A New Threat *Spoilers*

By FrogTrigger, in Imperial Assault Campaign

Is there anyway for the Rebels to win this map? I just roflstomped my Rebels and I was trying to hold back from the start, they even called me on it part way through because I was being just to obvious. This is not a bad team, our matches are generally pretty even, but it just didn't work out for them. They tried to split up because the last time we played it they tried to strong arm one objective at a time, obvious fail, and this tactic failed as well. I had Gideo in withdraw before they even got the first interaction.

By the time Weiss showed up the game was literally over, there was a more activations and I had them all wounded.

So just curious to hear from Rebels and Imperials both, how has this mission gone for you in the past? This is one of few missions I find is just completely one sided. What did you do to win? Or to lose?

The next time we play I don't know how I can let them win without just withholding troops and amassing threat.

This is a pretty common topic on these forums...

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/196641-how-do-we-fix-a-new-threat-and-fly-solo/?p=1952667

I've also roflstomped all my groups on this mission. It's never even been close. I think A New Threat is the hardest non-finale mission in the game.

There are a few accounts on these forums (or other forums) where Rebels have won, but I think there's some pretty overwhelming consensus this mission is stacked against the Rebels.

It's especially soul crushing as this could be the third mission that these players have seen.

I've thus taken to actually telling new groups when we sit down to the table. Something along these lines:

"So, I'm going to be totally serious with you. This mission is brutal. Please go into this expecting to lose. I'm sorry, but it is what it is. Good luck."

I also actually have used this as an opportunity to show new players exactly what I see as the Imperial player. I literally show them the campaign guide for this mission afterwards. While I normally try to keep the guide secret after other missions (to allow for some mystery during any replays), this mission is bogus, and so I don't really mind. :)

I think there's some pretty overwhelming consensus this mission is stacked against the Rebels.

Any story mission (original campaign, Hoth is a bit crazy) that you arrive at from a Rebel win is stacked against the Rebels. Any story mission that you arrive at from a Rebel loss is stacked against the Imperials.

To get to A New Threat the Rebels had to win Aftermath. As side missions slightly favor Rebels and the Imperial player wouldn't have had enough Influence to force an agenda mission, it's very likely the Rebels will have won two in a row when they get to A New Threat.

Edited by Union

Any story mission (original campaign, Hoth is a bit crazy) that you arrive at from a Rebel win is stacked against the Rebels. Any story mission that you arrive at from a Rebel loss is stacked against the Imperials.

To get to A New Threat the Rebels had to win Aftermath. As side missions slightly favor Rebels and the Imperial player wouldn't have had enough Influence to force an agenda mission, it's very likely the Rebels will have won two in a row when they get to A New Threat.

A New Threat's loss leads to Fly Solo, which I think is also a pretty brutal mission for the Rebels (though nowhere near as bad as A New Threat, IMO). I've heard it's harder than the alternative.. which I think is Imperial Hospitality?

It's a little bit sad I've played three core campaigns now and each time the story mission progression has gone:

Aftermath (Rebels win) -> A New Threat (Empire) -> Fly Solo (Empire) -> Drawn in (Empire) -> The Source (Empire) -> Desperate Hour (Empire)

As a result, my experience is limited. What I've heard, however, is that, post-Aftermath, losing a story mission leads to the harder next story mission. That's an unfortunate snowball, if it's true.

I've played Imperial Hospitality, and I can say it was one of only two times I've lain down an immaculate unstoppable fiery imperial butt whoopin'. They went after the terminal, I fought them to a crawl, and when the final objective was revealed, they lost immediately.

The other mission was Brushfire.

The worse butt kicking I received *as a rebel was Generous Donations, and screw that mission.

I have played as both players in this mission. As the Imp I won handily, before Weiss came out, and as the Rebels I also won before he came out. It may be the difference in skill between myself and my friend but i'll share my story anyway for rebels.

My heroes were Diala (Force Adept), Fenn (Tactical Movement), Gideon (Air of Command) and Mak (Disengage) vs Tech Superiority (Exp Arms + Technical Support). My side mission just before this gave me the saboteurs so I was able to have 6 figures on the map for only a small bump in threat. I split my guys up into three teams (Diala and Mak, Fenn with a Sab and Gideon with a Sab) to cover the spread of tests. Mak and Diala went after the far one guarded by the elite Nexu so i would have the firepower to take him down. Gideon + Sab went inside guarded by the elite Probe and Fenn+ Sab went after the last one.

The important things I went for was making sure Diala had strain available for FA, so everyone could use it if needed (they did!) and used Mak to disengage as needed to and keep enough space so the Nexu could not pounce in between the two of them for the auto cleave to take effect as well as making sure the Nexu had to change targets in the next round. Fenn + Sab ran for the door and then took out the reg droids and Gideon made sure to try to stun the elite droid.

