I have a feeling that the Errata from FAQ document is designed for skirmish, not campaign. I haven't played with Rebel saboteurs much, so I can't tell about them. But it's clear that Imperial Guards doesn't work as intended in multiple missions.

On one mission you have two guards staying alone in a separate hall, guarding the prisoner. That would make sense if they could buff each other and thus act like tanky minions to hold rebels a bit. But errata says that they can't so they are just pretty useless there.

On the agenda mission "Breaking point" it becomes even worse. You have Royal Guard champion which is your only hope in this mission, and two common Royal Guards, who seems like should be protecting him. But they can't since he is a guardian too, so they don't help much.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Prompted by skirmish, but technically affect campaign. The Imperial Officer deployment card is also changed, but it does not affect the campaign.

Royal Guards with Protector are pretty powerful in the campaign (especially early on, and elite Royal Guards throughout), so the change to Sentinel is very justified.

I can't say about Breaking Point. In Target of Opportunity you should probably use pre-errata Rebel Saboteurs if playing early in the campaign. Later on the rebels should have no trouble with the mission even if they don't use the help the Rebel Saboteurs could provide.

The errata kind of left some of the core campaign missions in a weird place. On the one hand, like you described, the missions that have these units in the initial setup were designed and balanced around the pre-nerfed units. As bad as the guards are in the missions that you described, the saboteur missions are even worse to the point that Target of Opportunity is pretty much unwinnable if you play it early in the campaign with the new rules.

On the other hand, the pre-errata royal guards were excellent for their cost in the campaign mode, just like they were in the skirmish. If the imperial player had 8 threat (and was playing competitively) it was always a good choice to bring them out, in any situation. That's kind of anti-fun, since the rebels end up having to fight these same units over and over every mission - it's much better if they're situationally good (which they still are after the nerf) but not the default choice each and every time.

So as for how you play it, I've heard of some people who will play with the old stats for any units who are explicitly brought in by the mission (so initial groups, reserved groups) but use the new stats for any units that the imp purchases with threat from his open groups. The downside of that is that it might end up getting complicated and fiddly, but it might be an option if you're worried about the balance.

Thank you guys, the idea of using old stats for initial/reserved units in a core campaign looks pretty promising. I should definitely try that.

RG stun is far more potent in campaign than skirmish, and being melee is also less of a drawback in campaign. So they're already strong units, I don't think there is any need to make them stronger by undoing the errata. Considering you can do crap like put 4 of them around an Engineer giving it 5 block, or cluster them around an objective that can't have adjacent Imperials giving them all +3 block, or even just hide them behind a Rancor giving it +3 block total, it's plenty broken in campaign too.

7 minutes ago, Union said:

RG stun is far more potent in campaign than skirmish, and being melee is also less of a drawback in campaign. So they're already strong units, I don't think there is any need to make them stronger by undoing the errata. Considering you can do crap like put 4 of them around an Engineer giving it 5 block, or cluster them around an objective that can't have adjacent Imperials giving them all +3 block, or even just hide them behind a Rancor giving it +3 block total, it's plenty broken in campaign too.

You can't stack up Sentinel abilities, though. +1 block, max.

Still, that's not terrible. I've had good luck forming a wall of troopers in front of Royal Guards at choke points. RGs provide extra defense for the troopers, and the troopers for a literal shield in front of the RGs. It can be a brutal combo, especially in a choke point near a deployment zone that would allow for easy reinforcement.

Yup. You can only have one Protector or Sentinel per attack.

An extra block for a 8-health figure is still a lot, and the original surge: +2dmg made getting to resolve Stun pretty probable, especially with Experimental Arms or Show of Force (or In the Shadows).

I agree with keeping the old versions for reserved/initial groups; I think that makes a lot of sense as they were balanced for campaign. Also, I think the nerf makes them much less useful as an open group; they hardly seem worth it for 8 threat when they don't hit as hard or last as long. They don't get their stun off nearly as often. Has anyone else had success with them as an open group since the nerf?

2 hours ago, Stompburger said:

I agree with keeping the old versions for reserved/initial groups; I think that makes a lot of sense as they were balanced for campaign. Also, I think the nerf makes them much less useful as an open group; they hardly seem worth it for 8 threat when they don't hit as hard or last as long. They don't get their stun off nearly as often. Has anyone else had success with them as an open group since the nerf?

I still find them to be useful in certain situations. Their Sentinel ability is helpful for keeping figures on the board and they have Stun (yes, harder to land), Reach, and Speed 5. Also, they have a good threat to health ratio of 1:2 which helps waste more Rebel actions trying to kill them. The problem before was that they seemed to be better than every open group in almost every situation. They are no longer an auto include but are situational like they should be.

If you're ever playing a mission where the imperial has to "pick up this thing and bring it to this other place", royal guards (with their high health and high speed) are about as perfect a unit as you can get.

More generally, though, as machfalcon said their sentinel ability can come in really handy if the rebels are trying to focus down a certain unit (either because they need to for the mission or just because it's dangerous). For one example, if the mission has you deploy a reserved e-web (especially an elite one) time your threat right and stick a few royal guards down next to it to watch your rebels squirm. They can try and kill the e-web, but even fully upgraded rebels will likely have a tough time breaking through a defense with +2 inherent block before the dice are even rolled - and if they can't bring it down in a single turn, then all of a sudden it's shooting the tar out of them and recovering its wounds at the same time. Their other options are to kill the guards first (while being shot by the e-web) or to try to run by somehow, which will likely cost them valuable activations (if it's even possible). Throw in a stun or two on top of that and it's a downright nasty situation to be in.

That's true - though in our campaign, the Rebels have Shyla and Onar - so it's hard to get any unit to stay where you want it to. Those Royal guards would get pushed/whipped/punched away from the E-Web pretty quickly