Hey Guys,

I’ve been putting this off due to laziness, but here is my rundown of the Imperial Assault Nationals held at Origins Game Convention on Wednesday, June 15. There were a total of 22 players present (to my recollection), which I would attribute to the tournament being held in the early afternoon on a Wednesday, but it is what it is. The players who were present were some great players who I am very glad to have the opportunity to play with.

Here is the list I was running:

2 x Elite Stormtrooper with Cross Training

1 x Elite Heavy Stormtrooper with Targeting Computer

Agent Blaise

2 x Imperial Officer

Zillo Technique

My command deck was:

Grenadier

2 x Reinforcements

Lock On

Comm Disruption

Jump Jets

Negation

Tough Luck

Intelligence Leak

Deadeye

Element of Surprise

Planning

Take Initiative

Urgency

Espionage Mastery

So, without any further needless preamble, here are my matches for the day. I apologize ahead of time if I get any of these details incorrect as the first round at least is a little fuzzy.

Round 1

Opponent’s list:

1 x Elite Rebel Trooper

1 x Elite Echo Base Trooper

1 x Echo Base Trooper

Gideon (On a Diplomatic Mission)

C-3P0

Princess Leia

(Forget the last 3 points)

Map: Training Grounds (Deception Game)

My opponent took the hangar deployment andstarted the match by shooting the door, which I ended up finishing off to get two shots with my Stormtroopers. I killed Gideon at the beginning of Round 2, negating the benefit of On a Diplomatic Mission. This match is really fuzzy beyond that (I had forgotten most of it by the end of the day), although I do recall an Echo Base trooper attacking the last Heavy Stormtrooper of the group who had two health remaining from 2 spaces away. He chose to replace his blue die with a red die and I rolled an evade, causing him to miss the range by 1. He killed 1 Officer, and I killed Gideon, regular Echo Base Troopers, and Leia.

Final Score: 18-2

Round 2

Opponent’s List:

2 x Probe Droid

1 x Elite Probe Droid

2 x Imperial Officer

1 x Elite Imperial Officer

1 x Elite Stormtrooper

1 x Bantha Rider

Temporary Alliance

Rule by Fear

Map: Nelvaanian War Zone (Constant Motion)

I won initiative and chose the top deployment zone. I deployed a Stromtrooper squad and an Officer at the door to the command room, and the rest near the objectives. My opponent matched my command room deployment by placing both of his regular Probe Droids on his side, and the rest of his forces near the objective and door to the middle. With 8 activations, he was going to get the last activation every round unless I culled the lower health activations, so I played with this in mind. He positioned his troopers to be pushed toward the objective when the officer moved the Bantha, then he started moving the Bantha toward the middle of the map. I moved some Stormtroopers down to match, but kept them on the back wall to make any shots from his side difficult to land at 7+ range. He took some shots, missed range, moved the Bantha in and nearly killed some Stormtroopers. He didn’t have a Jundland terror, which saved the ⅔ of the group from getting wiped by the Bantha, and his first activation was the Stormtroopers. They failed to finish the full health trooper from that group, which activated next and killed the Bantha. From here it was a matter of killing his remaining low health figures while the heavies applied pressure to his Stormtroopers. I don’t recall the final score, but I believe my opponent conceded when he was down to 2-3 deployments.

Round 3

Opponent’s List:

Bantha Rider

2 x HK Assassin Droid

1 x Elite Tusken Raider

Gideon

C-3P0

Temporary Alliance

Devious Scheme

Beast Tamer

Map: Nelvaanian War Zone (Fallout)

This match was against a friend who travelled up with me (who would make it to top 4). I had the same deployment zone as last game and deployed Agent Blaise and a group of Stormtroopers near the Command Room door, causing him to run a single Tusken up to contest the terminal early on in round 1. My officers each shot the door to the middle to become focused, while I grabbed one objective token with a Stormtrooper and moved in force toward his deployment zone with my last activation. This move caused him to use his Bantha to take an objective token, rather than run down the hallway at my units. I also eliminated the Tusken in the command room, giving me sole control of the command room and a strong attack angle on his deployment zone. With pressure coming from both sides, and the middle door going down to allow Blaise and a Heavy Stormtrooper to pressure from the middle, my opponent conceded the match when he lost the second Tusken and an HK group.

Round 4

My opponent and I took a draw since we were both guaranteed to make the top 8 cut at that point. We would later meet in top 4. I took this opportunity to watch the games of my 3 friends and silently root for them. Two of them would make the cut, with the third getting 9th.

