Hi Campaigners,

I've been painting my miniatures towards playing the Core Set campaign, set to be played over a three day weekend. I have all the Wave 1 Ally & Villain packs for the Core Set. I'm the imperial Player with four Rebel Players. I'm the Imperial Player with the Military Might class, as it seemed to be the simplest class to provide a first time fun experience for the Rebel players. The Rebels are Dialla, Fenn, Gaarkhan, and Jyn. As it's all of our first time playing, I'm looking for some advice on playing the game.

But, I'm not looking for tactical advice. I don't intend to play to win, but rather provide a fun and challenging experience . I'm asking for ideas on what can be done to improve the experience of the game. I want us all to experience the game for the first time as intended in the rulebook(s), but what did/do you do to improve your games? Do you include props, sounds, videos, tokens, proxies, etc.

What do you do that makes your campaign games great?

If you're not looking for an intense tactical experience, one thing that helped my group was to give each side the "victory" reward whether they won or not. Normally, the side who wins gets more rewards than the side that looses. As you can imagine this has the potential to snowball, causing the side who wins to win more. It also puts a lot of pressure on each game - if you lose, not only do you lose the game, but you miss out on cool rewards.

There are many ways you can alter the reward structure to prevent snowballing, but the simplest one is to just give each side the "victory" rewards regardless of the outcome of the mission. However in the core campaign this results in a huge amount of XP for both sides, which means by the end of the campaign you have a lot of abilities to remember. This can get very complicated, so you may want to instead alternate between giving each side the victory rewards and giving each side the loss rewards.

Bit of a shameless plug here, but I actually just wrote a page compiling many of the ways that players thematically enhance their sessions.

In my experience, one of my players' favorite enhancements of the game comes from the Star Wars soundtracks we play. Really helps us get in the mood.

Another big thing you can do is play thematically. For instance, while you can't help the starting or reserved groups, but if the mission is clearly slanted toward a Mercenary build, make your open groups all mercenary figures. For instance, don't bring a Nexu on a Star Destroyer, if you can help it. This may be a little more difficult if you just have the core set, but in general just use your best judgment. Even if you do have to go with the "Nexu on the Star Destroyer", you could always throw in some flavor text- something like "Claxxons ring as a voice on a PA system shouts 'Alert! Bio-shipping crates in sector 9 have reported a containment breach.' You wonder what's going on, when all of a sudden you hear skittering of legs and a roar down the hallway."

16 hours ago, Stompburger said:

If you're not looking for an intense tactical experience, one thing that helped my group was to give each side the "victory" reward whether they won or not. Normally, the side who wins gets more rewards than the side that looses. As you can imagine this has the potential to snowball, causing the side who wins to win more. It also puts a lot of pressure on each game - if you lose, not only do you lose the game, but you miss out on cool rewards.

There are many ways you can alter the reward structure to prevent snowballing, but the simplest one is to just give each side the "victory" rewards regardless of the outcome of the mission. However in the core campaign this results in a huge amount of XP for both sides, which means by the end of the campaign you have a lot of abilities to remember. This can get very complicated, so you may want to instead alternate between giving each side the victory rewards and giving each side the loss rewards.

We may get some snowballing as we're playing the Core campaign as written. After that, we'll fiddle and juggle everything with what we've learned. You're ideas are great!

16 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Bit of a shameless plug here, but I actually just wrote a page compiling many of the ways that players thematically enhance their sessions.

In my experience, one of my players' favorite enhancements of the game comes from the Star Wars soundtracks we play. Really helps us get in the mood.

Another big thing you can do is play thematically. For instance, while you can't help the starting or reserved groups, but if the mission is clearly slanted toward a Mercenary build, make your open groups all mercenary figures. For instance, don't bring a Nexu on a Star Destroyer, if you can help it. This may be a little more difficult if you just have the core set, but in general just use your best judgment. Even if you do have to go with the "Nexu on the Star Destroyer", you could always throw in some flavor text- something like "Claxxons ring as a voice on a PA system shouts 'Alert! Bio-shipping crates in sector 9 have reported a containment breach.' You wonder what's going on, when all of a sudden you hear skittering of legs and a roar down the hallway."

I definitely like the idea of theme building when using the miniatures. And there will definitely be some John Wlliams soundtrack playing in the background - and perhaps some opening scrolling text.

On 10/22/2017 at 8:30 AM, Phoenix_FFG said:

I'm asking for ideas on what can be done to improve the experience of the game.

