I've had IA for some time, but do to life events and time spent with other games (obsessions) my roommate and I hadn't touched IA as much as we'd like. We've played a good bit of Descent, so that counted as a shame as we are fans of the game type.
So we finally got to progressing our campaign beyond the intro mission. I play the Imps, with my roommate running four heroes.
Side mission played: Indebted.
{{maybe spoilerish stuff below, but I'm trying to avoid anything not in the mission briefing and initial deployment}}
Results, a narrow Rebel victory in turn 6. The game came down to exactly one attribute test and a final mad dash for the objective. It could have been potentially two attribute tests, but that meant the heroes fighting their way directly through a very angry, healthy (and hungry) nexu. Something they might have pulled off, but it would have taken some spot-on attack rolls and no lucky dodges. But succeed they did on that final crucial roll, allowing their relatively chewed-up wookie to complete the mission he came for.
Takeaways from the game:
I'm still getting used to the way large figures move in this as opposed to Descent, but the nexu is shockingly nimble while a bit of a glass cannon. It hits really hard, especially with certain Imp class cards at its disposal (one red, two green attack in the right circumstances...ouch), but I need to review that and counting spaces to make sure I did things right. Big, mobile kitty monster almost felt like cheating. Kitty liked hanging out on the rocks in the north of the map and pouncing on tasty rebels (well, second kitty, anyway; first kitty got shot for chewing on people's legs).
Pulse cannons. EEEEK. My roommate had a real hate-on for them. Especially after his wook botched a three dice roll to dismantle one. They almost single-handedly wounded the smuggler in his group and did quite a lot of damage in total.
I need to do a little studying regarding positive condition timing (like Focus) to make sure we were timing things right.
I need to concentrate fire a bit more. As it was I could have conceivably had three heroes wounded by the missions end, and almost stalled them long enough to win by mission duration. The smuggler got wounded early (I hate her quick-draw so much). The jedi-wannabe avoided wounded status by exactly one damage when the nexu pounced on her (on three dice...curse you dice gods). And had certain mission events triggered just a tad earlier, the wook would have soaked up a truly horrifying amount of damage in the final turn (and he was already pretty tenderized). That left the rebel soldier/trooper/commando/whatever, who while having been shot a lot, made smart use of rest actions through the game. Not sure I could have done enough to him to win by wounding.
Elite stormtroopers are surprisingly decent. Heck, I still had the last trooper of my initial deployment intact at the end of the game. Granted, he had been chased all over the map by an angry wookie. He even got reinforcements, whom, let's be honest, could probably smell his wookie terror if you catch my drift (whiff).
Remember, the smuggler likes to shoot you when you move.
That's just some of what I remember. Anyway, fun game. Came right down to the wire.
Edited by Deathseed