hey there, so i'm in my first campaign for imperial assault as the imperial player. we just did our second mission "loose guns" and the player with the AT-ST kind of botched it and lost it pretty early in. I really wanted the players to win this one because I thought it would be cool for the guy to get his special armor. I was crushing them pretty hard and my GM instincts kicked in so I started letting them win and making bad moves. But since I was so far ahead it was kind of obvious and they caught on quick. I gave up the ruse and proceeded to beat them. My question is do you ever let the players win? after this experience i'm starting to think that you can't because it's pretty obvious when you do and in this game it might be considered more dishonest than in an RPG.

btw in my game there are only two heroes, not sure if this might make you say something otherwise.

A GM's job is to create a good experience for their players and they do whatever they need to do to achieve that. Imperial Assault is set up to be more competitive: you actually are trying to beat them. You aren't a GM, you're another player. "Letting them win" is throwing the game, whereas that concept simply doesn't apply to a GM and players situation.

Trust me, if your players choose a good team, the will be almost unbeatable. Yoy won't need to let them to win.

aight, still new to this game and it kind of splits some ideas from board games and RPG's. I just don't want it to become boring if I keep beating them. I only have two players, one is pretty good and is smart about his moves, the other not so much. He is getting better but he rarely looks at his special abilities and items and tends to play his sniper character as a CQB guy.

Some coaching is expected at the first half of the campaign.

I don't think I've ever thrown a round.

I have, however, gone all out with Agenda cards on the mission before a finale so that I'd for sure win that mission, putting our group on course to get the more interesting (in my opinion) finale to play, even though I think the other finale would've given me a better chance of winning the campaign (plus, I'd have been able to use Agenda cards in the finale, when it mattered more).

On my very first campaign, it was me as IMP vs my wife as two Rebels. I had previously played Aftermath by myself ust to test some of the mechanics, and on my test the Rebels absolutely got their butts handed to them. I warned my wife that she'd likely lose this mission, but that it's okay because it would put her on course for easier missions after that- I wasn't about to start throwing the game from the first mission.

We started playing Aftermath, and she absolutely slayed. I was blown away, amazed at how well she did. I did end up winning the next mission (as veteran players will probably not be surprised) but I'd say that, without me throwing the game once, she probably one 2/3 of the missions, with the majority of them being pretty close. It was a fun campaign.

She ended up winning the campaign, using Loku with an Ancient Lightsaber to deliver the final blow to the Big Bad.

I have only thrown three missions in the 5 mini/regular campaigns I've played: Luke's mission, Diala's side mission, and Inbound (I think, the one with the RGC and the terminals). The two side missions were still really close, and I only threw Inbound because I wanted to finish up the campaign soon, and if they lost we would have had to play captured. I do not regret throwing any of them.

I play as a GM. It's not about winning for me, it's about their look of hopelessness when the game isn't going so well for them. Out of 7 games I've won 2 and 2 have gone to the wire.

If they botch it, I won't go easy. But if they're at least trying to play well, I might either make less optimal moves, or even point out their flaws "you realize if you move there, I'll be able to do x next round?". My one group is much better than I am though, so I bring out my A game. Whether they win or lose, I want them to have fun playing.

I make them suffer, but I typically "throw" a few missions along the way to make sure to keep them in the game and excited. And i throw the last mission to make sure they win the whole campaign. Throw as in, make sure im short a couple of squares or 10 of my guys are trapped behind a door.

~D

Trust me, if your players choose a good team, the will be almost unbeatable. Yoy won't need to let them to win.

The problem is that most players don't have the ability to calculate the odds to figure out at which point they need to be focusing on winning with the objective or focusing on not losing by taking enemies off the board, and IA is generally balanced enough that this decision will come up. Also item and ability purchases can have such a dramatic impact because they vary greatly in quality and inexperienced players aren't likely to be able to distinguish. For isntance I've had even experienced players not take Fenn's Tactical Movement which pretty clearly cost them a couple missions, and even I played Davith completely wrong the first time and sat there with his abilities almost never getting used and having pretty much a dead spot in the party.

I've thrown matches a few times by not focus firing when I should have, but I find if I'm winning repeatedly because the Rebels made bad ability and item purchases then I'll start pulling out things like IG-88 who is so grossly overpointed it's like have 6 points of storm troopers all accidentally shoot themselves and waste their points.

