Q 1: Anyone tried creating their own campaign yet? Im about to start one and I was just wondering if anyone had any success and could offer tips.

Q2: Any cool house rules? I decided that the original heroes and villains cost too much to bring out compared to the expansions. Nobody in their right mind would choose Han (who costs the same) or Chewbacca (who costs more) over Luke. As a result I brought each one down four in cost. I feel like this allowed for more options when it came to bringing out iconic characters, and it definately did not break the game in any way. Additionally, I allowed two allies per mission, with the adendum that the imperial player does not get all the threat from the beginning, but 3 bonuses broken up over 2 rounds. At the start and end of the first, and during the status phase of the second. Again, this allowed for more iconic characters, and I think fun, and did not break the game in the two campaigns I played this way.

Great minds think alike. Lots of people decide to lower the cost of the Wave 1 and Wave 2 heroes by about 1/3rd, and then come here and discover everyone else has too.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/224585-house-rules/

I've run into balance issues with my Return to Hoth campaign, and I'm considering altering how the threat level is calculated. I've done four missions as the IP and I've yet to win. My current idea is that threat goes up one if the Rebels win, holds steady if the Imperial wins the following mission, and then goes down for each subsequent mission the IP wins. Similar to Pandemic: Legacy and how it gives more Funded Events if you lose a game. Will add that my campaigns tend to be about 1.5 times longer than the normal ones.

16 hours ago, KotasMilitia said:

Q 1: Anyone tried creating their own campaign yet? Im about to start one and I was just wondering if anyone had any success and could offer tips.

I haven't played it myself, but there's a fan-made campaign with scum heroes (and a sequel) that someone made and then posted to BGG. You might have some luck asking over there.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1632120/few-more-credits-fanmade-scum-campaign-imperial-as

@Tvboy also stitched some of the extra missions that came from some of the ally/villain packs into a fun little mini-campaign.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/225751-how-to-use-your-wave-7-figures-in-campaign-without-screwing-with-the-time-periods/

I've got a boat-load of Star Wars minis maps and one set of four is a building. Roof to basement. Rules are based on IA but also made up as we go. Accuracy plays a big part. You can see a couple squads of Troopers but they are 20 squares away: zero chance for any hits. Trying to not let one side get too OP. XP is given as we go. Oh, one more thing, the map has paper over the areas that the Rebels wouldn't be able to see - so they don't know if a door leads to a closet or a gun locker or a medical bay. It's fun so far.

On 6/12/2017 at 3:43 PM, KotasMilitia said:

Q 1: Anyone tried creating their own campaign yet? Im about to start one and I was just wondering if anyone had any success and could offer tips.

Hi have not created a campaign, but I am "creating" new narratives to link missions that were note necessarily related to each other.

On 6/12/2017 at 3:43 PM, KotasMilitia said:

Q2: Any cool house rules?

It's not a house rule but there is one thing I do to enhance my narrative and to link missions to a specific movie if possible. For example, in the Battle of Hoth mission, the heroes are protecting pilots. I imagine they are X-wing pilots waiting for the heroes to complete the objective (don't want to spoil it) before they can reach their X-Wing to leave and escort the remaining transports off the planet. Now, during the mission I'll have Luke Skywalker and an AT-ST joining the battle. The narrative being that after Luke crashed his snowspeeder, he retreated to the hangar to retrieve his X-Wing. Since this is the first mission of my "custom" campaign the AT-ST is said to be already "damaged" otherwise it might be too powerful for the heroes despite Luke's presence. It still defends with 2 black dices, but the Imperial player only apply the result of one die (he decides which one). So the AT-ST hits hard, but will fall faster, not accounting for the presence of Luke.

I have come up with some house rules ideas. The ideas would probably be more suited for a more DM style of play by the imperial player rather than a competitive approach, so be aware of that while reading.

