Hello all, I have a few questions that have come and haven't found the answers on here, and looking through some postings I thought mighy have answers stumbled across spoilers. So forgive me if stuff had been answered before, but seeing as I've never played or seen beyond the first mission I am trying to avoid spoilers. This is pretty lengthy so thanks to all who take time to read and answer.

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Combat Questions

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I. For this example let's say a Rebel attacks a Stormtrooper. The Rebel attacks and rolls two damage and one surge. The Trooper rolls his black die and gets three shields thus allowing three blocks of damage.

If the Rebel uses his one surge to increase his damage output to a total of three, is this still considered block by the Troopers roll of three defense, or do surge effects come into play after the fact and the Trooper would then take one damage? A lot of weapons in the beginning seem to do 1 pierce or 1 extra damage but they seem to end in the exact same result...

II. If a character gains focus, in example an Imperial Officer uses a surge or Gaarkhan (spelling?) takes three damage and becomes focused, that effect lasts until that character attacks? Say Round 1 the wookie gets focused but for whatever reason doesn't attack or test an attribute for two full rounds (all characters activated) he remains focused?

III. An interrupt is used immediately? Imperial Officer uses Command on an adjacent Trooper, that Trooper must be moved right then? Is Command a defensive move where say a Rebel is performing a ranged attack on said Officer, before combat takes place (no rolls made) can I use command to make an adjacent Imperial move into the line of sight before the combat dice are rolled?

IV. Reach... you can reach up to two spots away as long as you follow line of sight rules. This includes two diagonal spaces? It includes for example one space to that characters right and then a diagonal from that? It seems kind of far for a reach to me but if thats how it works, then okay.

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Expansions / Character Packs

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I. Any hero from any expansion may be used in the core campaign?

II. If I buy an expansion, can you ultimately pick and choose which components you want to include? If for instance I buy Twin Shadows, can I use the Heavy Troopers and everything even if the Rebels choose not to use the alternate heroes? Does this include the Imperial Class deck and all included Agenda cards?

III. Do the hero and villain packs correspond directly to the expansions and their time periods? If the core campaign is a time period of 3 I understand you can use heroes and villains that correspond to this.

With me not knowing what any other expansions time periods are... bare with me for this example...

Lando was introduced with the Bespin expansion correct? If Bespin is a time period of say 4, and Return to Hoth is say a time period of 2, should I presume before I even buy Lando that he is only going to be relative to a time period of say 3 - 6?

IV. When you start an expansion, do you use the heroes you played the core game with and keep everything both they and the Imperials gained in the campaign or do both start fresh? Are you you expected to pick new heroes and start from fresh?

V. Specific for Gaarkhan, if I shoot him with one storm trooper and do 1 damage, and a second trooper does 2 damage, does he enrage or does a single unit of mine have to do 3 points of damage to enrage him?

1. See attack steps. The surge ability adds the damage to the attack pool, it can still be blocked. (Step 7 of the attack.) Pierce is only useful if the attacker has blocks (white die can come up blank and both defense dice can roll single evade), +1dmg is useful more often. Note that each surge ability can be used only once per attack.

2. See the Focused reference card. Focused must be used in the next attack or attribute test.

3. Movement points received out of your activation must be used immediately. The same with Executive Order about performing the attack. Order takes an action, you cannot do it in response to a rebel action.

4. See Counting Spaces (for within 2 spaces). Yes, Reach can use diagonals.

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1. Any hero can be used in any campaign.

2. You add everything to their respective pools and they are available to be chosen. They are not linked in any way.

3. There are associated figure packs and you need the boxed expansion to be able to use everything from the figure pack. You can use something from each figure pack regardless.

4. A new campaign starts from 0.

5. Rage (Campaign) checks only the damage suffered of one attack. Enraged (Skirmish) checks what the current amount of damage tokens is. (Check the difference between suffered and has suffered from the RRG.)

Also see

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1319188/what-are-some-crazy-or-common-rule-breaking-mistak

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1631857/ability-resolution-order-during-attacks

Thank you so much for the help, very much appreciated!

Just a few notes on expansion content-

I- Currently no heroes are locked out of any campaigns. I know initially there was the time period thing, but it appears FFG currently has no plans on implementing it anymore. If players want a more canon experience, I suppose it's up to them to make it so.

