First, very cool mission design! FFG are really pushing the gameplay boundaries with this campaign.

Now I have some questions...

1) If multiple heroes satisfy the "on or adjacent" condition, you choose one ("a hero .. may test"). (Any ability can only be performed once per opportunity.)

2) I haven't played this. Wounding all heroes is (unfortunately) often the more viable option, and still not very viable.

I've played this and though it looks fun on the surface, it was easily the worst mission we'd ever played.

SPOILERS

1) There's no way for the Imperial walkers to kill the Rebel walker unless the Rebels are absolutely clueless. You basically end up chasing them around one of the "holes" in the map. Once one of the walkers switches over (around turn 5), the same thing happens but in reverse The strongest move for the Empire is to try and make it so that when they do take one over, you can flee with the other one so you're in for another long slog.

2) The map itself is incredibly small and boring, making for basically no options except push forward. I knew my only option was to wound them and they knew their only option was not to get wounded, so we ended up with a very slow and boring game. Accuracy is a non-factor, as is trying to hide behind anything.

3) We actually finished the mission in turn 10 with me wounding all of them before they would have very likely destroyed my walker (it was on 7 wounds). The last 4 (!) rounds were them running around with CT as the only non-wounded hero and me trying to chase him down. It was incredibly repetitive and boring, we were all just hoping it would be over. I wanted to suggest we just call it a draw on turn 8 and again on turn 9 but then it was finally over.

All in all, even though the reward for CT is amazing, I'd recommend skipping this one and choosing a more fun one.

Aw, I thought it was a pretty cleverly designed mission. At the very least, it's pretty unique.

Totally agree with that! It's very unique and the design is clever, I just think it should have been playtested more.

If you play for story and immersion, Sands of Seelos is huge fun. We really enjoyed the mission, which became quite tense as the heroes got wilted down. Cool stuff!

After finally playing the mission I have mixed feeling.

- The pursuit parallel game was fun, but not that fun. The rebel players felt a disconnect with that part of the action. It felt for them like an afterthough, a cute extra thing to do at the end of the round, but not more.

- The rebels cleared all the imperial units in the first round (that includes the 10 threat worth of optional deployment that was used) At that point it was already clear that the imperial could not re-deploy fast enough to wound all heroes. I think the very small map makes it very difficult for the imperial to position correctly and protect units from splash damage heroes.

- Back to the pursuit, the rebels took control of the walker on turn 4. At that point, the imperials had managed to deliver a total of zero, that's right, zero damage to the rebel walker. The blue dice did not collaborate. We stopped the game at that point. It was clear that the imperials had been steamrolled. There were only two wounded rebels, the others were full health, and clearly not enough imperial units on the board to make a dent. Removing time limit was the final nail on the coffin.

My thoughts are that this mission is totally slave to the RNG. If the imperials get lucky hits on the walker early, then the rebels will feel pressure to hurry, and maybe leave enough Imperial units on the board alive to be a real wound threat. If the blue dice misbehaves (like it did in my game) then the imperial has zero chances to win. Team composition is also a big factor here, that is, having heroes that benefit from a small crowded map. Between Drokatta, CT and Jyn, I could barely activate anything.

I don't think the mission should be taken seriously as a competitive experience. Just enjoy the narrative, and may the blue dice be with you. In the end we acknowledged the fickle nature of the mission, and gave the winner rewards to both sides.

On 2/24/2019 at 3:41 PM, Mr Licorice said:

I don't think the mission should be taken seriously as a competitive experience. Just enjoy the narrative, and may the blue dice be with you. In the end we acknowledged the fickle nature of the mission, and gave the winner rewards to both sides.

That's a nice idea. I do feel like even if blue dice go your way, there isn't much chance of even getting line of sight to the Rebel walker for more than 1 or 2 shots before the Rebels take over the other one. The Shrodinger's walker effect of not knowing which one they were on until they take it over is also a bit bizzare.

Totally unbalanced very little fun. I appreciated the idea but realisation was awful.

I loved this mission. very much Thematic and creative which i like a lot. it went really well for my mission. i managed to get the rebel walker down to 2 health, and managed to wound three heroes. they won in the end, but it was great fun, they loved the mechanics and be pushed forward to the cockpit by urgency really worked well. team comp was. Diala, Murne Rin, Ct-1701 and Tress Hacnua.

some pics below

On 2/28/2019 at 9:03 AM, burek277 said:

The Shrodinger's walker effect of not knowing which one they were on until they take it over is also a bit bizzare.

Yeah, I do kind of wish the rules would specify that the Rebels choose a walker early in the mission.

Even from a thematic view, that's just kind of frustrating.

6 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Yeah, I do kind of wish the rules would specify that the Rebels choose a walker early in the mission.

Even from a thematic view, that's just kind of frustrating.

isnt it because, if the imperial would know which one they were in, they would send it to the other side of the map so it couldn't do any thing all game and could not be help. thats how i explained it to my team

I really enjoyed the theme of the mission, but I agree that close confined areas are killzones for all Imperials in the game. Against the team of CT, Verena, Tress and Drokatta it was an absolute bloodbath.

I really enjoyed this mission, and the hero players seemed to, too.

Granted, once the heroes had control of the AT-AT it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to wound the heroes quicker than they could wipe out the models I deployed with Threat then heal. So rather than take up time doing something we all agreed would be pointless, we just went straight over to the 2-v-1 AT-AT fight and played that out. I had one of the rebel AT-ATs on 6 damage by the time they blew up the Imperial one and won the mission.

I can see that if the Imperial player decided to just run away his AT-AT so the rebels couldn't shoot it, and kept throwing in reinforcements, then the endgame could get reeeeeeeeeally dragged out. But it'd only be worth the Imperial player doing that if he had, say, one more hero to wound and a reasonable chance of doing so with whatever he could being on with threat. If not, just... don't do that, and everything's fine.

To improve this mission would a house rule of 'each Imperial AT-AT activates. Then each Rebel AT-AT activates.' That simple change should put a better timer on the mission as the Rebel AT-AT can't just run and gets shot at first, yeah?

On 5/4/2020 at 1:18 AM, DirtyDubs said:

To improve this mission would a house rule of 'each Imperial AT-AT activates. Then each Rebel AT-AT activates.' That simple change should put a better timer on the mission as the Rebel AT-AT can't just run and gets shot at first, yeah?

Played this last weekend. 5 player with myself as Imperial Player. Played as Imperial AT-AT's activating first,

.

This kept the game close and allowed for some tactical manoeuvring on the battlemap. Came down to me winning (got 2 damage with my last shot when my AT-AT had 1 health left and was going to die next turn. I had 2 players wounded and the other two were close to being wounded too.
Very close and exciting game that cam down to the wire. Took 6 turns iirc.