Hi all, finished the first campaign map, Aftermath....a crushing defeat dealt by the Rebels played by my wife on the imperial forces (the shame!!).

I have a few questions I cant get my head round if anyone can offer some advice

1- Imperial Deployment and reinforcement. Is it right that imperials can carry on placing new figures/groups down on an active reinforcement point which might be right next to some rebels? Just seems odd they can appear in the same room as them? Was wondering if I had overlooked something.

2- Imperial Class card. I have an 'attachment' card, forget the name, think it lets me add 1 damage and then take one damge at the end of the action. Question, does the card need attaching to a specific unit/card, or can it just be applied at any point to any unit when I want to? Also, do I retain the card for the next mission or is it expended? Can I use more than once in a mission?

3- Agenda Cards. Bought Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith. I am right in saying once I use him (maybe in the next mission), I will lose that card for the rest of the campaign, so no more Vader?

4- Rebel Chest items, when they get them, if not used, do they keep them for the next mission?

5- Rebel upgrades, let say they buy a grenade or something, if used, can they use again in the same missions? If used can they be used again in following missions?

6- As an experienced gamer, I found it near impossible to bring down a hero in the first campaign mission, 2 heores so they have +10 hps....I didnt come close to killing one. Normal or just unlucky? (didnt get chance to blast with the focused Eweb behind the door).

Thanks all for the help.

Figures can be reinforced and deployed into any active deployment point. The rebels will end up knowing the points when you deploy figures into them, so then the rebels will be ready for new troops appearing.

Attachments need to be added to a group when the group is deployed.

Non-attachments can be used as specified in the card.

So you bought As You Wish? You can play it during end start of round of any mission to add Vader's deployment card to your hand. Then you either discard the agenda card or shuffle it back into the agenda deck so you have a chance to draw it again. Note that you will still need to pay the threat cost to deploy Vader. Which isn't usually wise.

Unused supply cards are discarded. The supply deck is shuffled at the beginning of each mission.

Are you talking about items or supply cards? Items say how they are used. Some have exhaust cost - so they can be used once per the hero's activation, or deplete costs, which is once per mission. Items (unless sold back), including depleted ones are available in the next mission.

Preferably play with 4 heroes. You may need to focus on a hero who has already activated. But every Rest a hero takes is good for the imperial side.

11 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Figures can be reinforced and deployed into any active deployment point. The rebels will end up knowing the points when you deploy figures into them, so then the rebels will be ready for new troops appearing.

Attachments need to be added to a group when the group is deployed.

Non-attachments can be used as specified in the card.

So you bought As You Wish? You can play it during end of round of any mission to add Vader's deployment card to your hand. Then you either discard the agenda card or shuffle it back into the agenda deck so you have a chance to draw it again. Note that you will still need to pay the threat cost to deploy Vader. Which isn't usually wise.

Unused supply cards are discarded. The supply deck is shuffled at the beginning of each mission.

Are you talking about items or supply cards? Items say how they are used. Some have exhaust cost - so they can be used once per the hero's activation, or deplete costs, which is once per mission. Items (unless sold back), including depleted ones are available in the next mission.

Preferably play with 4 heroes. You may need to focus on a hero who has already activated. But every Rest a hero takes is good for the imperial side.

Thanks A1lbert, all understood.

Re playing 4 heroes rather than the 2 advised(with +10hps) in the book is that I didnt want to give the wife too much to worry about early on and figured 2 heroes would be more manageable (and thats what the rules said). Ill see if she fancies 4 instead if that makes it more balanced.

4 heroes might be too much for one new player to handle, especially as they develop in the mid-late campaign. A good house rule for 2 hero campaign is to limit each hero to one rest and one move action per activation (total two each per round). The main problem with 2 heroes is one (the one being attacked) can rest 3-4 times a turn while the other one zooms around the map with 3-4 move actions per turn running objectives. Just depends on what she can handle, I know all the heroes abilities and weapons by heart but after 6xp and 3000 credits or so 4 heroes is a challenge for me.

1. If it helps, you can think of it as troopers emerging from secret passageways rather than just appearing out of thin air.

11 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

1. If it helps, you can think of it as troopers emerging from secret passageways rather than just appearing out of thin air.

I tend to think of them as doors and elevators as there is usually a whole lot of blank areas to the map.

6 minutes ago, Union said:

I tend to think of them as doors and elevators as there is usually a whole lot of blank areas to the map.

