I'm playing an Imp on our first time through the Base Campaign. My Rebels failed miserably at A New Threat today because the characters picked exactly the wrong face-down terminals to race to. The Wookie ended up alone at the Sense terminal and the (wounded) Smuggler ended up alone at the Might terminal. In the Smuggler's case, the chances of passing a 2x might check are 1 in 36 each round, and the Wookie's are only slightly better. Needless to say, no terminals were activated when time ran out.

Since the players have to split up to hit their objectives in time, it seems like it would be fairer to at least let the players know which terminal requires which test from the beginning. Thoughts?

I have often thought this to be the case. However, as written, that is not the only change I would make.

If the Rebels know which Hero to send to which terminal, that would make it very difficult for the Imperial player to defend. As is, the Imperial generally has to simply choose to defend two terminals, usually skipping the terminal that the Rebels have chosen correctly on, and defending those terminals that would already be difficult, elevating them to "nigh-impossible" by wounding. If the Rebels knew exactly which was which, the Imperials would be hard tasked to stop them.

So if I were to have to change it, I would give the Imperials something like +3 additional threat somewhere along the way but not starting. Though I would also remove the Nexu. Being able to spawn a Nexu in a 4x4 space that blocks the terminal is silly. I wouldn't mind if the Imperial player got a Nexu that could run over there and take up that position, but the fact that the Rebels have zero chance to stop it is a bit silly.

If I remember correctly, the Rebels don't need to pass the attribute test in one go.

Per the RRG:

Each surge rolled is a success. If an attribute test lists a number directly before the icon, multiple successes are needed in order to pass the test. If he does not roll the required number of successes, he fails the test but places one strain token near the subject of the test for each success. The next time any figure attempts this test, it discards these strain tokens and applies +1 surge to his test results for each token discarded.

So if someone ends up near the "wrong" terminal for their attributes, they will be less likely to pass the check in one shot but they would probably be able to get it in 2 attempts unless the dice are in an especially lousy mood.

In my campaign, all the Rebels ended up at the "right" terminals for their attributes and they cruised. I think letting them know where to go would make it too easy.

I have often thought this to be the case. However, as written, that is not the only change I would make.

If the Rebels know which Hero to send to which terminal, that would make it very difficult for the Imperial player to defend. As is, the Imperial generally has to simply choose to defend two terminals, usually skipping the terminal that the Rebels have chosen correctly on, and defending those terminals that would already be difficult, elevating them to "nigh-impossible" by wounding. If the Rebels knew exactly which was which, the Imperials would be hard tasked to stop them.

So if I were to have to change it, I would give the Imperials something like +3 additional threat somewhere along the way but not starting. Though I would also remove the Nexu. Being able to spawn a Nexu in a 4x4 space that blocks the terminal is silly. I wouldn't mind if the Imperial player got a Nexu that could run over there and take up that position, but the fact that the Rebels have zero chance to stop it is a bit silly.

I'd think that two Rebels or one Rebel with two activations should be able to deal with the Nexu with enough time to get to the terminal and do the check before time runs out.

I'd think that two Rebels or one Rebel with two activations should be able to deal with the Nexu with enough time to get to the terminal and do the check before time runs out.

I respectfully disagree. The 2x2 room in question has a spawn point right outside (they all do). Even if there are, indeed, two rebels there, one of them has to spend one action opening the door itself. Now they've got one remaining action to kill the Nexu. The Nexu has 6 health and rolls a white die. This is the third mission the rebels take if they go this path, meaning they've had exactly two chances to purchase Tier 1 weapons. Even then they aren't wildly awesome, because at six health you'd have to be the one Rebel with a specific combo in order to one shot that Nexu.

But the Nexu has Cunning, one of the best defensive abilities in the game, giving it the possibility of attaining an evade and two blocks, difficult for any rebel to overcome. And, of course, it can always Dodge.

And all this time, they are getting shot at by all the things the Imperial player is spawning just behind them.

