If any of my players are on this forum, ignore this.

I'm at the end of a compaign, coming up on Chain of Command, and looking for some case-specific help.

I'm running Technological Supremacy, with Experimental Arms, Arc Blasters, Technical Support and Adaptive Weapons.

Playing against:

Fenn (E-11, Tactical Display equip, Veteran Prowess, Rebel Elite, Take Cover and Suppressive Fire skills)

Mak (Shadow Suit, Pulse Cannon, Disruption Cell equip, Expertise, Disengage, Execute and Jeswandi Training skills)

Diala (Lightsaber, Balanced Hilt equip, Defensive Stance, Snap Kick, Force Adept, Dancing Weapon skills)

Gaarkhan (BD-1 Vibro-Ax, High Impact Guard, Vibro Knuckles, Laminate Armor equip, Life Debt, Wookie Loyalty, Unstoppable and Brutal Cleave skills)

Here's the deal.. I have won maybe one mission the entire campaign. Some have been close, some have been blowouts. Win or lose in these last two missions, I don't care.. but I do want to make it fun and challenging. If the end of the campaign is a cakewalk, it's not very satisfying. Aside from the obvious like 'next time, don't take Technological Supremacy, can anyone give some advice to make the last two a challenge? Troop choices, tactics, anything ya got.

Thanks!

I'm sure that others on this board who are FAR more "tactical" and experienced than I am will be able to chime in with some good pointers, but I'll give you my $.02. Currently, I have won 4 missions to 5 losses in our second run through of the Core Campaign - so I'm barely doing OK. However, my rebels just recently got some crazy Tier 3 weapons (Daila's mission lightsaber, DXR-6 for Mak and Pulse Cannon for Jyn), so the last two missions have been....interesting

I played Tech Superiority last time, and I felt like it was very weak until the end (with adaptive Weapons). Military Might is much stronger with Assault Armor, Shock Troopers and Sustained Fire. Also the free starter card in Military Might is a "free focus" per round - so for the first few missions I was definitely GM-ing a bit as with that and Sustained Fire I could have made it really crazy tough on them. But last two missions, I am unloading with both barrels and still coming up short.

For Chain of Command I would bring the elite Royal Guards as they are one of the strongest units in the game (for non unique, non Bounty Hunters) and then maybe an upgraded Probe Droid? Doesn't the tech superiority deck have a lot of attachments/etc that improve droid's abilities? If you have earned a unique villain, I guess you could include him over the droid. The setup on Chain of Command gives you a lot of troops in the initial setup, so you'll be able to do plenty of reinforcing already just from those options. You know what you have in the Reserve Group already

My guess is you are getting cleaved and blasted to death, so you need to be very careful about clustering your troops. Use the adjacency for your storm troopers when attacking (for re-rolls), but try to not have them together after their attack is finished to protect on cleave/blast. Make sure that you are focus firing down one hero at a time if possible (in a given round), vs spreading damage around to different heroes. If they are doing things that are giving them a lot of focus conditions when attacking - then use your Arc Blasters to make them pass the attribute test and burn their focus condition before they get a chance to use it on an attack. Anything you can do to stun or bleed them will take away precious activations from them, and remove opportunities to double rest and heal up.

If you have any good Agenda cards that you bought, now would be a nice time to spring them on your rebel scum! I know some just wait to play them all on the finale, which I guess is ok (I don't like to hold a bunch of cards just to drop them at the end, feels kind of weak). But if you need to stem the tide now, you might want to play one or two here just to get them on their heels

Sorry - that is all I got! Good luck and long live the Empire!!

You're the Empire. You own the game. If you are getting your butt handed to you in a way that is affecting enjoyment for your table, it's okay to "hosue rule" things in a way that could be considered cheating.

Allow yourself to "reset" some XP points. If you are getting cut to shreds before you can even inflict some damage, pick Tech Support, Failsafe, Cloaking Device, and Superior Augments. Failsafe was maddening for my group when paired with Royal Guards. Gaarkan would only be able to get in one attack per turn, and then when he finally killed one, it would regenerate health and be able to make it to cover in time to do the same thing next round. Throw some probe droids who make a beeline for Fenn to stop him from using Blast, and some elite stormtroopers with cloaking devices, and you should last long enough to do more damage.

Also consider throwing in Arc Blasters for free, because hey, you're the Empire.

Technical Support was the card I was thinking of that helps out Droids. So having an extra droid (since it isn't an attachment it works for all droids) in your Open Group might be worth it. Having a mobile unit with a speed of 5 and then focusing/healing up one of your heavy hitters is very helpful.

Yes, if you can get Cloaking Device and throw that on elite storm troopers - you should be able to have a nice squad that can stay alive enough to do a little damage (having all three figures attack the same hero ideally).

Minor spoilers for the campaign...

Alright, here's the deal: both finales end in boss fights. This means your Rebels ultimate goal is either going to be taking down Vader or Weiss. They'll have some modifications from the mission, so while they'll be very powerful, they'll also be vulnerable- when the Rebels only have to focus fire on a single target, it can fall pretty quickly.

Lucky for you, you have the Technological Support upgrade already! Now, I can't claim credit for this strategy, and I forget where I read it, but essentially if you stack up as many probe droids (or other droids, if you got 'em) you can surround your boss with droid support. You'll notice that your droids will then be able to have your boss discard conditions, become focused, or heal 3 damage. If you have three droids out, that means you could heal 9 damage on your boss each turn. With two black die, that's gonna make it pretty hard for your Rebels to keep your boss down for long, and it's especially damaging if the mission has a round limit (I believe they both do).

This will basically force your Rebels to all focus completely on your boss- which in turn, will allow you to keep more troops on the field. It's not a flawless strategy, but it's got potential to be effective, and is probably the best way to utilize your class right now.

Might not be a bad idea to throw a Cloaking Device on one of those droids, too, to help keep them alive...

Edit: I see totalnoob beat me to it while I was typing!

I've played the core campaign twice as the IP, won one (the hero pool was weird -- Jyn, Fenn, Gideon, & Biv) and lost one (Gaarkhan, Diala, Gideon, Fenn--very strong).

Good luck!

Thanks all for the input, I've selected my troops and have a bit of a good idea as to how I'm going to do the second to last mission. We should be playing it this week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.