Sure, that works too. Some missions even address this as Imperials blowing up or drilling through walls to access the battlefield.

Guess the idea of an elevator there works well!!

Don't worry too much about Vader's agenda card. Vader shows up a couple of times in the campaign anyway, as a reserved group, for zero threat

24 minutes ago, udat said:

Don't worry too much about Vader's agenda card. Vader shows up a couple of times in the campaign anyway, as a reserved group, for zero threat

Well, possibly. There's no guarantee.

I actually really like As You Wish. The Rebels can get pretty bold with bringing in Allies if they don't think you have much all that scary up your sleeve in open groups, so it's always fun to have that card as a failsafe. Seeing their faces when you've brought Vader in completely unexpected is well worth the price of his deployment.

-Though, personally, I think the GI's card is much better- particularly punishing when there are less than 4 heroes.

Overall, with As You Wish, then last year having the GI and Greedo cards as well as the Nemesis deck, I'm glad villains are becoming a bit more playable.

I'm holding on to As You Wish in our current campaign. I'm also playing Nemeses. It's going to be GLORIOUS! The Rebel Scum have no idea what they're in for. Well, okay, they do, they know they're in for a lot of winning because we're playing Jabba's Realm. But I'm hoping As You Wish will let me win 1 for a change.

I have the 'As you Wish card', im playing the Nemesis imperial deck and should be able to to bring Vader out next mission for 8 threat. the nemesis deck is a blast to play. i love me some villains

11 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

Thanks A1lbert, all understood.

Re playing 4 heroes rather than the 2 advised(with +10hps) in the book is that I didnt want to give the wife too much to worry about early on and figured 2 heroes would be more manageable (and thats what the rules said). Ill see if she fancies 4 instead if that makes it more balanced.

4 Heroes is a lot to deal with for the Rebel player. I've been playing a 2v2 campaign (2 players controlling 4 heroes, and 2 players controlling the Imperials) and even then 4 heroes ends up being a lot to manage.

If you're interested in a more balanced campaign, it might be worth it to use 4 heroes and live with the mental load. But if you're just playing to have fun shooting up Stormtroopers and running around in the Star Wars universe, then 2 heroes is probably the way to go. Just know that some missions are going to be *really* hard for one side or the other if you do. But hey, if you're playing more for theme, it might be even more thematic when your duo runs in to some situations that are tough for them to handle.

17 hours ago, Stompburger said:

4 Heroes is a lot to deal with for the Rebel player. I've been playing a 2v2 campaign (2 players controlling 4 heroes, and 2 players controlling the Imperials) and even then 4 heroes ends up being a lot to manage.

If you're interested in a more balanced campaign, it might be worth it to use 4 heroes and live with the mental load. But if you're just playing to have fun shooting up Stormtroopers and running around in the Star Wars universe, then 2 heroes is probably the way to go. Just know that some missions are going to be *really* hard for one side or the other if you do. But hey, if you're playing more for theme, it might be even more thematic when your duo runs in to some situations that are tough for them to handle.

I've run 4 heroes in both mini-campaigns and agree that it can be quite a bit to manage, especially toward the end of the campaign with XP and item upgrades. It really depends on the person playing the rebels and if they are up for it but I do think it is worth the extra mental load for a more balanced campaign. One thing that I don't like as much is that you don't really feel tied to any one character since you're controlling all four. On a side note, overall I didn't enjoy either of those campaigns as much but I am not sure if it was this reason or if it was the brevity of the campaign. I will have to play through the mini-campaigns with a full group to see if that makes a difference.

I like 2 rebel players controlling 2 each if they are up to it or 3 rebels with 1 group controlled character. Imperial does this to a degree anyways, controlling their figures while anticipating what the rebels can do

I actually prefer to have a small amount of disconnect from "this is my hero" because it helps the rebels view the game as a coop and group play more than individual accomplishments. The extra character also helps for those times where a rebel gets withdrawn, they can just take control of the other character. (And if there are 2 withdraws, that's probably mission over anyways)

when I first introduced this game to my DnD group it was a disaster lol. They didn't cooperate at all, often hindered each other (swooped in to grab crates the others were planning to grab, kill steal, etc., the worst thing ever though one time Diala force pushed an activated Fenn in front of an unactivated e-web) and they always seemed to forget you got EXP from doing the missions and not just killing everything in sight. Literally after every mission they would ask; "so how much EXP do I get for all the stuff I killed?"

