Those of us out there that are Playing as the Imps need to stick together. As the game goes on we're losing more men than we can count, more important plans have been stolen by the rebels than you can shake a stick at, and Lord Vader has Force Choked all your best friends for lack of faith in the Empire.

That leaves us commanders in a tough spot, so lets come together and talk Strategies! Whats your best tips/moves/Open Groups? What do you do best to throw a wrench in the Rebel plans? There are no spoilers here so talk mission specifics...after all, The Emperor has foreseen the out come of all this and he looks pissed.

Officers to move EWebs and ATSTs or give them more attacks is pretty bonkers. Moving the EWebs outside of their activation doesn't prevent them from shooting and can be a big surprise. The ATSTs build up a ton of speed with officers so kiting rebels is fairly simple.

Officers to move EWebs and ATSTs or give them more attacks is pretty bonkers. Moving the EWebs outside of their activation doesn't prevent them from shooting and can be a big surprise. The ATSTs build up a ton of speed with officers so kiting rebels is fairly simple.

That's a great point. I'm forcing myself to include an officer in my open groups for this reason. Though most of the time I forget to use their "Command" because I'm usually in Move/Attack mode.

I think their Command ability is their best selling point, but if you can get in both a command and (ideally) a focused attack, all the better!

Royal Guards are excellent for protection and with a red paint job, they are rightly feared!

I'm in love with Nexu, especially the elite. It's SUPER fast, takes up a large amount of room (half the time our job is stalling the Rebels), and is generally really annoying to kill (Cunning FTW!). Not to mention Bleed, which is just fantastic in my opinion.

There are others, but an elite Nexu is my favorite open group.

I would say, watch your open groups.

Stormtroopers can become formidable with the right class cards, and the ability to activate three figures at once is great for action economy. You can also swarm objective points to limit attacks against terminals and other such things.

I, too, love the Nexu because of it's mobility. It really makes the heroes fear it and can really distract them ... or punish if them if they don't take care of it.

However, if you have a Nexu with Stormtroopers, you really need to watch your stormtrooper spacing to make sure you don't crowd your Nexu out of a good position. Sometimes I wonder if it's better to put the Nexu with other groups that have fewer figures like Officers, Royal Guards, E-Web Engineers, and Trandoshan Hunters.

I like trying to get an Imperial Officer in my Open Group for the reasons stated.

I also like making sure I have an Imperial Probe Droid as an option. With a total movement of six spaces and then Self Destruct, it has worked wonders at forcing my Rebel opponents to spread out more in order to minimize the blast damage on their group. That leaves them usually wasting an action or two for several of their characters over the course of the game - quite valuable. And when you can land it in the middle of 2-3 heroes and hit 2-3 damage on the Red Die, that's a ton of wounds softening them up to let your other Imperials come in and mop up.

Haven't tried the Nexu yet, mostly because they are the favored selection by the Imperial player in a different campaign I'm in, and I wanted to try something different. I'll have to see what they're like sooner or later.

I became a fan of the Trandoshan Hunters after playing 'The Spice Job' Mission. Those guys hit like a Mac Truck not to mention Bleed and Relentless, woowee those guys are Strain City for the Rebel Scum! I wounded two Heroes and left another in bad shape before they where taken down.

Based on my playing Group anything I can do to cause them to max out their Strain is the best tactic I have for keeping my troops on the field. It takes their "Strain Special Action" out of the arsenal (Taking 'Charge' away from the wookie is always a good thing!), and causes them to rest more, effectively taking a turn away as well! Causing strain is a proven stall tactic for me and I'm loving it!

I agree with what many others have said. Imperial Officer is just awesome. I like the Elite just a tad better because of Executive Order. Trandoshans are awesome at taking out Allies because of their Relentless. I will always include these guys if possible when facing any type of ally. Ive kept my Rebel players from gaining access to Luke or Han all because of those Trandoshans. I just started using the Nexu. Its really hard for the Rebels to plan around him since he can move 6 then pouce 3 spaces and attack. Thats a huge distace he can cover. Im also loving Cunning. Makes the white die so much better.

