Just got done with Spice Job, a great little side adventure with Chewie. In retrospect it was a darned cool map that I'd love to play again. I was very disappointed, however, by the shortness of time allowed (only 5 turns!). After a post-analysis my opponent and I concluded that the only likely way for the rebs to win would be to limit actions strictly to running like hell blind through withering fire, ignoring the bad guys completely (what fun is that?), and interacting with keys and doors. To shoot at the bad guys at all would severely limit reb progress as picking up keys and opening doors requires valuable actions you just can't spare for it. I'm new at the game to be sure but it seemed to me that though my reb heroes moved quickly and exchanged fire as we advanced, we only made it to the outside of the locked room by the end of turn 5 and couldn't have hoped to make it inside in time and pick up the spice crates (also requiring actions) for the bell even under good circumstances (we were pretty shot up, three wounded, and finding the right key was tricky, also consuming time). We instituted a house rule for six rounds instead of five for this mission, as it was waay too tight. Objectives are fun but I like a good firefight too, and the game should strive to find a balance between the two.

Why ruin a great adventure with oppressive time constraints? Does this happen frequently with these missions?

Should be called 'The Blitz Job' instead.

Not every mission is balanced as well as it should be. I agree that Chewie's mission is really tough. But to be honest, I don't really recommend adding that mission into the deck in the first place, since there are much better allies now.

Without time limits missions are very hard for the imperial player to win. For example A Simple Task is a really simple task for the rebels, and I have had a lot of problems with the Return to Hoth missions - MHD-19 amplifying the issue of rebels being able to take their time defeating the initial groups and resting as much as they need to.

Spice Job isn't particularly hard for the rebels, it's slightly tilted in their favor, while missions with great allies should be slightly tilted against them. (Even with his high cost, Chewbacca's protector and high defense are great, especially with Gideon.)

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1331517/how-balanced-each-scenario

PBF007 Spice Job played as the 3rd side mission

The tricky thing about side missions is when you play them can have a fairly large impact on the difficulty. When I played it, it was the 2nd mission of the campaign, and I found it difficult. But if played later, I could see it being easier since you can generally kill enemies more efficiently and focus more on moving through the map.

The first side mission is always hard for the rebels, but it is also most affected by any imbalances - whether they are from the mission, from dice or from mistakes.

As people have said, the time limit is really important for making the game interesting. A Simple Task, Imperial Hospitality, and several other missions become very problematic for the Imperials when the Rebels have no time limit.

I agree that timers are generally necessary to combat slowplay. But aggressive timer missions are rather stressful, can be challenging, and not super fun, so Id rather they be used sparing. And also from a design standpoint, tricky to balance correctly.

Hoth got away from timers in general but most Jabba's Realm have a timer (tho only a couple have aggressive timers). The Story mission 1 that I played had a very aggressive timer and combined with the fact that the imperial player gets a bunch of free units (which punishes ignoring units) made the mission extremely hard for Rebels.

Many thanks for the input all. For me it wasn't about winning or losing but experiencing a great and action-packed Star Wars adventure, and the aggressive time crunch seemed to really rob that.

lol try it on Legendary with Gideon and Fenn you'll change your tune real quick

1 hour ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

lol try it on Legendary with Gideon and Fenn you'll change your tune real quick

Which is why I (with my group's permission) told my group that choosing 3/4 heroes as Diala + Fenn + Gideon warrants me to either play cutthroat Subversive Tactics or go down REAL hard & adjust missions as I see fit (ex. mission says to bring out rProbe, I bring out eProbe)

15 hours ago, 1mikethebuilder1 said:

Many thanks for the input all. For me it wasn't about winning or losing but experiencing a great and action-packed Star Wars adventure, and the aggressive time crunch seemed to really rob that.

Yeah, that's why I was initially hesitant about campaign. Time crunch hasn't been too much of an issue usually (we usually end with one side completing its objective/ being wounded) but every now and then a mission just seems a little too close to allow much more than a single strategy- and to me, that's no fun.

see I had been doing that, but running Subversive Tactics against them only works the first time you do it, then they figure out it's tricks and they can still pwn you with Gideon and Fenn.

