Hi all,

Rookie ImpAss gamer here (soon to have completed my first campaign as the Imp player). The game is great and things are going very well but I have a question.

I’m wondering if anyone can see a problem with house ruling that Rebels can start a campaign with an ally or two already at hand? This would primarily be of interest a few campaigns in since we would like to bring allies to the game without having to necessarily re-play missions (i.e. we try to keep up the suspension of disbelief, which re-playing an old mission would pretty much shatter). This would also be nice for certain players who’re burning to bring their favorite SW character into the game only to be frustrated by the limitations of the campaign structure. (I have this one player who absolutely adores Alex Guinness and would like nothing more than to field Obi-Wan Kenobi in every campaign; bless him).

Now, I’m neither a rules wizard nor a numbers cruncher, but can anyone see a problem with Rebels starting the game with a couple of allies available? The Imps gets their corresponding additional Threat to deploy baddies with, so the whole thing is pretty balanced, right? (Perhaps the Imp should also get one or two extra open deployment groups on their hands, or even a villain ally or two, to counter the Rebel allies?).

Thanks for all your help, peoploids!

As you point out, allies are a reward that you constantly have to pay for. They can make the game swingy, but not always.

Here's my thought- some allies are extremely underpriced in certain conditions. So, for instance, giving yourself Jedi Luke knowing full well that you'll have Company of Heroes from Murne after the intro mission means that you'll have the hero for only 8 threat each mission after- still a lot, but Luke's totally worth that. Or Leia for 4, even.

So, unfortunately, there are some ways your Rebels could really abuse this. Of course, the Rebels could always win those heroes with Murne anyway, but this makes it expedited and a guarantee- I could really see it causing some serious issues.

Also, consider that in the Intro mission, the Imp doesn't have any open groups- so, even with the additional threat, the Imperial player wouldn't have anything to bring in on the optional deployment, which could put them at a huge disadvantage. This could be amended by a few ways-

A) Free allies aren't earned until after the first mission

B) Let the Imp player pick open groups equal to the total threat of the ally. Deploy these groups only during the optional delpoyment after the ally.

C) Let the Imp player also choose a villain less than or equal to the Rebel ally threat cost.

I would only have an issue with that if Murne was in the group, as she has a couple skills that affect allies specifically.

Other than that, you could give the rebels an ally, and the imperials a villian, but this lessens the value of the green missions.

Perhaps a more organic thing you could do is guarantee that one of the 4 green missions is one of the 2 starting side missions.

Nope, not inherently broken since you have to pay for those allies every time you bring them. The rules for allies and villains in campaign are honestly not functional as they are without the expansion cards that buff allies and villians, so this actually seems like a decent house rule. I would say you should also remove the green cards from the side mission deck, if the Rebel players already have the ally of their choice there's no reason for them to want to play a green side mission.

Might be abusable with certain heroes like Murne or Gideon. YMMV.

My group is trying something new this play through: we are allowing the rebels to bring C3P0 and R2 along on the mission if they choose, they just need to pay threat. We don't have Twin Shadows so it would be impossible to earn these two, plus the rules state that you can only bring one ally along for the mission...but it seems wrong to split these two up. We are just starting out, but it hasnt seemed to make a huge impact so far, but it is fun seeing them on the board.

You may get a less frustrated imperial player if you require that C-3PO and R2-D2 activate as one group. (Activation advantage is murder.)

I've had some similar thoughts to yours, though regarding the other side; long story short, I have an incomplete copy of the Grand Inquisitor pack- figure and deployment card, nothing else. Not wanting to waste a good mini, I have been debating three approaches to making him usable in the campaign without his agenda cards-

1.) (Easiest) At the start of the campaign, the Imperial player can simply state out loud and record on the campaign sheet that he is substituting the Inquisitor for Vader and using Vader's agenda cards. This gives a little extra info to the Rebels, unless instead it is secretly recorded somewhere, but essentially this would mean that when the side mission unlocks "Vader", instead the Imperial Player would be able to add the Inquisitor to open groups; less tanky than Vader, but also cheaper. And it kind of fits the fluff, where the Inquisitors were basically Vader's pawns, the guys he delegated jobs to if he had other, more important priorities.

