How do you usually trigger your victory condition: by surviving until round X or wounding all heroes?

Just curious because after one main campaign and one twin shadows campaign, I, as the imperial player have won very few missions. Most missions cut it real close but I lose most of the time. Some of it has to do with horrific dice rolling but I'm sure there are some things I can learn to be a better player. What I won't do is stuff a hallway with enough enemies all the way up to a door to prevent the heroes from being able to move forward.

It depends a lot on what the Rebels try to do. If the Rebels spend absolutely none of their time trying to kill my troops, I'm forced to try to wound them all (perhaps standing in their way for key objectives). However, if they're being a bit more careful and eliminating my troops, I'll try to go all-in on delay tactics to run out the clock. Sometimes I'll have to switch strategy in the middle of the game to react to their decisions.

Is there a reason you are against the tactic of "stuffing a hallway with enemies" ? If it's because it feels unfair, this may be why you are winning very few missions you can't pull any punches against the Rebel scum!

What class deck are you using ?

We lost nearly every mission in a recent campaign where Imperial player was using Subversive Tactics and wounding us was usually how he won. Plus we had so much strain our abilities were basically useless.

Is there a reason you are against the tactic of "stuffing a hallway with enemies" ? If it's because it feels unfair, this may be why you are winning very few missions you can't pull any punches against the Rebel scum!

Something like this. Show absolutely zero mercy or restraint. You are not the storyteller. You are another player, and one who has the table tilted against him. Never miss activating an ability. Use frustrating status effects. Use triggered surprise events to be as mean as possible. Flood the board with enemies. Crush your enemies, etc etc.

My experience has been that if the rebels get in their head to do something and stick with it, there's not a **** thing you can do to stop them. My best advice would be to confuse them and *make* them change their strategy. If they are trying to speed run the objectives, punch them full of holes and make them rest or die. If they wanna stand and fight, pop just enough troopers to replace the ones killed and keep them tangled. If you can, quietly replace the dying troops with tougher troops, its hard for the players to notice incrementally tougher enemies. I like to screen my Assault Armor Elite Stormies with some regulars so the players thing they are winning and get drawn, without realizing it, into a much longer engagement than they have time for. I find it helps to say things like "Wow, you almost got him! One more attack should finish him off." while motioning to the damage tokens.

What I won't do is stuff a hallway with enough enemies all the way up to a door to prevent the heroes from being able to move forward.

Between Wookiee charges, Cleave, Blast, and general Jedi shenanigans, that won't really help out anyway.

My thoughts as an Imperial player....typically I win by wounding the Heroes.

Target a hero until they are wounded, and then go on to the next. I like to try and target weaker heroes first (Jyn, Mak, Gideon, Saska), since they go down easiest and then become considerably less powerful, losing an ability and their checks are worse, but the biggest advantage is them losing the 1 speed. Remember if you have pierce 1 or more on a guy, the white die CANNOT block any damage unless dodged. Quite powerful when you think about that. I also find, early in missions, you will lose your starting groups quite fast, but any attacks you can get from them on weaker heroes is more beneficial than the tanky heroes, b/c later in the mission, you will have more threat, with stronger troops (reserved troops tend to be more powerful also), and its easier to wound the tanky heroes later in the mission. If you split attacks on multiple heroes (not targeting a hero until they are wounded), it gives the heroes more time to rest and heal, Ive seen myself and other imperials lose b/c we lost focus on getting one hero wounded ASAP.

Open groups play a big part in how you are going to wound. Nexu, Reg Royal Guards (Overpowered in my opinion), Reg Trando's, Reg and Elite Stormies....all very devastating to the Rebels. Elite Trando's don't seem worth the extra threat to me, E-webs become a primary target always when deployed and usually die before being able to use them. Reg stormies do die easily, but there is 3 of them, and they pack a solid attack, especially with attachments.

Activation order is EXTREMELY important and takes a lot of time to learn and understand when to use what unit at the right time. You need to evaluate what unit's on the board can do the most amount of damage vs what units the rebels will most likely target next that you could lose. If you ever taken an advanced math course in Game theory, thats exactly what this is. It's very complicated, and really just comes with time (think Chess and experienced players ability to know what moves people will do). In general, I will usually take 2 stormies to attack twice on a target, over one probe droid. Action economy is key, and activating in the right order can make or break a good round.

