Hi all,

It seems there's quite a lot of us who now have experience with the campaign and perhaps even one or more run-throughs. So what are people's experience with play balance between the two sides - do we think they're fair or do we think one has an inherent advantage?

For me and my buddy:

Campaign 1:

Ended 4-0 to me as the Imperials (we scrapped it after this and restarted)

Campaign 2:

Currently 1-0 to him as the Imperials

Initial thoughts are the lack of upgrades might favour the higher hull Imperial ships. Historically I win more than I lose against him, so it will be interesting to see if the trend continues or whether I can recover from that first defeat.

Feel free to add your results and your initial thoughts!

So far my experience has been quite the opposite. Rebels came out strong in our campaign winning the first 2 out of 3 matches and gaining a considerable advantage over the Imperials. Though now in the 2nd and 3rd round things are turning around on the Rebels and Imperials are making a strong comeback.

I don't think the balance is really all that different between the CC and just playing a normal 400 point match, whether that is or isn't balanced I would not care to argue. In general there are advantageous and disadvantageous in any given situation dependent on the circumstances, which types of lists are facing which types of lists and all the usual dynamics of the game.

I think the list building approach and the approach to matches is quite a bit different in the CC. We see a lot more cautious moves, certain battles have been a bit slower as players are very careful not to throw themselves into a fight they can't walk out of. In fact I would say in the CC most battles don't even start until round 3 or 4 when players feel safe that if things go wrong they can jump out.

That is what I have noticed as well. In the initial, single-upgrade matches the Rebels swept the first turn. After the Imperials were able to add a few upgrades they have started cleaning up.

the real difference is the resources minigame.

if Imps keep declaring show of force uber alles, imperials will gain the upper hand. all they have to do is kill two stations and they get 80 points win or lose.

in a hyperlane raid, however, imperials can almost refuse to play the mission; turtle up speed 0 in a corner or something, placing obstacles in front. go kill ships that way.

this will slowly make imperials win unless rebels win big at turn 1.

3 minutes ago, Kikaze said:

the real difference is the resources minigame.

if Imps keep declaring show of force uber alles, imperials will gain the upper hand. all they have to do is kill two stations and they get 80 points win or lose.

in a hyperlane raid, however, imperials can almost refuse to play the mission; turtle up speed 0 in a corner or something, placing obstacles in front. go kill ships that way.

this will slowly make imperials win unless rebels win big at turn 1.

Even if they don't turtle, the Rebels still have to try to table the Imp fleet to gain significant resources and if you're faced with Motti Medium or Large ships, good luck with that.

i disagree. kill 1-2 ships and BE THE WINNER and you gain 60-80 points. thats ok.

the real problem is when an imperial just charges the stations, kills them and then he says "you can do anything now, you can win with 200 pts MoV; my team still gets 80 points" . completely losing should never grant 80 resource points. such a reward is so high it completely changes how the rebel player must approach the game!

weather the Imp player wins resources is completely irrelevant to rebel player decisions. at best he can obscurethe stations, and that requires leaving his ships exposed as a second player.

food for thought:

Rebel player retires a fleet, he plays 400 pts and tries to build up normaly. most likely he needs to concende 1-2 turns.

Imperial player retires a fleet, he just spams raiders with ordnance experts and/or other offensive stuff (arquittens?) and keeps declaring show of force,ignoring enemy fleet, ignoring winning the game, charging the stations and getting 80 resource points for his team 100% win-or-lose.

OF COURSE the rebels can win if they are better players. that doesnt mean it is completely balanced.

Do what we do. Rebel or Imperial. When you get to the table to play a 'special assault', shuffle the two cards up and randomly pick one to play. Since they both so 'even', no one should mind... right?

Great idea for a house rule, rudedog.

As an empire player I'd love it if we did that. Get some variety in our resource missions.

14 minutes ago, rudedog said:

Do what we do. Rebel or Imperial. When you get to the table to play a 'special assault', shuffle the two cards up and randomly pick one to play. Since they both so 'even', no one should mind... right?

Hey, that's a brilliant idea!

I don't know, it seems like there is a little asymmetry with the Imperial Interdictor cruiser preventing hyper escape and the different green objectives. But for the most part it seems more like a series of standard matches.

