Just had my first play session today.

I played Dark Side in Jerjerrod’s Task versus a Luke/Yoda equip Jedi and Rebel starfighter deck.

I didn't think I would enjoy it much, but it really tested my game knowledge and thinking.

There's alot of multiplayer nuances that you can do as team members to help you win.

Really really really like this multiplayer set. I can't wait to give the Light Side challenge deck a spin.

The Common Reserve is soooo powerful. Due to deck building limitations between players, it seems as though each player playing a multi affiliation deck would work best.

As the challenge deck I had two awesome moments. First was playing Fleet Ambush and surprising the challengers with a Star Destroyer (can similarly surprise defense with Troopers). My second awesome moment was building the Death Star II in the middle of conflict phase because I raised the dial to reduce cost enough to construct it from destroying Light Side objectives and using the Death Star II immediately that same conflict phase to get half my win objective. My next turn, having the superlaser in hand, I knew my victory was assured, so I decided to Emperor Palpatine it up and send in my units and Death Star II (tactic iconed to death, which I could have easily avoided) to fail in destroying my last objective, letting the Light Side think they had stalled my advanced. Light side turn begins and as they prepare to do engagements, I cackle in glee and tell them that they have failed and to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation! (despite being exhausted and not even my turn).

Yea.. Remember when they said this game captured cinematic moments? haha.

.I was sorta stalling for the win, hoping they'd pull another Home One out and try to make a desperate all in gambit to kill all my objectives -- you know to kill their hope even more.

I agree totally, I really like the entire multiplayer format; and with maybe 20 challenge deck games under my belt, I just enjoy it more and more.

This game really sounds like fun. I find hat the DS challenge deck is, well, quite a challenge. I didnt even manage to destroy even one objective with one Jerjerrods Task coming out each turn, Protect objective from Heightened security and multiple objective damage removals due to enhancements.

I think it's possible. As the DS player, I saw many weakness that if the LS could break me through.

Definitely tho, you really need to work with your LS teammate and coordinate strategically. Also, sometimes it pays to just let the DS take your objectives and not defend them if you would lose units. The LS counterattack vs undefended DS is super important. I think a really strong LS combo to beat the DS Challenge deck would be S&S/Rebel hybrid decks. Lots of weenies and trickery. I don't think Jedi is too strong vs DS Challenge deck -- not enough weenies with Objective Damage and no real good anti-vehicle stuff. Jedi does have access to alot of Interrupts and Events that could change the tide of battle though.

We played one game (2v1) against the DS objective...and got trounced by the DS. Our decks were not set up to synergizer well and it seems to be a strong challenge to beat.

We played one game (2v1) Hunt for Skywalker....got beat by the LS. This challange seems less difficult to beat than Jerjerrods Task.

We played one game 2v2...very enjoyable. Nobody's decks were synergized and it was a lot of fun.

There is a lot of good playing options coming from this...I just wish I had more people to play this more regularly with.

I was very disappointed with the challenge decks in Balance of the Force.

We played the Light Side challenge deck, Hunt for Skywalker, a couple days ago. I took Imperial Navy with capital ships galore, while a friend ran Sith with Palpatine and lots of events and Force icons. We had each looked through the scenario deck briefly, but not studied it in any detail.

Essentially every turn the Light Side is capable of playing cards that are incredibly powerful for their resource value, and they have enough resources to make my Navy Officer swarm jealous. Most of the units have the ability to force the Dark Side players to discard a number of cards, in some cases allowing the Light Side player to choose which ones were discarded.

It was frustrating to have abilities canceled, especially because for an additional resource, the Light Side player can cycle many of their cancel cards to their deck instead of their discard pile. Since many of the Light Side cards have new abilities, their interaction with some existing cards was unclear. If I play a Death Squadron Star Destroyer, with its "This card cannot be targeted by card effects." ability, can the Action of playing it be canceled by Run Luke, Run!?

In the end, the Light Side won by a hair, and I feel that mechanically the deck works as intended, allowing one player to face multiple opponents. However, the method FFG chose was very disappointing, as instead of scaling up a players' capabilities in terms of resources or reserve values, they vastly inflated the power of the units themselves.

The power level of many cards, such as Bothan Facilitator or Tatooine Sympathizer, really breaks the game's immersion, as these low-cost generic units are more capable than many unique characters, and vastly overpower similar cards from the standard game that are thematically equal, such as Bothan Spy and Rebel Sympathizer. Also, the restrictive nature of the scenario hampers the standard game's vaunted versatility in deckbuilding.

I havent yet tried the Light Side challenge deck, but I encountered none of the issues you had with the Dark Side challenge deck. All the units are fair except for uniques (Vader, Palpatine, Piett, Jerjerrod).

Yeah, had my first experience against the Light Side challenge deck last night. It was absurdly powerful. I think you'd really have to tune your decks to have much of a chance against it. Looking forward to trying the Dark Side challenge deck, though. For now it looks like a lot more fun.

I think that probably the best unit in the DS deck is the TIE Interceptor (it is at least my favorite). Palpatine is situationally good unless you are going to hold on to him early on and "wait" to play him. I think a much better card is the Shield Generator early on and makes everything great for a turn or two. Vader is admittedly powerful, but he is Vader ...

The LS deck is quite beatable, it is just difficult. The trick to beating it is understanding the way the deck is designed. There are cards that absolutely MUST be planned for, namely the command center, the secret hideout and red 5. After those, other units are pretty tough, but completely manageable. The Bothan only has 1 health and must strike to use its GT. Heat of Battle, a winning edge or Force Choke are all valid and reasonable options. The sympathizer is, in my opinion, well costed. It has a mix of edge and non-edge icons, and controlling the Force for the LS in this scenario is not consistent, limiting it's draw ability to one most turns.

The other trick is focusing on flipping objectives. Dig clear lanes to access all the objectives and you will find it quickly. There is obviously also a chance they will evade if a path is being plowed, but that is something the LS has to play and you then have the choice. I have not lost often with the LS deck (but my team won against it the first time we played and I saw others beat it as well).

Against the LS you really have to work on destroying objectives as fast as possible. Ideally, you should be destroying 1 a turn or putting a lot of damage one multiples in a turn. Once you start whittling away at their objectives they lose a lot of traction and then they really have to hope a lot of the early units they played didnt get destroyed. Remember, as the game goes on you get more resources or at the very least stay the same while they are losing 1 or 2 resources per turn. By time you get them knocked down to the final few objectives they should be struggling to maintain a board.

Also, dont try to flip all of the objectives at once. You definetly want to destroy them as they get flipped.

Also, dont try to flip all of the objectives at once. You definetly want to destroy them as they get flipped.

This is VERY key. The LS gets tricks when the objectives enter play, so being able to prevent blockers from coming into play effects like them refreshing all their stuff, units coming into play, etc., is ideal.