Hey everyone,

My group is reshuffling a campaign that we've just barely started due to some concerns about player count and heroes. So, I thought I'd examine how I view each combination I've played, ranked from worst to best. Keep in mind, this is just my personal preference- I'd love to hear you sound off on yours as well!

6. 3 Players, 3 Heroes

This mode just came across as awkward to me. Not only are you dealing with 3 heroes (already an awkward number for this game) but their Heroic rewards just seems strange- I never really got the feeling it made up for as much as Legendary. Plus, the order of Hero activation was just a little clunkier with 3 heroes vs 4 or 2. Overall, just kind of an awkward, difficult experience. Though, to be fair, I've only played one mission like this.

5. 3 Players, 4 Heroes

Another awkward experience, and I guess it just goes to show that three's a crowd. I guess you could view the other hero as an overpowered ally that the heroes always have to bring, but having a single extra hero among 3 players has potential to make the Rebels argue over tactics. Didn't happen in my group, but I could see it being an issue.

4. 4 Players, 4 Heroes

A lot of people prefer the game to be played this way, but I'm not crazy about it. Overall, it probably has the best design as far as configuring balance with role playing elements (you'll find any 1:1 ratio of player to Hero set up has the best role-playing experiences) but gameplay seemed to suffer because of it. With only one and exactly one activation a round, my players were prone to getting bored off their turn. Sure, they offered suggestions to teammates, but this often simply caused frustration. Honestly, the only reason I'm not ranking this lower is simply because it allows for better role playing while still maintaining 4 Rebel hereos.

3. 1 Player, 2 Heroes

My first ever campaign was played this way. My wife against me. It actually went really well, but I imagine that was because we were both really new to it and didn't know how to really bring a lot of pain yet. Not sure I'd have as much fun like this now, but since we're strictly going off my experience, this often hated mode is actually pretty high for me.

2. 2 Players, 2 Heroes

My second campaign went like this, and man was it hard! In fact, I really learned a lot about strategy in this playthrough, and though I got my butt handed to me for about 7 missions in a row, I eventually came back to give the Rebels their "Empire Moment" (coined by one of our players) for a few missions in a row, though I ultimately lost. I remember this campaign as being a ton of fun, but again- not sure I'd play with this configuration in the future.

1. 2 Players, 4 Heroes

YES. I've played like this a little bit, and am excited to do a full campaign with this setup. The rebels have 4 heroes with one activation per turn apiece, just as the game intends, but the players have two activations a turn, which makes the game more interesting for them. Though there are some flaws with this setup (it hurts the RPG element and is slightly harder to keep up with abilities) I think the pros really outweigh the cons- especially since the "hive mind" element of eliminating additional Rebel voices helps to let the Rebels better strategize and makes up for some mistakes that would be made by periodically forgetting abilities.

So yeah, let me know how you prefer to play. I would like to try 1 Player 4 Heroes as some point, but I might train my wife to be the Empire first so I can take the role of all 4 heroes.

My order of preference:

(P = players, H = heroes)

1. 4P, 4H

I have never seen the " players were prone to getting bored off their turn" becoming a problem. Rebels should always be thinking about tactics even when it's not their turn, otherwise they'd have no idea how to react after I (Imperial) makes my move. For example: I shot Jyn x3 with focused eStorm. If Jyn haven't gone this round, Jyn player should be looking at "should I rest or YOLO?", and Fenn player should be looking at his TacMove to get Jyn outta there. If Jyn already activated this round, Gaarkhan player should be reminding Jyn "Hey I can buff you w/ my Wookiee Loyalty, should I do that?"

I also whack AP-players with timers if I deem it to be necessary: this forces everyone to think & pay attention to the board state. As Imperial I usually make my move in < 10 sec, because I'm always thinking about my strategy while Rebels are making their move

Timer rule that worked for my group: 3min after initial mission briefing, 1min to make a move, +1 if new round, +1 if mission trigger. No restriction on actual resolving combat/rolling dice

2. 1P, 4H

Not exactly newbie-friendly, but works very well when you can't find 4P and both Imp & Rebel are experienced. I prefer 1P4H > 2P4H simply because there's less discussion + game moves faster + Rebel player can freely choose whatever build synergy he/she wants

3. 2P, 4H

neutral about this config. If I'm faced with 2P4H I usually try to split up into 2x 1P4H (so 2 separate campaigns) or just try to find more people to get 4P4H. I've played 2P4H twice, and both cases it changed to 1P4H due to scheduling conflicts with players ("oops I can't make it tonight" occurs too often), so it was much easier to just split into 2x 1P4H than to keep saying "your teammate can't make it tonight, you'll be playing his heroes, btw re-learn his build for this upcoming mission"

