So I hope there is an expansion down the road that gives you the chance to play as imperial heroes, killing some rebel scum!

This would work with the skirmish mode as well, giving some generic rebel soldiers.

You get to play as Vader

Yeah Vader is one of the included expansions so I think FFG will release an equal amount of expansions for each faction. Hopefully plenty of heroes.

Can't wait to paint the Fett and all the other bounty hunters. It's been a while that I haven't got the brush out, this game might just do it.

Playing as Darth Vader is all well and good, but since the main campaign has new rebel characters, an imperial campaign box should add in some new, non iconic characters.

Whether in the form of an imperial officer - a female one would be nice, or a stormtrooper seargent, a campaign that has imperial heroes assaulting echo base, or the Tantive IV could be fun. Generic rebel troops pad out skirmish mode. Down the road, the game coulf do the same for the mercenary faction.

Playing as Darth Vader is all well and good, but since the main campaign has new rebel characters, an imperial campaign box should add in some new, non iconic characters.

Whether in the form of an imperial officer - a female one would be nice, or a stormtrooper seargent, a campaign that has imperial heroes assaulting echo base, or the Tantive IV could be fun. Generic rebel troops pad out skirmish mode. Down the road, the game coulf do the same for the mercenary faction.

Playing as Darth Vader is all well and good, but since the main campaign has new rebel characters, an imperial campaign box should add in some new, non iconic characters.

Whether in the form of an imperial officer - a female one would be nice, or a stormtrooper seargent, a campaign that has imperial heroes assaulting echo base, or the Tantive IV could be fun. Generic rebel troops pad out skirmish mode. Down the road, the game coulf do the same for the mercenary faction.

As an Imperial fan, I would really enjoy this. I am sure that we will get lots of Imperial heroes in the expansion packs, however, and I believe each of those expansions does come with a scenario for the figure with it, so, yeah, I hope that we will get to play the campaign game as Imperials as well. I want to play as a Sandtrooper squad hunting down those droids!

These arn't the droids your looking for

Personally, I feel like Empire heroes against the Rebels would feel thematically "off." The Rebels don't have a whole lot of units. They can't match the might of the Empire. The Empire has a huge fleet of Star Destroyers and other units that could decimate the Rebels if only they knew the location of their hidden base. I can't imagine that the Empire would send a squad of 4 specialists without sending stormtroopers as backup.

Speaking of stormtroopers, they are part of the Empire's near-infinite resources and the Imperial player in Imperial Assault can continually call for them as reinforcements. The Rebels don't really have the option to call in wave after wave of fleet troopers or commandos.

Could an Imperial campaign work? Yes, I think it could. Do I think it would be stretching the source material? Yes, I do. The way I see it, the campaign mode is still the same game for both Imperials and Rebels, so why do you need to change the system? Why not just play as the Imperial player in the normal campaigns? I see two potential benefits:

1) New Imperial character heroes

2) If your group is mostly composed of Empire fans, you'd have less fighting over roles.

I admit those are valid concerns (especially #2), but it doesn't change the fact that such a variant wouldn't fit the theme for me. (And I admit that theme isn't everything for everyone.)

Very good point. Well, I'll be exceptionally happy just playing the Imperials as the Overlord and in the skirmish mode. I just want to play Stormtroopers.

We all know that the only reason it isn't called Rebel Assault is because that name was already taken.

We all know that the only reason it isn't called Rebel Assault is because that name was already taken.

Is that true? Because "X-Wing" was the name of a popular video game and I felt that FFG chose that name, in part, for nostalgia's sake. I was pretty sure a game like this would be called Rebel Assault as a nod to the old video game and I'm surprised they did call it Imperial Assault. Unless there is a board game called Rebel Assault that I missed somewhere. In that case, I could see why they avoided the name.

There is an old hand held game for star wars called imperial assault.