Planning on starting our first IA campaign, and I'll be the Imperial player. I was wondering if anyone had any house rules that they feel are useful for first time players? Also looking for house rules people use for future playthroughs as well.

I'm seeing a couple of things that seem interesting, such as reducing Rebel Ally costs, so was hoping to see if there were any other consistently recommended practices.

For first-time imperial: play the first couple of missions for your best, then let the wookiees.. rebels win some by trying different strategies.

For first-time imperial: play the first couple of missions for your best, then let the wookiees.. rebels win some by trying different strategies.

See. I was thinking of trying a thematic approach -- my Imperials start off a bit disorganized, not concentrating fire, not always making the most strategic choices. If Officers or Leaders get taken off, they'd suffer a bit more (go for pure self-interest instead of teamwork).

Then, over time, they'd get a bit better. And, under certain leadership (Darth Vader, for example), would be much more aggressive (I'm the more strategic player of the group, in general).

... I also have this idea of one of the Stormies getting custom paint after every mission, to reflect how he was defeated (new scorch marks/damage), and him being a recurring trooper/joke in each mission (despite not necessarily making sense in-story).

I was thinking of 2 ideas to prevent fun-draining aspects of the campaign:

- Play Imperial Agenda missions as Forced Missions. That way, players dont feel cheated out of their cool side mission that you just robbed them of.

- When Rebels pick one side mission, they are allowed to send the unchosen mission back to the side mission deck to be reshuffled, then pick 2

Heh. If you're (partially?) referencing my post on house rules, I actually *don't* recommend them for a group where everyone's new to the game. The campaigns are still a lot of fun as-is; my group certainly had a lot of fun playing our first one without any changes. It's just that once you gain experience, certain...flaws begin to emerge. ; )

I would really only recommend three house rules to new players:

1) Only use the Core Set for your first campaign. If you *really* want more options, then at the very least you should limit yourself to the Wave 1 expansions.

(The Core Set campaign is plenty fun to play with just the options provided with it. This keeps new players from feeling overwhelmed by the options available, and opens up the Core Set campaign to be replayed later if you're interested, this time with any/all expansions included. This was the only house-rule I implemented when I ran our first campaign, and we were happy with the results.)

2) The Imperial player cannot have more than two hidden Agenda cards at any one time. If he purchases a third, he must immediately choose one to discard. He regains the Influence cost of the discarded card.

(This reduces a Negative Play Experience for the Rebels that all-too-often happens: they're playing well, on their way to a win--and then the Imperial player shuffles through the pile of accumulated hidden Agenda cards, and slaps down something they had no idea even existed that counters the hours of strategizing they just spent getting to that point! That's, uh, fun, right...?)

3) If the Rebel players lose two missions in a row, then starting from that second mission they receive an additional 100 credits per Hero for each mission they lose. If the Imperial player loses two missions in a row, then starting from that second mission they receive an additional 1 influence for each mission they lose. Both of these conditions occur until the losing side wins a mission.

(All the campaigns can have an issue with snowball effects--particularly if one side is better at the game than the other: the side that wins gets more and/or better goodies, which makes them stronger, which means they win more often, which makes them stronger, which means... This house rule helps mitigate that issue. If the players are near-equal in ability, then this rule may never even come into effect.)

Oh! Forgot one:

4) The Imperial player should not use the Subversive Tactics class deck against inexperienced Rebels.

(Subversive Tactics gets its power by weakening the Heroes--basically, by taking away some of the Rebel players' toys. It's actually fine to use against experienced players; it's not truly overpowered, it just requires some thought and preparation to play against. But even against experienced players, I would warn them about the theme of the deck first, so they know what's coming.)

Some of my houserules when I play:

-Houseruling unit costs (my post over there): https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/227509-skirmish-point-cost-adjustment/

-Never have more than 4 hidden agenda cards, I'll skip buying if I have to, and I'll never, ever slap down secret agenda cards if it's too late for Rebels to adapt to it (i.e. change the winner)

-Permit re-drawing of those 2 side missions

-Don't use the Subversive Tactics class deck

-If one side wins 3 missions in a row , give that side one mission worth of reward (Rebel=100cr/hero, Empire=1influence)

-Sometimes I might throw in optional allies even Rebels didn't earn them, just tell them during mission setup "Hey and you guy can bring in Han, but he'll give me 8 threats" (houseruled units, Han Solo is 8)

