I have been playing this game solo a lot lately and just wondered if any body else has done this and if they have any tips on how they do it? I have a few questions about this topic such as:

1. I think some one mentioned some where about a solo campaign for Descent? If so how does that work and would that work for Imperial Assault?

2. Do you think Fantasy Flight will do the Descent solo thing for Imperial Assault?

3. Would playing the campaigns solo ruin it for you if finally get to play it with people because you would all ready know all the stuff that only the imperial side should know?

4. How do you keep from losing the element of surprise that you get from not knowing what the other player is going to do when you play with people?

5. How do you get your spouse to play so you don't have to play solo?

These are just a few questions I had on this topic. If any other solo players had any questions feel free to ask them on this thread.

Just a side note: l don't know why or how this works mentally, but playing with painted miniatures is way more fun than playing with unpainted ones.

I believe Boardgamegeek has a section under Imperial Assault for solo play. What someone did was create a complete overhaul of how the Imperial Player works, replacing class and Agenda decks with random events that you draw from a shuffled deck, and "programmes" that the various figures follow.

Side note: I would love to play with painted miniatures, but I don't trust my painting skills (I'm not particularly good at colouring between the lines), and my wallet definitely doesn't support the costs of paints... So I decided to be just happy with them being unpainted. I kinda wish they came prepainted, like the XWing stuff... I know that many people who can actually go and paint over the XWings, whereas the rest of us can just enjoy them as they are!

I have been playing this game solo a lot lately and just wondered if any body else has done this and if they have any tips on how they do it? I have a few questions about this topic such as:

1. I think some one mentioned some where about a solo campaign for Descent? If so how does that work and would that work for Imperial Assault?

2. Do you think Fantasy Flight will do the Descent solo thing for Imperial Assault?

3. Would playing the campaigns solo ruin it for you if finally get to play it with people because you would all ready know all the stuff that only the imperial side should know?

4. How do you keep from losing the element of surprise that you get from not knowing what the other player is going to do when you play with people?

5. How do you get your spouse to play so you don't have to play solo?

These are just a few questions I had on this topic. If any other solo players had any questions feel free to ask them on this thread.

Just a side note: l don't know why or how this works mentally, but playing with painted miniatures is way more fun than playing with unpainted ones.

1. There is at least one fan made automatic empire variant floating around BGG, although I haven't tried it myself: https://boardgamegeek.com/article/21372119

3: I've played through a few campaigns solo as well, mostly because I love the game and it's hard to get enough people together to play on a regular basis. With that said, I am still in one campaign as a rebel player and when I pay solo I try to avoid missions that I think might be coming up in that campaign. Now obviously you can't protect against that completely, but to my mind having played through a mission solo isn't much different than having played through it as either side in a previous campaign; you lose a bit of the element of surprise, but things are still different enough based on your characters, class decks, items, etc.

I also didn't play through Twin Shadows solo until after I had played it as a rebel and I'm currently doing the same thing with Hoth. I think I might use the new heroes in a basic campaign, though, just to try them out.

4. Playing solo is obviously not going to be the same experience as playing with other people, but sometimes you've just got to work with what you have . I basically just try not to think too far ahead for either side, just playing things as they come and trying to make the best moves on a given turn. One little trick that I use is that when I look at the campaign guide I'll look at the trigger conditions but not what happens. So I'll know that something will happen when a certain door opens or when a certain figure is defeated, but I don't know what and can't plan for it as the rebels.

5. That's the big question, isn't it? Let me know when you've figured that one out

I kinda wish they came prepainted, like the XWing stuff...

The paint jobs on X-Wing stuff is fairly simple. A dot here, a stripe there and not much else. Offering prepainted miniatures for IA would likely have doubled the cost.

Check out RedJak's variant over at the Board Game Geek boards, under the file section. He basically created an entire deck of cards to play against an AI. There is even a link to some American website to get them printed in good quality and shipped to your house for I think 25 bucks. As a Canadian it is like 60 bucks with shipping given our crappy dollar so I just use a random number generator and the PDF's on my desktop.

He has a rule set to explain it better than me, but it is pretty cool. Basically every unit has an AI card that tells you how to use them and in some cases gives them access to their special actions without the appropriate trigger to make them harder. Each mission it gives the AI a target and objective for your Imperial figures, which works well to counter the objective you have. Each mission card also flips during events to reveal what should be hidden from you, so you only read the mission briefing to start.

It isn't perfect, but I have lost missions against it. You of course need to mix in your own common sense, like for instance the protocol is to activate your deployment cards left to right, however if you've got a hero against the ropes you aren't going to activate a Storm Trooper half way across the map first, so that is a time where you have to step in and activate the probe droid who should be third, first, and try to finish him off. But for the most part he does a good job.

I would encourage finding others to play with though, it is a good stop gap between campaign sessions but it definitely does not do the game justice. I hope that one day we get to see some co-op missions for Imperial Assault, although only 3 in Descents history makes me think they aren't that popular and we might not.

As for getting your wife to play, if you figure that one out please let me know

My wife supports me with a lot of my geeky hobbies (e.g. classic arcade game collecting, PC gaming, comic books, etc...). However, she drew the line at trying to play with little painted soldier guys. The only other suggestion I would have is to pop out some kids and hope they are interested in playing with you when they're old enough. I'm lucky my 16-year old daughter wants to play the campaign with me... surprisingly my 14-year old son does not.

You of course need to mix in your own common sense

I tend not to do that when using the X-Wing AI. I figure if I occasionally make a boneheaded move then it's only fair that the AI does as well.

My wife supports me with a lot of my geeky hobbies (e.g. classic arcade game collecting, PC gaming, comic books, etc...). However, she drew the line at trying to play with little painted soldier guys. The only other suggestion I would have is to pop out some kids and hope they are interested in playing with you when they're old enough. I'm lucky my 16-year old daughter wants to play the campaign with me... surprisingly my 14-year old son does not.

I have five kids, all little gamers in the making...

I keep telling my wife if she doesn't start playing games with me, I might have to find a few girls on the side to play with.

You won't go blind, but keeping track of everything might give you an aneurysm.

You won't go blind, but keeping track of everything might give you an aneurysm.

That's unfortunate for us (primarily) imperial players who need to do just that.

Yes, there are two different solo variants from Redjak (BGG seems to be still down/unreachable, so I can't give the links now), and then there is Play by Forum campaigns on boardgamegeek.com . I have finished one campaign and still playing 3 others (two core, one an extended Twin Shadows campaign). I never thought I would play PBF, but I fell for Imperial Assault so hard that I needed to get to play more than my group is willing to do.

-Pasi

(Depending on the players, PBF can be quite more strategic than playing IRL. A different, but quite as intense experience.)

I just play with both sides and try to win. It's not ideal but I enjoy it (and I only do this in the time when I can't get a group of friends together to play).