Watching the gameplay videos, trying to figure out the main differences between Imperial Assault and Descent 2nd Ed:
- Defense Dice: The defense dice are more oriented to the type of defense. Instead of just weak, normal and strong defense, you have agile and strong (and maybe one more) dice. The white Agile is more on not getting hit (cancel attack, cancel surge, etc), and the black Strong dice is just canceling damage. I like it, a nice improvement over the concept of defense dice.
- LOS to 2 corners: I've never been a fan of the corner-to-corner LOS of 2nd Ed, since it seems like you can always see something and never hide in a tactical location. By making corner-to-two-corners, placement will be a bit more strategic.
- Limited R esting but also heals: I really like the change to Rest. When you Rest, you only recover strain (fatigue) up to your Endurance stat. But if you have fewer strain than your END, you recover health. Love that idea, lot of subtle differences between characters, and a way to heal built in (not dependent on a Healer class).
- Turn Order: I couldn't quite tell how it works, but it definitely wasn't a all-rebels-move then all-imperials-move. The good and bad guys seem to be alternating. What the specifics for alternating, I'm not sure yet, but looks good.
- Threat Spawning Mechanic: Love this idea. I've always hated in Descent 2nd Ed how Reinforcements was so automatic. Bring in the best figure you got, have him sprint to block the heroes just like it was before. So boring. Having some kind of resource mechanic for spawning is so much more interesting. Can't wait to see how this plays out.
- Character Side Quests: I really like the idea that the side quests are all about the characters. Giving the characters better emphasis, and allowing them to gain items that make sense for them (i.e. lightsaber) just sounds a lot better than seemingly random quests here and there.
Any others you noticed? Other than of course, it's Star Wars
-shnar