Personally, I find it a little strange that the imperials get any resources from even a failed Hyperlane raid for the rebels. But it's just thematically I don't get it, so not a comment on the balance.

Is the idea that there is a bonus shipment of goods that the Empire is bringing to their fleets and the rebs are coming to intercept them? The odd part of that is that if the rebels don't come to intercept them, they never come.

Is the idea that it's a regular shipment of stuff to other parts of the empire and the rebels are raiding that and the empire are blocking them? If so, then why does the empire get stuff from it? Are they stealing from their own shipments?

What would be neat but maybe unbalanced for gameplay is if the resources gained by the rebels came from the resources the empire was collecting that round..that the raid is literally raiding the Imperials reinforcement points.

I haven't played around with it yet, but since Show of Force is basically Station Assault, it would make sense for Rebels to have a fleet that is happy playing that objective anyway. Are people doing this and still having problems?

16 minutes ago, homedrone said:

Personally, I find it a little strange that the imperials get any resources from even a failed Hyperlane raid for the rebels. But it's just thematically I don't get it, so not a comment on the balance.

Is the idea that there is a bonus shipment of goods that the Empire is bringing to their fleets and the rebs are coming to intercept them? The odd part of that is that if the rebels don't come to intercept them, they never come.

Is the idea that it's a regular shipment of stuff to other parts of the empire and the rebels are raiding that and the empire are blocking them? If so, then why does the empire get stuff from it? Are they stealing from their own shipments?

What would be neat but maybe unbalanced for gameplay is if the resources gained by the rebels came from the resources the empire was collecting that round..that the raid is literally raiding the Imperials reinforcement points.

Well as I said before the campaign didn't change any element of the game. It just added on top of it, which is why a ship that goes off the mat is scarred while a ship that hyperescapes is not. That being said I think the asymmetry was rather lacking as not to put too much of a imbalance. I could see something where Imperials start with all the resource points and rebels have to steal from them but that could easily get out of control real fast as resource points become a positive feed back loop all dependent on how the rebels do the first round (rebels gain more than half = rebels win campaign, rebels fail to gain more than half = Imperials win).

Yep, I agree with all that.

19 minutes ago, pyqz said:

I haven't played around with it yet, but since Show of Force is basically Station Assault, it would make sense for Rebels to have a fleet that is happy playing that objective anyway. Are people doing this and still having problems?

Have you made a good rebel list that prefers station assault over other objectives? It isn't a great one. Being forced into isn't good. It plays to Imperial strengths, and, as pointed out above. The Imperial player doesn't actually have to worry about "winning" the objective like they might in Station Assault.

5 hours ago, Kikaze said:

Imperial player retires a fleet, he just spams raiders with ordnance experts and/or other offensive stuff (arquittens?) and keeps declaring show of force,ignoring enemy fleet, ignoring winning the game, charging the stations and getting 80 resource points for his team 100% win-or-lose.

I'm pretty sure the rules say each team can only declare 2 special assaults the entire campaign, so you can't just stockpile resources. And even if you do, no campaign points are earned by doing this, so the Rebels will catch up. And if they are able to make it to 8, they can declare the all out assault and now your stuck with a fleet of Raiders against 3 non-gimmicky fleets. Plus, there is no reason to stock pile resources once you hit 500 points, since you will be spending all your points on repairing anyway.

More importantly, if you are playing with someone who is doing this, don't play the campaign with them.

Ok, I'm confused on something so maybe I've just misread how the campaign works (we have not yet started our CC, we are still gathering players).

But you can only run 1 'special assault' per turn, and there are 3 battles per turn (assuming 3v3 campaign). So even getting 80 points, divided by 3 is only netting about 26 points per player on the Imperial side, right? Given that, the cost of a single raider would be enough to offset that, correct (close anyways).

So I'm not sure how the Imperials can just 'lose' the match but come out ahead if they have to lose ships to get the 80 points. It would seem that at best they could break even if they 'lost' the scenario in terms of points.

Are we missing something with the way these assaults work?

1 minute ago, Uncle_Joe said:

Ok, I'm confused on something so maybe I've just misread how the campaign works (we have not yet started our CC, we are still gathering players).

