So, we finished our first campaign - and it was a total blast. However, I want to house rule to try and allow for more unique characters to be brought in (both on the IP side , and as rebel Allies). I have seen people discuss various methods to reduce the threat cost, etc. One option I am considering is:

1) Choosing the side mission earns you the villain / ally automatically.

2) Winning the side mission reduces the threat cost. The question here is how much so that it isn't overpowered, yet is still a good reward for winning the mission (which I found difficult to win for either side on the couple that we played).

Was thinking to reduce threat cost in half (rounded up so Chewy would be 8 threat to the IP to bring in as an ally if the rebels won his side mission - full 15 threat if they lost). Would love to do something that scales well as the campaign progresses (maybe adjusting the discount with current threat level?). Also considering to rule that this discount doesn't stack with other character deployment threat level discounts (nemesis deck, reduce deployment group by 5 points agenda card, etc).

I am also going to go with another house rule mentioned which is to allow the Rebels to remove a side mission they don't want if it shows up - no reason to have a mission they don't want to chose hang around for the whole campaign. That kind of happened to us last time as Vipers Den came up and nobody wanted to choose it, so it "blocked" a slot the rest of the way.

Would love any feedback. Thanks!

I've messed around with this idea myself, and here's what I've come up with:

Allies are gained normally through green/agenda missions. However, successfully recruiting an ally this way also grants the player a 1-time only reduction of 1/3 its threat cost. So a 12 point ally can be brought in for 8, etc.

It probably seems pretty meager this way, but I've found that reducing allies' cost by a full 50% gives that side a very heavy advantage. This way, there's still a tangible bonus that can go a long way to helping whoever plays it- even heroes like Han and Chewie are, in most cases, still very much worth it at 66% cost. But it doesn't go overboard.

As far as missions go, this is a house rule I always use. I'm very attached to it:

When drawing side missions, draw two as normal. After the rebels select their mission, discard any unplayed missions into the game box.

This has four major advantages to me:

1. There's no longer a chance of Viper's Den eating up 50% of your mission space all game.

2. You can count on seeing 14 of 16 side missions each campaign. So if your goal is to unlock elite rebel troopers with Gideon, or getting Diala her lightsaber, you have excellent odds at getting to do so, far more so than the vanilla game.

3. Agenda missions get much nastier, as if heroes take them on, they're turning their backs permanently on two side missions.

4. Most importantly, choosing side missions becomes a much more interesting and thematic decision. Rather than making a predictable decision knowing that the other mission will be available forever, heroes need to make a much more difficult call. In the original rules, if you draw Deadly Transmission and find out that the Empire is about to discover Obi-Wan, you can decide to put that off for five campaign missions before arriving at your leisure to rescue him. By my rule, it's a now-or-never deal. Do you assist Obi-Wan, or do you rescue Loku's former companions? Whichever you do, you won't do the other. It makes for a genuinely exciting moment.

I really like that second house rule, Tarvalar. While it still doesn't guarantee that the rebels will get to do every mission they want (e.g. "Both Gideon's and Diala's missions showed up together, which do we choose???") it will more often than not at least give them the option.

I'm playing in a campaign right now where of the five side missions we've seen, four of them have been the grey missions (including the two we still have to pick from). What's worse is that one of the first two missions that we drew was "Luxury Cruise" which rewards you with the ability to bring in allies more cheaply - allies that we haven't yet been given the opportunity to earn since we haven't had a single green mission come up as an option. So for all intents and purposes we haven't really made a mission choice all campaign. After taking all that time to choose allies during set-up, where's the fun in that?

