So who has it, Tell us!

[Atraangelis 301]

So who picked it up? I wont be getting mine till this weekend, how are the maps??

 

How are the token compositions? new units ect..

 

How is the mission?

[Agatheron 657]

I just got home with mine. I've only had a briefly look at it, but I'll share what I can do quickly.

 

Tokens include 2 AT-ST walkers, 1 Lambda Shutttle, 4 Scout Bikers, 4 Scouts on Foot, 4 stormtroopers, 2 stormtrooper sergeants, 4 imperial troopers, 2 imperial officers, 1 high ranking imperial officer, a dianoga(!), 2 mynocks (I think), 2 trandoshans, 3 rebel troopers, 2 twi'leks, and 6 character tokens covering the 4 included characters and the 2 downloadable characters.

 

It also has 8 destiny tokens.

 

The maps are quite nice, including a full page layout on Whisper base, and on the flipside a local regional map of the terrain and features around whisper base. It also shows interiors of a local communications array, and the Lambda shuttle.

 

Not having read the adventure yet, this is enough to have me intrigued as to what the objective and flow of the mission is.

[bsmith23 696]

My FLGS didn't get it like he was supposed to, distributor problem, so I'll get it next week. Oh well. But I was trying to see if anyone found the 2 extra characters yet. Did I miss them or do I need my hand held and guided to them?

[Crimson_red 46]

Picked mine up today, just got back to my friend's place... I was really hoping the two additional characters were up already - I'm hoping to run it for a large group of friends tonight... We're all in Calgary to go to the Comic Expo. If we're still short, I'll probably grab the two extra characters for the Edge of the Empire Beginner Game...

[Kainrath 446]

just picked it up...can't wait to dive in!

[kaosoe 7,573]

I don't think that the BB is officially out. I suspect it will "officially" be released when FFG posts an article announcing it as such. I would be shocked if the 2 extra characters weren't part of that article.

[themensch 3,092]

Just got home and it's arrived here in Denver.   Four characters, a double-sided map, some excellent counters, some marketing stuff, and of course the game books and a "read me first."  Also a set of dice, as promised.  

 

 

(For those requiring proof, enjoy the pic of Vader bringing the pain on page 19.)

[Kainrath 446]

Just got home and it's arrived here in Denver.   Four characters, a double-sided map, some excellent counters, some marketing stuff, and of course the game books and a "read me first."  Also a set of dice, as promised.  

 

 

(For those requiring proof, enjoy the pic of Vader bringing the pain on page 19.)

 

dismemberment!

[PFElton 11]

Mine is arriving in the mail today.

Score.jpg

[Brother Bart 89]

Got mine last night and didnt get home until late after playing Warmachine at the FLGS...so only read the first few pages of the adventure. Its pretty basic (as a beginner box should be), but you can fill in transitions between encounters fairly easily if you have any experience.
 
Not really a spoiler per se, but just in case...

 

 

There is a droid NPC with some awesome snarky dialogue which I think allot of people are going to have fun with

 

 

I can't wait to read the rest and get access to the extra content they will be posting on-line!

Edited April 25, 2014 by Brother Bart

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

I picked it up this afternoon from the FLGS.

 

Sadly, I really won't have a chance to look through it all until tomorrow

[Agatheron 657]

I've had a chance to read through the adventure, and it has the same introductory vibe as Escape from Mos Shuuta, with parallel structures to some of the early encounters in the game. In a similar way, it slowly introduces the players to the concepts of the game, while not overwhelming them with detail early on.

In the same way that Escape from Mos Shuuta provided the characters with a ship in the form of the Krayt Fang, this is the story of how the party acquires a base of operations. Ultimately this base can be one that they launch missions from, or simply establish a base that is later used by a larger team of rebels. Operation Shadowpoint, the follow-up adventure which is available now, works on some of the various loose ends that the opening mission leaves dangling.

 

Unlike the Escape from Mos Shuuta and Long Arms of the Hutt, the included adventure is much more of a sandbox type feel, rather than a specific Act I,II,III format.

[Nate 325]

I think Agatheron covered it well. I for one am excited, because I like the notion of playing Rebels a lot more than that of playing fringers, and the boxed adventure along with Operation: Shadowpoint seem to provide a good starting point for that kind of adventuring.

 

-Nate

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Had the chance to read through the materials.

 

I agree that the AoR Beginner Box adventure feels much more like a campaign launching point, as opposed to the EotE one kinda leaving the PCs (and GM) hanging as to "what do we do now?"

 

I've not read through Operation: Shadowpoint, but from the posts above it does sound promising in a way that Long Arm of the Hutt really wasn't, at least in terms of launching a campaign.  LAotHutt was a decent adventure, but part of the problem was that it ended with the one major recurring enemy being disposed of at the end, making the whole thing fell more like a self-contained story arc rather than a springboard to further adventures.

