Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Imperial Assault casts you and your friends into the climactic events following the Death Star’s destruction above Yavin 4, and offers two full game experiences within the Star Wars saga. In the campaign game, you and up to four other friends play a series of thrilling missions woven together in a narrative campaign, and in the skirmish game, you and your opponent muster your own strike teams and battle head-to-head over conflicting objectives. Whether you play as a hero of the Rebellion and fight alongside iconic characters like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, or command the seemingly limitless armies of the Galactic Empire, you’ll enter the Star Wars universe in Imperial Assault.
As an added bonus, Imperial Assault includes the Darth Vader Villain Pack and the Luke Skywalker Ally Pack. These figure packs mark the first expansions for Imperial Assault, adding sculpted plastic figures with new campaign and skirmish missions.
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I’ll admit it – I had my concerns…FFG releasing one game after another under the Star Wars license and this appearing on the outside as just a re-skin of Descent, combined with the obvious conundrum of once I start buying miniatures – where will it all end…
BUT, I gave it try…
Imperial Assault is a miniatures game where Rebel forces (Heroes played by 1-4 players) pit themselves against the Empire (played by a single player as a kind of Overlord/Game Master)in a series of missions.
One or both sides have a main objective for each mission, each mission set on a different map/board created by locking tiles. Players play through a series of missions to create a campaign with cinematic feel.
The question of Descent…
The comparison of Imperial Assault to Descent can not be helped, its built essentially off the same game engine: a campaign where characters have some advancement after playing each game layout to move forward and face greater challenges. You combat foes using dice in order to over come them and complete the task at hand, collecting your spoils along the way. And since Descent 2.0 (with a series of improvements on balance and game play) was a recent release before Imperial Assault, the questions hangs there, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, is this just a Star Wars skin over Descent 2.0?
NO.
While the basic engine and layout is similar, differences range from subtle to awesome:
Small changes to attack die, removing the miss option, and putting the burden of missed attacks or cancelled abilities on the Defender or the limits of Range feel better.
Line Of Sight seems more straight forward, and easier to see on the board.
Each Hero has a unique set of cards for his class, and even the Overlord has 3 class decks to choose from.
Campaign has a more open story feel and less dungeon crawl, each mission opening options on outcome and side mission bring additional resources to the main campaign.
Resting can recover both strain and health.
Being reduced to 0, doesn’t just knock a character out, it allows you continue as a wounded character.
Your heroes’ attributes use dice instead of a flat number.
There is no “healer”, while some heroes have healing abilities they are limited and there’s no one dedicated to the role in order to complete a campaign.
The Overlord (Empire) gains Threat, which he collects to spend on reinforcements.
And a major difference is turn order where each hero takes an action then the Empire takes an action, in stead of one completing all its actions and then the other completing theirs. This significantly changes the pacing, and feels more involved for everyone.
A New Hope…
Besides changed mechanics, there’s the theme: Star Wars!
The game takes place after the destruction of the Death Star over Yavin IV (Star Wars Episode IV a New Hope), pitting a small strike team of Rebel forces against the Empire in a series of missions full of flavor telling the story of our heroes. During the Campaign you can purchase Allies and Villain packs to supplement your resources, add side missions and allow players to interact with characters from the movies adding them to the Campaign.
…A War in the Stars(sung to the tune of Star Wars by Bill Murray)
On top of the basic game play changes, Imperial Assault offers an alternative mode of play: Skirmish!
Don’t feel like playing a campaign? Only got 2 players? Want to take a new mini out for a test drive? Play Skirmish mode: head to head combat like standard miniature warfare, spend your points to build forces and go at it. With previous changes I would say Imperial Assault is Descent 2.5, but adding Skirmish options easily 3.0.
Droids you’re looking for…
The components are great, consistent with the quality we expect from FFG, however, the minis are exceptional. The AT-ST has moving parts, swappable plugs for upgrades – I was really impressed.
Pros – its a great break away from your standard Dungeon Crawl, an improvement on Descent 2.0, campaign play is a bit more dramatic in its story advancement – and if you are a Star Wars fan, the game is a must have.
Cons – it is easily becoming a huge money suck, the Ally and Villain packs are awesome and I feel compelled to get everything that comes out. Skirmish play is limited with the core set but gets better as you keep buying ($ – which is true of any miniatures game). As a new game expansions are only just coming out (June 2015), but waves will keep coming.
