I have a 11 year old that loves Star Wars and on a recent trip to our local gaming store we saw this game and the LCG. Unfortunately this game was not available to try out, but the LCG was and it turned out to be too complicated for her to understand all the play techniques(it appeared to be similar in play style to Magic the Gathering) and it was only 2 player basically. We were intrigued by Imperial Assault due to the multiplayer co-op aspect(she has a few friends the love Star Wars as well) my thought was to play as the Imperials and have them play the Rebels so I could guide them along the story if needed. I have a few question for the veteran players:

1. Imperial Assault seems to have a more RPG and straight forward play style, those of you that have played the game do you feel this would be a game she could play with an easier learning curve.

2. How many actual missions are there in total, is there enough missions to keep this young group interested and playing.

3. The time allotment says allow 1 - 2 hours is this allowing for setup or is this just actual game play time est.(I'm just worried about them losing interest if the game drags on too long)

Thanks in advance for your answers and please add any advise or suggestions/comments that may help in the decision process.

1. The game is fairly simple, particularly for Rebel players. Actual gameplay for Rebels is essentially just moving, attacking, and interacting with an objective, with the occasional ability use. It's a little more about strategy than anything, basically deciding when to press on with the mission's objective and when to take out Imperials first.

EDIT: There's a Learn to Play guide on Imperial Assault's page that you can check out and decide for yourself on if it's too complicated.

2. Total, in the entire box, is 32 missions. This includes story missions, side missions, forced missions, and the side missions from the Vader/Luke "expansion". In each campaign, you'll play a minimum of 11 missions, and this can go up to 15 depending on how many forced missions the Imperial decides to use. Story missions tend to fluctuate between whether the Imperial or Rebels won the previous story mission, side missions are pulled randomly from a deck that is based on who the Rebels are, missions the Rebels select, and just randomly selected ones. So in the base box alone, there's a good deal of variety in missions from campaign to campaign. More side missions will likely come with the ally/villain smaller expansions, and more campaigns will likely come with bigger expansions that will likely include more heroes as well.

3. That includes setup. Setup really only takes about 5-10 minutes, the hassle really just comes from finding the correct map pieces if you don't keep them semi-organized. But yes, for each mission, it'll be about an hour or 2 of actual gameplay.

Thank you for the reply I am going to read the suggested learn to play but this seems like a game we would both enjoy playing.

My daughter is 7 and plays Descent sometimes when I host a gaming session. She has yet to play IA but since it plays alot like like Descent I'm confident she will be able to understand and grasp the mechanics. I see no reason why your daughter couldn't handle it. If this kind of gaming is new to her you could do what I did and start your daughter on something easier. My kid was 5 when we started gaming together, me and my wife started her on Wrath of Ashardalon and Mice and Mystics. Both are great starter games before tackling games like IA if that concerns you.

My daughter is seven and had no trouble with IA and beating me during the tutorial mission.

I'll offer my experience, with the caveat that I haven't played with children.

1) My guess is that the average child in that age bracket would be able to play as a Rebel player. The biggest thing I would say about this question though, is that you should be ready to adapt and shave off complexity where needed. For example, some of the special abilities may be difficult to grasp. So the spending of XP and leveling up the class decks may prove difficult. If so, you could help them with that, or consider a simpler system of leveling up. I will say though, that I think the basic experience of the game is enjoyable enough that making these kinds of modifications would be just fine.

2) I would estimate that most groups could play through three campaigns of this without it getting 'same-y'. So at the absolute minimum, maybe 40 hours of gameplay? I think the biggest thing you should strongly consider is the attention span of the child and her friends in terms of sitting down for an individual missions. Which leads me to...

3) In my experience (we've gotten through one campaign so far), setup/playing/cleanup runs us about 90 min per mission. You can save some time on the front end by setting up the first map before the players arrive, but if you're playing multiple missions in a session, you're going to have some downtime while the Imperial player sets up the map and figures out deployment groups etc. (only 15 minutes, but a very slow 15 minutes).

So without knowing the specifics of the situation, I would say that if you think the attention span is there and you're willing to adapt/change the rules to hit the right level of complexity it could be a good experience.

Hope that helps!

My son is 7, equally loves Star Wars, and has no issues with Imperial Assault. The finer points of tactical gameplay escape him from time to time, as he just wants to blast Stormtroopers, but that will come in time.

We've also enjoyed WOTC's Star Wars Miniatures in the past, and this is a very similar system.

Thank you guys for all the great advise after reading all the comments I believe we are going to really enjoy this game. Now just to find one to begin the saga.