Do you give some sort of defense bonus for cover? +1 block/evade maybe. If so do the Rebs also get it?

I just mean they hide behind corners instead of sprinting head first just to stand in the way of the objective.

So no I guess.

I miss the added tactics of finding cover that was in the minis game. Has anyone tried to add it in as house rule? Either an added block, evade, -2 accuracy, or a combination of those? I would assume rebs and imps could both use cover. It would add some functionality to chars with high accuracy.

18 hours ago, Hagarn said:

I miss the added tactics of finding cover that was in the minis game. Has anyone tried to add it in as house rule? Either an added block, evade, -2 accuracy, or a combination of those? I would assume rebs and imps could both use cover. It would add some functionality to chars with high accuracy.

I haven't played it yet, but this sounds similar to the LOS rules in the new Firefly Adventures miniatures game. A character has LOS if any part of their square can see any part of the target square, but if they can't see all of the target square it counts as "in cover" and you need a higher roll to hit. I quite like the idea of a house rule about cover. Even +1 accuracy required would be an additional tactical component to the game.

Doesn't Doom have a similar mechanic, too?

On 2018. 03. 09. at 6:05 PM, subtrendy2 said:

Doesn't Doom have a similar mechanic, too?

I played the new version once and i think they may redraw defense card. maybe they dont even need LOS to attack, but that may be wrong.

On 5/22/2017 at 10:12 PM, patrickmahan said:

Sigh... now i remember why I stopped posting on this forum.

Does it really bother you that much that I change some rules about the game? Sorry, but its not perfect like you may think.

While it's true that people like to have fun in different ways, there are a few extremely common themes and a few that are counter-intuitive and I think your proposed homebrew rules run counter to them, which is why people are a bit stumped.

Most people love a challenge. It doesn't have to be pull-your-hair-out hard, but a victory always feels sweeter if you've had to work for it. So when you make it really easy for one side to win, we as observers become worried that your players will have less fun since they're not required to plan as much, to take as many chances, or to work for it in any way.

The other thing that people sometimes don't realise they like is things being out of their control. Or rather, having to work within set limitations to get the job done. If players are left to choose everything every time, then they basically tend to choose the same stuff over and over, because it's their favourite. When you take some of that choice away, they have to try new things and they tend to have a better time overall because the experience is broader and deeper.

But that's just my two cents.

On 5/27/2017 at 8:13 AM, juice man said:

Do you give some sort of defense bonus for cover? +1 block/evade maybe. If so do the Rebs also get it?

i have tried some ideas, if defending figure shares an edge with blocking terrain, gets a defense re-roll, or one block. the chances dont come up that often, some blocking terrian is sparse.... i could include impassable terrain too.

i think a re-roll is a little fairer, so not a lot of camping

What do you think about having cover when the attacker doesn't see three of your corners? This is avoidable in close ranges by moving but still useful aganist snipers and makes protecting friends easier even if the attacker has 1-2 movement points.

Weighing in on the Partial Cover house-rules; What are your thoughts on this:

Quote

When performing a ranged attack, the amount of accuracy must be equal to or greater than the distance to the target plus the number of corners of their space that you cannot draw an uninterrupted line to.

Possibly (at risk of over complicating the issue) also including:

Quote

If the attack misses but the accuracy rolled is equal to or greater than the distance to the target, the attack hits the obstruction closest to the target instead.

It should be a fairly minor benefit - a maximum of +2 range. Cover won't help against melee weapons or enemies who are very close, but it will help avoid being picked off at long range.

The second part would deal with targeting figures who are partially obscured by other figures (whether enemy or friendly). Hiding behind friendly figures would be of limited benefit and shooting at a target that is in melee combat with one of your allies would carry a risk of hitting the wrong one.

On 5/22/2017 at 4:08 AM, burek277 said:

So basically, your rebels will intentionally play poorly, so you have to poorly yourself to give them a chance? I don't mean to deride you or your friends (so I'd ask you to do the same), I'm just trying to point out that maybe IA is not the best game for your group.