Top 8 archetypes (that I can recall)

2 Stormtroopers

2 Rebel Troopers

1 Wookies (Friend)

1 Beast Machines (Friend, round 3 opponent)

Round 5 (Top 8)

Opponent’s List:

1 x Elite Stormtrooper

1 x Elite Stormtrooper with Cross Training

1 x Elite ISB Infiltrator

1 x Imperial Officer

Agent Blaise

(Little foggy on the last 6 points, I wanna say Elite Probe and Rule by Fear)

Map: Training Grounds (Reprogrammed)

My opponent started with initiative and chose the outdoor deployment. His first activation was to have the ISBs shoot the door to hide, which caused 4 damage to the door, setting the stage for his downfall. I activated a Stormtrooper group, knocked down the door with 2 shots, while the 3rd trooper ran up to his deployment and threw a grenade for 2 damage hitting all 6 Elite Stormtroopers and his Officer. 14 Damage on my first activation really set the tone for the match. Unfortunately, I deployed my heavies poorly, not anticipating the grenade play I would make, so they were unable to get any shots in the first round to blast on his grouped troopers (the trooper who threw the grenade was blocking line of sight, and he ignored it to keep it that way). The rest of the match played out with my opponent on the backfoot, and perplexingly running his guys with the objective close enough for me to kill and pick it up for my side. We ended the final round with me controlling 4 objectives with 33 points, and him at 23 points.

Round 6 (Top 4)

Opponent’s List:

2 x Elite Rebel Trooper

1 x Elite Rebel Saboteur

Luke Skywalker

Gideon

C-3P0

Map: Mos Eisley Cantina (Battlefield Engineering)

My opponent is a player I encountered at a previous regional event, and was to be my Round 4 opponent that chose to draw with me. He’s a fantastic and cautious player, making this a very tight match. I won initiative and, of course, took the deployment near the moisture vaporator. The first round was all setup, with him focusing his troopers and Sabs, and myself moving my little guys all over the place and contesting as many objectives as I could. I contested the two objectives in the bar, which he also contested. His Sab killed a Stormtrooper on the objective closest to his deployment zone, giving him sole control of that one and Luke contesting the objective near the terminal. He spent the next round running his Sab over to Luke to shake hands while his troopers repositioned away from the bar, as I had too many units in there for them to safely remain. I killed one trooper, and his Sab that was initially contesting a bar objective went after a lonely Officer, who dodged the attack and focused himself in retaliation (he would do this again in round 3).

Round 4 began with something surprising. One heavy was holding an objective in the bar, within 3 spaces of the other heavy holding the other objective. My opponent ran Luke up, focused, 5 spaces to attack the heavy in line of sight with element of surprise. He was within 3 spaces so the I did not have composite plating. I had the negation in hand, but after doing some math I determined that it was unlikely he would kill the heavy, with Zillo Technique able to provide an extra block if needed (he would have needed to roll 7 natural damage and 1 surge to kill the 8 health trooper). He ultimately dealt 5 damage to the heavy, failing to kill it, and my first activation was to move that heavy back to shake hands with his buddy and tie the score. The rest of my activations consisted of attacks on Luke and the forward Sab, killing the Sab ultimately putting Luke at 2 health remaining. The officer who had previously dodged and focused was attacked a 3rd time, but he again dodged and this time fired on Luke and dealt 2 damage. My opponent used his last activations to move a Rebel Trooper and Saboteur in front of Luke, hoping to block line of sight. With initiative coming my way and negation in hand, all I needed at this point was to use the Heavy Stormtrooper’s blast 2 on the Rebel Trooper to kill Luke. My opponent began the round with a Reinforcements, triggering Agent Blaise’s Adapt, granting hidden to a Heavy Stormtrooper and ensuring he had at least one surge. I also had Lock On in hand, so there was basically a 0% chance I failed here. I killed Luke to take the lead and put the Sab on one health. He shot with the sab and ran it back behind some troopers, but my next activation was a Stormtrooper who ran up with a grenade to finish the Sab.

I may never know why he put Luke in that position without Son of Skywalker, but it won me the match and put me in the finals.

Round 7 (Finals)

My friend in the top 4 lost round 6, putting me up against this list:

2 x Elite Rebel Trooper

1 x Elite Rebel Saboteur

1 x Elite Echo Base Trooper

1 x Alliance Smuggler

Gideon

C-3P0

Map: Training Grounds (Deception Game)

The final round was untimed, so Deception Game with 2 trooper lists was a waking nightmare. The match took nearly 2 hours to complete, so here are the highlights:

• My opponent started with initiative and chose the hangar deployment (I wanted the outside deployment anyway)

• I knocked down the door while he focused his troopers (in order to speed up the match, I now realize this was an absurd pipe dream).

