I've always been curious about Imperial Assault. But I want to know how balanced it is, how well it plays, so on and so forth... So what can you guys tell me?

Well, as far as the campaign goes, the game is decently well balanced over the course of the ten mission spread, but can swing wildly in balance from mission to mission.

Macro balanced

Micro imbalanced.

This was one of the most balanced games I've ever played.

Lots of people did disagree with that, when the game was released there were lots of posts about how the game was broken in favour of the the imperials... and an equal number of posts saying the game was broken in favour of the rebels.

I guess it depends on how balanced your playgroup is.

First play through is hard on the rebels, there is a steeper learning curve and hidden information which they will already know by the 2nd play through.

The only issue I have with campaign, is it can feel un-thematic sometimes.

The characters are great and everything, but when one stormtrooper runs past 3 people in order to shoot at one person it can feel kind of odd.

Some of the gameplay decisions in the campaign can break the theme a bit. But that's a minor gripe.

Otherwise this game is very balanced, particularly the skirmish mode.

Campaign:

Pros:

Plethora of different missions and side missions

Majority of missions come down to the last round

Upgrading Heroes and buying new items is addicting and very rewarding

Alternating activations between the Imperial player and Rebel payers feels balanced

Game is fun and feels like Star Wars. Period.

Cons:

Set up time can be a nightmare - best to leave the the game ready to play at someone’s house

Can feel gamey at times - rushing past wounded heroes, seeing Royal Guards in every location because they are powerful units

*Hidden information is always bad news for the Rebel players

*Lack of unique objectives for the Imperial player

(I hear Return to Hoth addresses the last two issues but I haven’t gone through that campaign yet)

Depending on group:

Our rebel players normally approach this game with a “chess” mentality which can result in long sessions

Very easy to pick up and easy to explain to people, but you need to have the Rules Reference Guide handy for keywords.

Pretty balanced, but it's impossible to make any game that has wildly unique units on different sides perfectly balanced.

With two games in one and a gazillion units to paint, there's tons of fun time in a box.

Depending on group:

Our rebel players normally approach this game with a “chess” mentality which can result in long sessions

Man, had this in my second campaign session last week (I was Imperial). The group spent maybe 20 minutes planning their moves before activating a single model. Even so, we still got two missions completed in a four hour session.

Man, had this in my second campaign session last week (I was Imperial). The group spent maybe 20 minutes planning their moves before activating a single model.

Yea, especially in the later missions when heroes are decked out and they suddenly have even more options.

I see this as a positive but I can see how it can be frustrating for the Imperial player, especially as their activations are relatively straight forward.

It’s best to introduce a time limit for the Rebels if they start taking too long.

But this isn’t a concern in skirmish

One of the things I like about the campaign is the replay value. Different missions, different combinations of heroes & villains, and it feels & plays very differently from one iteration to another. All of the expansions contain side missions that can be added to the campaign(s). If the heroes win an ally's side mission, they can then add one ally to their team during subsequent missions. Similarly, villains won as a reward by the Imperial player can then be added as an open group to subsequent missions.

As a side note, the game revolves around one person acting as the Imperial player/game master. This person gets all of the behind-the-scenes mission info, sets up the maps, and does the campaign bookkeeping. He or she is responsible, in the manner of an RPG, for making sure everyone has a good time. One to four additional players are required to make up the Rebel team. More is better, especially in early missions.

Not many people here have talked about Skirmish. I don't play much Skirmish because I like the campaign too much, and my limited time is often spent on Armada or X-Wing, or miscellaneous other entertainment. However, Skirmish is basically like playing X-Wing; build a list, kit your team out with goodies, and attempt to annihilate your enemy, 1v1. It usually takes place on a relatively small map similar to the campaign missions, but a few rules tweaks and you could certainly expand to a larger map. It's worth noting, though, that the game is meant to revolve around small (3-5) fireteams, and isn't meant to simulate mass combat.

I like the Skirmish best. I wouldn't really compare it to X-wing since all skirmish missions are based around a specific map and objectives that award Victory Points (maybe a mix of X-wing & Armada). The option to win via VPs, Kills, or a combination of both feels very different than X-wing's "kill everything" win condition. Squad size can range from 3-11 Deployment Cards (generally 6-8 is best), each of which has 1-3 figures associated to it. Missions take about an hour on average, sort of like X-wing. As for balance, due to recent the recent errata of 3 units that were dominating the meta I think the game is looking pretty balanced right now, but it'll take some time to see for sure.

The campaign is ok, but the mix of rpg and tactical minis game doesn't really work for me. As others have noted it can be very chess like depending on the play group, and that tends to get in the way of the story & roleplaying elements in my experience. The campaign in the core set has a tendency to snowball, if one side gets a few more wins than the other the abilities they can buy with their xp and credits / influence, the game can become really unbalanced, and unlike a true rpg there's no GM to rebalance things (the Imperial player is not a GM, they're just another player). I hear the other mini campaigns in the expansions don't suffer from this as badly, but I haven't played them yet.

(the Imperial player is not a GM, they're just another player)

I'm the Imperial player in a game where the Rebels are new to IA, and I've started approaching it like a GM to ensure they get the most enjoyment out of it. I'm still trying to win, but I'm also trying to keep the game thematically on-point with my reinforcement choices and play style. I think a less competitive Imperial player makes the gaming more fun experience for all involved.

I am interested in this game. I play X-Wing with my 8 year old daughter. We are slowly scaling up the rules in that game so she has fun. Is this game workable wth a child so young, or is it more like Armada where we will have to wait until she is older?

Thanks for the input.

(if I have to wait until she is older, it might give me time to paint all of those figures!)

It's probably a bit more complicated than x wing, but not too much. Nowhere near armada.

In my experience, Line of Sight for new players is the trickiest aspect of the game to work out. Everything else is basically dice and tokens.

LoS is very weird in this game. It's an elegant solution and it really works, but it us so different to LoS in every other game I have seen.