-(kinda cheaty) Add/remove troops as necessary according to this thread https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1331517/how-balanced-each-scenario

and later on after you guys played the same missions over & over: change your army, but you need #1 everyone agrees it's getting boring and #2 you have a pretty good idea about the strength&weaknesses of each unit. The idea is to count threat costs with +/- 3. ex. Storm+IO+E-web as starting=6+2+6=14, so I might change it to RG+eStorm=8+9=17 if I want to be nasty, or maybe IO+AT-ST=2+10=12...you get the idea (houseruled units, AT-ST is 10)

bottom line: if everyone's having fun, then you're doing it right. Rebels will remember the epic moment they took down that AT-ST, and it's infinitely better than "oh we killed everything by round 2, so easy & so boring"

My current House Rules;

1) If (When) they become wounded, let them clear all strain tokens as well as damage tokens.

2) Ignore figures blocking line of sight when it comes to reach.

I think the best house rule I have seen for the core is that if either side loses two story missions in a row they still get the full rewards. So basically at loss #2 both sides are getting full rewards. This helps things from snowballing, but still has a mini snowball effect as there is a penalty in loss 1. This was actually suggested by some of the designers of the game in the interview the guys over at BoardWars did (Btw if you haven't listened to it yet, you should).

The rest you can house rule as needed almost as long as you can keep it within reason. Treat it like you would GMing a RPG, if something is just going side ways for the Rebels trigger an 'effect' that helps them. For instance, during Fly Solo I periodically gave them bonuses as they advanced like being able to recover health on Han at the end of a round and things like that. It took what is widely known as the most painful story mission for the Rebels and turned it into a 'really fun mission' (my players words) that went down to the last turn for them winning. I've done this a few times when a mission is just clearly one sided.

Also another tip to keep things balanced, don't do Imperial Industry, that card just breaks the game.

Edit: Also for side missions, if they draw two greys I always throw one out and let them re pick for a chance at a green/red, I've also just grabbed the first red mission before. This isn't a competition for me, it is about having fun. They are going to earn it in the mission, but I would rather pick a mission where the heroes are heavily invested in getting that reward. That being said some of those grey missions are actually pretty fun, lol, even with a weak reward..

I had a thought after playing last night. I (as the IP) and at least one of the Rebels are in a position, where we can't spend all of our XP before the finale (we both have 1 XP to spare). I'm thinking about either A or B:

A) If you go into the finale with unspent XP, you get that many free rerolls to spend whenever you like on whatever you like during that mission. So 1 unspent XP = 1 free reroll total. This is the cosy version.

B) Same thing, but you get that many free rerolls per ROUND, instead of per mission. This is the stupid version..

What do you think about option A? It's just to avoid feeling that the XP is completely lost.

I'd actually lean more toward the free re-rolls per round option. Most class cards either require you to spend strain, or exhaust upon use. So if you allowed a free re-roll once per round, that would be the same as an exhaust. Also, are we talking about re-rolling one or multiple die?

When my groups have run into this issue, we've allowed the players with extra xp to re-outfit their character by trading in class cards that they already have and redeeming their value to purchase something else. After going through a few iterations of this rule, the current rule we use is:

If a hero is going into the finale with extra XP that they are unable to spend, they may trade in a single class card to redeem it's full value of XP. Then they may spend their XP to purchase 1 class card.

I like this rule because it prevents heroes from making too many changes, but still doesn't punish them for poor XP management. If you allow re-rolls, heroes could use that to their advantage and stock up for the final mission. The ability to have more consistent dice is better than almost all of the lower level class cards.

I'd actually lean more toward the free re-rolls per round option. Most class cards either require you to spend strain, or exhaust upon use. So if you allowed a free re-roll once per round, that would be the same as an exhaust. Also, are we talking about re-rolling one or multiple die?

When my groups have run into this issue, we've allowed the players with extra xp to re-outfit their character by trading in class cards that they already have and redeeming their value to purchase something else. After going through a few iterations of this rule, the current rule we use is:

If a hero is going into the finale with extra XP that they are unable to spend, they may trade in a single class card to redeem it's full value of XP. Then they may spend their XP to purchase 1 class card.

I like this rule because it prevents heroes from making too many changes, but still doesn't punish them for poor XP management. If you allow re-rolls, heroes could use that to their advantage and stock up for the final mission. The ability to have more consistent dice is better than almost all of the lower level class cards.

Yeah, I've considered allowing this too. Our MHD-19 player has made some poor choices earlier with his class cards, and really wants to "re-spec"... they're still crushing, but still.. I think I might allow this for our finale in RtH. Thanks for the tip.

