Does anyone else get the feeling that Last Stand is a little imbalanced in regards to Vader at the end? By the time my group had fought our way to Vader (we were playing with a team of 3: Mak, Fenn, and Diala with Luke and Saboteurs deployed), one of us was already wounded (saboteurs were dead) and there were many enemies giving chase that simply shot through the doors once they closed (since 2 more groups spawn every time you open one.) Vader then just basically started moving away so we had to give chase while constantly cancelling 2 damage with the 'spend threat to give more blocks' ability. I didn't have a problem with that, or even the fact that at the end of each turn Vader gets an action instead of activating as normal, but the +8 health just because seems a little over the top.

When all was said and done we made a final hail mary to deal some damage to him, and he still had 7 life remaining with 17 damage suffered because he just kept cancelling 2 every attack (between the 2 black dice and the ability, I think he cancelled around 14 damage). Does anyone else think that the +8 health seems a bit much, particularly when he's already immune to conditions? Did anyone have a different approach maybe?

It seems legit to me. I don't think Vader should ever be easy to defeat. As for strategy, I imagine it's a combination of gear and luck.

That's the thing, the three of us had the best gear we could possibly have as far as weapons go, but not so much with armor. I can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been without the weapons. Diala had her Red/Yellow lightsaber with a reach mod, Mak had the Red/Red disruptor, and Fenn had the Blue/Red pistol that gives 1 free damage. We rolled somewhere close to 32 damage on Vader if I recall correctly (with abilities and cards that lowered his defense to 1 die) and he cancelled 15 of it (7 with rolls and another 8 from the threat spending). When Vader gets an action at the end of every players turn, and he rolls Red/Red/Yellow and is immune to conditions, it seems a bit stacked that he'll easily be able to wound the players. At one point Diala had to pop her personal shields to cancel 5 damage because Vader rolled so high he dealt 10 in one hit (the Imperial player smartly played the card that lets a unit focus). Then after the next hero went he just Force choked her for 3 more damage to win (since she was at max strain).

Having played the mission and having our Imperial player basically hold all his cards for the final mission (since it wins you the game or not after all), I can say this is very, very hard. Our group did not even make it to Vader. Right as we were about to open the door, the last hero was wounded. We had Elite Royal Guard, Elite Trandos, Elite Stormies (upgraded to shoot twice) all giving chase...on top of the normal stuff that spawns in each room. Our Imperial player would reinforce whatever we killed, and we were pretty geared overall. Its just hard to kill anything with the Royal Guard bonuses and huge health pool of the elites, especially when the amount of threat we had against us was enough to constantly reinforce whatever we killed.

My Fenn was doing around 9dmg/hit with Pierce 2 and we were still incapable of killing anything for more than a few moments. I think at one point we actually killed the elite Stormy group, only to have our Imp re-buy them...

While the mission was cool, our group felt that given all the stuff our imperial player had and the mission itself, it was going to be near impossible to complete.

FWIW We had Gaarkhan, Jyn, Fenn, and Diala and our Imp went Military Might.

Has anyone actually won this mission? I'd be curious to hear how you did it.

That's something else that got us. If the finale had been limited to only Imperial figures, we might have had a fighting chance. But Elite trandoshans are just too good, especially in combination with free elite royal guards. Getting that free damage and strain when they're adjacent can be devastating. My Fenn took 10 damage from two Elite Trandoshans in one activation.

My group didn't even make it to Vader. I had them wiped out before they opened the second door. I am curious if any Rebels survived this mission, since in my case they where doomed from the beginning.

I haven't played that mission already, I may have read it once, so I don't know the specifics but I just wanted to bring to the table that the rebels are not supposed to bring two allies for a mission, only one max.

Also, I don't know if he's part of the scenario but, by bringing Luke, that give 10 free threat from the start to the IP, which is just the amount needed to deploy elite trandoshans. In my opinion, I will always feel more powerful with elite trandoshans (which I can reinforce when one die) than with Luke (which withdraw if he dies, and has only 2 more hp).

