People have been asking for a link to the tier list. I didn't save the actual tour list I made on the video, but here's a link to the template that I made: tiermaker.com/create/imperial-assault-campaign-minions-20-194655
Now if only the Legends of the Alliance AI observed the Habitat rules. Ended up fighting a wampa in a garbage dump behind a local cantina on Ord Mantell.
Those time traveling, galaxy invading wampas at it again. From one of the most popular Battlefront 2 (2005) mods to the tabletop, we can't escape them.
Something I'd like to see is a video on Influence Cards. Either a tier list on the sets, or a video to help people with general tips for picking Imperial Influence cards, and some recommendations for newer players. Influence seems like that one mechanic that's "too much" for a new Imperial player to get used to: "on top of everything else, pick 6 sets of 3 cards out of some 30-ish sets to carry you through the entire campaign for occasional benefits." I could definitly use some Influenc-picking advice if I were to play an Imperial.
I must have missed this video. I agree with most of the assessments except for Imperial Officers and Heavy Stormtroopers. The Heavies are definitely great defensively but they are just so slow and shoot nerf guns. They tend to get ignored and the heroes just run past them. Imperial Officers can have a massive impact, especially moving up large melee monsters to allow them to use both an attack and a special ability when they activate. Plus they are just so easy to replace.
Thanks for the tierlist, been playing through campaign with a newer group and it is good to see what I can deploy from that C or D tier that wouldn't occur to them as meme units. More standard e-webs will be showing up for the next couple missions!
Great List. I agree with the Officer but I actually field them quite often, for the sole reason you get them for free a lot and in the moments where I want to put a wave of figures on the map, I seem to always have 2 threat left, and in those situations I want to overwhelm with activations.
I love bringing hired guns. My heroes often felt attacking (often resulting in overkill) was a waste of an atack and in doing the so the parting shot results in an attack that can attack anyone in LOS (not just the attacking hero). So If they were trying to protect a damaged hero I run them into a place where if they kill them before they move their damaged Gideon they risk a wounded hero.
Very solid tier list. Just a suggestion, I always really appreciate when videos made using Tiermaker provide the link to the finished list. It makes it easier to share, or to make minor adjustments of our own without needing to rebuild most of it from scratch.
I think you have undervalued the Imperial Officers. I found them to be quite a thorn in the side of the Rebels: rolling those dodges was real clutch! I just keep him next to other Imps like a Stormtrooper squad or better yet an E-WEB! Especially the elite Officer: order the E-Web to fire! Or stick some Royal Guards next to the E-Web All that being said, their major usefulness depends on supporting other units, not amazing on their own, so I can see why u rated them low
Check out episode 26 of the Built on Hope podcast, I pretty much give all of my thoughts on the FFG only meta from my modern perspective: podcastaddict.com/built-on-hope/episode/135644761
I know this isn't intended to be a definitive balance video, but do you think it would improve a campaign if you banned the S-tier characters and subtracted 1 from the cost of D tier characters (or 2 for the AT-ST)?
It might improve things a little if everyone is playing at the top of their game and really competitive, but for a casual playgroup it is probably not necessary. It's at the highest levels of play where small imbalances have a large impact on what cards get played, but for campaign a lot of cards still get to see play because they are free deployments for certain missions, so campaigns sandbox is already diverse by its design.
More important than balance is variety, I'd say. E.g. if you've brought a non-villain card as an open group, you can't bring that card as an open group again. Restore all cards to 'possible open groups' whenever you run out of stuff to bring. Although you could reduce the cost of crappy groups so you don't e.g. bring the AT-ST because you have to and then never deploy it. You could also do something like this to add variety during missions instead of facing a Hired Guns or Nexu every round: add one or a few open groups, but when a group is defeated you throw it in the "dumpster", and you can't deploy from the dumpster as long as there are non-dumpstered groups you can afford to deploy or reinforce. Restore from dumpster if your hand is empty. Could also do something like "gain threat equal to the threat level once you've deployed all open groups at least once".
IA continuity project, the community's ongoing efforts to keep the skirmish game going with new cards and continued organized play support. ia-continuityproject.com/
You often mention the blocking abilities of *massive* figures (like the AT-DP) - which is technically correct - but considering that a large part of the game - especially the close corner hallways you want to block - are interiors, which are areas you can´t enter with those. I surely have not played as much as you - but i got the feeling as a campaign rebel player that the Exterior/Interior ratio of rooms is more like 30/70 which makes those deployments pretty useless for large parts of the map for the imperial player. Or am i dead wrong here?
Ratings are based on the assumption that the mission isn't completely incompatible with the card. Obviously massive figures are terrible on any mission that is 80-100% interior map tile. But majority of missions are closer to 60:40 or greater exterior to interior, and the Rebels almost always start on the exterior have to fight their way to the interior tiles to progress the mission, which is why massive figures can be so powerful if there's only a single door to progress to the next part of the map.
Rules question: can you use a surge ability Multiple Times? So blast 4 for 2 surges with heavy stormtroopers? Sane question for heroes. In Descent they were limited but the AI rules were unclear to me since they cover surges under ability in general which you can only use once per trigger. I interpretet it to be the same as in Descent but some of your statements seemed to imply the opposite.
each surge ability can only be used once per roll/action/attack. U can then use it again if u attack again. Also, if u have 2 identical surge abilities from different sources, u can use them. ie. +1Dmg from ur gun and +1Dmg from ur character abilities.
People have been asking for a link to the tier list. I didn't save the actual tour list I made on the video, but here's a link to the template that I made: tiermaker.com/create/imperial-assault-campaign-minions-20-194655
Now if only the Legends of the Alliance AI observed the Habitat rules. Ended up fighting a wampa in a garbage dump behind a local cantina on Ord Mantell.
