Hey guys!

Had my eye on Imperial Assault for AGES, have had a lot of fun running Heroes of the Aturi Cluster for my friends.

Going to run an Imperial Assault campaign, right after we do the Corellian Conflict in Armada.

Defs going to start with the core set, (so much value in that core set, wow!) but I wanted to ask the experienced folk on here; are there any other packs I should grab for running a campaign?

Do all the packs come with ways to run particular heroes in the campaign? I.e, I could say to my friends "go and get a rebel pack which has a hero you like the look of, want to play as". Giving them a bit of ownership I find to be a powerful motivator.

Any popular/fun house rules I should know about?

Pitfalls to avoid?

Thank ye!

If you're going campaign, those ally/villain packs mainly offers you is a side mission for the opportunity to bring them in + the physical miniature (Core only have paper tokens for them). I don't think it's worth it

Big/small boxed expansions though are totally worth it

popular houserules:

- if one side loses 2 story mission in a row, give that side 1 mission worth of reward (to prevent xp+credit/influence snowballing)

-(!!!) don't play Subversive Tactics as Imperial for your 1st campaign - ST focuses on inflicting strains which means Rebel heroes don't get to use their juicy abilities (a huge turnoff for new players), I recommend Military Might (it's got a Trooper theme)

- always play with 4 Rebel heroes no matter actual player count, otherwise some missions tend to be swingy (impossible to wound <-> huge map and not enough Rebels running)

extra & pitfalls:

- (!!!) 2 of the most commonly-forgotten rule: Rebel heroes (not allies) can spend 1 surge while attacking to recover 1 strain, recover 1 dmg if no strain; Rebel heroes can voluntarily suffer 1 strain to gain 1 movement point, limit twice. A lot of times these 2 WILL be the difference between winning & losing

- (!!!) threat = the current number on that red dial. threat level = a fixed number, see your campaign log. New Imperial players tend to always confuse these 2 (ex. Mission says "door have twice the threat level", Imperial player thinks "Oh I'll stop bringing in troops then" and making a 30HP door when it's actually supposed to be 6HP)

- go to BGG forum for a list of common mistakes. For example, AT-ST is Massive so it can't go indoor in campaign, but it doesn't care about that restriction in skirmish

Hello!

First of all, concerning expansions, there are no hero packs. New heroes come in expansion boxes like Twin Shadows. That one and Bespin Gambit both have 2 heroes and Return to Hoth has 3, but the latter is more expensive. However, all these expansion boxes gives new missions, map tiles and new imperial figures, so they are definitely worth it if you can spare it. The core heroes are pretty interesting by themselves, so I don't think there's a need to buy any expansion right away. If you were, I'd suggest Hoth, it has the best value with a full campaign.

For rebels, you do get Ally packs (instead of heroes), which allow the rebels to get a mission to be able to maybe summon cool allies (like Obi-Wan, Leia or Luke for example) on some missions. For running a campaign, there are a few villain packs that I think are good and cool. Dengar has a strong agenda set and Dengar himself is very good in campaign (but sucks in skirmish), plus he is awesome and you can just act some battlefront quotes ("You're gonna take a dirt nap!"). The downside is that you'd need Return to Hoth tiles to do his side mission. For a cool factor, the Inquisitor is definitely up there and the figure is quite strong also, preying on both black and white dice with pierce and deadly. And he is just so badass. My favorite is the Hired Gun pack, which are amazing figures at all stage of the game that are incredibly annoying for rebels to deal with, but don't feel overwhelmingly powerful. They might even laugh at them when they fail to get enough range on their attack.

I don't really have house rules, but some could come up in future games when we are more experienced and have played more campaigns. Something like having more mission choices for side missions (so you don't see the same every time for each campaign). Also giving the rebels the ally rewards automatically, but making them work for the xp/credits instead (basically switching the rewards and additional rewards for ally missions). This might make it more interesting for them, especially if they buy ally packs and would really like to play with Obi-Wan for example. This can be dangerous though, because missing out on xp and credits could be costly.