II- Again, other than most story missions, any components can be used in any campaign.

Check out how Imperial deployment works, in this case. First, you have your initial deployment group- these are what you start with on the board. Then are your reserves- these are preselected units that will come into play after a certain trigger, such as a door opening. Both the initial deployment and the reserves are likely to use whatever expansion they came from's units plus core box components. So, for instance, you may see Heavy Troopers and an Imp Officer in a Twin Shadows mission as initial deployment with Tusken Raiders as a reserve.

The final deployment type are open groups. These are any non-unique unit that you choose out of the Imp or Merc decks, plus any unique units that you've earned. You can spend threat to bring in these reinforcements to any open deployment zones during the refresh stage, or any other time you can resolve an optional deployment.

III- Again, it's pretty much up to you what heroes you use. The Grand Inquisitor, for instance, was included as a figure pack, even though he's not canonically possible in any of the current campaigns.

I thought hobomagic was talking about Rebel Heroes, i.e. the rebel-playable characters. A rebel player cannot play as the Grand Inquisitor (or as Obi-Wan for that matter).

I thought hobomagic was talking about Rebel Heroes, i.e. the rebel-playable characters. A rebel player cannot play as the Grand Inquisitor (or as Obi-Wan for that matter).

Whatever he meant, the point still stands. There are currently no era restrictions on any components, aside from story missions locked to their campaigns (other than small box ones, which become side missions).

Awesome, thank you so much for the info, I wasn't quite sure how this stuff worked but your information has helped a ton!

There are currently no era restrictions on any components, aside from story missions locked to their campaigns (other than small box ones, which become side missions).

Technically, the time periods were not removed, just the new figure packs do not have any time period, so they can be included in any campaign. The time periods are still in effect, so you can't use Han Solo or Luke Skywalker in the Return to Hoth unless you house-rule (which you should do - make your own choices which side missions to include).

So I have lost two missions as imperials, though we didnt play the first mission right (before I made this thread) but we decided to continue with side mission instead of starting over. Second mission went well at first, had two of three heroes wounded before they opened any doors... but I think I was banking my threat too much and they wound up completing their objective before I could wound the last one.

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I. Probably most important new question... we are playing a three hero game. Each turn I understand they have to pass along that fourth activation token each turn, but from my understanding if you have player A, B and C... player A could have it on round 1, then give to player B round 2. Come round 3 does player C have to get it or can it essentially keep swapping between players A and B? We played this way where player C rarely if ever had the second activation token.

Ib. As a follow up to this, lets say I make player A withdraw... now the heroes only have three activations between them right? If players A and B both get removed from the mission, does player C keep that second activation token?

II. Being down two missions, any suggestions of general tactics? I have the Military Might deck and just spent two xp for the decreased trooper deployment cost card. Which class cards should I go for first? I currently have two Influence; what kinds of Agenda Cards are best to go for? I have four that will potentially net me Vader, Ig-88, Blaise, and Kayne Somos (?) Should I be trying to get those cards in play asap or should I have not gone buck wild hoping to get these guys in-game?

III. General question, if a mission has no time limit stated, can the game go past 20 turns or is there always a limit of 20 rounds?

IV. Character ability question, I grabbed the ISB Infiltraitors today and one of their actions is to cause the other in that group to interrupt for an attack.

So what I did as a last minute effort to wound the last hero (darn Wookie), was used the Infiltrator A's special to allow Infiltraitor B to interrupt A's turn and attack the Wookie. I then resumed A's turn to perform an actual attack. I then started using Infiltraitor B and first thing I did was used his special to allow A to interrupt and attack the Wookie again. I finished the turn by using Agent B's second action to perform an attack on the Wookie. Did I do this correctly? Essentially presume both are alive, the ISB Infiltraitors can perform a total of four attacks?

V. From my understanding you cannot have more of a unit than is provided in the expansion you are playing, in example I can only use three sets of Storm Troopers? I bought an extra pack of them to practice painting but I can't use them in addition to the six regular and one elite set in the core? What about packs like ISB Infiltraitors? Could I essentially go buy two more packs of those guys and for whatever reason if an open group allows for three deployment cards, I could use all Infiltrators?