On 5/22/2017 at 4:14 AM, Dark Reaper said:

Agreed. You really shouldn't be put off by people playing to win in a competitive game.

The problem is that competive play inspires really gamey, non-story driven decisions. And the whole play good tactics mentality is a rather macho chz bag response to gameplay mechanics that don't capture what the game is trying to simulate.

yes I am absolutely going to be turned off by 1 Rebel hiding in a corner double resting while the others complete a mission or bad *** characters like Bosk avoiding fighting the rebels. It's not about making it hard to win, it's about enjoying the promise of the game. Great characters pitted in combat against classic villains with objectives that will be violently opposed.

On 5/23/2017 at 7:36 AM, Stompburger said:

I'm curious if you have some previous experience as a DM. I've often wondered if someone with DM experience could use the components and basic rules of IA as the basis for a more RPG-like experience...

Yes absolutely!

the game around the tiles, like leveling, cards, gear, shop is great. The miniatures on the tile is pretty good, the mission objectives and layouts are a great asset, the structure and parameters are not at all what I wanted or thought I was buying.

I was really surprised when in the middle of a game I realized the IP was trying to win. This creates unfun. Where a GM doesn't want to remove challenge, they don't remove the elements of the game that players like. A competitor actively tries to remove the opportunity for players to do what they like. It's like a GM never using undead so the cleric doesn't get to turn, or enemies who can't be critted so rogues can't sneak attack. It's spiteful. Then you get into crap over triggers, and nope you took your finger off the piece and it's your responsibility to know every trigger on the 7 cards I front of you. That's petty. Then you get bad *** villains running rather than engaging or Rebels running through storm troopers instead of fighting. You chz a lot of gamey, probably unintended non-interactions, instead of simulate what a character in a given situation would do.

So, I play like a GM and facilitate things players want to do. They can lose and do, but they're not encouraged to do things they really don't want to do. An interesting development in our 1st normal RAW campaign was when the IP said he didn't like it and wasn't having fun and all us Rebel players told him we are rarely spending our activation doing what we want to do either. One player came right out and said it's a bad game, I want to attack things and constantly get told not to by the game itself.

we play all the characters and deployment cards as written, all the leveling and gear, but encourage RP choosing what your character would do on the board and role play elements between missions like tracking info down and figuring things out, some puzzles on and off the board to.

it's funny the miniature combat is great but the game encourages you to not engage your opponent.

See, I always approach this game as a tactical miniatures board game with RPG like mechanics rather than an RPG with a traditional GM. When I run my campaigns, I tend to beef up the story with longer more descriptive mission breifings and try to connect side missions to the current situation. (An example would be we ran JR. The first side mission was Jarrods so I ran it as a prequel mission, and when Jarrod won his reward I ruled it as he finally found some time after a narrow escape from coruscant and being shot down over tatooine to upgrade J4X.)

7 hours ago, Rebelarch86 said:

it's funny the miniature combat is great but the game encourages you to not engage your opponent.

The way I see the game played, it very much encourages to engage (and defeat) the imperial groups as efficiently as possible during the first few rounds to reduce the hits you're going to take later, but also requires you to know when to start running and just taking the hits to reach the mission objective.

The game is still receptive to using other playstyles.

Agreed with A1bert. The rebels don't have the time in most campaigns to hide away and avoid the imperials. Need to strike first and hard and manage figures on the board.

I think in general, there are a lot of different ways to play this game, and that's pretty cool.

If you want a more RPG-like thematic experience, go for it!

If you want to use Hired Guns and Nexu in open groups every mission, have at it.

I once went to the Descent forums with some questions about hidden information because I wanted to have a more RPG-like and streamlined experience in it (in regular Descent, there basically is no hidden info). They almost unanimously told me that I absolutely shouldn't do that, because it wouldn't be as competitive.

I get that maybe this deviates from the rules, but I find it odd when, while discussing house rules, someone can definitively say which ways to play the game are wrong or right.