I'd think that two Rebels or one Rebel with two activations should be able to deal with the Nexu with enough time to get to the terminal and do the check before time runs out.

I respectfully disagree. The 2x2 room in question has a spawn point right outside (they all do). Even if there are, indeed, two rebels there, one of them has to spend one action opening the door itself. Now they've got one remaining action to kill the Nexu. The Nexu has 6 health and rolls a white die. This is the third mission the rebels take if they go this path, meaning they've had exactly two chances to purchase Tier 1 weapons. Even then they aren't wildly awesome, because at six health you'd have to be the one Rebel with a specific combo in order to one shot that Nexu.

But the Nexu has Cunning, one of the best defensive abilities in the game, giving it the possibility of attaining an evade and two blocks, difficult for any rebel to overcome. And, of course, it can always Dodge.

And all this time, they are getting shot at by all the things the Imperial player is spawning just behind them.

Ah, I forgot that this was a story mission. Your assessment is right. I thought it was a side mission, that they could play it later in the campaign, and had it in my head that this was one of the missions that was cruel early / more manageable later on.

The Rebels are supposed to lose this mission to give the Imperial a morale boost after losing Aftermath and possibly losing the first side mission, as the Rebels probably know what they're doing if they won Aftermath. Just like how it's almost impossible for rebels to lose Under Siege after they lose Aftermath. This mission is designed the way it is for a reason, to prevent one side from snowballing. The missions insane difficulty is meant to be a balancing mechanism for the overall campaign.

The Rebels are supposed to lose this mission to give the Imperial a morale boost after losing Aftermath and possibly losing the first side mission, as the Rebels probably know what they're doing if they won Aftermath. Just like how it's almost impossible for rebels to lose Under Siege after they lose Aftermath. This mission is designed the way it is for a reason, to prevent one side from snowballing. The missions insane difficulty is meant to be a balancing mechanism for the overall campaign.

Except... that it isn't.

I fully agree that's how Most of the missions work, and that what you say was the designers' intent, a greater reward for completing the mission but a more difficult story mission next. However, it didn't take my group long to figure out that both sides actually want to lose Aftermath. In losing, you give up ... 400 credits. But then the story mission that is placed has a 2xp difference in the balance. A small upgrade in weaponry for a single Rebel or 1xp to each Rebel doesn't seem like much of a contest.

Heck, you may as well sit down to play Aftermath and just ask, "Okay Rebels, are you winning or losing?" and then just bargain for how many crates you think you're going to get.... either that or play a strange game where the crates are the only thing of substance the group is going for.

Because not only that, but it is my personal belief that Fly Solo, the "losing and therefore easier" story mission for not completing A New Threat is actually more difficult than Imperial Hospitality.

Am I saying I could have designed a better game? Absolutely not. I think the designers have done a wonderful job at this. However, time has proven that the way rewards are given in Aftermath and the sheer difficulties of the subsequent story missions offers a disparity against the further, better designed, and rewarded missions.

Yeah, the base mission campaign is a bit flawed. I agree losing aftermath as Rebels is the only way to really balance the campaign. A New threat and Fly Solo have been unwinnable in our group and we have gotten through 3 base campaigns, and started 6 others. Lots of play attempts, lots of different players, no results that favor the Rebels winning these with a competent Imperial player

Discussed in this thread also

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/196641-how-do-we-fix-a-new-threat-and-fly-solo/

Saska Teft and her devices is very helpful for Rebels to pass the tests.

Saska Teft and her devices is very helpful for Rebels to pass the tests.

Can the Rebels use characters from the expansions? Imps are only supposed to use the characters from the base set, do the Expansion heroes backward compatible?

If I remember correctly, the Rebels don't need to pass the attribute test in one go.

Per the RRG:

Each surge rolled is a success. If an attribute test lists a number directly before the icon, multiple successes are needed in order to pass the test. If he does not roll the required number of successes, he fails the test but places one strain token near the subject of the test for each success. The next time any figure attempts this test, it discards these strain tokens and applies +1 surge to his test results for each token discarded.