Im using Subversive Tactics in one of my campaings and it has been awesome. Garkaahn was wrecking me the first couple of missions. Now I just make sure I strain him ASAP. Prey upon doubt has been great at this. A lot of the heroes upgraded weapons have some awesome surge abilities. Im starting to feel like strain is very key to slowing the heroes down. I also have one of the class cards that lets me move or attack when a hero rests. Just having that card ready has made the heroes think twice about resting because Im usually set up to get an attack which usually just negates the rest action they took.

Im looking forward to staring more campaigns so I can see how the other class decks for the Imps play out.

you can out maneuver Jyn and her quickdraw interrupt. Since it's a choice when your figure activates, choose a figure that she doesn't have LOS to. I've run 2 squads of stormtroopers around her in aftermath, never allowing her the chance to quickdraw.

I just started using the Nexu. Its really hard for the Rebels to plan around him since he can move 6 then pouce 3 spaces and attack. Thats a huge distace he can cover.

Don't you guys find that they are cumbersome to use because they are Large, and cannot movie diagonally?

I just started using the Nexu. Its really hard for the Rebels to plan around him since he can move 6 then pouce 3 spaces and attack. Thats a huge distace he can cover.

Don't you guys find that they are cumbersome to use because they are Large, and cannot movie diagonally?

The Pounce ability more than makes up for this. They can get into some pretty insane places with that place effect. You do need to be careful with placing your Stormtroopers and the like, but otherwise I rarely have issues putting them where I want.

you can out maneuver Jyn and her quickdraw interrupt. Since it's a choice when your figure activates, choose a figure that she doesn't have LOS to. I've run 2 squads of stormtroopers around her in aftermath, never allowing her the chance to quickdraw.

Quickdraw is a constant thorn in my side....This is brilliant!

I just started using the Nexu. Its really hard for the Rebels to plan around him since he can move 6 then pouce 3 spaces and attack. Thats a huge distace he can cover.

Don't you guys find that they are cumbersome to use because they are Large, and cannot movie diagonally?

With 6 movement and mobility they are still quite agile and keep in mind that pounce is place the nexu within 3 spaces so diagonals work for pounce.

I tend to love a basic squad of royal guard, almost an auto-include for an open group slot once you get up to 4 threat level or so. The stun is just so nice. They run together, so they can slow down a hallway, then stun whatever hero (or two) they are near with reach. Hero's really need actions to win the game, so losing several via stun over the course of a few turns is really troublesome. Plus they are hard to kill, have a good amount of health, and pack a wallop. They are good at everything except shooting.

What I think this thread is showing is that many of our options are great, and you really need to tailor your choices to your individual play style. I chose the Nexu as my favorite, but that's also in a vacuum. If I'm playing Technological Superiority and I have the Arc Blasters upgrade, well, then my favorite is an elite Stormtrooper unit. They will be tossing out Stun conditions left and right, in addition to some hefty damage.

Really, pretty much everything is good. If I picked a weak point, I'd say the Probe Droid is it. They are nice early in the game, but as threat levels rise and I'm looking for more elite options, the Self Destruct option isn't enough for them to make the cut.

The nice thing about the Probe Droid is that he is so cheap. Sometimes I like to add a cheap card just so I have more activations then there are Heroes. Send the Droid out as a decoy and hold off on the more powerful units to activate after some of the heroes. My Rebel players really don't like self destruct even though it hasn't been all that usefull in my eyes. But hey if they feel threatened by it thats perfectly fine by me

That probe droid is no slouch, it can hit and run and self-heal, used correctly you can really slow down the heroes with it.

Anyone found the double tapping stormtroopers card useful? (Sorry, can't remember the card name).

Seems like it could be awesome, or the sort of thing that messes you up because you keep trying to use both their actions to shoot even if that isn't the best option.

Some of the probe droid upgrade cards make them down right scary. Healing other models, all sorts of nonsense.

Another tidbit I noticed is how important it is to save influence. There seems to be a ton of 1 influence cards that seem pretty crappy (single use then discard to box). If its early, i would save your points and go for the cards that say 'deplete'. That way you get the most bang for your buck over the long run. For example, high priority target has been amazing, since i usually wound a hero in each mission and get an extra threat increase.

Anyone found the double tapping stormtroopers card useful? (Sorry, can't remember the card name).

