So, I just completed a solo Jabba's Realm campaign and I will just come out and say that the Hutt mercenaries class deck is the strongest class deck released and not by a particularly small margin. Now, the Jabba's Realm by itself is fairly challenging (at least the path I chose), but it was clear that the class deck was extremely powerful and was very noticeable in the side missions that I have played before.

At the end of the campaign, I had: Wanted: Dead (1-2 dmg), Most Wanted (3 dmg), Vendetta (reroll - usually nets you 1 dmg), Nowhere to Hide (blue die:1-2 on average), Nowhere to Run (2 dmg if target has 3+ strain), & Savage Motivation (0-2 dmg). The problem isn't so much the damage itself, but the fact that you can exhaust all of these cards in a single attack for an unprecedented level of burst damage. Pretty much any full strength activation has the power to wound a completely healthy hero. This made the imperials very hard to deal with and hard to mitigate with resting.

Now, the Hutt Mercenaries deck has two weaknesses.

- The deck has very little defence, however the imperial only needs a single attack to use most of its cards, so the weakness is a minor one because it is extremely difficult to avoid getting attacked at least once in a round (especially if the imp. player is using Hired Guns). Jabba's Realm campaign further mitigates this weakness by there being an overall high number of reserved units, very often the imp player will just get free units at the end of the first or second round.

- The biggest weakness of the deck is the fact that its cards only provide benefit against healthy heroes, and nothing vs objects, allies, and wounded heroes. This means that it loses a lot of effectiveness if wounding all heroes is not a win condition. The Hoth campaign was notable for not having very many missions with the wounding win condition, but Jabba's Realm only has 1.5 missions that DON'T have the wounding win condition.

Is it broken?

In the Jabba's Realm campaign especially, it is definitely overpowered, as in, the imperial player is much stronger than he/she should be in order to provide a balanced campaign. But I don't think it is broken in terms of being unbeatable. An experienced group of rebels with strong heroes with the knowledge of how to play against and how to equip against this deck should be able to take it down but a casual group is going to start losing A LOT after the first couple missions (For me, I won the first 2, then the first story mission I chose was very imp. favoured, then the imp player got Most Wanted and then started winning a lot). It will be a very negative play experience for them.

So yeah, it is a shame. I highly recommend avoiding this deck unless you have a strong group of competitive players who are up for a challenge.

a casual group is going to start losing A LOT after the first couple missions (For me, I won the first 2, then the first story mission I chose was very imp. favoured, then the imp player got Most Wanted and then started winning a lot). It will be a very negative play experience for them.

I have to disagree with you on the casual group part, this means you pretty much won 3 missions in a row which means Rebels should have got a kicker bonus (houserule recommended by dev to stop snowball). It seems you might have ignored everything else (which was reasonable since you were playing "me vs. me solo") and the snowball just kept on rolling

Great analysis though, would you compare this deck (HM) to Sub Tac (ST) deck? Looks like both focuses on annoying players + ridiculous firepower outburst, but does not offer protection/increase survivability of Imperial troops

Probably not for a total newbie, but any semi-experienced player should know the balance of power tilts dramatically once one side gets 4xp cards. I'm still doubtful you'd get the same result had you played with other actual humans

a casual group is going to start losing A LOT after the first couple missions (For me, I won the first 2, then the first story mission I chose was very imp. favoured, then the imp player got Most Wanted and then started winning a lot). It will be a very negative play experience for them.

I have to disagree with you on the casual group part, this means you pretty much won 3 missions in a row which means Rebels should have got a kicker bonus (houserule recommended by dev to stop snowball). It seems you might have ignored everything else (which was reasonable since you were playing "me vs. me solo") and the snowball just kept on rolling

Great analysis though, would you compare this deck (HM) to Sub Tac (ST) deck? Looks like both focuses on annoying players + ridiculous firepower outburst, but does not offer protection/increase survivability of Imperial troops

Probably not for a total newbie, but any semi-experienced player should know the balance of power tilts dramatically once one side gets 4xp cards. I'm still doubtful you'd get the same result had you played with other actual humans

Playing Solo gives a slight advantage to the rebels if anything, but I do play as objectively as I can (I play a lot with humans too).

Both the intro (which gives xp for winning) and the interlude were very rebel favoured, and I squeezed out a very narrow win in the final story mission, so it was 13 xp to 13 xp going into the final mission (The story mission rewards are different than prior campaigns). Imperials won 7-4 overall tho. As I said, the rebels won the first 2, and then first story mission I played is ridiculously imp favored such that the deck wouldn't have mattered. After that tho, the Hutt deck got ridiculous. Like I said, it is possible to win, you have to focus on additional health and doing what you can to not get wounded, but possible doesn't mean balanced.