Anyway, that would not be the first mission that strongly favors the imperial, as far as I'm concerned.

edit : typo

Thank you for bringing up the ally matter, I can't believe we missed that. We had unlocked Luke as an ally by completing his side mission, and given the final boss it seems rather fitting to bring him even though you think you're going to fight Weiss until the very end. In all honesty the Imperial saved the Trandoshans until we opened the first door because there are three doors you have to open on the linear path to the last room, and every door opened gives two or more reserve units for free. The first door pops in elite royal guards and a probe droid. The second pops in an Imperial officer, another probe droid, and stormtroopers. The last door is the exception which pops in Darth Vader with +8 life.

That sure does not sound like an easy mission. I understand why you wanted to bring allies.

My group and I just finished our campaign with this mission last night. I was the Imperial player and up until that point I had only won two missions -- the story mission where the Rebels are trying to rescue the captive and Han Solo's side mission. The Rebels were composed of Diala, Fenn and Mak with the heroic titles. I saved a handful of cheap agendas [increase threat by threat level, focus two models when a hero is wounded, deal a strain, bleed and stun to a hero just damaged by a probe droid] and chose elite Stormtroopers and Trandoshan hunters as my open groups. The rebels elected to bring the saboteurs along as they've proven to be effective, especially since they won an early side mission which gave them a card which shaved 2 points off the deployment cost.

I immediately used the threat agenda at the end of round 1 allowing me to deploy both open groups. I kept the heat on and nearly wounded Fenn by round two but he survived with a couple HP and was able to rest up after dealing some gnarly damage to the elite Stormies [with combat veteran attachment]. The rebels pushed forward, slowly but surely, until they reached the first door by the end of round 4. They were really feeling the pressure by this point and they wanted to keep the momentum going so Mak opened the first door as his second action. He was immediately shot at by a probe droid with sustained attack and show of force who then used the agenda card to strain, stun and cause bleeding. He spent his next activation trying to heal but it wasn't enough as he couldn't shake all the conditions and remained stunned. The next turn the probe droid finished the job and Mak was wounded.

At this point the Rebels are crammed into the tight corridor leading to the entrance of the hanger. Diala is whirlwinding all around, slashing anyone in sight and spreading lots of damage around. Mak is still trying to shake his conditions and Fenn's keeping a safe distance to try and get some blast shots off. I turn my attention to the Jedi who takes a couple turns to wound with the help of some Trandoshans [she likes to run the Jedi hot on strain which always works to my advantage ]

The rebels are really starting to panic, fearing what may lie behind door number 2 [their bets are on an AT-ST]. They manage to clear out the room and position themselves in front of the door for next round [i think they're on round 8 by this point]. I deploy Stormies with combat veterans and assault armour to basically where they're standing. Diala takes a few swings with little effect and the Stormies unload point blank into Fenn. He takes some damage but nothing too serious. Mak tries in vain to open the door with his reduced tech skill, rolling no surges and unable to utilize Diala's reroll ability. The lone saboteur is able to kill a Stormie. Fenn uses his first activation and finishes off the remaining stormtroopers before using his second to move up and open the door successfully. Now he is faced with an onslaught of fire from the newly deployed stormtroopers and probe droid. Using sustained attack and show of force I was able to get him down to 1HP which the officer was able to remove with the last activation of the round.

Needless to say, Vader wasn't even necessary for this mission. We went out for a smoke break about halfway through and the general vibe from the Rebels was "We're screwed", a sentiment I shared with them.

All in all, the campaign was a blast to play with a lot of games coming down to a single activation. The rebels thought that their rather grim ending was actually pretty cool in terms of the overall narrative. We're already talking about what we're going to do for our second playthrough. Four heroes regardless of PC count is a must. We're also really looking forward to adding in some of the extra content from the Luke, Vader & hopefully the other expansions.

If my rebels make it to this mission (our next story mission is The Source), would it be more fair to keep Vader at his normal health rather than apply the +8? After all the crap they'll have gone through, I think that's just too much.

