As the person who always plays Imperials in my campaign focused playgroup, I am not excited for this expansion at all. Nothing really looks interesting for the Imperial player campaign wise. The bespin guards look boring, Ugnaughts just fill the board with more crap. So far the only fun thing looks like Bossk and he looks OP compared to the other more costly villains

The heroes look interesting, though there is some definite powercreep making me think that no one experienced would ever take an original hero over these two. I suppose its for the best since my rebel players struggle to win most of the time. From a RP standpoint, False Orders is pretty dumb... why would any Imperial listen to an Ithorian? How is Murne going to give False Orders to a Nexu?

Over a radio, troopers won't know it's an Ithorian. Nexus can probably be baited.... mmm fresh meat.

I don't think Murne's ability isn't that great in Campagin, an extra attack with a stormtrooper or something isn't that big of a deal against an endless horde of stormtroopers. Much better in skirmish.

Also we still don't know all the new command cards, class decks, almost none of the new imperial stuff has been revealed in detail...

There's plenty more to go.

As the person who always plays Imperials in my campaign focused playgroup, I am not excited for this expansion at all. Nothing really looks interesting for the Imperial player campaign wise. The bespin guards look boring, Ugnaughts just fill the board with more crap. So far the only fun thing looks like Bossk and he looks OP compared to the other more costly villains

The heroes look interesting, though there is some definite powercreep making me think that no one experienced would ever take an original hero over these two. I suppose its for the best since my rebel players struggle to win most of the time. From a RP standpoint, False Orders is pretty dumb... why would any Imperial listen to an Ithorian? How is Murne going to give False Orders to a Nexu?

Over a radio, troopers won't know it's an Ithorian. Nexus can probably be baited.... mmm fresh meat.

I don't think Murne's ability isn't that great in Campagin, an extra attack with a stormtrooper or something isn't that big of a deal against an endless horde of stormtroopers. Much better in skirmish.

Also we still don't know all the new command cards, class decks, almost none of the new imperial stuff has been revealed in detail...

There's plenty more to go.

With the Ithorian breathing they'll think it is Darth Vader.

I also feel like Company of Heroes is a cheap solution to the Ally problem... and I don't mean XP wise.

1.) First the rebel players need to choose atleast 1 green mission that gives a Unique Ally. Ok, that's not hard.

2.) That side mission needs to show up in the limited side mission slots. Entirely chance.

3.) Rebels need to pick that side mission. Better hope no one's hero mission popped up, or an agenda mission, OR a forced mission! (Or even the Droid Uprising card that destroys one mission.)

4.) Rebels need to win the mission. Good luck. Every ally mission I've played the Rebels have gotten stomped.

Only after all of those conditions are met, then does one of Murne's XP cards not be worthless.

Also, this just means that now all future allies are going to be balanced around that discount. They should've just released errata to fix Han, Luke, and Chewie's cost.

Definite improvements on the costing of the two figures. A 10 hit figure with a 2 die attack, potential for multiple attacks and 5 speed for 6 points? Yeah that sounds right.

What do you guys think of his lightsaber? I feel it's underwhelming, but maybe I'm wrong.

I like the saber. Mostly because it's another melee weapon, and it has two upgrade slots with good damage abilities on surges. I'm hopeful we'll get some more melee weapon mods this time around, as well (or at the very least some duplicate cards of mods we already have, like High Impact Guard or Balanced Hilt). I'm holding out hope for something like the Disruptor Cell for ranged weapons (where you can swap in a red die on a melee weapon for one of another color)--red-yellow on this Saber with Pierce 3 and a slot for a Balanced Hilt would be awesome. Probably won't happen, but...

The Shrouded Lightsaber is amazing. It is a tier 3 equivalent weapon that you can get after mission 3. Dont let the green/yellow fool you - all the power in this weapon is in the surges. Since you can use the bonus surge from being hidden to hide again, you should be able to regularly be able to use the +2 dmg surge (and you can regain a strain for doing so).

