See my edit above. It's right there in Status Phase.

Geez, I'm an idiot. Or rather, I *was* an idiot.. Thanks, a1bert.

With 4 players, if you ready at the status rather than activation, it doesn't make much difference, unless you ready both times. As stated earlier, that rule is only really to keep things consistent and fair with 2 or 3 players.

Well, it does make the difference, that the hero who goes last has no readied abilities (exhausted last turn) until it becomes their activation. I've fairly often chosen a different target, because a hero had a ready card/ability, that could be used to gain additional blocks or evades, instead opting for the "softer" target, even though the first one was the "best" target...

But let's see how it turns out tonight - maybe the difference really is negligible.

I still don't understand how I didn't know that.

Readying at the beginning of their activation is certainly better for the imperial player, I wish once per round abilities would work in the same way.

Readying at the beginning of their activation is certainly better for the imperial player, I wish once per round abilities would work in the same way.

As in "use only once from when your activation starts to when your activation starts again"? So with two activation tokens, two uses?

Readying at the beginning of their activation is certainly better for the imperial player, I wish once per round abilities would work in the same way.

As in "use only once from when your activation starts to when your activation starts again"? So with two activation tokens, two uses?

Yes. But the once per round (twice if you have 2 activation tokens) abilities do not work like that, and it would maybe be harder to keep track of them.

On the other hand, it's easier to avoid Quick Draw for a round, then deliberatly tempt Jyn to trigger it early in the next round to be able to not worry about it for the rest of that round.

Well, it does make the difference, that the hero who goes last has no readied abilities (exhausted last turn) until it becomes their activation.

The character that is impacted most by this is Jyn because she can attack out of turn. Most other characters only attack on their turn and most abilities get used only on that character's turn. The main exception would be a small number of defensive abilities that exhaust and a couple support abilities like Gideon's surge. The most common ability impacted would be armor. Overall it will have a small impact except to Jyn which isn't too huge either and a slightly bigger impact on Murne + Jyn because Murne often wants to act as early as possible and sometimes Jyn will as well to refresh her ability.

If you aren't playing with Jyn I'd just say keep playing the way you're playing, it's not really a big difference and refreshing everything at the start is a bit more convenient.

Well, it does make the difference, that the hero who goes last has no readied abilities (exhausted last turn) until it becomes their activation.

The character that is impacted most by this is Jyn because she can attack out of turn. Most other characters only attack on their turn and most abilities get used only on that character's turn. The main exception would be a small number of defensive abilities that exhaust and a couple support abilities like Gideon's surge. The most common ability impacted would be armor. Overall it will have a small impact except to Jyn which isn't too huge either and a slightly bigger impact on Murne + Jyn because Murne often wants to act as early as possible and sometimes Jyn will as well to refresh her ability.

If you aren't playing with Jyn I'd just say keep playing the way you're playing, it's not really a big difference and refreshing everything at the start is a bit more convenient.

This is just another tiny example of how I feel the game is rigged toward the Imperial Player. To be fair, though, we have a VERY VERY powergamer/mathmagician Imperial player so we're getting OBLITERATED many games as Rebels. I've played with at least one other Imperial player who isn't as much of a power gamer and the Rebels made out like bandits with the greatest of ease. I can certainly see why the game is viewed as "relatively" balanced on the global scale because many people do not play as the Empire in the detail-oriented, remember-every-rule way that OUR Imperial does. I'm very interested to see how things are different when when we switch roles and I take over as Imperial player when we move to Return to Hoth.

Well, it does make the difference, that the hero who goes last has no readied abilities (exhausted last turn) until it becomes their activation.

The character that is impacted most by this is Jyn because she can attack out of turn. Most other characters only attack on their turn and most abilities get used only on that character's turn. The main exception would be a small number of defensive abilities that exhaust and a couple support abilities like Gideon's surge. The most common ability impacted would be armor. Overall it will have a small impact except to Jyn which isn't too huge either and a slightly bigger impact on Murne + Jyn because Murne often wants to act as early as possible and sometimes Jyn will as well to refresh her ability.

If you aren't playing with Jyn I'd just say keep playing the way you're playing, it's not really a big difference and refreshing everything at the start is a bit more convenient.

This is just another tiny example of how I feel the game is rigged toward the Imperial Player. To be fair, though, we have a VERY VERY powergamer/mathmagician Imperial player so we're getting OBLITERATED many games as Rebels. I've played with at least one other Imperial player who isn't as much of a power gamer and the Rebels made out like bandits with the greatest of ease. I can certainly see why the game is viewed as "relatively" balanced on the global scale because many people do not play as the Empire in the detail-oriented, remember-every-rule way that OUR Imperial does. I'm very interested to see how things are different when when we switch roles and I take over as Imperial player when we move to Return to Hoth.

For the most part Hoth is a little easier on the Rebels. There are also less missions that massively favor one side or the other. It's a good campaign because the Imperial player often does have to think a bit in order to challenge the Rebels. Twin Shadows is pretty tough on the Rebels so favors the Imperials although not so much the Rebels can't win. Bespin you have to be drunk and catching Pokemon as the Imperials to not completely annihilate the Rebels.