• First round I used Intelligence Leak to hit a reinforcements

• I trapped Gideon and the last Elite Echo Base Trooper in his deployment and wiped them out with my first activation of the round (Gideon had the extra 10 points)

• My officer holding a terminal dodged the Alliance Smuggler’s attack, then nearly killed the smuggler.

• I had a heavy trooper with 2 health remaining eat a grenade and subsequently survive 3 more attacks without dying all game (Zillo Technique is godly against Rebel Troopers and Saboteurs)

• I made an illegal attack without line of sight, fortunately we were able to rewind the match to before this move occurred. We found this out during his activation when he tried to make a similar attack. No asterisk on this win!

• Before the final round, my opponent moved 2 troopers, the last Sab and the 1 health Alliance Smuggler too close to each other. I had the last activation with one card remaining in my command deck, Grenadier, which I had been waiting for all game (so many missed opportunities). I positioned the two troopers in the group to take shots and throw a grenade.

• Final round ended on my first activation, grenade for 2 damage to kill the smuggler and two shots to kill the sab.

• My remaining units at the end were the single one health heavy, one Stormtrooper deployment with 2 heavily damaged figures, and the other Stormtrooper group with no damage (but right next to his guys and with the extra 10 point token).

• Final score 41-10

It was an exhausting day, we were actually considering heading home rather than play top 4 but decided to stick it out. The FFG guys were great, especially our judge (sorry I forgot your name, not my strong suit).

As for the list, I’m very pleased with how it performed. There is a lot of consistency with the rerolls, which I feel is necessary for the heavies to utilize their amazing blast 2. I actually added Agent Blaise for this reason, with the intention of hiding the heavies for the free surge. Unfortunately, I forgot to use this ability about 70% of the time throughout the day due to a lack of proper playtesting. I think when playing optimally, this list is very tough to beat. The command card control offered by Agent Blaise and 3 total spy groups definitely had an impact in every game. Zillo Technique is also an incredible skirmish upgrade. It gives you a way to utilize command cards that are no longer useful, and makes pierce an even weaker ability than it already is. Losing one command card to save a figure to make another attack or deny points is just crazy valuable.

TL;DR: Rebel Troopers suck, Imperials rule (by fear)

Congrats on the win.

Great summary.

I 100% agree with you on Imperial consistency being really great.

I had never really considered Heavies (or even eHeavies) to be worth it, because I could never get enough surges without focusing them first, and they're harder to use with Speed 3. But making them work via Blaise is an excellent idea! Much credit to you for that.

Did your Finals opponent get off a Grenadier? Surely he played it with so many troopers.

Did your Finals opponent get off a Grenadier? Surely he played it with so many troopers.

He did use Grenadier, it was set to hit Agent Blaise, a Stormtrooper, and the last Heavy Stormtrooper of the group (with 2 health remaining). It did 1 damage.

Did your Finals opponent get off a Grenadier? Surely he played it with so many troopers.

He did use Grenadier, it was set to hit Agent Blaise, a Stormtrooper, and the last Heavy Stormtrooper of the group (with 2 health remaining). It did 1 damage.

Ouch. That is painful, when you're the one tossing the grenade! But it's a huge relief when you're the one taking it in the teeth.

****, unlucky roll for him!

that roll on the grenade is symbolic why imperial assault sucks (for me at the moment)....I am under the impression that more and more 1-2 dice rolls and 1-2 commandcards decide the game...I had it on both ends of stick (winning and loosing, at the end of the game both somehow fealt cheated)...congrats anyway to the OP... *rant off*

that roll on the grenade is symbolic why imperial assault sucks (for me at the moment)....I am under the impression that more and more 1-2 dice rolls and 1-2 commandcards decide the game...I had it on both ends of stick (winning and loosing, at the end of the game both somehow fealt cheated)...congrats anyway to the OP... *rant off*

I've had a lot of games across both Imperial Assault, X-Wing, and Armada where a single die roll result decided the game. Some matches have even had several dice roll, that each on their own would have changed the outcome, if the dice had come up differently.