I just finished the campaign tonight, and it came down to a single turn in end. Diala had done a bunch of damage to Vader by reducing his defense dice, so he was getting low. It was round 9, with Fenn, Diala, and Mak wounded, and Jynn with 3 HP left. I had Vader with 1 HP, an elite E-Web, and a couple stormtroopers. Jynn was able to do the final damage to Vader, which won the game for the Rebels, but if he had survived, I would have wounded Jynn for sure, winning me the game. All-in-all it was incredibly close, and came down to one turn.

Hang on, Vader ran away ? I mean, that's legal, but ugh.

That hurts me inside. If Vader just ran away rather than fought like, well, like Vader, then sounds like your Imperial was more interested in "Imperial player wins the campaign" than the epic final confrontation you'd been working up to for ten odd missions.

I saw a similar situation yesterday with someone flipping out over the relative ease for the rebels to win Target of Opportunity. For "victory minded" players the Skirmish is far more appropriate. The campaign however is completely about the ride, not the destination. The Imperial is more of a GM than an opponent.

with Luke and Saboteurs deployed

Maybe you lost because karma modified your die rolls?

You should play it again.

Luke AND Saboters as allies???

But it's not only ONE ally per rebel's deploy?

My group and I just finished our campaign with this mission last night. I was the Imperial player and up until that point I had only won two missions -- the story mission where the Rebels are trying to rescue the captive and Han Solo's side mission. The Rebels were composed of Diala, Fenn and Mak with the heroic titles. I saved a handful of cheap agendas [increase threat by threat level, focus two models when a hero is wounded, deal a strain, bleed and stun to a hero just damaged by a probe droid] and chose elite Stormtroopers and Trandoshan hunters as my open groups. The rebels elected to bring the saboteurs along as they've proven to be effective, especially since they won an early side mission which gave them a card which shaved 2 points off the deployment cost.

I immediately used the threat agenda at the end of round 1 allowing me to deploy both open groups. I kept the heat on and nearly wounded Fenn by round two but he survived with a couple HP and was able to rest up after dealing some gnarly damage to the elite Stormies [with combat veteran attachment]. The rebels pushed forward, slowly but surely, until they reached the first door by the end of round 4. They were really feeling the pressure by this point and they wanted to keep the momentum going so Mak opened the first door as his second action. He was immediately shot at by a probe droid with sustained attack and show of force who then used the agenda card to strain, stun and cause bleeding. He spent his next activation trying to heal but it wasn't enough as he couldn't shake all the conditions and remained stunned. The next turn the probe droid finished the job and Mak was wounded.

At this point the Rebels are crammed into the tight corridor leading to the entrance of the hanger. Diala is whirlwinding all around, slashing anyone in sight and spreading lots of damage around. Mak is still trying to shake his conditions and Fenn's keeping a safe distance to try and get some blast shots off. I turn my attention to the Jedi who takes a couple turns to wound with the help of some Trandoshans [she likes to run the Jedi hot on strain which always works to my advantage ]

The rebels are really starting to panic, fearing what may lie behind door number 2 [their bets are on an AT-ST]. They manage to clear out the room and position themselves in front of the door for next round [i think they're on round 8 by this point]. I deploy Stormies with combat veterans and assault armour to basically where they're standing. Diala takes a few swings with little effect and the Stormies unload point blank into Fenn. He takes some damage but nothing too serious. Mak tries in vain to open the door with his reduced tech skill, rolling no surges and unable to utilize Diala's reroll ability. The lone saboteur is able to kill a Stormie. Fenn uses his first activation and finishes off the remaining stormtroopers before using his second to move up and open the door successfully. Now he is faced with an onslaught of fire from the newly deployed stormtroopers and probe droid. Using sustained attack and show of force I was able to get him down to 1HP which the officer was able to remove with the last activation of the round.

Needless to say, Vader wasn't even necessary for this mission. We went out for a smoke break about halfway through and the general vibe from the Rebels was "We're screwed", a sentiment I shared with them.

All in all, the campaign was a blast to play with a lot of games coming down to a single activation. The rebels thought that their rather grim ending was actually pretty cool in terms of the overall narrative. We're already talking about what we're going to do for our second playthrough. Four heroes regardless of PC count is a must. We're also really looking forward to adding in some of the extra content from the Luke, Vader & hopefully the other expansions.