Anyone thinking about using the skrimish "fix" in a campaign? That is one house rule I will introduce in my campaign to make Han, Chewie, IG-88 and Vader more affordable. For instance, I can imagine that Han Solo with his rogue smuggler upgrade might help balance Fly Solo (Maybe not if IG-88 fix is also used!). I have done that already with Vader in the past. I had attached Driven by hatred and deflection skirmish card to Vader. The rebel players I am playing with tended to be too cautious and often ran the round timer out. Then one day, we started the final mission of Twin Shaddows on the Star Destroyer bridge. Before the mission started I told them they received a comlink message from a second rebel team who would rendez-vous with them for escape once they would be done with their respective mission. At some point I deployed "Rogue One" Vader along with the second rebel group (mainly allies like elite rebel troopers, elite saboteurs, elite alliance smuggler) and trapped them ala Rogue One. It had the proper effect on my rebel players .. fear lol! They ran to the objective while Vader was cutting his way through the second rebel team. Although I lost the mission it was pure pleasure to run Darth Vader and feel like he was truly a Lord of the Sith!

Also, as another house rule, I am going to experiment something new regarding the Rebel upgrade stage between certain missions. Rebels will upgrade their XP cards per the rules. However, when it will come to spend their credits they will instead go to a cantina (see image) where they will be introduced to Saska Teft, a black market seller who is a rebel sympathizer. Rebels will always have access to Saska to buy weapon upgrades. The price will be the one printed on the card.

But there will be other sellers in the place. They will have the opportunity to go see one of the other sellers (only one, so they will have to choose wisely). For instance, I have designed one black market seller to be an ex-Imperial Officer who deserted the Empire after hearing of the destruction of Alderaan by the Death Star. Another seller might be one of the Krandt trandoshan brothers. As a group they will have the opportunity to try to influence the price of the item by rolling dices. Maybe they want to bully the seller (strenght attribute), or maybe they want to peacefully influence the seller (Intuition or "eye" attribute). Finally their might be options to help the seller with something (tech attribute). For instance, the heroes might offer the ex-imperial officer to hack the imperial database to remove traces of his defection from the Empire. All 4 heroes will roll their selected attribute dices and add up the successes. I have prepared a chart that will dictate how the seller react to the rebels' attempt. If they succeed well, the seller may lower his prices and even give them access to some upper tier weapons. If they roll bad, then the heroes might have to fight their way out of the cantina and only rely on Saska for the upgrade stage. If it goes wrong, heroes might even have to retain a portion of damages suffered during cantina's skirmish.

There might also be some mini-mission to play in the cantina. One that I was thinking of could be this. If Davith Elso is not part of the rebel group, the heroes could hear some battle noise at the other side of the cantina. It could be a small imperial patrol led by one of the remaining Grand Inquisitor coming to kill the jedi. If the heroes decide to help Davith and succeed then he could become available as a free ally (using the skirmish deployment card) for their next mission. Or it could be Biv resisting Kayn Somos attempt at arresting him for whatever reasons. Or it could be Han having trouble with some bounty hunter.

Speaking of bounty hunters, besides black market sellers, there will also be some happy to help during the a future mission if the rebels are willing to pay the price (as an ally free of threat cost since rebels will have spend credits to hire him). If Onar, Shyla and Vinto are not part of the group of heroes they could be potentially hired (using their skirmish deployment cards). There might also be some famous bounty hunters around too ...

Heroes might even want to get a drink for a few credits in hope to gain some free successes when they will roll on their various attribute tests (giving them more confidence to bully a seller for example), but if they drink too much it might reduces their chances (they are too drunk and the seller doesn't buy their bully attempt).

@IanSolo_FFG , I really like the Cantina ideas- sounds like a ton of fun!

If we ever get Ponda and Evazzan, it might be fun to have your heroes witness the iconic scene from ANH.

I've just started a campaign using the skirmish upgrade cards in the campaign for Han, Chewie, Vader, & IG88 (with the restriction that the upgrade cards are only used when the character is played using threat).

The rebels recruited Chewie in the first side mission should be a good test coming up. For Chewie, I am also adapting his command card, so basically he gets a once per mission effect where when a friendly is defeated (wounded), he gets to refresh his card and become focused.

I am using Nemesis as the class deck and i wanted to take IG or Vader as a villain but it wasn't worth it as they cant really be feasibly used till threat 5. We will see if they come up.

@IanSolo_FFG

I also want a Cantina fight!

An idea is to let it start as a brawl. No weapons, strength attribute dice is the attack pool against unarmed trandos and hired guns. Imperial riot troopers bust in to get it under control in end of second round and third. End of fourth bring out the weapons (or by some game play trigger) and in stormtroopers. Could be so awesome!