this doesn't pertain to unique allies like Han and Luke, but one easy to use houserule someone in my group came up with while I was rebel scum and he was the IP was if we won the mission Brute Force, instead of fielding two wookiee warriors for 8 threat when we bring them as an ally, we could instead field one wookie warrior for 4 threat, and when he was defeated, we would place an elite wookiee warrior in his space, and the IP would get 6 threat. This actually worked out great because being able to soak up a whole attack at 1 hp and then be your elite version is useful, and then you get an auto-success on checks. It also balanced well because the IP gets class cards which make his threat more valuable over time, the Heroes don't really get the same benefit unless they have Murne or bring Rebel Troopers with Gideon. And even with Murne, it's not bad. The IP just gets the 6 threat when the Wookiee is "wounded". It's also thematic cause technically it should be the Wookiees from that mission, AND, thematically there's a spare if he can't make it to an extraction point lol. 24 extra hit points that gets 1 success on checks after 11 damage and can handle soft targets for you is honestly the Hero a sometimes not ideal Rebel team needs.
Now, I feel like I should discuss this IP's alterior motives; he wanted to get Imperial Industry and so if he played Industry when there were only one or two side missions slots left, and one of them was a hero plot mission, the group would prolly let him have it to get this Wookiee and do the hero mission. Which we did, and it was worth it cause we drew Brute Force first side mission and he facepalmed. He won us one mission because he got "wounded", he then got auto-successes and dealt more damage, and didn't need to get back to an extraction point. TBH as far allies go he's powerful, he can storm objectives with an 11 hp shield that if the IP doesn't deal with he'll be taking out some soft targets upon arrival, but it's balanced honestly because giving the IP 6 threat when he already has threat built up is a little stronger than just giving him initial threat. So basically you have the option to bring a single person 10 point group instead of an 8 point 2 person group. Now, I really like it as the IP for the compound threat I'll get when I wound the Wookiee, and as a Rebel I really like it for the Wookiee. And honestly what the IP gets for his threat gets waaaay more valuable than what the threat from the allies the more class cards and rewards he gets.

I suppose you could apply this rule to anybody besides the Wookiee for example the alliance smuggler would be pretty cool with that rule, or even a single rebel saboteur/trooper/ranger/echo base trooper. Having a single cheap ally is very nice when you get to the later missions when the IPs threat can just do some nasty things to the units he fields

Ya that side mission house rule is great. I generally just discard a Grey mission after they choose against it twice, so I let it take up a lot for a few rounds in a row then toss it aside to get more interesting missions in there.

I've also fooled around with letting them have reduced cost allies, I think if you do it at a slight amount it works better than cutting it in half. I usually would do say Luke at 4 points less, take the threat, but only use it if the mission is getting one sided. So I might deploy a Probe Droid to start and have say 6 threat left over in my pool that I don't use unless the Rebels are starting to run away with the mission. This has worked great ,but requires an experienced IP who can gauge missions correctly.

Another thing I've done is let them bring say the Echo Base Troopers along as Elites for no extra cost if they are coming off a tough loss. Little bumps here and there can help boost the parties morale.

Thanks for all these replies everyone. I am definitely going to push for the change to automatically "win" the ally just by choosing the mission, and I'll try a 1/3 threat cost reduction for winning the mission. None of the rebels are experienced players, so to them it may not appear to be a big reward for winning the mission, but as the IP (I myself only played the one campaign as IP) I know the threat reduction is a big deal.

We just got the game in January, and finished our first campaign and really loved it. My son and I are playing Skirmish now while waiting to get our second run through the core campaign (real life interrupting with our other rebels so we took a break before starting another campaign).

Thanks everyone!!!

5 hours ago, Tarvalar said:

I've messed around with this idea myself, and here's what I've come up with:

Allies are gained normally through green/agenda missions. However, successfully recruiting an ally this way also grants the player a 1-time only reduction of 1/3 its threat cost. So a 12 point ally can be brought in for 8, etc.

It probably seems pretty meager this way, but I've found that reducing allies' cost by a full 50% gives that side a very heavy advantage. This way, there's still a tangible bonus that can go a long way to helping whoever plays it- even heroes like Han and Chewie are, in most cases, still very much worth it at 66% cost. But it doesn't go overboard.

As far as missions go, this is a house rule I always use. I'm very attached to it:

When drawing side missions, draw two as normal. After the rebels select their mission, discard any unplayed missions into the game box.

