It might be better if FFG provided a card upgrade pack as a door prize for the tournament scene and kept it in rotation for at least a year. If you show up to a tournie, you get the pack and it stays available throughout the year.

Or create a pack that you can buy online from FFG directly.

I like the idea of releasing them at tournaments because it might help get people out, I just hate punishing those who start late as it will be seen as one more reason for them NOT to get into it.

Well one answer is free at tournaments but you can buy the pack at some other point. One problem is shelf space, and future expansions.

Do they produce a card pack for each box? So you have a core card pack, a Twin Shadows pack, a Return to Hoth pack, a Bespin Gambit pack, ect... How soon before that becomes unwieldy? If they update the card pack each expansion so it includes everything up to that point, then it becomes more expensive each time and makes old products unsaleable.

Buying them directly from FFG could be an answer to that problem though.

Create a pack at FFGs website!!

~D

Buying them directly from FFG could be an answer to that problem though.

The hairy (unknown) licensing arrangement with Hasbro in the soup may prevent that. FFG isn't selling any of the Imperial Assault stuff directly.

Buying them directly from FFG could be an answer to that problem though.

The hairy (unknown) licensing arrangement with Hasbro in the soup may prevent that. FFG isn't selling any of the Imperial Assault stuff directly.

And even if you want to say "Well its used for a BOARDGAME" Id argue they sell lic Star Wars card sleeves and those can be used for this game as well.

~D

I know it's been stated that FFG cannot sell card packs for X-wing (there has to be a miniature in the package) so that issue may carry over to IA as well.

Ahh ya then if that is the case the only thing that will work is AVP's for the units that currently don't have them to supply the proper cards. And even then we will end up buying multiples.. but better than buying the big boxes.

I know it's been stated that FFG cannot sell card packs for X-wing

If there had to be a miniature in the pack, then how does the LCG work? That's nothing but cards. Or the card packs for the Star Wars RPG's they make.

Also there is now Star Wars Rebellion which is a pure boardgame, which at least hints at the situation with Hasbro changing.

FFG has said they won't produce a X-Wing upgrade/card only pack because doing so could hurt their sales. It's not a matter of can't, but rather won't.

Edit: We don't know why Imperial Assault isn't for sale on the web store in the first place. We have some speculation about it but we don't actually know why.

X-Wing is a miniatures game, LCG is a cardgame, but IA is a boardgame, and Hasbro has license for Star Wars boardgames in the US.

For X-Wing FFG does not see business in selling card packs. It is probably the same for Imperial Assault, but additionally selling just cards does not change the status of Imperial Assault from boardgame to a cardgame, and FFG can't sell Imperial Assault stuff themselves (edit: from their webstore) in the US (or maybe North America).

and FFG can't sell Imperial Assault stuff themselves in the US (or maybe North America).

They sell it at the FFG event center, which is in Minnesota. So yes they can sell it themselves, unless the store they own doesn't count as theirs...

Edit: But my point was that they don't need a miniature in the package in order to sell it. Because if that was the requirement they could sell the expansion packs because they have miniatures in them.

It may be that they can't sell anything labeled Imperial Assault on their web store, or there may be some other reason we don't know. Unless we have access to the contract we can at best speculate at why.

and FFG can't sell Imperial Assault stuff themselves in the US (or maybe North America).

They sell it at the FFG event center, which is in Minnesota. So yes they can sell it themselves, unless the store they own doesn't count as theirs...

Edit: But my point was that they don't need a miniature in the package in order to sell it. Because if that was the requirement they could sell the expansion packs because they have miniatures in them.

It may be that they can't sell anything labeled Imperial Assault on their web store, or there may be some other reason we don't know. Unless we have access to the contract we can at best speculate at why.

Pretty certain the Event Center, while being directly owned by FFG, isn't technically FFG selling itself. As it sounds like it is essentially a standard game store. Just owned by FFG. It's why you won't see it sold at Gencon either.

As it sounds like it is essentially a standard game store. Just owned by FFG.

I don't know, I've been there a number of times and it's clearly FFG's store. But they do sell other stuff there as well so that may be part of it. They likely get some sort of preference for stock, but back in the wave 2 days when Interceptors and A-Wings were going for $30-45 a pop on ebay they didn't have any either.

But again my point really was that they don't have to have a miniature in the package to sell anything, because they sell the LCG and cards for the RPG.

It may be that they can't sell anything labeled Imperial Assault themselves and the store doesn't count... But that's starting to sound more like coming up with reasons why your theory works rather than considering if the theory is correct.

I mean it's not like any of us have access to the legal deals involved.