On 7/3/2018 at 8:19 AM, a1bert said:

The way I see the game played, it very much encourages to engage (and defeat) the imperial groups as efficiently as possible during the first few rounds to reduce the hits you're going to take later, but also requires you to know when to start running and just taking the hits to reach the mission objective.

The game is still receptive to using other playstyles.

The most viable strategy in my experience of RAW is have 3 people rush the objectives, take all the hits, get wounded, and it doesn't matter bc the 4th Rebel is avoiding the IP.

the rebels rarely need to actually attack bc they can move through IP figures. 1 match where our IP really was disgusted and we had to all agree, he had 14 pieces on the board when we completed the objective. Our 1 player made a bad *** killing machine and found that every time his better play was to move and interact with something.

truly none of us Rebels and IP were doing things we wanted bc they felt necessary to win and encouraged by the game. We all talked about the game for 2 hours after to get at how all of us were playing a game the way we didn't want to play. The IP has a lot of cool cards that he had to pay for to have, and he needs to win to get to use them, so he was being cut throat, which made the Rebels figure out the game quick and the name of the game seems to be move.

Thats when we decided to approach the game differently.

The IP didn't start withdrawing the rebels then?

(Losing activation advantage starts to hurt the rebels quickly, and one healty hero hits the time limit. Moving through figures also costs extra movement points, and to interact (or other actions) you need to end movement (cannot share a space). The need to open or destroy doors varies a lot between campaigns though. Return to Hoth with less missions with time limits is maybe worse there..)

Just goes to show how different groups end with different "meta".

4 hours ago, a1bert said:

The IP didn't start withdrawing the rebels then?

(Losing activation advantage starts to hurt the rebels quickly, and one healty hero hits the time limit. Moving through figures also costs extra movement points, and to interact (or other actions) you need to end movement (cannot share a space). The need to open or destroy doors varies a lot between campaigns though. Return to Hoth with less missions with time limits is maybe worse there..)

Just goes to show how different groups end with different "meta".

I'm with @Rebelarch86 on this one. The point of any game is to have fun, and it's no fun to just watch other people play, whether they win or lose. That's why at my table, forcing the Rebels to withdraw is something I only do when they are really running away with multiple missions in a row, when they do something really supremely stupid, when the narrative really insists on it, (going toe to toe with Vader) or when they are playing in too "gamey" of a way.

Granted, this does lead to them winning more missions than they probably would otherwise, but I've got other rules in place to deal with that too.

I'm curious, @Rebelarch86 what are some other specific house rules that you've put in to make the game more RPG-ish?

It has been discussed in another thread, so only a quick summary: I think rebels relying not to be withdrawn is more "gaming the system" than "RPG". Second, it's a co-op, so a player is never out of the game unless you have a strict no-talk house rule. (Although not having a character is less serious for boardgames than RPG'ers.) Also, any withdrawing will happen late in the mission. Even if it rarely happens, the threat of being withdrawn keeps the tension. (And it certainly doesn't equate to winning-at-all-cost.)

To not to be misunderstood, I'm not saying you should not play the way you want, because I have been saying just the opposite.

It's good to hear what situations other people come across to gain more viewpoints and provide your own.

15 hours ago, a1bert said:

It has been discussed in another thread, so only a quick summary: I think rebels relying not to be withdrawn is more "gaming the system" than "RPG". Second, it's a co-op, so a player is never out of the game unless you have a strict no-talk house rule. (Although not having a character is less serious for boardgames than RPG'ers.) Also, any withdrawing will happen late in the mission. Even if it rarely happens, the threat of being withdrawn keeps the tension. (And it certainly doesn't equate to winning-at-all-cost.)

To not to be misunderstood, I'm not saying you should not play the way you want, because I have been saying just the opposite.

It's good to hear what situations other people come across to gain more viewpoints and provide your own.

You make valid points, and I think a strength of the game is that it can accommodate both playstyles and still be fun and balanced. I've played through three campaigns and I'd say there are only two times I've had to play truly "cutthroat" and forced Rebels to withdraw b/c of how they were playing. The conditions under which I "play nice" work about 90% of the time, which is enough to satisfy me.