Seems like it could be awesome, or the sort of thing that messes you up because you keep trying to use both their actions to shoot even if that isn't the best option.

Are you talking about sustained fire from military might? Note that is not trooper specific, so I usually use it on royal guards or trandoshans. With a single activation of either of these cards, i have a solid chance of taking a hero from full to wounded with 3 dice rolls (along with the free focus xp card as well). That card has directly won me imperial hospitality, as well as being a significant help in several others.

I need some help. As an imperial I'm 0-3 and I'm afraid that the Rebels are just gaining too much power and resources for me to keep up. They seem to be getting more powerful while I'm barely scraping by with 1 influence from each mission there is not much I can buy that's worthwhile.

the first mission was extremely close, the second mission Friends of Old was a landslide. The group split up went to 2 different tokens, flipped them and won by round 2 or beginning of round 3.

The last mission a A New Threat I thought I was going to have for sure so I spent 1 influence on a card that would give focus to 2 of my Imperial Units. The Rebels started with a group of Rebel troopers from Friends of Old. I put assault armor on my Elite probe droid. At first I was decimating them wounding 2, but throughout they just kept protecting the non wounded making sure i couldnt get to them or draw line of sight. They would put a wounded unit in between the non wounded unit and a nexu, positioned so the nexu had no where to position to attack. or they would just block in behing blocking terrain. Whats rough is they figure out where Im spawning from and stay far away and my units that can shoot move incredibly slow.

[_] = spaces

[w] = wounded

[n] = non wounded

+ = wall

+[_][_] +

+[_][w]+

+[_][_] +

+[_][n] +

++++++

they just split up and moved past my units. Doing double moves. The wookie and Jyn went to one door. The jedi and gideon another. The wookie and jedi both one hit the doors. They investigated the terminals just ignoring the enemies. And each terminal corresponded to their best abilities, ie observation for Jedi. I was deploying like mad but the spawn points weren't near the last door.

The Rebels have figured out by ignoring, splitting into groups of 2 and just moving through the imperial unit spaces they get to the objectives fast and they just concentrate on keeping one non wounded. They don't worry about crates or even killing units they generally wound units keeping them on the edge, then kill if needed (generally with Jyn quickdraw). The problem is they activate first and can move through my spaces, and gideon gives an action.

Please help. I'm getting a bit discouraged only because the Rebels are hooting and holering about winning and getting stronger. I'm afraid later I'm just not going to be able to compete.

I need some help. As an imperial I'm 0-3 and I'm afraid that the Rebels are just gaining too much power and resources for me to keep up. They seem to be getting more powerful while I'm barely scraping by with 1 influence from each mission there is not much I can buy that's worthwhile.

Are you giving yourself XP as well for upgrades? You should be getting XP at roughly the same rate as the heroes, even if you lose a mission. When the mission says "each player gains 1 XP", they mean the Imperial player as well. If you aren't gaining and spending XP, they will steamroll you.

As for imperial strategy, the key to winning is keeping the rebel players on the defensive when they are on offensive missions and forcing them to move when on defensive missions. The simplest thing you can do is find the weakest hero in the group, and focus your fire on them, to the exclusion of all else. Do this until you wound them, then turn to your players, give them a very subtle grin, and say; "interesting, I didn't think they were that...vulnerable", and continue the assault until that hero is forced to withdraw.

Suddenly those aggressive heroes will have a little less swagger in their step. And sometimes, you have to force a hero to withdraw completely to teach them a lesson.

Note that it should be fairly difficult to have four heroes deny lines of sight. In your below example:

+[T][_] +

+[_][w]+

+[_][_] +

+[_][n] +

++++++

See where I added the T (T is for Trooper!)? T can draw LOS to both N and W. Expanding further down the hallway:

+[_][_] +

+[T][_]+

+[_][_] +

+[_][w]+

+[_][_] +

+[_][n] +

++++++

T *STILL* has LOS to N. You can move your units, take shots, and then get out of the way so that other units can get LOS and take more shots.

Also remember that your Imperial units can move through the heroes, just like they do to you.

Remember that you can hold back your deployments to hidden deployment points, save up your threat so that when you decide to reinforce or deploy, you are adding overwhelming force to that point. There is no limit to how much threat you can spend in a turn. Don't give up the element of surprise so easily.