Hi

We are playing through the Hoth campaign with me as Imperial Player using the Military Might class deck.. I am up against some very seasoned min-max players playing Fenn, Diala, Verena and Mak... We are four missions in. And while 3 of the missions have been entertaining and I have been giving a fight the rebels seem way overpowered. Fen doing tons of splash damage sometimes viping a stormtrooper deployment card per round, Diala force throwing, focussing, precise striking, Verena stabbing people and shooting their friends in the face with stolen weapons.. Is it me (being a bad player) or is it a bit off how quickly the rebels snowball in power?

All of that. Probably a little more because of the Return to Hoth campaign and having both Fenn and Diala and experienced rebel players.

Looking at the polls at BGG it seems Hoth is the only campaign where the Rebels seem to have a big advantage over the Empire.

Well, not every mission - but they win the last mission 3:1 where in other campaigns it's the other way around.
We haven't played it yet, but the Empire player can go all-out in this one and the Rebels can pick sub-optimal heroes to balance things out a bit.

The Hoth campaign is definitely rebel favoured and that is a highly offensive group.

But they may suffer in the long run properly equipping everyone due to the fact that all 4 of their heroes want a weapon and Verena wants 2!

See, for us, verena is a very cheap person to kit out. DDC defender + plasma cell. get point blank shot and boom!

I haven't played Return to Hoth yet, but my girlfriend and I are currently gaming Heart of the Empire and she (Diala & Drokkatta) is completely trashing my Imps (Power of the Dark Side class cards). The Rebs have won every single mission of the campaign, with two missions to go, and except for one mission it hasn't even been close. I'm not certain if the problem is me, Diala & Drokkatta (who are a quite nasty pair of heroes), or the campaign favoring the Rebs, but so far this has been a cake-walk for them. With Return to Hoth slotted as our next campaign -- which has the reputation of being the easiest one for the Rebels (i.e. even easier than Heart of the Empire) -- I think I will have to do a ton of strategy research and youtube game-play watching just to give this a semblance of being challenging. (Luckily, the game is still fun enough as the story in Heart of the Empire is quite satisfying)

The missions are designed and balanced for 4 heroes. With 2 heroes a lot of missions (all the way since the core campaign) are easier for the rebels. (Especially Return to Hoth with larger-than-average map sizes.) There are only a handful of missions which are harder with just 2 heroes. Thus, playing with 4 heroes (or at least 3) will have better balance throughout.

Diala and Drokkatta are also powerful heroes.

I suggest some house-rules like increasing the threat level if things are that one-sided.

Hmm .. i will se if we can do something to make it harder. This snowballing effect is not fun for anyone if it continues - There need to be a real challenge. I am rather surprised it that badly balanced as we are primarily using core set heroes.

When you first play the campaign game the imperial holds some major advantages.

The biggest being the unknown and unexpected.

Seasoned players know the ropes they understand not to open a door as the last activation of a turn, they now understand the hero abilities what weapons work best and how to synergise with other heroes and indeed the basic rules of the game.

The game is great fun and I love it but it cannot be balanced for both new players and seasoned veterans with exactly the same rules.

I am not a big fan of "house" rules in games but with this one to have fun small changes are probably required. for example an extra threat every couple of turns and some method of giving exp to the loser to avoid the snowball effect.

The newer campaigns already limit the XP gap in their structure (I think in Jabba's Realm the gap can be 2XP and in Heart of the Empire 1XP), but nothing beats experience. The rebels have a harder learning curve, but it takes them much higher than the imperial player.

2 hours ago, GilmoreDK said:

I am rather surprised it that badly balanced as we are primarily using core set heroes.

Actually, the Core Set heroes are generally considered to be some of the strongest heroes, with Fenn, Diala and Gideon at the top of that list (and Mak might belong there too; if not he's not very far below them). So I wouldn't be surprised.

So far the only heroes that seem to be as strong as the best Core Set heroes are maybe MHD, Vinto, and Shyla, and they're all harder to play well (I think) than the best Core Set heroes.