A house rule I have for new players is that I allow them to change their hero after a mission or two (but not beyond) if they don't like the playstyle. It hasn't happened yet, but I leave the possibility open.

Pitfall to avoid is not having fun. It is easy for the rebels to lose a mission on a particularly unforgiving trigger. For example, my rebels did something as the last activation of the turn, which made me deploy a very powerful unit which attacked 4 times at the end of the round and basically made them lose. Take appropriate measures so the game doesn't feel disheartening after a loss (make jokes and sympathize that the game is unforgiving and stupid at times). Also, if your group is a wee bit competitive, give yourself a few minutes to read the missions and triggers beforehand, so you know how to plan accordingly and know what groups to bring to missions.

Finally, be sure you understand the rules properly and how threat works. You have a biggerer responsibility as the imperial player to know the rules and apply them, especially since you're the only player with access to hidden information, and it's not fun for rebels to play a broken and impossible mission because of misunderstood rules or briefing.

Make sure your rebels understand that they can get up to 2 movement points for 1 strain each (so basically moving without taking an action), and they can recover a strain for a surge while attacking. If they don't use this, I guarantee you they will get destroyed and it's only mentionned briefly in the rulebook.

Most importantly, have fun!

Thank you ricope and ineversmile1789, very much appreciate you taking the time to impart your wisdom

I'm definitely taking all this under my belt.

I think I may enjoy being the BBEG a little too much - this is going to be good!

See the Common mistakes thread.

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

^{Try to remember to focus on enjoying the content, and not so much competing against your friends. After a streak of losing, on either end, can halt a campaign in its tracks if the focus is about 'winning'.}

^{Make enjoying the content and each others company the focus.}

^{Good luck and have a ball.}

Holy cow! Really? That's cool. I totally missed that in the rules.

I agree with all those who said make sure to have fun. The Campaign can be pretty punishing at times - the missions are long and can be quite punishing if you get bad dice rolls, use a poor strategy in the early turns, or just have a group of heroes (or open groups) that doesn't deal well with the mission objectives. So expect that some missions are going to be quite hard for one side or the other!

I also agree with the houserules against snowballing (I think the devs have seen that as an issue too based on their statements about future expansions). It's pretty discouraging to add injury to insult when you lose a mission and then the other side gets a boost to help them win *more*.

Don't let the Rebels run Gideon and don't let the Imperial run Subversive Tactics.

It will be a lot more fun for everyone that way.

Another house rule, cap Imperial hand size for its agendas, etc. An Imperial player can horde their cards until final mission and unleash them all on one mission making it impossible for rebels to win. I've seen 4 as a good max.

Another house rule, cap Imperial hand size for its agendas, etc. An Imperial player can horde their cards until final mission and unleash them all on one mission making it impossible for rebels to win. I've seen 4 as a good max.

just for those "keep secret" ones, open information agenda cards are fair game

Another house rule, cap Imperial hand size for its agendas, etc. An Imperial player can horde their cards until final mission and unleash them all on one mission making it impossible for rebels to win. I've seen 4 as a good max.

just for those "keep secret" ones, open information agenda cards are fair game

Or you can just limit how many of the secret ones they can use per game. That way, if they really want to, they can save up a bunch to give themselves more options, but they'll be wasting their influence if they don't use them before the last mission.

are there any other packs I should grab for running a campaign?

We have this site http://avpacks.boardwars.eu/ where all packs are listed with the contents and what can be used how in the campaign.

All Wave 1 figures make an apperance in the core box campaign. If you don't have the packs, you will have to use the cardboard tokens for them instead of the models. It's no big deal really. Other than that, I can recommend the Hired Guns. You don't need any other box expansion to play them and they are very versatile and fun to fill out your deployments.

This is really helpful, cheers guys, just picked it up myself so this will help a lot. (Currently slaving away painting everything before start, gutted most extra campaign figs are currently out of stock/print though, paper tokens...yuk