Hi frands,

Made it through my first Imperial Assault campaign, Imperials played Military Might, rebels played Gharkaan, Jyn Odan, Biv, Diala. Rebels got smoked, Gharkaan got focused down every time, and we really needed some kind of support, Biv was always struggling to keep up with the pace of the group and we ended up calling him Hang Back Biv, but we all had a blast playing, love the game. We rotated the Imperial player and have started our second campaign, new Imperial reads a few msg boards and of course chooses Subversive Tactics. Rebels counter with Fenn, Murn, Shyla, and Onar. I like our group comp better, but hear that Subversive Tactics is just OP. Fenn Shyla and Murn all help with strain recovery, and Onar is immune to harmful effects, but after losing mission 1 and the first side mission, I'm afraid we are starting to witness the snowball. Our Imperial player has stated there will be no mercy. Im afraid...

Absolutely love the game and can't get enough of it. Is it worth playing online?

Just wanted to share, excited to be part of the IA community.

Update, Onar with hand cannon and 'Dont Make Me Hurt You' is wrecking people, and Murne with 'Waylay' is wreaking havoc on imperials strategy. We gave Murne 'Bacta Pump and Injector' so she has tons of strain control and can really utilize 'Waylay' both 4 exp cards were pretty amazing.

On 2/17/2017 at 1:27 PM, VryMadHatter said:

Hi frands,

Made it through my first Imperial Assault campaign, Imperials played Military Might, rebels played Gharkaan, Jyn Odan, Biv, Diala. Rebels got smoked, Gharkaan got focused down every time, and we really needed some kind of support, Biv was always struggling to keep up with the pace of the group and we ended up calling him Hang Back Biv, but we all had a blast playing, love the game. We rotated the Imperial player and have started our second campaign, new Imperial reads a few msg boards and of course chooses Subversive Tactics. Rebels counter with Fenn, Murn, Shyla, and Onar. I like our group comp better, but hear that Subversive Tactics is just OP. Fenn Shyla and Murn all help with strain recovery, and Onar is immune to harmful effects, but after losing mission 1 and the first side mission, I'm afraid we are starting to witness the snowball. Our Imperial player has stated there will be no mercy. Im afraid...

Absolutely love the game and can't get enough of it. Is it worth playing online?

Just wanted to share, excited to be part of the IA community.

Welcome to IA!

Funny, our group gave Biv a few demoralizing nicknames as well. Poor chump.

My favourite was “2-action man” because he was always max strained so he could never perform Close and Personal or anything hero like. He played like a normal figure!

Move, Rest.
Move, Attack once.
etc.

I’d still take him over Saska though. At least he can take a lot of hits.

IA Skirmish on Vassal plays very smoothly. Definitely worth checking out online. Join the FB group so you can match up with other players.

Imperial Assault Vassal group

If you’re looking for campaign play, check out the Play By Forum on BGG.

BGG Play By Forum

I plan on writing an article about Biv at some point here.

He can be really strong, you just have to jump through several hoops.

The key is leveraging his strong ability to the max.

The main hoops are :

1. Bacta Pump: This new tier 1 item is HUGE on Biv

2. Have MHD as your support. These 2 heroes go really well together, the new medical card, painkillers is amazing along with the other strain mitigation cards.

3. Biv really wants high surge gear. DL-44 into Pulse Cannon is my prefered gear path.

With those he is decent. I went a step further and made a couple of very simple houserule tweaks to his 4 xp cards (On Final Stand, he is weakened at end of activation instead of stunned and Stay down costs 1 strain) and he was very solid.

On 2/17/2017 at 1:27 PM, VryMadHatter said:

Gharkaan got focused down every time,

I'd say you had a brave Imperial Player to do that. Between Rage and Unstoppable I never would have done that in my last Core campaign.

On Biv - He was used when we played the Twin Shadows campaign and he really wasn't terribly impressive. He killed everything he hit, but he didn't hit much.

9 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

I’d still take him over Saska though. At least he can take a lot of hits.

I don't know. Into the Frey and Trophy armor make Biv pretty tanky but I always think of Saska with Gadgeteer, the DXR, and Tactical Display later in the campaign. She just annihilates everything with that set up. Plus she can take Energy Shield for 2 XP, that should help mitigate some damage be it on her or on other heroes. I just feel like it's hard to take Biv over that.

I'd say he's much more viable with new items, I'm worried that most people won't give him a chance though.

9 hours ago, Deadwolf said:

I plan on writing an article about Biv at some point here.

He can be really strong, you just have to jump through several hoops.

The key is leveraging his strong ability to the max.

The main hoops are :

1. Bacta Pump: This new tier 1 item is HUGE on Biv

2. Have MHD as your support. These 2 heroes go really well together, the new medical card, painkillers is amazing along with the other strain mitigation cards.

3. Biv really wants high surge gear. DL-44 into Pulse Cannon is my prefered gear path.

With those he is decent. I went a step further and made a couple of very simple houserule tweaks to his 4 xp cards (On Final Stand, he is weakened at end of activation instead of stunned and Stay down costs 1 strain) and he was very solid.

I'll look forward to that article. In the meantime regarding #1: Bacta Pump is huge on a lot of people whereas Shake it off has the same effect, granted with a >40% chance of failure. Would you say they should be used in conjunction, or would Bacta Pump be in place of Shake it Off?

I completely skipped Shake it off. Especially after getting Pulse Cannon, Strain wasnt much of an issue.