Hi!

I must say so far I'm pretty frustrated by this game so far as it feels very one sided. Other than my 5th replay of the tutorial and applying the errata where I managed a marginal Rebel win they have never even been close to winning ANY mission. The closest so far was "Under siege" where the rebels actually managed to do a fighting withdrawal and keep toe to toe for 6 rounds, but again after that it turned into a Imperial slaughter house with 1 withdrawn and 2 wounded heroes and the imperials scoring the last 2 needed tiles in turn 8. The latest is "Target of opportunity" where it seems impossible to actually achieve the goal. I managed to get the saboteurs out on turn 4 and on turn 5 they where in position by the archive door. But looking at the math even with optimal rolls the maximum they can do is 2 points each per turn damage to the door so they would need the rest of the game with perfect rolls every time to get through it (which would leave the actual core and the Royal guards to deal with), of course none of the rolls where optimal and in the end they didn't do a single point of damage. As for my heroes no one could even in theory do any damage whatsoever to that door. The only damage done to the door was from a frag grenade that could ignore the 5 defense, but that was too little to make any impact.

I'm supposed to introduce a friend to the game this week, but how will I sell it to him when it's absolutely impossible to get anywhere or succeed in any form? What worries me more about that as well is that he will only play 2 heroes and there's no balancing whatsoever in the game (like in Descent) to compensate for that, sure he gets some items extra, but he will be constantly flooded by enemies (if 4 heroes can't do it, what chance does 2 stand?).

My gut feeling is that you're (Rebel heroes) doing something terribly wrong

Don't play the tutorial (the one you have to knock down 2 terminals) in the "Learn to Play", it's a terrible scenario. Start with "Aftermath", the 1st actual Core campaign mission

Make sure you're not making any rules mistakes!!

Is the Imperial player telling you enough information? Rebels are supposed to know everything as they happen, except when there's a choice (if Imp can choose X or Y, then Imp don't read Y if he chose X)

Did you forget the strain-move and surge-recovery? (recover dmg if no strain) These 2 WILL often be the difference between winning vs. losing

Are you killing all Imp troops and forgot about objectives?

See this thread over on BGG for the Core campaign balance poll. With a nearly 80/20 win split for your last mission "Target of opportunity" you must be doing something wrong

Spoilers onwards

"Target of opportunity"

You got the sabs out on Round 4? It's entirely possible to get them out (AND activate them) on round 2 by having a hero double-move then strain-move if necessary, and crack open the door as that hero's 1st action on Round 2

Why only 2 dmg? with optimal roll you'd get 3dmg on Red and 1dmg + 2 surge/1dmg + 1 surge on yellow. You get auto +1 surge for sabs. Spend 2 surge for Pierce 4 (thanks to overload, otherwise you can't do that) and you'd do 4dmg-1block = 3dmg to door, and you get 2 of them, so 6dmg to door in 1 round

Like I said above, my gut feeling is that you're making major rule mistakes

Oh I'm sure mistakes are being made and leading to this frustration.
strain-move and surge-recovery are being used, but not often enough I guess. Not sure what you mean by attacking the door to release the sabos as you have to unlock the door from the terminal before you can get them out.
My bad on the sabo math, but that is assuming that every roll is optimal AND that they survive (4hp isn't much as they will draw fire).
I've read about going for objectives mainly, but you can't exactly ignore the imperials either as they will take you down to wounded state very fast and all wounded is an automatic defeat.

Thank you for your advice, I will try to incorporate it and see if it helps.

Hmm, I had managed to miss that the Sabos get +1 surge and can't die, but as I ran out of time anyway it wouldn't have made any difference in my game.

42 minutes ago, Wolftame said:

Oh I'm sure mistakes are being made and leading to this frustration.
strain-move and surge-recovery are being used, but not often enough I guess. Not sure what you mean by attacking the door to release the sabos as you have to unlock the door from the terminal before you can get them out.
My bad on the sabo math, but that is assuming that every roll is optimal AND that they survive (4hp isn't much as they will draw fire).
I've read about going for objectives mainly, but you can't exactly ignore the imperials either as they will take you down to wounded state very fast and all wounded is an automatic defeat.

Thank you for your advice, I will try to incorporate it and see if it helps.

It takes a while to wound a hero - they don't go down that easily. Also resting will undo plenty of Imp's work

This thread might be of interest: common newbie mistakes

edit to add: rules mistake are very punishing as you've surely noticed. Even a slight mistake (forgetting overload/bonus +1 surge/not using strain-move or surge-recovery) can ruin your experience

That bonus +1 surge on Sabs is an extra free pierce2, which is HUGE against a door with 5 block

Mission spoilers

Assuming you have 4 heroes (which is the recommended #), here's how I would approach it (from Rebel's perspective)

Round 1:

Hero A clean up the rStorm (don't have to kill all 3, just kill 1 or 2) first

Hero B move + strain move and try to kill that IO

Hero C clean up the rStorm as action#1, move to door as action #2

Hero D who's good with wrench double move to terminal + strain move if needed

Round 2:

Hero B clean up troop / hero D test wrench

Hero C move + open door...