26 minutes ago, Deadwolf said:

I've just started a campaign using the skirmish upgrade cards in the campaign for Han, Chewie, Vader, & IG88 (with the restriction that the upgrade cards are only used when the character is played using threat).

The rebels recruited Chewie in the first side mission should be a good test coming up. For Chewie, I am also adapting his command card, so basically he gets a once per mission effect where when a friendly is defeated (wounded), he gets to refresh his card and become focused.

I am using Nemesis as the class deck and i wanted to take IG or Vader as a villain but it wasn't worth it as they cant really be feasibly used till threat 5. We will see if they come up.

Sounds cool!

Just a suggestion- use the upgrades for the allies and villains only when they're included as open groups. For acquisition missions (and other missions they might appear as Starting or Reserved) use the standard deployment card only. Generally, even though their threat costs can be wonky, characters aren't as badly balanced when they're intended to be part of a mission.

12 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Sounds cool!

Just a suggestion- use the upgrades for the allies and villains only when they're included as open groups. For acquisition missions (and other missions they might appear as Starting or Reserved) use the standard deployment card only. Generally, even though their threat costs can be wonky, characters aren't as badly balanced when they're intended to be part of a mission.

I said I was doing that in the first paragraph ;p

I am considering making an exception for Fly Solo (doing the original campaign), since it needs some balance tweaking but we will see if i do that mission or not.

21 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

@IanSolo_FFG , I really like the Cantina ideas- sounds like a ton of fun!

If we ever get Ponda and Evazzan, it might be fun to have your heroes witness the iconic scene from ANH.

That would be funny! Then after Han, Chewie, Luke and Ben left, the heroes take out the stormtroopers patrol that entered the cantina to cover their escape even though technically, Han, Chewie and Luke have not yet joined the rebellion

17 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

For Chewie, I am also adapting his command card, so basically he gets a once per mission effect where when a friendly is defeated (wounded), he gets to refresh his card and become focused.

Yes I tried that in one of bespin gambit side mission. Chewie took down two elite heavy troopers in the same round (2 activations thanks to the command card). He shot, moved then slamed on both activations. Both slam rolls were 3 damages each, some lucky rolls but so thematic!

17 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

I've just started a campaign using the skirmish upgrade cards in the campaign for Han, Chewie, Vader, & IG88 (with the restriction that the upgrade cards are only used when the character is played using threat).

I am using Nemesis as the class deck and i wanted to take IG or Vader as a villain but it wasn't worth it as they cant really be feasibly used till threat 5. We will see if they come up.

Also, with the "Powerful foes" and "Leave them to me" card from nemesis deck (the latter worth 3 XP) you could deploy Vader right from the start on any side mission at level 3 :

18 - 5 (from skirmish upgrage) - 5 (from Leave them to me) - 3 (from Powerful foes if mission threat is 3) + 1 (threat cost to use Powerful foes) = 6 threats. A side mission usually have the double threat level and resolve an optional deployment set up.

17 hours ago, Etheneus said:

@IanSolo_FFG

I also want a Cantina fight!

An idea is to let it start as a brawl. No weapons, strength attribute dice is the attack pool against unarmed trandos and hired guns. Imperial riot troopers bust in to get it under control in end of second round and third. End of fourth bring out the weapons (or by some game play trigger) and in stormtroopers. Could be so awesome!

I like the idea of the strength attribute to determine rebel heroes attack pool. What would be the attack pool of trandoshans and hired guns assuming they also start the fight unarmed?

44 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

That would be funny! Then after Han, Chewie, Luke and Ben left, the heroes take out the stormtroopers patrol that entered the cantina to cover their escape even though technically, Han, Chewie and Luke have not yet joined the rebellion

Haha, I love it.

It might even be cool to do a whole Tag and Bink thing with them, where they just end up in the background of famous scenes. It would allow you to recreate iconic Star Wars scenes, while giving your heroes something to do.

For instance, let's say later between missions, your heroes end up getting brought into the Death Star via tractor beam. They have to work against stormtroopers to open the hangar doors to escape- meanwhile, Obi Wan and Vader square off on a different board, while on a third board Luke, Han, 3p0, Artoo, Leia, and Chewie all have to hold off hordes of stormtroopers away from the Falcon. Perhaps allies get wounded when they're defeated instead of removed, causing them to only be able to perform a single move on their activation- and if the heroes win, they earn their pick of any non-wounded allies at the end of the mission.