Stuffing a hallway with units just seems like a cheesy tactic to me and if that is what it took for the imperial player to win consistently, I'd say the game is flawed. However, as pointed out by skoto, the rebels have several tactics to sift through this anyway. Blast, cleave, force push, etc...

As far as class decks, in our first campaign i used tech superiority. the heroes were garkhaan, jyn, gideon, and mak. they took abilities that effectively neutered the abilities i had bought. did a TS campaign as well and ran military might, which i really liked.

Sam's comments ring true to my own strategy. I play with no mercy, focus fire, force resting when they focus on objective, and run and hide when they feel like fighting.

What i try to do a lot is put a wedge between the group in the hopes of isolating a hero and then picking on him.

Jomayo, I'm not sure about the pierce 1 comment. my players go after the defensive abilities for sale first which always seem to get in the way of doing damage. A +1 block here or there adds up so they're not entirely reliant on their defense dice.

would like to hear your theory on reg royal guards being overpowered, i rarely do damage with them, however i roll one damage on the red die and a single surge with the yellow a lot.

as far as activation order and game theory goes, i'm quite familiar there and do a fine job. never let your stormtroopers get sacrificed early in a round; three attacks is three attacks.

Most of the missions have been real close; down to the last turn and/or three heroes wounded. just wind up in that situation where i'm always one point of damage short and i don't roll enough surges to activate stun and other conditions with enough frequency.

I've heard enough here to know i'm on the right path to getting it done. Just coming up a little short and the dice are never my friend. I can get some of our hero players to chime in and confirm that. some nights have been laughable at how impotent the Empire is.

I usually win by distraction and running out the clock.

BUT - the most gloriously satisfying road to victory consists of wounding them one by one. My favorite win of all time was when my Darth Vader took Luke out in one shot in the Homecoming mission.

Hail to the Empire!

Jomayo, I'm not sure about the pierce 1 comment. my players go after the defensive abilities for sale first which always seem to get in the way of doing damage. A +1 block here or there adds up so they're not entirely reliant on their defense dice.

Most of the white die defense abilities are not that great. Mak has nothing that adds blocks, he relies on distance (not that hard to counter) and he does get a +2 health skill (Jeswandi training is amazing), so pierce will always get through. Jyn can use Roll with It to spend a surge to add one block, or convert a block to an evade. I don't mind if Jyn uses this ability, it maximizes her defense at 2 (sans the dodge), but cost her a strain, and Jyn's strain is best spend on interrupting attacks with Quick Draw. Saska only gets a defensive ability if you have a device token, and it still maxes her defense out at 2. Diala is a bit different, her re-roll comes in very handy, and her Defensive stance is the most powerful of the white die character defensive abilities. However, she still is maxed out at 2. So either way Pierce 1 is going to help do more damage, or cancel the hero completely. The nice part is, 2 of the 4 require strain to use, which helps imperial players out.

would like to hear your theory on reg royal guards being overpowered, i rarely do damage with them, however i roll one damage on the red die and a single surge with the yellow a lot.

Here is my stance on it. They have 5 movement (basically the highest in the game), they also have reach. So in case 5 movement wasn't enough to get to your target, you get an additional space. There health is 8 per figure (highest per figure for the threat value). They roll the more consistent black defensive die, and when they are next to each other they get an additional defense (very good strategy for them). If one of them dies, the other one then can get focused. On top of all that, the Yellow and Red die with their +2 damage surge, gives an expected attack value of 5 damage (thats high, in comparison E-webs do 5.17). Then they also have the ability to Stun. And Stun to me is the deal breaker that makes these guys too powerful. Stun is a huge win for all Imperials, it reduces the Heroes actions, and thats a great way to win. So my reason for them being overpowered is they are 8 threat and they just dominate that category. High attack, Great surges, High speed, defense ability, ability to get focused, high health. Just doesn't seem to me like they gave them any weaknesses.

Oh, and when you have to stun: stun, don't talk. Short of wounding a hero, nothing hurts them more than cutting the activation in half.

Oh hell yes, stun and stun again!

Royal guards are beast, and if you can stack in some trandosians for some bleed, you can really mess them up.

Limiting their options causes psychological pressure, and that causes mistakes.

Often wounding the Rebels is the way to delay them, so the two different win conditions are not that different at all.