• If you really want, you can read up on some suggested house rules here:

Arguably, the two most common complaints players often experience with just the core set is the issue of overpriced allies and the snowballing effect. For the snowballing effect: If you’re wining a lot, just play more thematically and adopt a DM kind of role. If you’re starting to loose a lot, well, that’s 4 players working together and having fun (and hopefully you’re the type of person that enjoys this). For the allies, I wouldn’t worry about it so much. Unless the Rebels earn Chewie super early in the campaign and insist on bringing him to every mission.

• If you're able to, make sure to have the map set up and play area organized before the other players show up. I find that it's a much smoother experience that way and Rebel players are motivated right from the get go. Setup/Teardown times for this game can be an absolute nightmare if you're not organized
• Keep in mind the new agenda card ruling first introduced in Jabba's Realm:

Quote

During the Jabba’s Realm campaign, the Imperial player may
only have a total of four Agenda cards between his hand and his
play area. If, at the end of an Imperial Upgrade Stage, he has more
than four Agenda cards, he must choose cards to discard until he
has four.

AKA don't save up all your agenda cards for the finale, hehe.

• Spend influence on those villain agenda missions (Royal Guard Champion, IG88, General Weiss). Even if you don't win the mission, it's always a treat when a big bad shows up to cause some mayhem

31 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

• Spend influence on those villain agenda missions (Royal Guard Champion, IG88, General Weiss). Even if you don't win the mission, it's always a treat when a big bad shows up to cause some mayhem

Definitely. Or, even if you do win, but don't want to spend the threat later on the villain, at least you got him for free at least once. Villain appearances in missions always stand out as memorable, particularly when they come in as reserve groups with a dramatic entrance.

There are some pretty good deplete cards, too. I prefer those far over the discard ones, personally. They're not all winners, but some are really good (For the Right Price has one that allows you to increase threat by the Threat Level when a hero is defeated, so that's pretty big).

59 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

• If you're able to, make sure to have the map set up and play area organized before the other players show up. I find that it's a much smoother experience that way and Rebel players are motivated right from the get go. Setup/Teardown times for this game can be an absolute nightmare if you're not organized

This is a really good point. When playing with friends we never meet at my place (it's too small for 5 people), so I can't get everything set up ahead of time, but I always try to get there early and have everything needed for the mission set aside before I go over.

10 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

• If you really want, you can read up on some suggested house rules here:

Arguably, the two most common complaints players often experience with just the core set is the issue of overpriced allies and the snowballing effect. For the snowballing effect: If you’re wining a lot, just play more thematically and adopt a DM kind of role. If you’re starting to loose a lot, well, that’s 4 players working together and having fun (and hopefully you’re the type of person that enjoys this). For the allies, I wouldn’t worry about it so much. Unless the Rebels earn Chewie super early in the campaign and insist on bringing him to every mission.

• If you're able to, make sure to have the map set up and play area organized before the other players show up. I find that it's a much smoother experience that way and Rebel players are motivated right from the get go. Setup/Teardown times for this game can be an absolute nightmare if you're not organized
• Keep in mind the new agenda card ruling first introduced in Jabba's Realm:

AKA don't save up all your agenda cards for the finale, hehe.

• Spend influence on those villain agenda missions (Royal Guard Champion, IG88, General Weiss). Even if you don't win the mission, it's always a treat when a big bad shows up to cause some mayhem

9 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Definitely. Or, even if you do win, but don't want to spend the threat later on the villain, at least you got him for free at least once. Villain appearances in missions always stand out as memorable, particularly when they come in as reserve groups with a dramatic entrance.

There are some pretty good deplete cards, too. I prefer those far over the discard ones, personally. They're not all winners, but some are really good (For the Right Price has one that allows you to increase threat by the Threat Level when a hero is defeated, so that's pretty big).

9 hours ago, Stompburger said:

This is a really good point. When playing with friends we never meet at my place (it's too small for 5 people), so I can't get everything set up ahead of time, but I always try to get there early and have everything needed for the mission set aside before I go over.

Thanks @Armandhammer , @subtrendy2 , @Stompburger .

I'll be reading up on all the house rules, that's for sure. Thanks for the heads up.

I'm definitely running it like a DM in D&D, I don't care about winning, just going to provide a challenge and fun Star Wars pew-pew experience as much as I possibly can. I like that Imperial Assault seems to be somewhere between an RPG and a tactical miniatures game.