I usually like to play GM-style, and my ultimate goal is to keep the game challenging for everyone involved (including me) at all time

If my players are really good, I will show no mercy in any of the missions. I might even give myself some bonus here and there if I'm getting stomped/snowball effect starts to kick in

If my players are new, then I might handicap myself and make sub-optimal decisions, but my goal (above) stands

Normally though, I will always make optimal decisions/do my best, and see how well my players can handle it. If they made a huge mistake (point of no return), then I will utterly crush them to make it a painful lesson. Otherwise, I tend to point out possible mistakes/possible Rebel combos before they make their move. I don't feel a win is justified by players forgetting stuff

Oh and I also set a timer so that Rebels don't always go AP and turn a 1-hour mission into a 3-hour marathon

Short answer; No

Long answer; I'd never throw a mission, but have pulled punches and made less than optimal plays when those plays would simply be too dickist a move.

Overall I feel the game is so finely balanced so that minor fudges one way or the other can swing battles...

I have played the core campaign twice as imperial player and won.

I have never pulled punches. A mission loss already puts the rebels ahead with gold and strong Tier 2 weapons in the mid campaign. That's when they start snowballing through your troops.

BUT I coach the rebels keeping them alert by reminding them which round it is, to count their moves so that they don't spend it on unnecessary actions, etc. And they have become pretty good.

In the 2nd campaign, it was pretty close. Six wins for Imperial, and five for the Rebels 5.

I have played the core campaign twice as imperial player and won.

I have never pulled punches. A mission loss already puts the rebels ahead with gold and strong Tier 2 weapons in the mid campaign. That's when they start snowballing through your troops.

BUT I coach the rebels keeping them alert by reminding them which round it is, to count their moves so that they don't spend it on unnecessary actions, etc. And they have become pretty good.

In the 2nd campaign, it was pretty close. Six wins for Imperial, and five for the Rebels 5.

There is no such thing as snowballing. The amount of XP/credits different between winning half and winning all is not enough to be a big difference. By mid campaign you're talking about 1-2 XP and 1-2 items difference. If you think the game is that unbalanced, you're playing the wrong game.

Worse players lose more. That is your "snowball."

There are two problem situations. a) The rebels make bad choices they have to live with, like picking Loku, or buying bad abilities. b) The rebels not spending anything, running for crates, tanking missions and saving everything for the final couple buys so they have all tier 3 gear for the final mission (or the Imperials saving all agenda cards for the final mission.)

For a, if you're a bad player and you lose a bunch of missions and you're down 3 XP, that isn't great, but it's not going to MAKE you lose. But guess what else bad players will do? Buy bad abilities and gear. Credits are tight... spend a bunch on giving Gideon a good gun he'll never use. XP is tight... waste 9 XP on Fenn's Suppressive Fire, Weapon Expertise and Superior Positioning, making the strongest Hero in the game pretty much worthless.

I try to win my Villain missions. but apart from that. i try to make a good play experience, sometimes letting them win. most games go down to the last dice roll with my group

I always forget to read the mission briefing until I get to that point in the mission so often on missions where the boss has HP equal to the threat I accidentally spend the threat on something dumb like stormtroopers

I goofed in Diala's quest and Vader only ended up having 6 hp he got pwned in two activations.

such an epic bossfight

I should have just saved all the threat and not reinforced or deployed a single thing and then she would have popped that door and BOOM there's a 30 HP Vader waiting in there

I should have just saved all the threat and not reinforced or deployed a single thing and then she would have popped that door and BOOM there's a 30 HP Vader waiting in there

If I recall correctly, his health is based on the current Threat LEVEL of the mission, not the amount of Threat the Imperial Player has saved up.

Yup, no mission gives bonuses by (amount of) threat. All missions that give bonuses use the current threat level.

ah, that makes much more sense. The health of the doors fluctuating in the Kayn Somos missions really ******* irked me.

Wait, so you have to deal that damage to him in one round, or else it goes back up to the threat level?

The Health of a figure (almost) never changes during a mission. Figures just gain damage tokens when they suffer damage. Note though that in Temptation the Health of the objective figure does not change, the mission rule just looks at the number of damage tokens.

You're making it more complicated than it is.

There are a few wording mistakes in the core which are corrected by the FAQ/Errata. In a few places there is "when figure suffers X damage" when it should be "when a figure has suffered X damage". The mission rule of Temptation is one of those places, Failsafe class card being the other.

That kind of makes it easier for the Rebel Heroes which I definitely don't like but thematically I like how that works for the doors in that mission now. They can take so much punishment to a point, and as much of that punishment to that point as long as it's not too much, than it crumbles all of a sudden. You have to break doors down you can't open them with a thousand cuts.

oh so their health is jsut 2-6, static. Got it. Well that's significantly easier for the Rebels that really blows man.

Is it not double the threat level?