So I'm playing both sides of a campaign. Started last night and played Aftermath and the first side mission.

Granted it's not tactically perfect playing both sides. The main reason I'm doing this is to brush up on the rules. I typically only play skirmish so there are a ton of things I never fully understood about the campaign, like building a side mission deck, etc.

I'm gonna say this though - Imperials have a HUGE advantage. At least in the beginning. Stormtroopers just seem to be rolling perfectly every time - and I've had my characters get annihilated by them in each mission I've done so far.

So I'm playing both sides of a campaign. Started last night and played Aftermath and the first side mission.

Granted it's not tactically perfect playing both sides. The main reason I'm doing this is to brush up on the rules. I typically only play skirmish so there are a ton of things I never fully understood about the campaign, like building a side mission deck, etc.

I'm gonna say this though - Imperials have a HUGE advantage. At least in the beginning. Stormtroopers just seem to be rolling perfectly every time - and I've had my characters get annihilated by them in each mission I've done so far.

More importantly....did you win?

I do this a lot myself and in my experience the rebels have an edge in general (better than 2:1 win rate game wise).

One of the dudes I played at regionals was a play tester for the campaign. Their experience during testing was that when both sides were of equal skill (and previous Descent experience), the Rebels won far more than the Imperials.

My experience was that the campaign was quite balanced, and mostly dependant on the skill levels of the players.

This was a good idea. I started a campaign with my two boys tonight. They are 7 and 4. I do everything and they just roll and move where I tell them for the heroes they are controling. They just like playing with me and I get to brush up on my all around skills.

I do this a lot myself and in my experience the rebels have an edge in general (better than 2:1 win rate game wise).

One of the dudes I played at regionals was a play tester for the campaign. Their experience during testing was that when both sides were of equal skill (and previous Descent experience), the Rebels won far more than the Imperials.

From my playing experience, the more the Rebels play the campaign, the more familiar they get with the missions. So while the Imperial would have a slight advantage the first play through, every consecutive campaign should yield a better result for the Rebels. The nice thing about this is that with the multiple routes that one can take to get through the campaign, it should take several times before the Rebels have seen every mission. But there will be a point where the Rebels know every possible outcome of every round of every mission and that should tip the scales in their favor. Fortunately, we're getting more missions with Twin Shadows. More releases will tip the scales back to balancing point (until the Rebels get familiar with the new missions).

My experience was that the campaign was quite balanced, and mostly dependant on the skill levels of the players.

This has been my experience as well. But I haven't played enough campaigns to be familiar with every mission. My 3rd campaign I played as a Rebel (my first 2 I played as the Imp). I didn't spoil it for the other Rebels that hadn't played before, I just subtly hinted what they should do if they were about to make a grave mistake. Otherwise I let them figure it out for themselves. Sure we didn't win as much as we could have, but they did have more fun finding out things on their own (I had fun too).

I really think it comes down to the player skill a lot of the time...at least, probably more than people tend to give credit for. In other words, who generally ends up being the Imperial player? Naturally, it's usually the one who knows the game the best, who tends to also be the one who has the most amount of experience with this type of game. So it's not surprising if the best player's team tends to win more often.

One crucial thing for new groups to learn is to chase mission objectives more than trooper kills. Another key thing is for the rebels to work closely as a team. Additionally it would probably be good for the GM to offer some helpful strategic suggestions during the Rebel Status Phase...it can often make a HUGE difference to buy the right gear and ability upgrades. (For example, it is completely worth it for the Gideon player to start saving early for MasterStroke.)

Anyway, back on topic, I have thought about running a solo campaign, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I hope you have a great time with it! And more importantly, I hope you WIN!

One crucial thing for new groups to learn is to chase mission objectives more than trooper kills.

I swear my first campaign my rebel team had the opposite problem. They just let me keep nearly everything on the board and I just caught them in bottle necks and wounded them all.

One crucial thing for new groups to learn is to chase mission objectives more than trooper kills.

I swear my first campaign my rebel team had the opposite problem. They just let me keep nearly everything on the board and I just caught them in bottle necks and wounded them all.

What my rebels tend to do is to have one character (Fenn in our group because of Havic Shot) clear a path almost the whole time, and the other characters work on either clearing a path or getting to the objectives. They certainly have to take down the imperials...but always with a strategic goal of fulfilling the objectives as quickly and safely as possible.

Stormtroopers are just too overpowered at low levels. One single group one-shotted my wookie during the intro mission. Blame the dice if you want, but that is a raw deal.

Stormtroopers are just too overpowered at low levels. One single group one-shotted my wookie during the intro mission. Blame the dice if you want, but that is a raw deal.

Unless you're exaggerating (or made a rules mistake) the odds of that are 1/2^4*1/3^3*1/6^3 or about 1 in 100000, I think at this point it's fair enough to blame the dice.

Edit: Forgot to include the re-roll, that will make it maybe 1 in 10000 which is still easily in the 'blame the dice' territory.