I had a very similar experience. Our Imp player had won about 50% of the preceding missions and just held all the threat-generating agendas for the final mission. By the time we opened the 2nd door we were facing Elite RG, Elite Trandos, Elite Stormies with the agenda that lets them double attack, on top of the basic stormies and officer that spawn. We didn't even get a chance to open the Vader door, everyone was wounded by then. Anything we killed was either re-deployed or reinforced. We probably killed 3 Elite RG, 2 Elite Trandos and a couple squads of normal stormies by the time the game ended.

We just got mauled. When we read the Vader part afterward (since we never triggered it) and how insane he is (4 actions per round and 24 health...) and how the Imperial player could spend threat to help keep him alive, we were pretty convinced that if your Imp player won missions at all and saved the best agendas for the end, the mission was as close to impossible as you could get without actually being impossible.

I don't have the Campaign Guide, but I'm an Imperial player early into our first campaign with two Legendary rebel players.

Is the Imperial victory condition for this final battle "Wound all Heroes"? because if it is, I can save myself half a dozen sessions and just surrender now. We learned last night (trying Dark Obsessions) that is just isn't feasible to wound Legendary characters if they are determined to run and heal. Having a threshold over 20, while being able to heal 20+ per round, means that they aren't going to fall, ever, unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Is there a time limit or some other factor to allow for Imperial victory if the Rebels are healthy at the end?

I just finished the campaign tonight, and it came down to a single turn in end. Diala had done a bunch of damage to Vader by reducing his defense dice, so he was getting low. It was round 9, with Fenn, Diala, and Mak wounded, and Jynn with 3 HP left. I had Vader with 1 HP, an elite E-Web, and a couple stormtroopers. Jynn was able to do the final damage to Vader, which won the game for the Rebels, but if he had survived, I would have wounded Jynn for sure, winning me the game. All-in-all it was incredibly close, and came down to one turn.

pretty much the same happend to my group last night, should have saved my threat up to give vader defence buff. very close though. my group had immense fun.

I finished the campaign with this mission about a week ago. Our setup:

Rebels: Gaarkhan, Diala, Fenn and Mak (all have tier 3 weapons and Fenn has armor)

Imperials (me): Technological Superiority (Arc Blasters, Adaptive Weapons, The droid heal upgrade (can't remember the name), Cloaking Device, Experimental Arms)

Going into this mission I didn't held out much hope since rebels had won all but one mission during the campaign. However, it turned out better as I managed to wound Diala right in the first round. She was standing in the open and so I used my agenda card that after a figure finishes his activation I can use one trooper to attack. So I used the E-Web Engineer and then activated the same Engineer.

Gaarkhan was probably the most annoying hero to deal with as he could kill 3 figures in one activation (Brutal Cleave, Charge, Brutality). The heroes didn't kill one stormtrooper group entirely so I reinforced that. All my other units were completely wiped out during the first round. Fenn's tactical movement and superior positioning are really good at helping Mak to move into position, then Mak takes few strain steps and attacks twice. He also has the upgrade to gain a free attack if the target doesn't die.

But eventually when they got to the final door and opened it, I had wounded 2 of the 4 heroes (Mak and Diala). With Vader I wounded Fenn using Force Choke. I think this was my mistake. I should have probably let him rest and instead force Mak to retreat. Because then Mak attacked using the gun which has range 6 and two red dice, he attacked 3 times dealing 16 damage (Diala giving rerolls is a pain) to Vader in one activation. Gaarkhan, who had slaughtered everything, ran away as he was the last hero still not wounded. I forced Mak to withdraw and moved away trying to keep Vader in cover. I also deployed a Probe Droid as I tried to heal him but couldn't get that far. The Rebels finally defeated Vader at round 10.

So, maybe if the rebels didn't have such crazy upgrades, I could have done better. The 6 threat / turn didn't seem enough as the rebels could kill off almost any figure or a group in one activation. I found Stormtroopers to be the most efficient as I had Arc Blasters on them and used Adaptive Weapons to change the blue die to red or green.