The deck compares best to Precision Training, in that they are all offense, but the burst potential of this deck doesn't really compare to anything. I have played with (or against) every imperial class deck, and this is significantly beyond any of them.

You realize most of that damage only works against targets with bounty tokens? So in any mission where not every single Rebel has bounty tokens, which will be most of them, most of your cards will be basically useless against those Rebels until you can wound out anyone with a bounty token, and you only get 1 attack per round that ignores other figures for targeting.

I'd say the deck is a bit problematic because it's a "win more" deck, it works much better with some victory conditions than others, it would be much more effective against 2 heroes rather than 4, and because state carries over you benefit from going into the final mission with 4 tokens out much more than 1 or 2.

You realize most of that damage only works against targets with bounty tokens? So in any mission where not every single Rebel has bounty tokens, which will be most of them, most of your cards will be basically useless against those Rebels until you can wound out anyone with a bounty token, and you only get 1 attack per round that ignores other figures for targeting.

I'd say the deck is a bit problematic because it's a "win more" deck, it works much better with some victory conditions than others, it would be much more effective against 2 heroes rather than 4, and because state carries over you benefit from going into the final mission with 4 tokens out much more than 1 or 2.

Actually not quite, the starting/free card for HM deck (already spoiled here) states that all Rebel heroes take a bounty token before starting a mission, and is only discarded when they're wounded. So no in every mission every single Rebel hero will have a bounty token to start with

You realize most of that damage only works against targets with bounty tokens? So in any mission where not every single Rebel has bounty tokens, which will be most of them, most of your cards will be basically useless against those Rebels until you can wound out anyone with a bounty token, and you only get 1 attack per round that ignores other figures for targeting.

I'd say the deck is a bit problematic because it's a "win more" deck, it works much better with some victory conditions than others, it would be much more effective against 2 heroes rather than 4, and because state carries over you benefit from going into the final mission with 4 tokens out much more than 1 or 2.

Actually not quite, the starting/free card for HM deck (already spoiled here) states that all Rebel heroes take a bounty token before starting a mission, and is only discarded when they're wounded. So no in every mission every single Rebel hero will have a bounty token to start with

Nowhere on the card does it say they get the tokens at the start of a mission.

It works how I said previously. Characters receive tokens at the start of a campaign, and then only get them back once no characters has a token left. It is entirely possible that after the first mission only 1 character will have a token on it and 3 won't, and if that character never gets defeated (usually wounded) for the rest of the campaign, those 3 without tokens will continue to not have tokens and most of those cards won't work on them or work as well. Once the last character with a token gets defeated, all 4 characters immediately get tokens again.

It's also usually the rebels that hate narrow corridor maps and the imperials that like it, but with this deck it can be the reverse.

hmm, well ****.

Okay, I was playing it wrong. Treats me right for skimming the rule book.

It does change things a bit, as it forces the imperial player to focus on specific heroes and can't just pick on whoever moves first.

But honestly, beyond the first round, I don't think it changes a whole lot as the insane burst damage is still there and as I said, the imperials get a lot of units and it is be very difficult to shield your bounty heroes from all enemies.

fyi, the wording on Wanted:Dead would re-trigger if you wound all the Rebels.

So, if the mission failure is not triggered by wounding all heroes, they would regain the Bounty tokens once they've all discarded them...

edit; beaten to it. also, the bounty state is maintained between missions (which I didn't realise either...)

Yeah, the burst damage is kind of crazy. The balance really is in wounding the heroes. It's actually a huge hit to the deck to wound heroes, because it turns off all their cards. So unless you're regularly wounding *all* the heroes, sometimes you won't be able to do what you want to do. And while the burst damage obviously helps with that, there are times it's going to cost you - wound a hero, or let his buddy win the mission? Then there's those cases where the Imperial player doesn't want to wound a hero because it'll remove the token (e.g. they are already going to lose, it's better in the long term to not try and hit a target).

I guess the real question is whether the burst damage and improved targeting is too good at mitigating the deck's weakness.

Except the burst damage isn't all that impressive... Using your cards that is +8-12 damage IF they have a bounty token AND IF they have 3 strain AND IF you can get a unit beside them.