My stormtroopers almost always roll 3 - 4 hits - so they can seriously do some major damage. Things have SERIOUSLy turned around though because I was playing Fenn wrong. I didn't realize that I can use Havoc Shot more than once per attack - so that really helps me deal with stormtroopers. Rebels have now won 2 games!

My stormtroopers almost always roll 3 - 4 hits - so they can seriously do some major damage. Things have SERIOUSLy turned around though because I was playing Fenn wrong. I didn't realize that I can use Havoc Shot more than once per attack - so that really helps me deal with stormtroopers. Rebels have now won 2 games!

Hate to break it to you. But he can only use havoc shot once per attack. It's an ability.

All text on cards and hero sheets are referred to as abilities.

Abilities provide special effects that can be performed above and

beyond the standard rules of the game.

Abilities can have one or more requirements. If the requirements

cannot be met, the ability cannot be performed.

•

If an ability is “used,” it can be triggered multiple times each

round, but it can only be triggered once per timing instance.

For example, an ability that says, “Use while attacking to apply

+1 to the attack results,” can only be triggered once during

each attack.

Then why does Diala's attacking ability specify "Once per combat" and not his? Bizarre.

Then why does Diala's attacking ability specify "Once per combat" and not his? Bizarre.

The rules and cards were not as thoroughly proof read as most of us would like.

Well now I feel like my entire campaign is jacked up. Though I suppose that was the point of this solo campaign - to iron out issues with the rules.

And to be fair - Fenn was overpowered that way. He could pretty easily take out a full group of stormtroopers in one shot.

Then why does Diala's attacking ability specify "Once per combat" and not his? Bizarre.

Are you refering to precise strike? Thats once per activation, which means you can only use it once per turn.

Havoc Shot can be used once per ATTACK, meaning if you use both of your actions to attack in a single turn, you can use havoc shot twice.

Well now I feel like my entire campaign is jacked up. Though I suppose that was the point of this solo campaign - to iron out issues with the rules.

And to be fair - Fenn was overpowered that way. He could pretty easily take out a full group of stormtroopers in one shot.

How were you resolving havoc shot? Can you go through the specifics of what you were doing with what is essentially blast 1?

Stormtroopers are just too overpowered at low levels. One single group one-shotted my wookie during the intro mission. Blame the dice if you want, but that is a raw deal.

It sounds like you are doing something wrong. Unless they are focused or getting some sort of damage buff from something, the most damage that a group of Stormtroopers can do in a round is 12. It take 28 points to kill Gaarkhan, 34 if there are only 3 heroes, and 48 if there are only 2. With perfect dice rolls from the troopers and horrible rolls from Gaarkhan it should take at least 3 rounds to kill him. If he burns an action to rest he can recover 4 hits (assuming that he has no strain).

I haven't had a lot of experience playing campaign but I never had issues with the heroes dying too quickly, it was always getting bogged down fighting and not having time to achieve the objective.

EDIT: 12 damage for generic Stormtroopers, 15 for the Elites. The Elites could drop him in two turns with the perfect combo of dice when there are more than 3 heroes.

Well now I feel like my entire campaign is jacked up. Though I suppose that was the point of this solo campaign - to iron out issues with the rules.

And to be fair - Fenn was overpowered that way. He could pretty easily take out a full group of stormtroopers in one shot.

How were you resolving havoc shot? Can you go through the specifics of what you were doing with what is essentially blast 1?

Having gone through about 5 searches for Fenn and Havoc Shot - I've come across some posts that say it is usable only once, and also a ton that say you can trigger it as often as you can add strain because it says WHEN attacking and it isn't an ACTION. So I would attack - roll some dice, then once I'm sure it's going to be a hit, I'll add 3-4 stress and doe massive area damage, triggering 4 separate instances of Blast 1. That did seem wildly overpowered though.

Ah I see.... Yeah that would be op as ****!

Well now I feel like my entire campaign is jacked up. Though I suppose that was the point of this solo campaign - to iron out issues with the rules.

And to be fair - Fenn was overpowered that way. He could pretty easily take out a full group of stormtroopers in one shot.

How were you resolving havoc shot? Can you go through the specifics of what you were doing with what is essentially blast 1?

Having gone through about 5 searches for Fenn and Havoc Shot - I've come across some posts that say it is usable only once, and also a ton that say you can trigger it as often as you can add strain because it says WHEN attacking and it isn't an ACTION. So I would attack - roll some dice, then once I'm sure it's going to be a hit, I'll add 3-4 stress and doe massive area damage, triggering 4 separate instances of Blast 1. That did seem wildly overpowered though.

You can only trigger abilities like Havok Shot once per opportunity. An "opportunity" for Havok Shot would be "while attacking with a ranged weapon". So Fenn would be able to use it twice per activation if he attacked for both of his actions and could afford to pay the cost in strain.

Page 2 of the "Rules Reference Guide"

If an ability is “used,” it can be triggered multiple times each round, but it can only be triggered once per timing instance. For example, an ability that says, “Use while attacking to apply +1[hit result] to the attack results,” can only be triggered once during each attack.