1 hour ago, labcoat_samurai said:

If you have a hero team that's mostly top tier heroes, the Imperial player is going to be in trouble, but I don't think the answer is to ban or house rule individual heroes. I think the answer is to restrict the group to only maybe a couple top tier heroes, unless there's a significant skill disparity to offset it.

I'm ok with that if FFG likes to make things like that. I just wish to know what's "top tier" before spoiling the rest of the content.

16 hours ago, labcoat_samurai said:

I don't think he's out of line compared to other very powerful heroes, like Gideon, Fenn, or Diala. There will definitely be missions where having him trivializes the mission, but he's not the only character like that.

For instance, I recall a mission with a mechanism where pushing an elite stormtrooper through a fire dealt damage to it, and all the elite stormtroopers had to be killed. Diala could kill an elte stormtrooper with force throw without even using an action by dragging it through multiple fire spaces, and we were doing this as only the second mission of the campaign. We coasted to victory easily, and the imperial player felt he had no chance. There's a similar story mission in Jabba's Realm with a Sarlacc pit that you can try to push people into but Diala could have just freely thrown people in. As a rule, her movement shenanigans are more versatile and efficient than CT's but less extreme.

Is that correct? When you push a figure more that one space, does it travel through the intervening spaces? Who decides the route? e.g. if you make a "knights move" of two squares in one direction and one square orthogonally, who decides which squares the character is pushed through?

Push is move X spaces performed by other than the figure's controller. It enters (and exits) all of the intervening spaces as well as the space where the pushed figure ends movement. The owner of the ability performs the push.

(Push is not placement. Placement within X spaces is able to place a figure on the other side of impassable terrain or edge, which Push cannot.)

Being pushed due to massive figure ending movement on top of a figure is decided by each figure's controller as specified by the Massive rules.

3 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Push is move X spaces performed by other than the figure's controller. It enters (and exits) all of the intervening spaces as well as the space where the pushed figure ends movement.

(Push is not placement. Placement within X spaces is able to place a figure on the other side of impassable terrain or edge, which Push cannot.)

Good to know. I can see how it would break that mission. I couldn't see it explicitly called out in the rules about travel through intervening spaces, so wasn't sure.

Rules-wise it makes sense for that mission. Theme-wise, with Diala slowly roasting a stormtrooper over a fire he started.... hooooo boy. I think she just earned herself some dark side points .

If I ever play it as IP I might argue that they are pushed too quickly through the flames to take damage from each intervening square Or that Diala flips to the dark side and I control her as a villian

On 12/20/2018 at 7:20 AM, udat said:

If I ever play it as IP I might argue that they are pushed too quickly through the flames to take damage from each intervening square Or that Diala flips to the dark side and I control her as a villian

Just to chime in on the Pin Them Down skill. I'm currently playing (as Imp with a buddy playing "Wildfire") the Tyrants of Lothal campaign -- (a very fun collection of missions, that! ) -- and while I feared Pin Them Down going in, it turns out it isn't such a hassle to deal with after all. At least in ToL, the maps are generally small, meaning I don't need to move my figures to get an attack in most of the time, so the Stunned & Weakened figures almost always get to do something nonetheless. That, and with just a tiny bit of attention to how I position my figures I find I can thwart the more catastrophic uses of PTD . To date, the skill hasn't tilted a single mission, let alone won one for the Rebels; it's "only" a nuisance, of about the same caliber as Jyn's various interruption skills.

I even find that IF the Rebels go all in a round to capitalize on PTD and activate "Wildfire" first to inconvenience a pair of important figures before I can activate, that often means the Rebels have to forego other 1st activation options that might be more damaging to my Imp efforts. Nah, "Wildfire" is cool and all, but so far hasn't shown any signs at all of being a broken hero.

I still struggle more with the destructive capabilities of Diala in this campaign.

5 hours ago, angelman2 said:

Just to chime in on the Pin Them Down skill. I'm currently playing (as Imp with a buddy playing "Wildfire") the Tyrants of Lothal campaign -- (a very fun collection of missions, that! ) -- and while I feared Pin Them Down going in, it turns out it isn't such a hassle to deal with after all. At least in ToL, the maps are generally small, meaning I don't need to move my figures to get an attack in most of the time, so the Stunned & Weakened figures almost always get to do something nonetheless. That, and with just a tiny bit of attention to how I position my figures I find I can thwart the more catastrophic uses of PTD . To date, the skill hasn't tilted a single mission, let alone won one for the Rebels; it's "only" a nuisance, of about the same caliber as Jyn's various interruption skills.

I even find that IF the Rebels go all in a round to capitalize on PTD and activate "Wildfire" first to inconvenience a pair of important figures before I can activate, that often means the Rebels have to forego other 1st activation options that might be more damaging to my Imp efforts. Nah, "Wildfire" is cool and all, but so far hasn't shown any signs at all of being a broken hero.

I still struggle more with the destructive capabilities of Diala in this campaign.

It sounds to me like your rebels aren't positioning heroes well. Mine tend to stun figures I just deployed. Because they are quite experienced, they can predict with some good accuracy potential spawn points or in any case once I used a spawn point that becomes a known information to them. Positioning heroes wisely can be very effective. I believe my heroes are better than the average and I concede to them too much time for taking the right choice.

Oh, I would love for my heroes to hang around spawn points to inconvenience new arrivals rather than focusing on objectives; that'd be right swell, that would! Especially in ToL where time is very often a real issue.

Seems like a lot of CT PTD experiences are limited to the ToL campaign. Will be good to see how he fares in other campaigns as well.