Heck, you could even throw them down on a better recreation of the Battle of Hoth (with AT-STs, more snowtroopers, E-Webs, etc. Or the iconic Sarlaac pit execution. All kinds of cool ways you could throw your heroes into the background.

25 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I like the idea of the strength attribute to determine rebel heroes attack pool.

I've also thought about how to have heroes fight by using their strength attribute. The problem is that their strength attribute measures success through surges, not through damage. You could ignore damage and convert surge to damage, but most heroes are lucky to get one surge on a roll.

Then I remembered the mission rule from "Captured":

Quote

A hero without a weapon can attack an adjacent hostile figure with 1 green and 1 yellow die. Before this attack, the hero tests [Strength]. If he passes, the attack gains [Surge]: +2[Damage]

I was thinking of modifying this a little further by also giving unarmed heroes the "Overload" keyword:

Quote

Overload: You can trigger the same [Surge] ability up to twice per attack.

---

25 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

What would be the attack pool of trandoshans and hired guns assuming they also start the fight unarmed?

I would just use the same green/yellow die combination for enemies without giving them the option to get a surge for +2[Damage]. It gives the heroes a distinct advantage, but generally that's what you see in the campaign missions.

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

It might even be cool to do a whole Tag and Bink thing with them, where they just end up in the background of famous scenes. It would allow you to recreate iconic Star Wars scenes, while giving your heroes something to do.

Ok I get what you mean. It sounds really cool!

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

For instance, let's say later between missions, your heroes end up getting brought into the Death Star via tractor beam. They have to work against stormtroopers to open the hangar doors to escape- meanwhile, Obi Wan and Vader square off on a different board, while on a third board Luke, Han, 3p0, Artoo, Leia, and Chewie all have to hold off hordes of stormtroopers away from the Falcon. Perhaps allies get wounded when they're defeated instead of removed, causing them to only be able to perform a single move on their activation- and if the heroes win, they earn their pick of any non-wounded allies at the end of the mission.

Love it! So many allies on play at the same time! That would be nice! I like how in IA you run offscreen characters that from time to time get involved with iconic characters. Whenever I had the chance to deploy more than one ally, most of the time I do, for thematic flavor (love the R2 and 3PO canyon run side mission where we just imagine 3PO blaming R2 each time a new imperial unit is being deployed). Or when Han is actually built in a mission, it always feels good to bring in Chewie. Now you're proposing to bring them all at the same time!!! Count me in!!!

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

Heck, you could even throw them down on a better recreation of the Battle of Hoth (with AT-STs, more snowtroopers, E-Webs, etc. Or the iconic Sarlaac pit execution. All kinds of cool ways you could throw your heroes into the background.

It's not quite that, but I've done something similar in my Battle of Hoth mission. The mission briefing tells that the heroes are trying to bring back to life a secondary shield generator protecting some rebel pilots. When the last generator is reactivated, I have added an event that depict the offscreen moments of Luke after his snowspeeder crashed. We all know he somehow retreated to board his X-wing and travel to Dagobah. But we don't know how! Well now we know! He suddenly appears, chased by an AT-ST. He gets an interruption to attack the AT-ST once. Then the AT-ST becomes "damage", i.e. it still rolls 2 black dice, but the imperial player only select the result of one die, discarding the other. The mission being a threat level 2 I made the walker easier to defeat, despite the addition of farm boy Luke.

Then the next mission in my "custom Hoth campain" is White noise. However, the narative is that the escape is almost completed but there are still troop transports about to leave ground. Imperials have been seen heading to the Ion cannon command center to destroy it. The transports absolutely need the ion cannon support. But we all know that at this time, from a movie point of view, Vader as enterd Echo base with his snowtrooper legions. So he will show up at some point during the mission, with his skirmish upgrade AND deflect skirmish command card.

