Some context to my SWM journey... Had a small collection 10 years or so back, didn't get to play so sold it. Been getting back into it now recently with some new ability to actually play more. One of my first interests were the Ultimate Mission books and ended up getting enough of a collection to play some of them... That brings us to the topic of the post...

We started with the Rebel Storm book and the first mission was pretty straight forward in being understood, though it seemed very hard for the Rebel side to win that one. Also had to figure out an error with the character names vs. picture. Playing the 2nd mission, it was again pretty straightforward with its setup and rules, though the 2nd win condition it offers to the Rebel player, where they only use the 8 Bespin guards to win the fight, seems also pretty impossible. Most of the questions, hiccups, and thoughts now come from trying to play the 3rd mission...

The 3rd mission seems to have an excessive amount of holes and issues... Firstly, the Imperial player has 6 setup spaces but 3 squads totaling to 18 pieces. The books says the imperial player can use 2 squads for reserves but acts like this is optional. Reserves was the first thing that so far has seemed underwhelming, it almost never seems advantageous to put pieces into a reserve. Anyway, back to the question/confusion... It would seem that according to rules (FAQ) if you run out of spaces for setup you use the closest adjacent spaces to your starting spaces. So does anyone know if that makes it legal to jam all 18 pieces into that opening hallway for that mission? Also, what if the rebel player setup first and setup their pieces right in front of my 6 square starting area "cutting it off" Do I get to setup behind their pieces once I go to setup after filling in my other 6? That whole process didn't make much sense...

Another confusion is if I can setup all 18 pieces at once, then the whole hidden movement mechanic this mission introduces becomes obsolete... My troopers would always be able to see the droids. Another confusion is it talks about the rebel player having the win goal of "Having Leia escort R2" but it really wasn't detailed about that process... There was no text that specifically forbid R2 from moving but it felt like that was the intention, that Leia had to reach R2 first to then move together to the win goal area... Also if that is the case, then furthermore the hidden movement means pretty much nothing. Leia is very likely to only have one path to R2, and then an obvious path from there to the win condition area... Another wrinkle is if I know R2 is the goal and can have all my pieces in play from the start, and if he can't move, then isn't it pretty easy to just go immediately kill him? If he is able to move without Leia, then it seems the Rebel player could win very easily in like a single turn or 2...

So any help understanding exactly what the intention of that 3rd mission is would be cool, as well as wondering people's general feelings about the Ultimate Missions. They seem possibly pretty poorly executed but I could be wrong about that with my little experience.

Well, I'll copy you and repost my reply on here as well. xD Posted it on here originally just to get more eyes/opinions on it. From what I was seeing, this is supposedly the most active community place for SWM.

And now onto the copied confusion response. xD

Are they all this famously bad or do you not know? xD

Guess it still rubs me the wrong way how this mission is setup, it makes sense that I should just have the 6 in the entrance but I don't see how just 6 would allow me to win. Also it does raise another question, the Reserve Ultimate mission rules say that the squad can't be separated, that all must be brought in at once... So if I could only use those 6 squares, I would have to move off every single one of them to even be able to call in the reserves, and of course the weakest part of reserves and why I think so far they have been useless in this context, is that can only happen when you lose the initiative roll... So if you always win the initiative roll, then you never get to bring them in.

I feel that it was the intention that R2 couldn't move until Princess Leia began escorting him, then they follow the movement rules you mentioned, but of course the book doesn't say that And that is the issue with the Starting area/Reserves situation here too... You would think any rules that are different from the standard rules, should be written in the book/mission... And weirdly all the rule books for the game that come from the starter sets I noticed were also poorly written in certain context, like the setup rules, they only reference the starting setup for the starter set they are in, they don't technically tell you how to setup a fresh different game, not that I could see anyway. Though the setup limit was clarified in an FAQ officially, and like I said, that states you just setup as close as possible the leftover pieces. So that should be in theory the rule followed in these missions unless something says otherwise... Which it doesn't technically. Another confusion/wrinkle is if it isn't optional and the other 2 squads are meant to have to be kept out, then why not use their "Reinforcements" rules rather than "Reserves", seems that it would fit the mission context better if there were rules for them coming into play on following rounds more naturally. But yeah, in almost any framing of rules or context, this mission seems pretty lacking, it is a lot of setup and effort for a mission that potentially ends immediately... Technically the first mission could too but there are at least a few dynamics and outs to that.

Looking ahead, mission 4 has almost the same problems. It is a pretty close to identical setup but potentially even worse. In that one the problem remains, if I only get the 6 spots to start, then it messes with stuff a bit because I start with the Imperial officer and a Squad of 6, so I would for sure have a 7th piece so that does make me think more so that it is intended that the reserves are optional and function like the FAQ mentions on setups, but if so, in that context the rebel player probably always loses because the Stormtroopers are generally stronger and I will have more bodies to overwhelm with. If I do just start with the 7, then it seems very easy for the Rebel player to setup Leia with the droids and accomplish their goal easy as they start right next to the goal practically... Though there is another issue there being C-3PO, the goal mentions him and R2 being needed, so even though it doesn't make me win by killing C-3PO, it in theory stops the rebel player from being able to win even if they kill all my pieces as that isn't technically a win condition... Very messy indeed. Is why it is reading and feeling kind of "half-assed" where someone knew the idea was to make a scenario where Leia records the message and they escape, but then just threw it together with very little scrutiny. I mean I can't imagine it was even playtested as I feel any player would be confused about how exactly these setups and scenarios work entirely. xD

Yes, it is the most active place for SWM.

However, I can't remember the last time anyone I know even looked at an Ultimate Missions book. That may be a big part of the reason why you're not getting a lot of responses. I saw your post this morning and I had never played those missions so I didn't have any wisdom for you...I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case for many others. I'm glad that FlyingArrow was able to help you.