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.

How do you get to a chance of 1/5 for a dodge with cower?

It is 1-x, where x is the chance to not roll a dodge in two rolls. The chance of not rolling a dodge is 5/6 , so x = (5/6)^2=25/36 and therefore to roll at least one dodge with cower is 11/36. You get the same result if you count the 1/6 chance of rolling a dodge on the first roll and then the reroll which gives you a chance of 5/6 * 1/6 . So if you add this up you also get 1/6 + 5/6*1/6 = 11/36.

Therefore to roll 7 dodges in a row with an active Cower but the cower rolls not counting as an extra roll your chance is

(11/36)^7 ~ 0.024 % ~ 1 in 4000 events.

He got to cower every time... Verena's player lost her cool with that one and got obsessed. She should have rather taken out the hired guns (no dodge ability) and then used their attack against the officer. But the players have gotten nervous of their parting shot ability so they're actually scared of taking them out.

How do you get to a chance of 1/5 for a dodge with cower?

It is 1-x, where x is the chance to not roll a dodge in two rolls. The chance of not rolling a dodge is 5/6 , so x = (5/6)^2=25/36 and therefore to roll at least one dodge with cower is 11/36. You get the same result if you count the 1/6 chance of rolling a dodge on the first roll and then the reroll which gives you a chance of 5/6 * 1/6 . So if you add this up you also get 1/6 + 5/6*1/6 = 11/36.

Therefore to roll 7 dodges in a row with an active Cower but the cower rolls not counting as an extra roll your chance is

(11/36)^7 ~ 0.024 % ~ 1 in 4000 events.

You're actually wrong too. The correct way to determine the probability of an event occurring over multiple rolls is to use the Binomial Distribution formula. In this case, we would be throwing twice with a 1/6 probability of dodge coming up, 5/6 chance of dodge not coming up. So, the formula would be read as "2 choose 1 * (1/6)^1 * (5/6)^1". That's approximately 27.77%. To figure out how rare it would be for 6 dodges to come up in a row including cower is also pretty easy. You just raise the probability to the nth power. In this case, n= 6 since we want 6 dodges, so .2777^6 is the chance of that occurring.

The formula (1-x) is called the Complement. If you know all the other probabilities, you can add them up and subtract them from one. The reason this works is because all the probabilities of a certain set of events always add up to one.

How do you get to a chance of 1/5 for a dodge with cower?

It is 1-x, where x is the chance to not roll a dodge in two rolls. The chance of not rolling a dodge is 5/6 , so x = (5/6)^2=25/36 and therefore to roll at least one dodge with cower is 11/36. You get the same result if you count the 1/6 chance of rolling a dodge on the first roll and then the reroll which gives you a chance of 5/6 * 1/6 . So if you add this up you also get 1/6 + 5/6*1/6 = 11/36.

Therefore to roll 7 dodges in a row with an active Cower but the cower rolls not counting as an extra roll your chance is

(11/36)^7 ~ 0.024 % ~ 1 in 4000 events.

You're actually wrong too. The correct way to determine the probability of an event occurring over multiple rolls is to use the Binomial Distribution formula. In this case, we would be throwing twice with a 1/6 probability of dodge coming up, 5/6 chance of dodge not coming up. So, the formula would be read as "2 choose 1 * (1/6)^1 * (5/6)^1". That's approximately 27.77%. To figure out how rare it would be for 6 dodges to come up in a row including cower is also pretty easy. You just raise the probability to the nth power. In this case, n= 6 since we want 6 dodges, so .2777^6 is the chance of that occurring.

The formula (1-x) is called the Complement. If you know all the other probabilities, you can add them up and subtract them from one. The reason this works is because all the probabilities of a certain set of events always add up to one.

Baer is right.

If you list all of the possible combinations of two rolls and count up the ones that have at least one dodge, there are 11/36. One of these; however, is Dodge/Dodge. The binomial distribution equation tells you the odds of getting exactly one dodge on two rolls, and thus it eliminates this one valid result - valid , not wise

While anyone rolling a dodge on the first go would likely forego that second roll, they are still valid combinations for these calculations.

So the binomial distribution only gives 10/36, which is 27.778% just as Vaevicti said.

You can play with the numbers here: http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial.aspx

Your IP could just not be a **** and let you guys win some. Campaign is about having fun, not securing victory for a sole person in bloodshed. Typically I let my playgroup win their side missions, try my hardest to win mine and then if I pull ahead too far, then let them win one. Your IP should have let you guys win game #5 and #8 imo.