The third mission is the AI/X-wing hybrid mission I have posted ideas on another thread. The narrative of that mission hints at a few scenes of Empire strikes back :

Piloting your YT-1300 freighter, you see a vast field of asteroids. Confident that the Imperials will not venture there, you head towards the asteroid field despite the warnings of x-wing pilots escorting you out of the system. You are then astonished to witness a strong Imperial presence among the asteroids. You see TIE bombers tirelessly bombing one of the biggest asteroids, TIE fighters patrolling the area, and even a Super Star Destroyer who, thank God, is trying to get away from the asteroid belt. As you try to turn back to safely calculate your jump into hyperspace, the Imperials detect your presence and go to your heels ...

5 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

The next mission in my "custom Hoth campain" is White noise. However, the narative is that the escape is almost completed but there are still troop transports about to leave ground. Imperials have been seen heading to the Ion cannon command center to destroy it. The transports absolutely need the ion cannon support. But we all know that at this time, from a movie point of view, Vader as enterd Echo base with his snowtrooper legions. So he will show up at some point during the mission, with his skirmish upgrade AND deflect skirmish command card.

Interesting- so instead of being the Haven base, it's just echo base right during the battle. Very cool!

I love how IA lets players live out events that could conceivably fit with canon, but it would be cool if they released "scenarios" as a third type of game mode. Still, it's community creations like this that effectively bring that dream to live anyway!

42 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Interesting- so instead of being the Haven base, it's just echo base right during the battle. Very cool!

Yes that's what I intended. The first three missions are really just sub-missions of a bigger one : The evacuation of Hoth. I will allow the rebel players to spend their XPs earned at the end of each mission, but they won't be able to buy weapon upgrades yet . Instead I may give them one free card from the crate deck during the mission set-up. It could be something like while they rush to the ion cannon command center, they retrieve a flash grenade from a fallen imperial trooper, or something like that. After the third mission, (AI/X-wing) they will go to the cantina to buy weapon upgrades with an amount of credits that will equal what the rebels would ordinarily get after 3 missions.

I'm not too worried about balance for the second mission (White Noise) since one of my friend is playing MHD-19 which should allow them to dig the crate deck for medical supplies, while the 4 crates are not difficult to grab in this mission especially with Shyla (and her speed of 5) being part of the group too. So they could get more goodies to help them succeed. And on top of that, if any echo base troopers survived the battle of Hoth, I'll allow the rebel players to bring them along for White noise.

Should be fun!

I played Chewie w/ upgrade in Under Siege from Base campaign and yeah, he was really effective. Chewie is super effective against smaller units as slam can sometime kill it and his 2 dice shrug off smaller attacks pretty effectively.

He does seem be to on a similar power level to Jedi Luke, which I think is good. Doesnt quite hit as hard as luke, but the 2 defense dice makes him really hard for the imperials to spend the time to kill him.

Still undecided about his command card, he seems pretty strong as is.

6 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I like the idea of the strength attribute to determine rebel heroes attack pool. What would be the attack pool of trandoshans and hired guns assuming they also start the fight unarmed?

Well, I just threw out the idea and didn't really think about it but to use the normal attack dice without surges.

Thought of surges for the heroes also but was thinking for simplicity to discard them.

The other ideas here are much better.

House rule:

just when you push a figure into a solid red lined space add 1 damage. thematically hitting them against a hard object. but they dont go into the space.

17 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

I played Chewie w/ upgrade in Under Siege from Base campaign and yeah, he was really effective. Chewie is super effective against smaller units as slam can sometime kill it and his 2 dice shrug off smaller attacks pretty effectively.

He does seem be to on a similar power level to Jedi Luke, which I think is good. Doesnt quite hit as hard as luke, but the 2 defense dice makes him really hard for the imperials to spend the time to kill him.

Still undecided about his command card, he seems pretty strong as is.

IP could just ignore him and use the extra threat to wound heroes faster. If so, does he worth the threat?

Command card could just focus chewbacca (no ready deployment card)

7 hours ago, Eyfrosyne said:

IP could just ignore him and use the extra threat to wound heroes faster. If so, does he worth the threat?

Command card could just focus chewbacca (no ready deployment card)

i think that is what you need to do. Although, with the pretty strong attack, stun, and free Slams, He will make you pay for it.

I had Murne in my party, so I brought him in for 7. He is really good then, but it does skew the comparison.

I dont mind the idea of just focus, but i would probably make it a passive effect instead of one shot in that case.