Imperial players in campaign only, please!

People new to Imperial Assault's campaign tend to suggest that it's basically Star Wars D&D.

Obviously that's not very accurate, but it does bring up a question that even veteran campaign players seem to not have a really strong answer to yet- how much do you manipulate the outcome of the game?

For the first installment of my upcoming Star Wars tabletop-themed blog, I wanted to get into how Imperial players tend to moderate their campaigns, but I'd love for your help! If you could, check out the survey at this link. It'd be much appreciated. Thank you!

I could almost answer your survey twice, one for "what do I do" and another for "what would I do". The guy that I play campaign against hates the idea of me going easy on him at all, so while I'll answer questions and have some strategy discussions here and there I never pull punches. On the other hand, if I was playing with a different group (particularly if the players were newer) I would have no problem at all helping them along, giving them advice or going a bit easier on my end.

I still don't think I could bring myself to lose on purpose though

Thanks for everyone who has contributed so far! I'm going to keep the poll open for another 12 hours or so. It's much appreciated, and I can't wait to share the results with you!

One of my favourite manipulation was in Bespin gambit.

The team finished the core game and we decided to play a shorter game because the core lasted almost 2 years!

So they needed to relearn the basics every time we was able to play.

And the manipulation.

On the first mission i had a huge advantage they maybe destroyed 2 cameras and was 3 turn left.

I killed Lando and i saw the moral to collapse.

So i Told then:

Before Lando is leaving in a secret Door because of his injuries he activates his comlink and run an old security routine. One that he installed when he was the govenor of Cloud City. A door slides and two HK security droids step out and open fire immedieatly to the Imperials.

Lando wispers good luck and wanish behind the secret passage.

And i deployed the two regular HK for them.

1 hour ago, Ace_of_Spades said:

One of my favourite manipulation was in Bespin gambit.

The team finished the core game and we decided to play a shorter game because the core lasted almost 2 years!

So they needed to relearn the basics every time we was able to play.

And the manipulation.

On the first mission i had a huge advantage they maybe destroyed 2 cameras and was 3 turn left.

I killed Lando and i saw the moral to collapse.

So i Told then:

Before Lando is leaving in a secret Door because of his injuries he activates his comlink and run an old security routine. One that he installed when he was the govenor of Cloud City. A door slides and two HK security droids step out and open fire immedieatly to the Imperials.

Lando wispers good luck and wanish behind the secret passage.

And i deployed the two regular HK for them.

well, that surely was huge manipulation

3 hours ago, Jarema said:

well, that surely was huge manipulation

But lore friendly

2 hours ago, Ace_of_Spades said:

But lore friendly

At this point, I'm not even sure HKs at all are lore friendly. But sounds like a neat manipulation to the game! That's one advantage in being the Imperial- if the game is really swingy and loses its balance, you at least know what's coming in the rest of the mission, and can adjust more accordingly.

Missed the survey, heh. Usually I play to the rules but I don't play to win. I try to play thematically and don't rely on jerk moves (like using several squads of troopers to block a route so the hero can't get there in time). But I don't go too easy either. What I do do is offer advice when I see something the heroes have missed, and I might stack the gray missions to provide more interesting missions and use open groups that are fun rather than competent. At the end of the day I want the heros to be having fun but also be challenged, it's a hollow victory if they feel I'm not trying very hard.

7 hours ago, Ace_of_Spades said:

One of my favourite manipulation was in Bespin gambit.

The team finished the core game and we decided to play a shorter game because the core lasted almost 2 years!

So they needed to relearn the basics every time we was able to play.

And the manipulation.

On the first mission i had a huge advantage they maybe destroyed 2 cameras and was 3 turn left.

I killed Lando and i saw the moral to collapse.

So i Told then:

Before Lando is leaving in a secret Door because of his injuries he activates his comlink and run an old security routine. One that he installed when he was the govenor of Cloud City. A door slides and two HK security droids step out and open fire immedieatly to the Imperials.

Lando wispers good luck and wanish behind the secret passage.

And i deployed the two regular HK for them.

I did something similar in another Bespin mission but with Wing guards. As soon as they saw Lando they switched side ... for the good old times....

1 hour ago, neosmagus said:

Missed the survey, heh. Usually I play to the rules but I don't play to win. I try to play thematically and don't rely on jerk moves (like using several squads of troopers to block a route so the hero can't get there in time). But I don't go too easy either. What I do do is offer advice when I see something the heroes have missed, and I might stack the gray missions to provide more interesting missions and use open groups that are fun rather than competent. At the end of the day I want the heros to be having fun but also be challenged, it's a hollow victory if they feel I'm not trying very hard.

Sorry! I only ran this one for a day because I was antsy to get my blog off the ground. If I do any other surveys in the future, I'll be sure to keep them open for several days.

Anyway, the results are up in my article. Some pretty interesting stuff in there!

Seriously, thanks to everyone who helped me with this! I really appreciate it!

3 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I did something similar in another Bespin mission but with Wing guards. As soon as they saw Lando they switched side ... for the good old times....

Nice move man

14 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Anyway, the results are up in my article. Some pretty interesting stuff in there!

Nice article. I realy like Your narrative.

If i can suggest you should separate the cases when we play competitive or when we play for trap those Rebel scums in the beautiful world of IA.

