My imperials are having a tough time against rebel players who know what they are doing, and I'm racking up losses. I've already read lots and lots of tactical tips (which units and cards are best, dishing out stuns & bleeds, clog hallways, focus fire, activation order, etc etc etc), but am having more fundamental questions about top-level strategy. What is the best approach to... win? I have never succeeded in wounding all four heroes. If I am lucky enough to wound three, the fourth is usually chasing a distant objective and is away from the bulk of my firepower and the mission is about over. Trying to slow the rebs down so that time runs out before they complete objectives seems to work better. But still... they have so much mobility and are so much more powerful than my troops they simply focus on objectives, comically run right through my troops and ignore my fire (a few extra movement points to move through figures only delays them so much), and while I can slow them down it seems nearly impossible to not slow but stop them. Sometimes it seems like focusing on one character and wounding twice so that they withdraw is more effective than trying to wound all four and failing, at least with a withdrawal they lose a lot of actions. Then there are blast attacks like Fenn's havoc shot - if I bunch up to clog their movement my units get quickly decimated by Fenn. But if I spread out my units, heroes can easily run around them (curse diagonal movement!) and I miss important adjacency bonuses. Maybe I should ban Fenn, but then they'll just find and field another OP character?

To rant a bit, it gets even worse after a few missions. Each hero then has awesome gear and abilities they can use every round, meanwhile my abilities and cards don't seem to scale with theirs. I can spend 2 influence on a once-per-mission ability that is weak compared to multiple gear and card abilities they can use every round times four heroes. It is a joke how they can obliterate my turn 1 starting deployment, except that they don't bother because they they don't see it as a threat. I feel like I am throwing spitballs with all the ways they can mitigate damage. By the time I am getting 4 threat a turn, they can easily kill an AT-ST in a turn (14 threat), no way to keep up reinforcements given the efficiency they can take them down. I can make them feel challenged, but secretly most missions I look at it like "wow there is no way I can win, I can only harass them and make them feel like it was a good fight." Harass them but let them win isn't a strategy.

Again I'm not looking for advice along the lines of this is a great card or great unit to use, tactics are already 90% of the advice out there. My main question is - assuming I use good tactics what is the best overall strategic approach for winning a typical mission? Delay them? Wound them all? Focus down (withdraw) one or two heroes? Something else? My second question, related to first, is pacing - do I bank threat until I can put out enough units (along with a reserve deployment) to overwhelm them for a round or two? (even if that means I have practically no units on the board before then?) Bank threat until mid game, late game, or just throw everything I can at them early on to keep the pressure on the whole game? Are the campaign imps just a joke against skilled players? Looking at the units on the board on both sides it is clearly no match. Or am I missing something?

Are you preparing the scenarios? Do you spend time between scenarios looking at the objectives, mission triggers, and map? One big advantage that the Imperial player has over the Rebel players is full knowledge of the scenario, but if you're not taking advantage of that by making a plan before the game begins, you're going to come out behind.

For instance... plan your deployments. Focus on units that fit the map/objectives. You can chart out how much threat you'll get throughout a mission, so use that information to make sure that you always have something to deploy (I try not to choose any deployments that are more than double the threat level, unless a mission trigger will help me use them). Missions tend to go well for me when I reach a "critical mass", where too many units are on the board at once and the heroes can't kill them all and pursue the objective. Try to time your deployments with mission triggers that grant you more units. The worst thing you can do is deploy in trickles, so that the Rebels can always deal with a moderate amount of stuff on the board. If you're able to put pressure on them, do it. If not, wait to deploy right before/after they hit a mission trigger which grants you free stuff. Before you put anything down, think: "Will this slow down the Rebels or help me wound them? Or will the Rebels casually kill this deployment before I can use it in the way I need to?" Another useful tip is to occasionally deploy behind the Rebels. Against Rebel players that tunnel vision on killing units, this can serve as a powerful distraction since they'll go backwards to kill stuff instead of pushing on ahead. Or, if they ignore the unit, ensure that you can pressure some of their more vulnerable backline heroes.

You can also study the map... find natural bottlenecks, or see how many spaces the Rebels will need to move to secure their objectives. Missions that split the Rebels up are good for the Imperial player, imo — if a mission requires the Rebels to separate, focus all your fire on one of the weaker groups and ignore the stronger one.

Part of studying the mission is to recognize your own win conditions. Sometimes, wounding all four Rebels will be easier. Othertimes, running out the clock is your best option. I find this depends largely on the time limit and the difficulty for the Rebels in accomplishing the mission. Your gameplan will change depending on your own victory condition — if your goal is to wound all the heroes, you want to focus fire on one hero (preferably after they've activated) at a time. This limits their ability to heal or respond to you. You'll need units that generate good damage, and remember: lots of small attacks to deal with white dice, fewer powerful attacks to deal with black dice. If you plan to run out the clock, you want to prioritize hard to kill units (units with a great health/threat ratio), units that hand out negative conditions like bleed or stun, and units that can effectively block movement (Nexu are king here).

Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy — you'll still do a lot of thinking on your feet. But if you can plan ahead and develop some general priorities, you'll be well prepared to give the Rebels ****. Best thing you can do is analyze your losses — why did you lose, what went wrong, and what can you do to have a better chance next time?

On a high level strategy:

1. You should use a mix of both (delay + wound all), as in you'd wound them if they just go Leeroy Jenkins, and delay the round timer if they're cautiously taking out your troops. Both threats should always be on the table

2. You never want the Rebels to roam free around the map. Every action spent taking out your troops is an action spent not going for objectives (refer to pt 1, threaten them with both)

If you want more tips, we need to know who's the 4 rebel heroes, which Imp class did you pick, and what mission did you lose/win (some mission are indeed unbalanced, maybe you ran into those ones)

Your Imperial class deck and Agenda cards are the key to victory especially to wounding the heroes.