Well, it does make the difference, that the hero who goes last has no readied abilities (exhausted last turn) until it becomes their activation.

The character that is impacted most by this is Jyn because she can attack out of turn. Most other characters only attack on their turn and most abilities get used only on that character's turn. The main exception would be a small number of defensive abilities that exhaust and a couple support abilities like Gideon's surge. The most common ability impacted would be armor. Overall it will have a small impact except to Jyn which isn't too huge either and a slightly bigger impact on Murne + Jyn because Murne often wants to act as early as possible and sometimes Jyn will as well to refresh her ability.

If you aren't playing with Jyn I'd just say keep playing the way you're playing, it's not really a big difference and refreshing everything at the start is a bit more convenient.

Sure, or in our case, Gideon Command'ing Verena to attack out of turn. It came up a few time last night, when we played "Disaster". The rebels wanted to activate Gideon first to get three attacks in, but Verena was already mostly "tapped out" and strained out, so she couldn't use her abilities. Under my old and completely wrong interpretation of the rules, she could have.

After last night, I still believe that it can matter in a real way, but that it's still balanced; sometimes it benefits the Heroes, sometimes it benefits the IP.

What about heroes at the "start"? What could be a balanced start?

We say Gideon is Tier A, but only after 3-4 mission, at the start is very weak.

It could be very hard to play with "Tier A" heroes, but very weak at the start. I think at least 2 (better 3) heroes should be enough strong in first missions.

Fenn, Gaarkhan are good starting heroes.

Diala and Mak are ok, but low damage output.

Gideon, Verana I think are too weak

What do you think?

The scummy rebels in my Hoth campaign are doing pretty well with a combination of Verena, Saska, Diala and Loku. Loku to use recon tokens on enemies, Saska to give Verena gadgets, Diala to focus her and offer re-rolls, and Verena to use all the advantages to mop up the board. She just got that gun that has the ability to double special action, perform 3 attacks, and she's usually up close to enemies... increases the chances of her killing stuff and chaining her ability, and recovering enough strain via surges in each attack.

In my opinion, the best group consists of Diala, Gideon, and then some combination of Gaarkhan, Verena (tho not both Gaarkhan & Verena), Fenn, or Mak (Jyn is close to making the cut but i find her too squishy, and Davith might make the cut but i dont have enough experience with him yet).

Why not Gaarkhan and Verena? Sorry for the silly question ,but I have never played Verena).

Are Biv and Saska so bad?

Gaarkhan and Verena are both (typically) melee characters that like to be beside multiple enemies. So they'll be competing for space and melee weapon cards/mods from the supply deck. Gaarkhan also has strain issues so simply isn't as good as Verena, so there is that too.

Biv and Saska are tier 2 heroes, Gaarkhan is too. They're not bad, they're just not as good as alternatives.

Biv can do some great burst damage and hit single targets REALLY REALLY hard and if there were more really hard to kill enemies in the game he'd be better, but hitting a 3 wound trooper for 9 damage isn't really as useful as hitting 3 troopers for 4 at the same time. Biv can also have some strain issues.

Saska's extra damage ability is probably a bit too weak and unreliable, and she's sort of hard to use, you really need to make the most of all of her abilities. She really needs to be paired up with MHD-19 or maybe an aggressively played Murn.

I've played through Bespin with and against Davith and he seems like an under performer too. I'm not going to completely write him off without playing a full campaign with him, I think he might just be harder to use like Saska, but he's definitely not a top shelf hero.

My experiences with Davith and Saska are really really good. On behalf of our IP, I can say those two might even belong to Tier A+. Davith's force speed let him move 2 spaces for 1 strain (this is slightly inferior to Diala with her 3XP ability, but she must get and spend 3XP first). So whole campaign long he has superior (early to mid campaing) to great (late campaign) objective control. Not to mention he has early access to a T3 weapon ( I don't intend to re-open the discussion on shrouded lightsaber really good or really bad) if you want to maximise your early damage output. But what surprisingly worked well, was Davith's "covert operative (1XP)" and Saska's "Energy Shield (2XP)". Davith is already hard to hit when hidden, but saving a couple device tokens in times of need, makes Davith practically untouchable (even without other abilities or items). Besides Saska has an innate 5 movement, so hardly any trouble to keep up with Davith.

In my opinion Saska really shines late campaign when her abilities come online, either to support the rest of the team or become a beast herself.

What most players tend to oversee, is you win most games with achieving your objective and not clearing up the board. And in that regard Saska is probably the best objective control character available (high speed and the best skill tester)

Personally I've rather a Davith in my team than Diala, because he is more an all-rounder and objective minded. While Diala could be nightmare for an IP in some situations, she is way more strain intensive than Davith, meaning she needs to rest more and therefore less actions available to complete objectives. (My opinion, surely not a fact! )

I hope this will make people give a second thought on these characters