As I posted on the "Homebrew Character" thread, I was faced with a problem this past September where-in I had 6 people ready and willing to play Imperial assault with me. This is a great problem, but still a problem, because I needed now to figure out how to balance the game which is optimal with 4 players. This is when it came to me. I allowed the 6th player to play the newly released "Kayn Somos" as an "Imperial Hero" working with me to take down the rebels. I gave him access to Kayn's Command card and other CC's as a replacement for XP rewards.

It was a rousing success! So now I'm cooked up other ones. They are all males because I designed them from figures I already had and I have a lot more men then women sadly, but can be gender bent easily. This post contains the Hero cards, the following posts I'll post the XP cards, which will be a mixture of Command Cards, Imperial specialization cards and some special ones.
Here we go.

Shadow Trooper:
Starting Weapon:


Upgrades:

1XP: Scouting Report

1XP: Weapons Expert

2XP: Imperial Training

2XP: Recon Armour

3XP: Execute

3XP: Advanced Cloaking Device

4XP: Decoy

4XP: Coordinated Attack

The Imperial version of the scout. Defensive upgrades stack with this figure and use of Recon tokens can allow him to work with his other members to lay on major damage. This figure plays a dangerous game, needing to be close to the enemy without the strongest of innate health.

IG-EF:
Starting Weapon:

Upgrades

1XP: Imperial Loyalty

1XP: Imperial Resilience

2XP: Into the Fray

2XP: Staggering Blow

3XP: Vicious Strike

3XP: T arget Acquired

4XP: Unstoppable

4XP: Adaptive Weapons

The imperial tank. This figure is best when in the thick of it, will take a lot of damage and be a head-ache for any rebel hero, but will probably be quickly defeated if the heroes team up on him, especially due to his low endurance, he will need to rest in a bad time if you take stain without thinking.



Inquisitor:
Starting Weapon:


Upgrades:

1XP: Force Pull

1XP: I'll Do it Myself

2XP: Seething Rage

2XP: Adrenaline Rush

3XP: Snap Kick

3XP: Force Drain

4XP: Maul of the Nexu

4XP: Force Dominate

The Dark Jedi. This character focuses in on one opponent and gives them no rest. It's a very selfish figure and needs to be played with an attention on what actions to use when, due to his multitude of options.



Thrayll:
Starting Weapon:

XP Upgrades:

1XP: Hard to Hit

1XP: Failsafe

2XP: Exploit Weakness

2XP: Roll with It

3XP: Prey on the Weak

3XP: Hide in Plain Sight

4XP: Superior positioning

4XP: Sidewinder

A quick debuffer, great for hit and runs on the enemy and causing them a great amount of head-aches. Leaving this unit out in the open will get him killed quickly if not upgraded properly.

Kayn:
Starting Weapon:

XP Upgrades:

1XP: Called Shot

1XP: Military Efficiency

2XP: Riot Grenades

2XP: E ndless Ranks

3XP: For the Cause!

3XP: Combat Veteran

4XP: Hammer and Anvil

4XP: Grenadier

The last on the list, but the first made! He rocks with a group, a perfect commander with upgrades that allow him to mess with any heroes that decide to group up. He feels most at home when surround by fellow troopers.

As the imperial heroes progress, so too will their power through use of XP and Weapons. The imperials work differently then the rebels however, they do not have to purchase weapons on the market at use of credits, the empire is connected and powerful with access to all military standard weapons. The Imperial hero must use the amount of threat the rebels present to the Empire as justification for the allocation of strong arms.

At threat 2, the Empire will only give them their standard weapons models>

At threat 3, the Empire will allow them standard military tier 1 weapons, upgrades and armour.
These include:
E-11
Tactical Display
Marksman Barrel
Balanced Hilt.

They all cost 1 threat to bring to battle.

At threat 4 the Empire will allow them standard military tier 2 weapons, upgrades and armour.

These include:
Laminate armour
T-21
EE-3 Carbine
Environmental Hazard Suit

They all cost 2 threat to bring to battle.

At threat 5,6 the Empire will allow them standard military tier 2 weapons, upgrades and armour.

These include:
Disruption Cell
Combat Visor
Arc Blasters
Explosive Munitions

They all cost 3 threat to bring to battle.