Go for xp cards that give you extra damage to your attacks, or just extra figures/attacks. Go for Agenda cards that are reusable (deplete, not discard). Fire at Will and Final Blast are some of my favorite agenda cards for putting the hurt on Rebels.

As you said, forcing a hero to withdraw is a viable strategy for a time-out win, especially if they are being too cavalier with a wounded hero while being cagey with their remaining healthy hero. Rebel players tend to start thinking they are invulnerable after they become wounded, and sometimes it's correct to disillusion them of that false notion. This is sometimes going to be your only option if you know you can't wound all 4 heroes but also don't have enough board presence or condition dealers to time them out.

You need to read and prepare missions. You should realize that your advantage is knowledge of mission. You wont make mistakes if you are prepared, while rebel might, even really good rebel players.

First rule is, defense is more important then offense for IMP player. If you troops survive longer, you will eventually overwhelm rebels. So if you are facing Fenn, you should deploy your troops out of his reach, sometimes maybe for 1 havoc shot if they don't die from it, but never ever EVER deploy 3 or more figures into Fenn's double attack, thats suicide.(here you should be aware he can move 4 squares for 2 strain and attack twice). If your deployed units dont get to attack the rebels that turn, that is not nearly as important as them spreading out and not dying to blast. If your mission has small starting area and you cant do deployment without avoiding blast, then consider saving threat for later when you can. If you can avoid giving Mek movement then dont move just shoot, and focus from Jeswandi as well. Sometimes it is more important that you don't shoot at all at Garkan rather than doing 3 dmg and giving him focus, because again Defense > Offense. If shooting is free then of course do it, if you give rebels something while shooting or moving, then think twice about it is it worth it.

Offense becomes much better with deplete cards. The one where you get threat level when wounding is key, and also Fire at will, which will help you a lot to get there.

On a larger map, often it is better to use officers first so you can do "empty activation". This is quite important. You should seldom try to rush to rebels, let them come to you. You spread out with officer and wait. If you move to them they will strain and shoot you twice. If they come to you they might need to use move action, and only shoot once, which makes your troops survive longer. Again, defense > offense. Of course this changes as the missions progress, and you get stronger and better units with more deplete cards.

Don't always poke around, its often better to focus on one guy, maybe even wipe him from board if you can, at least force rebels that they use their precious first activation every turn on one guy healing in fear of being wiped out of the map.

For these purpose, it is best to calculate your dmg burst, and also how much rebel will kill your stuff depending on their weapons http://mattyellen.github.io/imperial-assault-calculator/

Example of combo(you can do this with Elite Stormtroopers as well, is still really strong, I just played Hoth so its in my recent memory): you Deploy Elite Snowtroopers, and for example play Military Might. ( http://cards.boardwars.eu/Expansion-Boxes/Return-to-Hoth/Deployment Cards/Imperial/Elite+Snowtroopers.jpg

If you have Fire at will, Sustained fire(3xp) and have on your Snowtroopers Assault Armor(2xp) and Combat Veterans(4xp). You can do with only one Snowtrooper from your group 3 attacks instead of 1 averaging 14 dmg on a black dice rebel and easily wound or wipe him off the board with the remaining troopers from your group with following example combo.

Use move to position yourself. First attack use Show of Force to give Snowtrooper focused. Snowtrooper attack with 2xGreen and Blue Dice and has +1 dmg from Combat Veterans. It is highly likely that he will get surge against black dice, and use that surge for Focus/weaken, priority over pierce 2. Then use Fire at will, you again attack with 2xGreen and Blue Dice and you have +1 dmg and + 1 surge so you can refocus yourself and do pierce 2 almost for sure. Then you use Sustained Fire for third attack again with 2xGreen and Blue Dice + 1 dmg, and use pierce 2 over refocus for maximum Burst Dmg. And you still have two remaining Snowtroopers, which means that if a rebel figure(stats max 12hp, black dice) is not wounded but has like 5-6 dmg on him, you can wipe him off the board with good attack sequence in one activation.

This combo, which you can also do in core with Stormtroopers can wound easily which gives your Threat lvl with deplete card and gives you instant strong reinforcements(Royal Guards for example) and force rebel to think twice about continuing to focus only on killing your stuff. If they activate first to heal that one guy, you use Royal Guards to stun those who didn't activate. If they attack instead of healing, you wipe that guy off the board. Its win-win situation for IMP player.

Lastly, in Core, Technical superiority is the strongest IMP deck(take the OP white dice after Technical support and then Superior Augments with attachments over Adaptive dice), Subversive is good overall, but gets countered by some rebel heroes(Gideon's 3xp talent counters your 3xp talent) and usually doesn't scale that good into Finale because its main Strength are the strongest 1xp Cards, while Military Might is strong and easy to use but overall not as strong as Subversive and Tech.

Wow, great advice everyone. Sounds like I need to do my homework between games. Sometimes we play 2-3 missions in a game day and, not knowing which mission will be chosen next, I don't take a lot of time to review and prepare, and sometimes I make mistakes. I'll make a point to spend more time to review the missions and come up with a good strategy beforehand. Will be starting a new campaign so will re-think my class, card, and deployment selections to be more effective with better synergy and combos. Never thought of putting troops behind the rebels since I've focused on blocking their path forward, but yeah that can really give them a dilemma of going backwards or ignoring and taking more damage. I've probably played my imps too aggressively to try to deal damage before they get killed. I will try hanging back more and force them to come to me. Thanks everyone, I thought I had read up on tactics quite a bit but you've shown me there is still a lot more to learn, gotta love a game with some depth.