This has four major advantages to me:

1. There's no longer a chance of Viper's Den eating up 50% of your mission space all game.

2. You can count on seeing 14 of 16 side missions each campaign. So if your goal is to unlock elite rebel troopers with Gideon, or getting Diala her lightsaber, you have excellent odds at getting to do so, far more so than the vanilla game.

3. Agenda missions get much nastier, as if heroes take them on, they're turning their backs permanently on two side missions.

4. Most importantly, choosing side missions becomes a much more interesting and thematic decision. Rather than making a predictable decision knowing that the other mission will be available forever, heroes need to make a much more difficult call. In the original rules, if you draw Deadly Transmission and find out that the Empire is about to discover Obi-Wan, you can decide to put that off for five campaign missions before arriving at your leisure to rescue him. By my rule, it's a now-or-never deal. Do you assist Obi-Wan, or do you rescue Loku's former companions? Whichever you do, you won't do the other. It makes for a genuinely exciting moment.

Really good stuff here, especially the side mission one

Great thought, the 50% discount is far too high though.

Perhaps the threat level x10% off? It's a bit more fiddly but the further into the campaign you get the cheaper the character becomes seeming as they don't improve like hero's and other units do.

I would say that Villains getting a discount as well is a little risky. Mainly because they will have access to the IMP player upgrade cards effects and so could be even more dangerous than usual.

I guess it depends on your playgroup at the end of the day.

Will you keep the missions at 3 influence for the IMP player? I've always found that incredibly over priced.

6 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

Perhaps the threat level x10% off? It's a bit more fiddly but the further into the campaign you get the cheaper the character becomes seeming as they don't improve like hero's and other units do.

10% of 2 is .2 and 10% of 6 is .6, how is that going to be any kind of threat reduction? Also you wouldn't want it to be the cheaper the later the campaign since rebels would just stack it for the Finale

6 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

Great thought, the 50% discount is far too high though.

Perhaps the threat level x10% off? It's a bit more fiddly but the further into the campaign you get the cheaper the character becomes seeming as they don't improve like hero's and other units do.

I would say that Villains getting a discount as well is a little risky. Mainly because they will have access to the IMP player upgrade cards effects and so could be even more dangerous than usual.

I guess it depends on your playgroup at the end of the day.

Will you keep the missions at 3 influence for the IMP player? I've always found that incredibly over priced.

Thanks for the response, I am looking at 1/3 discount - as someone upthread also mentioned that 50% was too much. Also, I don't understand your threat level x 10% - how would that work?

Yes, I would keep the influence costs all the same. My goal is to change as little as possible, while trying to get more unique allies to the table (or at least make the choice a solid one vs one that is immediately discouraged). I just feel like if Chewie,Han, Luke,Vader, etc are on the table and in the game it is a Good Thing(tm). I didn't earn Vader, but I did get the card that allows me to put him in my hand anyway. Deploying Vader as a surprise (even if not the most tactically sound decision), was one of the best moments of the campaign. My kids practically soiled themselves when I hit them with Brutality for the first time (Side note - I still lost the mission, but it was cool regardless)

I am playing as IP with my two kids and wife, so its competitive but all in the name of fun (just to give some context of our game). In our last campaign they were really hesitant to bring in any ally as they didn't want to give me threat. Also, winning the side missions to earn the allies seemed incredibly difficult.

Thanks!

20 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

Great thought, the 50% discount is far too high though.

Perhaps the threat level x10% off? It's a bit more fiddly but the further into the campaign you get the cheaper the character becomes seeming as they don't improve like hero's and other units do.

I would say that Villains getting a discount as well is a little risky. Mainly because they will have access to the IMP player upgrade cards effects and so could be even more dangerous than usual.

I guess it depends on your playgroup at the end of the day.

Will you keep the missions at 3 influence for the IMP player? I've always found that incredibly over priced.

50% discount might work for something crazy overpriced like IG-88 or Han Solo but would be ridiculous for newer figures that are properly priced like Blaise, Jabba, Jedi Luke etc.