On 2016. 08. 29. at 2:02 AM, FrogTrigger said:

I think the best house rule I have seen for the core is that if either side loses two story missions in a row they still get the full rewards. So basically at loss #2 both sides are getting full rewards. This helps things from snowballing, but still has a mini snowball effect as there is a penalty in loss 1. This was actually suggested by some of the designers of the game in the interview the guys over at BoardWars did (Btw if you haven't listened to it yet, you should).

The rest you can house rule as needed almost as long as you can keep it within reason. Treat it like you would GMing a RPG, if something is just going side ways for the Rebels trigger an 'effect' that helps them. For instance, during Fly Solo I periodically gave them bonuses as they advanced like being able to recover health on Han at the end of a round and things like that. It took what is widely known as the most painful story mission for the Rebels and turned it into a 'really fun mission' (my players words) that went down to the last turn for them winning. I've done this a few times when a mission is just clearly one sided.

Also another tip to keep things balanced, don't do Imperial Industry, that card just breaks the game.

Edit: Also for side missions, if they draw two greys I always throw one out and let them re pick for a chance at a green/red, I've also just grabbed the first red mission before. This isn't a competition for me, it is about having fun. They are going to earn it in the mission, but I would rather pick a mission where the heroes are heavily invested in getting that reward. That being said some of those grey missions are actually pretty fun, lol, even with a weak reward..

What do you think about giving Han endurance 2 and Hero-like strain recover abilities, but max one rest/turn? In sorry about the mess,for example.

The free trandoshans gave him 10 damage i one round after running through the map beetween all the rebels.

The strain kills him. It's first campaign and I didn't know how bad subversive tactics would be for everyone.

On 25/08/2016 at 2:37 PM, ArbitraryNerd said:

Planning on starting our first IA campaign, and I'll be the Imperial player. I was wondering if anyone had any house rules that they feel are useful for first time players?

For first timers, honestly, my advice is to play the game as written. Only when you've got a sense of how your group is getting on with the game will you really understand what difference suggested house rules will make, and whether you need them in your group.

(I guess the exception to that is to repeat what others have said, which is to avoid Subversive Tactics. Not sure if I'd call that a house rule, it's just choosing a different Imperial Class, but whatever. Point is, it's no fun for the Rebel players - they basically don't get to use their cool toys. Maybe use it with experienced players, if there's a competitive/antagonistic relationship in the way that that group plays; but even then I think an Imperial player has to be pretty sadistic to use it, knowing what it does.)

Once the group understand the game and how they like to play it, that's when house rules might be worth applying. For example, in my group, our players want the story to be about them and their Heroes, so they will tend to skip the green side missions unless they have no other choice. (It also doesn't help that a lot of Allies give way too much Threat to the Imperial Player to be worth taking; even ignoring that, my players would rather go looking for Diala's lightsaber, or help out Gideon's old unit, or whatever, than have Luke Skywalker turn up and take over the show). A different group might feel differently, of course. Anyway, I was reluctant to remove the green side missions entirely (the missions themselves might still be fun, even if the reward isn't very interesting) but we have experimented with changing how side missions are drawn; for example once per campaign allow a "Mulligan", where the hand of side missions is discarded and a new hand drawn from the deck; or draw two (or even three) Side Mission cards for each side mission, then discard any that are not chosen, to get through the deck quicker. That kind of thing.

I've also got an informal house rule going on that we won't re-play a mission unless there's absolutely no other choice - I've not openly stated this to the Hero players (and some groups may not like that kind of Imperial player fiat), but I don't think the other players have any more interest in going over old ground than I have. For story missions that's not normally a problem (we play each campaign once), and when building the side mission deck I remove cards corresponding to missions we've played. In the last couple of campaigns though, they've re-used Heroes, which required me to get a bit creative. For example, in our current campaign, one of the players is MHD-19, who someone else took previously and completed his side mission. I didn't want to deny this player the chance to fully enjoy their own MHD-19 experience, but also didn't want to replay the same mission; so I swapped Jarrod's side mission into the deck instead (nobody in the group seems to have any interest in playing as Jarrod, in this or any future campaign). I even made a card accordingly:

1 hour ago, Bitterman said:

For first timers, honestly, my advice is to play the game as written. Only when you've got a sense of how your group is getting on with the game will you really understand what difference suggested house rules will make, and whether you need them in your group.

