Taking inspiration from other FFG games, I am contemplating the idea of creating a restriction list for IA campaign, both for rebels and imperials. The goals are:

- Prevent unbalanced and unfair match-ups.

- Shut down overpowered and unfun combos.

- Promote diversity and creativity.

- Avoid the need to ban or house rule some cards.

My experience with the game is not as deep as other members of this forum, so I'l like to take some feedback from the community, and maybe see what the consensus is.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, restriction list means that you are allowed only one item in the list.

Rebels:

- Gideon (perhaps the only ban candidate)

- Shyla

- CT

- Mak

- Vinto

- Fenn (maybe)

- Electrostaff

- any item that is broken with a restricted hero.

Empire:

- Subversive Tactics

- Military Might

- Tech Superiority

- Nemeses

- Deathtroopers (as open groups - overpowered with MM?)

- Jabba (possibly overpowered with nemeses)

- open groups that are broken with a restricted imperial class.

- couple of auto include agenda sets (i.e. choice between one of these and a top tier class deck) - not sure which.

It seems the list needs a lot of work, especially on the imperial side.

Any suggestions, thins to add/remove/take into account?

I don't really see the point of a restriction list for playing a campaign. For skirmish, people abuse everything they can because making great combos is part of being competitive. For a campaign, you are playing multiple games with the same people. If one side power plays when the other doesn't, that campaign won't make it to the end. The key to success in a campaign of IA is to Talk about the campaign beforehand and find out what people want out of the campaign. Thus, each group will be different and a general list like this doesn't really help.

Myself, I like tough competition. I'd prefer to play all out. Our group has house rules that we think just makes the game better, but not for the purpose of restricting choices (except Gideon...). If I play the Imperials with new people, I will absolutely tone down my combos and make subpar upgrade choices, but I'll still play to win after that. I doubt most people would prefer the exact same. That's why I recommend spending a few minutes to talk about the campaign before it starts.

Restricting tactics on both sides seems odd to me.

What’s your ultimate goal? Is it to prevent everyone from overpowering each other? Is it to encourage other play styles? Getting other content to the board?

Personally, I say take the Electrostaff out of the deck (unless their melee Character is struggling) and just tell them anyone who takes Gideon won’t be having any fun when they’re getting withdrawn every mission. If any of them have an imp class they hate, agree to not use it.

Rebel side: I would never deliberately perma-ban any particular hero, it was always "if you guys are going to choose X, then you cannot choose Y/must pick Z", so if they pick Gideon or Shyla then the other heroes must be chosen from a weaker pool. For example, Gideon+Mak+Fenn+Biv is fine but Diala+CT+Drokkata+Fenn is not

Imperial side: I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by banning 4 class decks: Subversive Tactics is the anti-fun deck but is not an unbeatable deck imo, I think most of the bad experience comes from new players because SubTac requires a very different shopping strategy. For example, if I'm playing Fenn I might go for Suppressive fire if I got 3xp, but against SubTac I'd go for Trench fighter

I don't see what's the problem with the other 3 class decks

Honestly, out of all of these, if you had to get rid of something I'd just ban Gideon and the ST class.

But honestly, that's because I personally see them as anti-fun, more than anything else. Gideon is more focused on making a team better than personally being a fun character to play, and ST just kind of shuts stuff down rather than opening opportunities up.

Not all heroes/units/items are created equal, but for purposes of campaign there's not really anything too badly game-breaking.

As far as I understand, there are a few benefits to restricting some stuff:

1) More diversity. Some heroes are just terrible and never see play. Same goes for items, class decks, allies, imperial troops etc.

2) You want to play to the maximum of your ability but also have fun. Restricting yourself is good but very subjective, a more objective approach could help.

Maybe a better idea would be a "threat" system. Perhaps Gideon cost 6 so you'd be stuck with three cheap heroes to get to 10. Or you might take a cheaper team so if the Imperial player wanted to use ST, they wouldn't have as much "threat" to spend on agenda sets. It would be incredibly hard to balance but might be fun.

Another thing we've been discussing with my group is adapting the prices of certain items, allies and troops. Bacta Pump always gets bought at the first opportunity, but noone will ever bring in Vader as an open group. Allies and troops already have modifications and those are a good start, but I feel like more could be done. Alternatively, randomly taking some items, troops or even supplies out could bring in more diversity.

7 hours ago, burek277 said:

As far as I understand, there are a few benefits to restricting some stuff:

1) More diversity. Some heroes are just terrible and never see play. Same goes for items, class decks, allies, imperial troops etc.

2) You want to play to the maximum of your ability but also have fun. Restricting yourself is good but very subjective, a more objective approach could help.

Maybe a better idea would be a "threat" system. Perhaps Gideon cost 6 so you'd be stuck with three cheap heroes to get to 10. Or you might take a cheaper team so if the Imperial player wanted to use ST, they wouldn't have as much "threat" to spend on agenda sets. It would be incredibly hard to balance but might be fun.

