There's rarely a moment in a mission of Imperial Assault where it doesn't look like the Rebel heroes aren't in a hopeless situation. It's far too easy for them to end up outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded. However, even a casual player will quickly learn that any individual Rebel hero is worth far more than almost any Imperial unit, or even deployment group.
So what is the Empire's advantage, then? Tactics are certainly important, and I'm sure that over the course of this blog we'll discuss various strategic play for both sides. But sometimes, even tactics alone won't cut it, as the game is built on a system that allows itself to be countered. For instance, Mortar is a fantastic card in the Armored Onslaught class deck, allowing the Imperial to deal out significant splash damage each turn.
Of course, another rather effective method of countering mortar strikes (or Fenn's blast) is simply to spread out. So, like many other tactics, it's wise to be adaptable. Luckily, as the Imperial player, you should have access priority to one of the most adaptable elements of the entire game- information!
As an Imperial player, it's easy to take information for granted. When we're given info literally before the start of a mission, it's easy to overlook stuff. Sure, you'll notice when your reserved groups come in, and what triggers victory. But to really be an effective Imperial, you have to put yourself back into the Rebel mindset of knowing very little- a mindset of uncertainty and doubt.
What's going to deploy when I open that door? What happens after I interact with this terminal? What does the Empire still have left in its undeployed groups? These are all questions Rebel players have to constantly ask themselves.
The game can always change at any moment, and a Rebel that fears that will be overly cautious- a Rebel that doesn't could walk right into a mistake. In one mission during our recent campaign, I took note of one extremely valuable piece of information- after a certain trigger, the Imperial victory condition changes from "When all Rebels are wounded" to "When the hero carrying X objective is forced to withdraw". At the time, my Rebels had adopted a strategy of sending in a vanguard, while one hero stayed back to prevent the entire group from being wounded. Knowing that this was their go-to strategy, I focused fire on their objective runner (but not quite yet wounding him), leaving everyone else relatively unharmed. Since the original victory condition relied on me wounding them all, my Rebels were confident that the mission would be a breeze. That all changed when the trigger occurred, and my objective became to make a single hero withdraw- an objective runner that was already almost wounded, surrounded by enemies, nowhere near friends, and had already activated that turn. He didn't last long.
Now, of course that strategy could have backfired. If I'd noticed that multiple heroes were closing in on the objective, I wouldn't have been as able to confidently decide who the objective runner would've been. Your Rebels are all too well aware of the fact that you know hidden information that they don't- but yet again, you can turn this too to your advantage.
Consider the following example- you're getting steamrolled in a mission. The Rebels infiltrated your base, gunned down almost all your troopers, secured the objective, and their only objective now is for "All heroes to be on or adjacent to the Entrance". You have no hope of slowing them down with your thin forces left.
Now, let's say you still have a villain or some other important looking dude around- for the purposes of this hypothetical exercise, let's say Dengar. Rather than doing the obvious thing and trying in futility to gun down/Stun the heroes before they reach the entrance in what would almost certainly be a final act of defiance, you could have another move- screw with their minds. Double move Dengar backwards, back into the base and away from the Entrance.
Is that a gamble? You bet. But you had nothing to lose- now, the Rebels are forced to make to a gamble while they have everything left to lose. Sure, the Rebels could go ahead and continue on to the Entrance. But, perhaps they ask themselves: "What on earth Dengar is doing? Why is he retreating? What does the Empire gain by that? What do I lose?"
All of a sudden, what seemed like a straightforward Rebel victory becomes a huge debate between your other players. The Rebels might think that they'd win if they simply got to the entrance (and they'd be right). But they cannot know that for sure. What they do know is that the Imperial player knows the rest of the mission rules and victory conditions, and while this could be a ploy (it is) it could also be a move to facilitate a late game change of rules that would occur after some currently unrevealed trigger. And all it would take is for one well meaning would-be hero to go rogue and charge after Dengar, only to get too bogged down with Stuns and Bleeds and end up too far away from the entrance for the heroes to win the mission.
And I'll be totally honest, more often than not my Rebels are smart enough to not fall for schemes like this. But if you let it turn even one certain defeat into a victory, I'd say that's worth it.
Sometimes, simply being mindful of what your Rebels don't know, and predicting how they'll act, can win the day. A recent mission I played- I won't say which, for spoilers' sake, though anyone who has played it will know what I'm referring to- required the Rebels to reach a certain point on the map as their initial objective. The gimmick with this mission, though, was that the majority of the map tiles were not laid down at the start of the mission- instead, the Rebels were forced to explore the map in a way that was reminiscent of "Fog of War" maps in your typical RTS game.
I know my Rebels, and I know that they don't like situations where they have to open doors (or any other likely situation that would almost surely activate a mission trigger). So, in a mission where they couldn't even see the possible door that the objective would be behind? Of course, that was going to unnerve them pretty badly. So, being the sadistic Imperial that I am (at least, during missions) I decided to throw the pressure on them hard- basically, a "move or die" situation. I hit as many Rebels as possible with Stun and Bleed conditions, while focus firing on their objective runners. My goal was to make the Rebels rush through the map, activating triggers all the while not being able to really retaliate against my fielded units. Eventually, I would simply have so many units on the board that the Rebels would be swarmed- and that's not a bad place to be in.
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- Thomas
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