Even though I'm going Core Set rules and add-on packs only, I'll use the Jabba's Realm rule on principle for myself. Keeping it to four Agenda cards at most seems like a great idea.

Oh yes, the Aftermath map will be set up prior to everyone arriving. I had a custom DeepCut Studios 'Stars' map made to the dimensions of my table (I'll post a picture some time) so there's a thematic feel to the table under the tiles. The players' miniatures, Hero cards, Class cards and dice (I bought a set for each player to have their own, plus myself) will be ready to go. It's been an expensive process, but should be worth it.

Top tip: use a Sharpie to black out the edges of the board tiles. You'd be amazed the different it makes.

11 hours ago, Phoenix_FFG said:

I had a custom DeepCut Studios 'Stars' map made to the dimensions of my table (I'll post a picture some time) so there's a thematic feel to the table under the tiles.

I would definitely like to see this!

5 hours ago, Bitterman said:

Top tip: use a Sharpie to black out the edges of the board tiles. You'd be amazed the different it makes.

That's an interesting one, I've never heard that before.

23 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

That's an interesting one, I've never heard that before.

I think he may be referring to this:

Looks good , but I'm not sure if it’s worth the effort.

Yeah, basically that. I only did it for the tiles though, not the tokens - life is too short for that! Takes about five minutes per tile set (core/expansions) and looks much better IMO.

3D-printed crates and terminals can also vastly improve the look of the game, but they take additional money and/or time. Five minutes with a Sharpie is nothing.

13 hours ago, Phoenix_FFG said:

I'm definitely running it like a DM in D&D, I don't care about winning, just going to provide a challenge and fun Star Wars pew-pew experience as much as I possibly can. I like that Imperial Assault seems to be somewhere between an RPG and a tactical miniatures game.

I fully recommend that! Just make sure with your group they agree that you run the game more like a DM. This might come at a later stage, but I would encourage you, when you are comfortable with the game, to customize some missions to add up flavor to the campaign.

Return to Hoth expansion light spoiler

Before diving into mission customization though, you might want to add to the narrative of the campaign. Once your rebel players will have selected their heroes, maybe you could give them their character's backstories. There are a few threads about that on this forum. Here's one :

Or you could make up your own. One good way of doing this would be to look at heroes's side mission and build the backstories according to the mission. It will add a nice touch if/when the rebel players play one of those mission.

Spoiler Diala's side mission

Building back stories are a great way to DM the game without messing with missions and it enhance the experience a lot!

Don't take the Imperial Industry agenda set as the Imperial Industry reward card will make it too difficult to lose convincingly.

1 hour ago, Armandhammer said:

I think he may be referring to this:

Looks good , but I'm not sure if it’s worth the effort.

Huh. Yeah, I never even really saw a need for it.

I'm sure now it'll bug me enough to drive me to have to do this, though

17 hours ago, Bitterman said:

Top tip: use a Sharpie to black out the edges of the board tiles. You'd be amazed the different it makes.

I'd seen an article where someone had used paint pens on all their tiles and tokens. Looked good. I will eventually do this to my tiles.

13 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

I would definitely like to see this!

@Armandhammer , here we go:

10 hours ago, Bitterman said:

Yeah, basically that. I only did it for the tiles though, not the tokens - life is too short for that! Takes about five minutes per tile set (core/expansions) and looks much better IMO.

3D-printed crates and terminals can also vastly improve the look of the game, but they take additional money and/or time. Five minutes with a Sharpie is nothing.

In all my lurker I've seen heaps of these options, and they definitely are something I want to look into in the future.

10 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

I fully recommend that! Just make sure with your group they agree that you run the game more like a DM. This might come at a later stage, but I would encourage you, when you are comfortable with the game, to customize some missions to add up flavor to the campaign.

Return to Hoth expansion light spoiler

The very first mission of the campaign is the battle of Hoth. I tried to link the mission with the Empire Strikes Back movie, by setting the mission roughly after Luke crashed his snowspeeder. During a mission event I told my rebel players that Luke was heading back to the hangar the heroes are protecting to board his X-wing. However he was being pursued by a "damaged" (read a bit less powerful) AT-ST. Both Luke and the AT-ST are not part of the original mission so ,before the game night I made a few playtestings on my own and to avoid breaking too much the mission and I came up with the idea that the AT-ST would roll 2 black dice for defense but would only select one die and discard the other. I lost the mission but managed to wound up 3 heroes while the last healthy hero had suffered quite a lot of damage. And most importantly it was a blast!