Yep I am a sucker and totally fell for this mind trick, no regrets…
Having played Descent, journeys in the dark (2nd ed.) a lot, my LGS recommended Imperial Assault to me. A true bulls eye if you like playing D&D/adventure type games. Of course, enjoying the Star Wars saga itself adds to the experience of playing this game.
Just as is the case with Descent, the thick and heavy game box promises to contain a lot of neat game parts. A promise that is well met. Double sided map tiles (they fit together in a puzzle piece style) decorated with detailed environment art, high quality miniatures (including a huge AT-ST!) of both rebel and imperial forces, two ally/villain packs (Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader), lots of tokens and playing cards, a nicely illustrated rulebook as well as a campaign and a skirmish guide.
There are two ways of playing Imperial Assault: campaign mode or skirmish. Campaign mode lets you play with up to five players. One player controls the forces of the Galactic Empire, the other players take on the roles of rebel heroes. Each hero has its own herosheet stating its abilities/perks and a deck of equipment and skill cards which you can unlock by spending experience points. A well explained tutorial helps you set up a map and teaches you the basics of gameplay. After that, the more advanced rules of play are explained. This way, learning the game is easy and well dosed.
At the start of the game, the imperial player gets to read the entire scenario, which is only revealed in part to the rebel players (on a need to know basis). After setup (time needed to do so varies depending on how well organised your game box is), the game progresses in rounds, each consisting of an activation phase and a status phase. Each activation phase, rebel and imperial forces take turns in performing actions. First, the rebels get to choose and activate one hero (performing actions like move, attack, rest, interact), then the imperial player gets to activate one of his/her (groups of) figures, and so on, until all (groups of) figures have acted. Then, in the status phase, troops are readied again and end of round actions are performed (e.g. reinforcement of imperial troops). During a game, players can perform actions (e.g. opening a certain door) which trigger the revealing of another part of the scenario. Upon performing such an action, the imperial player reads out what happens. Each scenario has well defined objectives for both imperial and rebel players.
In skirmish mode, two players can build their own armies and confront each other on the battlegrounds. I haven’t played skirmish mode yet, so it’s hard to say if this type of play will prove to be a nice addition to the game.
All in all, I really like playing Star Wars: Imperial Assault. It has some significant changes to the way Descent plays, one of the most important ones being the alternation between activation of rebel and imperial figures (as compared to all rebels first, followed by all imperial figures (or vise versa)). It really forces you to think twice about the actions you want your figure to perform. Making the wrong decision can lead to an untimely death of one of your heroes or even to losing the scenario. Other changes include rules pertaining line of sight, the way the imperial player can reinforce his troops, resurrection of a defeated rebel hero (they can really die this time), and the attack/defense mechanism (e.g. instead of an attacker missing, the defender can now evade an attack). Having played this game only a few times so far, it’s too early for me to tell if either side is overpowered.
Pros:
– Great artwork on all map tiles, cards and tokens
– High quality miniatures
– Detailed and clear rulebook
– Cool scenarios
Cons:
I haven’t run across any real cons so far. Having played only a few times so far, it’s too early for me to tell if either faction is overpowered. Another thing I can imagine is that only being able to play skirmish mode with two players can really narrow down the occasions on which you can play it, but this will depend a lot on the size of group you usually play games with.
There are a lot of Star Wars board games, the issue is so few of them live up to source material and/or are any good*. Some notable exceptions are Epic Duels,The Queens Gambit or Deciphers old CCG all now out of print or in the case of the Video board game about as much fun as Greedo firing first. However if your a serious fan then you’ve learnt to be a apologist (well someone saw the prequels more than once) seeking for the midichlorians in the rough even if it requires Jedi like powers, is often worth it. We want to love you Star Wars, Lumpys, JaJa’s and all. So does Imperial Assault get all Holiday Special on us or is this a New Hope?
Taking its cue from Descent 2.0 Imperial Assault has streamlined further that games clunk, tweaked the dice rolling combat systems while retaining that stormtrooper inaccuracy with blasters and finally given the Overlord a greater involvement in proceedings. By far the most welcome addition is how the players activate. In Descent all the heroes would take their turn whilst the Overlord sat patiently waiting, maybe firing off an occasional card to irritate a player, waiting some more, defending his monsters when they were attacked but mostly waiting.