This is amazing work! I dont recognize anyone here but Somos. Did you create these? You said you used command cards as upgrades? Do you have some kind of XP scale attached to them? The first thing I thought when I saw this was "this is the seeds of an awesome imperial side game".

Any information would be appreciated. Excellent work!

I am sceptic about the Blast Punch. Basic ability that gives additional attacks is extremely powerful, you can make 4 attacks per one activation — crazy. I understand that you gave red and yellow for range limitation. But if his weapon has +accuracy or surge:accuracy that can break the game

I love this, heck we should make a campaing for imperial heroes even. My bro loves to play as empire

wonderful work!!....really like the idea of the xp upgrade cards...(simple...heer Cheapcreep +1!)

AMAZING

But could you find a name for the Shadow trooper rather than just "Shadow Trooper" and then we're set

I created all theses after cards to match up with figures I had from WotC, and I made up the names though I can agree that maybe the Shadow Trooper needs a real name... What sounds better? "Death Mark" or "Veil"?




XP Upgrades first run, but I'm open for suggestions on improvements. I will work on getting blue bordered versions of each card edited but it may take me a few days:

Inquistor:

1XP: Force Pull

1XP: I'll Do it Myself

2XP: Seething Rage

2XP: Adrenaline Rush

3XP: Snap Kick

3XP: Force Drain

4XP: Maul of the Nexu

4XP: Force Dominate

Kayn:

1XP: Called Shot

1XP: Military Efficiency

2XP: Riot Grenades

2XP: Reinforcements

3XP: For the Cause!

3XP: Combat Veteran

4XP: Hammer and Anvil

4XP: Grenadier

IG-EF:

1XP: Imperial Loyalty

1XP: Imperial Resilience

2XP: Into the Fray

2XP: Staggering Blow

3XP: Vicious Strike

3XP: Target Acquired

4XP: Unstoppable

4XP: Adaptive Weapons

Thrayll:

1XP: Hard to Hit

1XP: Failsafe

2XP: Exploit Weakness

2XP: Roll with It

3XP: Get Cocky

3XP: Hide in Plain Sight

4XP: Superior positioning

4XP: Sidewinder

Shadow Trooper:

1XP: Scouting Report

1XP: Weapons Expert

2XP: Imperial Training

2XP: Recon Armour

3XP: Execute

3XP: Advanced Cloaking Device

4XP: Decoy

4XP: Coordinated Attack

I am sceptic about the Blast Punch. Basic ability that gives additional attacks is extremely powerful, you can make 4 attacks per one activation — crazy. I understand that you gave red and yellow for range limitation. But if his weapon has +accuracy or surge:accuracy that can break the game

That's fair. I will state that the droid will have a melee attack of red/green and no ability to gain new weapons throughout the campaign. I'll also change the text to say "Use after performing and melee attack.... If this attack hits with 2 (Damage) or more", so it will add insult to injury but can be dodged. I want to make the droid be a front-lines fighter/tank that can work well with the few melee members of the imperials as well as take hits while the main force takes pot-shots.

I wish I had the problem of too many players...

On topic:

• This seems like a huge buff to the imperial side, are your rebels okay with this or are you giving them some bonus to make up for it?
• Things that trigger off defeating a figure are problematic for the IP since it takes quite a lot to defeat a hero (and in the case of advance a hero can be defeated and still be on the board).
• Blast punch should probably be activated after an attack not before, it's really frustrating if you have to guess weather you'll do damage or not.
• Force throw would be an absolute nightmare for the rebel player in most missions, on the IP it's probably worth closer to 4xp than 1.
• Do you have bounty hunter figures? I imagine people would like to play as a bounty hunter.

I wish I had the problem of too many players...

On topic:

• This seems like a huge buff to the imperial side, are your rebels okay with this or are you giving them some bonus to make up for it?
• Things that trigger off defeating a figure are problematic for the IP since it takes quite a lot to defeat a hero (and in the case of advance a hero can be defeated and still be on the board).
• Blast punch should probably be activated after an attack not before, it's really frustrating if you have to guess weather you'll do damage or not.
• Force throw would be an absolute nightmare for the rebel player in most missions, on the IP it's probably worth closer to 4xp than 1.
• Do you have bounty hunter figures? I imagine people would like to play as a bounty hunter.