Military Might: Show of Force +0-2, Shock Trooper +surge per attack, Sustained Fire +attack, Combat Vet +1 per attack. With eTrooper you're looking at: +attack, +4-6 wound, +4 surges. Which ends up being around +8-12 wounds or more depending on surges. And you don't have the token limitation, nor target being strained. On top of that Combat Vet also gives +1 block for your squad. On top of THAT Shock Trooper isn't an attachment so it works for EVERYTHING.

Wow I didn't notice the bounty token is maintained between missions either, that changes up quite a bit and probably isn't as OP as originally thought

but still as the Imperial player, even if I lose previous mission I can still concentrate on the heroes that didn't flip during current mission

Agreed with Military Might (my fav deck), ComVet + Shock Trooper or Sustained fire is just nuts. Also "Endless ranks" might be usable again now we got plenty of TROOPERS from expansions

The maintained Bounty Status makes Gaarkhan (especially with Unstoppable) a great hero to use against this deck as the "wound the Wookee last" strategy won't be an option every mission. Of course, Imperial class decks are chosen after hero selection, but I find most Imperial Players make that decision well ahead of time.

The whole point of the deck is to incentivize the imperial player not to focus fire the same player first every single mission. If the wanted tokens refreshed every mission, that's not accomplished. Sucks that you played through an entire campaign wrong. Did you actually set up all the tiles and minis for each mission or use graph paper like I do?

The whole point of the deck is to incentivize the imperial player not to focus fire the same player first every single mission. If the wanted tokens refreshed every mission, that's not accomplished. Sucks that you played through an entire campaign wrong. Did you actually set up all the tiles and minis for each mission or use graph paper like I do?

Yeah, it is a bummer. I will probably start another campaign next week using the class deck again. I am still convinced that it is a super strong class deck (in conjunction with Jabba's Realm campaign anyway) but we will see.

I set up tiles. I have a table where I can keep the game set up.

The deck still looks strong to me. Most Wanted looks powerful, but I like static effects and was interested in Guild Hunters, which also looks good. Might be better if you swarm, looks amazing with probe droids, assassins and probably hired guns.

I'm glad somebody else find this class deck very powerful, I kept thinking we were doing something wrong with the bounty tokens. We're about halfway through a campaign and it's just a negative experience for the Rebel heroes. As you said, it makes wounding a Hero much easier. The Heroes wised up a few missions in and did their best to hide and protect their last hero with a bounty token, but I could basically send a figure or 2 in for a suicide mission, placing the bounties on the heroes all over again.

I don't know what FFG was thinking with this one as just about every mission is a win for the IP if all heroes are wounded. I don't see any way they'll be able to win the last mission if this keeps up. Previous games have at least been close, this one will be a blowout. It'd be nice if we can at least get a warning that certain class decks are easy, moderate, or impossible if they are going to be unbalanced like this.

I'm glad somebody else find this class deck very powerful, I kept thinking we were doing something wrong with the bounty tokens. We're about halfway through a campaign and it's just a negative experience for the Rebel heroes. As you said, it makes wounding a Hero much easier. The Heroes wised up a few missions in and did their best to hide and protect their last hero with a bounty token, but I could basically send a figure or 2 in for a suicide mission, placing the bounties on the heroes all over again.

I don't know what FFG was thinking with this one as just about every mission is a win for the IP if all heroes are wounded. I don't see any way they'll be able to win the last mission if this keeps up. Previous games have at least been close, this one will be a blowout. It'd be nice if we can at least get a warning that certain class decks are easy, moderate, or impossible if they are going to be unbalanced like this.

That would be nice, kind of like the borders of the mythos cards in Eldritch Horror. Nice way to slightly control a campaign's difficulty without causing the Imp player to throw rounds.

I mean, the goal of every class deck is either to wound all the heros or slow them down enough. HC just makes it a neon sign of which players the imp needs to target.

But those targets go down too easily. When you get enough cards, I've shot from across the map with the cheap Dewbacks for massive damage. I love this bounty idea, but maybe there should've been a cost to giving bounties to heroes. I've always struggled with the idea that the last hero with the bounty gets wounded, bounty collected. Now give out bounties all over again, even to the one just collected.

This is really helpful. We're starting Jabba's Palace and the Imp player is thinking Hutt Mercenaries. I've been wavering between Saska (whom I've never played/seen played) and, well, anyone else. Now we will see if Energy Shield can offset HM. Especially on the last Bounty Token hero.

But those targets go down too easily. When you get enough cards, I've shot from across the map with the cheap Dewbacks for massive damage. I love this bounty idea, but maybe there should've been a cost to giving bounties to heroes. I've always struggled with the idea that the last hero with the bounty gets wounded, bounty collected. Now give out bounties all over again, even to the one just collected.