It isn't that far of a reach, though. From what I've hard about Coolstuff, they have their inventory separated between the online and retail portion. And there are various legal and accounting reasons why that separation is allows them to sell at their store, rather than their online store and at Gencon. I would imagine that the Event Center actually has to pay for their FFG products, which sort of pushes it into a retail entity. Similar to how, while Marvel and LFL are owned by the same parent, Marvel still has to pay LFL for the license.

While I agree that there likely isn't something in their license agreement to prevent them from selling cards for their various miniature games, IA is still in a weird position. I get the impression that FFG's lawyers weren't quite as cute as they thought when they announced IA, bypassing Hasbro's license, and there was some lawyer talk.

IA is still in a weird position.

Yeah I get that and what a1bert said is true. Just because it's only cards doesn't change that it's part of Imperial Assault, and so they may not be able to sell card only Imperial Assault packs online.

If they sell Rebellion online or not will say a lot since that is pure boardgame. But I still think that the mere existence of it does at least diminish some of the 'Skirmish is to get around Hasbro only' thinking.

I still hold that SW: Rebellion is riding on a video game adaptations license, and IA is billed as a miniatures game.

See, no board games here!

One cheap and easy solution is to make A&V packs for each of the big box units and include 1 extra regular card in them. (I know it's too late for Stromtroopers, but from now on...)

They could have solved this by just slipping deployment cards into the ally/villain packs like they did with the ATST card in the Weiss pack.

Royal Guard Champion include 1 of each royal guard card.

General Sorin include 1 of each Imperial Officer card.

Stormtroopers include 1 of each heavy troopers card.

Bantha rider include 1 of each tusken raider card.

Etc. Etc.

I know it's been stated that FFG cannot sell card packs for X-wing (there has to be a miniature in the package) so that issue may carry over to IA as well.

If that's the case they should just put double sided cards for all the boxed units in the new expansion (which you need for skirmish anyway). That's a total of 15 cards for all 3: core box, twin shadows and RtH and an additional 2 for Bespin. I think that wouldn't cost them a signifcant amount of money and if it does they could just make this new expansion a few dollars more expensive.

This appearently huge hinderence for the growth of the skrimish side of this game can be solved so cheaply and easily that it really boggles my mind how this is not solved yet. Maybe FFG views this as not such a huge hinderence for the growth of the skirmish scene or hasn't really thought about this problem, idk, I'm just wondering.

Not to derail the thread, but this *does damage skirmish, and in the space of, what, two days this community has come up with several valid solutions, some of which could be quite lucrative to FFG. Its not like FFG doesn't have an alpha class miniatures game already in production to show the way (XWing) so why the fumbling with IA?

This is the sort of thing that fuels the campaign>skirmish opinions on here.

Please continue your conversation in progress.

Not to derail the thread, but this *does damage skirmish, and in the space of, what, two days this community has come up with several valid solutions, some of which could be quite lucrative to FFG. Its not like FFG doesn't have an alpha class miniatures game already in production to show the way (XWing) so why the fumbling with IA?

This is the sort of thing that fuels the campaign>skirmish opinions on here.

Please continue your conversation in progress.

Not sure what you're trying to say.

Yes, it's puzzling why FFG have made some of these mistakes. That being said, the X-wing Core Set and the IA Core Set are quite different. They are at different price points, different value points and serve different purposes.

If anything some of the A&V packs should have been a bit more thought out.

But even in X-wing FFG don't care that much about the cost of being competitive. There's currently a whole bunch of cards that are only available in $60USD+ epic ships which are very strong in the current meta. Palpatine, Stress bot droid, Regen droid. Dual IG88s cost $80, Autothrusters are used on a ton of ships and only come in one pack, which happens to be the most expensive small ship. In the previous meta, it was C3PO which also came in an expensive epic ship. Youngster is currently a popular Tie-fighter and that's also in another expensive epic ship.

Having strong cards in expensive packs and expansions isn't really the problem.

Having to buy expensive packs and expansions just for one card is sh*tty.

As far as IA is concerned, it's more about how messy and unclear it is, rather than the actual cost. I'm sure most people would be happy with a nexu and trandoshan and probe droid A&V packs that provided the missing cards and some new upgrades.

On the other hand, it's a less important release, because they know that new models and new units will sell much better than a probe droid box.

Like I said before. If the Bespin box does exactly the same card short changing, then we know for a fact that FFG doesn't care about this issue one bit.

Tournament promo cards are a nice gesture, but they don't solve the problem.... presumably these are just temporary due to the FAQ and it will be fixed in the next reprint. But it's unlikely we'll get promos of missing cards like more nexu's, more wampas, more snowtroopers etc...