You're also right that the Imperial threat benefits from class cards so late campaign they will tend to be far better than their threat would indicate and Rebels don't get that aside from Murne's cost reducer or the one reward cost reducer.

13 hours ago, totalnoob said:

Thanks for the response, I am looking at 1/3 discount - as someone upthread also mentioned that 50% was too much. Also, I don't understand your threat level x 10% - how would that work?

Yes, I would keep the influence costs all the same. My goal is to change as little as possible, while trying to get more unique allies to the table (or at least make the choice a solid one vs one that is immediately discouraged). I just feel like if Chewie,Han, Luke,Vader, etc are on the table and in the game it is a Good Thing(tm). I didn't earn Vader, but I did get the card that allows me to put him in my hand anyway. Deploying Vader as a surprise (even if not the most tactically sound decision), was one of the best moments of the campaign. My kids practically soiled themselves when I hit them with Brutality for the first time (Side note - I still lost the mission, but it was cool regardless)

I am playing as IP with my two kids and wife, so its competitive but all in the name of fun (just to give some context of our game). In our last campaign they were really hesitant to bring in any ally as they didn't want to give me threat. Also, winning the side missions to earn the allies seemed incredibly difficult.

Thanks!

Hoth, Twin Shadows, Bespin and Jabba's Realm include missions that will give the Rebels allies you can win in story missions.

For core there are a couple missions where you get allies for a single mission and Gideon's side mission will give you allies to win on top of his normal reward.

Like Vader, Gweedo has a 1-off play card.

For the older stuff which is highly overcosted, I don't see why you can't simply play them. I mean, I take IG-88 when I'm trying to lose a game because he is so overcosted. For the newer stuff that has proper pricing earning them makes a bit more sense. You don't want to be able to just throw Jabba out whenever you want.

Not sure how it isn't clear but I will try an example.

Threat level of the mission is 3. 3 x 10 = 30. Therefore 30% discount off the cost of the figure. I.E 10 point figure becomes 7. So the higher the threat level (AKA the further into the campaign you are), the bigger the discount.

Frotes seems to have missed up x with /.

Does that make it clearer?

Alternatively, if it's too complicated to remember, you can just slash all Wave 1 w/ costs 10+ by 4 except Farmboy Luke + elite Royal Guards, and all Wave 2 uniques by 3. I've been using this rule for like 6 core campaigns already, works good enough

So AT-ST 14->10; Vader 18->14; RGC 15->11, Han,IG 12->8; Kayn 10->7...

The idea is that my Rebels would have totally ignored my Kayn otherwise, but they had to stop & think a bit (and they attempted my Kayn Somos mission) when they know I can drop him in for 7

old: threat level 3 or 4, even with occasional threat bonus from mission triggers I need AT LEAST 3~4 rounds worth of threat to drop him

now: with threat level 3 or 4, I can usually drop him in < 2 rounds

RGC is a total joke for 15, requiring 5~6 rounds worth of threats, but he's a monster at 11 when you can drop him in 3~4 rounds

9 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

Not sure how it isn't clear but I will try an example.

Threat level of the mission is 3. 3 x 10 = 30. Therefore 30% discount off the cost of the figure. I.E 10 point figure becomes 7. So the higher the threat level (AKA the further into the campaign you are), the bigger the discount.

Frotes seems to have missed up x with /.

Does that make it clearer?

Ah, yes that makes sense! I kind of like it. I think I will propose both (just straight 1/3 discount, or the 10% of TL discount) as options when we start our next campaign, and see what they think.

Have you played the 10% TL discount rule in your campaign before? Curious how you thought it went.

Thanks!

18 hours ago, totalnoob said:

Ah, yes that makes sense! I kind of like it. I think I will propose both (just straight 1/3 discount, or the 10% of TL discount) as options when we start our next campaign, and see what they think.

Have you played the 10% TL discount rule in your campaign before? Curious how you thought it went.

Thanks!