Additional questions popped up now
When a sabo is defeated it isn't removed, it becomes incapacitated instead. But what happens once he takes lethal damage again? Remains incapacitated or is removed?
When the door goes up the Royal Guards appear, if the imperial pay the 2 threat to interrupt, they still have their normal activation remaining that turn right? (i've always figured if something appear inside the running of a turn they still get to activate in that turn?)

See Incapacitated.

(Yes, each RG gets to perform a move and perform an attack, they are not activating. And all deployment cards enter the game in the ready position unless explicitly specified otherwise.)

7 hours ago, Wolftame said:

I'm supposed to introduce a friend to the game this week, but how will I sell it to him when it's absolutely impossible to get anywhere or succeed in any form? What worries me more about that as well is that he will only play 2 heroes and there's no balancing whatsoever in the game (like in Descent) to compensate for that, sure he gets some items extra, but he will be constantly flooded by enemies (if 4 heroes can't do it, what chance does 2 stand?).

Just a quick note on that in case you're still planning on using two heroes, there is balancing in this game but it just works differently than in Descent.

Unlike in Descent nothing changes on the Imperial side, but there are big differences for the Rebels. Each hero in a two-hero game gets a legendary card (giving them +10 health) and they get an extra activation token, meaning they can both activate twice each round. So whether you're playing a two-hero game or a four-hero game you'll have the same number of actions/attacks.

With that said, though, I'd recommend trying to control four heroes at once instead of two. Even with the changes the two-hero setup can still be unbalanced. It's not always bad for the same side - missions that require lots of movement or not getting wounded can favour the rebels while missions that require controlling objectives can favour the imperials - but it throws a few missions really out of whack.

play a Legendary Game with Gideon and Fenn

Then come back and post about how one sided this game is cause the Rebels can't lose

27 minutes ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

play a Legendary Game with Gideon and Fenn

Then come back and post about how one sided this game is cause the Rebels can't lose

Yeah I tell my Rebel players that picking Diala+Fenn+Gideon as 3/4 heroes warrants me to either play cutthroat subversive tactics or not play by the book (mission says bring out rStorm, I bring out eStorm)

Otherwise it'll pretty much be landslide win for Rebels in every mission

13 minutes ago, ricope said:

Yeah I tell my Rebel players that picking Diala+Fenn+Gideon as 3/4 heroes warrants me to either play cutthroat subversive tactics or not play by the book (mission says bring out rStorm, I bring out eStorm)

Otherwise it'll pretty much be landslide win for Rebels in every mission

okay, bringing out eStorms when the mission says rStorms is uh, just plain cheating. Picking OP heroes isn't cheating. If you bring out eStorms for rStorms, you should at least give the playes a 2 or 3 threat ally, like a single eSaboteur or an rAlliance Smuggler. Playing cutthroat ST won't always work either. You just have to pick and save agenda cards and pray lol. I will say that bad rolls at crucial moments isn't a problem for the Imp player as much as it is for the Rebels. I never have to make any saves at specific times, so if I can harry the players after 5 or 6 really good rolls with dice that they use on an ability check I can then sort of provide a clear path to the spot they need to make a check before they make an ability check, and they'll fail most of the time. But, then they are closer to the terminal, but usually they would have been anyway and instead of attacking my guys and killing them, they moved and failed a check, and then I get more threat to eventually overwhelm them.

I admit though, it takes some serious finesse coupled with crucial luck to pull wins against any Legendary Hero group, I barely do it but against Gid and Fenn, so I really tip my hat to players if they can do it by the book.

4 minutes ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

okay, bringing out eStorms when the mission says rStorms is uh, just plain cheating. Picking OP heroes isn't cheating. If you bring out eStorms for rStorms, you should at least give the playes a 2 or 3 threat ally, like a single eSaboteur or an rAlliance Smuggler. Playing cutthroat ST won't always work either. You just have to pick and save agenda cards and pray lol. I will say that bad rolls at crucial moments isn't a problem for the Imp player. I never have to make any saves at specific times, so if I can harry the players after 5 or 6 really good rolls with dice that they use on an ability check I can then sort of provide a clear path to the spot they need to make a check before they make an ability check, and they'll fail most of the time. But, then they are closer to the terminal, but usually they would have been anyway and instead of attacking my guys and killing them, they moved and failed a check, and then I get more threat to eventually overwhelm them.

I admit though, it takes some serious finesse coupled with crucial luck to pull wins against any Legendary Hero group, I barely do it but against Gid and Fenn, so I really tip my hat to players if they can do it by the book.

