Has anyone else here thought about how fun it would be if there was an Imperial focus to a future expansion? For example, in a game group of 5, 4 players take the role of a two stormtroopers, a scout biker, and an imperial officer playing against the fifth player, a Rebel "villain" and all the rebel troopers who think hanging out with that kid and the crazy old wizard from Tatooine is cool.

Why not have an expansion that focuses on the truth of the Star Wars saga? The legitimately elected representatives of the people has been overthrown by insurgent Rebels, and our valiant troops fight across the galaxy to protect us all!

Best. Idea. Ever.

Guess that since we're all playing Imperial Assault , it'd have to be Rebel Assault . The cool thing is it could just be new tiles, cards and card components.

Here is the funny thing,if you had made that statement on CNN Sean Hannity would go insane..

tasteless salex

Love this idea, just need a few new components hero cards and a few decks and new mission guide

They've at least prepared for the possibility - the Rebel Trooper and Saboteur deployment cards have reinforcement costs on them, which serve no purpose in skirmish or as allies in campaign.

I've thought something similar, but have Black Sun as the villain, with Imperial heroes. Add Prince Xixor as a merc villain. Would be nice tie into the Scum & Villiany with X-wing.

I've thought something similar, but have Black Sun as the villain, with Imperial heroes. Add Prince Xixor as a merc villain. Would be nice tie into the Scum & Villiany with X-wing.

I was picturing the same thing, but with criminal heroes - their deployment cards for skirmish would be merc faction, but they'd be the sort of characters that would belong to the Smugglers & Spies affiliation in the LCG. Initially the story would just be a conflict between two crime families, but toward the end you find out how what you've been doing has an impact on the war. So you get a campaign that explores one of the more interesting aspects of the Star Wars universe that's been overshadowed by Force-user shenanigans far too much in recent years, and a whole box of goodies to flesh out (what is so far) the most underdeveloped faction for skirmish players.

Yeah, there's really no limit to the perspective you could take with this. Basically, FFG could just keep releasing "campaign boxes" that focus on the Star Wars universe from a different hero/villain faction each time. I wouldn't mind seeing an Ord Mantell campaign set just after this one, but before TESB where the villain is a bounty hunter chasing after Solo. Take that one throw away line of dialogue from TESB and play it out. Obviously Solo, Chewie, Luke, and Leia are going to live through the campaign, but who knows what toll it could take on the Rebellion? Maybe there was more of a reason than an Imperial one that caused General Rieekan to ground the Falcon on Hoth.

Ooooooo. What about a LIFE DAY campaign? Rebellious Wookies are trying to spread their beliefs through violent means. Consequently, our valiant Imperial forces are trying to preserve the Wookie culture by winning their hearts and minds, while protecting innocent Wookie lives from the vicious, uncaring rebellious terrorism and libel that paints the Empire as evil making it harder for the common Imperial citizen to travel, and even earn a good living.

The Imperial garrison is there to protect you, good citizen. Celebrate Life Day! Celebrate the Empire! Celebrate The Emperor!

I would love it, and I would pre-order it quicker than I did with Imperial Assault, but I doubt it will ever happen.

SW always wants you playing from the good perspective.

The old D20 RPG wasn't set up to play from an Imperial perspective.

The new RPG is set up for outlaws, rebels, or jedi...but not Imperial army.

The vast majority of video games were set up to make you the good guy, and even if you played the bad guy, you often had elements of good thrown in (bounty hunting, ideas of guilt/remorse, rewards for being good, etc).

All the board games (that I know of) are from the perspective of the good guys.

The comics/novels seldom romanticize or humanize the Imperials.

Obviously competetive games that need factions skirt this rule for obvious reasons, but the SW universe has always tried to avoid humanizing the Imperials.

The movies (the largest money making element of the IP) depend on having a clear and easily identified enemy with scary, evil bad guys.

Humanizing the bad guys makes it easier to identify with them, which makes it harder to see them in a pure black and white scenario. The corporate bigwigs would likely squash something that would allow you to take on the plight of the Empire.

All that being said, I'll still hope and pray for them to prove me wrong.