I haven't tried it, I haven't ever really gotten to play villains. I never draw them when I can afford them. Hence why I have reduced the cost. Players want to see villains! Why do they make it so hard to use them!?!

From experience of using % in this game I would expect this to work quite nicely.

5 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

I haven't tried it, I haven't ever really gotten to play villains. I never draw them when I can afford them. Hence why I have reduced the cost. Players want to see villains! Why do they make it so hard to use them!?!

From experience of using % in this game I would expect this to work quite nicely.

Thankfully with Jabba's Realm and the Nemeses class deck, it is significantly easier to use Villains in the campaign (which I suspect is why they created the deck). I have not gotten a chance to play the Imperial player with this deck but it looks like A LOT of fun with lots of replayability!

At the moment I only own the Core Game, so no nemesis deck for me :'(

I think we have agreed to buy Return to Hoth next if we complete this upcoming Core campaign and are still interested in playing. I'll try and remember to update this thread with what we choose and how it ends up working. I agree more uniques is a good thing!

It seems like this topic has come up quite a bit lately. However, I am personally a bit hesitant to house rule the cost of Allies and Villains because I am concerned that doing so messes with the fundamental game balance. FFG has provided some ways to reduce the cost of Allies (Murne's Company of Heroes , Allied Operations reward card, Return to Hoth Resurgance Boon reward) as well as Villains ( Nemeses class deck, various Threat increasing Agenda cards, etc).

If it works well for you and makes the game more fun for your group, by all means go for it. I believe FFG stated in some interview (if memory serves me right) that they plan to do something about some of the early wave unique figures so hopefully we will see something at some point to address this.

4 hours ago, machfalcon said:

If it works well for you and makes the game more fun for your group, by all means go for it. I believe FFG stated in some interview (if memory serves me right) that they plan to do something about some of the early wave unique figures so hopefully we will see something at some point to address this.

We have already seen IG-88. They are doing an attachment that changes his rules. But frankly I'm not sure it makes him better. It takes away his recovery for starters and that is one of the few things that makes him worth while.

5 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

We have already seen IG-88. They are doing an attachment that changes his rules. But frankly I'm not sure it makes him better. It takes away his recovery for starters and that is one of the few things that makes him worth while.

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe that attachment is only for Skirmish.

4 hours ago, machfalcon said:

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe that attachment is only for Skirmish.

Good point, unless they allow it in campaign too. Still feels like putting a bit of tape on a massive leak. They need to sort it. Preferably in a free FAQ and at worst included in an expansion.

3 hours ago, Pie Golem said:

Good point, unless they allow it in campaign too. Still feels like putting a bit of tape on a massive leak. They need to sort it. Preferably in a free FAQ and at worst included in an expansion.

Yeah, I think a revised deployment card (or cards, if an alternate skirmish version is appropriate) would be better.

At least for Han Solo (in campaign mode) I think giving him back his "True Cunning" ability (it gives him 2 blocks for every evade result) would make his 12 threat cost feel less like you're making the imperial player a favor. It would also help trigger his "Return Fire" ability more often.

On 3/28/2017 at 11:57 PM, Pie Golem said:

Not sure how it isn't clear but I will try an example.

Threat level of the mission is 3. 3 x 10 = 30. Therefore 30% discount off the cost of the figure. I.E 10 point figure becomes 7. So the higher the threat level (AKA the further into the campaign you are), the bigger the discount.

Frotes seems to have missed up x with /.

Does that make it clearer?

Quick update, we are starting our new (well the core one again) campaign this evening. Our rebel scum (my kids and wife agreed to the % threat discount for winning the villain/ally side mission (automatically "earning" the villain/ally if the side mission is chosen). So I'll report back as we progress through the campaign how it has worked out. It should, at the very least, offer the rebels and myself as IP many more choices - as plenty of villains/allies can be earned. We only have the core set, but we have Chewbacca, Grand Inquisitor, Obi Wan, Farm Luke, Vader, Han Solo, and Boba Fett as possible uniques to be earned via the agenda deck or side mission deck for this campaign.