6 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)

If Gideon is in my party, I would think that Chewie can be worth it.

8 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)

In my campaigns I've started adding all allies to the win conditions for the imperials so that they have to kill Chewie in addition to wounding the heroes. He holds alot more value then. Haven't run into any balance issues yet

22 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

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.

At 11 I think he is less effective than new Han Solo, but still good in long mission.

what are the best and the worst allies?

I love the rebel troopers, but they aren't for everyone.

is the cantina TS with core?

(I hope it's ok that I impose on your thread here, @KotasMilitia ?)

Hi all,

So, having bought ImpAss in July and already completed two campaigns (core + Twin Shadows) I’m naturally starting to muse about writing a campaign or two of my own. I’m aware of the couple of fan made campaigns out there but I would be more interested in writing something that could be used with only the core game and with no extra rules; in other words, just a new story to enjoy. Being a story teller more than a rules wizard, I have no clue how to scale and balance an ImpAss mission and I wonder if anyone here has any ideas? One would begin with Deployment Card costs of course, but what else would one need to consider? And how do you determine the value of heroes in the game?

As for the story, I have recently finished the core campaign and it hit me that we haven’t seen the Royal Guard Champion (RGC) in our games yet, despite him being one of 3 main bad guys in the core game. I therefore want to do something with him. What I am envisioning is a campaign sat after The Battle of Endor with remnants of the Empire going on the offensive (well in line with the Aftermath series and Inferno Squadron etc.). The RGC would be the main villain of the campaign, leading efforts to score Influence during a series of missions (where the heroes will primarily be defenders against Imp sneak attacks and the like), hoarding Agenda Cards for a final showdown finale. Does this sound intriguing, do you think?

Mission ideas so far:
--The Committee: New Republic officials are debating politics with the governments of a neutral sector, hoping to get the locals to join the New Republic. It is of vital importance that this goes off without a hitch as even the slightest disturbance could foil the NewRep’s plans. The Heroes have been charged with patrolling the subbasement of the chosen facility to keep the Nexu population at bay, when Royal Guards burst onto the scene. The Imps will try to fight their way to the committee room to disturb the proceedings (+2 Influence) and kill any VIPs there (+2 Influence per murdered VIP); it is basically a suicide run although RGC will of course escape somehow (or perhaps there are several RGCs at work, like a coterie of high ranking Royal Guards). [There would be an option here for the heroes to bring in any one unique “Rebel” ally of their choice to lead the proceedings, allowing the Imps to field something awful in response; a bounty hunter perhaps].

--Clones Again: Having spared no efforts to learn who the remnant Imps are and what they are up to, the New Republic has discovered Royal Guards lurking around in an ancient and long-abandoned cloning facility. Heroes are dispatched to take out the Imps and keep any cloning data out of their hands. [I’m not sure about the cloning thing here, but this could be anything, really. The point is that the Imps are trying to find an edge against the NewRep. Possibly some Dark Side artifact or something?]

--The Battle of COOL NAME: NewRep intelligence has discovered that the Imps are planning an assault against one of the republic bases in this sector, an old Imperial facility taken over by the NewRep after the Battle of Endor. The base has been regarded as a low priority (with only a skeleton defense force present), but the Imps sure wants it for something, and the heroes are dispatched to help defend it. The Imps storm the base’s exterior with legions of Stormtroopers and General Weiss while the NewReps defends the place with Rebel Troops (these would have to be reinforce-able somehow – perhaps a fresh squad arrives on the scene at the end of each round when a previous squad was defeated) + a repurposed AT-ST. Halfway through the battle, Royal Guards & RGC suddenly appears inside the facility through some secret entrance where they are going after computer terminals (i.e. trying to steal some old Imp data buried in the system somewhere). +1 Influence per terminal stolen.

