39 minutes ago, machfalcon said:

Sustained by Rage is one of Maul's abilities. Did you mean some other class card?

Supernatural Vigor sorry. The +3 health till end of round card.

On 16/10/2017 at 7:44 PM, Uninvited Guest said:

I'm definitely interested in how it goes. My group is considering RtH next and AO is the deck I was considering for that campaign.

We played Temptation last night and it wasn't even close. Spoilers follow:

I had almost the perfect first round, with Mortar doing 3 damage to ever hero and decent attacks from every other figure I could get into range, so the Rebels had 3 characters (all but Diala who hung back where she could not be attacked) on the edge of wounded on the first turn, but then the combination of the end of round healing effect from the mission, MHDs bacta radiator, and him going first next turn meant that by the end of Turn 2, only he was wounded, and from then on, I couldn't do enough damage in a turn to wound anyone with MHD healing away. They opened the door on turn 4 or 5, and everyone was basically free of strain and damage. Diala did 4 damage and stunned Vader so he couldn't attack, then Fenn killed him next activation. I tried a couple of Probe Droid bombs, but none of them achieved anything. MHD healed it all at the start of the activation, or the end of round mission heal thingy more than covered it.

Armoured Onslaught is big on AOE damage, but the superior healing skills of MHD pretty much negates that AoE damage.

On 10/19/2017 at 1:03 PM, machfalcon said:

I was planning on writing some thoughts on Reactive Defenses but I'll have to do that later when I have more time.

Looking at the Reactive Defenses deck, I'm having some difficulty figuring out a good build order. For those who have played a bit with this deck, any thoughts on each of the cards and a possible build order?

Also, my biggest concern with this deck is the heavy reliance on 88-Z. It seems like the Rebels could effectively nullify the deck by removing 88-Z in the first activation of a round via indirect damage (Blast, Cleave, Demolish, Snap Kick, etc.) or using one of the new items with minus Dodge (Focusing Beam or the A-12). Is using one of their activations to remove 88-Z enough of a deterrence for the Rebels?

The last time I took a look, you can either build for 88-Z or build (a bit) away from 88-Z. (Most cards have also abilities that do not need 88-Z.)

For example the bottom ability of Infrared Scanners looks really good to me (after playing with Prepare the Ambush), even if the rebels keep taking out 88-Z and you cannot benefit from the top ability. (Combined with Motivators from Jawa Scavenger your droids can really get around the map quickly...)

Blaster Emplacements and Mechanical Protocol work well with any droids to make their attacks more consistent (accuracy and +1 damage). You might keep rolling only the surge sides on the yellow die for the primary ability of Blaster Emplacements though...

Those three cards total 6XP, so you can either go for one of the 4XP cards and potentially Shielded , or Electromagnetic Disruptors and either Shielded or Remote Activator , depending on your final amount of XP. So, at the end you can choose to make 88-Z a real threat the rebels need to keep taking out -- and with all the extra movement can make it hard for the rebels to do that efficiently.

Playing a full campaign with the deck might change how I value the cards.

20 minutes ago, machfalcon said:

Looking at the Reactive Defenses deck, I'm having some difficulty figuring out a good build order. For those who have played a bit with this deck, any thoughts on each of the cards and a possible build order?

Also, my biggest concern with this deck is the heavy reliance on 88-Z. It seems like the Rebels could effectively nullify the deck by removing 88-Z in the first activation of a round via indirect damage (Blast, Cleave, Demolish, Snap Kick, etc.) or using one of the new items with minus Dodge (Focusing Beam or the A-12). Is using one of their activations to remove 88-Z enough of a deterrence for the Rebels?

@ricope , myself, and a few others discussed that here:

It basically boiled down to your question though. Is it worth spending the Rebels first activation every round to get something off the board when you know it’s coming right back on it’s next chance?

I would also try to get blaise if they keep taking down 88z so you could deploy him mid round XD

I have started a new JR campaign using the Reactive Defenses deck. The title is misleading tho because imo the best parts of the deck have to do with supporting your teams offense, although I really want to see how effective the shields are.

