So I am a bit bored in the air port today with some time to kill thought I would start up another thread for some discussion involving deplete agenda cards. I combed through board wars and I think I got all of them up to Jabba's Realm, please excuse my punctuation and abbreviated descriptions since I am on my iPad it makes things a little difficult

High Value Target- Could be pretty useful. Can't ever turn down threat

Fire At Will- Seems okay. Could be pretty brutal if used with a Trooper leader, like Somos or Terro

Restorative Supplies- I'll take that for Vader, thanks

Internal Affairs- Not bad. Officers can be hands- plus, they're cheap, and this one doesn't take up an open group

Weaknesses revealed- I really like this one. Helps in those instances where there's one pesky, elusive hero left

Data Security- Also good. Could be a nice "trap" card when a lone hero is performing a test they're already not likely to succeed.

Personal Shield Generator- Not terrible. +3 block seems kinda underwhelming for a deplete, but I guess it'd be horribly overwhelming as an exhaust

Unchained- Might seem underwhelming, but that extra move isn't bad. Creatures tend to typically have melee attacks, so closing in a little is a very good thing.

No Disintegrations- Again, doing whatever you can to increase threat is a good thing

Final Blast- I like the flavor of this card, and it's nice having an ability that guarantees a figure will attack. Too often, Imperials bring in cool baddies who get shot to death before they can even have an activation

Grevious Wound- This one is actually kind of hilarious. It's also good, because clearly your enemies are worries about damage/stress if they're resting. To go ahead and put half a rest's worth of stress/damage back on them is horribly disheartening. Gotta love it.

Beaten Down- Once again, a really disheartening one. I honestly would feel kind of bad playing it. I guess with the right group it'd be okay.

Armored Division- This one's pretty situational, but it has its uses. A 7 threat SCM tank isn't bad. A 1 threat Jet trooper group might be even better. Or, best of all, throw in Endless Ranks from the Military Might deck, reduce it further by one, and deploy a Jet trooper group for free.

I have found that High Value Target to be extremely.. well, valuable. It wasn't a rare occurence that I would wound a hero in the first round, and getting something like 8 or 10 threat to spend at the end of round 1 instead of 4-5 cna really create a chain of events that becomes overwhelming for the rebels.

I have also found Beaten Down to be very potent. You are sometimes 1 or 2 hp short of wounding a rebel, bam, there you go. End of the round, you become wounded. Disgusting vs allies.

I think a lot depends on what you're playing. For example, if you're doing Armored Onslaught, you have class cards to help out vehicles. So getting Armor Division helps you get your stuff faster, and Restorative Supplies can help keep your high health vehicles alive (unless you went all jets). OTOH, military might probably doesn't want either of those all that much. Unchained seems like it could be good on Hoth, since you often get Wampas automatically, and if you replace them after death the extra move will come in handy. But Nexu might not need the card to help get into position.

Not a deplete card, but don't discount single-use cards. When using Imperial Informants from Agents of the Empire at the right time, that 1 influence will allow you to win more influence or XP which you can spend for the deplete cards.

I think I've purchased High Value target every campaign I've played, it's just too useful. More threat always helps, whether to bring in bigger or more.

I loved restorative supplies with armored onslaught and plan to buy this again in my current campaign playing the nemeses deck. It's a likely recover 4 for someone important.

armored division was a must when playing the armored onslaught class deck! Tanks for 7, AT's for 11 or 12. What's not to like.

I think personal sheild generators is actually pretty good. It's better than adding a black die to a defense pool once per mission. It rivals restorative supplies because RS is only useful if your villain/vehicle make it to the end of the round. Plus, that added block might be enough to avoid a stun if you see one coming.

in general, there is so much benefit to the deplete agenda cards that I have trouble buying the single use stuff. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the good deplete cards came with the core box. Maybe we'll see another good one in HotE?

I think design has moved away from deplete cards now for that exact reason.

theyre too powerful, and will be used very sparingly (if at all) from now on.

the main issue plaguing agenda sets are that the mission based ones are simply never worth the cost.

2 hours ago, Majushi said:

I think design has moved away from deplete cards now for that exact reason.

theyre too powerful, and will be used very sparingly (if at all) from now on.

the main issue plaguing agenda sets are that the mission based ones are simply never worth the cost.

I don't know if I buy the logic. There's already more than a dozen deplete cards in the meta. So adding new equally powerful deplete cards wouldn't change that. But it might give you some equally good options and therefore add variety. I know that I have about 100 agenda cards and always seem to buy some of the same ones. If future agenda sets remain inferior, then they'll just gather dust...for the most part.

I think the JR rule change to limit the number of agenda cards that the IP can have is a better way to limit the power of the agenda deck.

As far as the purchased missions, it probably depends a bit. Winning more villains is great when playing Nemeses. It helps that newer villains have been better costed. Also, The Imperial Industry reward card seems worth it too.

In my second go around as Imperials my group and I bought a bunch of new packs so I spent a good amount of time analyzing which Agenda sets I wanted to pick. Just comparing the threat-generating ones, I was really disappointed with No Disintegrations. With the addition of Jet Troopers as vehicles, Armored Division is no longer for Imperials going for tanks and AT-STs. 4 threat elite Jet Troopers are extremely strong and easy to deploy all campaign long. High Value Target scales with the threat level, and in a 4 Rebel campaign wounding a hero usually isn't difficult.

So all that being said, No Disintegration can almost always be achieved on round 1 so it's easier to do, but it also loses damage (and could be wasted with a miss), but it gives less threat that never scales. I think it really should increase threat by the threat level and they would be pretty comparable.