--Treachery!: The heroes have been sent to bolster defenses of an important NewRep installation, when a mutiny erupts there. Somehow, the Imps have managed to turn sections of the local NewRep forces, who have slain the loyal troops and are now helping the Imps take over the facility. The heroes must defend the place and/or carry Rebel Tokens to a ship and escape with vital information and equipment. Rebel Troopers & Duros Saboteurs could both fight on the Imp side here, +Trandoshans (representing a local faction turning Imperial), and installation defenses (like hallway cannons) could be turned against the heroes.

That’s all I’ve got for now. What do you guys think? Is this doable? Any thoughs?

On 9/15/2017 at 8:35 AM, ATM2100 said:

I love the rebel troopers, but they aren't for everyone.

is the cantina TS with core?

The cantina uses tiles from the core, Twin Shadows and Jabba's realm. Whatever I could find that looks like cantina stuff.

On 9/17/2017 at 7:31 AM, angelman2 said:

Rebel Troops (these would have to be reinforce-able somehow – perhaps a fresh squad arrives on the scene at the end of each round when a previous squad was defeated)

I have also noticed the RGC not being fielded very much and I toyed with the idea myself for a while. Presently I only own hoth core and a few expansions, I was thinking that i would bring in some unique villain on every mission and the heroes would have to kill each one each time, starting with no villain, the each story mission gets harder villains, starting on sorin, then kane, then ig-88 then general wiess maybe or a break. then you face off with a super power increased abilities like darth vader in that one core fanalie.

Thanks all for your replies (to this thread that I, for the time being, have stolen...)

Does anyone here have any insight (i.e. guesses) as to how one balances ImpAss when writing new missions? Is FFG using any kind of system/formula as a basis for their mission balance (Skirmish costs for instance), or is it all a matter of intuition + trial & error?

Furthermore, how should one scale later vs. earlier missions in a campaign? Other than a usually higher frequency of unique villains late in the campaigns, is there anything else one needs to consider re blanace when writing campaigns or is Threal Level & player development* enough to scale campaigns?

*It always confounds me when games talk about "players" receiving XP etc.; surelly, it is the characters/sides that receive these boons

16 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Thanks all for your replies (to this thread that I, for the time being, have stolen...)

Does anyone here have any insight (i.e. guesses) as to how one balances ImpAss when writing new missions? Is FFG using any kind of system/formula as a basis for their mission balance (Skirmish costs for instance), or is it all a matter of intuition + trial & error?

Furthermore, how should one scale later vs. earlier missions in a campaign? Other than a usually higher frequency of unique villains late in the campaigns, is there anything else one needs to consider re blanace when writing campaigns or is Threal Level & player development* enough to scale campaigns?

*It always confounds me when games talk about "players" receiving XP etc.; surelly, it is the characters/sides that receive these boons

All side missions use the "Increase threat by twice the threat level and perform an optional deployment" rule. This, I think is the way to go to deal with later vs earlier missions. I would include that in your mission too.

I think a good start could be to have a look at every existing side missions to calculate the starting threat in order to get an average. Also, average the reserve group threat across all side mission. It could "in theory" give you an idea where to start with threat allocation. After that, I guess intensive play testing will help you to tweak the mission. Also, what kind of mission will it be? A fight-a-villain mission? Rebels-most-hold-terminals-during-X-round mission? etc. You could then collect existing missions that have a similar structure and do threat averages across those missions only.

make sure that rebels can achieve objectives, but make it work, I also haven't seen a mission for less than 6 rounds, i recommend to not go under 6.

21 minutes ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

Also, what kind of mission will it be?

I described a couple of missin ideas a few posts up on this thread, but basically I want to do a varried campaign revolving around the Imperial Guard Champion; the story would be set after Return of the Jedi and focus on small elements of the remnant Empire trying to sabotage Rebel New Republic operations and such.


These are both good advise

I'm working on my first custom mission now. Actually it's part of a two (or maybe 3) mission micro-campaign. I'm super excited about it and will share it with the community when I'm a bit closer.

I've got custom heroes, custom deployment cards and a custom mission. (I'm retooling an existing mission for the opening prologue and am constructing one custom mission - for now).