I think it definitely has potential, although it was absolutely awful for the first 2 missions. I think you have be judical when you choose this class, and not pick it when there is a hero that can hard counter it (like Shyla).

And if they come into ways to attacking the droid, you will just have to play around it as best you can.

Definitely not a good pick for newer imp players.

On 10/26/2017 at 1:41 PM, Deadwolf said:

The title is misleading tho because imo the best parts of the deck have to do with supporting your teams offense, although I really want to see how effective the shields are.

Yeah, I had a similar takeaway looking through the deck. Initially I thought it might be neat to try to build around Infrared Scanners to generate up to three threat per round but getting Remote Activator and Overclock just to trigger the Infrared Scanners ability is a 9xp investment for only up to three threat per round. Might as well run Black Ops with Strategic Redeployment and a hidden/focused/surge tokened probe droid, at least that's only 3xp (obviously not the exact same but similar impact).

Having played Inspiring Leadership with Optimal Tactics , I can certainly appreciate the +1 damage bonus of Targeting Sensors . The "within 2 spaces" requirement of Targeting Sensors might be a bit of work to pull off for every attack but I suppose the added accuracy helps.

Depending on the Imperial figures on the board, Mechanical Protocol seems like one of 88-z's better abilities especially at only 2xp. Gaining up to 2 surge tokens before activating a group could really help pump up the damage. Both Riot Troopers and Sentry Droids can greatly benefit from the bonus surge. Combined with Remote Activator , it would be possible to gain up to 4 surge tokens per round. Also, the bottom half of Remote Activator could help in re-positioning 88-z for distributing surge tokens and getting 88-z in range for Targeting Sensors to apply.

Thinking a more offensively focused build might include: Mechanical Protocol , Targeting Sensors , Remote Activator and then fill with both the 1xp cards. Not sure how I would change it up if I ended up gaining 11xp instead of 10xp.

I had E. Probe droids w/ surge tokens from Mechanical Protocol and Firepower Upgrade agenda card (Droids can use surge abilities twice).

Suffice it to say, it was super nasty.

What about Power of the Dark Side? Does anyone have tried it?

On 10/29/2017 at 8:57 AM, Eyfrosyne said:

What about Power of the Dark Side? Does anyone have tried it?

I'm playing PODS in the HOTE campaign my group just started this week. I was planning on giving Reactive Defenses a try but when my rebels picked all A and S tier heroes (Gideon, Mak, Verena, Drokatta), I went with a deck that I am more confident in how it will play. With all ranged heroes, I did also briefly consider going with Imperial Black Ops (which would have probably been a frustrating deck for the Rebels to play against) but I really wanted to play one of the new decks so decided against that.

Not entirely sure of my build order but I did pick up Dark Resurgence figuring it will come in handy against Verena. It did increase my chances in the first side mission that we played in helping keep a figure on the board which helped me win the mission.

With 2xp going into the first Story Mission, I'm debating between getting Supernatural Vigor or saving for Unnatural Abilities or The Power of Passion .

Power of the Darkside was a solid class deck. I really liked the mix the Defense and Offense.

I went with Power of Passion for offense and then Unnatural Abities, Dark Resurgence, and Supernatural Vigor for defense.

I really liked playing Unnatural Abilities on Tank/AT-DP.

1 hour ago, Deadwolf said:

Power of the Darkside was a solid class deck. I really liked the mix the Defense and Offense.

I went with Power of Passion for offense and then Unnatural Abities, Dark Resurgence, and Supernatural Vigor for defense.

I really liked playing Unnatural Abilities on Tank/AT-DP.

Did you feel like the Damage Power Tokens from the 0XP card and Unnatural Abilities were enough to make Power of Passion worthwhile? Or did you get them from other sources (besides Maul and the Emperor, who I assume show up in the campaign)?