 

Also eyeballed the pre-gens, and aside from some possible wonkiness regarding their talent trees, on first pass they look to be much closer to what you'd get if making a character of your own using the AoR core rulebook (well, the Beta at least, though presumably the core rulebook won't have too many drastic changes), with the extra gear being covered by the extra credits provided by the "base of operations" feature, with the minor twist that the introductory adventure consists of the PCs acquiring said base.  As long as the wait time between the AoR Beginner Box and core rulebook isn't as extreme as it was between the EotE Beginner Box and core rulebook, I don't see converting the PCs over to the rule AoR rules as being too big of a hassle, with the exceptions of where to divy up the ranks in Knowledge and Piloting.

[Ineti 59]

FedEx delivered my copy today from CoolStuff. Looks great, though the box is made out of the same super thin flimsy paperstock that the EOTE beginner game was made out of, and even though I knew I had to be careful, one of the tabs partially tore when I opened the top flap of the box. Le sigh.

 

Also tempted to be annoyed at how much space the box takes given the thinness of the contents (the stack of paper in the box is about 1/3 the size of the box, but I know they had to fit the dice in somewhere.

 

Great art in the books and on the tokens too. I'm happy with my purchase overall.

[IG-58 79]

Ineti, just remember that when you print the two supplemental characters and the mongasso 46-pp adventure, the box will be a lot more full.

[billw2 26]

I picked up the AoR Beginner Game box yesterday. I was running a D&D game then a EotE game at a FLGS and didn't get home till late so I looked over the material this morning. Others have already commented on what the tokens consist of so I will just say that quality of the tokens is good.  Lots of nice artwork throughout the product, I don't feel a need for so many pics, but I know that a lot of folk like them and it helps to set the mood. Although the maps are made specifically for the included adventure the Launch Pad and the Comm Tower can easily be repurposed for other adventures. Even the large map of Whisper Base could be reused for other adventures. The pre-gen characters are quite playable and I like their background stories. The included adventure is interesting. I will be upgrading the opponents and flesh out some of the encounters before using it for my AoR group.  They have played several games using the Beta rules so they need some tougher oppoents, however for a new group the adventure is fine as is. I will follow up with the online sequel, Operation Shadowpoint, which also looks interesting. Since I haven't seen a link for ShadowPoint in this thread I will add it here. Overall I am quite satisfied with my purchase.

[Zar 152]

Has anyone reverse engineered the characters any to see if they might have altered any of the specs?

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Has anyone reverse engineered the characters any to see if they might have altered any of the specs?

I have, reviewing not only the specs but the XP and credits expenditures.

 

The XP and credits expenditures match up pretty well for all of them, with a couple of oddities on the gear side (the Duros Spy's "Com Suite" gear or the Human Ace's flight suit) that don't have hard&fast equivalents in either the Beta or the condensed rulebook the box comes with.  Although with the credits, unless the extra allotment for having a Base of Operations as the party's starting Rebel Resource has been changed in the final version, all the PCs are about 500 credits short.  Then again, if the extra credits have been dropped from the 2500 listed in the Beta, then each PC works out to having about 2500 credits' worth of gear, so it could be that a base of operations would only provide an extra 1000 credits and each PC took a 5pt reduction in their starting duty to get an extra 1000 credits on top of that.

 

The talent trees are, much like they were in EotE, a mish-mash of the AoR Beta specs, ranging from career skills to talents selectable.  Cael is okay as he seems to map over to a Soldier/Commando combo so long as you don't go past the first row of talents, but the others aren't quite as tidy, with Jin-Rio as the biggest offender as her Diplomat tree bears more resemblance to the EotE Politico than any of the AoR Diplomat specs.

[Zychon 18]

Got it two days ago and got to give it a looking over last night. Design is terrific (as usual). Pre-Gens are good. Adventure is... not so good.

 

Well, the adventure is kinda good, but it has some massive plot holes in it. In fact, you could go as far as to say it's "all hole". I can usually suspend disbelief for the sake of fun, but this gets a little out of hand. Unfortunately, this carries over into Operation Shadowpoint and anything else these particular PCs might be up to.

 

The action and the tutorial aspect of the module -which pretty much follow the EotEBB formula- are fine. The plot just left me going "What the ...seriously?!" constantly, and I'm positive it will do the same with anyone I would sit down and play this with. In fact, the second they got an indication as to what was going on, the players would "rebel" against the plot and try to find their own solution.

 

I don't want to get too spoilerific here, but I don't think it's down to bad/lazy writing. The problem is that the creators of the adventure have to mix overt military operations (because you have to introduce beginner players to combat, plus pew-pew=fun) with covert/clandestine operations (because: rebels). You also have to check off the "Get a Base" Achievement, and let it serve as a jumping off point for future adventures. Add to this the fact that this is AoR, and you simply must fight The Empire, an organization far more powerful than the players or any of their allies. All in one neat package that can be run in a few sessions (which means things will occur at roughly the same time and place). Then add to that the requirement that the adventure be a structured tutorial that gradually introduces players to the rules. Really, the minute you get all Cloak and Dagger with anything, it's best left self contained -both for the characters involved and the author/GM. This had to come up at some point during design or play testing, and there are some redactional seams where some rather thin excuses are given which indicate to me that they were aware of the problem and tried to square the circle a bit.