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Thanks again for everybody's help! Love the game but losing these rounds kinda sucks even though I know it really comes down to the final for an actual winner.

I. The fourth activation token must move each round, but can go between two heroes.

Ib. When a hero withdraws his activation token goes with him. However, as far as I remember our rules discussions, if the hero had two activation tokens, both tokens would be out of the game, because technically the Heroic Reward card leaves the game and thus no longer instructs to give the 4th activation token to a different player. Whether to play like that is upto you though.

(If two heroes withdraw, the "if possible" at the end of the Heroic text lets the last hero keep a second activation token.)

II. Endless Ranks is not a very good card. Note that it works only when deploying Trooper (any group with the trooper trait) groups, not when reinforcing figures. At the beginning of a campaign I think Assault Armor and Sustained Fire are better. But the first campaign is a learning campaign...

III. If a mission is without time limit and it takes the rebels 20 rounds, you have big problems with gameplay. Just end the mission to undecided...

IV. Coordinated Raid is once per round per group, so only one of the two ISB Infiltrators in a group can use it. (Both also need to have line of sight to the target.)

V. See the instructions on the rulesheet of the ISB Infiltrator pack. As far as I remember, you can use both deployment cards, i.e. two packs worth of figures.

Awesome, thanks as always for the input it's truly a lot of help; I like how everybody seems to be really friendly here, I haven't really stumble across any rude or elitist posts.

We didn't last 20 turns, it went to 9 or 10 I think, did a lot of damage to them really early and they all spent time healing once they cleared me from the board. My mistake was I was hoping to trap them in a room or prevent their escape so I had 16 threat to throw at them in which I deployed the ISB Infiltraitors, Heavy Storm Troopers, a Probe Droid and an Officer, where I was unlucky was one of them had a stun grenade and as soon as they all deployed, three of the six were stunned.

Is it really worth making a hero withdraw in matches that have no time limit or just focus them down one at a time to wounded state?

Did they draw the Shock Grenade after you had deployed? What is drawn from the supply deck is open information.

If you get the opportunity and there is time, getting one hero to withdraw robs the rebels an activation and two actions per round, which is quite a lot.

In most of the core campaign missions it is easier to stall the heroes to win on time limit than to wound them.

Saving threat works if you are otherwise wiped out or lose the activation advantage, otherwise keeping 4+ activations on the board is better. You should try to match the deployments to the deployments from mission events. It's not that easy though.

They had actually drawn the grenade literally the turn before I deployed my guys so they used it immediately on the next round. I kinda panicked and deployed half my guys closer to the Rebels than I should of; the Wookie was the only one unwounded and needed to escape, that turn they gave him both activation tokens so he could run to the entrance of the mission.

If there had been a time limit it'd of been a different story, but no listed time allows them to sit back and heal, especially early in campaign when I am only getting two threat a turn. I had the Wookie to 10 damage before he killed the last of my initial characters.

Felt good destroying Mak in three attacks between a Heavy Storm Trooper and a regular one. Three regular Troopers and an elite Trandoshan surrounded Diala and kept blasting, it was enjoyable... but that accursed Wookie... I have most issues with him

I have to agree with A1bert, (did I pronounce that right?). More often than not, you don't have to BEAT the Rebs. Just stop them from winning. Seeing as they usually have a time crunch, delay, delay, delay. Damage is actually less important than strain and conditions. If you have a choice between hitting them with damage or strain and a condition, go for the second EVERY time. Trandos are VERY good at this game by the way and they are tough to boot.

Now, if there is no time limit and they are just sitting back, well, you can do the same thing. Bring along a big nasty and let your threat grow until you can drop it down. And remember that your deployment cards are hidden, so, don't give away that you have a big nasty, (my players have learned to fear when I stand up from the table to go to the china cabinet where my big nasties live.... which also tickles my wife, having an ATSTs, Wampas etc beside her grandmothers fine china).