Wounding them takes speed and endurance out of them and will slow them. Keep an eye out for which character is more important to their success in the given scenario. Sometimes it is the heavy single target hitter, sometimes the one able to hit multiple targets at the same time, or it could be the one best suited for specific attribute tests. Also keep an eye out for the play style of the individual players. In one of my campaigns one of the Rebel players was very concerned that his character might become wounded - hit that character and I could be sure that the player would use one, if not both, of his actions resting; actions not spent moving toward their objective.

Don't worry to much about the Rebels abilities to do damage to multiple figures. Yes, those abilities can hurt your forces badly, but they can also become predictable and be used to your advantage, drawing out a specific character, making them unable to avoid your counter-attack. The melee characters are particular vulnerable this way, as Gaarkhan or Diala, for instance, have to be in certain places to make the most of their abilities, costing them moves and or strain to get in position. This is kind of a reverse to my example above of a player prone to wanting to rest too often, except here your use the lure of a perfect and irresistable Rampage or Way of the Sarrlac to have them rush to where you want them, rather than rest when they actually ought to. Yes you might lose a couple of figures to their powerful attack, but it is a hit well worth taking, if you can down a Wookie or a Jedi in return.

Go after the hero that activated first, so they won't have a chance to rest off the damage you are dealing them that turn. If you go after a hero that hasn't activated yet, they can react by resting or moving out of range/LOS while the other heroes murder you or go after objectives.

Jomayo, I'm not sure about the pierce 1 comment. my players go after the defensive abilities for sale first which always seem to get in the way of doing damage. A +1 block here or there adds up so they're not entirely reliant on their defense dice.

Most of the white die defense abilities are not that great. Mak has nothing that adds blocks, he relies on distance (not that hard to counter) and he does get a +2 health skill (Jeswandi training is amazing), so pierce will always get through. Jyn can use Roll with It to spend a surge to add one block, or convert a block to an evade. I don't mind if Jyn uses this ability, it maximizes her defense at 2 (sans the dodge), but cost her a strain, and Jyn's strain is best spend on interrupting attacks with Quick Draw. Saska only gets a defensive ability if you have a device token, and it still maxes her defense out at 2. Diala is a bit different, her re-roll comes in very handy, and her Defensive stance is the most powerful of the white die character defensive abilities. However, she still is maxed out at 2. So either way Pierce 1 is going to help do more damage, or cancel the hero completely. The nice part is, 2 of the 4 require strain to use, which helps imperial players out.

would like to hear your theory on reg royal guards being overpowered, i rarely do damage with them, however i roll one damage on the red die and a single surge with the yellow a lot.

Here is my stance on it. They have 5 movement (basically the highest in the game), they also have reach. So in case 5 movement wasn't enough to get to your target, you get an additional space. There health is 8 per figure (highest per figure for the threat value). They roll the more consistent black defensive die, and when they are next to each other they get an additional defense (very good strategy for them). If one of them dies, the other one then can get focused. On top of all that, the Yellow and Red die with their +2 damage surge, gives an expected attack value of 5 damage (thats high, in comparison E-webs do 5.17). Then they also have the ability to Stun. And Stun to me is the deal breaker that makes these guys too powerful. Stun is a huge win for all Imperials, it reduces the Heroes actions, and thats a great way to win. So my reason for them being overpowered is they are 8 threat and they just dominate that category. High attack, Great surges, High speed, defense ability, ability to get focused, high health. Just doesn't seem to me like they gave them any weaknesses.

Lots to address here. With Mak, you cannot target him if you are four or more squares away and if you get within three squares, he just runs away further, again making him an invalid target. Pierce 1 is neither that great or very common on imperial figures. Additionally, he is usually firing from six or more squares away; based on that, let's use the royal guards activation following Mak's turn. The first royal guard needs to spend both actions as move simply to get close enough for Mak to run further away. The second guard has to burn both moves and still not be in melee range. I suppose it can be argued endlessly; in our campaign, the group made it very difficult for me to get to Mak at the expense of the three other heroes. I could force a hero (or two) to withdraw by focusing fire even when wounded but forcing people to sit around and watch isn't very fun (which is the main goal here).

Most of the rest I'd agree on, however, those defensive tokens of Saska are nasty as they can burned as a block or an evade plus multiple can be used per attack. Stacking the tokens and using them wisely will cancel an enormous amounts of wounds and/or conditions

.

Concerning the royal guards, you make a convincing argument and while I agree with all you've said, it doesn't change the fact in our games the heroes are usually laughing at how ineffective they wind up being. For the most part, the heroes avoid them because they are difficult to take down and dealing with their attack dice hasn't posed much of a problem.