I've been loving Final Blast in Jabba's Realm, I've had a Rancor wound someone with it twice so far in the campaign so far.

I agree, agenda cards seem to need some fixes. High-Value Target is such a must pick that the core rules might as well say: "The first time a hero is defeated, increase threat by the threat level." There is literally no reason not to buy that card for 2 influence. It *might* be balanced at 3 or 4 influence.

This may seem crazy, but... Don't always play the same sets?

Change it up a little...

3 minutes ago, Majushi said:

This may seem crazy, but... Don't always play the same sets?

Change it up a little...

I get it. But I'd also like to see some new good agenda cards in the upcoming releases that might make it easier to do so.

If I was playing weaker rebels, I'd probably just avoid some of these and just purchase agenda cards based on flavor. But often, I find myself needing to pull out the stops.

High-Value Target is crazy good, that's a fact, but like Kazoo said, limiting the total number nicely limits the deplete cards' power. They are definitely still the best value for your influence if you can get them during the early missions, but you will probably want to replace them with something else for the late missions. This also means that they lose some value mid-campaign, as it might not be worth buying them if you will only use them in 2-3 missions.

On 7/3/2017 at 0:38 AM, Majushi said:

This may seem crazy, but... Don't always play the same sets?

Change it up a little...

That's easy to say, but -

1. As the Imperial, it's not much fun to just "change it up" knowing that you're handicapping yourself, especially if the Rebels aren't pulling any punches. I enjoy trying new things and different combinations, I just want to have legitimate options. I don't want either side to be forced to deliberately make sub-optimal decisions just so that everyone can have a good time.

2. As the Rebels, it's not up to you which agenda sets to bring. You have to have some agreement with the Imperial player that they'll take different (and clearly weaker) sets. And they might not agree to do that.

5 hours ago, Stompburger said:

That's easy to say, but -

1. As the Imperial, it's not much fun to just "change it up" knowing that you're handicapping yourself, especially if the Rebels aren't pulling any punches. I enjoy trying new things and different combinations, I just want to have legitimate options. I don't want either side to be forced to deliberately make sub-optimal decisions just so that everyone can have a good time.

2. As the Rebels, it's not up to you which agenda sets to bring. You have to have some agreement with the Imperial player that they'll take different (and clearly weaker) sets. And they might not agree to do that.

1. Well yeah, sure. You play to your group. If your Rebels are well organised, strategic players then play more optimally. If not, then change it up. But if you always grab the same 6 sets they're gonna get tired of seeing the same depletes, and same one use agenda cards. Just as you would become tired of seeing Fenn/Gideon/Mak/Diala

2. You're right it's not up to the Rebels, but in the end there are a number of players who want to enjoy the game. Regardless if they're the rebels or the imperial. The players as a whole need to be on the same page as to how competitive the game will be, and hopefully the choices made will reflect that.

Here's the deal with being the Empire-

If you're constantly squashing your Rebels, you really have 3 options:

1) Continue to squash them without addressing the issue at all. (Not a lot of fun for anyone involved, ususally)

2) Play sub-optimally during missions (But then, if you're playing god, why even play the game at all?)

3) "Handicap" yourself by not necessarily choosing the most min/maxed builds possible in between missions.

Personally, I like option #3 the best, because I think it allows for the most fun experience while still allowing the Imperial player to be competitive during missions without necessarily decimating the Rebels every game.

For example- it may not be an optimal choice to choose Vader's side mission over a strong deplete Agenda card... but if your Rebel players are relatively new, you'll find having Vader even just once will be both more terrifying for them and more fun than a rather invisible game effect that just makes things harder for them.

That's why the game has various classes. Lots of people consider ST and Hutt Mercs to be the strongest decks (though that's certainly up for debate) but that doesn't mean Imperials should always go with them.

Like Majushi said- feel out your players. If they're super competitive and experienced, go all out. Otherwise, maybe instead of considering your class deck as "How am I going to beat my Rebels?", consider it more as "What difficulty level should I set for this campaign?"

I love your post, subtrendy, and I'll point out that the same goes for rebels who are dominating the game, too. Try out some different items, or some different XP builds, etc. It may not be the "optimal" move, but it can be a fun way to balance things (and you can also find some XP skills that surprise you!).

I'll also mention that I agree with Stompburger too, it's just coming at it from a different direction (i.e. a group where the empire isn't dominant).

14 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

I love your post, subtrendy, and I'll point out that the same goes for rebels who are dominating the game, too. Try out some different items, or some different XP builds, etc. It may not be the "optimal" move, but it can be a fun way to balance things (and you can also find some XP skills that surprise you!).

I'll also mention that I agree with Stompburger too, it's just coming at it from a different direction (i.e. a group where the empire isn't dominant).

Oh, absolutely. I definitely try to use a different class deck for each campaign, and while I don't have a hard rule for them, I do encourage my Rebels to try new heroes as well.

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

Oh, absolutely. I definitely try to use a different class deck for each campaign, and while I don't have a hard rule for them, I do encourage my Rebels to try new heroes as well.

I definitely agree with changing things up. I've played with a new IP class deck each campaign also. The nice thing is that each class deck has it's own strengths and personalities, so several choices are quite viable. Each new class deck is fun to try out and I'm always excited to give them a whirl. Same with rebel Heros. My main concern with agenda cards is that the best ones came out some time ago and so that part of the game is a little more stagnate. Of course, this isn't a problem if you are playing against inexperienced rebels in which case you can kind of add-to-flavor. But I'm just hoping we see some more fun and somewhat effective (deplete) agenda cards in future expansions. After all, my rebels make me work hard for my influence:)