With just balanced Hilt, and using the bonus surge from hidden to hide again, it beats a naked Force Pike and is a bit shy of Pike+guard (+2 dmg surge). If you use the bonus surge for damage, it exceeds Pike+Guard.

And then once you add a 2nd mod, it solidifies its place as best single target damage weapon. There arent currently a ton of good options for it tho - the tier 3 mod which adds stun surge and +1 dmg is best. Guard is only good if you use your bonus surge for damage (tho it would also make you not reliant on being hidden).

It is also worth mentioning that with hilt + hidden you are almost guaranteed of hitting 2 surges for Fel Swoop which then gives him a 0 strain extra attack - crazy.

Question: Would you need a threat of 2 or 6 to mind control a stormtrooper?

I would assume Figure cost is the cost of a figure, not a group.

The preview article mentions this in the section on the Skirmish version of Murne. Essentially, he provides a command deck cart that raises his 'control' to a figure with a cost of 5. The article says this can give him control over an Elite Trandoshan (deploy cost 10, reinforce cost 5), which would indicate the figure cost is the same as the reinforcement cost.

I love that ability in a Hero. Murne puts pressure as a Hero in a campaign against the Imperial GM, as now he has to be more careful about the open groups he brings, which makes deployment decisions more difficult, and reinforcing that much more important. I love anything that increases the competitiveness for the Heroes, as being an Imperial GM always seems to be a balance between 'playing dumb' and 'playing carefully' so as to make sure there's a fun game experience for everyone involved. The more competitive the Heroes are, the more aggressively the imperial player can be while still providing a good environment and experience. This is a smart character, and I hope he sees the table.

Jacob

It's just wierd because "figure cost" is not an existing term, but it does seem to be a catch-all term referring to the reinforcement cost for groups and deployment cost for single units.

It is an interesting ability, can be strong but it will usually be weaker than a current tier weapon. But she will obviously have cards to pump it up. I really like the design of her.

Which other 2 heroes apart from the ones in the box set would you choose for a thematic Bespin campaign? As an imperial campaign player, it would be nice to not have to fight Ghaarkan and Biv every. ****. time.

Which other 2 heroes apart from the ones in the box set would you choose for a thematic Bespin campaign? As an imperial campaign player, it would be nice to not have to fight Ghaarkan and Biv every. ****. time.

Well I would probably say Saska Teft would be suitable along with Gideon Argus,

Which other 2 heroes apart from the ones in the box set would you choose for a thematic Bespin campaign? As an imperial campaign player, it would be nice to not have to fight Ghaarkan and Biv every. ****. time.

Thematic, I would say Jyn because she's a smuggler and I would think that there would be quite of few of them on Bespin.

For the other though, I don't know. Depends on the nature of the campaign. Since it seems to be an undercover one (based on the new hidden mechanic), I would say Verena or Mak (although with Mak it would start to be a squishy team).

Diala + Davith...the new "twins!"

I agree Jyn would fit nice, especially with her backstory, could somehow relate Szark to Bossk and it be a "revenge" thing. I think Murin is very similar in mechanic/playstyle as Gideon, so I wouldnt put them together. Feel like Fenn/Mak/Loku would be good as a ranged dps if you didnt go with Jyn. Loku esp since its ISB story themed. MHD-19 could get in there too bc of the Ugnaughts.

So Id say Davith (mDPS), Jyn/Loku (rDPS), Diala (tank/support), and Murin (support).

~D

Has anyone noticed that Murne has a little speaker box/translator thing on her head? Perhaps that is how she tricks troopers into thinking they're hearing orders coming from an Imperial officer.

Loving this.

I, for one, will experiment with all hero skirmish Lists with this expansion. Like Force User Elso, Diala, Luke and perhaps Leia. I think Diala and Elso together might have the crowd control needed to compete with trooper lists, and the Smugglers Dead Ball might also get more playable with Lando.