Thank you for your feedback! Very useful.

It's actually not that huge of buff, at 5 heroes you are dealing with a very strong synergistic onslaught by the Rebels. You have to deploy the imperial Hero at a fair place though, usually nearest to the end goal of the Rebels and not too close to their spawn point, as to not trap them in front of a locked door. It made my rebels have to really think about who focused on the mission and who held off attacks, Biv and Gaarkhan beat on the hero usually and the two of them made quick work of him when he played too aggressively.

That's fair about the defeated, I think I'll Errata to "wounded" and move from there.

Noted on blast punch

Very good point. I'll have to think about that... I might remove it entirely, it's not the most thematic with the type of force user I'm going for. Or what if I made it "Force Pull" in which you pull a hostile figure to you, remove the damage but lets the Figure close the distance. (At the cost of possibly bringing the hero closer to a goal)

Yes I do! Good idea, I'll think up a Bounty Hunter in the coming days.

Keep the feedback coming, very usefull.

These are freaking amazing.

You are the bomb-diggy-dong, man.

The only one that really makes me wonder is the third brother. With the heal+focus and two forms of vampirism, he seems really brutal to try and take down. Add in decent speed plus field control from Nexu and throw, and he might be a little OP (maybe). Are these abilities Special actions or non-action abilities? Have you consider adding an insight check to one of them?

Secondly, are you letting the imperial allies act as if they were heroes and make two attacks, or are they still restricted to one?

Third, rebel heroes are given a starting weapon, what do you intend the imps to start with? As thematic as it night be, starting them with e11s and a gorram lightsabre might end the game pretty quick! You have to have some way for them to ramp up as well, or start at a reasonable but static level.

It's actually not that huge of buff, at 5 heroes you are dealing with a very strong synergistic onslaught by the Rebels. You have to deploy the imperial Hero at a fair place though, usually nearest to the end goal of the Rebels and not too close to their spawn point, as to not trap them in front of a locked door. It made my rebels have to really think about who focused on the mission and who held off attacks, Biv and Gaarkhan beat on the hero usually and the two of them made quick work of him when he played too aggressively.

That's fair about the defeated, I think I'll Errata to "wounded" and move from there.

Oh right, you have 5 rebel heroes, that's fine then.

I did mean wounded (well defeating a hero the first time causes wounding), things like get cocky and advance are much less useful when you have to put multiple activations into defeating a single figure.

Edited the Inquisitor with links to his XP cards. I've made many of them actions and strain inducing, I feel like this will give him many options but also be hard to choose which actions he wants to spend at any given time and also adding to the strain.

I think I need to implement the rule of "Only can attack once per-activation." and but allow them to be ordered to attack.

As for weapons, this will need more thought but I was thinking a fair diced starting weapon with few surge choices, then allow them to requisition upgrades by using the starting Threat of a mission to determine the amount they can requisition and depending on what the starting threat is allows them to get better items. (Allowing a fair progression) The idea is that the Empire already had all the weapons and tech, but only gives it out if the mission is seen as important enough to warrant it.

I have edited the main post to now include all the heroes XP upgrades. I also updated IG-EF and the Shadow trooper hero card. I believe with the upgrades each hero acts how I imagined. Next, I'm going to work on starting weapons, the requisition system and what weapons you can ask for as the threat progresses.

Also, Bounty Hunter!
What should I make the Bounty Hunter?
Alien? Ishi tub or Nautolian
Female human?
or
Mando?

Okay, feedback now that I can more easily see all the stuff:

• The DC-17 and durasteel fists are MUCH stronger than the Rebel starting weapons
• Deathmark seems pretty OP in general. Even with the workaround being unable to see him if you're not adjacent is insane, especially when he can ambush (which they can't really work around). The option to build him tanky with a >30% chance to avoid any attack is also very good.
• Messing around with your opponent's mobility is VERY strong (especially when there's only one objective and a time limit); there will be times when you can just use target acquired and say "You can't win this turn" it might be okay if it depletes. (Of course I might be totally wrong, that's what testing's for)
• Reinforcements is effectively three threat almost every turn. It's also bringing a command card which was made to emulate a campaign mechanic into the campaign which is weird. I think endless ranks would work better to represent Kayn letting you bring in more troopers.
• Hammer and anvil might cause problems when you're giving an attack to Vader or something (it's okay with an elite officer, less so with someone that's about as hard to kill as Vader himself).