So if someone ends up near the "wrong" terminal for their attributes, they will be less likely to pass the check in one shot but they would probably be able to get it in 2 attempts unless the dice are in an especially lousy mood.

In my campaign, all the Rebels ended up at the "right" terminals for their attributes and they cruised. I think letting them know where to go would make it too easy.

Ok, your Rebels got lucky. But if a single 100% luck-based choice guarantees failure, that seems... poorly thought out.

My two rebels tag-teamed the Nexu in one round. But with the RAW, you have to score a surge (17% and 33% chance for the scenarios I described, iirc) to put a strain token on. Then, if you fail your next roll (which you have an 87% and 66% chance of doing), you're back to square one. You could sit there all day and not roll two successes in a row, let alone in the 2-3 turns you actually have after spending minimum 2 actions to blast down each door.

If the Rebels know which Hero to send to which terminal, that would make it very difficult for the Imperial player to defend. As is, the Imperial generally has to simply choose to defend two terminals, usually skipping the terminal that the Rebels have chosen correctly on, and defending those terminals that would already be difficult, elevating them to "nigh-impossible" by wounding. If the Rebels knew exactly which was which, the Imperials would be hard tasked to stop them.

I'd need to double check, but I'm pretty sure the scenario uses the term that means the Imperial player doesn't know which terminal is which either until it's interacted with for the first time.

Can the Rebels use characters from the expansions? Imps are only supposed to use the characters from the base set, do the Expansion heroes backward compatible?

All the Rebels and all the Imperials from the Twin Suns Expansion can be used in the Core IA Campaign. The Imperial player is limited in number of each deployment card by the amount in those boxes. It is strongly recommended that if you started out without the expansion, that you finish the campaign without it, but starting up everyone can pick from all expansions.

All that is said without me having the Return to Hoth box, and those instructions may be different.

But with the RAW, you have to score a surge (17% and 33% chance for the scenarios I described, iirc) to put a strain token on. Then, if you fail your next roll (which you have an 87% and 66% chance of doing), you're back to square one.

You don't get set back to Square One though. The rules have a strange way of saying this, but successes remain. So your Rebel can get a Success on attempt #1, fail three more times, then get a success on attempt #5 and then have the necessary 2 successes to pass the test.

I'd need to double check, but I'm pretty sure the scenario uses the term that means the Imperial player doesn't know which terminal is which either until it's interacted with for the first time.

You caught me on that one. You're right, the Imperial player doesn't know which terminal is which either. I believe I meant to say "choose which two terminals he can more easily defend", but something got crossed there.

My players didn't have an issue but I did win, mostly cuz I turtled up at the 3th spot while they were dealing with the 2nd terminal. I found that as a bigger imbalance than the skill tests.

I don't think the issue is so much with this mission. Is it hard, yes, and it is a little random with the blind terminals. The problem is that the next mission if the rebels lose is "Fly Solo", which is also too hard. One or the other would be fine, but facing both means that it does end up being a bit steamrollery in the Imperial's favour (when the whole point of a New Threat is to stop a Rebel steamroller).

In fact, I think that it is really Fly Solo that is the issue. We almost won this mission, and if we hadn't had so many flubbed rolls (to kill the Nexu, to pass the tests, which we should have done almost every time because we luckily sent the right people to the right terminals) we might still have.

The Rebels are supposed to lose this mission to give the Imperial a morale boost after losing Aftermath and possibly losing the first side mission, as the Rebels probably know what they're doing if they won Aftermath. Just like how it's almost impossible for rebels to lose Under Siege after they lose Aftermath. This mission is designed the way it is for a reason, to prevent one side from snowballing. The missions insane difficulty is meant to be a balancing mechanism for the overall campaign.

The main problem is the mission actually creates a Snowball since The Aftermath doesn't grant 2 EXP to the winner.