30 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Actually, the Core Set heroes are generally considered to be some of the strongest heroes, with Fenn, Diala and Gideon at the top of that list (and Mak might belong there too; if not he's not very far below them). So I wouldn't be surprised.

So far the only heroes that seem to be as strong as the best Core Set heroes are maybe MHD, Vinto, and Shyla, and they're all harder to play well (I think) than the best Core Set heroes.

That is exactly my point. The Hoth campaign should be balanced with the power levels of these heroes in mind and it seems to not really have been.. Normally it would be powercreep with new content when later expansions get published (though it does seem like there is this problem with Drokatta ).

But again, one of the players is a classic munchkin player who has optimised everything - Including running every available weapon through an app to ensure optimised damage output.

One thing I had forgotten until I checked recently is that step 2 of the Campaign Set-up is choose the heroes and step 3 is choose Imperial Class. (LtPG p10)

it’s too late for this campaign but don’t be afraid to enforce that next time if you are up against experienced min-max players. You don’t have to tip your hand and give them an insight into the class you would choose before they pick appropriate heroes.

Also I know that this will generate some comments but Armoured Onslaught has one of the best anti-Fenn cards I know of: Power to Shields. (Arguably not much else is so fantastic.) It totally switches off his area of affect and you shouldn’t be afraid to spend the surge to reset it. Also if the player has invested XP in improving the Havoc Shot (say Suppressive Fire or Rebel Elite) they are going to regret it if they have or avoid them. Fantastic against Diala or any other characters with large cleave damage.

Hoth was balanced on the easier side, but it wasn't trivial.

Since then a lot of new content has come out. New heroes ARE significantly more powerful than most older heroes, this is most obvious in how ridiculously fast they can move, but it's true across all abilities, not just movement.

New items are significantly better than old and some things like Bacta Pump will do things like turn Gaarrkhan from kind of a crappy hero who needs his hand held into a potent force. Electro Staff, wow.

However new Imperial forces are ALSO significantly more powerful with access to good 4 pt squads and higher damage deployments from JR and HotE, and finally some good villains like Jabba and Gweedo that can be a real thorn in the Rebel's side.

If the Rebel scum are playing original heroes and not using new supply and equipment cards, but the Empire does have access to new deployment cards, Hoth could be pretty well balanced. If the Rebels have access to new heroes and/or new toys though, it could be just ridiculously easy. A lot of Hoth seems balanced around Rebels using lots of actions on movement but with the new heroes often having access to bonus movement, in some cases a LOT of it, Hoth could be a bit of a joke.

On 12/2/2017 at 3:03 AM, angelman2 said:

I haven't played Return to Hoth yet, but my girlfriend and I are currently gaming Heart of the Empire and she (Diala & Drokkatta) is completely trashing my Imps (Power of the Dark Side class cards). The Rebs have won every single mission of the campaign, with two missions to go, and except for one mission it hasn't even been close. I'm not certain if the problem is me, Diala & Drokkatta (who are a quite nasty pair of heroes), or the campaign favoring the Rebs, but so far this has been a cake-walk for them. With Return to Hoth slotted as our next campaign -- which has the reputation of being the easiest one for the Rebels (i.e. even easier than Heart of the Empire) -- I think I will have to do a ton of strategy research and youtube game-play watching just to give this a semblance of being challenging. (Luckily, the game is still fun enough as the story in Heart of the Empire is quite satisfying)

Legendary Rewards break the game because of Move and Rest actions work when they are being done by the same figures instead of being spread across multiple figures. A single figure being able to take 3 Move actions in a round covers more ground than 2 figures taking a total of 4 Move actions between them. A good house rule for playing with 2 Heroes is to restrict Rest and Move actions to each being once per activation for Rebels.

On 12/2/2017 at 11:16 PM, Union said:

Since then a lot of new content has come out. New heroes ARE significantly more powerful than most older heroes, this is most obvious in how ridiculously fast they can move, but it's true across all abilities, not just movement.