Okay, feedback now that I can more easily see all the stuff:

• The DC-17 and durasteel fists are MUCH stronger than the Rebel starting weapons
• Deathmark seems pretty OP in general. Even with the workaround being unable to see him if you're not adjacent is insane, especially when he can ambush (which they can't really work around). The option to build him tanky with a >30% chance to avoid any attack is also very good.
• Messing around with your opponent's mobility is VERY strong (especially when there's only one objective and a time limit); there will be times when you can just use target acquired and say "You can't win this turn" it might be okay if it depletes. (Of course I might be totally wrong, that's what testing's for)
• Reinforcements is effectively three threat almost every turn. It's also bringing a command card which was made to emulate a campaign mechanic into the campaign which is weird. I think endless ranks would work better to represent Kayn letting you bring in more troopers.
• Hammer and anvil might cause problems when you're giving an attack to Vader or something (it's okay with an elite officer, less so with someone that's about as hard to kill as Vader himself).

-no comment on deathmark

-this seems ok to me *only because you have 5 heroes. Its a "fight me bro" move, that essentially locks things back to 1 imp and 4 heroes. Adding a 1 strain cost to the ability would give it a built in time limit of how long you could maintain the tractor beam.

- ***reinforcements is broken as hell.*** Unkill 3 threat worth of guys every turn is stupid good when you compare it to the agenda card perpetual reinforcements (costing precious influence and use practically once per campaign)

-hammer and anvil may be better balanced if it counts as somos attack for the round. That brings it closer in line with Gideon's "one attack for me and one for you" commanding ability.

-force pull is sooo much more appropriate than force push. I would give an automatic success on the check if the player yells "GET OVER HERE!!" as he throws the dice.

-if you're gonna make a bounty hunter/assassin character, I vote for a Cerean. The "binary brain" gimmick could make for a lot of action options combining two non-related action or nonstandard focus use.

Okay, feedback now that I can more easily see all the stuff:

• The DC-17 and durasteel fists are MUCH stronger than the Rebel starting weapons
• Deathmark seems pretty OP in general. Even with the workaround being unable to see him if you're not adjacent is insane, especially when he can ambush (which they can't really work around). The option to build him tanky with a >30% chance to avoid any attack is also very good.
• Messing around with your opponent's mobility is VERY strong (especially when there's only one objective and a time limit); there will be times when you can just use target acquired and say "You can't win this turn" it might be okay if it depletes. (Of course I might be totally wrong, that's what testing's for)
• Reinforcements is effectively three threat almost every turn. It's also bringing a command card which was made to emulate a campaign mechanic into the campaign which is weird. I think endless ranks would work better to represent Kayn letting you bring in more troopers.
• Hammer and anvil might cause problems when you're giving an attack to Vader or something (it's okay with an elite officer, less so with someone that's about as hard to kill as Vader himself).

As always, love the feedback.

The Durasteel fist are the only weapon that the Droid gets in the game, I could tone it down but I feel allowing him to start strong attack wise is good with no real ability to get a better attack value until his 4XP upgrade. I want to test it thought. Would the DC-17 be better if I took off the surge Pierce? I want it to be upgradable so that both the Intelligence agent and Shock trooper can play with customization further on.

What if the Shadowtrooper had 8 health? At 10 health, plus two white dice, he'd be at the mercy of the dice. I think the challenge of not blocking a friendly figure is a very hard thing to do and would make him unable to ambush a lot of the time.

Target Acquired was supposed to be a duelling mechanic, I will agree that it needs a strain built it to reel it in though. His endurance 3 is limiting.

Imperial heroes can only attack once, so it's not too strong but yes, if Somos and Vader are being pals that could ruin someone's day.

And yea... Reinforcements did seem too good. I'll change that now.

I feel like "Maul of the Nexu" for the Third Brother should be a depletion rather than an exhaustion. Cleave 4 is extremely powerful, at least in my eyes.