4.) Rebels need to win the mission. Good luck. Every ally mission I've played the Rebels have gotten stomped.

Also, this just means that now all future allies are going to be balanced around that discount. They should've just released errata to fix Han, Luke, and Chewie's cost.

The side missions are generally in the Rebel's favor. Although some are harder than others, Saska's for instance can be rough depending on your first turn rolls and which heroes you have.

It is a pretty sh*tty fix for the pretty sh*tty allies being overpriced issue. It also doesn't address another of the biggest problems with allies, where every point of threat becomes better the further along in the campaign you are for the Imperials due to attachments and cards that work on all units.

As the person who always plays Imperials in my campaign focused playgroup, I am not excited for this expansion at all. Nothing really looks interesting for the Imperial player campaign wise. The bespin guards look boring, Ugnaughts just fill the board with more crap. So far the only fun thing looks like Bossk and he looks OP compared to the other more costly villains

I think it looks great. Imperials will finally have some white defense units that don't ignore the dodge roll. ISB aren't point for point better than stormtroopers but they're solid enough and interesting.

If the Wing Guard use white defense it'll be funny sticking a cloaking device on them for double white. They'll also work with all the other "trooper" abilities including stormtrooper rerolls. Also the recover surge is usually more useful than the accuracy surge on stormtroopers, so they're reasonably solid and can benefit from certain attachments more than regular stormtroopers can.

It is a pretty sh*tty fix for the pretty sh*tty allies being overpriced issue. It also doesn't address another of the biggest problems with allies, where every point of threat becomes better the further along in the campaign you are for the Imperials due to attachments and cards that work on all units.

~D

4.) Rebels need to win the mission. Good luck. Every ally mission I've played the Rebels have gotten stomped.

Also, this just means that now all future allies are going to be balanced around that discount. They should've just released errata to fix Han, Luke, and Chewie's cost.

The side missions are generally in the Rebel's favor. Although some are harder than others, Saska's for instance can be rough depending on your first turn rolls and which heroes you have.

It is a pretty sh*tty fix for the pretty sh*tty allies being overpriced issue. It also doesn't address another of the biggest problems with allies, where every point of threat becomes better the further along in the campaign you are for the Imperials due to attachments and cards that work on all units.

As the person who always plays Imperials in my campaign focused playgroup, I am not excited for this expansion at all. Nothing really looks interesting for the Imperial player campaign wise. The bespin guards look boring, Ugnaughts just fill the board with more crap. So far the only fun thing looks like Bossk and he looks OP compared to the other more costly villains

I think it looks great. Imperials will finally have some white defense units that don't ignore the dodge roll. ISB aren't point for point better than stormtroopers but they're solid enough and interesting.

If the Wing Guard use white defense it'll be funny sticking a cloaking device on them for double white. They'll also work with all the other "trooper" abilities including stormtrooper rerolls. Also the recover surge is usually more useful than the accuracy surge on stormtroopers, so they're reasonably solid and can benefit from certain attachments more than regular stormtroopers can.

So far I think most of our side missions have been even for win ration. The rebels won Jyn's (very easily), Gaarkhan's, Diala's, Viper's Den, (I may have made mistakes on purpose for these 3.), and Darth Vader's side mission. I have won Mak's side mission (that mission is impossible for Rebels), Wookie Warriors, and Luke's.... all of those missions are complete cakewalks for the Empire. So I suppose the Rebels CAN win some.

ISBs aren't in the expansion box, they are a separate purchase I believe. Which is good, somewhat, for me since I have little intention to buy the expansion box by this point. I just hope the ISBs and Bossk missions dont require the tiles from it.

I don't think murne's ability is a fix for allies. Bare in mind that they are getting much better about good allies that are worth it. I think more that it plays into the character's style of play than anything about it being a fix.

I don't think murne's ability is a fix for allies. Bare in mind that they are getting much better about good allies that are worth it. I think more that it plays into the character's style of play than anything about it being a fix.