One thing I've learned is that you have to play test. I've revised my map three times because the pacing was too slow. Now that I've fixed that, I keep murdering the heros well before they meet the final objective so now I'm trying to balance in the other direction. I'm sure there are some general rules about threat, etc. but ultimately, you don't know until you test it. For me the quickest way to do this is to do a play through by myself. I make quick decisions, roll all the dice as a pool and don't overthink things during these play throughs. The point is to get it to a rough sketch. Once I get to that point, I'll probably do a more structured game with a willing participant.

The nice thing is that I'm making custom heroes the are mandatory (well you have to pick from the 5 I've made). The nice thing is that I don't have to worry about all the hero combinations that could break my game so my testing is much simpler.

A couple issues. Originally, I tried to just use the core set, plus my custom figures. However, the more I've gotten into it, the more I've allowed myself to deviate. At present, I only use map tiles from the core set. But to play you would need a handful of blister packs and you'd need some new figures. I'm using the SW WOTC figures for the custom deployment cards/figures. I think I got all of them for $25 or so, but of course you could proxy the figures.

Anyways, just a teaser here. More to come.

I wand to see this please, the sooner the better. if you don't want to post it here can you message me this stuff?

On 9/20/2017 at 10:15 AM, angelman2 said:

Thanks all for your replies (to this thread that I, for the time being, have stolen...)

Does anyone here have any insight (i.e. guesses) as to how one balances ImpAss when writing new missions? Is FFG using any kind of system/formula as a basis for their mission balance (Skirmish costs for instance), or is it all a matter of intuition + trial & error?

Furthermore, how should one scale later vs. earlier missions in a campaign? Other than a usually higher frequency of unique villains late in the campaigns, is there anything else one needs to consider re blanace when writing campaigns or is Threal Level & player development* enough to scale campaigns?

*It always confounds me when games talk about "players" receiving XP etc.; surelly, it is the characters/sides that receive these boons

I think Ian_Solo was right on in that the two biggest things to consider are probably the mission type and "threat management".

By that I mean that the initial/reserved groups have a huge impact on mission balance. If the threat level is 2 and you start with some elite royal guards on the table it's going to be a really tough mission for the rebels - even if threat only increases slowly they're just not going to be able to slog through the guards' high health with their starting abilities and weapons. Similarly, if the rebels start a high-threat-level mission against two regular probe droids and some regular stormtroopers they're going to chew through them in a few activations and the rest of the mission will be a breeze.

The easier option would probably be to design all of your missions like side missions. As Ian pointed out, all side missions have a few basic deployments on the map and use the "add threat equal to twice the threat level and resolve an optional deployment". They also tend to have a lot of mission events with text like "increase threat by the threat level" or "increase the health of x by the threat level and resolve an optional deployment", rather than scripted deployment groups. Doing things this way will make it easier to balance your missions, but it might come at the cost of some of the theme. For instance it's probably better for the story to be able to write something like "a group of trandoshans in the middle of a heated game of sabaac turn to look as you break through the door. Their card game quickly forgotten, they send the chips flying as they hastily reach for their weapons", compared to something more generic like "imperial forces rush to greet you as the door opens".

If you want to take the more scripted, story mission approach, maybe a good cheat would be to straight-up copy the progression from a similar mission at the same threat level? And I don't mean copy the exact map/units/etc, but rather look at the total threat of the starting units, the threat of the reserve units (and what round they appear) and try to match that with your own story-relevant units.

Also as a general rule, keep in mind though that movement takes actions which would otherwise be spent wiping out enemies - the bigger the map and the more the heroes will need to perform interact actions, the fewer enemies you should throw at them. That's why a defense mission like "Under Seige" can get away with spawning so many more enemies and still be balanced, since the rebels basically stay put and only need to worry about attacking.

2 hours ago, ATM2100 said:

I wand to see this please, the sooner the better. if you don't want to post it here can you message me this stuff?