Yeah that's why I tell Rebels first (unless they're assholes they'd understand, it's no fun for me to play when I pretty much can't win)

If you're playing with stubborn Rebel players then I'd say try to game the system would be the best you can do. Ex. deliberately lose Aftermath, save up 20 hidden agenda cards for finale. Like you said hey I ain't cheating, but I am surely being unsportsmanlike nor fair

@ricope Than you for your great advice and for not being judgmental with a noob Thanks to your suggestions and clarifications a replay led to the first Rebel campaign win in the Target of opportunity mission.

IF they know you are going to deliberately lose lose aftermath, they'll win the mission and take the crates. And unless you get lucky on the draws, and manage to win so crucial missions like the one that gives you Imperial Industry (which isn't likely), you probably still won't pull a W out against Gideon and Fenn on Legendary if they've won every mission and have max credits and exp.

Although, that said, take the best chess computer and take some random idiot who's only played chess four or five times, knows the way pieces move, barely knows the rules. Now, add a rule that before a capture move you have to flip a coin, otherwise your turn gets passed. That computer is going to pop a blood vessel bruh and that's what happens to the Rebels. I've found I have often discovered new tactics that I would not have otherwised used when I play with an inferior force against an almost totally superior opponent.

5 minutes ago, Wolftame said:

@ricope Than you for your great advice and for not being judgmental with a noob Thanks to your suggestions and clarifications a replay led to the first Rebel campaign win in the Target of opportunity mission.

Love stories like this!

See this thread for advanced tips. It's mostly a discussion about unique/single figure vs. multi-figure activation cards in skirmish mode but is VERY applicable to campaign as well

More success. Introduced a friend to the game this evening and he ran 4 heroes. With some coachning and reminders he managed a narrow turn 6 win of Aftermath for the Rebels (3 Rebels wounded).

Thanks to all helping with pointers.

nice. I often introduce new players to the game using the Legendary rules, but I let them know this is an easier way to play. I describe the "difficulty" rewards as the opposite of what you see in video games because this is the opposite of a video game. If you don't explain that, they might feel like they're being hustled when they play in a four player game after being Legendary.

21 hours ago, Wolftame said:

Hi!

I must say so far I'm pretty frustrated by this game so far as it feels very one sided. Other than my 5th replay of the tutorial and applying the errata where I managed a marginal Rebel win they have never even been close to winning ANY mission. The closest so far was "Under siege" where the rebels actually managed to do a fighting withdrawal and keep toe to toe for 6 rounds, but again after that it turned into a Imperial slaughter house with 1 withdrawn and 2 wounded heroes and the imperials scoring the last 2 needed tiles in turn 8. The latest is "Target of opportunity" where it seems impossible to actually achieve the goal. I managed to get the saboteurs out on turn 4 and on turn 5 they where in position by the archive door. But looking at the math even with optimal rolls the maximum they can do is 2 points each per turn damage to the door so they would need the rest of the game with perfect rolls every time to get through it (which would leave the actual core and the Royal guards to deal with), of course none of the rolls where optimal and in the end they didn't do a single point of damage. As for my heroes no one could even in theory do any damage whatsoever to that door. The only damage done to the door was from a frag grenade that could ignore the 5 defense, but that was too little to make any impact.

I'm supposed to introduce a friend to the game this week, but how will I sell it to him when it's absolutely impossible to get anywhere or succeed in any form? What worries me more about that as well is that he will only play 2 heroes and there's no balancing whatsoever in the game (like in Descent) to compensate for that, sure he gets some items extra, but he will be constantly flooded by enemies (if 4 heroes can't do it, what chance does 2 stand?).

Another very important point for Target of Opportunity specifically: DO NOT use the errata'd Sabs for this mission! It makes the mission virtually impossible. That may have been the problem you saw - if the sabs have only Pierce 1, they can hardly touch the door. Give them back the Pierce 2, and they do pretty well (with the +1 surge at least).

This mission is also a lot harder early in the campaign. If the Rebels have the equipment to take the door down themselves, there is very little the Imperial can do to stop them. Otherwise it's a much closer fight.

In general, I would recommend not applying errata to reserved or initial groups (groups that the game gives you automatically). You can even not apply them to open groups and allies if you want. The errata was mostly to fix skirmish problems; the units are generally pretty well balanced for campaign.

On 3/1/2017 at 0:09 PM, ricope said:

Love stories like this!

See this thread for advanced tips. It's mostly a discussion about unique/single figure vs. multi-figure activation cards in skirmish mode but is VERY applicable to campaign as well

My buddy started that thread. He's the guy I really don't like skirmishing with.

OP - glad you figured out what it took all of us a few frustrations to learn - that when you feel the game is unbalanced, read the rules again and again until you find the 19 things you're doing wrong. Then the game is a bit more balanced...