My gaming group is currently playing our 4th campaign so we are all reasonably experienced players but it is the first time for me playing the empire. The campaign started out good balance wise with me winning aftermath and the rebels narrowly winning the next few missions. But as the campaign has progressed and rebels pick up more and more xp/gear they just tear though my guys way faster than I can replenish and some missions have been completely one sided. The score now is 6-2 in favor of the rebels. The only other mission I managed to win was "predator and prey" which seems heavily stacked in favor of the empire, especially when played early in a campaign.

I decided to go with inspiring leadership as my class deck because it was new and cool but I feel I do a really poor job getting value out of it. Any advice from more experienced empire players would be greatly apprecieted. The cards I got so far are: Press on, Strategic Planning and Field General.

Side note: Aftermath is stupid. If you want to win the campaign, doesn't matter if you are rebel or empire, take a dive during aftermath. As rebels all you loose is some credits but get a way easier story mission 1 (under siege). And by winning under siege you get the easier story mission 2. This arguably holds true for the next story mission as well. Perfectly designed to get the snowball rolling.

The only advice I have from my side is .... don't play Inspiring Leadership.

I consider myself to be a pretty good Imperial Player. I've played multiple campaigns against a variety of players, and our one group has gone through the campaign 5x, with my being the Empire on three of them.... so I just wanted to show where I'm coming from.

I also cannot 'get value' from Inspiring Leadership. The extra actions path for that deck is nice, and when you have a serious unit on the field such as Vader or Weiss, then it sure is nice getting them an extra attack a round. The issue I seemed to have with it are those pesky Rebels just weren't cooperative and wouldn't simply roll over and take it. There's not a lot keeping those units alive, and those units who are beefy enough to not get slaughtered aren't the ones you want spending their turns giving away extra actions. I always dreamed of getting my RGC to attack three times a round, once on his turn, once on a Field General's turn, once on an Elite Officer's turn, and then again by using Strategic Planning on a Trooper group to allow either the Field General or the Elite Officer to go again.

What happened? Biv, Mak, and Diala burned through the RGC in one turn, and after he'd gone, Diala used Force Throw to pull him over their line so that I couldn't get to him with my Field General Stormtroopers.

Same thing almost happened with Vader, only it took them 3 rounds to do it, and they kept annihilating the Field General units. The only way I could save them was to keep them held back in reserve, but then they weren't being brought to bear directly, and you need every unit.

Side note: Aftermath is stupid. If you want to win the campaign, doesn't matter if you are rebel or empire, take a dive during aftermath. As rebels all you loose is some credits but get a way easier story mission 1 (under siege). And by winning under siege you get the easier story mission 2. This arguably holds true for the next story mission as well. Perfectly designed to get the snowball rolling.

The only advice I have from my side is .... don't play Inspiring Leadership.

Ok, so it's not just me then =). Inspiring leadership looks good on paper, especially when you have a heavy hitter to order around like you mentioned. I almost got an extra attack of on vader one mission but then Biv attacked and by rolling just ONE surge applied stun, bleed and weakened. Seems like this deck is too easy for competent rebels to counter.

Next time I play empire I'm going for military might. Or maybe the op and easy to play subversive tactics o_O.

Next time I play empire I'm going for military might. Or maybe the op and easy to play subversive tactics o_O.

I still argue that ST is not overpowered. Yes, its a pain in the ass for the heroes, and yes it is not a good class to use against newbie heroes. But once you get a competent team of more experienced heroes, it really is not that strong of a deck. The class starts off strong in the early to mid campaign, and then tappers off. We are on our third campaign + one mini campaign. The imperial is playing ST, and just with our experience thus far, ST has not been as bad as military might. It's easier to kill imperial figures because of a lack of upgrades or survivability cards, and if you build the rebels around low strain and passive abilities, as well as recover strain skills, it's not as devastating as we originally thought. Lastly, in the late campaign, the heroes rolling attacks with 3 dice, having more actions to be able to perform each round, is leading to a lot more strain recovery. Anyways, just my thoughts on this.

As for Inspiring Leadership, glad you started this topic because I was going to try this in my next campaign and looking for opinions and strategies on it. I have been Imperial player on 2 of the previous 3 campaigns and enjoy it much more than being a Rebel. As for IL class paths, I see two very valid paths in a campaign and it seems like each of you are going down, or went down the extra action path. Which to me was the way I was going to try and do it also, because we all know the power of activation advantage, and having more actions than the other player. However, I feel that this path is extremely strategic, and maybe due to the weakness of units, just not applicable; or requires some unique way of thinking on how to approach missions against the rebels. The path being:

Strategic Planning, Field General, Lead by Example

I have to imagine lead by example giving a huge boost, but it sounds like its not enough.

I think the other thing to consider about this deck is what about the boosting your leaders path?

Supervisory Agents, Strategic Planning, Noble Sacrifice, and Optimal Tactics. With potentially Imperial Dedication?

Obviously both of these builds can have fillers, with one or the other. I personally think Press On is one of the worst healing cards in the game. 1 health is just not enough in the mid to late game. Its nice that its an auto at the end of the round and affects a whole group, but, its just so little.