Seriously as a game owner my best interest to make them enjoy the learning process. More playgroup more game

But when they reached the competitive level there is no mercy for the Rebel Scum. (No manipulation either)

Currently i have 3 group to play with and only 1 is competitive.

That group is my wife, anotther game owner his wife and a guy who used to play otther wargames.

Thanks!

Yeah, I'm sure the nature of how competitive a group is would have some significant effect on this. I trying to take a more holistic approach this time, but that would be really interesting to see, too!

I don't play Imperial Industry because it's busted.

I can pretty much tell how a mission is going to go just by reading it over and maths, so if I know the Rebels are going to get stomped, I start using less efficient units like AT-ST, IG-88, the tank etc. so I only decimate them rather than obliterate them.

My group just played the core campaign (Rebel Victory!), and for the next campaign I'll be taking over the Imperials for Return to Hoth.

Some of the group are experienced and skilled wargamers, some aren't; so I'm planning on going with a theme that will hopefully be fun and challenging (Droids and Vehicles, because Sorin )

2 hours ago, FearofaBlankPlanet said:

My group just played the core campaign (Rebel Victory!), and for the next campaign I'll be taking over the Imperials for Return to Hoth.

Some of the group are experienced and skilled wargamers, some aren't; so I'm planning on going with a theme that will hopefully be fun and challenging (Droids and Vehicles, because Sorin )

That's a great strategy, particularly with the Armored Onslaught class deck.

Depending on when you guys start your campaign, you might also be able to set up the AT-DP in there, too! Unfortunately, I'm sure my group will be done with Hoth by then, though.

Armored Onslaught is a lot of fun. Mortar is one of the best Imperial class cards!

On 8/8/2017 at 6:48 AM, Ace_of_Spades said:

One of my favourite manipulation was in Bespin gambit.

The team finished the core game and we decided to play a shorter game because the core lasted almost 2 years!

So they needed to relearn the basics every time we was able to play.

And the manipulation.

On the first mission i had a huge advantage they maybe destroyed 2 cameras and was 3 turn left.

I killed Lando and i saw the moral to collapse.

So i Told then:

Before Lando is leaving in a secret Door because of his injuries he activates his comlink and run an old security routine. One that he installed when he was the govenor of Cloud City. A door slides and two HK security droids step out and open fire immedieatly to the Imperials.

Lando wispers good luck and wanish behind the secret passage.

And i deployed the two regular HK for them.

Good job. Games all about having fun but more importantly knowing the people you are playing with.

If thats what works, go for it.

8 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

Good job. Games all about having fun but more importantly knowing the people you are playing with.

If thats what works, go for it.

Games are about having fun, but throwing games to make that one game fun will cost you far more fun in the long run as people realize what they do doesn't really matter and victories aren't really anything to be particularly happy about.

1 hour ago, Union said:

Games are about having fun, but throwing games to make that one game fun will cost you far more fun in the long run as people realize what they do doesn't really matter and victories aren't really anything to be particularly happy about.

I think some groups see that more as "adjusting the difficulty level" rather than throwing the game.

If Rebels are getting stomped repeatedly, some Imperial players think it's okay to throw the Rebels a bone every now and then. That's why he said that it really matters on the group, because you're right in that at least some groups would be very against this.

14 hours ago, Union said:

Games are about having fun, but throwing games to make that one game fun will cost you far more fun in the long run as people realize what they do doesn't really matter and victories aren't really anything to be particularly happy about.

I dont consider it throwing the game...I use creativity to try level it up if I feel its in the best interests.

Hey Everyone!

I have part 2 of this article hopefully coming out soon, but I was looking to get some more input first.

If you have some time, please consider filling out this short survey regarding traditions and narrative changes your group has in Imperial Assault. Thank you!

edit: I'll be closing out the poll on Monday. Thanks to everyone who's contributed, really good stuff so far!

Thanks to everyone who participated- it's been a treat reading all of your groups' traditions!

The results can be found here. Again, thanks so much!

Interesting comment about custom missions at the end. I'd be really keen to create and play some custom missions, but:

- There are so many official ones, with so many different ways to approach them based (especially) on what Heroes are taking part, that unless you play this game very frequently indeed, you're not going to run short.

- Creating a mission (with production values higher than some graph paper and a few scribbles) isn't trivial to do in, say, MS Word, and there's no mission designer available that I'm aware of (unlike for example Descent, which has an official online one).

- Balancing the missions looks hard. So many of the official ones - fun though they are - you have to play through nearly to the end before you realise it heavily favours one side or the other, it's practically impossible to just look at a mission and know it's going to be a fair fun game. (And even that can vary, with which heroes are in the mission, or what the Threat level is). It's not like you can just come up with something in your head, and expect it to be fun - it needs playtesting, with a whole group of players prepared to approach it in that way, and then they know it inside out by the time they come to play it, so the surprises and some of the fun are gone.

So for me custom missions remain aspirational, rather than anything I'm likely to do any time soon.

Totally, I think it'd be incredibly difficult.

Depending on how competitive your groups are, some may just appreciate the experience if it's balanced enough. As long as you don't start out with 2 stormtrooper deployments, the Rancor, an AT-DP, and Vader, (or any somewhat less hyperbolic but still obviously overpowered set of groups) I think just running the mission in the name of fun could work.

If you are interested, though (and I totally get your comment about the plethora of existing missions, anyway) I know we have some resident mission designers here. I believe @a1bert has some experience, if I recall correctly. Perhaps they could give you some pointers.