We've played 8 missions of it so far. As rebels, we won the first two but we've lost the next 6. In the last three missions we haven't had a hope in hell of winning. I constantly get the feeling we're not as efficient at clearing the Imperial figures as the game developers had in mind. We have Saska, Loku, MHD-19 and Verena. Per activation, our heroes usually do about 5 damage. For those who attack. The medical droid is often doing something else. We can spread our damage a bit more with unstable devices which helps Verena a bit and she had been able to clear out weak enemies.

The Imperial player is using Subversive Tactics and so far he has 12 xp while we have 8. This experience gap alone seems massive.

And Rescue Ops mission reward..

The Imperial player also has the agenda card to throw 2 red dice to heal damage (deplete), agenda cards that we can buy off with credits but if we don't, he gets to draw one extra influence card and gets one more influence. But at this point he has so much influence he doesn't know what to do with all of that. And in the last 3 missions he has had so much threat and all his figures on the board so that it just goes to waste.

I also don't like the threat missions the Hoth campaign introduced. They give extra bonuses to the Imperial player and they really discourage rebels from choosing a side mission. I've bought some ally packs and i'd really like to play those missions but now it feels like the game is nudging us (and quite strongly) to always do the threat missions.

And I admit that our team composition probably isn't ideal. Biv or Fenn would most likely be a lot more effective than Saska. And more durable.

EDIT: And I'm first to admit that this is a completely biased view and there's a lot of frustration in this post. It's very likely that there's another player in another group with a completely different view.

I think the main source of your problems is "Subversive Tactics". I'm the Imperial Player for a few groups, and I very specifically didn't pick Subversive Tactics for Return to Hoth because, based on reading a few of the mission details, it would be way overpowered, though I was sorely tempted. You could probably beat it with very careful playing and the right group of heroes (I would suggest Loku, Verana, Gideon and Gaarkhan, but thats just personal opionion and not tested), and definitely Leia as an Ally as she has the ability to exhaust Imperial abilities which would really frustrate a Subversive Imperial Player.

I'll try to make this as constructive as possible.

Honestly, it sounds like your imperial was out for blood. Good agenda set choices stacked on top of the meanest class deck there is. I know saska and HGH are both support heroes, but I don't know enough about Loki and Elsa to say if the can carry or not.

My pivotal question is, what were you spending your credits on? Your damage, as you guessed, seems light, so I'm wondering if you spent your credits semi optimally. Of course, you could have simply Been shafted by the item deck (that happens sometimes).

I'm not too far into Hoth, but I have been wondering about balance. If the rebels win the first mission they get a fairly solid ally and probably 950 credits, but if they lose they only get 400 credits with no ally... That is more than a little bit different right there and seems to be making the side that won even stronger and more likely to win. With no need to do an ally side mission now they can do a credit mission or threat mission instead and get even MORE credits.

We've drawn very few weapons and the weapons we've seen have been marginally better than the starting items. We have probably wasted our money on combat jacket (Though it has helped Loku survive a lot) and cybernetic arm for Verena so that she has 1 extra endurance and can really trigger her ability. We just have to get the enemies close to dying before triggering Verena's combo. The second time we got Tier 3 items in the upgrade step, we got 2 weapons and we bought the DXR-6. We'll decide next week when we play again, who will get that. Saska or Loku. Saska can put a modification on it with Gadgeteer which could make it great. But Saska even with Remote Distribution upgrade might be too fragile compared to Loku and his combat jacket.

As for the mission after the starting missions, we went for a threat mission to remove the Imperial bonus where heroes start a mission with strain. It seemed like a too good bonus to leave for the Imperial who's already playing Subversive Tactics. Currently we get easily to full strain as the Imperial player can give one hero who's not at full strain, 2 strain at the end of the round, then Surgical Strike (this card seems way too powerful. Not an attachment and can deal 2 damage to hero with full strain. Or a figure. Insane), trandoshans... Also, there's the card that resting gives an Imperial figure the chance to attack or move and the class card that if a hero with 2 strain attacks, the defender gets the surge removal symbol. So, no easy strain removal from attacking. I think he's bought around 6 or 7 agenda cards with most of them being deplete and one was the Boba Fett side mission but we went on a threat mission instead.