 

I can't stress enough that this isn't a slam on the writers. I've tried myself to think of a situation where all of these goals are fulfilled while meeting the requirements of difficulty, length, and price point; and I keep tripping on my own shoes too. It's like saying "I want an all-wheel drive diet football bat."

 

I think it's recoverable, but I can't run this as-is without serious faceplam factor. I suppose you could run it if you prefaced it with "Look, this makes no sense but we are going to run it just to learn the rules and then forget about it". I don't have this option as my players are familiar enough with the rules (I was getting this mainly for the adventure and the completionist factor), but that is my problem. If you aren't in that boat, I suggest you take the "disposable tutorial" road.

 

 I think I've got a few ideas to patch it up to the point where it runs without rewriting whole chunks of the thing. I'll put that in another topic.

 

TL:DR:

I didn't like the adventure at all. Everything else was well enough.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Zychon

[bigity 13]

Just got mine, I found a local copy after all, and would rather buy from a FLGS than Amazon.

 

I haven't gotten into it much as I'm still at work, but I was dissapointed by the box - I was expecting an actual box like the old days of RPGs, aka a boxed set.  It's a cheap thing that isn't really suitable to carry the contents around in without destroying the thing.

[Torg Smith 121]

Well, mine is on truck for delivery. I should have it in a couple hours.

[angelicdoctor 101]

Mine is in transit from Cincinnati, Ohio.  It should be here in Texas hopefully by Saturday of this week.

[bigity 13]

Texas is a big place   I was able to find one here in Lubbock thankfully.

[ScooterinAB 120]

Got it two days ago and got to give it a looking over last night. Design is terrific (as usual). Pre-Gens are good. Adventure is... not so good.

 

Well, the adventure is kinda good, but it has some massive plot holes in it. In fact, you could go as far as to say it's "all hole". I can usually suspend disbelief for the sake of fun, but this gets a little out of hand. Unfortunately, this carries over into Operation Shadowpoint and anything else these particular PCs might be up to.

 

The action and the tutorial aspect of the module -which pretty much follow the EotEBB formula- are fine. The plot just left me going "What the ...seriously?!" constantly, and I'm positive it will do the same with anyone I would sit down and play this with. In fact, the second they got an indication as to what was going on, the players would "rebel" against the plot and try to find their own solution.

 

I don't want to get too spoilerific here, but I don't think it's down to bad/lazy writing. The problem is that the creators of the adventure have to mix overt military operations (because you have to introduce beginner players to combat, plus pew-pew=fun) with covert/clandestine operations (because: rebels). You also have to check off the "Get a Base" Achievement, and let it serve as a jumping off point for future adventures. Add to this the fact that this is AoR, and you simply must fight The Empire, an organization far more powerful than the players or any of their allies. All in one neat package that can be run in a few sessions (which means things will occur at roughly the same time and place). Then add to that the requirement that the adventure be a structured tutorial that gradually introduces players to the rules. Really, the minute you get all Cloak and Dagger with anything, it's best left self contained -both for the characters involved and the author/GM. This had to come up at some point during design or play testing, and there are some redactional seams where some rather thin excuses are given which indicate to me that they were aware of the problem and tried to square the circle a bit.

 

I can't stress enough that this isn't a slam on the writers. I've tried myself to think of a situation where all of these goals are fulfilled while meeting the requirements of difficulty, length, and price point; and I keep tripping on my own shoes too. It's like saying "I want an all-wheel drive diet football bat."

 

I think it's recoverable, but I can't run this as-is without serious faceplam factor. I suppose you could run it if you prefaced it with "Look, this makes no sense but we are going to run it just to learn the rules and then forget about it". I don't have this option as my players are familiar enough with the rules (I was getting this mainly for the adventure and the completionist factor), but that is my problem. If you aren't in that boat, I suggest you take the "disposable tutorial" road.

 

 I think I've got a few ideas to patch it up to the point where it runs without rewriting whole chunks of the thing. I'll put that in another topic.

 

TL:DR:

I didn't like the adventure at all. Everything else was well enough.

 

I honestly don't see the same problems. Yes, it is a canned adventure that is meant to step a new group through the rules. If you were planning to run this as a normal adventure, a GM would certainly need to redo a few parts, but this is more about Duty and Destiny not being used, or the really railroaded story. While the premise is a little odd (an Imperial officer spying on a Moff), it does show that the Empire is at least a little disfunctional and far less cohesive than we'd think. Everything else is just to keep the whole thing from turning into a homicide slogfest.

 

I agree that we aren't talking about award winning writing here, nor an adventure that players will be talking about for decades to come. But I disagree that it's as unplayable as you're making it sound.