I'm pretty sure they chose a point reduction as a fix to over pointed allies rather than something like being able to bring a second ally or the like exactly because doing so is slitting your own throat. When using a high point unit means the Imps can drop heavy or elite storm troopers or elite officer + engineer with arc blasters, have them come around the corner on first activation and stun the entire rebel force or even just gun down the ally leaving all those points in the Imp's hands.

I pretty much try to just stick with the ally smuggler and then I try to get the -2 cost reduction reward card for him so I can bring him for 0. Putting more points than that in the Imp's hands is usually going to lose you the mission, especially later in the campaign when that threat won't mean just a deployment card anymore, but a deployment card with multiple attachments.

So I feel like having some more discussion (or mono-logging at worst) here so I'm going to do a card by card:

Cloak and Dagger:

Alone this isn't a big deal but a very large portion of Davith's class cards will get leverage from this. I think he wants to avoid ending an activation without hidden almost ever.

Force Speed:

This is a great little ability, like all of the awesome 1 xp movement abilities except free. It's probably the second best such ability after tactical movement.

Elusive Agent:

Davith wants to hide every turn, recovering a strain every turn is very nice.

Shrouded Lightsaber:

As has been discussed this has absurdly good dps given that you always want to be attacking from hidden. Personally I like more utility from my melee weapons but... absurd dps. Assuming you don't have another melee character I'm not sure it's worth it over one of the better (than other item weapons) item melee weapons. (If you do have multiple melee characters this is even better since you can properly equip them both).

Fell Swoop:

Along with force speed this is getting into the area of "never need a move action" which I love. Given hidden its effective surge cost is 1; For an extra attack that's very cheap. I'd probably prioritize this over the shrouded lightsaber.

False Orders:

This is much like command except cheaper, more narrow and with a more rapid power climb. It's not that good to start with but I expect a couple more abilities that bump it up. One of the best things it can do is steal focus from officers, elite troopers, royal guards or elite trandoshans.

Figurehead:

This is a nice disincentive against your opponent attacking you. It will probably trigger a few times and recover a few strain which isn't bad.

Company of Heroes:

Its very situational but any unique ally is much better with a reduced threat cost. The nice thing about the 1 xp cost of this card is you can always buy it when you unlock a unique ally to use it with and leave it if you never get one.

Solidarity:

It adds approximately 50% leverage to move and rest actions. Even though move and rest actions are things you want to avoid this is a big deal. It also emphasises that Murne really wants the heroes to stay fairly close together which is a problem in some maps.

Waylay:

This is Murne's masterstroke, except it's not as nuts. It's still very high leverage even if you only use the first ability on it and it's probably worth rushing pending seeing her other cards.

I also have a lot of speculation on other abilities for them but I think I'll leave that for now.

Speculation now:

Davith:

I think cut and run will almost certainly be one of his class cards; the campaign gives him too many ways of triggering it to be otherwise. I initially said it would be 4xp but I don't think it would be unfair at 3.

It also seems likely that he'll get stealthy for 1 xp.

I expect he'll get some sort of survivabilty boost that doesn't revolve around hidden at 2 xp (or I hope he will at least).

Most characters have some way of getting focus (IIRC Biv is the only exception) but I think Davith might not since he gets so much hidden (and if it was consistent rolling three dice with the shrouded lightsaber would be sick).

One ability that I think would be interesting is something like the opportunity ability from SWM where he gets a bonus attacking exhausted figures.

Interestingly so far he's only shown 1 cheap strain ability, surely he'll have some other sink for it (no idea what though).

Murne:

I'm not expecting too many more abilities based around false orders. A range increase is very likely though.

An interesting focus granting ability for her would be if it triggered in the same way as figurehead (except exhausting).

Threat decrease has huge design potential, surely this is the character to explore it with.

Leia's ability to exhaust imperial cards is also in Murne's apparent field.