However, aren't those games down to a single toss of the dice, exactly because both players are equally matched?

that roll on the grenade is symbolic why imperial assault sucks (for me at the moment)....I am under the impression that more and more 1-2 dice rolls and 1-2 commandcards decide the game...I had it on both ends of stick (winning and loosing, at the end of the game both somehow fealt cheated)...congrats anyway to the OP... *rant off*

I understand where you are coming from, but let me give you a little more context from that particular match.

It was a 2 hour match. We both saw every card in our command deck, we both rolled a ton of dice, and we both made mistakes. What the game came down to, ultimately, was positioning. He made a positional error by placing his Sab and 1 health Smuggler near each other, knowing full well that I had not played Grenadier yet that game (he had looked through my discard pile earlier that round). I had one card left in my command deck and no cards in hand, so it could only have been Grenadier. But he made the error anyway, and that is what ended the game. The Heavy that survived never attacked again and just played point denial and bait (unsuccessfully, as he rarely moved out of position to attack it).

Games with dice and decks are going to have a large degree of luck involved. But after playing in half a dozen competitive tournaments in the last 6 months, I have consistently seen the same players rise to the top tables. A single game may be won or lost due to luck, but a good player with a consistent list will always have a good chance at winning in a tournament setting.

that roll on the grenade is symbolic why imperial assault sucks (for me at the moment)....I am under the impression that more and more 1-2 dice rolls and 1-2 commandcards decide the game...I had it on both ends of stick (winning and loosing, at the end of the game both somehow fealt cheated)...congrats anyway to the OP... *rant off*

I've had a lot of games across both Imperial Assault, X-Wing, and Armada where a single die roll result decided the game. Some matches have even had several dice roll, that each on their own would have changed the outcome, if the dice had come up differently.

However, aren't those games down to a single toss of the dice, exactly because both players are equally matched?

I was going to say this too. This dice roll was a significant turning point in the match...however, that's because the match was CLOSE to begin with! If one player is running away with a clown-stomp victory and a dice roll like this comes up, then it's not really note-worthy, since it didn't really affect the outcome or flow of the match. To me, when a single dice roll is significant enough to have a big impact on the game, then that's a sign that it's a CLOSE game, and most people would equate that with an exciting and competitive and intense game! And isn't that what we want in a competitive game? Don't we want things to be close enough that either player could win?

I too prefer non-random games. Or, more accurately, I thought I did. I'm not so sure any more. There are pros and cons to random and non-random games, and FFG has a proven, impressive track record of inserting just about the right mix of randomness and strategy in their games. (Nowhere near perfect; just rather impressive.)

That being said, if you prefer games with little to no randomness, there is a long list of very good games available that fit that motif. (And please don't take this as a gtfo post; I'm sincerely just trying to say that if you want non-randomness in a good game, you can have it.) Here are just a few that I know of:

Chess

Go

Puerto Rico

Hansa Teutonica

Hive

Caverna

Terra Mystica

Ricochet Robots

Ora & Labora

I think the hallmark of a succesful player in games like IA is one able to include probability in his or her strategising. The dice are not a totally arbitrary element, but something that must be factored in when making important choices. The same goes for the unknown and random order of the cards in your command deck - arguably as important for the out come of a match - and both ingame abilities and player deduction is important in making the decisions that will win the day.

Right. You can't control the dice, but you can put yourself in a position where you still have a chance, even if they hurt you. Part of it is mitigating luck, by moving 1 square closer so that your attack has a 0% chance of missing due to weak Accuracy, or not banking too strongly on having Initiative the next round, etc. There will always be times where you just need some luck to help pull you out of a bad situation too, and part of skill there is knowing just how far to push your luck before you're almost asking the impossible of the dice gods.

I much prefer games coming down to one or two pivotal die rolls, as opposed to curbstomping my opponent or vice versa. You can play perfectly, and have a die roll do you in, and you can also make a positional blunder, and be saved by a die roll. Goes both ways, which makes the game more interesting for me, although it'll still make me scream and pull my hair out from time to time, which is why I keep my hair cut short...

With regard to this list... I really like it.
However, I found it a bit difficult to use.

I think with the slow moving Heavies, it's easy to make positional mistakes.

I've only used it once, but I misplayed early by committing the heavies to one side, and my opponent just went the other way and ignored them.

At that point it was over. They were too far away to make any difference.

Granted that's just a mistake from playing a list for the first time, but it's an easy mistake. That's my problem with heavies. The other issue is that without hide, they only do 1 more damage on average than an elite stormtrooper and you get less of them (and can't reinforce).

They are tough but I don't think they do enough damage. But that's a separate issue.