So Imperial Assault has trash compacted that process and now a Rebel gets an activation and then the Imperial player (the Overlord) does, this simple little change really spices things up. It means that the rebels can’t now take all their turns as one coherent assault, potentially wiping the board of a threat before it can actually do something. And now the Imperial player can adapt his strategy on the fly, which leads to a much more tense and involved game for everyone.
The missions themselves and how they play out have also received some much needed attention. In Descent everything was laid out on the table starting monsters and all, everyone knew what they were doing and where they were going, leaving very few real surprises. This always sort of bugged me, Heroquest had managed to create the feeling of exploration as you ventured deeper into the dungeon, opening rooms and finding out what lay within, and I was always disappointed that Descent lacked this element. Imperial Assault attempts to rectify this shortfall whilst remaining in the confines of the Descent set up. It does this in two ways, all the missions now come with a set round limit instilling an urgency to proceedings, a ticking clock forcing the Rebels to press on like a little gaggle of Jack Bauer’s. But most tantalizing, information is now hidden from the Rebels empowering the Imperial player with the feeling of an old school DM and at times even some hidden choices over what events will trigger. The board is still laid out for all to see but now these events thematically tied to each mission will occur during rounds, it might be more imperials showing up at an unexpected moment or changes of objective, it results is this juicy level of uncertainty for the Rebel players. These little tweaks now offer a far more involved thematic and rewarding game for both sides, and is probably my most beloved addition to the rules.
Say the Rebels are attacking an Imperial Arms Depot, suddenly a legion of Stormtrooper’s or worse a Walker might lurch up mid game, maybe all the doors might seal themselves trapping the Rebel scum! It lends proceedings that excitement of the films and forces the Rebel’s to think on their toes, everyone always “Has a bad feeling about this” it promotes much derring-do from our rag tag band. And besides from adding some great thematic touches it completely removes any chance of playing by committee that I found could rear its head in Descent.
There has been much ballyhoo with cries that this has unbalanced game play from both sides of the force, I really don’t see it. Yes some games feel that the Imperial player has all the toys but a rebel team playing well and leveled up can pull off some incredible feats, nearly all of the games we have played in our campaign have come down to the wire, usually down to the dice roll. I won’t argue that now missions can be less forgiving and a poorly timed move or activation by the Imperial player can lead to a wipe, but then this is a campaign and as long as you learn from your mistakes the Empire can strike back. And that’s surely how it should be we’ve had some amazing stand up from the table moments of heroic dice rolling and close scrapes, everything you want from a Star Wars game.
Besides all of this wonderful uncertainly the one guaranteed factor is the obligatory polish we expect from Fantasy Flight, and this game is no slouch in that department. We get a great modular jigsaw board system and a battalion of fantastic miniatures that are just crying out for a splash of paint, fistfuls of tokens, decks of cards all that’s missing is a soundtrack CD. And I applaud FFG again on a solid set on manuals and another one of those cool reference guides.
And if that wasn’t enough the game also comes with a separate Skirmish mode where you and another player can just have some straight up mano-a-mano miniature battles. I’ve not dived into this yet but it certainly adds more value to the box and will give you a perfectly sensible excuse for buying all the new mini’s as they come out.
And as we are discussing extra’s then expansions have to rear their head, after all this being Fantasy Flight we are going to get some. The campaign system is designed to enable games in different time periods, the one in this box is set just after Episode IV so we can fully expect more to tie in with the subsequent movies and potentially some from the prequels. And less we forget this Christmas see’s the new movie hitting which I’d be very surprised if we don’t see some content coming for that. Hopefully they will go the route they have with Eldritch horror by releasing a smaller expansion followed up by a big box, for me I’d want to see Droid’s, a staple of the movies were the faithful droid companions and they’re noticeably absent from this set and obviously Boba Fett, c’mon FFG what are you playing at?
Here’s the thing, if you are a Star Wars fan then you are going to eat this up, in fact I find your lack of faith disturbing that you don’t own this already. Games are tight and fast and most importantly fun. If you own Descent then whether you splash out on this is really going to come down to the theme and if you have the spare cash. Personally Imperial Assault replaces Descent for me I’m enjoying this far more and with the volume turned up on the entire back catalog of Star Wars soundtracks and a like minded group then there is no better way to while away a couple of hours in a galaxy far far away.