Oh wait, put ^2 rather than ^3, tank shadow trooper has a 42% chance of dodging any attack against him.

I don't think avoiding blocking LOS on your turn is hard to manage at all (of course, testing).

The problem with the droid having a strong weapon early but not being able to upgrade is that this game can easily snowball.

WRT the DC-17: GG is a good attack pool for a ranged weapon (especially with good surges), it gives enough range while having a bunch of damage symbols and surges. GY would probably be balanced since that makes you legitimately short range.

Alright, I'll goto Green Yellow.

Then maybe Green Green for the droid?

Then finally for Deathmark, what if every turn he had to roll (Tech) to keep the Cloaking and advanced cloaking up?

Naturally not perfectly balanced at the get go. However, I love the idea. I've been considering a mirrored imperial campaign to run simultaneous a Rebel one, letting the Imperials hunt down the rebels and their supporters (where they get their supply cards), their base and their contacts. Imperial victories can affect starting equipment and access for the Rebels, and the rebels disruptions can throw off the Imperials.

Regardless, having recurring villains through a campaign is very signature Star Wars, so having the wounded side of the villains be the "bug out" side, where they take off, would be thematic, or have them left behind when the heroes hit the road.

I'd like to incorporate it into a roleplaying campaign we've had. I think it might be easier to run this as episodes than the Edge of the Empire. The two naturally have different focuses, as if you want to run and gun, Imp Assailt, if you want real character development and atmosphere, Edge of the Empire, but the two would play nice together. Edge of the Empire acting as the in between.

Anyway, I digress. The two things I wanted to mention were:

1. Do you have the templates you used? There are a lot of typos in the cards, and they would help a lot for contributing.

2. Thought about doing a Royal Guard character? It would be cool to have half the exp upgrades be force related, and half melee stomp related, so the character could either become an Echani specialist with the Force Pike, or go the Sovereign Protector route and pick up force related abilities. Kind of like a mix between the Wookie and Diala, the Jedi wannabe, depending on how you build him. Could use the Royal Guard Champion as the fig, and either do Dual Vibro-Blades or a Force Pike.

Sorry to bother again,

Is there any way you could share the Imperial hero template you used to make the Imperial Heroes?

Of course, sorry, I've been painting all my RTH minis on my free time, put this project aside for a bit. I've been using "Gimp" but I can give you a PNG or the gimp editable file?

Font:
(titles)
PT Sans Narrow Bold Condensed

(wording)
Minion Pro


(PNG)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zae5x3fjf03sz79/Template.png?dl=0

(PSD)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w618y01wbxzq9kk/TemplateExport.psd?dl=0

(XCG "Gimp" file)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ihqozjw6gouzfl/TemplateExport.xcf?dl=0

As for a Royal guard? I could see a royal guard and a Hunter/trapper bounty hunter rounding off the imperial heroes at a nice 6 hero group. I should mention that none of the heroes except for the Intelligence Agent have a wounded side. Defeated is defeated for them.

That's cool. I really like what you've done. It makes sense not having a wounded side if they are effectively "villainous champions" in missions to increase the challenge level.

I've been talking to my players, and we have some of us (like myself who just had a baby) who can't make regular stuff. So we want to hold off on our Rebel campaign until we get a couple of us together.

To supplant that then, we're thinking of doing an anti-hero campaign playing as Imperial Agents hunting the Rebels. I have a number of Rebel figures and scum from WotC (something like 90+ mini's I've gathered over the years) and was working on a campaign focused around an Inquisitor and his retinue.

Some missions would be:

Find the contacts supplying the Rebels with information (affect starting information and deployments)

Eliminate a spy hidden amongst the imperials, but do it disguised as scum, so the Imperial goes down in a blaze of glory, killed by the enemy. (Can't have anyone know one of our 'loyal' officers was feeding the Rebels)

Track and force the suppliers to cease selling to Rebels (affect supply deck of equipment)

Things like that. The games system seems very easily orchestrated for new missions and opportunities, as its fairly simple with enough complexity for tactical applications.

Thanks again for sharing the templates. Making my own would have been very time consuming, as my GIMP and Photoshop skills are lackluster at best.