For the remainder of the comments, the conditions are splendid to apply if one can roll enough surges. Tvboy makes a great point to focus on a hero that's already activated unless of course you've got a chance to wound one that hasn't yet taken their turn.

We're four games into our campaign, and it's 2-2. The two that I have won is because of the round counter. And this last one, I felt kind of bad, because it was by one space. I used 2 Royal Guards to block the objective. I really didn't like winning like that.

I am playing with few groups.Group A have 4 players and group B have 2 players and they control 2 characters.

In first campaign both groups lost most of the missions.They won like 2-3 missions against me because they had no idea whats behind doors.

Group A gave up in the mid of the campaign and requested that we start over so we did that (just in time group B finished their first run and started new one).

I felt sorry for them because they are my friends and it was stupid for them to lose all the time.Also they were QQ a lot!I mean honestly - I met friends wife and she told me:"Dude...you need to let em win!I cant listen this **** anymore!"

So both groups won first 3-4 missions.

I was then thinking: "OK...its time to kick some ass!",but by then it was bit late.In those first 3-4 missions they all had like 5-6 XP points plus some reward cards and credits.Then they bought 4 XP class cards and equipment!

That turned tables quick.Now its really hard for me to keep up with them so I just save my influence and XP for the last mission where I will pound them with everything I have!

What I`m trying to say is that you DO NOT let them win!Otherwise they will be OP really fast and you will be in really tough position.First few missions are crucial!

Considering tactics I usually concentrate my fire on one character first and then try and wound him/her.I usually go for characters with black defense die.No dodge.Stun,bleed,weaken...these are your best friends!Use this a lot.

I like trandoshans because when they get into your face they do +1 dmg and +1 strain(in this case strain is more important then +1 dmg).Nexu is also powerful because of speed and bleed.Also I like military might class cards.Free focus can be devastating (in first mission droid rolls 4 dies).I do not do "block the hallway" tactics but I will try and limit their movement if I can.Against 4 players this all might work easy but against 2 players is super hard.They have 2 activation tokens per round so in theory they can move at least 20 spaces.Its hard to catch up with them.So you need to think few steps ahead and try and read their actions.

Later on when players get enough equipment and class cards do not trow in every round 1 card.They will kill em fast and then you`ll be back at start with no threat.Try and save a bit of threat and then trow in few enemies at once!

Good luck and show no mercy no matter how much players QQ!

Ehh, there's enough ways to cheese the campaign that I view the role of the Imp Player as being more of a DM than an actual player. I play to win within each scenario, but I consider the tactics certain Imp's advocate (like saving absolutely everything for the Finale or having Vader run away to run out the clock) to be minmaxing past the point of fair (or fun). If you want to demonstrate your superior gamesmanship as an Imp, play Skirmishes. Of course, my players don't have a ton of experience at tabletop gaming, so your mileage may vary.

I've never managed to Wound all the heroes, mostly because my Rebels consistently slap the heaviest armor they can get on the Wookie (plus healing items, if they have any). I find it's more productive to wound the others, it's usually tough for them to reach their objectives in time if they only have 3 move.

Also, prioritize your targets according to the mission. If they need to do an insight test to open the door to the final room, cripple diala and saska before they get there. My rebels hate any boards with tests, cuz they know the best chance they have to pass a test, is the first scum i put down

The job of an Imperial can be difficult. I've played as the Imperial in two campaigns: the base campaign and Twin Shadows. I played the first campaign with Technological Superiority and admittedly we made a stupid amount of rule errors and the rebels had really easy time going through everything. Also Gaarkhan with reach and cleave 2 weapon makes a really annoying opponent. They heroes ran Diala, Gaarkhan, Mak and Fenn in the campaign and some missions went really close but in most of them, I had no chance. Everything I put on the board was killed immediately. So, it's important not to give the rebels any mercy. Also, use your knowledge of the upcoming events to your advantage. Maybe also give the rebels a respite, don't deploy even though you have the threat. If they're already full health, have no clear place to go or enemies to kill, they're wasting their time. Then deploy. I saw this tactic work when playing a rebel. The Imperial had the map empty for 2 full rounds, then deployed 20 points worth of units and won because his units blocked the deployment points enough that some of his units got close enough to his objectives for him to win. We anticipated this and tried to block it, but with 4 heroes, it was impossible.

