Over on Boardgamegeek, I posted a session report of a run through the "Imperial Crackdown" campaign.

Interested in thoughts on that (here or over there) - especially if anyone else has run it. It FELT like it had a real opportunity to be especially interesting, but in the end felt...kinda flat.

Interesting. Then again, there are quite a few scenarios that have not aged well. Especially for the Slave One and Millenium Falcon expansions.

Interesting. Then again, there are quite a few scenarios that have not aged well. Especially for the Slave One and Millenium Falcon expansions.

Maybe, but this one literally just came out. The Imperial Assault Carrier was a wave-8 (well, -ish) release. And I think the problems that we had with it spoke more to the design of the campaign than what was retail-available at the time (I don't think anything post-Gozanti was used that amounted to anything).

You made a comment about destroying the wing leader, and having it come back. This same thing happens in the CR90 campaign, Point of No Return. The first two missions call for the Imperials to cripple one section of the CR90, but the 3rd mission gives them the option of destroying the CR90 as a win condition...and then it waltzes back onto the field in Mission T4 as if nothing ever happened to it. Seems to me that if the Imperials take out the CR90 in mission 3, that ought to be game over. They have the option of instead destroying all satellites to be victorious, and I think that would flow nicely into mission T4.

I think you just have to imagine that the Wing leader had to flee the battle, instead of being destroyed. I haven't tried the Gozanti missions yet, so I'll have to put that one on my to-do list.

So I tried mission 1 of the Gozanti campaign. My opponent had Scum instead of Rebels, but he cleaned up my squad pretty handily. The only way I can see winning is to bring two decked-out TIE interceptors. Three of my Black Squadron Pilots got obliterated when the three Z-95s' Assault Missiles hit the Cruiser.

To add insult to injury, (or maybe injury to insult) I broke one of my TIE fighter's wings and I broke a docking clamp. Sad day.

Played this campaign recently with a friend and I have to agree with your comments made in the BGG post, I played as Rebels and it's true that mission one is just a cake walk if you give the wing leader EU. There is virtually noting the Imperial player can do to stop the wing leader in time before they collect all of the satellites. The docking mission sounded interesting but the requirements to make it work just seemed so clunky and over complicated, In the end I just took out the Gozanti to force a draw. The final mission was actually ok....right up to the point the rebel reinforcements arrived and just wiped the weakened (thanks to my HLC PTL EU wing leader) Imperial forces out.

For a campaign that's meant to show off the awesome abilities of this new ship it seems odd that the whole thing is stacked so heavily in the Rebel players favour. I'm hoping to run it again soon and see if there are any rules that can be tweaked to give the Imps a fighting chance.

I agree the campaign seems skewed.

I've played missions 1&2 in the last couple of weeks, both very slightly modified. We have a third player who often shows up late, so we broke the "up to four ships of the same type" rule and gave the Gozanti a kitted out Rudor and two academy pilots so the late commercial can have a single ship worth flying. The rest of the force was more about theme and fun than ballance and awesomeness.

Off the top of my head:

Imperials:

Gozanti, Kallus, ordinance tubes, weapon enginier, ion torpedoes.

Rudor, auto-thrusters, ptl, prockets, title.

2* academy ties.

Rebels:

Ghost (Hera), Kanan, Ezra, the cheap turret in the box... and some other stuff

Phantom (Zeb)

Prototype Awing Pilots with refit.

Mission one, the ghost sauntered round the board collecting. The Gozanti only had one opportunity to hit it with the torpedoes and the dice weren't in its favour. The fighters clashed but literally nothing was shot down before the ghost escaped with the loot.

Mission two, the initial charge had the Gozanti heavily damaged (and thus easy to later board), Rudor was damaged (and destroyed but we let the guy retroactively change action to save his ship from an early knockout), one tie popped, one Awing popped, and the Ghost boarded the Gozanti on the final turn. Would have been much sooner if I hadn't wheeled away earlier for fear of being run down when I really didn't need to. Again the Gozanti was unable to get a decent shot off.

Now some of this may be our fault (I'm the most experienced player and I've got less than a dozen games under my belt and one player had only played once before) the squadrons were thematic and we avoided giving the Gozanti a turret after early games being hideously boring thanks to multiple turrets.

Now, so far we had a lot of fun, even if the game was very one sided. But 100pts vs 100pts+Gozanti? I can't see how the Imperials have a chance. And I'm worried that the novelty of the thematic campaign will have worn thin by the time that game gets half way through.

I actually wonder if the expectation is for the rebels to win. The first game seems almost designed for the Gozanti to fly about but be out manoeuvred and not do much besides dropping it's ties, and coordinating.

The second game again puts the Gozanti in danger of being flanked and overwhelmed easily, but this time getting a bit of a scrap in. Having lost this mission now the other player gets a go, and the controlling player gets to attack it and learn it's weaknesses.

Its a tutorial in getting slapped around by the other player. And of course since the other player has won so much in the campaign perhaps they now will be more keen on epic and cinematic play.... oooh conspiracy theory.

Any tips on suitably thematic lists for the finale would be welcomed.

Edit: sorry that came out as a mess. 4:30 am.

Resurrecting this thread as I just played the first mission last night. I won as the Imperial player.