Will do. I'm a couple weeks from ready. I still need to make a small rule supplement and figure out the proper legal verbiage.

ie IA is an FFG property and this is not for resale etc.

plus photo credits if necessary

Let me know if you want a tech edit and it's not too many dozen pages.

On 9/17/2017 at 8:31 AM, angelman2 said:

As for the story, I have recently finished the core campaign and it hit me that we haven’t seen the Royal Guard Champion (RGC) in our games yet, despite him being one of 3 main bad guys in the core game. I therefore want to do something with him. What I am envisioning is a campaign sat after The Battle of Endor with remnants of the Empire going on the offensive (well in line with the Aftermath series and Inferno Squadron etc.). The RGC would be the main villain of the campaign, leading efforts to score Influence during a series of missions (where the heroes will primarily be defenders against Imp sneak attacks and the like), hoarding Agenda Cards for a final showdown finale. Does this sound intriguing, do you think?

I just wanted to say that you have some great ideas here! It is true that we do not encounter the RGC enough in the core set. That could change with HotE expansion box though (although I feel it will already be crowded with Emperor, Maul, Tano and hopefully Vader, but still the RGC would be thematic that's for sure!)

In a ideal world, each iconic villain would have their own respective campaign ...

Let's have an IG-88/Boba Fett campaign that's happening between ESB and RotJ movie where IG-88 is trying to steel the carbonite frozen Han from Boba Fett before he can deliver his prize to Jabba the Hutt. In the meantime the heroes could be tracking the bounty hunters in hope of freeing captain Solo. Heroes could see Leia, Chewie, Lando or even Dash Rendar(!) showing up in a couple of missions. Obviously to preserve canon, the final mission would not result in the heroes freeing Solo, but I can see a branching where either the heroes would face IG-88 in one mission and Boba Fett in the other. The latter being based on the Shadows of the Empire Gall imperial moon mission (something I'm actually slowly working on at the moment ... I mean the mission, not the whole campaign). If you'd beat Boba Fett he would still manage to escape but the reward could be that you have learn his exact destination : Jabba's Palace and YOU are the one telling Luke, Leia, Chewie and Lando, setting up the events of Return of the Jedi ... man everything George Lucas wrote 40 years ago would have happened because of YOU!! (ok I seriously wander here .... )

Anyway just wanted to say I think you are on something great with RGC. Keep it up!

I'll resurrect this topic since its one of my favorites

How are the custom campaign writers doing now? I'd love to hear about everyone's progress. @VadersMarchKazoo , you predicted you'd have something ready soon?

As for my own custom campaign, I've been lucky enough to dupe @IanSolo_FFG into helping me out and things are moving along quite well indeed. (Although we're a long way yet from finishing the campaign).

Btw, are there any artists here who would like to donate art for the campaign? (I want this thing to have as high a production value as possible!)

Ha. Good question. My 2 mission campaign turned into a 3 mission campaign. Then, it started to get a little overwhelming - and I got really into an Edge of the Empire campaign as DM:) I actually have a lot of the ground work laid, I've just got to decide where I want to go. 1) finish the third mission which is still pretty rough, or 2) go back and simplify things back to the original 2 mission plan. Thanks for the reminder and push. It's good to get it back in my que. Plus, I'm about all caught up with painting right now (only Maul left) so I might have some time to do this.

There are so many available side missions in this game that I think someone could just go create a campaign narrative that strings them together, without having to create any new missions. I would totally be interested in something like this.

1 hour ago, jconway2002 said:

There are so many available side missions in this game that I think someone could just go create a campaign narrative that strings them together, without having to create any new missions. I would totally be interested in something like this.