*For the process of this review I’m counting X-Wing as a miniatures game, and yes I’d count it as very good.
I received this beauty, along with the first expansion, for Christmas last year. I have had a blast painting the figures (they are unpainted) and playing the game. For those of you familiar with Descent, this is a very similar game in most respects, and in many ways is Descent with a Star Wars skin. There are a few differences, however. The main two being that line-of-sight works differently (in IA you draw a line from one corner of the attacking figure’s square, to two corners of the figure being attacked, without going through the attacked figure), and that the imperial player uses something called threat to ‘purchase’ more soldiers, whereas in Decent they just kept coming. This helps prevent the imperial player from ganging up on the other players, but if they save up their threat, they can really come down like a ton of bricks later in the campaign. You also get a skirmish game included, so in many ways it’s two games in one! But on with the pros and cons:
Cons:
– Difficult instructions. FFG is thier usual self and these instructions can be head bangingly
difficult to understand.
– if you don’t want to paint the miniatures, you either have to leave them unpainted, or pay
someone.
– Long setup time between missions.
Pros:
– Two games in one. This allows you to do tournaments with the skirmish game, if you so
chose.
– Fun game play, and once you get the hang of it, not to frustrating (you might want to look up
a walk-through video on YouTube, however).
– you don’t need to purchase the extra figures to play the game, their are tokens to represent
them, you do get Luke and Vader included, however.
– it’s Star Wars! What else is there to say!
In conclusion: it’s a fun time for all, and truly Star Wars in a Box!
An Open Letter to Jack the Downgrader
So begins an unconventional review. Imperial Assault is a bit of a 2-for game, combining a campaign crawl and a tournament ready skirmish system in one box. The musings to follow will address where Imperial Assault stands and stands out as a ‘dungeon crawl’ and more specifically how it compares to the other existing crawls from FanFlight. It is a discussion of a reskinning and some familiarity with Descent and the ‘Surge Dice Engine’, while not necessary, is convenient. Not that any of that matters to dear ol JtD 😉
Rebooting the Basecrawl
In 2005, FanFlight unearthed a coffin of a box called Descent:Journeys in the Dark upon the world, shining some revamp torchlight on their license-to-expire game Doom (2004). With Doom, players got a meaty basecrawl of a game filled with tiles, minis, cards and the all important ‘surge dice’. With Descent, players got the same Hungry Man dinner of a crawl and FanFlight got to not keep all their game engines in someone else’s IP basket. The ‘surge dice’ engine was set free and shackled firmly to their own universe. The SDE worked and worked fairly well, so much so, it has been templated, retooled, and reskinned over the years into the FanFlight Tabletop RPG House Engine for Crawls. It has been caressed by a tentacle or two and now finds itself fricassee’d by Force Lightning with Imperial Assault.
So is it a New Hope or just a Clone War?
Let’s discuss:
A Long, Long Time Ago on a Tabletop in an Apartment Far Away
Where I’m Coming From
I live with a Dungeon Master. I admit it. I’ve come to terms with it. I’m ok with it. His BG CB reference handle: The Boy. He’s a nice chap who is only really evil around the table and doesn’t look anything like that strange gnome-like fellow from the cartoons. (I have a vague recollection of a single VHS tape from my childhood, but was force fed the series on DVD. Is it me? – because I don’t really trust that guy!)
I’m laying down my Imperial Assault impressions from hitching my life wagon to Herr Doktor The Boy and his Dungeon Crawl kink. In the back of his mind, he is constantly treading the glory day corridors of HeroQuest into Warhammer Quest and now he Quantum Leaps through the new millenium hoping his next Dungeon Crawl is the Dungeon Crawl home.
(I am 100% the Player Character in these situations, but I have spent enough car rides home listening to him preach the Evil Overlord end of the spectrum to know the ins and outs. 😉 )
Deathstars & Darths:Spacing Out the HouseCrawl Engine
Where Imperial Assault Is Coming From
Well – it’s coming out of the dungeons of Descent and the surge dice engine. In order to see where it stands among the various iterations and implementations allow me to cast Detect Mechanic and share some impressions on the delvings through FanFlight HouseCrawl over the years.
