Hello fellow Commanders,

I just ordered SW:Imperial Assault and I have some questions about the Villain/Hero kits. First of all, I would like to know how exactly they tie in to the Campaign Game. Do you simply use them whenever you want or do you need to "unlock" them in a mission to use them? Second(ly; I'm not a native speaker feel free to correct me) I wanted to know which ones are the coolest/most useful to buy as a beginner in order to have the most fun/be a serious threat to your oponent.

Thank you,

YariSamurai

The Ally packs contain a side mission for the campaign, which usually "unlocks" the ally (or provides a reward card), one map for skirmish with two missions, and command cards for skirmish.

The Villain packs contain an agenda set with an agenda side mission to win the villain (unique figures) or a reward card (non-unique figures), and the same stuff for skirmish as the ally packs.

You won't really know which ones suit your playstyle the best before playing a campaign, so go with what you think is cool. You could go with the wave 1 (core) figure expansions, so you'll replace at least some of the tokens from the core box with their figures.

As a1bert said, the ally packs and villain packs are side missions. You put their card in the side mission deck, or if everyone agrees you can play it outright. There is a number for when in the campaign that mission can be played. For instance, Han Solo is 2-4 (I think). So you can't play his mission after the 4th round of the campaign. In all cases the side mission includes either including that ally in your party, or that villain for the Imperial player.

You have misunderstood how the time periods work. You can't include a mission that has a time period outside of the campaign's time period. The core campaign is time period 3. Any mission that contains 3 in its range or has no time period marked can be included in the campaign and played in any (side) mission slot in that campaign. Once the mission is in during the campaign setup, the time period does not need to be checked anymore during the campaign.

Edit: Beaten to the punch.

Or you could just play whatever side missions you want...TIME PERIODS BE DAMNED!!!

~D

In the campaign the allies and villains show up in two ways.

The first, as others have mentioned, is that each ally/villain pick that you buy comes with a side mission. If you win that side mission then you can unlock that ally/villain as a reward, and then you can use him in all future missions.

The second is that all of the allies and villains from wave 1 have a chance to show up during the regular campaign missions at one time or another. The game comes with little cardboard tokens that you can use, but buying the ally/villain packs lets you replace those cardboard tokens with the figure.

As for what you should buy, that depends on what you're looking for. If your goal is to have cool-looking figures on the board instead of cardboard then I'd recommend Han Solo or IG-88, as they seem to show up the most in the campaign. If your goal is to have the strongest allies tactically then I would say go for the rebel saboteurs or the rebel troopers - they're less exciting as figures but they are easier to fit in to the missions as a voluntary ally.

But either way, you can't really go wrong with just buying the ones that you think are cool

Thank you.

I'd also toss in a vote for the Hired Guns. Though they were not released alongside the other "Core" ally/villain packs, they are a good addition to the Imperial player's arsenal as they can be included in any mission as an open group.

Keep in mind that the unique figures (both allies and villains) are generally really over priced (especially the wave 1 guys), so I would only recommend getting them if you want to replace the cardboard or want the agenda sets as you will likely not get a chance to use them in the campaign. This is getting better mind you (so excited about Dengar), but for the most part you'll be using villains only when the mission explicitly calls for them, so off you don't mind proxies or card board tokens, then I say song worry about it.

I'd also toss in a vote for the Hired Guns. Though they were not released alongside the other "Core" ally/villain packs, they are a good addition to the Imperial player's arsenal as they can be included in any mission as an open group.

Seconding hired guns. If you get no other packs, get hired guns. They're cheap in terms of deployment, and their parting shot means that even an extremely killy group of rebels has some cause for concern against them. Plus the agenda isn't too bad either.

Allies:

Best choice: Alliance Smuggler. At 2 points it won't give the Imperials a ton of threat to destroy you with and is a fairly solid model who can stun. Also the side mission is fairly good.

Second best: Rebel Troopers. 6 points for 3 models isn't too bad. Since you can also get them by playing Gideon's mission you'll want the models anyway, and with the side mission it will allow you to get them a second time which means you can then use the elite version. If you're playing Hoth or without Gideon then Echo Base Troopers would be an alternative.

Honorable mention: Leia.

Villains:

Best: Hired Guns. As they're not unique you don't need to win them before using them. They're cheap and they have a unique ability that allows them to get a shot off even if killed before they act.

Honorable mention: Bantha Rider, limited by terrain, but don't need to win a mission for. Dengar, not great and you need to win a mission for him but your cheapest bounty hunter. General Sorin, probably TOO good, and you need to win a mission for him.

When the Bespin packs come out, Bossk, Agents and Blaise will all be solid.

Hello! I am hoping for a little bit of help. I am having trouble choosing between Rebel Troopers, Rebel Saboteurs, Echo Base Troopers and Alliance Smuggler. I have the core set, twin shadows and hoth expansions with many other ally/villain packs. I also prefer the campaign. Any suggestions or advice? Thank you so much!

On 11/9/2020 at 1:10 PM, Chugg said:

Hello! I am hoping for a little bit of help. I am having trouble choosing between Rebel Troopers, Rebel Saboteurs, Echo Base Troopers and Alliance Smuggler. I have the core set, twin shadows and hoth expansions with many other ally/villain packs. I also prefer the campaign. Any suggestions or advice? Thank you so much!

I'd recommend the smuggler. The thing about the higher costs rebel packs is that the Imperial Player gets more out of it then the rebel player most of the time. I mean, you pay 6 to throw down the rebel troopers, that is a free squad of storm troopers for the imperial player, or something else nasty.

The smuggler has the benefit as well of being a sweet skirmish figure. (This is from someone who hasn't touched the Imperial Assault community project skirmish.)

As a note, this does change if you are playing with the Tyrants of Lothal Ally rule changes, it makes it a lot more bearable to take Allies.

On 11/14/2020 at 5:07 AM, LordDraigo1 said:

I'd recommend the smuggler. The thing about the higher costs rebel packs is that the Imperial Player gets more out of it then the rebel player most of the time. I mean, you pay 6 to throw down the rebel troopers, that is a free squad of storm troopers for the imperial player, or something else nasty.

The smuggler has the benefit as well of being a sweet skirmish figure. (This is from someone who hasn't touched the Imperial Assault community project skirmish.)

As a note, this does change if you are playing with the Tyrants of Lothal Ally rule changes, it makes it a lot more bearable to take Allies.

awesome! Thank you for the tips and recommendations!