Really enjoying these forums, and this game!

My apologies if this has been covered before, but as new players, our rebel group is struggling to determine the correct order of activating heroes to maximize our effectiveness each round. Any veteran advice? Are there certain situations where the order of activating makes a big difference?

We'll be running Gideon (full support), Fenn (dps, and probably trench fighter), Gaarkhan (melee dps), and Diala (force adept, force throw, battle meditation).

Any strategy advice would be most appreciated!

This is always going to rely on what you need to do in the moment.

If you're looking to remove Imperials then you should focus on a group (deployment cards) that hasn't activated that round. So if that's a single figure group then Gaarkhan might be the way to go, and for multiple figure groups Fenn. This is usually how you want to start round 1, but after that your plans will vary.

If you need to move to the objective then Gideon (Command for move) or Diala (Force Throw) should focus on getting people around the board so they can use their own actions to Interact later in the round. Remember, Gideon can only Command other figures to move or attack, so anything else they'll have to use their own actions for.

It's also good to note that Rebel abilities that exhaust begin a mission ready and are again readied at the start of their activation. This can work against by exhausting an ability that can be used outside of and after your activation (ex. Fenn's Take Cover and Gideon's Called Shot) early in a round and not activating that character again through the end of the following round. But early in a mission it can work for you by letting you potentially use those abilities twice in round one (Fenn attacks -> Gideon exhausts Called Shot -> Gideon activates next which readies the card).

@Uninvited Guest Makes some good points.

In addition to those, you want to pay attention to the activation game in 2 parts.

Part 1: Activating the heroes in such a way that dictates what the imperial player does next. For example, you might have Gideon move Fenn so he's in range of a group of stormtroopers. Now the imperial player has a choice, activate that stormtrooper group, or let Fenn attack them on his activation possibly killing 2 and leaving the last one with a single health left and no opportunity to use Squad Training. Another example, you could move Gaarkhan into range of several units and entice the imperial player to attack Gaarkhan rather than go for a different unit with less health. Of course it doesn't always work like this, but the heroes get the first activation each round so they have better chances of influencing what the imperial does with their activation.

Part 2: Destroying imperial groups in order to have more activations per round. The rebels will usually have 4 activations per round (5 if they have an ally). Most missions the imperial will start with 4 groups, and then be adding more each round whether through threat or mission rules. If you have an opportunity to remove a group (esp. before it has been activated), that can give you the upper hand later in the round. You might get a chance to activate 2 heroes without the imperial having any units left to activate. Either allowing you to further remove units from the board with good position, or move toward objectives.

All that being said, you have to balance attacking with going for mission objectives. I've seen too many missions lost because killing imperial troops is more fun than running around the map. And a good imperial player will be trying to control the activation game same as the rebels.

Know your role. Diala is good at punishing high cost figures thanks to her Precision Strike and Stun abilities. If there's an E-Web staring you down, she's a good candidate to smack it and take away one of its attacks. Fenn punishes bunched up Imperials, so if there's a crowded group that might have an opportunity to split up and deny Fenn his Blast shenanigans, you might start with him. Gaarkhan is your tank. He soaks damage well and is an unappealing target for the Imperial player due to his focus ability. He is flexible in where he can go thanks to ignoring difficult terrain and who he can attack thanks to Cleave, but his range limited due to being melee, so if there' s a chance that his only targets might move out of range in a single activation, it might be good to move him up first to make sure he gets his attacks and draws initial Imperial attacks. Gideon is the team's pivot point, he allows the other heroes to react to the unfolding situation even after they've already activated. Did a scary suddenly appear with one of the Heroes caught out in the open? Gideon can move them to cover. Did the bad guys bunch up around an objective because Fenn has already activated? Gideon lets Fenn punish them with another attack. Is your designated objective runner too far away from the objective to interact with it? Gideon can give them a boost of speed. Gideon should generally be activating later in the turn, but not necessarily always last.

2 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

It's also good to note that Rebel abilities that exhaust begin a mission ready and are again readied at the start of their activation. This can work against by exhausting an ability that can be used outside of and after your activation (ex. Fenn's Take Cover and Gideon's Called Shot) early in a round and not activating that character again through the end of the following round. But early in a mission it can work for you by letting you potentially use those abilities twice in round one (Fenn attacks -> Gideon exhausts Called Shot -> Gideon activates next which readies the card).

Your whole post was great, but this is very valuable Intel!

4 hours ago, thestag said:

@Uninvited Guest Makes some good points.

In addition to those, you want to pay attention to the activation game in 2 parts.

Part 1: Activating the heroes in such a way that dictates what the imperial player does next.