I've shown in this very thread that you do less damage with the deck than with Military Might. It's not overpowered, it's pretty much on par with other decks, and probably one of the weakest.

The military might burst damage comes in the form of a green die and an extra attack. Most Troopers only have 1 damage surge so the extra surge from shock troopers is fairly weak and limits the effectiveness of a green die (tho you dont have to use the green die on a trooper). The extra attack from sustained fire does 2-4 dmg after defense? Obviously depends on who you use it on but the figures you generally would use the card on do about that much. You mentioned Eweb Troopers, which are amazing for burst damage in general, but I dont know about you, but almost every eweb I have ever dropped, gets killed immediately.

Combat Veterans is extra damage but not burst damage, Rebels can avoid the damage by killing the unit first, not something that is easily done with the merc cards.

So really, the burst potential of military might is only on par with the minimum potential of Hutt mercenaries. Are the cards situational? Yes but is it hard to attack a hero with a bounty token? Not really. Is it hard to get adjacent to a hero? Again, not really. Hero with 3+ strain? Not so easy to proc in the first couple rounds but beyond that, it isnt particularly difficult but it depends on the heroes obviously.

I have played full campaigns with both. Military might is a great balance of both offense and defence, but it does not beat Hutt mercs for damage.

So really, the burst potential of military might is only on par with the minimum potential of Hutt mercenaries.

No, the burst on Military Might is generally going to be better on an eTrooper squad than Hutt Mercenaries will be, and you don't have anywhere near as many limitations. Your card combo is also 13 XP, while the MM one I mentioned is only 10. On top of that the overall damage on MM will be even better as everything benefits from Shock Trooper, elite snow and heavy troopers become really dangerous for instance, and the fact that it has defensive benefits too means more units will stay alive to do even more damage.

Yes, HM is nasty burst damage and you should generally be able to defeat a character each turn, but you can generally do that with MM as well, but you have more choice as to which one and units stay on the board longer too.

We have played through 10/11 missions of the Jabba campaign now with Guild Hunters. We are playing Murne, Shyla, Vinto and Diala, so a pretty strong hero party. We have won most missions, but the Guild Hunter card has caused us a lot of headache, as has the Cheap Shot card. Hired Guns with these prove to be extremely painful to take out. Murne's double agent helps mitigate this somewhat, but playing against auto-surging elite Gammoreans and the aforementioned Hired Guns with auto-surges from hidden and excellent surge abilities is no cakewalk. I don't know if Hutt Mercenaries is stronger than other decks, but it does put out a lot of damage.

I admit I'm only two missions into the Jabba campaign so far, but if the Hutt Mercenaries deck gets OP later I can't wait to see it because so far it sucks.

First mission, five turns, total of +5 damage (total Hero health: 54). Second (side) mission, over in four turns, total of +3 damage (because on one turn I wasn't able to attack a Hero who still had a Bounty Token). In the next mission we play, only one Hero still has a Bounty Token so I'll be lucky to get +5 damage out of it again (all on that one guy - one Rest and the benefit is gone). And since I've lost both missions so far - close in both cases, but I still lost - I only have 2 XP which doesn't seem enough to get any of the good skills (I'm holding out for the 4 XP skills which look quite tasty).

So far, it's basically been worth an average of +4 damage per mission. Meanwhile, Onar Komu just got a Reward from his Side Mission that gives him a free up to +3 damage per turn - enough to outright kill many of the models I can afford to put on the board at this low threat, without even using an attack.

Yeah, y'know what, I can't wait for it to get OP, if that's what happens; because as of now it's practically worthless. It might be better if the Bounty Tokens were restored at the start of a mission so at least I can be confident of getting something out of it each turn. Yeah, my opinion has been formed after only after two missions and so far having taken no extra skills, so I openly admit I'm maybe not in the best position to say. But by the time I get anything good out of this skill deck, the Heroes will all be invincible killing machines.

On 1/8/2017 at 11:58 PM, ricope said:

I have to disagree with you on the casual group part, this means you pretty much won 3 missions in a row which means Rebels should have got a kicker bonus (houserule recommended by dev to stop snowball). It seems you might have ignored everything else (which was reasonable since you were playing "me vs. me solo") and the snowball just kept on rolling

I don't think you can use a house rule (recommended by dev or otherwise) to tell people they're doing it wrong. If he's playing by the rules, what else is he supposed to do? If the devs think that three wins in a row should give the other guys a bonus, maybe they should write that into the rules instead of keeping it a secret? I've never heard of such a suggestion before. What form is the kicker supposed to take?