So after hearing about your guys experience with the Extra Action path, I am wondering if the leader path would be more effective. Optimal Tactics is amazing, arguably the best level 4, +1 damage dealers. Combat Vets gives it to you but only to one group (Elite Stormies of course!), Shock and Awe only really allows for 2 times a round, Superior Augments is probably the second best of these cards, but still restricted to groups with attachments (with the added bonus of +1 speed). But Wow! Optimal Tactics is +1 to anyone within 3 spaces of an officer (very realistic to consistently use this) and you get a re-roll of a crap die. Thats great!

Then you have Noble Sacrifice to be a deterrent for killing officers, which directly helps add to Optimal Tactics. Plus if you combine Imperial Dedication, a different troop could take the damage instead of an officer. Or grouped troops, you can use the officer to take the damage, use cower on a sh*tty roll, and if he dies, everyone is focused!! Thats a crazy combo.

Lastly supervisory agents is a great level 1. Almost every mission contains officers, when he dies he goes back into your hand. Boom, once per mission you can bring him back in for free, and if you time it correctly (towards the end of the round), its a big deterrent for the Rebels.

I put Strategic Planning in this deck, because I just see so much value in that card. I will admit it requires some forward thinking as an Imperial player, but being able to re-activate a group can be huge for getting a final bit of damage on an almost wounded hero. Or simply just for the rebels to be forced to think that maybe someone could re-activate that round.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. I am definitely going to try the Leader path now, based on your guys input on IL. I still think there could be value in the Extra Action path, but it requires a lot of forward thinking and just a different play style than I am not used to. Leader path seems simpler and the cards play into each other better.

Let us know how it goes.

BTW, I also believe Military Might is stronger than Subversive Tactics.

Okay all, finally tried my approach to Inspiring Leadership and it did not go well.....Here is what happened:

Sooo tried this deck in the mini-campaign and did not have success. I def went down the wrong path, on paper my theory was sound and I wanted to try the "other" path of this deck. My recommendation is don't, very very very underpowered.

I went with Optimal Tactics, Supervisory Agents, Noble Sacrifice, and Strategic Planning....

Reasons I thought this would work: Optimal Tactics +1 damage and re-roll I really enjoy. And I thought using officers to enhance the group would be pretty straight forward. Supervisory Agents plays into this b/c you can bring an officer back out when you need it. Noble Sacrifice is a deterrent to kill the officer, and if played properly they have cower, and strategic planning b/c its great.

Reasons it didn't work: Officers just go down waayyyy too quickly, Noble Sacrifice is difficult to place to optimize its use, especially when you are usually looking to have officers in positions that help you when they are alive, not planning on them dying. Rebels can easily target and dispatch them....With a lack of survivability cards in this deck, my troops were getting sliced, lazer blasted, and crushed very easily. I couldn't keep deployments on the map, and couldn't get much use of them.

So, obviously the action economy route is the way to go. I have to admit I found this deck so far to be very underwhelming compared to the others. However, sounds like people here really enjoy it. Soooo, in a full campaign, whats your build strategies for Inspiring Leadership? Order you take what? And why?? Help is appreciated.

I rolled ST for my first campaign and it was definitely helpful against experienced board gamers, but newbs to this game. It really helps control the strain of the heroes, mine were constantly maxed out.

One that I haven't tried is Military Might, I think I might give that a go.

Military Might is definitely OP. Combat Veteran + Assault Armor will let you stomp all over the rebels and there is nothing they can do. It turns regular troopers into far and away the most cost effective unit in the game. If you manage to combo Shock Troopers and Imperial Industry (from agenda) too then you're pretty much ready to wipe the rebels with just a 6 point trooper squad. It's stupid OP.

I'm not sure about Inspiring Leadership. My first thought would be to get abilities that can give you extra attacks and then run an elite imperial officer to get out as many stuns per round as possible. You'll eventually just grind them down.

So for Military Might, what is the order you go after you abilities in?

Assault Armor then build for Combat Veterans?

Assault Armor on some Trandoshans or Royal Guards seems pretty OP.

Gents!! Stay on topic, this thread is for Inspiring Leadership, stay on scope!!

All Imperial classes can be discussed in this thread

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/198357-imperial-class-cards/

im trying it out tonight in the Twin Shadows mini campaign, ill let you guys know how it goes

After playing the Twin shadows, i found inspiring leadership hard to play. i guess im not sure what units gel well with it. I ended up putting some of the field general and field officer cards on regular and elite officers, to give them two order abilities, it helped at moving units out of their activation,

especially the heavy troopers. I Managed to use my elite officer with the field general attachment to order two elite heavy troopers to fire outside of their activation. caused some blast, then fire again on their activation, happened to get some blast working aswell again.

Optimal tactics should be a purchase early on, and bring a lot of officers in your open groups. if you can use the ISB Agenda set, that will help. Optimal tactics, helped boost the damage.

overall, I liked it, it felt a bit weaker, but i think i just didn't gel units together correctly. though ordering units on the field was fun. it made officers targets, so i could flank with big units. i got a At-St in Canyon run and he was being ordered around by 3 officers, managed to fire him three times in one round.

any suggestions for specific open groups to take with specific Class decks.

eg. Troopers with military might. Droids with Tech Superiority.