My friend focused on trying to take out Fenn + Sab as he would have the most to loose (test wise). By the end of round 5 I had healthy Mak and Diala done and traveling back for support, a healthy Gideon + Sab doing the same while Fenn (- Sab) was wounded with 1 health left before having to withdraw and had both actions to try the test. With the use of Diala's rerolls over both tests he succeeded, just before he was about to be taken down by probe droids. My friend make good use out of Tech support for the removal of conditions and to keep his droids alive as well as bringing in the hurt.

I really would not have won this mission without Force Adept with Diala, she was basically resting then moving for the first couple of rounds to give out the rerolls on almost every attack, then once most of the imps were taken down for the attribute tests.

Edited by Deffly

Fly Solo is a little easier than Imperial Hospitality, maybe too easy if the Rebels are familiar with it at all. Both benefit from Rebels having movement abilities. Both can be pretty much auto-win if the Imps have the right agenda cards. They both try to follow the same theme of someone escaping from the Imperials and both sort of fail, and lack replayability because of it.

I have played as both players in this mission. As the Imp I won handily, before Weiss came out, and as the Rebels I also won before he came out. It may be the difference in skill between myself and my friend but i'll share my story anyway for rebels.

In which order did you play those two games? In other words, did you win as Rebel after having played the mission as the Empire?

Hrmm curious, so I am not alone. I wonder what the best open group would be to keep this fair.. almost trying to bring weaker units? But then you have more activations...

What did you guys bring for your open groups that you found were just to powerful on this map?

Any story mission (original campaign, Hoth is a bit crazy) that you arrive at from a Rebel win is stacked against the Rebels. Any story mission that you arrive at from a Rebel loss is stacked against the Imperials.

To get to A New Threat the Rebels had to win Aftermath. As side missions slightly favor Rebels and the Imperial player wouldn't have had enough Influence to force an agenda mission, it's very likely the Rebels will have won two in a row when they get to A New Threat.

A New Threat's loss leads to Fly Solo, which I think is also a pretty brutal mission for the Rebels (though nowhere near as bad as A New Threat, IMO). I've heard it's harder than the alternative.. which I think is Imperial Hospitality?

It's a little bit sad I've played three core campaigns now and each time the story mission progression has gone:

Aftermath (Rebels win) -> A New Threat (Empire) -> Fly Solo (Empire) -> Drawn in (Empire) -> The Source (Empire) -> Desperate Hour (Empire)

As a result, my experience is limited. What I've heard, however, is that, post-Aftermath, losing a story mission leads to the harder next story mission. That's an unfortunate snowball, if it's true.

Imperial Hospitality is shockingly easy win for the Rebels, if they just focus on the objective aka the prisoner.

I am with you on this, I have gotten through 4 core campaigns, and started a solid 5 others, and too many of them follow this linear path. It got to the point where we realized that losing Aftermath as Rebel players is a better option for the team. The general theme of the Core campaign is: Aftermath (we had a solid 50/50 win ratio on this one, well done on mission design. 6 Rebel, 6 Imperial), Under Siege (Usually the sorta tie victory came from this), A New Threat (0 Rebel wins, 8 Imperial), Fly Solo (1 Rebel win, 5 Imperial), Imperial Hospitality (2 Rebel wins, 0 Imperial), Incoming (0 Rebel, 2 Imperial; This one is largely based on chance I believe), Drawn In (1 Rebel, 1 Imperial). Chain of Command (1 Rebel, 0 Imperial). The Source (1 Rebel, 2 Imperial). Last Stand (0 Rebel, 2 Imperial). Desperate Hour (0 Rebel, 2 Imperial).

My biggest gripe is the story missions tend to always play out the way you would expect with experience, our most Epic of matches almost always came from Side Missions, which seemed to have better balance to them. The game is great and I still love it, it just is odd after many plays seeing the patterns emerge. I haven't gotten through a Hoth campaign yet, and still need time to evaluate it, but it seems to be a bit better from what I can tell so far.

Hrmm curious, so I am not alone. I wonder what the best open group would be to keep this fair.. almost trying to bring weaker units? But then you have more activations...

What did you guys bring for your open groups that you found were just to powerful on this map?

Sticking a couple Nexu in the exit tunnel so Han can't just run out can be a bit grievous. Han falls over dead if anyone looks at him funny so keeping him in play even 1 extra turn will often mean a win.

I have played as both players in this mission. As the Imp I won handily, before Weiss came out, and as the Rebels I also won before he came out. It may be the difference in skill between myself and my friend but i'll share my story anyway for rebels.