7 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Did you feel like the Damage Power Tokens from the 0XP card and Unnatural Abilities were enough to make Power of Passion worthwhile? Or did you get them from other sources (besides Maul and the Emperor, who I assume show up in the campaign)?

I was mostly just getting tokens from the 0xp skill. There was some value especially with certain units, but yeah, the value wasnt as strong as some other 4xp skis in other decks.

I also took power of passion and I got my tokens from the 0 xp and unnatural abilities. Its definately a good card, and definately worth 4 xp, but I'm at the later stages of the game and the rebels just got kitted out, I wish I had the other 4 xp.

I think Embrace Suffering has potential, but I am not a huge fan of it in HotE campaign, when the rebels will probably only have 1 tier 3 weapon.

On October 30, 2017 at 1:28 PM, Deadwolf said:

Power of the Darkside was a solid class deck. I really liked the mix the Defense and Offense.

I went with Power of Passion for offense and then Unnatural Abities, Dark Resurgence, and Supernatural Vigor for defense.

I really liked playing Unnatural Abilities on Tank/AT-DP.

Thoughts on Supernatural Vigor vs Embrace Anger? Very different ways to go, obviously. I sort of feel like Supernatural Vigor is a bit weak for 2xp. Embrace Anger has a ton of offensive potential but wonder if taking so much extra damage will work against me. Maybe a good card to not use in early rounds but then use later when the Rebels are becoming pressed for time.

I think Embrace Anger is fine and i think it does have a higher potential than supernatural vigor.

It is best used on units that will likely be oneshot anyway or on units with enough health that can take the damage and still not be one shot. I think this could work well in the mid game, when 3-4 hp units are pretty much guaranteed to die, damage or not.

I have a related question: what do you regard as the weakest decks?

We are going to play the Core campaign with some new players. And as it seems to be the campaign that is rather favourable towards the Empire, we thought it would be good if we get the players the best heroes and equip the Empire player with a not-so-strong or at least a bit below average class deck, to balance things out a bit and to keep it fun and challenging for both sides.

Precision Training, perhaps? Or Inspiring Leadership?

I rate those as my two lowest decks, yes. I would take precision over uninspiring leadership all day. You can do cool stuff with it, but I find it to be fairly weak.

10 hours ago, Findariel said:

I have a related question: what do you regard as the weakest decks?

We are going to play the Core campaign with some new players. And as it seems to be the campaign that is rather favourable towards the Empire, we thought it would be good if we get the players the best heroes and equip the Empire player with a not-so-strong or at least a bit below average class deck, to balance things out a bit and to keep it fun and challenging for both sides.

Precision Training, perhaps? Or Inspiring Leadership?

Nemeses is a strong deck, but its power depends a lot on the villains you select. So if you take Nemeses, you can balance it for your Rebel group by taking weaker or stronger villains.

9 hours ago, MadFuhrer said:

I rate those as my two lowest decks, yes. I would take precision over uninspiring leadership all day. You can do cool stuff with it, but I find it to be fairly weak.

I find Precision Training to be a boring deck. A lot of the good cards are passive buffs or situationally useful.

In my experience, Inspiring Leadership is much more fun because of some neat tricks you can pull off. It certainly doesn't start off very strong (the starting card is possibly the weakest) and the deck doesn't really have any good defensive cards but the offensive power of the deck can be pretty strong mid to late game. I would argue that Strategic Planning is one of the best 2xp cards in any of the Imperial class decks. Also, with Field General + Lead by Example you can attack up to five times per round with a three figure trooper group - and we all know that rolling dice while attacking is always fun

Yes My apologies, I meant that inspiring leadership can be pretty fun. You are correct on precision.

Precision Training can become accidental super hard mode if you take the universal pierce 1 ability.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Precision Training can become accidental super hard mode if you take the universal pierce 1 ability.

That was my initial thought too: Whoever says Precision Training is weak should try playing again with "Find the Weakness" (4xp, universal pierce 1)

but yeah the rest of the deck are meh, Pinpoint Accuracy and KoA is okay, the rest are not impressive at all