I lost twice to an opponent in Regionals yesterday who ran the same list but Heavies/TC/Zillo was replaced with 2 Elite Probe droids.

Both games were very close and quite fun but I think I prefer 2 eProbes to the heavies. Especially on maps with more difficult terrain which really screws up heavies.

Grats on your win either way =)

As for Luck.... I had my semi-final game come down to basically one lucky white dice. I needed to kill his last storm trooper and Xmaned it. Then he needed to kill two troopers and used two attacks and a 3dmg grenade to do it. Final score was 40-38.

Could have gone either way. In hindsight, there was another play I could have made that would have been slightly better, but ultimately it was still one Xman that denied me the win.

In any luck based game there will always be that one or two dice rolls that are the tipping point. I play mainly troopers but I'll be honest, grenadier is not a fun card to play against. That's probably my most disliked luck aspect of IA. Maybe if the red dice had two 1s on it as well as two 3 then it would be a bit more even, but it bloody sucks rolling a 1dmg as much as it sucks being on the receiving end of 3dmg.

Everything else is more about strategy, positioning, list building and activation order. Dice rolling kind of comes secondary to that. It's what I like most about IA.

Positioning the heavies is definitely the most difficult aspect of the list. A friend of mine was running the same list, and he frequently overextended the heavies and had them killed as early as the beginning of round 2. They lack the same threat range as an elite stormtrooper, but they draw fire like no other.

That said, I'm toying around with the idea of replacing them with Bossk. I need to do a bit of testing to see how it plays, but I think he can fulfill a similar role in a much more consistent manner. It does open up the question of whether or not I keep Blaise, since one of my goals with including him was to hide the heavies, but I'll know more after testing.

Well I've been running RGC, 2x eStormtroopers with Cross Training, 2 officers and Zillo.

The spy cards and white dice on Stormies have been awesome. Zillo has been pretty good too.

I do miss Blaise's interrogate and having 3 spy groups instead of 2 for Comm Disruption, but otherwise, it's been a solid list.

I think people struggle to deal with hard hitters like RGC more so than they do against some heavies or a cheaper unique.

I like how the spy cards have shaken the meta up. removing reinforcements or take initiative from my opponent's hand has been super helpful.

I just read through this topic/post. There are a number of good points made. For my backstory - I was the other guy (poor roll on the grenadier card guy) that lost to Crabhand in the finals. It was an awesome and looong game that capped off a great day of gaming. He is correct that I made a few mistakes in the match and I paid for them. The randomness of the dice are a part of the game, but so is good strategy and bringing a good list you are familiar with. He positioned well, split up my forces a bit here and there so he could pick them off further weakening my list. Crabhand played really well and I hope to have a chance to play him/you again. Your carpooling buddies played some great matches too! You guys have a strong meta in your area. There were two other matches that I recall later on in the day I felt I had a fair chance of losing to those guys. My favorite move that day was an E rebel trooper getting into position and to move 4 and become focused then using to the limit to make the kill shot for the win. My second favorite move would have been rolling a 3 with that **** Grenadier!

So pumped for Gencon!

I just read through this topic/post. There are a number of good points made. For my backstory - I was the other guy (poor roll on the grenadier card guy) that lost to Crabhand in the finals. It was an awesome and looong game that capped off a great day of gaming. He is correct that I made a few mistakes in the match and I paid for them. The randomness of the dice are a part of the game, but so is good strategy and bringing a good list you are familiar with. He positioned well, split up my forces a bit here and there so he could pick them off further weakening my list. Crabhand played really well and I hope to have a chance to play him/you again. Your carpooling buddies played some great matches too! You guys have a strong meta in your area. There were two other matches that I recall later on in the day I felt I had a fair chance of losing to those guys. My favorite move that day was an E rebel trooper getting into position and to move 4 and become focused then using to the limit to make the kill shot for the win. My second favorite move would have been rolling a 3 with that **** Grenadier!

So pumped for Gencon!

It was a great game, it further reinforced my need to reduce misplays from memory issues. I only ended up using Adapt on Blaise twice, and my friends informed me that I forgot a Last Stand proc before the final round. I hope we get to play again as well.

I'm really proud of our local group, we haven't failed to place multiple players in the top tables yet. I also recall that To the Limit killing my friend's Wookie, totally out of left field and something I knew I had to be on the lookout for. I'm hoping to go to Gencon as well, so perhaps I'll see you there.

Just curious, what were the prizes for nationals? I couldn't find them posted anywhere.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/222776-nationals-kit/