In which order did you play those two games? In other words, did you win as Rebel after having played the mission as the Empire?

Honestly I don't really remember as I was doing several campaigns around the same time. My thought process at the beginning was to split my forces to make the Imperial player also spread out as I didn't think there was enough time to double back from one objective to another. I made sure I had at least each type of test covered by two dice and aimed to keep Diala stress free for the re-rolls. The Imp did the right thing in trying to focus down Fenn, it's just that he did not get enough firepower on him.This mission (and a couple of others) stick in my mind as memorable because of how they came down to the wire or how they went nearly perfectly to what i had planned in my head from the beginning.

Honestly I don't really remember as I was doing several campaigns around the same time. My thought process at the beginning was to split my forces to make the Imperial player also spread out as I didn't think there was enough time to double back from one objective to another. I made sure I had at least each type of test covered by two dice and aimed to keep Diala stress free for the re-rolls. The Imp did the right thing in trying to focus down Fenn, it's just that he did not get enough firepower on him.This mission (and a couple of others) stick in my mind as memorable because of how they came down to the wire or how they went nearly perfectly to what i had planned in my head from the beginning.

I find your account of your Rebel victory on this mission intriguing.. maybe I'm missing something. (I want very badly for this mission to not be so blatantly one-sided). Tell me more!:

One thing I also find particularly unfair about this mission is the way the IP can cheese the 2x2 interior room with the terminal. He can spend the nexu-spawning trigger in that room, forcing the Rebels there to kill a Nexu before they can get to the terminal to activate it. This should cost them another couple of precious actions.

Did your IP abuse this when you won as Rebels? Were you just able to burn down the Nexu regardless?

I've found spawning Royal Guards and getting a stun or two in on this mission really makes things *brutal* alongside the bleed. This mission is all about run-run-run, and things get awful really quickly if heroes are delayed at all.

Honestly I don't really remember as I was doing several campaigns around the same time. My thought process at the beginning was to split my forces to make the Imperial player also spread out as I didn't think there was enough time to double back from one objective to another. I made sure I had at least each type of test covered by two dice and aimed to keep Diala stress free for the re-rolls. The Imp did the right thing in trying to focus down Fenn, it's just that he did not get enough firepower on him.This mission (and a couple of others) stick in my mind as memorable because of how they came down to the wire or how they went nearly perfectly to what i had planned in my head from the beginning.

I find your account of your Rebel victory on this mission intriguing.. maybe I'm missing something. (I want very badly for this mission to not be so blatantly one-sided). Tell me more!:

One thing I also find particularly unfair about this mission is the way the IP can cheese the 2x2 interior room with the terminal. He can spend the nexu-spawning trigger in that room, forcing the Rebels there to kill a Nexu before they can get to the terminal to activate it. This should cost them another couple of precious actions.

Did your IP abuse this when you won as Rebels? Were you just able to burn down the Nexu regardless?

I've found spawning Royal Guards and getting a stun or two in on this mission really makes things *brutal* alongside the bleed. This mission is all about run-run-run, and things get awful really quickly if heroes are delayed at all.

Hi Lifey, sorry I was away for the weekend. My memory might be faulty but i think it was like this:

The IP did not abuse the Nexu in the small room, I think he used that option up north where Gideon and a Sab went and used the option to have the probe droids move/attack on Fenn, which nearly worked (wounded him and then 1hp away from withdrawing), and stunned Diala and Mak down south.

As for his open groups I really don't remember who he took as all I can recall was his good use of the Probe Droids with Tech Support, but he didn't have the RG out on the board at the least.

I agree with your first post about how stacked this mission is in favour of the Imps. For my win a lot of luck was involved and having the Sabs actually helped (Allies sometimes really hinder the Rebels) as it gave me additional cannon fodder to protect the Heroes for the tests.

Having just played A New Threat again last night, my 4th time playing it, I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

After reading posts about this mission, and seeing only one rebel group win (through some amazing luck as well as general sound strategy), I decided to play with the terminals face up.

The rebels still lost, but in part it was due to some poor positioning and the fact that their only character able to possibly reach the last terminal, which was the blue one, was Garrkahn...whose insight is less then inspiring.

Still, I feel like the face-up terminals did make the mission more possible, though still difficult, and will probably always use face up terminals in the future.

I must be seriously screwing something up, because the Rebels (Loku, MHD-19, Jyn, and Gharrkhan) proceeded to just not give a **** through pretty much the entire map. In fairness, I may have done this too early/without enough threat, but it became more an issue about them having trouble running to the objectives in time than anything else. General Weiss showed up and proceeded to stomp around for two turns very impressively not mattering one little bit.