~D

Your IP could just not be a **** and let you guys win some. Campaign is about having fun, not securing victory for a sole person in bloodshed. Typically I let my playgroup win their side missions, try my hardest to win mine and then if I pull ahead too far, then let them win one. Your IP should have let you guys win game #5 and #8 imo.

~D

Why would I play such a brutally competitive game like imperial assault and not bother playing to win?

Your IP could just not be a **** and let you guys win some. Campaign is about having fun, not securing victory for a sole person in bloodshed. Typically I let my playgroup win their side missions, try my hardest to win mine and then if I pull ahead too far, then let them win one. Your IP should have let you guys win game #5 and #8 imo.

~D

Why would I play such a brutally competitive game like imperial assault and not bother playing to win?

The campaign isn't all that competitive. The Imps are pretty over powered if they want to be. I have a hard time playing badly enough to not destroy the Rebels and that is with taking the weakest class decks, never using agenda cards, not putting General Sorin or Imperial Industry in the agenda deck in the first place and by making hugely sub-optimal deployment choices.

While I admit that Imperial Industry is a harsh agenda (and the attachment could be argued to be unbalanced), I am puzzled as to how badly your opponents must be playing, or how bad their luck must be, if you are only just loosing while doing all these things. I am not going to claim to be an expert Imperial player, but with competent opponents I have only managed to make 2 victories out of 5 when playing to win, and both of those I would put down to a little bit of luck on my side, and plays that were not to their advantage on the Rebel side (not necessarily mistakes they could forsee though, due to the hidden information). Ok, the first Rebel victory was possibly down in part due to my inexperience as an Imperial player, but was close for most of the game, but the first proper story mission was a total walkover on the Rebels part (I can see how I could have done *better* but actually winning seems a really hard prospect on that mission, though to be fair, it may be down in part due to the missions reliance on really fragile Imperial figures). This is even with a possibly poorly balanced Hero selection.

Well, we finished our campaign. Despite the Imperial player being a lot stronger than rebels, the rebels won one side mission and almost won the second last story mission.

However, the finale went badly. In that, the Imperial player had 4 xp more than rebels and he had some nasty agenda cards. Also, he had the upgrade that when a hero with 2 strain is attacking, the defender gets the circle symbol (removes surge). So, that with the other card that gives the rebel player an option to either take strain or the defender gets a circle, meant that most of the time all Imperial figures had a surge removal or 2 (the other card is exhaust on use so he could use it once per round). At the same time, he had upgrades to give him surges and he had 2 extra surges in almost all his attacks. Given this, the heroes weren't effective. Getting rid of a single Imperial figure usually took one or two full activations as we had very little surges to use for extra damage or to recover strain.

At the same time, he could do a lot of damage with his characters. And Surgical Strike or whatever the card in Subversive Tactics deck is, that gives figure 1 strain and one 1 damage after the attack is just nasty at dealing extra damage. Staying near MHD-19 helped rebels a little as his bacta radiator is useful. The Imperial player wounded Verena, slower than he would have liked (it took him 3 rounds) but then he used the agenda card to get threat equal to his threat level, deployed Boba Fett and Royal Guards. And after that, the rebels didn't have a hope in hell winning.

Following rant contains finale spoilers.

So, yeah. To summarize, when I play as Imperial, I often build my agenda deck and choose the class on what appeals to me. It's often a thematic choice. I also try my best to win in every match and give the rebels no mercy.

When I play as rebel, I pick the character that I find interesting and that I hope is useful in the team's composition. I also try my best to win. And I expect the Imperial player to try his best to win and use every advantage he has. When I win as rebel I want to feel like I deserved it.

And I do understand the kind of player that calculates what is most effective deck, chooses Subversive Tactics (whether it's the most effective is up to debate), chooses the most effective agenda cards and then plays his best. It does getting vexing to see Trandoshans and Royal Guards in every mission but they do compliment Subversive Tactics so I understand their use. However, since I've seen 2 campaigns with Subversive Tactics, I think I'm going to ban (my copy of the game that we play) that deck for the next campaign as there are other class decks that would be nice to play against or play with.

Yeah, unfortunately I don't think you can really extrapolate much from your experience in that campaign, because the Imperial was using Subversive Tactics. That class deck is just flat out overpowered and imbalanced and I am not at all surprised you were steamrolled by it. If you had been playing against any other class deck I suspect you would have had a more balanced experience, and you'd be able to say something about whether the RtH campaign itself is balanced. Against ST you can't really make that judgement, because it wasn't RtH that mattered, it was only ST being ridiculous.