But you can only run 1 'special assault' per turn, and there are 3 battles per turn (assuming 3v3 campaign). So even getting 80 points, divided by 3 is only netting about 26 points per player on the Imperial side, right? Given that, the cost of a single raider would be enough to offset that, correct (close anyways).

So I'm not sure how the Imperials can just 'lose' the match but come out ahead if they have to lose ships to get the 80 points. It would seem that at best they could break even if they 'lost' the scenario in terms of points.

Are we missing something with the way these assaults work?

No, I think the point being made is an exaggeration of someone trying to game the system. Technically, if you are allowed an infinite amount of special assaults per campaign, you can kill the stations by turn 4 and hyperspace out. You lose the match, but get 80 points. No campaign points are given out either, so you will never reach 12 points.

Hyperlane is different. You need to survive with all of your objective ships/squads for 6 rounds so you can earn resource points. Hyperspace retreat will count you as destroyed, so your opponent will get the resource points and VPs.

So don't worry about it. Just play the game as the rules say, and if you have any questions on that, feel free to ask.

50 minutes ago, homedrone said:

Personally, I find it a little strange that the imperials get any resources from even a failed Hyperlane raid for the rebels. But it's just thematically I don't get it, so not a comment on the balance.

Is the idea that there is a bonus shipment of goods that the Empire is bringing to their fleets and the rebs are coming to intercept them? The odd part of that is that if the rebels don't come to intercept them, they never come.

Is the idea that it's a regular shipment of stuff to other parts of the empire and the rebels are raiding that and the empire are blocking them? If so, then why does the empire get stuff from it? Are they stealing from their own shipments?

What would be neat but maybe unbalanced for gameplay is if the resources gained by the rebels came from the resources the empire was collecting that round..that the raid is literally raiding the Imperials reinforcement points.

Thematically, it is more of an Imperial supply chain that the Rebels are hitting. The ships are carrying supplies and resources, and the Rebels are trying to capture them. Whatever Imperial ships that escape, they deliver their supplies. Ever play the EaW Rebel campaign? There is a mission where you hit a prisoner transfer on the way to Kessel and you use Y-Wings to immobilize shuttles so you can capture them.

The hyperlanes are the "highways" of the Star Wars universe, so it makes sense for the Rebels to try and take down a convoy. And for Show of Force, the Imps are going into the "back water" planets and intimidating the populace into giving more resources to the Empire, where as the Rebels are the freedom fighters showing the populace they can stand against the Empire.

If it's a supply chain, why can they get more than if the rebels had never attacked?

Ok thanks.

And just so I'm reading it right (because I can't see what the fuss is about if I am lol):

Attacker (Imperial) gets 40 RPs for each station he destroys (for a max of 80 if he inflicts the required 20 damage). But the winner of the SCENARIO also gets 40 RPs, right? So in the 'extreme' examples above, the Imperials somehow come in, inflict the damage and kill both station without loss and hyper out...they get 80 and the Rebels get 40, right? And if the Imperials lose any ships doing this, that cuts into their 40 point margin.

I guess this is why I think I must be missing something...because 40 RPs is not some major windfall which will cover any losses suffered while inflicting that 20 damage...

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think the Hyperspace Assault is poorly thought out with no incentive or requirement for the Imperials not to turtle it out but I can't see the Show of Force as something to create a massive disparity in resources unless the Rebels are asleep at the switch and allow the Imperials to run in, blow up both stations, and escape without loss....every time.

5 minutes ago, homedrone said:

If it's a supply chain, why can they get more than if the rebels had never attacked?

Because a battle fleet has been diverted to bring in a larger than usual freight load....

But that never happens unless the rebels decide to attack it.. It's a catch 22.

5 minutes ago, homedrone said:

But that never happens unless the rebels decide to attack it.. It's a catch 22.

I think you are digging to hard into an abstract concept and mixing mechanics and thematics.

Maybe Hyperlane Raid would work better if under "End of Game" effects it said, "The first player gains one victory token for each ship with an objective token that is not within 2 range ruler lengths of the second player edge."

That would force the Imperial player to cross the map to score points, making the objective more dynamic.