So what I did was run Tech Superiority. I made sure to take tech support, then when we get to the finale...I took eProbe and HKs as my open groups, so I had 5 droids that could heal vader for 3 damage each round.

I liked it, I thought it was pretty thematic. Vader comes across these Rebel freaks that are all more powerful than Yoda and so in order to beast mode them he has like a half dozen droids floating around him replacing and repairing his parts as he fights with these dang yahoos....

The Rebels, not so much so. By the end of round 12 they were really missing the good ole subversive tactics.

13 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

see I had been doing that, but running Subversive Tactics against them only works the first time you do it, then they figure out it's tricks and they can still pwn you with Gideon and Fenn.

So what I did was run Tech Superiority. I made sure to take tech support, then when we get to the finale...I took eProbe and HKs as my open groups, so I had 5 droids that could heal vader for 3 damage each round.

I liked it, I thought it was pretty thematic. Vader comes across these Rebel freaks that are all more powerful than Yoda and so in order to beast mode them he has like a half dozen droids floating around him replacing and repairing his parts as he fights with these dang yahoos....

The Rebels, not so much so. By the end of round 12 they were really missing the good ole subversive tactics.

Interesting strategy. Probably would've been wise of them to focus on the droids first while dodging Vader, but I can see how his presence is intimidating enough to require focusing on him.

On 2/6/2017 at 8:25 AM, a1bert said:

The first side mission is always hard for the rebels, but it is also most affected by any imbalances - whether they are from the mission, from dice or from mistakes.

This was NOT the cast on Target of Opportunity. That mission seems impossible at threat level 2 for me as an imperial

Mission imbalance can make the first side mission unwinnable for either side. Like I said, the first side mission emphasizes everything.

Slow-starting class decks may also struggle with the first side mission. Military Might is not one of them though.

On 2/10/2017 at 9:38 AM, subtrendy said:

Interesting strategy. Probably would've been wise of them to focus on the droids first while dodging Vader, but I can see how his presence is intimidating enough to require focusing on him.

It's my typical core campaign finale strategy, I've ran TS more than any other class deck....

anyway it was around round 7 or 8 by the time they go to Vader, they tried that at first because they had calculated their 8 attacks possible attacks each round for 5 rounds was 40 attacks was plenty to leave Vader a pile of slag, but weren't sure if he was getting healed by a boat load of droids each round, and they also thought it was better to attack 5 hp with 1 black die rather than 3 hp that the figure would give to Vader, which they would then have to get through 2 black dice and a reroll. But I could always bring back two probe droids with the threat to heal Vader, which means that if they kill each probe droid in one attack, theoretically they would only have 6 attacks each round, for a total of 30. Now, I was able to move Vader and the Droids so that killing the droids would often require a move first, so often attacking the probes costed the played two actions, where they had calculated it at 4. So, 4 attacks per round on Vader for 5 rounds, is 20 attacks. 20 attacks from heroes onto Vader is honestly enough to slag him too but I guess I got the right combination of luck coupled by the fact that by round 9 they started to panic because the droids were more trouble than they anticipated (I had the thing that gave them +1 speed too). A few bad rolls towards the end of a mission can really spell doom for the Rebels, really it just gets in their head and affects their decision making....it's another reason why allies like duke dirtfarmer that give re-rolls can seriously help rebels win missions consistently. Also when the Royal Guards spawned, I had that agenda card that gave them an extra evade from the RGC villain pack, and I had the ISB enforcers agenda card so my stormtrooper unit that spawned in the complex could make multiple attacks, so the heroes were pretty harried at this point.

Also I had personal shields and resotrative supplies. People complain about saving the agenda cards for the end, but honestly against Legendary Gideon and Fenn c'mon!! ya gotta do what ya gotta do...especially when they got max chance cubes on three different missions. And it was still close.