So, to summarize, as we've lost a lot, we've only got 100 credits / hero plus the credits from the crates while the Imperial player is pulling a huge gap experience and influence wise. And I've never liked missions which reward the winner an extra experience points. That can easily contribute to the skewed power.

but I don't know enough about Loki and Elsa to say if the can carry or not.

Verena can (though positioning is key) but Loku isn't that good on damage, better on action advantage and zoning. I'd say he is 1/2 support. So they really play with 2 1/2 support heroes against ST ... a bit doomed to fail I think.

but I don't know enough about Loki and Elsa to say if the can carry or not.

Verena can (though positioning is key) but Loku isn't that good on damage, better on action advantage and zoning. I'd say he is 1/2 support. So they really play with 2 1/2 support heroes against ST ... a bit doomed to fail I think.

Yeah, I'm afraid that this is the case. But as the rules state, we choose heroes first and then the Imperial player chooses his deck. And obviously he paid close attention to what we chose. And we chose heroes we haven't used in previous campaigns. Return of the Hoth heroes were new obviously and Saska hasn't been in our campaigns yet so I wanted to test her. But a dps like Fenn or Biv would have been a better choice.

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

However, in the 2nd mission where they have to defend the consoles, I'm having fun there... they probably will win the mission, but I'm giving them a challenge... My Elite Officer has not died yet (we took a break at Round 4 and took photos of everything)... he's managed to roll Dodge on every single attack... and those he didn't, he was next to a friendly, which allowed him to reroll... First time ever that the dice have been in my favour by that much. Its annoyed Verena's player enough that she's forgotten strategy and just keeps attacking and attacking... I haven't mentioned yet that she might have much better luck killing the hired guns next to him (who don't have a dodge, and a 2 in six change of rolling a blank), and then using their attack against the officer with her special ability... since I think I have rolled blanks on half the rolls and only got the dodge on those because of being able to reroll...

The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

If it's taking them an hour to do a turn they are anything BUT masters... I suggest using a turn clock, that is a massive and unfun waste of time for everyone else.

I picked Precision Tactics for Hoth because it looked a lot weaker than Military Might which I used last campaign and wiped the floor with the Rebels. However, I didn't expect it to be this weak. The Imperial decks are so drastically different in power I have a hard time believing they were ever playtested.

In our campaign, we have seen the RtH campaign favor the Rebels more than the Imperial (core campaign was much more Imperial favored), particularly on the story mission aspect. This game is great in that there is a counter to everything, however, the Rebels make up of heroes, and the Imperial players use of Open groups combined with class skills can make some missions slide very heavy in favor of one or the other groups.

As people have mentioned, I just think your Imperial player picked the correct hand, the correct agendas, and is playing against a weak Rebel make up. Saska and Loku are 1/2 support characters, MDH is full on support, Verena is great for action economy and crowd fighting, however, late game she suffers to do enough damage to high health groups. Your group is lacking on anyone that can really focus firepower on high health characters (Mak, Biv, Fenn, Garkhan) and I think that is why you are having such a tough go at it.

ST a lot of people say is OP, and we just have not seen that in our group....however, when we played against it, we countered it well. Spending our skills on passive abilities and not ones that take strain, we focused our weapon selection on higher surge potential, we had Saska in our group and device tokens = Surges = strain recovery when attacking, we also had Fenn who is def the best counter to this deck. ST yes I will give everyone it's annoying to play against as Rebels, it slows the game down, and even as an Imperial I would say its one of the less exciting decks to play. It's effective, but not broken as many people feel, you just have to really work to counter it.

Overall, I would say just finish the campaign out and start fresh with a new group of Heroes. Sometimes you want to just try new Rebels out and then you learn they don't have synergies that are needed for that particular campaigns success.