Descent 1.0 – I have played the black pudding out of that game (and predecessor Doom) over the years. Why so much HouseCrawl the First? Because The Boy loves it and so do I. As Overlord, he was in love with the card burning for threat fuel mechanic. With his mega deck of death, he could play little cards to nuisance players through the dungeon or just sit tight as we got too cozy and then discard, discard, DISCARD to fuel a major hurt at the most inopportune moment. As a player, I have to admit I would get chills when all those cards would go flapping down and he would grab a hoard of threat – Oh no! What is going to happen!!!! The Tension! The Mystery!
So many good times and epic endgames and just as the word ‘perfection’ forms on the lips, someone slaps a palm down on the giant shiny red Reset Button. Great story dungeons – not one lick of character progression. Let me rephrase that – not one lick of character progression between adventures via a campaign system. A night’s adventure in Descent was a night – 3-5 hours in a single dungeon with teleports back to town to upgrade stats, gain skill cards, and purchase loot within a play session, but at the end of it all someone slammed a car door and Memento style everyone blinked and reset. Each new adventure started at The Square One Restart Tavern and you hoped to find that nifty sword you had again with a certain sense of deja vu.
Road to Legends/Seas of Blood One could invest in the ‘campaign’ system which allowed for Overlord/Hero progression with all sorts of upgraded dice, perm skill progression and stat boosts, and no one ‘forgot’ they had a very nice bit of armor come the dungeon end. What was forgotten on FanFlight‘s part was all the vast epic dungeons and fun story/text box elements. All the battles and dungeons became bland slap ups on confined selections of tiles. You could now venture forth on a few bite-sized encounters a night but progression became pointless as story arcs were left by the wayside for fiddle-faddle on a world map. Journey to the Old Tree! Why? To fight a few Beastmen and gain some gold. Ok – now let’s move some things around on the map and tick off a box or two on the campaign sheet. Now it’s off to the Giant’s Tomb! (which if you read my rating on Yelp was highly over-rated and not so much a ‘tomb’ as two rooms, one of which luckily happened to contain a ‘Giant’.) We tried running the original adventure books with the campaign set up, but it never quite jelled. It always felt as if they were two separate animals and FFG never really thought of merging epic story arc dungeon crawling and campaign progression/world map fiddle-faddle wholly, but spawned two separate creatures from one starter coffin box womb. Bit of a Cam-Pain that.
Mansions of Madness was a fun sidestep. The surge dice went on hiatus to be replaced by a single D-10 and combat decks. The HouseCrawl ideas remained at a basic level and the engine found itself in a new chassis. The adventures felt deeper – there were interesting adventuring things to do aside from Descent‘s ‘open door/clear room’ formula. Sometimes there were patches of not much happening though as you wandered about, but on both the player end and the evil end there was atmosphere by the tonnage. There were self contained stories of horror and exploration. Things mysterious could be investigated and puzzles could be mucked about with. Keeper Big Bad got to collect and spend threat to create some extra hurt and insanity. Games were tighter and shorter at about 2-3 hours, mostly due to PC’s finding themselves on the wrong end of the life stick. But again- no progression. After end game – you developed a case of game-nesia and woke up on some other mansion’s lawn at square one and gun loaded.
Descent 2.0 Well this was going to be the solution to everyone’s problems. Built in campaign system, skill cards, character progression, overlord progression, all with shorter and tighter game play. Hallelujah! Worked for me – I really liked the ideas presented on the Hero end. Resident Overlord The Boy hated it. He wept at the loss of the massive Overlord deck and threat currency to fuel evil plans. He felt he had nothing to do aside from push monsters around, roll dice, and hatch a bit of occasional wickedness from his whopping deck of six Cards Against Heroics (which if he played those cards right – might be able to add a whole other card to. Steepled fingers of indifference.) This is one of the caveats of the Antagonistic Dungeon Crawl – if Team Evil doesn’t have as much to do or isn’t as interesting to play as an Adventurer – how many times are you going to find someone willing to bite the broadsword and do it? Especially when locked into the role by an overarching campaign? Descent Reboot created linked adventures, streamlined play, and put character progression in the forefront while leaving the evil robe of the Overlord in tatters. He was completely bored and without his desire to Overlord it sits on the shelf and we reverted back to 1.0 and Mansions.