Hope this helps

I'd say usually it's not worth it to actually "kill off"/withdraw a Rebel hero (i.e. flip then flip again), because pretty much all missions have the condition "Imperial wins when all heroes are wounded", so you could have wounded heroes A and B by the time you kill off hero A

Some general tips:

4 heroes is the most balanced (Hey if you got < 4 Rebel players just have someone control more than 1 hero). 3 heroes with the wonky activation token passing or 2 heroes with double activation tokens are known to make some missions swingy

Bring according to what you can afford, which will depend on the threat level. So bringing in Royal Guards (8) when the threat level is only 2 is a pretty bad idea. You need 4 rounds to save up the threats and if Rebels kill them both off you pretty much gave them 4 rounds of free time to run around. You never want the Rebels running around unobstructed

Rebels will need to learn to balance between finishing objectives vs. killing your troops. Punish them hard & shoot them dead

I swear solemnly by the Combat Veteran in MM. It's straight up goodness. You'll notice that almost all of the time that 1X 4xp card is much, much better than 2X 2xp cards

Which mission did you guys play that went to 9 rounds? It's pretty rare since most missions end in 5 or 6 (with round limits or my Rebels are getting overwhelmed by threats - all wounded)

If I'm reading it right, the Rebels are playing with Mak, Diala, and Gaar? Leave Gaar last to avoid his constant focus (workaround: throw that 1xp riot grenade attachment from MM on him). Even with 1/6 chance of dodging the white dice on avg will still suffer more damage than a black dice. I'd wound Diala first to make her fancy force stuff harder to use (lower speed & lower endurance & attribute tests worse)

One of the most commonly-played strategy in MM: put Assault armor + Combat Veteran on elite Stormtroopers (and 501st Training, if you have that)

Handy damage calculator: http://mattyellen.github.io/imperial-assault-calculator/

I'd say usually it's not worth it to actually "kill off"/withdraw a Rebel hero (i.e. flip then flip again), because pretty much all missions have the condition "Imperial wins when all heroes are wounded", so you could have wounded heroes A and B by the time you kill off hero A

Withdrawing a hero works towards winning through the round limit, not through wounding all of the heroes. Although getting one hero to withdraw usually makes wounding the rest of the heroes easier as well due to activation advantage and less actions the rebels can use to attack your troops. Also, concentrating fire on an already activated hero is the best way to defeat the hero, and activation advantage helps there.

Thanks guys, I apologize for going MIA and not responding sooner. Appreciate the tips; yes the heroes are Diala, Mac and Gaarkhan. Usually I wind up taking out Diala and Mac, and it's kind of annoying with the wookie because every other turn he has the second activation token.

The mission we played that went to 9 was the side mission where the Rebels have to get into a hanger to grab a formula then get back to the start. We have some additional stuff like Twin Shadows and some villain and ally packs. I wound up having some heavy storm troopers come in and they wounded Mac in about three attacks, and a group of regular troopers with trandoshens surrounded Diala I think... just that dang wookie. They eventually cleared everything and I started to save my threat and let them wander, then after they grabbed the formula I spent all 16 threat I had (this was the very first side mission, so... only two threat per turn) on a droid, heavy troopers, ISB Infiltrators and I think an officer.

The record is currently Rebels 2, Imperials 1... I won the New Threat mission. Again, Diala and Mac were wounded... Gaarkhan was heading towards a terminal when all of a sudden round 5 ended. I wont say anymore because of spoilers but... I presume you guys know what happens.

I have saved my Influence... and wound up drawing Vaders side mission, so I opted to play that card. So our next mission is his... I know he is expensive and I may not win to "unlock him," but it prevents the Rebels from getting much of a reward if they beat me

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Questions:

I. Say I have a character that has blast 1 for one surge. I roll two damage and one surge that I use for Blast. I factor in the Blast damage before we reconcile the the total outcome? Including their defensive roll? So in this example I am doing a total of 3 damage to the main target and 1 damage to all adjacent characters. If that character rolled a 3 on a black die or the X on white... he would take no damage, but the surrounding guys would, right?

Second part to that question, if I target character A and use Blast 1, it hits character B standing next to A.. if character B inherently has +1 defense or even say a terminal with a defense of 1 is in the blast radius... does character B and the terminal block the damage from blast?

II. This one is in regards to a character pack I saw. The Inquisitor character... I see he can use a ranged attack with Light Saber Throw or something to that extent. But I also saw he has Cleave. So could he basically use the throw light saber hit Target A and the if he had a surge use it to cleave a character standing next to A, even if that second character was one space out of range?

