bright side we had our second day (for this campaign) on Monday and I smashed them in Imperial Hospitality and The Spice Run however they won Sympathy for the rebellion as Gideon now has Air of command, Mobile Tactician and Masterstroke meaning the amount of movement they can do in 1 round is sickening which makes stopping them getting out with the objectives very hard.

Just to make sure I read it right, every rebel Hero has to be wounded before Vader can interact with the mission objective, correct?

Correct Adlerson.

I think this thread does a good job of showing us with a different setup we will see different results. Im using subersive tactics as my Imp class. We just played this mission the other day and the hereos were Garkaahn, Fenn, and Mak. They each had maybe 1 upgrade since they were saving up for their big ones. None of the heroes had blast or stun. My biggest concern was Garkaahn and cleave since he could attack a trooper and cleave Vader for free. I also deployed an optional Royal Guard group. I kept the wookie fully strained so that it was harder for him to use charge. At one point he ran towards the opening room Vader started in because he was trying to force me to come after him to finally wound him. Well with the amount of threat this mission gives I was able to deploy more troopers into that room and kept all my other trooper groups full. At the end of round 4 I was in position to win no matter what. The heroes did find a coule Frag grenades but both of them where duds. The heroes did get 8 damage on Vader though so they were happy with that.

Correct Adlerson.

I think this thread does a good job of showing us with a different setup we will see different results. Im using subersive tactics as my Imp class. We just played this mission the other day and the hereos were Garkaahn, Fenn, and Mak. They each had maybe 1 upgrade since they were saving up for their big ones. None of the heroes had blast or stun. My biggest concern was Garkaahn and cleave since he could attack a trooper and cleave Vader for free. I also deployed an optional Royal Guard group. I kept the wookie fully strained so that it was harder for him to use charge. At one point he ran towards the opening room Vader started in because he was trying to force me to come after him to finally wound him. Well with the amount of threat this mission gives I was able to deploy more troopers into that room and kept all my other trooper groups full. At the end of round 4 I was in position to win no matter what. The heroes did find a coule Frag grenades but both of them where duds. The heroes did get 8 damage on Vader though so they were happy with that.

Fenn has blast. Very hard mish for Imps. I think it would be hard even if they didn't have to wound all the heroes, or at least balanced at that point. I played Rebs (Gaarkhan, Jyn, Diala, Fenn), it was too easy. Closed doors and slowed Vader up.

Unfortunately, this quest is near impossible to win as Imperials.

Your best bet is to play it when they have red quests in play or not at all.

The set is still worth it as the -5 cost card is one of the best cards period and you can you As you wish to get him anyway.

I know this is old, and I can see how frustrating this can be, but I bet it created a great experience for your players.

Sometimes, in my opinion, it's worth sacrificing a really cool victory to give your players a boost.