Love the idea of being proactive vs reactive

Quote

Part 2: Destroying imperial groups in order to have more activations per round.

We noticed a distinct inability to take out troops in the first mission, but hopeful that will change as we level up. Playing against armoured troopers with combat medic (and us using popgun weapons) was a pain. ? Would love to seize the initiative.

Only try to defeat (unactivated) figures that you have a fair chance of succeeding with.

Determine your biggest threat. Also note that defeating 1 figure from one 3-figure group and 1 figure from another 2- or 3-figure group is better than defeating two from the 3-figure group. You lessen the effectiveness of the imperial activation whatever group they go with, and can afterwards deal with the other group on your next activation.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Gaarkhan's... range limited due to being melee, so if there' s a chance that his only targets might move out of range in a single activation, it might be good to move him up first to make sure he gets his attacks and draws initial Imperial attacks.

Excellent point. Our wookie was often having trouble getting into the fight.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Gideon is the team's pivot point, he allows the other heroes to react to the unfolding situation even after they've already activated.

I can see how vital he could be! Our imperial focus fired on him, wounding him early and limiting his movement (and ability to get in position for command) but we're hoping Air of Command solves that problem.

12 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Only try to defeat (unactivated) figures that you have a fair chance of succeeding.

Yes, this! We went after grouped armoured troopers who were using combat medic and it was a disaster.

12 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Determine your biggest threat. Also note that defeating 1 figure from one 3-figure group and 1 figure from another 2- or 3-figure group is better than defeating two from the 3-figure group.

Interesting. Could you elaborate?

2 minutes ago, TeethAlmighty said:

Interesting. Could you elaborate?

If there are two groups of (unactivated) Stormtroopers,

1. If you defeat 2 figures from the first group -> the IP activates the other one, providing 3 attacks. You may defeat the remaining single Stormtrooper, but the IP probably has some other group to activate.

2. If you defeat 1 figure from each group -> the IP activates either one, providing only 2 attacks. You now have only a 2-figure threat in addition to other groups. Do it again, and you halve the effect of an imperial activation.

It's naturally not this simple, because the attack capabilities of figures differ, but this is part of damage limitation the rebels want to do.

Also remember that any big threat that you can't defeat during a single activation is usually not worth attacking first.

But then there comes a point when the rebels need to decide to run... Go full force for the objective. Finding the correct time and/or balance between defeating figures is what needs skill.

11 minutes ago, a1bert said:

If there are two groups of (unactivated) Stormtroopers...

2. If you defeat 1 figure from each group -> the IP activates either one, providing only 2 attacks. You now have only a 2-figure threat in addition to other groups. Do it again, and you halve the effect of an imperial activation.

? This is why you come to the pros, folks ?

Do you worry about the imperial bringing in reinforcements if you don't take out the whole squad, though?

2 minutes ago, TeethAlmighty said:

Do you worry about the imperial bringing in reinforcements if you don't take out the whole group, though?

You can finish the already activated stragglers with the later rebel activations if you have attacks to spare.

Also, defeating a group will free up its attachment to be used by the IP on another group. So keeping one figure alive can be very good sometimes, especially if you expect a mission event coming up.

Action economy is the most important aspect of the game. As the rebels, if you can eliminate a whole group of imperials you severely limit the strategy of the imperial player, especially in early missions when it is harder to bring out troops. I would say there is a direct correlation between missions the rebels win and whether they finished the mission with more activations than the imperial player.

Another piece of advice, as the rebels don't ever open a door or "progress" the mission with your last activation. Usually that triggers something nasty from the imperial player and you don't want to be caught having no response to the sudden deployment of enemies. There is nothing worse than opening the door with your last activation and seeing a group of elite stormtroopers waiting to wound you.

On 21/11/2017 at 11:02 PM, TeethAlmighty said:

Really enjoying these forums, and this game!

My apologies if this has been covered before, but as new players, our rebel group is struggling to determine the correct order of activating heroes to maximize our effectiveness each round. Any veteran advice? Are there certain situations where the order of activating makes a big difference?

We'll be running Gideon (full support), Fenn (dps, and probably trench fighter), Gaarkhan (melee dps), and Diala (force adept, force throw, battle meditation).

Any strategy advice would be most appreciated!

Best way to play fenn is melee. I can explain you why if you ask because explaination needs some more writing. Long story short I believe that most of the missions are made in such a way that you will use blast in max 2 attacks per mission (on average), that means is pretty much useless and a cleave + reach is much better than blast and way less situational, hence Havoc Shot is crap. Said that you end up with 3 melee and Gideon and that's a huge problem. Now getting to your question, there's no activation priority. It's all based on situation. It's up to you guys to find the most convenient way to do things with the partial information you have at hand. It's a chess game, you have to foresee opponent's choices first then do your choice. Most of the time you have to do a choice to force opponent to react in a very inconvenient way for him. It's about oversmarting the opponent there's no algorithm like in chess, this game is much more complicated and random than chess.