I see this finale to be quite tough for rebels especially if the Imperium wins some missions. This was our first campaign and certainly I could have chosen the agenda cards better. I'm quite happy to start the new campaign either on the rebel side or once more as "the law and order of the galaxy".

I don't have the Campaign Guide, but I'm an Imperial player early into our first campaign with two Legendary rebel players.

Is the Imperial victory condition for this final battle "Wound all Heroes"? because if it is, I can save myself half a dozen sessions and just surrender now. We learned last night (trying Dark Obsessions) that is just isn't feasible to wound Legendary characters if they are determined to run and heal. Having a threshold over 20, while being able to heal 20+ per round, means that they aren't going to fall, ever, unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Is there a time limit or some other factor to allow for Imperial victory if the Rebels are healthy at the end?

They have a time-limit (though Last Stand's limit is quite generous), and frankly 6 threat a turn should be enough to overwhelm them if they just hang around resting. If they're running away a lot, use Nexus; they're impossible to outrun, usually take at least 2 hits to kill, and apply bleed. If the heroes play hard to get, just spawn officers/probes for extra actions and keep your beefy hitters ready near their objectives.

Just for posterity, I think the OP had one other rules problem that wasn't mentioned -- Imperials cannot attack doors in this mission, only Rebel figures (including Allies) can attack them, and only Rebel heroes (not Allies) can open them with a tech test. So if the Imperial has any forces left outside when the Rebels open the door to Vader, they will be locked out forever with no way to get back into the fight.

Played this at the weekend, I was Imperial. I'd saved most of my Agenda cards for the finale, as I knew it was the one that decided the whole campaign. Still got hammered.

Started pretty well; wounded a hero before they'd opened the first door, and another before they opened the second. Came within one wound of wounding a third... then they opened the final door and saw Darth Vader. Cue cries of alarm and "OMG he's got 24 health and four actions a turn" but by that point in the campaign, the heroes can dish out so much damage it doesn't matter. Vader only got two actions, he was killed before he could take a third... game over with two turns to spare. When players are dishing out 6+ damage (after blocks) per attack and can potentially attack twice each, 24 health really doesn't last very long.

It was a similar story in Chain of Command when they faced Weiss (i.e. the mission that decides Last Stand as the finale). Weiss got in his AT-ST and... just died. With all their weaponry, skills, and upgrades, the heroes can kick serious ass.

Played this at the weekend, I was Imperial. I'd saved most of my Agenda cards for the finale, as I knew it was the one that decided the whole campaign. Still got hammered.

Started pretty well; wounded a hero before they'd opened the first door, and another before they opened the second. Came within one wound of wounding a third... then they opened the final door and saw Darth Vader. Cue cries of alarm and "OMG he's got 24 health and four actions a turn" but by that point in the campaign, the heroes can dish out so much damage it doesn't matter. Vader only got two actions, he was killed before he could take a third... game over with two turns to spare. When players are dishing out 6+ damage (after blocks) per attack and can potentially attack twice each, 24 health really doesn't last very long.

It was a similar story in Chain of Command when they faced Weiss (i.e. the mission that decides Last Stand as the finale). Weiss got in his AT-ST and... just died. With all their weaponry, skills, and upgrades, the heroes can kick serious ass.

Weiss is impossible to keep alive in the final mission, even with the pitiful bonus hp. But in Chain of Command he proved insanely tough.

Our last Rebel died after bringing Vader down to his very last hit point - close, but no cigar.

Like in one of the previous posts, our IP also hid Vader and refused to bring him out, letting the hordes of Royal Guards do most of the work. Tactically sound, but mood-breaking. When we were forced to close in, he used Sustained Fire (attack again and become stunned... except Vader can't be stunned so yay, free lightsaber attacks!) to mow us down. We also had some abysmal luck with the dice, which among other things wounded Mak at the worst possible time and preventing him from ever using Ambush on Vader.

We felt... not quite cheated (by the game, I mean, not the IP), but disheartened .

...and yet, 1 hp difference. Had our last attack rolled a little better, or Vader rolled lower in defense, it would've gone our way. So perhaps it isn't as unbalanced as it feels .