Hey guys, long time Descent 2e here.

So I have almost all of Descent 2e. I haven't played IA, but am familiar with the rules differences and believe Descent is my preferred game of the two.

But I would love to play IA, I just didn't have the spare cash.

Until the core set showed up at a local thrift store for 40 bucks.

FORTY BUCKS!

The box is in near-perfect condition.

Wow. This stuff never happens to me. :3

Nice! Welcome. you are now one of the best people...

That's great! Also if you are in the US I have found a couple things on eBay as well (new). They sent me a coupon for $15 and I ended up getting the Hoth expansion for $35 including shipping, which I was pretty happy with.

i don't think you'll be disappointed, it's a really great game. The only negative is it slowly takes over your wallet as buying all these figure packs are so enticing!

welcome and have fun!

16 hours ago, totalnoob said:

The only negative is it slowly takes over your wallet as buying all these figure packs are so enticing!

As someone who plays both this and x wing, IA isn't so bad in this regard .

X-wing makes you poor.

There will be adjustments to how IA plays, of course.

When I opened the box, I knew about

-hero specific skill decks,

-threat for monster group deployment instead of reinforcents

-alternating turns,

-the OL uses a selection of skills instead of a card deck, etc.

But why are there 9-12 (I don't remember the exact amount) storm troopers?

Surely they aren't as flimsy and disposable as Kobolds.

Thanks! I won't have access to the rule book for a few days, and I was curious.

Yep, regular stormies are as easy to shred as kobolds, or close to it, but that's not why you get 9. You have three squads so in the campaign or skirmish you can field multiple squads at a time. In the beginning, two sets of elite stormiest was the starting point for a lot of skirmish lists.

Welcome! You'll love the game!

-ryanjamal

On 8/20/2017 at 10:11 PM, Lightningclaw said:

But why are there 9-12 (I don't remember the exact amount) storm troopers?

Surely they aren't as flimsy and disposable as Kobolds.

I'm not sure how flimsy kobolds are in Descent, but regular Stormtroopers are fairly flimsy. In the later parts of the campaign, you'll likely kill them on one attack, and with a bit of luck you can do that early on as well (though it's not near-automatic as in the later parts). However, the main deal is that each Stormtrooper squad consists of three troopers, and you can have three squads out at once.

One big difference from Descent, or at least from what I recall of Descent, is that the game uses different things to balance itself. In Descent, each group of monsters is supposedly balanced with each other group, with higher-power monsters coming in lower numbers. In IA, Imperial forces are instead balanced by their Threat cost - nastier units cost more points. In addition, groups are not mixed regular and elites - either the whole group is regular, or the whole group is elite.

15 hours ago, Dacke said:

I'm not sure how flimsy kobolds are in Descent, but regular Stormtroopers are fairly flimsy. In the later parts of the campaign, you'll likely kill them on one attack, and with a bit of luck you can do that early on as well (though it's not near-automatic as in the later parts). However, the main deal is that each Stormtrooper squad consists of three troopers, and you can have three squads out at once.

One big difference from Descent, or at least from what I recall of Descent, is that the game uses different things to balance itself. In Descent, each group of monsters is supposedly balanced with each other group, with higher-power monsters coming in lower numbers. In IA, Imperial forces are instead balanced by their Threat cost - nastier units cost more points. In addition, groups are not mixed regular and elites - either the whole group is regular, or the whole group is elite.

Never played descent, but from what I've heard the IA units tends to be a lot tankier than Descent (surprisingly)

Oh no, this is IA and you can actually buy additional stromtrooper packs. The strategy is you fill up all the squares with stormtroopers so the heroes can't move anywhere.

You can only use 9 Stormtroopers at a time in the campaign even if you buy more.

(Buy a box with Jet Troopers instead of more Stormtroopers.)