Between a few massive rules errors and the general mindset coming from a "chaotic neutral" (which we all know is really chaotic evil) RPG party, my first campaign of Imperial Assault was a real trip.

16 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

when I first introduced this game to my DnD group it was a disaster lol. They didn't cooperate at all, often hindered each other (swooped in to grab crates the others were planning to grab, kill steal, etc., the worst thing ever though one time Diala force pushed an activated Fenn in front of an unactivated e-web) and they always seemed to forget you got EXP from doing the missions and not just killing everything in sight. Literally after every mission they would ask; "so how much EXP do I get for all the stuff I killed?"

Between a few massive rules errors and the general mindset coming from a "chaotic neutral" (which we all know is really chaotic evil) RPG party, my first campaign of Imperial Assault was a real trip.

That's fantastic, haha!

I had a similar experience with my siblings (early teens) a few weeks ago when I introduced them to the game. They would avoid danger at all costs, sometimes essentially passing a turn instead of moving in an effort to avoid putting themselves in line of fire of a single stormtrooper. They'd heal way too much, and would screw each other by trying to do nothing but hoard crates and pick off my stormtroopers. In Leia's acquisition mission, they double moved the princess completely unguarded as close to the objective as they could- the mission was over in two turns.

The worst part is, whenever I gave them advice (and it was frequent) they just assumed I was trying to lure them into a trap (I have a reputation at playing mind games during tabletop nights, but I wouldn't do that to someone trying to learn a game) so they wouldn't listen.

Luckily, next time I'm in town and we continue our campaign, my wife will be joining the Rebels. She's got a pretty good track record against me, so she might be able to turn things around for them.

8 hours ago, subtrendy said:

That's fantastic, haha!

I had a similar experience with my siblings (early teens) a few weeks ago when I introduced them to the game. They would avoid danger at all costs, sometimes essentially passing a turn instead of moving in an effort to avoid putting themselves in line of fire of a single stormtrooper. They'd heal way too much, and would screw each other by trying to do nothing but hoard crates and pick off my stormtroopers. In Leia's acquisition mission, they double moved the princess completely unguarded as close to the objective as they could- the mission was over in two turns.

The worst part is, whenever I gave them advice (and it was frequent) they just assumed I was trying to lure them into a trap (I have a reputation at playing mind games during tabletop nights, but I wouldn't do that to someone trying to learn a game) so they wouldn't listen.

Luckily, next time I'm in town and we continue our campaign, my wife will be joining the Rebels. She's got a pretty good track record against me, so she might be able to turn things around for them.

nice. Hopefully she teaches them a thing or two. I have to say, it was actually the first few campaigns that were trippy. Because as you can imagine coming into the second campaign out of that one I had never faced a real cohesive Rebel strategy as the Imperial player before, so it was completely unexpected which jostled me and I coupled that with few key horrible decisions like I spent agenda on Vader AND tried to use him...

...Oh man just the thought of spending agenda on Vader after 50+ campaigns of IA makes me laugh so hard when I think about it now.

My logic was along the lines of the old SWM costing, where Uniques were supposed to get a "discount" of sorts, plus I just assumed "since he can't be redeployed AND he takes up an open group, he's got to be better than a group that I could redeploy" which I guess is true these days with villains like Greedo, GI and Terro, but not in Vader's case. Not at all.

EDIT: Also one time in the first campaign a Hero asked and I quote; "can we take the stuff from a defeated Hero" - proud to say this hasn't been asked in a subsequent campaign

1 hour ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

nice. Hopefully she teaches them a thing or two. I have to say, it was actually the first few campaigns that were trippy. Because as you can imagine coming into the second campaign out of that one I had never faced a real cohesive Rebel strategy as the Imperial player before, so it was completely unexpected which jostled me and I coupled that with few key horrible decisions like I spent agenda on Vader AND tried to use him...

...Oh man just the thought of spending agenda on Vader after 50+ campaigns of IA makes me laugh so hard when I think about it now.

My logic was along the lines of the old SWM costing, where Uniques were supposed to get a "discount" of sorts, plus I just assumed "since he can't be redeployed AND he takes up an open group, he's got to be better than a group that I could redeploy" which I guess is true these days with villains like Greedo, GI and Terro, but not in Vader's case. Not at all.