If you had been playing against any other class deck I suspect you would have had a more balanced experience

Nope. All the decks are OP. Military Might you can slap Veteran and Armor on a squad of troopers and make them an absolutely ridiculous squad, for 2 points you get 5 health +1 def +1 wound model, it's obscene.

Even Precision Training, probably the weakest deck, you have Find Weakness which gives EVERY model +1 pierce. If you have 9 models out, it's almost like you're doing 9 extra wounds every round. It's crazy.

Other decks have some strong 3 and 4xp cards, sure. Heroes also have some super strong cards, even at 1xp (Tactical Movement and Force Adept are just ridiculously useful for 1xp).

The problem with Subversive Tactics is partly that its cards synergize *so* well. Every single one of them hits strain, which has a magnifying effect that other decks don't have to the same degree. Military Might is also a strong deck, but I think its cards tend to function more independently so the overall strength is more like the sum of the parts, rather than ST which scales more like the product of its parts.

The other part of the problem is that strain abilities are one of the biggest advantages the heroes have available to them. For the Imperial to hit a little harder with his troops, or for his troops to last a little longer on the field, that's nice and all. But completely shutting down some of the heroes' most potent abilities is hugely powerful. It's also extremely frustrating and anti-fun for the rebels, which has a psychological effect that I think leads to more mistakes.

If you had been playing against any other class deck I suspect you would have had a more balanced experience

Nope. All the decks are OP. Military Might you can slap Veteran and Armor on a squad of troopers and make them an absolutely ridiculous squad, for 2 points you get 5 health +1 def +1 wound model, it's obscene.

Even Precision Training, probably the weakest deck, you have Find Weakness which gives EVERY model +1 pierce. If you have 9 models out, it's almost like you're doing 9 extra wounds every round. It's crazy.

I can't disagree more with that. The campaign-missions are designed with the growing power of your class deck in mind. Usually this makes your groups more powerfull, meaning your threat/damage and threat/hp level is getting lower (that's why threat growth stagnates in mid-campaign).

Subversive Tactics on the other hand achieves something that is impossible by every other means in this game: It directly and instantly let you affect the capabilities of the heroes and attacks the very core of the action economy of the heroes, without anything they can do to mitigate this. Normally you have to deploy expensive troops and then have luck with dice to inflict stun or bleed, or kill one hero 2 times to even get to the point of affecting their action economy.

With subversive tactics this isn't something you need very specific troops for or concentrate all your damage on one hero, meaning the IP playstyle defining balance of the trade-off between affecting the hero's action economy and fulfilling your objective is way off with this deck.

If you had been playing against any other class deck I suspect you would have had a more balanced experience

Nope. All the decks are OP. Military Might you can slap Veteran and Armor on a squad of troopers and make them an absolutely ridiculous squad, for 2 points you get 5 health +1 def +1 wound model, it's obscene.

Even Precision Training, probably the weakest deck, you have Find Weakness which gives EVERY model +1 pierce. If you have 9 models out, it's almost like you're doing 9 extra wounds every round. It's crazy.

I can't disagree more with that. The campaign-missions are designed with the growing power of your class deck in mind. Usually this makes your groups more powerfull, meaning your threat/damage and threat/hp level is getting lower (that's why threat growth stagnates in mid-campaign).

Subversive Tactics on the other hand achieves something that is impossible by every other means in this game: It directly and instantly let you affect the capabilities of the heroes and attacks the very core of the action economy of the heroes, without anything they can do to mitigate this. Normally you have to deploy expensive troops and then have luck with dice to inflict stun or bleed, or kill one hero 2 times to even get to the point of affecting their action economy.

With subversive tactics this isn't something you need very specific troops for or concentrate all your damage on one hero, meaning the IP playstyle defining balance of the trade-off between affecting the hero's action economy and fulfilling your objective is way off with this deck.

Uh huh. Well to use your "action economy" argument, if your heroes are taking 9 extra wounds a round from a single card from Precision Training, they are either losing 2 actions a round resting, or they're going to wound out and lose abilities, then die and lose 2 actions EVERY round.

For Military Might if they are fighting troopers that now take 2 shots to kill instead of 1, that squad soaks SIX actions rather than three, so they are losing 3 actions per round or the troopers will pile up and eventually... wound them losing the abilities and kill them, losing them actions. Not to mention that the squad can ALSO walk around a corner and reasonably expect to inflict 13+ damage on a white defense Hero, wounding it. For a measly 6 threat.

