So my LFGS has quite a few tables set up for Warhammer with varying terrain and lots of play space. And I thought it would be fun to play Imperial Assault skirmish on one of these maps. So a friend and I decided to give it a try. We each built an army of 100 points and built a larger command deck. We learned though, that the command deck doesn't need to be any bigger, and next time we'll keep it at the same size and probably even draw an extra card per round.

So how did we make a grid based game fit on a gridless field? We changed speed into inches and doubled it. So a speed 4 could move 8 inches with a move action. Difficult terrain areas existed and all elevation changes counted as difficult terrain. Line of site was determined by a straight line from the middle of the attacking fig to the target fig. If the target was at least 50% visible, you could draw line of site. Accuracy was also doubled after dice rolls. All range requirements were rounded up if it was an odd number. Say 7 inches between figures requires you to achieve 8 accuracy. Achieving 8 accuracy is only rolling a 4 accuracy with the dice. Figures with high ground over others had "advantage". They gain one extra block when being attacked by figures below them and gain pierce one when attacking figs below them. Trees were objects that didn't block line of sight but reduced accuracy by 2.

It was a long game, but ultimately it was pretty fun. There still might be some changes we make, but all in all it worked pretty well. I did happen to snap a pic of the battle although it's a little blurry.

I didn't have enough figs to truly fill the rebel army my friend built, so we used some HK's to take the place of Echo base troopers and some Sabs. Also had some Wookie Sabs as I only have the one expansion of them as well.

No idea if this worked terribly well rules or balance wise, but I will say it looks fun as hell. Awesome job!

Excellent.

What size table were you on? 4x4? A 6x4 seems like it would be too big.

Given that the squares are 1", why did you double the distances? Just because of a larger play area?

Doubling the distances seems like it would mess with the geometry of the game a bit (comparison to figure size and whatnot). I'd think converting 1-1 and using a smaller area of the map would be better.

I would think doubling the distances would be crucial for the bigger play area.

Excellent.

What size table were you on? 4x4? A 6x4 seems like it would be too big.

Given that the squares are 1", why did you double the distances? Just because of a larger play area?

yeah it was on a 6x4 which is why we doubled the distance.

Looks fun. Maybe next Christmas the kids and I will have a battle around all the little Christmas trees, giant carolers, the manger scene, and all the pretty porcelain houses my wife sets up.

With a more open play area and sort of longer ranges, did it seem like the AT-STs or other massive figures would be more useful?

Ive really been wanting to see something like this. I love IA, but a squad level tabletop game is my dream FFG release for Star Wars. Great job on the tweaks to make it work. I may try something similar on a 4x4 or 3x3.

With a more open play area and sort of longer ranges, did it seem like the AT-STs or other massive figures would be more useful?

General Weiss did some work. With the choice of dice he can certainly get some range. As for the tank, it was my first time using it and my opponent was kinda afraid of it. So it got focused hard by 6 troopers within range of Fenn. I'll tell you who did the most work though. Boba. His speed and mobile keyword, and not to mention ability to switch between range,damage and healing himself, made him a force to be reckoned with. He could move extremely far over difficult terrain and prevent anybody from following because he has a jetpack and he don't care.

He could move extremely far over difficult terrain and prevent anybody from following because he has a jetpack and he don't care.

Yeah, mobile seems kind of OP when there's so much of what I'd declare impassable terrain.

Sounds like Star Wars Battlefront on my kitchen table. So good.

Firstly, Thank you- for a while there I was wondering if I was the only one who wanted a gridless version of IA.

When I first saw 40k (a long, long, time ago) I said that is great, now can I have it in the Star Wars universe please? So naturally, I was thinking of doing something similar to what you have done ever since I bought into IA. In fact I haven't played much IA yet at all due to my preference for gridless play in war gaming (and general procrastination/distraction).

Your "just double it" conversion is much simpler, and now that I think about it, is probably more practical than what I was looking at doing. I was planning on making shooting ranges a bit longer, but that would probably skew things too far against the close combat units. I'll give your version of conversion a go. Your height advantage is good too- although, I think I will just use the +1 pierce. this is mostly because I was looking at using a cover bonus for hard cover (+1 block) and soft cover(+1 evade). Softcover area terrain would probably work too. Impassable, difficult and LOS blocking terrain would work as you would expect. For LOS, I would probably just go with if you can see it you can shoot it and 25% obscured grants cover. Method of measurement can be anything really, but I would prefer base to base as it is slightly less ambiguous ("The centre is on his head" - "No it is clearly on his right elbow, because he is doing the Macarena").

Could it really be that simple? I haven't played much IA (but I play many other table top war games), so any input would be great. I need to play test this with my gaming group.

Just think of it... a gridless Star Wars table top game!

The nice thing about doing this with IA is that shooting range is a factor that's already build into the game (as opposed to SWM, for example, which has no range limits or penalties at all).

I would think those cliff walls would be dotted red lines. I guess if you don't have a ramp, you'll need to have some way of getting up there, but that seems more like difficult terrain for an AT-ST and impassible for a normal figure.

I have been toying around with this some, the double the distance doesn't work well since minis can double move. So a mini with 4mp could move 16" in one turn. And this then weapon ranges would be crazy. I was going to change mp to inches. For ranged weapons I am going to use the tape measure from AT-43. It has two sides, one in inches (centimeters as well). The other side has set range bands, each about 4 inches long. It work very well.

We worked the formula as one-and half times the values (rounded up), so the 4MP becomes 6" move. We think it sort of works.

Multiplying by 4cm would probably be easier than by 1.5".

I live in a metric world, but with tabletop games... It's all in inches.

Originally, I was looking at the 10cm/4inch conversion for the ranges/accuracy too. Also this is the same as the x wing rulers so it could work out well for star wars/FF fans. I guess the double move option might compensate well for a lesser conversion for movement, say 1 inch = one movement? The apparent disadvantage this causes to melee only units could be minimised by having a lot of terrain.

The only thing that is doubled is the accuracy for shooting, keep everything else the same.

1MPt = 1inch

accuracy 2 = 4inches

I think increasing the deployment points messes with the whole system too much, but some people have tried adding extra cards, etc.

Looks cool! As an old Games Workshop fan, I think I could get behind something like this!

I've been playing a little Bolt Action lately, and I liked how they do squads, where all soldiers in a single unit must be within 1"of each other, and any other squad has to be more than 1"from each other. Imperial Assault is a game where a model may be in a squad, but the scale is so small and true skirmish level, that each soldier moves independently of the remaining squad. On a larger battlefield this is too large to work right.

Ask anyone who has played Lord of the Rigs Strategy Battle Game over 500pts, it gets messy real quick. then at 1500+ points it's an all-day event (yes about 6hours to play 1750pts LoTR SBG).

I guess, I'm saying the Off the Grid IA game, ought to be more squad based - and why I liked the Bolt Action squad idea for IA.