Those time traveling, galaxy invading wampas at it again.
From one of the most popular Battlefront 2 (2005) mods to the tabletop, we can't escape them.
Something I'd like to see is a video on Influence Cards.
Either a tier list on the sets, or a video to help people with general tips for picking Imperial Influence cards, and some recommendations for newer players.
Influence seems like that one mechanic that's "too much" for a new Imperial player to get used to: "on top of everything else, pick 6 sets of 3 cards out of some 30-ish sets to carry you through the entire campaign for occasional benefits." I could definitly use some Influenc-picking advice if I were to play an Imperial.
This would be great
I must have missed this video. I agree with most of the assessments except for Imperial Officers and Heavy Stormtroopers. The Heavies are definitely great defensively but they are just so slow and shoot nerf guns. They tend to get ignored and the heroes just run past them. Imperial Officers can have a massive impact, especially moving up large melee monsters to allow them to use both an attack and a special ability when they activate. Plus they are just so easy to replace.
Thanks for the tierlist, been playing through campaign with a newer group and it is good to see what I can deploy from that C or D tier that wouldn't occur to them as meme units. More standard e-webs will be showing up for the next couple missions!
Great List. I agree with the Officer but I actually field them quite often, for the sole reason you get them for free a lot and in the moments where I want to put a wave of figures on the map, I seem to always have 2 threat left, and in those situations I want to overwhelm with activations.
Awesome breakdown. I play Imperial against my kids - your rankings feel right, and should help me consciously tailor difficulty for them. Thanks!
I love bringing hired guns. My heroes often felt attacking (often resulting in overkill) was a waste of an atack and in doing the so the parting shot results in an attack that can attack anyone in LOS (not just the attacking hero). So If they were trying to protect a damaged hero I run them into a place where if they kill them before they move their damaged Gideon they risk a wounded hero.
Very solid tier list. Just a suggestion, I always really appreciate when videos made using Tiermaker provide the link to the finished list. It makes it easier to share, or to make minor adjustments of our own without needing to rebuild most of it from scratch.
i like your tier list IA videos, good job
I think you have undervalued the Imperial Officers. I found them to be quite a thorn in the side of the Rebels: rolling those dodges was real clutch! I just keep him next to other Imps like a Stormtrooper squad or better yet an E-WEB! Especially the elite Officer: order the E-Web to fire!
Or stick some Royal Guards next to the E-Web
All that being said, their major usefulness depends on supporting other units, not amazing on their own, so I can see why u rated them low
Any plans on doing a tier list for FFG Skirmish deployments?
Check out episode 26 of the Built on Hope podcast, I pretty much give all of my thoughts on the FFG only meta from my modern perspective: podcastaddict.com/built-on-hope/episode/135644761
I know this isn't intended to be a definitive balance video, but do you think it would improve a campaign if you banned the S-tier characters and subtracted 1 from the cost of D tier characters (or 2 for the AT-ST)?
It might improve things a little if everyone is playing at the top of their game and really competitive, but for a casual playgroup it is probably not necessary.
It's at the highest levels of play where small imbalances have a large impact on what cards get played, but for campaign a lot of cards still get to see play because they are free deployments for certain missions, so campaigns sandbox is already diverse by its design.
More important than balance is variety, I'd say. E.g. if you've brought a non-villain card as an open group, you can't bring that card as an open group again. Restore all cards to 'possible open groups' whenever you run out of stuff to bring. Although you could reduce the cost of crappy groups so you don't e.g. bring the AT-ST because you have to and then never deploy it.
You could also do something like this to add variety during missions instead of facing a Hired Guns or Nexu every round: add one or a few open groups, but when a group is defeated you throw it in the "dumpster", and you can't deploy from the dumpster as long as there are non-dumpstered groups you can afford to deploy or reinforce. Restore from dumpster if your hand is empty.
Could also do something like "gain threat equal to the threat level once you've deployed all open groups at least once".
IACP?
IA continuity project, the community's ongoing efforts to keep the skirmish game going with new cards and continued organized play support.
ia-continuityproject.com/
You often mention the blocking abilities of *massive* figures (like the AT-DP) - which is technically correct - but considering that a large part of the game - especially the close corner hallways you want to block - are interiors, which are areas you can´t enter with those. I surely have not played as much as you - but i got the feeling as a campaign rebel player that the Exterior/Interior ratio of rooms is more like 30/70 which makes those deployments pretty useless for large parts of the map for the imperial player. Or am i dead wrong here?
Ratings are based on the assumption that the mission isn't completely incompatible with the card. Obviously massive figures are terrible on any mission that is 80-100% interior map tile. But majority of missions are closer to 60:40 or greater exterior to interior, and the Rebels almost always start on the exterior have to fight their way to the interior tiles to progress the mission, which is why massive figures can be so powerful if there's only a single door to progress to the next part of the map.
Rules question: can you use a surge ability Multiple Times? So blast 4 for 2 surges with heavy stormtroopers? Sane question for heroes. In Descent they were limited but the AI rules were unclear to me since they cover surges under ability in general which you can only use once per trigger. I interpretet it to be the same as in Descent but some of your statements seemed to imply the opposite.
Just got to hired Guns, now i'm actually sure i got it right.
each surge ability can only be used once per roll/action/attack. U can then use it again if u attack again. Also, if u have 2 identical surge abilities from different sources, u can use them. ie. +1Dmg from ur gun and +1Dmg from ur character abilities.
Great video! I heard your challenge the stats.. I sent you an email. Thanks
Very informative! But please for the love of God, stop coughing into the microphone!
Yes agreed
Yeah, Campaign and Skirmish are really not the same game…