We're just sharing our experience with ST being massively harder and less fun to play against than other decks. If your theorycrafting leads you to a different conclusion, that's great, but I still think ST is overpowered.

And back to the original point of this thread, I still don't think we can learn much about the balance of the RtH campaign when played against ST, because the imbalance of ST will drown out the balance or imbalance of the actual missions.

We're just sharing our experience with ST being massively harder and less fun to play against than other decks. If your theorycrafting leads you to a different conclusion, that's great, but I still think ST is overpowered.

And back to the original point of this thread, I still don't think we can learn much about the balance of the RtH campaign when played against ST, because the imbalance of ST will drown out the balance or imbalance of the actual missions.

Yeah, I think you're right. Some of the missions seem tipped towards rebels and some towards the Imperials. We had one or two missions we were really close to winning and probably would have if we could have gotten rid of some of the Imperial units. But as I mentioned before, our efficiency was rather poor.

So, overall...from the whole campaign I think most missions are going to feel like balancing on a razor's edge for both sides. And that's when Imperial Assault is at its best. When every little dice throw and decision matters. When it tips too much to the other side, the missions become boring for both sides.

If you guys are interested in the balance of this campaign check out this threat https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1512996/poll-how-balanced-each-scenario . There are not many entrances to this date, but it's getting better. A similar thread for the base game campaign (with much more data and the same name) makes it possible to stir around the more unbalanced quests of this campaign, so I really like these threads and encourage everyone to feed it with his campaign data.

Yeah, I love those polls in theory, but in practice I've always found them to be too simple to draw real conclusions. Following on from the example in this thread, the poll doesn't keep track of which Imperial class (or Rebel heroes) were in play, and I think that has a *huge* impact on the game balance. For example if a mission appears to have a 50/50 track record, that *might* mean the mission is well balanced, or it might mean that Subversive and Military almost always win while Tech and Leadership almost always lose. The poll can't tell the difference.

Still, more data is always nice. I just wish we had more granular data as well.

As others have said, the problem is Subversive Tactics, it breaks the game by locking down the heroes primary resource. Imagine how broken it would be if the heroes reduced the Empire's threat by 2-3 every time they attacked, that's what ST does to the rebels, it turns them into skirmish cards.

As others have said, the problem is Subversive Tactics, it breaks the game by locking down the heroes primary resource. Imagine how broken it would be if the heroes reduced the Empire's threat by 2-3 every time they attacked, that's what ST does to the rebels, it turns them into skirmish cards.

Leia seems super powerful, which the Rebels maybe need since their other high-cost heroes are pretty lackluster, but she does not lock down activations. She exhausts Imperial *class* cards, not deployment cards, and even that only matters for Imperial class cards that require exhaustion as opposed to always-on or other triggered effects.

As others have said, the problem is Subversive Tactics, it breaks the game by locking down the heroes primary resource. Imagine how broken it would be if the heroes reduced the Empire's threat by 2-3 every time they attacked, that's what ST does to the rebels, it turns them into skirmish cards.

That's one of my concerns with the new Leah piece. She locks down activations, and that's, in my thinking, equivalent to subversive tactics.

I think you need to read her card more closely. She doesn't exhaust deployment cards, she exhausts imperial class cards. Otherwise she would be way overpowered

http://boardwars.eu/wave-5-ally-pack-leia-organa/

http://boardwars.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Leia-Organa-Campaign.jpg

Yeah, that's one I hadn't bought yet. Memory isn't what it used to be. Somehow I had her in my head with a built in Commlink effect. Her actual effect is annoying, but not that bad, I guess.

I still think she's super awesome. She's basically a super elite probe droid. She's rolling 2 yellow dice which should result in 2 surges at least almost each attack. She gets to attack twice per activation (and she can attack again b/c she's a friendly figure within 3 spaces) so she is able to attack 3 times per activation. That's 3 Imperial Class cards to exhaust each turn (even if she misses with accuracy) and she's able to increase damage or recover damage with each additional surge rolled.

I would be attacking with her most beginning of turns and go from there.

That's huge against my Military Might deck:

Show of Force (currently have)

Sustained Fire (currently have)

Combat Medic

Assault Armor

Riot Grenades (currently have)

~D

Huh, I hadn't noticed that Leia's ability just says "a friendly figure" instead of "another". So yeah, I guess she can use it on herself to attack twice. But I don't see where you're getting a third attack per activation, she doesn't have Assault or anything else that overrides the regular one-action-to-attack rule.