In fact, we can already see that since the next promo card is Kayn

I am fully with you on this. With the other FFG games I am used to having at least the expansions (big and small) containing everything you need to fully equip one player. That this is not the case with IA also bothers me a bit.

But even in X-wing FFG don't care that much about the cost of being competitive.

I think that the real thing FFG does, is look for a desirable upgrade for the standard game and put it in a Epic ship to help sell that ship.

Which I know bugs some people but I can see why they do it. Otherwise I don't think they pick upgrades based on how much the expansion costs. They put Advanced Sensors in the E-Wing pack for example, which used to be only in the Shuttle pack which cost twice as much.

As far as IA is concerned, it's more about how messy and unclear it is, rather than the actual cost.

With IA I think it's that FFG wants to include only what's truly needed and not everything you might want. There are enough cards in the core box to use all 4 Royal Guard models, even if doing it that way is subpar.

A&V card only packs may make sense to us, but FFG may have looked at it and found that doing that isn't a good idea for them. We can't run the numbers like they can so we can't really know if they'd make more money selling card packs vs people buying extra core sets.

The fact that 4x4 was so popular proves pretty well that a lot of people were willing to buy 2-4 core sets for the sake of that one list.

Yes, it's puzzling why FFG have made some of these mistakes. That being said, the X-wing Core Set and the IA Core Set are quite different. They are at different price points, different value points and serve different purposes.

If anything some of the A&V packs should have been a bit more thought out.

But even in X-wing FFG don't care that much about the cost of being competitive. There's currently a whole bunch of cards that are only available in $60USD+ epic ships which are very strong in the current meta. Palpatine, Stress bot droid, Regen droid. Dual IG88s cost $80, Autothrusters are used on a ton of ships and only come in one pack, which happens to be the most expensive small ship. In the previous meta, it was C3PO which also came in an expensive epic ship. Youngster is currently a popular Tie-fighter and that's also in another expensive epic ship.

Having strong cards in expensive packs and expansions isn't really the problem.

Having to buy expensive packs and expansions just for one card is sh*tty.

As far as IA is concerned, it's more about how messy and unclear it is, rather than the actual cost. I'm sure most people would be happy with a nexu and trandoshan and probe droid A&V packs that provided the missing cards and some new upgrades.

On the other hand, it's a less important release, because they know that new models and new units will sell much better than a probe droid box.

In fact, we can already see that since the next promo card is Kayn

Tournament promo cards are a nice gesture, but they don't solve the problem.... presumably these are just temporary due to the FAQ and it will be fixed in the next reprint. But it's unlikely we'll get promos of missing cards like more nexu's, more wampas, more snowtroopers etc...

Well, this is a bit disingenuous because the summer kit has Kayn -and- the Reb Sab reprint in it. The kits have always included an alt art card for a troop and a named character. Until we see what the winter kit will contain, it's just as likely that they will contain a wampa, nexu, or snowtrooper promo.

I think the short answer here is, it makes more sense for them to leave it as is for profit as it forces people to just buy more MORE!! MOOAARR!!!!

If they really cared they could easily fix this with a few blister packs. The only problem I see with their strategy is it stunts the growth of their skirmish side, and I would argue their campaign side as well. The more people who actually own the game the higher chance people will play campaign, even if they just bought it for skirmish.

But as long as that "i have to buy multiple big box?" hurdle is there, they won't. I understand this is the same for the LCG, don't you basically need 2 of the core + main expansions to even be competitive?

FFG knows what they are doing, I think the better solution is for us to spend time developing competitive lists that only require one of each box/AVP. If people are looking at joining and the online 'meta' requires this box, these 3 AVP's and this x-pac for a few competitive lists then they are much more likely to join up. I took one look at the stickied thread in the LCG forum about having to buy multiples and noped my way right out of there.

My own campaign group has said as much. They really, really enjoy the skirmish and we just play around with what I have for lists, using proxies to double down on a deployment if needed. They all said "Man is that ever fun, but why would I spend all that money when I am only using half the game?" Or "I have to buy multiple big boxes just to get 2 regular royal guards?" followed by them literally laughing out loud. "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard." was the best quote from this weekend. Comeon FFG, give a crap and you will get more than just us hardcores playing your game(s).

Yeah, there are so many special expensive upgrades in X-Wing that some people build their squads and then print out the sheet of paper that lists everything.

While IA isn't perfect, it is nice to not have to spend $60 for 2 figures just to get some need-to-have upgrade cards. With IA, if you REALLY want more Royal Guards you can buy a second core and get a gazillion figures. Keep the ones you want, and sell or trade off the others.