Hi everyone,

Which methods to you recommend to give the rebels additional advantage without being too obvious? how do I make it easier without being condescending.

My wife and I started a campaign and while we both like the game. she plays as the rebels while I'm the imperial player.

We're running into the difficulty that (hopefully this doesn't sound too aarogant) the imperial player is more experienced/more strategic. If I go all out I would wipe the board.

Now my premise is the IP's purpose is too make the game fun/exciting/.. instead of just trying to win.

So on some missions I go a bit easy or try to make some errors leaving a hole for the rebels to exploit. The problem is that this can be not so subtle sometimes that the IP gives away a very good position. This also makes the game less fun in the end because the rebels could feel as if they are being treated as "little kids".

My only thought I had would be to lower the treat level giving the IP less acces to reinforcements. Are there any more handicaps that could be used.

Lower the threat level, give rebels extra XP and credits (and allow selling items at their full cost instead of half), give the rebels a free supply card draw at the beginning of a mission.

spread your fire rather then concentrate fire giving them a chance to heal

Thanks I hadn't thought about increasing the credit and XP rewards.

@starrius: I was already spreading fire but that is waht "gave me away". i was targeting a relatively undamaged hero while I had the opportuinity to kill Luke Skywaker. So while this helps it's is a bit of a too obvious mistake.

you can easily make "mistakes with movement" forcing you to spread fire because of models blocking the line of sight

The rebels can't see what open groups you take. Just choose suboptimal troops. Spawn regulars instead of elites. Or take "flashy" troopes, like the ATST and save up till you can spawn them at the last minute.

If you are playing against Fenn, make sure you leave some soldiers clumped up for Blast. Not all 5 or something, but at least 2 per turn. If you are playing against a Cleave hero make sure you leave some heroes one space away in a juicy situation to get wiped. If you are playing against Jyn try to leave your guys in a way that you could not obviously just activate one to block line of sight preventing quick draw. Try to focus down the higher HP guys first saying something like "I need to nerf their damage if I leave them alone they just blow me up" and leave the weaker support characters alive. This is particularly powerful for Gideon or Jyn as Jyn is a ability test/movement machine and Gideon keeping his full endurance can churn out more attacks for Fenn/Diala/Mak etc.. By focusing the higher XP it will probably take you a whole extra round to wound them versus the weaker guys, which gives your Rebels more time to move. Don't oversell it, but throwing moves like that in there sometimes with a bit of rationalization but help cover up your true intentions.

I would also really promote the run and gun tactic, they need to balance killing enemies with doing objectives, make sure your Rebel(s) understand this concept. I also tend to just fully re deploy versus re enforce units if I am winning. If I just sit there re enforcing they get so bogged down its game over, I'll play it off like I need to get another unit out there, or if I have a powerful attachment on a group I can keep re enforcing I will just say "damnit I want that attachment for another group I better stop re enforcing"

Severely hold back during the player reward missions, like for Diala's light saber or anyone else's personal quest as they will give the heroes a very OP upgrade that will help keep the campaign balanced. Then there are the more obvious approaches like forget to proc surges, over count your movement so you get less spaces while making it look like you moved in full and I even sometimes get away with rolling weaker die for higher powered units. And if all else fails there is always the hail marry just add some random stuff into the falvor text, like for instance if it's fly Solo, give them an option to recover health on Han at some point when they enter a certain area, or something to that affect. At the end of this round you guys get to choose one of the following, move a hero full movement points, perform an attack etc.. find a way to cover it up in the theme of the map. This might require some pre meditated planning, or start thinking about it early if the mission is tilting.

But all of this is just a stop gap, it isn't a sustainable model. The true focus should be on your Rebels improving THEIR play so you don't have to degrade yours. Help them with their mission, remind them of obvious moves they are missing and help prevent them from making mistakes. That is what I worked on with my group and our campaigns are a lot more competitive now.

Simple handicap suggestions:

• Don't start with the 0xp Imperial Class card in play and instead treat it like a 1xp buy.
  
• Let the rebels start with a 1xp skill of their choice for free.
  
• More credits for mission rewards! Shopping is fun!
  
• Add/Subtract one round to any mission that has a time limit, to swing to the rebel's favor. (For example, give the rebels 7 rounds instead of 6 in Aftermath, but 7 rounds instead of 8 in Under Siege).
  
• Reduce threat level by 1.

I think Frogtrigger has the right of it. The IP is the GM. So feel free to bend the rules, subtly. Tp help the long game, tho, feel free to help them out with suggestions and such. This will help them get better at the game. If they get upset that you are talking down to them, remind them this is an rpg, not a wargame. EVERYONE is supposed to be having fun etc ad nauseum. Just my two cents. I have the opposite issue. I have to struggle to keep up with my rebels, so, I have no concerns pulling dirty tricks and such, (guys, how much threat does he need to drop a wampa right on our objective?)

- Don't use agenda cards.

- Let the rebels know where the spawn points are.

- Use stupid overpriced units like IG-88 / don't use super efficient units like regular storm troopers with attachments.

- Avoid using officers to efficiently position things, avoid using eOfficers and their stun at all.

Last night I tried reducing the threat level. Which looks still to be the most elegant solution. This worked perfectly, I went a bit too far and reduced from 4 to 2.

so the heroes had it +- easy this mission. Well next mission I'll just subtract 1 instead of 2.

The nice thing about this approach is I can still try my best when playing.

Thanks for all the tips.

Just wanted to note that playing 4 rebels is inherently difficult. it sounds like it should be easy but keeping track of and effectively using all the cool abilities the heros have is really tough. I think playing IP is easier than doing that.

It depends on your commitment. To play the imperial side 'well' you need to keep track of the imperial abilities AND the abilities of the 4 heroes, the amount of strain and damage and endurance and health of each hero and which groups have already activated, so it is even tougher.

Of course both sides miss things when playing, but that's life.

I think it is harder for the Rebel to play four as he would normally not be the person who owns the game. I could easily play four Rebels right now and in fact do quite well, My games are very quick against the Redjak variant or just play testing against myself. But that is after many play throughs and taking the time to look at and learn the abilities of each hero.. being the guy on the other end of the table who has access to the game once or twice a month makes it tough to remember what does what and who has what.