ST a lot of people say is OP, and we just have not seen that in our group....however, when we played against it, we countered it well. Spending our skills on passive abilities and not ones that take strain, we focused our weapon selection on higher surge potential, we had Saska in our group and device tokens = Surges = strain recovery when attacking, we also had Fenn who is def the best counter to this deck. ST yes I will give everyone it's annoying to play against as Rebels, it slows the game down, and even as an Imperial I would say its one of the less exciting decks to play. It's effective, but not broken as many people feel, you just have to really work to counter it.

It's mainly OP because, as mentioned, technically the IP player chooses their deck after heroes are selected. If the heroes choose characters that are 4 endurance + high strain usage, those characters are effectively neutralized.

So unless you select the same set of OP heroes with 5 endurance / low strain use every time (Mak, Verena, Fenn, Diala), they might effectively be playing with 3 heroes.

The sole advantage of the Heroes is action economy (abilities that give more than 2 actions). If you neutralize those abilities, you will have an advantage every turn.

I certainly cannot agree that the campaign can be imbalanced in favour of the Imperials. I am getting the floor wiped with me. I am playing Precision Tactics, which may not be the strongest, but I don't think that is really the issue. I won't claim to be a great Imperial player, which is probably the main problem, but having just played White Noise I really have the question the reward structure. If either side wipes the floor (which the Rebels did) there is such a swing in stuff. The Rebels got 2 xp vs my 1, and 1200 credits vs my 1 Influence (2 with one of the threat cards in play). It doesn't seem the best process to have so much riding on the one mission.

It seems really hard to win that mission from my experience, as Imperial Officers are so key to the mission and are very fragile, and the players were killing so much stuff on certain turns I could not keep up. Yes, I think I chose my entry points badly (at the very least it would have allowed me to destroy all the doors, but I wanted to play for the main objective, rather than meta-game when I had probably, but not certainly, lost), and I could have played better, but it isn't like it felt like it would have turned the game.

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

Mother of god...

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

Mother of god...

Yeah, **** that.

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

Mother of god...

Yeah, **** that.

My group has started putting a timer in play, to help create the panic of battle. its quite effective and fun, 5 minutes

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

Mother of god...

Yeah, **** that.

My group has started putting a timer in play, to help create the panic of battle. its quite effective and fun, 5 minutes

5 minutes for what? An activation? 4 heroes x 5 minutes, plus an additional 5 for the ally = 25 minutes, double that for the imperial troops = 50 minutes per round... which is approximately what its taking us... We played White Noise for about 2 - 3 hours and only got to the end of round 4, had to take photos so we can continue next time.

The Hoth Campaign I'm currently leading as Imperial Player includes Diala, Loku, Saska and Verena. The players playing Saska and Verena are both masters of strategy, and the average turn can take 1 hour because of deliberations... I kinda wish I had gone for Subversive Tactics, they're managing to wipe the board against Precision tactics.

Mother of god...

Yeah, **** that.

My group has started putting a timer in play, to help create the panic of battle. its quite effective and fun, 5 minutes

5 minutes for what? An activation? 4 heroes x 5 minutes, plus an additional 5 for the ally = 25 minutes, double that for the imperial troops = 50 minutes per round... which is approximately what its taking us... We played White Noise for about 2 - 3 hours and only got to the end of round 4, had to take photos so we can continue next time.

it is a maximimum of 5 minutes per activation. most of the rebels decide pretty quickly as the time counts down. the imperial player (me) doesn't need as much time, as i am thinking at the same time as them. it really doesnt take that long. a mission usually lasts around 2 hours. pretty cool, fast and furious. though some mistakes get made, but we are all having fun. no need to stress.

Well in our group we all take time plotting, admitedly I take the longest, cause they usually outthink my plans (as I mentioned, they've been running circles around me). I only got a minor upperhand because Verena lost her cool (with me rolling dodge after dodge, at least 6 or 7 times in a row!)