A Rebel Assault psuedo stand alone/expansion product would be amazing. The groundwork is laid already. Simply introduce some Imperial heroes (new named character including a clone veteran, named elite imperial guard, spec ops soldier, a sith character or two, some elite imperial officer, etc) and throw in some rebel troops to face and you have an amazing game.

Make it as a stand alone game that you can buy and play (similar to the RPG system they are doing), but have it compatible with IA (obviously). That way they compliment each other or are great as seperate games.

It would be a great way to introduce alternate versions of characters. Full on (lightsaber only) Jedi Luke could be a part of that game, where IA has Luke in his early Jedi training.

If nothing else, when they release a map editor, we could just fan create our own Imperial focused campaign.

Some of the best role playing experiences I've had have been in a villainous campaign that a very savvy GM put together, and I think that a situation where you're actively seeking to become the best bad guy you can wouldn't work in IA.

But what if instead of heroic Imperial roles, pretty much everyone started off as new Imperial Army recruits? Advancement in the game could garner your character promotion into the Stormtrooper Corps while your buddy wants to focus on mobility and takes advancements that unlock the Scout Trooper class. Eventually you could become an Imperial Officer in the Stormtrooper Corps gaining the ability to reinforce and command Stormtrooper allies on the battlefield, or you could follow another advancement path that leads to you becoming a Royal Guard.

I would be hesitant to add other roles like Sith because it takes away from the faceless horde aspect of the Imperial forces and would play like just another expansion with slightly less nice heroes.

And finally, when we consider the whole good versus bad aspect, let's not forget that at one time pretty much everyone that we consider a protagonist in the Star Wars universe (except for Lando, Chewbacca and Luke, so basically a criminal, a slave, and a whiny farm boy) was in service to the Empire.

It would be fun, but there is an issue.

It would likely not interact quite as well with the rest of the game.

Lets say the next expansion follows on in time from the current one, this means many of the side missions will be playable in either, ditto for the missions that come with Ally/villain packs (and a number of other extras). For many this will vastly up the replayability of the base campeign and the expansion. Any new Hero's introduced could potentially be run through the base campaign again adding options for them.

This suggests that a maturer IA line is needed, so such things are less of a concern.

This suggests that a maturer IA line is needed, so such things are less of a concern.

Absolutely. Admittedly, there could be an entire set of missions and reward cards specifically for this sort of expansion, but the importance of it being backwards compatible with previous side missions and reward cards is essential.

This suggests that a maturer IA line is needed, so such things are less of a concern.

Absolutely. Admittedly, there could be an entire set of missions and reward cards specifically for this sort of expansion, but the importance of it being backwards compatible with previous side missions and reward cards is essential.

After a couple of main campaign expansions and associated ally and Villain packs there may well be enough troop options for open groups at least for a Rebel overlord not to feel constrained. The amount of new cards needed would also be reduced.

It'll likely always have limited campaign compatibility with previous expansions whenever done, but allowing the Rebel Hero campaign a few expansions worth of growth will lessen the impact of fragmenting the campaign.

I'd wonder if the new movies may give some opportunity for this, don't forget that Endor was a big turning point and the Rebellion became much more able to face the Imps in more traditional warfare, 30 yrs later and narratively we have an easy sell on the Imps being more likely to use IV-VI era rebel tactics (which the current structure is suited to showing). Now IV-VI imp "heroes" campaign is still very cool and has plenty of potential.

New villain Packs:

New villain Packs:

So wrong. So very, very wrong.

I think some are approaching things from the wrong angle.

I would think the idea wouldn't be to 'humanize' the Empire at all. You don't need to romanticize the marquee evil characters in the game for people to still love the characters.

EMBRACE THE BAD GUY!

The whole point of a faction flip would be to embrace the idea that you are the "bad guys" and your mission is to "bad guy" it up as much as possible.

As a natural follow-up to IA (and it's expansions), the empire has had enough of the new rebel group(s) screwing around with their plans - personified in IA campaigns - and they've decided to actively take the fight to the rebels with RA. (or whatever they're going to call it)

You could do an elite commando unit, emperor's hand, etc and really embrace the dark side. I think the more options it gives you to embrace the bad guy the better.