Another thing we've been discussing with my group is adapting the prices of certain items, allies and troops. Bacta Pump always gets bought at the first opportunity, but noone will ever bring in Vader as an open group. Allies and troops already have modifications and those are a good start, but I feel like more could be done. Alternatively, randomly taking some items, troops or even supplies out could bring in more diversity.

I guess that all depends on how your group is.

If you guys tend to min/max and focus on smashing the opposition, then I could see value in restrictions.

If they're willing to branch out and try cool new stuff, though, I think restrictions would actually harm diversity.

6 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

If they're willing to branch out and try cool new stuff, though, I think restrictions would actually harm diversity.

My restrictions of my rebels are; No player can play the same hero twice. Only one hero previously used can be re-used.

My restrictions on myself as the Empire; cannot re-use an Imperial Class. Only one Agenda set previously used can be re-used. Deployments must be mostly thematic.

10 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

I guess that all depends on how your group is.

If you guys tend to min/max and focus on smashing the opposition, then I could see value in restrictions.

If they're willing to branch out and try cool new stuff, though, I think restrictions would actually harm diversity.

How often do you see someone bring Rebel Sabs or elite Wookie Warriors as allies? Or any of a host of horrible Imperial troops like Snowtroopers, Wampas, regular Gamorreans/Wing Guard, heavy stuff like Repulsor Tanks, AT-ST and E-Webs? How often do heroes buy one of the weak Tier 1 weapons, or even more tellingly, how often do they skip on buying one of the awesome attachments?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I'd just like to understand whether our group is such an outlier. Because that's literally happened 0 times since we finished out first campaign.

4 hours ago, burek277 said:

How often do you see someone bring Rebel Sabs or elite Wookie Warriors as allies? Or any of a host of horrible Imperial troops like Snowtroopers, Wampas, regular Gamorreans/Wing Guard, heavy stuff like Repulsor Tanks, AT-ST and E-Webs? How often do heroes buy one of the weak Tier 1 weapons, or even more tellingly, how often do they skip on buying one of the awesome attachments?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I'd just like to understand whether our group is such an outlier. Because that's literally happened 0 times since we finished out first campaign.

Genuinely, pretty frequently. In fact, in my last campaign, the heroes used the Wookiee Warriors to pretty good effect on half a dozen missions, and actually tried to get the Sabs.

Regarding the rest- I often use the Repulsor tank, and will use E-Webs when they situationally make sense (Imperials defending an open space).

I do try and play pretty thematically to some extent, so while I don't mind bringing Snowtroopers (I love Environmental Recovery Gear) and wampas, though I tend to only use them on snow missions where they likely show up anyway. Same for Wing Guards and Bespin- while Wing Guards are admittedly a pretty underwhelming unit, the main reason I never use them is they feel ridiculous outside of Bespin.

AT-ST gets its use on my table, generally coming in as an open group in at least one mission per campaign. Gamorreans get some love too, but again I feel they're thematically situational. Keep in mind I have all expansions, so something coming in even once per campaign that it isn't native to isn't a bad track record.

Again, it all depends on your group. But my players are definitely more of the "Hey, that hero looks interesting, let me try her out" type rather than the "Let me study her abilities fully and compare possible weapons and rewards, and I'll get back to you" kind. Same goes for me as the Empire- we all enjoy a fun mission where something like a Rancor or bounty hunter shows up more than just an endless wave of trooper spam.

Not that there's anything wrong with either play style. You do you, friend.

9 hours ago, Majushi said:

My restrictions of my rebels are; No player can play the same hero twice. Only one hero previously used can be re-used.

My restrictions on myself as the Empire; cannot re-use an Imperial Class. Only one Agenda set previously used can be re-used. Deployments must be mostly thematic.

Not a bad way of doing it.

I basically do the same thing with my heroes, without outright restricting them, in that I encourage them to try new heroes. I don't mind too badly if they want to play a hero someone else already tried, but they tend to not abuse that.

As the Empire- absolutely. Again, I don't consider it a hard rule, but I've never played the same class twice simply because I want to try new things. I'm a little less strict about Agenda cards but I typically use at least 4 agenda sets simply based around villains I'd like to see. Clearly we're not that competitive

7 hours ago, burek277 said:

How often do you see someone bring Rebel Sabs or elite Wookie Warriors as allies?

In general I would echo @subtrendy2 's sentiment, but I did want to address the Rebel Sabs because I think it's an interesting example. Prior to the release of Hoth they were actually a pretty commonly used ally. In my mind it's more like, "we've used those, let's move on to the Alliance Rangers." On the other hand, it really has been a while.

As for eWookiees, it's not possible to earn them without house rules. Did you mean the regular Wookiee Warriors? They may not be the greatest, but my group loves the theme; and idea of a couple of wookiees smashing down the doors is usually enough to want to take them along.

Ah, also, just for the record when it comes to errata on deployment cards, we just go with what's on the card (again, coming from a group that would prefer ease of play over extreme balance).

So rSabs are a little better than they would be otherwise.