4. 3P, 4H

Special: This only happens when someone needs to drop out from a 4P4H, otherwise I would never have this config by default: someone needs to double-duty, or one of the hero will be shared like an ally, with other 3 players discussing how they should build it

Would not play with any other config. I've tried 1P2H and 2P2H, missions were very swingy. I played 1P4H more than any other config (1v1, I've played both Rebel and Imperial side)

I will rank the campaign player configurations I have played;

1- 4 Players : 4 Heroes

My 2nd Campaign playthrough. I think we can all agree that this is the best set up in terms of balance in terms of balance. As an imperial player, i love watching the rebel players decide between a bad choice and a worse one. This set up could suffer hard if you dont have an experienced player among the rebels to keep them focused on the objective, to show the outcome of the actions that they will take. In my experience , there were too many opinions and quarrels among rebels; which has made the most fun campaign by far. There is a downside to this mode. When getting feedback from newcomers, the comment i hear often is they preferred if they could do more actions per round. The last mission i played, one rebel really wanted to win, so he cross analyzed the board before every activation. Round one took 1hr and 10 minutes!!

2- 3 Players : 3 Heroes .

My first campaign playthrough. I didn't like this set up. I would rank this the lowest because it made the mission clunky. One hero getting to go twice affects a lot of balance issues. They can travel much further in a round, the stronger geared heroes get to play twice, activate their defensive abilities twice. But each player was managing their hero well.

3- 3 Players : 4 Heroes

During the 2nd campaign, when one rebel could not make it, his character was taken over by other players. Half the time, the shared character was not played at his maximum potential. This could work find with experienced players handling two heroes; not so much with newcomers.

However, for the best gameplay experience, I agree with Subtrendy.

7 hours ago, subtrendy said:

1. 2 Players, 4 Heroes

YES. I've played like this a little bit, and am excited to do a full campaign with this setup. The rebels have 4 heroes with one activation per turn apiece, just as the game intends, but the players have two activations a turn, which makes the game more interesting for them. Though there are some flaws with this setup (it hurts the RPG element and is slightly harder to keep up with abilities) I think the pros really outweigh the cons- especially since the "hive mind" element of eliminating additional Rebel voices helps to let the Rebels better strategize and makes up for some mistakes that would be made by periodically forgetting abilities.

Having 3 Players only (1 Imp, 2 Rebels), the coordination of gaming session will be easier. With less opinions and discussion downtime, the missions will go faster.

I'm not as big into the role-playing side in this game so I'm not really concerned about having a one-character-per-player ratio. I still like the flavour and story elements, but I tend to look at it more as a story happening to the group as a whole than to my one individual player within the group. So with that all said, my ideal combinations out of the ones that I've tried are:

5: 0 Players, 4 Heroes

Yes, I play this game with just me controlling both sides (shame face). Although this is the most common configuration I've used, it's also the least enjoyable. It's a fun mental exercise to try to play your best for both sides when the other side is always anticipating everything you're thinking, but there's a lot going on and at times it can be hard to keep track of everything (particularly the agenda cards, I almost never remember to use them). Worst of all, it's really hard to effectively trash talk yourself

4: 1 Player, 2 Heroes

I also play a lot with one friend of mine, and the first time through the core campaign we went with this configuration. It was still fun, but the two-hero configuration just throws the balance of some missions so far out of whack that they feel completely broken (for one side or the other). Yeah the balance probably evens out over the course of a whole campaign, but it's still no fun playing missions where one player or the other feels like they never have a chance.

3: 4 Players, 4 Heroes

Now we're getting into the good ones, and to be honest there's very little difference for me between my top 3. Any game with 4 heroes is fun, but if I had to pick the worst of the bunch it would be 4/4 for three reasons. 1) Player elimination. Sometimes it makes sense to try and make a hero completely withdraw. If you're the imperial, that means that your options are to take away someone's fun for the night or to play sub-optimally. 2)Alpha-gamerism. Playing the rebels in Imperial Assault is all about getting your whole team to work together - if everyone just does their own thing you can still have fun but you're not going to win a lot against an imp going full-out. This can be a problem if one of the rebels is more familiar with the game (like if, say, the group only plays once every few months but one of the rebels spends his nights at home playing the game against himself ). Sometimes that rebel might end up watching his team make moves that are probably not great just because he doesn't want to always be the one making suggestions about what the team should be doing. And finally, 3)Some rebel heroes are "less fun". It's great to have an MHD on your rebel team. It's not as great if you're the player who only gets to control him and spends the whole game healing instead of rolling dice and blowing stuff up (although your mileage may vary).