So where does Imperial Assault fit on the top of the historical heap?
Simply put: It is a ‘Best of’ of the FanFlight Surge Dice HouseCrawl Engine in a box
The engine is still the same and familiar- all those colored dice of different strengths. Hits vs Range. Collecting surges to power boost skills. The fat has been trimmed and the dents puttied and both heroes and villains can join in an interesting and rewarding experience.
So let’s check the track list on this Greatest Hits.
Track 1: Two For The Price of One Ain’t Bad
Campaign Dungeon Crawl and Skirmish Game in one box! With a separate rule set, sizable choice command card decks, and a point build system – the tiles, figures, and deployment cards of the campaign crawl instantly covert to a two-person chess match of a Skirmish. X-wing Lite: The Ground Force Game. Certainly with a gleam in the FanFlight eye as a tournament style endeavour, but there from the get go. No conversion kit necessary from the expansion expansive company standard. Quite Progressive.
Track 2: Rumble in the Non-Dungeon
Some of the skirmish aspects have drifted into the dungeon. The boards are tight. Things get heavy and in your face quickly. Crawling is only a category placeholder as the game play is to a fast tempo of run-and-saber.
Unlike Descent, all the heroes don’t take their turns in succession as one massive collective Hero Turn. In all previous iterations of Descent-type and FanFlight HouseCrawl – you could clear a room of a few baddies before the Monster Farmer even got a chance to activate them. Like a skirmish game, IA crawl is strictly – activate one Rebel then Imperial activates a figure or deployment group. Rinse and repeat. Since the Rebels are usually outmanned – you can be looking at two or more Imperial Forces activating after all the rebels have taken their turn. Timing is a major player in Imperial Assault and strategy and tension increases accordingly. As Grand Master Imperial, The Boy approves of the turn for turn method between Rebel and Imperial. He feels he gets to react more to what we’re doing rather than let it all play out and bat clean up.
Track 3: You Take My Breath (and Rest) Away.
Imperial Assault missions allow for little time to catch your breath and while the chance to ‘Rest’ and heal is an offered action – the opportunity is rare. In Descent, you could move from room to room – clear things out and port back to town for a lollygag because nothing was going to happen until you walked through the next door. Sure the Overlord got to draw a few cards and build a threat pittance – but you could take a breather on occasion. The tight maps of IA mean somebody is always coming after you. Sure there might be a closed door over there, but there is no guarantee it isn’t going to open on its own in a moment and ol Darth is going to start heavy breathing. The most I have had a chance to do as a Rebel Player was duck around a corner and collect my thoughts or lick a single wound. There’s no opportunity for strolling and especially crawling. The game also uses an Imperial Turn Counter which may (or may not) create a hidden time limit for a mission. In one mission we were working well, but slow, and lost to the timer. In another – on edge from that effect – we tried to play it quick, but got reckless. Turns out we wouldn’t have ‘turned out’ – so we could have played a slow cat and mouse game. Rebels are completely in the dark on most mission aspects. It creates a feel of working on limited intel.
Track 4: Threat Is Back And It’s Going To Make Trouble
Threat is back – sort of – but enough to keep my Overlord happy. There isn’t the massive Overlord deck of disposable/usable options from Descent 1.0, but the Imperial Player generates threat currency every round like Mansions (and I think for pulling off his own hidden in-scenario objectives but I am unsure of Campaign Secrets.) He can use it to bring in reinforcements, deploy secret troops, power evil Imperial zaps, etc. Admittedly, he still misses the big deck of nastiness, but feels he has enough to do and enough decisions to make that he’s playing also and not just pushing ‘monsters’ around.
Track 5: Build Me Up JabbaHut
Upgrading is done well. The Imperial player can look forward to choosing new evilness to add to his bag of tricks from his Agenda cards and Imperial skill decks at the end of the day, hijacking the campaign to force missions and increasing general darthiness. The poor struggling Rebels can look over the meager overpriced loot to buy and upgrade skill choices.Scanning the scope of the Rebel Skill packs the other night, nothing truly wow’d me. There’s just a chance to improve and grow bit by bit like you are getting a wee bit more battle hardened between missions. No Jedi Masters here. No tossing squads of Stormies around the battlefield. Even though it is in the Lucasverse, progression seems realistic and the Imperials always seem to have the upper dark gloved hand.