There are tricks you learn from experience.

If you do something that may trigger an event with your last activation of the round, you may end up in the imperial deploying stuff and having freedom of owning heroes in all sort of ways.

Remember where things spawn so that you can have those points always under Fenn's Havoc Shot (it's hard but it's the only way to make this ability useful).

If you are struggling with Nexu's high mobility, remember that it can't move and pounce if pounce is done from a space containing another figure, that means you need to place your figures wisely so that the week or important heroes won't be reachable.

If you are struggling with troopers and you know you can't kill an entire group, it's better to kill one figure in each group so that none of the imperial activation will be fully satisfying.

The most important suggestion is: go straight to the objective. Your goal is not to kill everyone. If you attack is ok but always move closer to the objective. We usually ignore crates. We get to the objective, we understand we won so we look around and see if we can collect one or two before closing the mission.

Do right choices with class cards and item cards. You know all of them in advance, plan what to take and what to buy. Review the plan if you think you are mistaken or if that item did not show up in the draw. You must find synergies between the items you have and the class cards. There are powerful combos that may save money for later stages of campaign. You also know imperial class and you can understand what is the agenda when the imperial plays an agenda card. Plan accordingly. Every single bit of information can let you foresee imperial moves and he won't even realize you countered them already!

2 hours ago, Golan Trevize said:

The most important suggestion is: go straight to the objective. Your goal is not to kill everyone.

Addendum: spend the first round defeating as many figures as efficiently as possible.

30 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Addendum: spend the first round defeating as many figures as efficiently as possible.

Well if you have 8 mins close to heroes you must kill. My suggestion was more like to skip crates and mission side objectives unless confident to make it, eventually don't chase imperial figures around the map if they aren't really dangerous.

3 hours ago, Golan Trevize said:

Best way to play fenn is melee. I can explain you why if you ask because explaination needs some more writing. Long story short I believe that most of the missions are made in such a way that you will use blast in max 2 attacks per mission (on average), that means is pretty much useless and a cleave + reach is much better than blast and way less situational, hence Havoc Shot is crap.

I was hoping to use Diala's force throw to cluster enemies for Fenn's havoc shot - is that a viable strategy? Or too difficult to set up?

Agreed that Gaarkhan can use cleave more reliably!

Appreciate the post! Excellent strategic advice.

1 hour ago, a1bert said:

Addendum: spend the first round defeating as many figures as efficiently as possible.

Interesting. Is this to gain activation advantage over the imperials?

41 minutes ago, Golan Trevize said:

Well if you have 8 mins close to heroes you must kill.

I assume this is to avoid too much early damage? Kill or be killed? ?

Just now, TeethAlmighty said:

Interesting. Is this to gain activation advantage over the imperials?

Yes, and also less need to Rest because less attacks against you.

However, don't worry about a hero or two becoming wounded toward the end. If you win a mission with all heroes Healthy, you have probably spent too much time Resting and/or attacking.

On 22/11/2017 at 8:14 PM, KotasMilitia said:

Action economy is the most important aspect of the game.

I'm gathering this! With this in mind, curious to get your (or someone's) opinion on a build strategy for Gideon. After masterstroke, I was suggesting he take mobile tactician (essentially giving him three actions per turn). My teammates voted this down in favour of air of command (giving him more health and longer range commands). I can see the benefit of both.

Thoughts as to the optimal order for these abilities?

1 hour ago, TeethAlmighty said:

I'm gathering this! With this in mind, curious to get your (or someone's) opinion on a build strategy for Gideon. After masterstroke, I was suggesting he take mobile tactician (essentially giving him three actions per turn). My teammates voted this down in favour of air of command (giving him more health and longer range commands). I can see the benefit of both.

Thoughts as to the optimal order for these abilities?

Movement is more important than anything else in this game. Mobile tactician wins hands down. You have to think this way: you can't earn movement in other ways, you can overcome the need of a longer range moving or positioning heroes wisely.

1 hour ago, TeethAlmighty said:

I was hoping to use Diala's force throw to cluster enemies for Fenn's havoc shot - is that a viable strategy? Or too difficult to set up?

Agreed that Gaarkhan can use cleave more reliably!

Appreciate the post! Excellent strategic advice.

You have two problems, clustering doesn't come for free (actually price is expensive and can possibly bring to no effect) and before Fenn's activation Imperial player can still spread enemies.