(I guess the exception to that is to repeat what others have said, which is to avoid Subversive Tactics. Not sure if I'd call that a house rule, it's just choosing a different Imperial Class, but whatever. Point is, it's no fun for the Rebel players - they basically don't get to use their cool toys. Maybe use it with experienced players, if there's a competitive/antagonistic relationship in the way that that group plays; but even then I think an Imperial player has to be pretty sadistic to use it, knowing what it does.)

Once the group understand the game and how they like to play it, that's when house rules might be worth applying. For example, in my group, our players want the story to be about them and their Heroes, so they will tend to skip the green side missions unless they have no other choice. (It also doesn't help that a lot of Allies give way too much Threat to the Imperial Player to be worth taking; even ignoring that, my players would rather go looking for Diala's lightsaber, or help out Gideon's old unit, or whatever, than have Luke Skywalker turn up and take over the show). A different group might feel differently, of course. Anyway, I was reluctant to remove the green side missions entirely (the missions themselves might still be fun, even if the reward isn't very interesting) but we have experimented with changing how side missions are drawn; for example once per campaign allow a "Mulligan", where the hand of side missions is discarded and a new hand drawn from the deck; or draw two (or even three) Side Mission cards for each side mission, then discard any that are not chosen, to get through the deck quicker. That kind of thing.

I've also got an informal house rule going on that we won't re-play a mission unless there's absolutely no other choice - I've not openly stated this to the Hero players (and some groups may not like that kind of Imperial player fiat), but I don't think the other players have any more interest in going over old ground than I have. For story missions that's not normally a problem (we play each campaign once), and when building the side mission deck I remove cards corresponding to missions we've played. In the last couple of campaigns though, they've re-used Heroes, which required me to get a bit creative. For example, in our current campaign, one of the players is MHD-19, who someone else took previously and completed his side mission. I didn't want to deny this player the chance to fully enjoy their own MHD-19 experience, but also didn't want to replay the same mission; so I swapped Jarrod's side mission into the deck instead (nobody in the group seems to have any interest in playing as Jarrod, in this or any future campaign). I even made a card accordingly:

That's smart.

So far, my current group's campaign roster has looked like this:

Core- Diala and Mak

Return to Hoth- Vinto, Mak, Fenn, Murne

Jabba's Realm- Vinto, Drokatta, Jyn, Shyla

I plan on running Heart of the Empire eventually. I think I'll lightly suggest trying new heroes, especially since there's a good spread they haven't tried yet. I won't stop them from reusing a hero if they want, though.

1 minute ago, subtrendy2 said:

I plan on running Heart of the Empire eventually. I think I'll lightly suggest trying new heroes, especially since there's a good spread they haven't tried yet. I won't stop them from reusing a hero if they want, though.

Yeah, I tried to give gentle encouragement in that direction too. Ultimately though, if a player is keen to play the same character again (one of our guys has been Gaarkhan three times; he simply loves being Gaarkhan) or repeat who someone else used before (MHD-19, Mak, Fenn Signis have all been used by two different people now), and they just aren't interested in one of the "fresh" Heroes; well, that's the character they'll be using for 20+ hours of gameplay, so best to just let them find their own enjoyment, I think.

if a hero would push a unit. they can push them into blocking terrain (solid red line) it uses one movement space, if they do, it causes one damage to the enemy

On 2018. 04. 04. at 2:37 AM, Spidey NZ said:

if a hero would push a unit. they can push them into blocking terrain (solid red line) it uses one movement space, if they do, it causes one damage to the enemy

The rules let you push people in blocking terrain?

1 hour ago, NagyLaci said:

The rules let you push people in blocking terrain?

No. Space that has blocking terrain is not adjacent to any other space. Only figures with mobile or massive can move (or be pushed - push is movement performed by other than the figure's controller) into or through blocking (and impassable) terrain.

Mission rules can override normal rules.

And house rules can override all rules. (See the subject of this thread.)

My favorite house rule is to allow Imperial player to draw half of the Agenda Deck (rounded up) after each mission. I think it's a fair rule that balance up with the rule that allows rebels to draw half of the Items Deck once you added to the deck all the items from all expansions and packs.

Ah I forgot that I also play with pre-FAQ rebel saboteurs in their own side mission (I apply FAQ card version in all the other missions).

15 hours ago, NagyLaci said:

The rules let you push people in blocking terrain?

the house rule, doesnt let them enter the space, but they can use up one of their push spaces into a blocking terrain causing one damage.

Thematically slamming enemy into a wall or pillar