2: 3 Players, 4 Heroes

Pretty much the same as #3 but without the player elimination problem. If one hero gets withdrawn then he or she just takes over the extra "group" hero for the rest of the game. You can also throw your support hero out to be controlled by the group if nobody is big on playing that way.

1: 1 Player, 4 Heroes

This is how I play most of my campaigns and it's what I like the best. If you've got two evenly matched players a lot of missions come down to the wire. Also you have so much control and flexibility over how you build the team (i.e. you don't need to worry about buying the Gideon player a gun just because "Frank hasn't been given the chance to buy any upgrades yet" or whatever).

0?: 2 Players, 4 Heroes

Special mention to this one. It's not on my list because I've never tried it, but I think that for me this would hit the sweet spot of having lots of control over your side but still having the social aspects that makes being a part of the rebel team so much fun.

Interesting input, thanks guys! Yeah, I'm not surprised that 4P 4H is more popular with most than it is with me. I think ManateeX hits the nail on the head, though-

2 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

3: 4 Players, 4 Heroes

1) Player elimination. Sometimes it makes sense to try and make a hero completely withdraw. If you're the imperial, that means that your options are to take away someone's fun for the night or to play sub-optimally. 2)Alpha-gamerism. Playing the rebels in Imperial Assault is all about getting your whole team to work together - if everyone just does their own thing you can still have fun but you're not going to win a lot against an imp going full-out. This can be a problem if one of the rebels is more familiar with the game (like if, say, the group only plays once every few months but one of the rebels spends his nights at home playing the game against himself ). Sometimes that rebel might end up watching his team make moves that are probably not great just because he doesn't want to always be the one making suggestions about what the team should be doing. And finally, 3)Some rebel heroes are "less fun". It's great to have an MHD on your rebel team. It's not as great if you're the player who only gets to control him and spends the whole game healing instead of rolling dice and blowing stuff up (although your mileage may vary).

We saw issues #1 and #2 immediately in our first 4P4H mission. One Rebel hero made an awful move after already being wounded, and I was essentially forced to either kill him, or make it look like I was actively trying to lose. I'm not above making sub-optimal moves every now and then to keep the game interesting, but I generally like for my Rebels to at least think I'm trying.

Then, also, our most experienced Rebel got frustrated that no one was listening to her, especially when such subpar moves were being made despite her warning against them.

I think with a different set of Rebels, 4P4H would have worked better, but with my team, 2P4H is ideal.

I play 2 player games the most unfortunately, but I still like them. I like 2 hero and 4 hero models, but they are both very different. I can absolutely see where 4 players can by 4 individuals instead of a team.

4 hours ago, subtrendy said:

Interesting input, thanks guys! Yeah, I'm not surprised that 4P 4H is more popular with most than it is with me. I think ManateeX hits the nail on the head, though-

We saw issues #1 and #2 immediately in our first 4P4H mission. One Rebel hero made an awful move after already being wounded, and I was essentially forced to either kill him, or make it look like I was actively trying to lose. I'm not above making sub-optimal moves every now and then to keep the game interesting, but I generally like for my Rebels to at least think I'm trying.

Then, also, our most experienced Rebel got frustrated that no one was listening to her, especially when such subpar moves were being made despite her warning against them.

I think with a different set of Rebels, 4P4H would have worked better, but with my team, 2P4H is ideal.

Agreed, I've seen both of these issues happening before

My attempts at fixing them was simply put out alerts. For example, if they made a movement SO BAD that it pretty much puts them to the point of no return, then yes it's very likely I'll make them withdraw, but I usually see it before happening and say "guys, are you sure you want to do that? because I can do X". I allow take-backs as long as no new info. has been revealed (dice roll, mission trigger...)

Alpha gamers was a tough one: it's a semi-coop and Rebels need to coordinate (so simply ban table-talk isn't going to work). I settled on the "anyone can offer suggestions only if the active player asks for it , and no one except the active player may activate his/her hero". So if Gideon player is stuck and asks for help, Fenn can offer suggestions; if Gideon didn't ask for help, then other players can only discuss board state: there's a stormie there, so Gideon might get shot up; no recommendations like "if you move there you can try to kill that stormie and I can help with my ability..."; only Gideon player can activate Gideon, so Fenn can't simply makes Gideon's move for him/her