It's in the Rebel's advantage to intentionally lose The Aftermath since they still get the extra $$$ in Under Seige.

Read the rules again.

You do not need to roll successes consecutively. Nowhere does it say they go away.

The mission is not impossible, but heavily relies on 3 things:

1) The rebels realize they need to use a 5-movement character to immediately (first activation) move 10 spaces to the south door so a Nexu cannot block it.

2) The rebels realize the East 2x2 room can be blocked, that should be the 2nd terminal to be activated.

3) The rebels realize they have 0 killing power and completely ignore killing things and purely alternate between going for the objective and healing/resting.

In our scenario, the character doing #2 got preoccupied with killing things, so by the time they opened the door to the 2x2 room, a Nexu spawned on the terminal and killed them. Mak handily beat the north terminal and Diala did the south terminal (but got wounded shortly after). We did follow #1 and moved Diala 10 spaces to block the south door.

Having Diala with Force Adept also makes this mission a lot easier (we actually did not have Force Adept). We came decently close to winning, but lost on Round 3 (all heroes wounded).

The mission is not impossible, but heavily relies on 3 things:

1) The rebels realize they need to use a 5-movement character to immediately (first activation) move 10 spaces to the south door so a Nexu cannot block it.

2) The rebels realize the East 2x2 room can be blocked, that should be the 2nd terminal to be activated.

3) The rebels realize they have 0 killing power and completely ignore killing things and purely alternate between going for the objective and healing/resting.

In our scenario, the character doing #2 got preoccupied with killing things, so by the time they opened the door to the 2x2 room, a Nexu spawned on the terminal and killed them. Mak handily beat the north terminal and Diala did the south terminal (but got wounded shortly after). We did follow #1 and moved Diala 10 spaces to block the south door.

Having Diala with Force Adept also makes this mission a lot easier (we actually did not have Force Adept). We came decently close to winning, but lost on Round 3 (all heroes wounded).

Round 3 is very quick, and I think thats the problem with not attacking, you go down fast (ive lost on round 4 before). Overall, i've played this mission 10 times now, we have not seen the Rebels win. We have tried countless strategies. One time we even picked our worst imperial player, let the rebels stack there team to play this stand alone and pick skills and items and still could not win this mission. I've concluded it's made for the imperial to win, unless some really fluky (lucky) die rolls happen for the Rebels. Overall, I don't think they did a good job with the playtesting on this one, it's def does not have the feeling you have a chance to win it as Rebels as many other missions do.

The one time I've seen this won as the Rebels...

Mak, Diala, Gideon, Fenn. Diala with Force Adept.

Mak and Gideon moved against the Elite Probe Droid. Diala went to face the Nexu, Fenn took off towards the remaining. Mak killed the Elite in two good shots, so Gideon moved to help Fenn. Diala just ignored the Nexu, Fenn killed one Probe Droid with Gideon's help. Mak took longer to open the door than to kill the Elite Probe Droid.

After that everyone just ignored the spawns and went for terminals. Mak took two tries to get his, Diala took two tries and did it wounded. Fenn and Gideon had to kill the Nexu that spawned on theirs and Fenn got wounded but Gideon got that terminal. End of Round 5.

Though convinced that's impossible to do without Diala or Seska.

However, it didn't take my group long to figure out that both sides actually want to lose Aftermath. In losing, you give up ... 400 credits. But then the story mission that is placed has a 2xp difference in the balance. A small upgrade in weaponry for a single Rebel or 1xp to each Rebel doesn't seem like much of a contest.

Heck, you may as well sit down to play Aftermath and just ask, "Okay Rebels, are you winning or losing?" and then just bargain for how many crates you think you're going to get.... either that or play a strange game where the crates are the only thing of substance the group is going for.

Did you let your group read through the mission booklet? Or have they just played the campaign that many times that they know the score?

However, it didn't take my group long to figure out that both sides actually want to lose Aftermath. In losing, you give up ... 400 credits. But then the story mission that is placed has a 2xp difference in the balance. A small upgrade in weaponry for a single Rebel or 1xp to each Rebel doesn't seem like much of a contest.

