So I just started a new campaign (I'm the Imperial Player, and it's my first ever campaign). I'm also pretty sure at least one of my Rebel players reads these forums, so I risk exposing myself a bit, but that's OK. We played our first two missions last night, and the rebels won both (we're playing the Core campaign). They were hard fought, and we had a lot fun, but they chose to stack Vinto pretty hard.

We're two missions in and he already has:

• DL-44
• Tactical Display
• Shot on the Run

This means that every turn he gets one free surge, which means he can usually add 3 damage. Couple this with Boltslinger and Shot on the Run, and he's usually one shotting something and dealing two damage to another with EACH attack.

It almost seems like I shouldn't even bother running regular Stormies ever, because they just get eaten. Other than focus firing him (which I'm not even certain is that effective, since I'd have to make him withdraw to stop all those shenanigans), any other suggestions with dealing with all that so early in the campaign?

I'm running Technological Superiority, and the other heroes are Diala, Shyla, and Onar if that helps.

I'm not too familiar with TechSup deck, have you bought anything yet? I've heard some good stuff about TS's 3xp and 4xp cards

Don't worry about losing too much, if you guys are playing strictly by the books, they'll most likely be crushed next mission

Good point. So far I have

• Technical Support (Droids have +1 speed and Action: Give an adjacent friendly either focus, remove conditions, or heal 3)
• Internal Affairs (Add a regular Officer to my deployment groups every mission)
• Fire at Will (Deplete to have a trooper take a free attack with +1 surge)

I was able to buy all of that because we're playing a house rule where if you lose two in a row you get full rewards, to avoid snowballing.

By the way, what do you mean by "playing strictly by the books"?

I think he means your next mission should be A New Threat and the Rebels are about to get roflstomped. The second most one sided mission in the game (Fly Solo takes the cake).

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/196641-how-do-we-fix-a-new-threat-and-fly-solo/

Best advice for this map is just to delay the Rebels as long as you can, block up the hallways, stun, whatever you got. IF they manage to pick right with all the terminals they have an actual shot at winning the mission, but it is still slim.

"playing strictly by the books" means that you guys are doing exactly what the campaign guide says (ex. book says to bring out eStorm once this door opens, you bring out eStorm once it opens). Some missions are ridiculously hard/borderline impossible to win as Imperial/Rebel if you play by the book, and your next mission "A New Threat" is one of them

it sounds like you're going the droid route (the other route would be trooper). I'd say don't worry about it, try to win "A New Threat" (you shouldn't have too much trouble). Right now you have 3xp (2 mission = 2, houserule +1) - 1 = 2xp left. Win it and you'll have 4xp then get one of those 3/4xp ones

As a side note: iirc the houserule xp bonus is supposed to be "lose 3 mission in a row" or "lose 2 story mission in a row", not just any "lose 2 mission in a row", because the winner gets an extra +1 xp for winning Story missions (except Aftermath)

Ahh interesting, I just have read that incorrectly. I may look into that then and reverse my rewards from this last mission. Although the side mission that we did was Onar's personal one, which didn't award the winner any extra XP. So we each actually only have 2xp at the moment.

That said, I was already feeling confident about A New Threat since I start with a bunch of probes and have the Probe buffing card, so that makes me feel even more confident haha

But yes I mostly decided to avoid the trooper route, since Vinto pretty much single handedly makes my stormies useless.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Use heavy stormtroopers instead of regulars. 6 health per figure and 12 total health compared to stormtroopers 9 total makes them a lot more durable, more likely to get healed by your droids.

What would I do if I were you:

play "A New Threat" by the book and go really cutthroat, just to punch the Rebels in the face and let them know the might of Galactic Empire

After that, ask if your Rebels wants to play "thematically" or "not always play by book". Unless it's your first campaign as Imperial you'll usually have a pretty good sense of how to balance it out/which mission to change, but make sure to run it through your Rebel players & everyone agrees

Campaign is much more fun imo if you don't always play by the book, it allows me to heavily punish min-maxers + adjust mission difficulty + potentially make up my own stories on the fly

bottom line: it's much easier to be powerful then go easy on Rebels, than being stomped by Rebels then trying to come back

Vinto excels against multiple smaller units, so you can play against him somewhat by playing larger units, but DL-44 w/ tac display is a strong weapon and will likely just kill your units no matter what you do. Rapid Fire + Merciless later in the campaign will also let him efficiently deal with high hp units.

Campaign is much more fun imo if you don't always play by the book, it allows me to heavily punish min-maxers + adjust mission difficulty + potentially make up my own stories on the fly

This means that every turn he gets one free surge, which means he can usually add 3 damage. Couple this with Boltslinger and Shot on the Run, and he's usually one shotting something and dealing two damage to another with EACH attack.

Bolt Slinger only does 1 damage and requires an attack action. Shot on the Run requires a move action and is not an attack so doesn't trigger Bolt Slinger.

