So, we played Test of Metal, Jarrod's side mission the other evening.

**SPOILERS AHEAD** (sorry, I don't know how to format the spoilers box)

In the mission, there are no reserved or initial deployment troops, only Imperial Mission Tokens that act as VERY weak robots. We're talking Threat Level health, 1 blue die attack (+1 damage), and 1 block on defense. Their saving grace is that any attack against an Rebel gets +1 damage for each adjacent token that isn't the attacker. This gives it that "swarm" kind of feel.

The Rebels had Jarrod (of course), Drokkatta, Ko-Tun, and Vinto. It wasn't even close.

Drokkatta just got Thermal Charges and didn't attack the whole mission. He was able to pull off 16 unblockable damage the first round across 4 figures without rolling a single flippin' die, effectively preventing me from activating two entire sets of droids. Then he camped the production point for the droids, activating first, resting, blowing them up with Demolish, then doing that again at the beginning of the next activation. I got maybe three activations across 5 rounds out of the droids in total.

I couldn't control positioning as he murdered things that were deployed adjacent to each other per the mission rules. For all future missions, if there are ANY adjacent figures with 4 or less health each deployed within 4 spaces of Drokkatta, they will die before getting a chance to activate. And, the egregious thing is, ALL WITHOUT A DIE ROLL. No chance of getting lucky or mitigating dice. They are just dead.

Maybe it was just that mission (since everything was super low in health) but it feels broken and just not fun at all to play against.

The Rebels felt so bad about how crazy Drokkatta is, they started offering to set up some house rules to limit how often he can use Demolish. I hesitate to do that but ****, it's tempting to make it "Once per Rebel activation" or "At the end of an activation".

Has anyone else had a similar issue? Am I crazy or is Drokkatta just that broken?

There has been some speculation about Drokkatta's Demolish:

As written, it can be used during any activation. There are varying opinions on this - I am personally of the opinion that it should only be during Drokkatta's activation. It seems to me like that's strong enough by itself; I don't think it should even be usable during other Rebel activations. Hopefully someone will be able to get an official or unoffical ruling from FFG on this soon.

But even without that change, this mission looks pretty tough for the Imperials. I think that's normal for Hero side missions though (at least in Jabba's Realm and Heart of the Empire).

Demolish in in queue for the FAQ to be "Once during your activation" and we're playing it as such in https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1885240/capital-attractions-swia060.

4 hours ago, a1bert said:

Demolish in in queue for the FAQ to be "Once during your activation" and we're playing it as such in https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1885240/capital-attractions-swia060.

Does this mean that FFG has confirmed this is supposed to be "once during your activation" or that they are in queue to answer what the true intent was supposed to be?

In the queue for the FAQ means the errata will appear in the next release of FAQ. I don't know when that will be.

So, yes, there is indication from FFG that it should be "Once during your activation".

Good to hear. Seems like kind of a major typo.

About the mission itself, has anyone played it? It seems a little odd, that there are no initial groups and with a Threat Level at 2 (first side mission), it reads like a cakewalk for the Rebels. I'm wondering if it could pay off to save up the initial 4 Threat and deploy some Stormtroopers at 6 at the END of round 1 instead?

We played it with broken Drokkatta but we all agreed that if Drokkatta couldn't double blast and clear out the droids, it would have been almost impossible to win.

The difficulty is the distance that the Rebels have to travel on top of being swarmed by bots. While the bots themselves don't do much damage, the +1 dmg for each adjacent Droid that isn't attacking can compound really quickly.

I suggest focusing down any AOE characters first and not trying to hide the droids until they get deep inside the factory. Force the Rebs to get adjacent to the droids to progress. It'll be a lot closer that it seems on paper.

Impossible for the Rebels? Wow, that's not my experience. We played it yesterday with Drokatta, Ko-Tun and Loku (and Kelvin obviously), and we agreed at the end, that it was the most no-challenge mission we have ever played. Rebel win during round 3; droids and terminals at 2 health and 1 block is ridiculous.

Both Drokatta, Kelvin and Ko-Tun had their 1XP card that grants extra movement, and with each Rebel taking out two droids during each of their activations, focusing down anyone was impossible, there were simply no imperial units on the board.

Sure, I (the IP) could simply have bungled the mission, but with so few options, it still feels like an auto-win for the Rebels.

We played it at threat level 3 but I can definitely see where you'd feel that way.

You know, a better strategy might have been (for both of us) to save up threat from the original deployment and drop it all on them when they open the door. At threat level 2, if they popped the door in the second round, that would have been 8 threat and maybe enough to put something on the board they can't ignore. At threat level 3, that would have been enough to drop an elite stormtrooper group plus a probe or eJawa...

That's actually what I did. Save up the initial four threat and deploy rStormtroopers when they opened the door (my Rebels did it during their first turn). I probably played the Stormtroopers too defensively though, moving them back into the Factory, instead of just all-outing them. And I couldn't probably have chosen more appropriate open groups - for instance, I knew I should have chosen an Officer, but I felt it was too boring.