Gozanti-class Cruiser (60) - Gozanti-class Cruiser
Agent Kallus (2), Moff Jerjerrod (2), Dual Laser Turret (5), Broadcast Array (2), Docking Clamps (0), Requiem (4), Automated Protocols (5)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (25) - TIE Advanced
Ion Pulse Missiles (3), TIE/x1 (0), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1), Accuracy Corrector (3)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (25) - TIE Advanced
Ion Pulse Missiles (3), TIE/x1 (0), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1), Accuracy Corrector (3)

The Rebels took the VCX100 Ghost with Hera TLT and shuttle, a PS1 A-wing and a PS3 A-wing. I managed to get off the missiles on turns one and two and then used Jam on it slowing the Ghost. The AC Tempests and Gozanti with Kallus chipped away at the Ghost and the Tempests managed to block it twice slowing it further. In the end the Tempest were taken out but had soaked up so much fire power the Gozanti had only lost one shield and the Ghost was down to one hull and hadn't moved much beyond the position of the first satellite. Everything turned on the Gozanti but it was too late and some bad rolling combined with no actions on the stressed Ghost against the reinforce token meant the Gozanti was unscathed. It returned fire with a target lock and got three hits on the Ghost (thanks to Kallus) finishing it off. In total I caused 19 damage compared to 11 received so very successful night for the Empire.

Played the second mission. The Rebels wing leader started with one damage card. The TIE Advanced with AC worked out so well against the 0 agility Ghost I couldn't resist them again but this time took Cluster Missiles. The action started in turn 2 where I deployed both Advanced to the rear of the Gozanti. Got on lock on the Ghost and the clusters with guidance chips or AC caused 10 damage. The Gozanti caused another 2. In return the Gozanti lost all its shields and 3 hull. In turn 3 I recovered 4 shields on the Gozanti only to lose them again and another hull plus some crazy condition card knocking its attack value down by 1. The Rebels deployed their attack shuttle causing 4 damage on an Advanced but it survived to whittle another two hull off the Ghost. The other Advanced was in a blocking position in case the Ghost tried to dock with the Gozanti so it was all down the the Gozanti's dual lasted turret - two natural hits finished off the Ghost. Another Imperial victory.

So finished the campaign last night. For the Empire to win I had to find 3 shield generators out of 6 possible locations on asteroids by scanning them (with the Gozanti and any ships that were docked) and then destroying them or destroying 2 and the wing leader. I decided to focus on getting the 3 shield generators. This time I had 100 points to spend on ships other then the Gozanti. I took:

Gozanti-class Cruiser (60) - Gozanti-class Cruiser
Agent Kallus (2), Moff Jerjerrod (2), Dual Laser Turret (5), Broadcast Array (2), Docking Clamps (0), Requiem (4), Automated Protocols (5)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (21) - TIE Advanced
TIE/x1 (0), Accuracy Corrector (3)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (21) - TIE Advanced
TIE/x1 (0), Accuracy Corrector (3)

Storm Squadron Pilot (23) - TIE Advanced
TIE/x1 (0), Accuracy Corrector (3)

Countess Ryad (35) - TIE Defender
Juke (2), TIE/x7 (-2), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)

The TIE Advanced had served me very well in the last two missions - so much so I have a new appreciation of them. Having Accuracy Corrector frees up their action for scanning or they can take an evade to help keep alive or even barrel roll but still get at least two hits from their attack. Ryad was my back up shield generator killer. Having x7 and Juke essentially eliminates one of the green dice the shield generators have.

The Rebels took the wing leader - Hera Syndulla with Rey and TLT and deployed her with two Tala Z95s and a T70 pilot who gets re-rolls for each friendly ship at range 1. The reinforcements were Tarn Mison and 2 PS4 Z95s with Concussion Missiles and Guidance Chips.

This was much more close run than either of the other two missions. By the end of turn 3 I had found only one shield generator and destroyed and 3 were still unknowns and all on the other side of the board. The Gozanti was taking a pounding from all the Rebel ships having no shields or banked energy but had managed to avoid hull damage so far. I had also lost shields on an Advanced. The Rebels ships were virtually untouched as I had focussed on the main objective. Ryad had been pretty ineffective trapped between the Gozanti, the Rebels and an asteroid. She managed to escape using a hard 1 which Rebels did not anticipate.

The Rebel reinforcements really turned up the heat and they deployed in the thick of battle. Over the next few turns the Gozanti was whittled down and limped along discarding Kallus and the Moff to absorb two critical damage, recovering, reinforcing but finally on the penultimate round with one hull point and 3 recovered shields the Ghost at range 1 with a primary 5 dice scored 5 hits taking it out. The Rebel player laughed and said "it's finally happened!" and showed me Syndulla's pilot card - much lol. They had also disposed of an Advanced with Concussion Missiles by this point and my Storm pilot had two hull points left.

In the mean time my Advanced had managed to scan two more asteroids and found and destroyed another shield generator. It was all down to my Advanced who were facing the last asteroid as the Gozanti was taking its last breath. Now this is were the Rebel player realised he should have TLT'd my Storm Advanced instead of taking out the Gozanti as only it was in range 1 to scan. It scanned revealing the last shield generator and fired - two natural hits and one got through. The Rebels then managed to remove the Storm and the fired everything he could at the remaining Tempest. He managed to knock the shields off but finally it could fire - rolling two blanks which were promptly accuracy corrected to two hits. The Rebel play only needed one evade out of the two but fortunately rolled two blanks. The Empire won but only just and with massive losses; the Rebels didn't lose a single ship.

This was a great battle and a much closer run than the other two. Hope you've enjoyed this long report!