2.) As noted above from the Rebel side, simply give the Rebels the option of deploying an ally of similar cost; it gives the Rebels a little more flexibility, but at the risk of quickly opening themselves up to attacks by the Inquisitor, or other high cost Imperial units.

3.) Pure fluff- The Inquisitor starts in the Imperial open groups by default, but ONLY if either the heroes or one of their available allies is a Force User, and the Inquisitor will be immediately returned to the box if Vader is added to the Imperial open groups.

Really, I think that 1 is probably the best option, but the addition of roughly equal villain and ally characters to the opposing sides would likely work too.

17 hours ago, a1bert said:

You may get a less frustrated imperial player if you require that C-3PO and R2-D2 activate as one group. (Activation advantage is murder.)

I like this idea.

As the IP, I found a lot more tools to play with when I abandoned the idea that every mission had to be perfectly balanced the first time we played it, and when I forced my players to adopt new tactics over the course of the campaign.

Let your group bring in whatever allies they want. At whatever threat cost you both agree is fair. It's not uncommon to give allies from the first two waves at 75% of what's on the card. So you could deploy Chewie for 11 or 12 threat. Add in Murne and Company of Heroes and you could deploy him for as little as 7 threat. Then if the Rebels start spamming Chewie in every mission to the point that the game is not fun for you or challenging for them, just keep upping his threat cost. Maybe if they win with Chewie after two missions, his price goes back up to 11, and then again to 15. Justify it by saying that Chewbacca's presence is attracting more and more attention and the Imperials are devoting greater resources to eliminating him. Ask them why shouldn't the rules change if they are finding the game too easy? If your players want a game where the same approach will give them the same result each time, they can play Battleship or Candy Land or Tic-Tac-Toe.

27 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

Then if the Rebels start spamming Chewie in every mission to the point that the game is not fun for you or challenging for them, just keep upping his threat cost. Maybe if they win with Chewie after two missions, his price goes back up to 11, and then again to 15. Justify it by saying that Chewbacca's presence is attracting more and more attention and the Imperials are devoting greater resources to eliminating him.

Very thematic, I like it!

Thank you for your suggestions and insights, peoploids; this is great!

While I have casually glanced over Murne's stuff on the web (I don't own Bespin) I wasn't aware of the Company of Heroes thing... That obviously needs to be taken into account. Likewise, I hadn't considered that the Imp player doesn't get Open Group deployments in some campaigns; that would, again, break a "starting ally" house rule.

Finally, the reduced ally point cost was another thing I planned to address, but that is redundent now, I think. Thanks for the suggestions!

Thinking out loud, I think the house rule would read something like this (please do comment):
a) During Campaign Set-up, Rebel players can claim any ally previously "won" during past campaigns as allies-on-hand. The Imperial player may then claim up to an equal number of previously "won" villains. [Some balancing re numbers and total starting allies points cost might be in order here]

b) When the Rebels field an ally the Imperial player gets to increase their Open Groups by +1 per ally added. (This will allow Imps to field counter-allies even during missions with no Open Groups allowed). [<-- is this a bad idea?]

c) When first fielded in a new campaign, starting allies (or all allies?) cost 75% (round up) of the listed price. Each time a side (i.e. Rebs or Imps) win a mission while using such an ally, the ally's deployment cost increases by 10% of the listed price (rounded up). [Edit: This should probably only apply to Wave 1 & 2 allies; and possibly only to named characters?]

d) When a starting ally is defeated, that ally cannot be fielded again during the current campaign unless their presence is required by a mission (i.e. listed in the mission rules)

Thoughts?

Thanks again for all your help, peoploids

19 hours ago, angelman2 said:

Thank you for your suggestions and insights, peoploids; this is great!

While I have casually glanced over Murne's stuff on the web (I don't own Bespin) I wasn't aware of the Company of Heroes thing... That obviously needs to be taken into account. Likewise, I hadn't considered that the Imp player doesn't get Open Group deployments in some campaigns; that would, again, break a "starting ally" house rule.

Finally, the reduced ally point cost was another thing I planned to address, but that is redundent now, I think. Thanks for the suggestions!