EDIT: Also one time in the first campaign a Hero asked and I quote; "can we take the stuff from a defeated Hero" - proud to say this hasn't been asked in a subsequent campaign

If your team is cool with houserules, the units in wave 1 & 2 can still be good

Take a big knife, slash all 10+ cost in Wave 1 by 4, except elite Royal Guards (so ATST=10, Vader=14, RGC=11, Han=8...), and slash all 10+ cost in Wave 2 by 3 (so Boba=10, Kayn=7)

It works pretty nicely

In my current campaign my Rebels would have totally ignored my Kayn Somos agenda mission with his default 10, but they fought tooth and nail knowing I can bring him in for 7. Unfortunately, I won. Now they dread seeing him in our future missions for 7 threat

In my previous campaign I've also managed to slam down Vader for 9 w/o Nemeses: 18 -> houserule 14 -> As you Wish + A Dark power = 9. Is it worth 3 influence to see my Rebel's terrified face? Absolutely!

honestly it's grown on me thematically not being able to use Vader except when he's given to me by a mission where he is a super boss or he's basically unbeatable, or he just pops at the end for like two rounds, or he's just a ghost. Like Honestly finale Vader feels like how Vader should be all the time, and once you've played with him that way using him as a reggie dep makes it feel like he came to the battlefield after a night of sitting in a bacta tank full of vodka. Vader's image stays pristine and untarnished by being unusable lol.

As far as house-rules go, that's up to whoever is the Imperial Player. Which isn't always me, it usually is, but when it is me, I try to keep it to 0 house rules. But that is very interesting talk about the others, RGC at 11 and the Heroes...reg Luke for 6? That sketches me out a little his rerolls can be potent but RGC at 11 sounds nice I mean that's only 2 more than Inqy and he's worth it

9 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

I have to say, it was actually the first few campaigns that were trippy. Because as you can imagine coming into the second campaign out of that one I had never faced a real cohesive Rebel strategy as the Imperial player before, so it was completely unexpected which jostled me and I coupled that with few key horrible decisions like I spent agenda on Vader AND tried to use him...

We've all been there, haha. My one rebel player wasn't much of a challenge in my first campaign, either- and as a result, I found myself actually forgetting that I had class cards to use. Seriously, I wash tech superiority, and I almost never used any of the class cards that I had. Like, maybe collectively they got used 5 times in the campaign. On my second runthrough, my Rebels were much more tactical, and I started getting my butt handed to me. I quickly learned the value of those cards.

11 hours ago, aRandomBoardGamingDude said:

honestly it's grown on me thematically not being able to use Vader except when he's given to me by a mission where he is a super boss or he's basically unbeatable, or he just pops at the end for like two rounds, or he's just a ghost. Like Honestly finale Vader feels like how Vader should be all the time, and once you've played with him that way using him as a reggie dep makes it feel like he came to the battlefield after a night of sitting in a bacta tank full of vodka. Vader's image stays pristine and untarnished by being unusable lol.

As far as house-rules go, that's up to whoever is the Imperial Player. Which isn't always me, it usually is, but when it is me, I try to keep it to 0 house rules. But that is very interesting talk about the others, RGC at 11 and the Heroes...reg Luke for 6? That sketches me out a little his rerolls can be potent but RGC at 11 sounds nice I mean that's only 2 more than Inqy and he's worth it

Ok yeah probably not Farmboy Luke too, basically those that we deem to "not worth the cost" gets the discount. So AT-ST, Vader, RGC, Chewie...

Luke is totally worth 10 with his auto-block + reroll buff + lightsaber strike

elite Royal Guards I'd say are still worth 12 threats in campaign (skirmish is an entirely different discussion) - they retain most of the pre-nerf regular RGs w/ slight upgrade with auto-evade

bottom line = make it fun for your players. I know my Rebels would have laughed if I spent 3 inf for RGC's agenda mission, but they won't laugh anymore if they know I can bring him in for 11 (slightly more expensive than eStorm squad, and 11 threats isn't that hard to come by later on when threat levels are 4+ w/ side mission's bonus: gain threat equal to x2 threat level in the beginning)

ofc all these goes out the window if you're playing with Nemeses deck, imo that deck gives enough discounts already (with my houserules at threat level 4, having only 3xp, you'd be able to bring in Vader for 14(+1-4)-5= 6 threats, or RGC for 11(+1-4)-5= 3 threats which even I as Imperial think is OP)

Interestingly, I've been playing with those costs a long time ago which was wayyyy before JR's Nemeses got released. Now I think of about it, it's more like pretending to give discounts as Nemeses' class cards, while not actually playing the Nemeses deck