The Twin Shadows campaign I played with Military Might and I could just flood the area with various troopers. I loved the card that allowed me to deploy troopers with 1 less threat. This allowed me to bring in E-Webs or stormtroopers often one round earlier which was crucial. I won the first mission, lost the next few and easily won the finale.

But I suppose our group can be different from other groups. Whenever I'm playing the Imperial, I think the rebels as the opponents. I have my objectives and I try to reach them and the rebels try to reach theirs. It's a competitive stand but that's the way we like it. When I'm playing a rebel, I want the Imperial player to be serious as well. I think the Rebel players would be insulted if the Imperial wasn't trying his best. And vice versa. So, give them no mercy. Leave cheap units in line of sight so that the rebels cannot shoot what they want, make them take strain so they have to rest it off. The Hoth campain also brings in many tiles with difficult terrain. Position your units so that the rebels are forced to wade through the snow. And while it may not be thematically correct, retreat when it serves your goals. It's excellent if you can get a rebel to follow the retreating unit. Also, if the rebels do not know the win objective but just know the goal where the mission continues, you can retreat some units towards the entrance tile or some other part of the map to make the rebels suspect that there's something important there. This might encourage them further to split up.

Also remember that while you can "taunt" and coax the rebels to attack your units, they can do the same to you. Try not to fall for that and think if you really want to exhaust a card while attacking etc. As rebels, we often wait a moment before rolling the die and ask the Imperial player if he wants to use any ability. And we often do this when the attack is not as crucial if it fails.

I would point out that imperial units falling back is within line thematically. Star Wars, around the 1hr 25mn mark, Han "He certainly has courage" Solo chases a small squad of stormtroopers around till they get to (in game terms, an active spawn point), then they chase him back down the hall.

Tactical withdraw into an ambush. Works in the game and the movie.

My main problem atm is Gideon with Masterstroke in combination with Gaarkhan.

Wookie charges + Rampage, then 2nd attack. Next rebel activation, Gideon commands him to do 2 more standard attacks (when LoS is given)

Makes it hard to position your troops, coz this combo clears out a cramped area easily.

I've found that (as much as I hate it) playing the Empire is more about just delaying or slowing down the Rebels. Let them kill all the fodder they want.

I've found that (as much as I hate it) playing the Empire is more about just delaying or slowing down the Rebels. Let them kill all the fodder they want...

I've been winning everything with Military Might which pretty much seems busted even without Imperial Industry (which is 100% busted by itself.)

With Assault Armor and Veteran your Storm Troopers go from dying in 1 attack to taking 2 or even 3 attacks to kill, which will completely soak the rebel's actions and lose them the game if they try to kill them. If you have Imperial Industry or are using Snow Troopers (lower damage without the reroll) then healing 2 points almost every turn will further dig the hole for the rebels.

If they don't try to kill your troopers, then the troopers will put out enough damage to brutalize the rebels. If you deploy them on top of the rebels (almost always a deployment point nearby), which you can because they'll survive, then with Shock Trooper and your reroll for having a trooper nearby you're getting up around 5 damage per shot, 15 from a squad being enough to wound a rebel each turn. With Show of Force you can toss on another 1 or 2.

Later in the campaign if you also have Sustained Fire you can toss on another 5 damage. And there is an agenda card you can use for another shot after a character activation. You're looking at a pretty reliable 25 damage from single normal trooper squad and wounding all the rebels in 3 rounds is pretty much guaranteed.

There is just nothing the rebels can do. You can survive an extra round by depleting all your resources like decoy and personal force shield, but at a puny 2 points to reinforce troopers who are taking 2-3 hits to kill and doing 5 damage a round, you just can't win. Even if you somehow manage to wipe out the squad (good luck), the Imperial gets all their attachments back for the next squad.

I've been winning everything with Military Might which pretty much seems busted even without Imperial Industry (which is 100% busted by itself.)

With Assault Armor and Veteran your Storm Troopers go from dying in 1 attack to taking 2 or even 3 attacks to kill, which will completely soak the rebel's actions and lose them the game if they try to kill them. If you have Imperial Industry or are using Snow Troopers (lower damage without the reroll) then healing 2 points almost every turn will further dig the hole for the rebels.

This is totally true. Once you start putting out Elite Stormtroopers with Assault Armor, Combat Veterans, and Imperial Industry... Rebels have just no chance. They can choose to waste all their actions attempting to gun down these monsters, or they can choose to have all their actions wasted by being Stunned all the time, and that's not taking into account getting blasted for 4-6 points a shot.