Thank you for all the comments. I agree that Subversive Tactics is probably very effective against our team makeup. Maybe in the future we'll also play with a rule that Imperial player and Rebel players choose their heroes and class deck in secret and after that Imperial player can build or customize his agenda deck if he built one already.

As borithan mentioned, the reward structure can give great swings to one way or another. I thought the Twin Shadows mini campaign way of giving one player 2 xp and the winner(s) 3xp was a better way as it's only a 50% greater reward and not 100%. The winner of multiple missions can buy abilities faster and more of them but the power gap doesn't grow as drastically as it does with the other getting 1 xp and the other one 2 xp.

Well in our group we all take time plotting, admitedly I take the longest, cause they usually outthink my plans (as I mentioned, they've been running circles around me). I only got a minor upperhand because Verena lost her cool (with me rolling dodge after dodge, at least 6 or 7 times in a row!)

At least 6 dodge rolls in a row is unreal, you are palming the die and not rolling it properly or it is very seriously unbalanced. Even with cower that is still an unreal number of times.

As it turns out we just ran White Noise. We played pretty slowly and were a couple minutes over 3 hours including setup, rip down (I did all of both) and purchasing as well as some banter. It went 7 rounds and took longer because the rebels brought echo base trooper allies so they had 5 activations and I brought on a storm trooper squad to help shoot doors.

I should have won it in less than 7 rounds as you can do some pretty dirty tricks spawning multiple officers and having one order the other beside a terminal.

The bonus credits for the doors is pretty weird. Considering you're pretty much throwing officers into a meat grinder (I think I had 7 die) there probably should have been a bonus for how many killed rather than the door bonus, but I get that tracking that is more complicated.

At least 6 dodge rolls in a row is unreal, you are palming the die and not rolling it properly or it is very seriously unbalanced. Even with cower that is still an unreal number of times.

Not actually in a row... as I said in an earlier post, the officer was adjacent to a hired gun, giving him a possible reroll each attack. They also made me roll multiple times when they suspected the die wasn't balanced and made me switch to another white die.. basically a bunch of different results came up, but when it came to the final roll for defense... It was dodge every time. It was pretty spectacular.

Well in our group we all take time plotting, admitedly I take the longest, cause they usually outthink my plans (as I mentioned, they've been running circles around me). I only got a minor upperhand because Verena lost her cool (with me rolling dodge after dodge, at least 6 or 7 times in a row!)

I know you clarified this, but I think the odds of rolling 7 dodges in a row are 1:46,656. I'd have lost my cool, too!

Well in our group we all take time plotting, admitedly I take the longest, cause they usually outthink my plans (as I mentioned, they've been running circles around me). I only got a minor upperhand because Verena lost her cool (with me rolling dodge after dodge, at least 6 or 7 times in a row!)

I know you clarified this, but I think the odds of rolling 7 dodges in a row are 1:46,656. I'd have lost my cool, too!

Cower changes the odds to 1/5, so if your officer is able to cower every time (very unlikely) then it would be 1:78,125. Without cower it would be 1:279,936.

Craps tables are the way they are for a reason. It's easy enough to drop a die on any face you want that people can do it unconsciously. If you play a game with exploding dice and the players don't intentionally roll properly, you will unfailingly see hugely improbably rolls on a regular basis.

If you're just playing a campaign for fun it can be annoying, but in skirmish at a tournament it's a big problem.

Cower changes the odds to 1/5, so if your officer is able to cower every time (very unlikely) then it would be 1:78,125. Without cower it would be 1:279,936.

So you're saying there's a chance!

Cower changes the odds to 1/5, so if your officer is able to cower every time (very unlikely) then it would be 1:78,125. Without cower it would be 1:279,936.

So you're saying there's a chance!

Cower changes the odds to 1/5, so if your officer is able to cower every time (very unlikely) then it would be 1:78,125. Without cower it would be 1:279,936.

So you're saying there's a chance!

"Never tell me the odds!"