I am trying to sort my thoughts on deployment. When and Where to deploy/reinforce (using threat). There are Imperial players in this forum who are much more experienced that I am. I'd like to pick on their wisdom, advice whether these thoughts make sense.

1. Should I deploy at the end of turn 1 (assuming enough threat), or should I save? My reasoning: if the rebels have cleared the initial troops, then deploying now is suicide. Unless the group/unit can survive that first attack and then move to block the path, ex. a nexu. If otoh there are decent amounts of initial trooops survivors, then deployment end of turn 1 is very valid, as it allows to maintain pressure.

2. Should I deploy near the rebels or far? Near, and the unit may die before it can activate. Far, and the unit may waste a turn double moving. I feel I always screw this up. I think far is always better unless I already have on the map more attractive threats (like a eweb), it is almost the end of the scenario and the troops wont have time to move across the map, or I really want the rebel to waste time attacking my stuff so I spawn in their face.

3. Say I know that early next turn the rebels will trigger an event (open door, hack terminal etc) that will spawn new units. Should I spend my threat now to reinforce before the event trigger, or wait next turn for the trigger to happen? Now means maybe distract the rebels and delay them slightly, it also means having a more powerful force on the map when those free units arrive. but it also means next turn will be less overwhelming. Saving for next turn means I hope to overwhelm the rebels next turn, but I run the risk of having the units spawned by the event die before I can spend my threat. Not sure about this one. Advice?

Of course there should be no hard rules when deciding whether to spend threat now or save for later, and whether to deploy close to the rebels or at a safer distance. But maybe we can establish some general guidelines to avoid blunders.

Those are the decisions to make. They are decisions because there is no one right way that fits all situations.

1+3. Whatever the round, if there are no imperial groups on the board, you usually want to deploy if the rebels are about to trigger an event next. If they spend actions to defeat the newly-deployed figures, they have less actions to deal with the event. If they go for the event first, you have a better chance of overwhelming them - provided you didn't deploy in a way that allows them to deal with both threats at the same time.
If there is no immediate event expected, it's better to not deploy, and avoid allowing the rebels to benefit from their abilities such as gaining movement or strain recovery from attacks. It's best if you have managed to wound a hero, so that hero doesn't benefit from resting during that idle round.

2. Try to deploy where the rebels need to spend strain or actions to move to attack them. If you sometimes can't make move+attack work, then the figure is still there on the next round.

When to reinforce and when to deploy? You tend to reinforce when you can't keep an activation count and want to make a big strike next round - you expect to only get that one activation.

How to spend threat from Special Setup and rebels taking an ally? Saving some of that is wise to keep a constant pressure, but saving is not always an option.

Spending all your threat at the end of each round just to keep bodies on the table is not a great strategy most of the time except for the very end of the mission where saving threat is obviously pointless. What ends up happening is the Rebels are able to kill the mooks as fast as you can deploy them and you don't get to make that many attacks with the figures you deploy. I try to save my threat and time it so that I can deploy alongside a mission event, like when a door opens and bad guys pop out, usually it will say "the Imperial player may resolve an optional deployment". That way you overwhelm the Rebels with more mooks than they can handle at once and can pump a bunch of damage into a single hero in one turn. Even if you don't get an optional deployment with your mission effect, even deploying a large number of figures at the end of a round that you got to deploy free figures is often sufficient.

It's a good idea to read the full mission and all of the events before you play so you can plan this out in advance.

On 10/1/2018 at 2:58 PM, Tvboy said:

It's a good idea to read the full mission and all of the events before you play so you can plan this out in advance.

This is probably the most important piece of advice because each mission will have a different answer. Get an idea of how you might go about winning the particular mission: wounding them or stalling them so they run out of time. There are definitely rounds where I've skipped deployment despite having zero figures on the board because those figures would be more valuable to me later on when trying to block an objective or fighting with backup. Think of the action movie scenes where the bad guys attack one at a time only to be taken out by the good guy and you're screaming at the TV, "OMG why don't you all just attack him at once."

On the other hand sometimes you need to keep the pressure up and deploy whatever you can if a hero is close to being wounded or you're just trying to get them to waste actions. Some of those decisions are also dictated by the Rebels that you're playing against and their gear as well as the groups you have at your disposal. Do you spend 6 threat to put down 3 stormtroopers while playing against Fenn w/ Rebel Elite and Underbarrel? Absolutely not, he could rob you of 6 threat in one action so bank it. Are you playing against a strong single target damage character like Mak that could blow up your Nexu in one action? Do you have Hired Guns? Send them in to get slaughtered and laugh as they wound their attacker.