This means that every turn he gets one free surge, which means he can usually add 3 damage. Couple this with Boltslinger and Shot on the Run, and he's usually one shotting something and dealing two damage to another with EACH attack.

Bolt Slinger only does 1 damage and requires an attack action. Shot on the Run requires a move action and is not an attack so doesn't trigger Bolt Slinger.

Right. So usually he moves (1 free damage from Move on the Run), Shoots (free surge plus very likely to roll a surge = 2 surge = +3 damage), plus a free damage from boltslinger.

Nexu that causes bleeding, and hired guns for their parting shot, a couple HKs maybe, but I would personally try to deploy cheap units and try and always keep one alive from troopers to make reinforcement possible, and try to heal any damage with the probe droids. By constantly deploying cheap units you might be able to just waste his actions

Use Nexus. They are good against Vinto (but bad against Diala). They get good evades (negating his tactical display sometimes). They give targets bleed if they hit. Both is pretty bad for Vinto. Regular stormtroopers are probably a bad idea for the rest of the campaign. Also try to save up for the elite probe droid if you can, because his dice and his recover make him much better against vinto and diala then the regular droids.

Campaign is much more fun imo if you don't always play by the book, it allows me to heavily punish min-maxers + adjust mission difficulty + potentially make up my own stories on the fly

I'm confused, are you saying you cheat to punish min-maxers?

Well it's not cheating if it's accepted by the group. That's why I said to make sure your Rebel players are fine with it, otherwise yeah it's cheating

I'd much prefer to play with a dynamic difficulty (both as Rebel and Imperial player) than playing unbalanced missions and getting stomped (as Rebel and Imperial). Some examples includes A New Threat, Fly Solo, High Moon, Target of opportunity, Desperate Hour. I'd consider these as borderline broken/unwinnable

Mission spoilers for High Moon to show what I'm talking about:

Besides, if I notice you're going for min-max build (ex. Gideon Diala Fenn Gaark are all going for optimal build), then there's really no point of me playing because I know I'll get stomped, and we'd be playing as "who can come up with the most optimal strategy" rather than "let's have a good time playing as Star Wars heroes". Each one to their own taste (maybe all of you like to play competitively) but I don't find that fun: leave the competitive/cutthroat play to skirmish mode, campaign is about story-telling

Agreed, ricope makes good points. I tell my players if they want to bring any combination of Fenn/Gideon/Diala, I am playing ST and the first agenda card I am going after is Imperial Industry. I will also be using elite Stormies as much as humanly possible through out the campaign, the pound for pound best units in the game. I can't even count the number of times I've wounded a hero off of a single elite stormie activation with some form of buff card to go with it. They leave him at home and I leave those cards at home.

I encourage them to bring one of the three to help make their team strong, but then try out a new hero and in turn I try a new imperial class (or one I am not as familiar with) and as many new agenda cards as I can. It just makes things much more fun if you are exploring new content versus min/maxing the ultimate team to try and faceroll the campaign. Getting face rolled is equally un fun for the imperial as it is for the Rebels.

With A New Threat, I would throw that buff card on the elite probe droid. It will make him unkillable by a single hero forcing them to send two top, or at least delay one top. Then when they send one right you have the nexu as insurance when that door opens. This gives you time to get an e-web deployed on the far left hallway. As long as they aren't in the hallway yet I don't think anyone will be able to kill it in one shot this early, allowing you to get off two attacks OR delay them until they can bring in two heroes. This map is all about delaying until help arrives

Campaign is much more fun imo if you don't always play by the book, it allows me to heavily punish min-maxers + adjust mission difficulty + potentially make up my own stories on the fly

I'm confused, are you saying you cheat to punish min-maxers?

Well it's not cheating if it's accepted by the group. That's why I said to make sure your Rebel players are fine with it, otherwise yeah it's cheating.

Besides, if I notice you're going for min-max build (ex. Gideon Diala Fenn Gaark are all going for optimal build), then there's really no point of me playing because I know I'll get stomped, and we'd be playing as "who can come up with the most optimal strategy" rather than "let's have a good time playing as Star Wars heroes". Each one to their own taste (maybe all of you like to play competitively) but I don't find that fun: leave the competitive/cutthroat play to skirmish mode, campaign is about story-telling

You should of course do what works best for you and your group. I have house rules for my group to make min-maxing (which is human nature btw) more thematic. Just saying competition and story are not mutually exclusive, you can have both if you put equal effort into both, and it makes me sad when people say competitive people should just go play skirmish and not campaign.

Edit: to get back on topic, I have found Vinto to be excellent against the Nexu if he had pinpoint Shot since the added weaken turns off cunning. But without pinpoint shot the Nexu is probably great.

Curious, what are your house rules Tvboy? I am always interested to see what other people do.

I don't want to hijack this thread any further, I might make another thread for that.

*waits patiently*

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Well, there's the existing house rules thread here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/224585-house-rules/

I'm curious who Cruzin thinks is in their group...

*waits patiently*

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I posted it in the thread Pasi linked to above.