I think the Core box heroes are still the strongest heroes in the game, specifically Fenn, Mak, Gideon and Diala. Those Heroes have super powerful and cheap XP cards that make them ridiculously strong in the 2nd half of the campaign that the newer heroes don't really match. You talk about moving ridiculously fast, Tactical Movement, Mobile Tactician and Disengage are still unmatched movement skills that are super cheap, and Force Throw can be considered a Support movement card since it can be used on Friendly figures. The Jabba's Realm and HotE heroes are on the same power level at least but not significantly stronger, I would say they are definitely as good as Jyn and Gaarkhan, who are themselves much stronger than the heroes that came out of the first 3 boxes, with maybe the exception of Verena.

Acccording to the polls on BGG (why can't we have polls here?) the hero ranking is about: Gideon Argus - Fenn Signis - Diala Passil - Verena Talos - Vinto Hreeda - Shyla Varad (in that order).
Of which the best 3 are all from Core.
The bottom 5 are Drokkatta - Ko-Tun Feralo - Jarrod Kelvin - Biv Bodhrik - Saska Teft, all from HoTE and Twin Shadows.

Some of the Imperial decks seem to be significantly better than others. Military Might is considered one of the best, though.
Only thing I can think of is that you may try to optimize the strength and synergy of your spawns even better? Tough call.

I don't know how the poll is done, but I'm betting those HotE heores are only there because they're new and so have a lower number of votes. I've never tried Jarrod, but in the campaign where we're using Ko-Tun and Drokkatta they have both been fantastic through the first four missions.

On 12/5/2017 at 0:05 AM, Tvboy said:

I think the Core box heroes are still the strongest heroes in the game, specifically Fenn, Mak, Gideon and Diala. Those Heroes have super powerful and cheap XP cards that make them ridiculously strong in the 2nd half of the campaign that the newer heroes don't really match. You talk about moving ridiculously fast, Tactical Movement, Mobile Tactician and Disengage are still unmatched movement skills that are super cheap, and Force Throw can be considered a Support movement card since it can be used on Friendly figures. The Jabba's Realm and HotE heroes are on the same power level at least but not significantly stronger, I would say they are definitely as good as Jyn and Gaarkhan, who are themselves much stronger than the heroes that came out of the first 3 boxes, with maybe the exception of Verena.

Murn outclasses Gideon in a support role and can be built as a strong offense too. She is harder to use though. Mak and Diala have only ever just been good, but there are a lot of "gooder" heroes now. Fenn is strong with high defense, high damage and bonus movement, but Tactical Movement, which used to be pretty unique, is a very common ability type now and many heroes have something similar or better. While I don't think any heroes beat Fenn on all three of his strengths, a few now beat him on two, like Shayla has both better movement and better defense, and a few beat him on one and are okay enough on the rest that they often come out ahead.

Plus, I still contend that Murne's Company of Heroes is likely the best 1XP you can spend in the game, especially when combined with the right hero. Getting Jedi Luke for only 8 threat every mission is brutal. Four threat discount may not sound like a lot (I mean, it is kind of a lot, but still), but missing out on it during the optional early deployment means there are less threat worth of units to deal with Luke on Turn 1- and since Luke is a crazy aggressive attacker, he helps to clear the board and to keep it cleared- so, with only 8 extra threat, he's definitely a hero that you don't even really have to wonder if he's worth it.

as the imperial player in hoth with precision training, facing varena, loku, garrkan and diala, It isn't just you right now, what i did was play imp side missions such as industry and retaliation, I have lost more than not but just won the one for old wounds. do you have banes left? if so try to keep them by playing side missions, and if they pick your side mission, you keep the bane, and if they choose bane, you get a card to replace it. do they have boons? if so try and get them to use them on every opportunity. bring your a game to all bane missions, and you should win it.

I try to have enough stuff to slow them down, and not let verena get free actions or loku spread tokens. This works well when you spawn a heavy hitter. trando to keep dialas strain high, don't let them get dialas re-roll, make sure mak cant disengage if he has it and no E-webs at all. I like wing guard because if they don't take the guard seriously, he can recover, but use the elite ones for that. don't bother with royal guards, as they focus fire them down whenever they can. plan what you want attacking who especially if they split up. Hired guns on mak, split troopers when fenn is within 10 spaces.

last thing, forums are good, but you can learn a lot from a guide or two.