Closing a Blast Door, But Opening a Windu
In the end – sure – it’s just the the FanFlight HouseCrawl mini, tile, & surge dice engine under a Vader helmet (but it is an engine that always ran fairly smoothly in my book). It’s a ‘Best Of’ album of past concepts with a shiny Star Wars skin on the already decent Descent foundation. Pierce and Cleaves are back without even an attempt at being Lucas-fied. The hordes of Beastmen have a fresh coat of Stormtrooper paint. This may be a galaxy far far away but it feels close and familiar enough with a handful of tweaks, retools and enough fresh ideas to keep things oldie-but-goodie-but-interesting.
Ducats for Dooku well spent.
As of the writing of this review, our group has not tackled a campaign yet. So, this will be about the skirmish options instead. For background, I enjoy Risk, Memoir 44, Mage Wars, MTG, Battle Cry, and a few others.
The skirmish mode in a word: Elegant. The four rule books that come in the base game may appear a bit daunting at first, but underneath is a rich and well balanced world full of all of your favorite characters and a wealth of different objective types and environments to play in. As with any game, there are certain key words to learn, but they are simple enough if you have played any other game with its own language. All of the characters seem well balanced, and the ability to build your own team of characters and command cards makes this a rich world with great replay value.
As expected from fantasy flight, the components are top notch. There are custom dice and highly detailed miniatures. The cards are all of sturdy FF quality. My only gripe is that the black border around the games tiles will wear in time and could detract from the absolutely gorgeous artwork.
The skirmishes are played in a series of rounds with the initiative alternating each round. Line of sight is simple and easy to measure and the attack of each character is fairly well balanced ad personalized (I.E. a small pistol has decent damage but short range, some rifles can have more damage at close range or good accuracy at far range, and melee characters are brutal). Games take an hour or less once you learn the basics of the game, so you have a chance to play with different factions and scenarios.
My only complaint is the organization of the base game box, which is none. Not even Talisman-like attempt by FF to arrange all the components.
Overall, a great experience with a wealth of theme and replay value.
I never liked playing miniatures games (like Warhammer) with all the rulers, statistics, having to build your own (expensive) army. I never really liked playing D&D because it was so time taxing, the investment was too great for me.
This game offers a closed campaign, of only so and so missions (6 main, plus another few choice side missions) with *some* character build choices (you have a pool of abilities you can “buy” with earned xp, and equipment you can buy with obtained credits) and *some* miniatures game rules (line-of-sight is super easy and smart, different dice add good variance).
What packs everything neatly together is the story elements and the SUPERB components quality. Each mission has a set amount of rounds to finish before you fail it, and it’s really awesome when the player playing the imperials (the “DM”) Surprise you with plot triggered events (like when you open a door you thought was safe to open, and on the other side is a freaking MACHINE GUN with instant retaliation!)
Final thoughts: the game doesn’t punish you if you die, you just get “wounded” with lesser powers. The game doesn’t punish you if the entire team dies – you still get the xp and less money, but the following mission will be easier to compensate.
It’s a smart little game, that looks good, feels goos, and is FUN FUN FUN!
Today Tim, Rod, and Jimmy take a look at Imperial Assault put out by Fantasy Flight Games. This one comes highly anticipated. Carrying the Star Wars theme is a big task for such a big game. The sticker price might scare away a few but we discuss what you get in the box and the game play that follows. Let us know what you think about our review and about this game! Thanks for watching!
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Absolutely unexpected replayability. top quality expansions and mini expansions. You can build your Star Wars as big as you wish and will never miss the real essence of this outstanding universe. Coming soon with the me new app (same case as Descent) you´ll have three game modes. not many games are able to show all these posibilities. with the new app even solo game will be available. As George Clooney says…what else?
If you love games like Descent you will enjoy Star Wars Imperial Assault. It improves on Descent in many ways. Many of your favorite characters from the Star Wars Universe are here. Combat and skill tests are resolved with customized dice, simple movement and line of sight rules. Each character will have thier own unique powers and flavor, skill card upgrades ect. You can play this with a GM like Descent or with the aid of an app to control enemy ai. The missions are challenging and win or losses have some impact.