Allies is a well debated tricky concept in the game. You earn them as a "reward" for winning a mission but yet you have to pay a fee to field them. And sometimes it feels like they are contributing more to make you loose the mission because of the extra threat you give the Empire. From a thematic point of view, I've read somewhere else that the extra threat you give the imperial player can be seen as the imperial intel learning that a small group of rebels are on a mission accompanied by a well known or high ranked rebel and it make sense that the Empire would deploy more units to foil the mission.

From the various debates I've read over the forum I think in the end house-rules are a case by case situation. Some will like certain ideas, other won't. I think it all comes donw to what do you want to achieve by deploying allies previously won by the rebel players? You want them to be a reward? Maybe allow the rebels to bring them on a future mission for free! (Imperial intel didn't see this mission coming and there were not prepared to deal with the presence of Lando!). Or maybe you, as the rebel player, is only allowed to deploy a free ally mid-way through the mission to lower the impact of "free cost". The imperial player knows what's coming once you'll open the door at the start of round 2 ... well maybe not anymore since as soon as you open the door your reach the rendez-vous point with Leia who joins you in your mission as a warm "thank you" for helping her in the previous mission.

For me, I allow the rebel players to pick each and every possible allies (unique and non-unique) regardless if they previously won it or not, as long as it makes sense. For example, it we are playing the battle of Hoth from return to hoth expansion, then they can't deploy (at least right from the start) Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, R2 or 3PO since we all know from Empire Strikes Back movie that they are busy elsewhere. But if they want to deploy the elite rebel troopers (on top of the built-in echo base troopers) yeah sure why not. This was a big scale battle and you can expect a lot of troops were present on the field. As the imperial player, I may bring something extra that was not there in the mission rule to "balance" the elite troopers ... or not. My take on campaign mode as always been about the fun and thematic factors. For competitve play there is skirmish mode. That is how I see it but understand not everyone sees it this way, and it's fine with me.

Regarding the battle of Hoth mission. I played it with my group last week-end. Anything I'll describe below are no spoiler because they are things I simply added for thematic and fun factors. The mission briefing tells you that the mission will evolves after you reactivate the 4 generators needed to protect some rebel pilots waiting to jump into their X-Wing fighters. I added the following to the mission : An AT-ST!!! Yes a chicken walker right there against rebel players without upgrades and equipments since this is mission 1 of the campaign!!! But wait, someone in snowspeeder gears is apparently being chases by the AT-ST ... oh look it's commander Skywalker! We know Luke crashed is speeder in the movie but we don't know how he made it to his X-Wing, well now we know a bit more! And before the walker can active, Luke interrupts to make an attack on the walker. On top of the damage he'll assign to it, the Walker suffers some malfunction and now can only select the result of one of the 2 black dice on defense (roll both but discard on die result). Now the Walker is not to overpowered and the rebel players are helped by farm boy "lets-pretend-he-wears-hoth-gears" Luke! The mission ended with a rebel win. But 3 out of 4 rebel heroes were wounded (Shyla, Verena and MHD-19) and the 4th one (Fenn) had suffered 5 damages. I'll be honest I have no idea if an AT-ST rolling 2 black dice but discarding one to keep a single die VS farm boy Luke is balanced but we all enjoyed this mission and for me, this is really what's important! Others will dislike my mission manipulations and that's fine.

19 hours ago, angelman2 said:

a) During Campaign Set-up, Rebel players can claim any ally previously "won" during past campaigns as allies-on-hand. The Imperial player may then claim up to an equal number of previously "won" villains. [Some balancing re numbers and total starting allies points cost might be in order here]

This makes sense from a thematic point of view, at least for me. I like it!

20 hours ago, angelman2 said:

b) When the Rebels field an ally the Imperial player gets to increase their Open Groups by +1 per ally added. (This will allow Imps to field counter-allies even during missions with no Open Groups allowed). [<-- is this a bad idea?]

That is a more formal way of doing it than what I did by simply adding AT-ST and Luke without giving a choice to my rebel players. Me I would allow it so I don't see this as a bad idea.

20 hours ago, angelman2 said:

c) When first fielded in a new campaign, starting allies (or all allies?) cost 75% (round up) of the listed price. Each time a side (i.e. Rebs or Imps) win a mission while using such an ally, the ally's deployment cost increases by 10% of the listed price (rounded up). [Edit: This should probably only apply to Wave 1 & 2 allies; and possibly only to named characters?]