That already exists. At least one does. It's called Edge of Oblivion and it uses some of the older expansion waves to tell a full story:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/240093-edge-of-oblivion-custom-mini-campaign-completed/

Also, along those lines. You could just pull side missions from the deck and weave your own narrative as you play. It might take a little imagination. You could probably just use either a full or mini campaign log to help level things along the way. There would be a couple options. 1) the group could pull a side mission card from the deck at the end of each mission and the IP could then invent a way to connect the previous mission to the next one (in between sessions) or 2) the IP could just randomly draw 4 or 5 cards (assuming mini-campaign) at the beginning of the campaign and then weave them together in advance. A little RPG experience would go a long way- and some fun spirited players:) If I were going to do this- I'd use the nemeses deck from Jabba's Realm and make the chosen villains into the main bad guys.

11 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

That already exists. At least one does. It's called Edge of Oblivion and it uses some of the older expansion waves to tell a full story:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/240093-edge-of-oblivion-custom-mini-campaign-completed/

Also, along those lines. You could just pull side missions from the deck and weave your own narrative as you play. It might take a little imagination. You could probably just use either a full or mini campaign log to help level things along the way. There would be a couple options. 1) the group could pull a side mission card from the deck at the end of each mission and the IP could then invent a way to connect the previous mission to the next one (in between sessions) or 2) the IP could just randomly draw 4 or 5 cards (assuming mini-campaign) at the beginning of the campaign and then weave them together in advance. A little RPG experience would go a long way- and some fun spirited players:) If I were going to do this- I'd use the nemeses deck from Jabba's Realm and make the chosen villains into the main bad guys.

I'm actually doing something very similar at the moment. Started what seemed like the RtH campaign, but decided to extend the Battle of Hoth into 2 missions : The Battle of Hoth itself and then after this mission I told my rebel players they had to protect the ion cannon command center while the remaining transports were fleeing away. Therefore we skipped the equipment upgrade stages (no time to buy new guns when the imperials are all over the place) to make it really feel like it was 2 missions in one. I used the White Noise mission and changed the narrative to fit my needs. I even found a way to bring in Vader into the mission as a "reserved" group (we know from the movie Vader was on the front line with snowtroopers on Hoth). Then taking advantage of the time period (between ESB and RotJ) I told my rebel players that the next mission would send them to Cloud City to find Lando who disappeared after investigating to find clues on where Boba Fett actually intended to deliver the carbon-frozen Han to. Again, with some narrative changes, I used the Hostile Takeover mission from Besin Gambit. That is where we are now. I don't have a final campaign structure yet as things seems to evolve quite a bit each time I think about it. Right now, I have plans to send my rebels on Coruscant (HotE) or Tatooine (JR) unless they want to investigate the secret weapon projects of Weiss and Sorin. That will depend on the quest they would rather pursue.

Ah, that's RAD, IanSolo! I love your courageous narrative changes and explorations

On 2/9/2018 at 12:03 PM, IanSolo_FFG said:

I'm actually doing something very similar at the moment. Started what seemed like the RtH campaign, but decided to extend the Battle of Hoth into 2 missions : The Battle of Hoth itself and then after this mission I told my rebel players they had to protect the ion cannon command center while the remaining transports were fleeing away. Therefore we skipped the equipment upgrade stages (no time to buy new guns when the imperials are all over the place) to make it really feel like it was 2 missions in one. I used the White Noise mission and changed the narrative to fit my needs. I even found a way to bring in Vader into the mission as a "reserved" group (we know from the movie Vader was on the front line with snowtroopers on Hoth). Then taking advantage of the time period (between ESB and RotJ) I told my rebel players that the next mission would send them to Cloud City to find Lando who disappeared after investigating to find clues on where Boba Fett actually intended to deliver the carbon-frozen Han to. Again, with some narrative changes, I used the Hostile Takeover mission from Besin Gambit. That is where we are now. I don't have a final campaign structure yet as things seems to evolve quite a bit each time I think about it. Right now, I have plans to send my rebels on Coruscant (HotE) or Tatooine (JR) unless they want to investigate the secret weapon projects of Weiss and Sorin. That will depend on the quest they would rather pursue.

This sounds really fun. It would be great if you could create a road map for others to follow in your footsteps.