I literally defy you to explain how it's possible to win Viper's Den as the rebels. This one is laughably OP favoring imps. They start closer and have the same objective and parameters. It's a race where the other guys start 9 spaces in front of you.

Just needed to vent. Hard to understand how a mission like that gets past test. Ugh.

Unless you're playing a 3-year old, nope.

My $0.02

UPDATE: I just saw all the replies this had after several days and chuckled out loud. I sounded like a whining idiot, which is I suppose what I was going for - I have since discovered strategies that work for this mission. But that night, oh man. LOL

Spoiler Alert: after typing this i realized i sounded rude not trying to be so dont take it that way just how i get my point across.

This one isn't as hard as your making it sound. Yes the imperial player starts closer but they have to waste time and activations pounding down the door. Then you come into range and shoot them in the rear probably clearing most of them off the board. If they somehow break through the door before you and pick up the core luckily they have such low base health values and no way to heal that you just kill them with one of your characters and pick it up. I would have to say this is actually one of the easier missions and essentially a free win for rebels if played right. No time limit is almost always a rebel win if stratigized correctly.

The Imps still can only escape via the 'Entrance' and they still have to break the doors down to get in.

You can't be playing this mission correctly if you think this is some Imperial cakewalk.

While they start closer to the objective they can't get to it unless the bust the doors down, which helps you and wastes their activations. They then have to pick up the item and take it back to the entrance that you start at. They litterally have to run past you to get out. If the Rebels down the figure holding the core near the entrance, they very well could have just had the Imperials do all the work for them.

The Imperial player is not going to win this mission trying to rush the package out as the heroes are going to have far to easy of a time taking out the ball carrier since they start on top of the exit.

You need to take a breath and put more critical thought into the mission.

Agreed, this mission ended up being a solidly easy win for the rebels. And I wasn't pulling any punches as the imps.

We won this pretty handily as the Rebels. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was easy, but having gone through it start-to-finish, I feel like it's definitely not that bad. Of course, our Imperial player didn't necessarily play it to the best effect for his "get the item and get out" win condition, he was one good activation away from wounding all four of us when we finally escaped. It was very much a game that could have gone the other way with a couple rolls.

Though I'm a big proponent of 'this game is actually pretty balanced', my experience is that if you get this mission at the wrong time (for my group it was early in the campaign after an Imperial win or two, maybe threat level 3?) it can be :really: hard for the rebels.

If I remember correctly (I'm not near my game so I can't check), the Imperial player can bust down the door near the top of the map (as it's oriented in the rulebook) pretty easily with the E-web. Then you can spawn a Royal Guard as an optional deployment on either turn 2 or 3 (again, I forget). They grab the thing while the Reserved groups break down the other door near the bottom. Then, if you set it up right (and unless the Rebels are REALLY savvy), a Royal Guard team can escape out the entrance via a double move without being touched.

Again, I think if we had gotten this later in the campaign, the heroes may have been able to give me more of a run for my money. But at the time we played it, I think I won in four (maybe five) turns without the Rebel players even attacking the 'carrier'.

By really savy do you mean simply placing Rebel figures anywhere along the approach including the entrance itself which would prevent even the 5 Speed Royal Guard group from setting up at the bottom door and running out with the package?

It is exactly ten spaces from the one side of the door to the entrance. There just needs to be one Rebel Figure in the way to prevent the uninterrupted jail break.

What if you set up your Royal Guard one or two spaces closer than that? (Possibly with the Reserved Groups in front of them? That's what I did anyway)

If your Rebel Players allow you to knock the bottom door down with your reserve group, then position your reserve group 3-4 spaces in front of where the door was, while also allowing your Royal Guards to set up behind them. Then yes absolutely you'll be able to run the package out. The fact that you can do that is the only thing keeping the Rebels from just camping the exit.

What exactly were your Rebel Players doing? While it is smart to leave a figure or two to guard the approach there is absolutely no reason to not back door the area with one of the more nimble figures available.

This mission is really easy for the rebels. I don't know how anyone could feel it isn't unless the rebels are sitting doing nothing. If a rebel figure picks up the objective at any point it's basically good game. It's not too hard for the rebels to kill whoever is carrying the objective and pick it up themselves.

In My group it was a battle!

It came down to Jyn being able fly (10 Move for two actions!? dumb!). She sprinted past everyone and left my guys in the dust!

Yeah, my original was more of a pissed off rant after a hard few missions. But it occurs to me that if the imperial player has to bring it out the same entrance as I start, I don't have to move at all and just kill whoever is approaching the entrance with it. Then go grab it and it's over.

I clearly didn't think of that that night. I was steaming in a fog of 'over this' by getting my butt handed to me by imperials.

Also saw this one fairly early in the campaign, so I was running a core squad of 2 heroes...

By really savy do you mean simply placing Rebel figures anywhere along the approach including the entrance itself which would prevent even the 5 Speed Royal Guard group from setting up at the bottom door and running out with the package?

It is exactly ten spaces from the one side of the door to the entrance. There just needs to be one Rebel Figure in the way to prevent the uninterrupted jail break.

Not if you have a imperial officer to help them make the ball run. In fact that was my exact strategy. Eweb knocks a door down. royal guard gets the ball. Stormies and imp officer spawn. Stormies blow the other door and officer sets up to send the royal guard on their way. If you have enough groups left on the board its easy to bleed their activation and send the guard out with a total of 15mp. Bonus points for chaining officers. Unless the rebels catch on pretty early on what you're up to they can't slow you down enough to matter.

If we played it again I think it'd be more even, but the element of surprise helps out the imps a lot. If we had played it before threat 4 it would have been tougher.

Bet you wish you had me playing the Imperial. I didn't read the scenario well enough and missed the effing bit where it said EITHER team could win by carrying the info out. So I played it like a stock IA mission where my only job was to stop the rebels from doing their thing.. Yes, I'm hanging my head in shame as I'm typing this. Worst part is I sat there thinking 'Man this feels like a very unbalanced mission for IA, the missions are normally so well balanced....'.

Adlerson

I think it is pretty hard for the rebels to win this, but then again I think ALL the missions are unfair against the rebels. A good imperial can easily outwit the rebels.
I won this by having the imperials just rain damage against the rebels. The rebels once they realize this decided to waste their actions to break down the door. Then with my extra forces spawning closer to the "football", it was a simple matter for the imperial officer to command them towards the data code, and then double run to race towards the exit.
Also I had a nexu, and according to the rules any figure could pick up the data core and the nexu has crazy movement ability.

Nexus cannot interact, which means they cannot retrieve tokens.