Heck, you may as well sit down to play Aftermath and just ask, "Okay Rebels, are you winning or losing?" and then just bargain for how many crates you think you're going to get.... either that or play a strange game where the crates are the only thing of substance the group is going for.

Did you let your group read through the mission booklet? Or have they just played the campaign that many times that they know the score?

We've never just abandoned Aftermath, but I bet we can start doing that. We've played the campaign a lot, probably 6 or 7 times. I think we started wondering about Aftermath on the 3rd playthrough.

Going forward, we plan to just get Return to Hoth and not worry about Aftermath any more.

To help counteract the "both sides want to lose Aftermath" strategy, my group and I are house-ruling that there's an additional 1XP reward on the line for Aftermath. (Rebels win -> an additional +1XP rebels..... IP wins -> an additional 1XP for IP)

Still, based on the difficulty of A New Threat and Fly Solo, I wonder if it's not enough...

Looking forward to getting started with RtH though and not looking back

Looking forward to getting started with RtH though and not looking back

Our groups thoughts exactly, when you play the original campaign enough you realize the story missions almost always play out the same way due to some serious mission design flaws that really lack balance. I am with you and looking forward to the RtH campaign and hoping this one is much more balanced!

My wife and I played this last night. This is our first time playing through the campaign. She's using Gaarkhan, Diala, Fenn and Jyn. She split the group up with Diala going after one, Fenn and Gaarkhan going after one and Jyn going after one. She luckily picked all the correct terminals that played to each character's strengths and was able to win by round 6 she would of won by round 5 had she not been stunned opening a door with Jyn. May of just been beginners luck.

I fully agree that's how Most of the missions work, and that what you say was the designers' intent, a greater reward for completing the mission but a more difficult story mission next. However, it didn't take my group long to figure out that both sides actually want to lose Aftermath. In losing, you give up ... 400 credits. But then the story mission that is placed has a 2xp difference in the balance. A small upgrade in weaponry for a single Rebel or 1xp to each Rebel doesn't seem like much of a contest.

Thing is, you don't even give up the 400 credits.

Unless the IP completely screws up reading the manual, you get +100 credits/hero for winning Under Seige, and another +100 credits/hero at the bottom of Under Seige "Additional Rewards" (a make-up for losing Aftermath).

From your reply I'm guessing you screwed it up and cheated your Rebels

I fully agree that's how Most of the missions work, and that what you say was the designers' intent, a greater reward for completing the mission but a more difficult story mission next. However, it didn't take my group long to figure out that both sides actually want to lose Aftermath. In losing, you give up ... 400 credits. But then the story mission that is placed has a 2xp difference in the balance. A small upgrade in weaponry for a single Rebel or 1xp to each Rebel doesn't seem like much of a contest.

Thing is, you don't even give up the 400 credits.

Unless the IP completely screws up reading the manual, you get +100 credits/hero for winning Under Seige, and another +100 credits/hero at the bottom of Under Seige "Additional Rewards" (a make-up for losing Aftermath).

Well, first, my initial response was from the viewpoint of the Imperial player, as losing that would lead into A New Threat, the title of this thread. In that scenario, they can also recover an additional 100 credits per hero, if they manage to complete everything by Round 5, a daunting task indeed. While you are correct that the Rebels do receive 800 credits for completing Under Siege, that is by no means a given, and is certainly not as difficult for the Imperials to win as it is for the Rebels to win A New Threat. I would actually say that the odds of the Rebels lasting until Round 8 is quite slim once You-Know-Who arrives. Therefore, I wouldn't claim it's an automatic, but they do have that chance.

From your reply I'm guessing you screwed it up and cheated your Rebels

Hrm. No. Again, we were talking about A New Threat. I do admit I can make mistakes though, it took me a while to get many of the rules correct, to the point where I never claim to really know them all. Also, it's Siege and not Seige.