Thanks as always guys, you have all been a great help!

I. No, you see if the attack hits as normal ignoring blast, and then if it hits, you apply the blast to adjacent squares. You don't apply the blast to the target itself. Blast ignores any inherent blocks the sufferers might have.

II. Cleave can target any other target that the original attack could have hit. If it's a ranged attack, it can hit any other target insde the range of the attack, not any target adjacent to the original target.

I. See the Blast entry from the RRG and the Blast reference card. Blast is performed after the attack resolves. Blast is only performed if the target of the attack suffered damage from the attack. The target of the attack never suffers damage from Blast. Blast is not an attack, so you don't defend against blast, blast simply makes the figures and objects adjacent to the targeted space suffer the damage.

II. What Rawling said. If the target suffered damage from the attack, after the attack resolves, for each cleave ability you choose a target (other than the original attack) within the range of the original attack and in line of sight. The chosen target suffers damage equal to the cleave value. (Cleave is also not an attack, so the target of cleave does not defend.) So, it's possible the original target was defeated or destroyed, and you now have line of sight to another figure/object you want to Cleave.

See the reference card and Cleave from RRG.

Note: Dark Obsession is very hard for the imperial player.

Awesome, thanks for the quick replies, as always the information is greatly appreciated.

Yea I figured that Dark Obsession would be hard considering the reward. Maybe I should of waited to play the card, but I was afraid maybe it wouldn't show up again, and at the very least... I believe all the Rebels get for winning is credits so I would rather have them get only credits and my not Vader than some sort actual reward.

Every IP has to play it once.

Yeah, I lost Dark Obsession, but hey- it's all the more satisfying when you end up playing As You Wish later in the campaign, when the Rebels thought they were done with the big guy.

Oh for sure, was pretty confident that Vader will likely just show up at some point, tbis just gives the opportunity to make it every mission if you so choose. Or at least to counter any ally's they bring along.

More quick questions...

I. From my understanding, you may trade any weapons, armor or items amongst players BEFORE the rebel characters are even deployed to the starting point (entrance) but a character specific weapon, namely their starting weapon may not be traded?

Ib. Secondly, a character that initially starts melee (say Gaarkhan) may purchase or trade for a ranged weapon? Or are some characters limited to only melee or range? Can Diala and Gaarkhan only use melee? Mak can only use ranged?

II. If and when the Rebels deploy an ally, it's the last thing they do. Upon that, if they choose to use an ally I obtain that ally's deployment cost in threat and then the actual final step would be an optional deployment AFTER they place their ally?

III. I read that when the allies obtain an ally with a normal and an elite version, in example the Wookie Warriors. If they bring this ally in, (not looking at the card) they would bring in both of them but they would only use the grey normal version correct? So why would they be given then Elite version? There isn't another quest in the campaign other than their side mission that grants them as an ally correct? Because if you have a grey version of an ally and there's an elite version available, they only get the option of red wookies if they receieve them as a reward a second time? I am guessing that this elite red card is more for playing Skirmish mode instead of campaign?

Thanks as always!

1. Starting weapons are items, but they are also class cards, so they cannot be traded. Rebels can trade items just before they take their places on and around the entrance, i.e. after hearing the mission briefing, including the rules section.

1b. Any hero can have any weapon type, but most of their innate abilities and their class cards synergize better with a certain weapon or attack type.

2. Yes. Heroes optionally trade items, take their places, then decide whether to take upto one ally they have earned. If they do, the imperial player gets the corresponding amount of threat and an optional deployment. Any number of groups can be deployed (and figures reinforced, but that doesn't apply during mission setup) during an optional deployment as long as you can afford to pay the deployment costs.

3. The non-unique elite allies require that the rebels win the ally twice, which is only possible for a few allies. In the campaign you'll thus most probably see only the regular non-unique allies and the unique allies (who are elite). The elites of the non-unique allies are most intended for skirmish.

(You cannot select two green side missions that grant the same ally, but elite Echo Base Troopers can be earned in the Return to Hoth campaign, and elite Rebel Troopers in a campaign with Gideon.)