Before diving into mission customization though, you might want to add to the narrative of the campaign. Once your rebel players will have selected their heroes, maybe you could give them their character's backstories. There are a few threads about that on this forum. Here's one :

Or you could make up your own. One good way of doing this would be to look at heroes's side mission and build the backstories according to the mission. It will add a nice touch if/when the rebel players play one of those mission.

Spoiler Diala's side mission

I read somewhere that during the course of a campaign an Imperial player was hinting about Diala's side mission by stating during other missions that Diala was having recurrent painful unclear Force visions. All those visions where finally explained when the rebel players played Diala's side mission.

Building back stories are a great way to DM the game without messing with missions and it enhance the experience a lot!

With all my lurker, I remember specifically reading all of that and thinking it was great. We'll ease into those elements, for sure.

9 hours ago, Union said:

Don't take the Imperial Industry agenda set as the Imperial Industry reward card will make it too difficult to lose convincingly.

I'm taking Military Might. Looks the simplest for first time around miniature combat.

2 hours ago, Phoenix_FFG said:

I'm taking Military Might. Looks the simplest for first time around miniature combat.

Imperial Industry is an Agenda Set, not an Imperial Class. No matter which Class you take, you pick 6 Agenda Sets (6 sets of 3 cards each for a total of 18 cards) and purchase them with Influence during the campaign.

17 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Imperial Industry is an Agenda Set, not an Imperial Class. No matter which Class you take, you pick 6 Agenda Sets (6 sets of 3 cards each for a total of 18 cards) and purchase them with Influence during the campaign.

Oh whoops! Looks like I didn't read that properly. Sorry.

Hmm, I was going to pick all the Core Agendas (including Vader's) except for For the Right Price, to make the six sets.

I've played too much and know exactly what mission that is.

With military might, you hit your biggest power spike (in my opinion) at 6xp where I have grabbed combat veterans and the +2 health card. Its pretty fun and pretty straight forward.

I also use certain Star Wars soundtracks on random, really sets the mood and is great when tracks randomly align.

On 26/10/2017 at 3:34 PM, MadFuhrer said:

I've played too much and know exactly what mission that is.

With military might, you hit your biggest power spike (in my opinion) at 6xp where I have grabbed combat veterans and the +2 health card. Its pretty fun and pretty straight forward.

Excellent. Those are the cards that look the most useful straight up.

On 31/10/2017 at 8:36 AM, theChony said:

I also use certain Star Wars soundtracks on random, really sets the mood and is great when tracks randomly align.

I hope to do just the same.

So, using all of the above advice, the Imperial Assault weekend was a success!!!!

I thought I would have taken more photos, but a 5-player 3 day weekend was too much fun!

Here they are, exploring Dialla's past...

Below is a shot of most of the table.

Below is Jyn Odan getting ready for the next mission.

Also, much to Han Solo's dismay, when he was rescued, Jyn Odan felt it necessary to propose marriage.

In the final battle of the campaign, Han Solo agreed to assist Jyn Odan during the mission on the condition that he never had to see her again.

On 10/25/2017 at 9:17 PM, Stompburger said:

Imperial Industry is an Agenda Set, not an Imperial Class. No matter which Class you take, you pick 6 Agenda Sets (6 sets of 3 cards each for a total of 18 cards) and purchase them with Influence during the campaign.

Does this mean you keep all your influence points and it's just the "total amount" you can use each mission for cards? Because I never seem to have enough influence. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

You're probably doing things right. You don't need to spend influence as soon as you get it. To purchase an agenda side mission costs you 3 influence, which takes 2 or 3 missions to collect.

Usually non-mission agenda cards are more cost-effective. The reward from Imperial Industry is just so good that a lot of IP's try to get it. However, you need to draw it to be able to purchase it, you need to have the influence to purchase it, and you need to win it (or rebels skip it) to get the reward. To have the influence you may pass on other good agenda cards, or you don't have the influence until late in the campaign. And after the last side mission slot in a campaign, purchasing an agenda side mission does nothing, because the rebels no longer need to select one, and thus you won't get the reward.

Overall, agenda cards are spicing up the campaign, they are not meant to be game-changers. Some can be pretty deciding when played at the right time.