Personally I am not messing with the ally/villain threat cost aside from the ones officially made by FFG (yes I use skirmish upgrades in my campaign to bring down the cost of Vader and now Han and Chewie). However, I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just something I don't do.

20 hours ago, angelman2 said:

d) When a starting ally is defeated, that ally cannot be fielded again during the current campaign unless their presence is required by a mission (i.e. listed in the mission rules)

Again, very thematic! I will use that in my campaigns too!

Thank you for your feedback, IanSolo_FFG; your tweak of Battle of Hoth is downright awesome, sir! And I agree that every group needs to make the tweaks that makes most sense to them, however, I wanted to ask here just to test if anyone could see a way that my ideas would break the game. Also, I like there for be a basic framework in place for my houseruling, lest I lose control and end up ruining a mission with enthusiastic tweaking; hense a desire for "formal" houserules.

I did some ad hoc tweaking to the Twin Shadows campaign that my group rushed through last week, padding it with an additional 4 missions to make it a little more interested and to enhance the feeling of a story. Specifically, I added IG-88 to a scenario as part of my Open Groups just to drive home the point that the Empire was employing scum and Sand People and Bounty Hunters in their search for whatever it was they were after (this was neccesary as my Reb players failed to see the broadstrokes of the campaign and couldn't quite figure out how it all fitted together; in hinesight, I should have planned the campaign from the start and worked to enhance the story and plot more). I will definitelly have a look at tweaking Battle of Hoth like you did; what a great and thematically appropriate idea!

I really like Ian's ideas, and I think it could serve to make the game a lot more fun.

Just as a bit of a counter, though- some allies definitely work better than others. Letting the Rebels scale their allies with the campaign isn't necessarily fair, either.

For instance, if the Rebels bring in Jedi Luke randomly on an early campaign mission, the Empire may not really have much use for all that extra threat, if they weren't counting on it. Then, let's say that they assume Luke will return in the next mission, so the Empire throws in some more expensive units as open groups- only for the Rebels to bring in C-3P0.

Knowing what your rebels have and what they'll likely bring in is pretty vital to open group formation, and unknown knowledge like that could really damage an Imp's campaign.

39 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

if the Rebels bring in Jedi Luke randomly on an early campaign mission, the Empire may not really have much use for all that extra threat, if they weren't counting on it. Then, let's say that they assume Luke will return in the next mission, so the Empire throws in some more expensive units as open groups- only for the Rebels to bring in C-3P0.

Hm... I have chosen my Open Groups after discussing with the Rebs which allies they plan to bring along; If I had to guess their choises that would indeed make things a LOT harder...

28 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Hm... I have chosen my Open Groups after discussing with the Rebs which allies they plan to bring along; If I had to guess their choises that would indeed make things a LOT harder...

Right. I guess do what works for you, but I believe that since the Rebels choose their allies (or lack thereof) during deployment, the more standard way is to have open groups before ally selection.

I don't have the campaign guide here, but I'm 99% sure that the official order is:

• Deploy imperial figures. If it's a side mission (i.e. "Gain threat equal to twice the threat level and resolve an optional deployment") you do the extra deployment now as well. This would imply that you would need to have already chosen your open groups by this point.
• Deploy rebel heroes (in most missions, one of you has to stand on the entrance token)
• Optionally, rebels can deploy an ally of their choice (this officially happens after the rebel heroes have deployed, so you can't put the ally right on the entrance since one of the heroes would have to be there already).
• If the rebels chose an ally then the imperial increases threat by their cost. If the imperial chooses, they can now make one optional deployment.

Adding on to that, however, I'm 100% sure that my preferred order is:

• Whatever your group thinks is the most fun

I'll have to discuss this a few rounds with my players, but I expect that we all agree; to bring Luke or Han or whomever onboard just to blast extra Stormtroopers feels a bit boring and anticlimactic... but then again, so does fielding an AT-ST every other scenario just to keep a named character at bay. In the end, I suspect we will go with a "maximum fun" option and just addapt our game(s) as we go along.

1 hour ago, ManateeX said:

Adding on to that, however, I'm 100% sure that my preferred order is:

• Whatever your group thinks is the most fun

Amen to that!