Our house rule is that you can't bring the same hero on consecutive campaigns. In fact, we actually try and cycle through all the heros before going back to them.

I think CT suffers from the same issue as Fenn did back in the early days of Imperial Assault. Fenn felt overwhelming, killing entire squads of units before they could activate. It felt unfair.

Then people started learn how to play around Fenn. Deploy smart, both in choice of deployment cards and in positioning. Choose an imperial class deck that does not depend on using a lot of low HP clumped units. Last campaign Fenn was used in my group, his splash damage hardly triggered.

Same thing can be said about Subversive tactics. Once you know how to play around it, it is not that strong.

CT's pin them down is the same. It is the first time that in the history of this game that we are facing a true crowd control hero with such efficient use of negative conditions. I was with the choir, complaining that this is OP, as the imperial player I tried to convince the rebel player to accept a nerf to Pin Them Down. Now, I am not so sure. I think I am learning how to play around it, and in the end, it is not that bad.

For example, choosing units that can be useful even when stunned, like Dewback riders and cats. Playing an imperial class deck that can give free movement and immunity to negative conditions, like nemeses. Avoiding melee units that rely on move + attack or on surges to be effective (like royal guards - though with Nemeses that is greatly mitigated)...

So maybe, the question we need to ask ourselves, as imperial players, is: what are the viable counter-picks to CT? The game allows the imperial player to choose after the rebels, there is a good reason for that.

p.s. I haven't tried this yet (I did not feel the need with Nemeses), but with a trooper oriented build, snowtroopers with their negative condition removal ability are prime choice.

p.p.s. stunned and weakened is still better than dead (i.e. vs Vinto and Shyla)

I played against pin them down and yea it seemed pretty broken to me. Especially if you want to try and use any melee figures as the Imperial.

I think I hate stacking blast on Fenn worse though, or Drokotta's monster hits against my Nemesis deck lol

Now we are almost end of campaign, my Rebels are inexperienced and I managed to win most of the missions even if CT is a pain. I believe that starting at mid-campaign, Pin Them Down loses power. That's when deploying Nexus and Dewbacks becomes more accessible thanks to higher threat level. These 2 units are the only ones that can move and attack even if stunned.

3 minutes ago, Trevize84 said:

Now we are almost end of campaign, my Rebels are inexperienced and I managed to win most of the missions even if CT is a pain. I believe that starting at mid-campaign, Pin Them Down loses power. That's when deploying Nexus and Dewbacks becomes more accessible thanks to higher threat level. These 2 units are the only ones that can move and attack even if stunned.

They're not quite as mobile as nexu, but lothcats could probably work too at a lower threat level

I don't know, CT still seems broken to me. With his starting weapon and 5 XP, his one activation is around 5 damage against a black die character, stun+weaken another one and move the team 5 spaces. And it's not like any of the abilities become significantly worse in the later stages of the mission. Barrage scales with your weapon, Pin them Down scales with how good the Empire figures are, and movement is always good.

Sure, you can try to work around that by bringing specific units, but those units are almost always going to be weaker than some of the other options, so the other heroes will take them out much more easily.

4 hours ago, burek277 said:

I don't know, CT still seems broken to me. With his starting weapon and 5 XP, his one activation is around 5 damage against a black die character, stun+weaken another one and move the team 5 spaces.

I think you might be playing something wrong. If CT attacks and barrages against a single black die defense with his starting gun, it should do around 2.5-3 damage depending on whether he was able to get a damage token on the first shot to use on the second. I wouldn't call that amazing.

So with 5xp, you are obviously saying CT picked up Pin Them Down, which does the stunning/weakening. For the other upgrade, are you talking about Squad Tactics? If CT picked that up, his second action could be to do a move and give away those movement points. That only moves a single friendly figure though and not the team. It costs him and action and an upgrade to move someone instead of himself.

1 hour ago, player678037 said:

For the other upgrade, are you talking about Squad Tactics? If CT picked that up, his second action could be to do a move and give away those movement        points. That  only moves a single friendly figure though and not the te  am  .    It costs him and action  and an upgrade to move someone instead of himself.  

Just a point of clarification: you meant one friendly figure at a time, right? The entire squad could move in total five spaces, 1-2 each.

Exhausting it after he performs the move gives him the ability to move friendly figures until the end of the activation. I don’t see anything limiting it to just one.

1 hour ago, Uninvited Guest said:

Just a point of clarification: you meant one friendly figure at a time, right? The entire squad could move in total five spaces, 1-2 each.

Exhausting it after he performs the move gives him the ability to move friendly figures until the end of the activation. I don’t see anything limiting it to just one.

Absolutely. I'm just making sure those 5 mps weren't given to all figures. The upgrade basically allows flexibility, but doesn't provide any extra movement for an action besides the +1 speed to CT.

The additional attack he gets from Barrage will often deal another 1-2 damage. Even if you get lucky and dodge or roll really well for defense, he can then often remove strain and gain a damage token. His damage cap is insanely strong (he could theoretically do 9 damage with a damage token against a black die figure in one activation) and the average is still strong.

Looking at his starting weapon and skill set, I thought it was very poor - no Surge for damage, getting some damage tokens, spending two strain just for the opponent to dodge - but looking at it statistically as well as from my play experience, it's really powerful.

And yes, the move gives 5 movement points total to spread around the team, but that's crazy powerful.

Basically, I think he would be fine if his abilities had some stricter limitations. Pin them Down only for adjacent figures or reducing damage from the attack to zero, Squad Tactics for adjacent heroes or needing to spend strain etc. As it is, he just does it all.