Edit: Disclaimer, I just want to say that I actually enjoy the campaign game more than skirmish, but I also like to see things objectively.

Ok, hear me out. I am in the camp that believes that as a dungeon-crawler campaign game, from a consumer's perspective, IA is close to being complete. Yes, the Star Wars universe offers infinitely more possibilities for future stories and settings, but having a digital app means that now we can get a lot of that as digital content without having to buy and store more plastic and more cardboard. From a physical standpoint, as a boardgame, IA is reaching critical mass of expansions, where we are close to getting to or even already are seeing "expansion bloat", where diminishing returns kicks in and it becomes infeasible for a majority of gamers who are not treating IA as a lifestyle game to keep up with the expansions. You could buy that 5th $60 expansion for this one game, or you could spend that money on a completely new game that has much more to discover, for only the most dedicated IA gamer does the first option really make the most sense value-wise. It doesn't help that the dungeon-crawler genre, which was fairly open in 2014, has become incredibly crowded with competitors due to all the kickstarter copycats after the initial runaway success of IA.

So in order for IA to keep releasing content into the distant future, they might want to switch gears from releasing content for a casual dungeon-crawler board game to releasing content for a competitive lifestyle game. These are the players that have allowed games like MTG and Netrunner and X-Wing to continue releasing new content multiple times a year and keep making money without engendering player fatigue. And that means switching from campaign-focused content with Skirmish as a secondary component to skirmish focused content with maybe some light campaign content. Campaign players would continue to receive new campaign content through the app, and perhaps through much smaller expansions such as the Hero&Villain packs that were being released in Descent which featured new campaign heroes and enemies, which would also conveniently be appealing to skirmish players. A $25 pack like this would be much more appealing to someone who already owns all the box expansions than maybe ANOTHER $60 box.

A fundamental switch like this would also allow skirmish to become much more accessible to more players. $60 boxes are the bane of skirmish accessibility. "Ooh, jet troopers look like a really cool unit that I'd like to add to my skirmish army. Oh, I have to pay $60 just to access this single unit? I think I'll just pass on this game altogether." This is a real thing (with a different figure) that I have heard prospective IA players say to me! Lifestyle gamers want to be able to expand their collections in small bites, they do not like being forced into big bundled buy-ins more than once. That is why X-Wing is doing so well even this far into its life and its new expansions are still selling, its much easier for someone to justify 4 $15 purchases across a couple of months than a single $60 purchase. Its just our human nature in action, we feel small losses less acutely than we do a single large loss even if logically it adds up to the same amount or even more money being spent in an equal amount of time. IA figure packs are perfect for this and I think FFG would be wise to switch over from big box expansions to more focus on figure packs. How awesome would it be if Weequay Pirates, Jet Troopers, Probe Droids, Nexu etc were available in figure boosters? How many more players that saw that many skirmish lists contain multiples of these elite groups and were turned off of skirmish altogether when they realized it required them to buy multiple big boxes, would have bought these figure packs in a heartbeat and actually been excited to play skirmish! The additional purchases from those players would have made up for the players that double-purchased Jabba's Realm boxes, and we would have many more skirmish players to boot!

By the way, switching physical content to being skirmish focused doesn't mean campaign stops getting new content. Figure packs always come with at least something for campaign, whether its a new side mission, new item, or new Agenda cards. The app would be a primary outlet for new story content, but FFG could also release new campaign books with tiles and heroes in a $20 product. All of this makes content cheaper for everyone.

To be honest, after Jabba's Realm came out, I kind of looked at my collection and thought "I don't really think I need anymore stuff for campaign" and I wasn't going to buy the next big box expansion. But I ended up begrudgingly buying HotE anyway, and you know why? Because right around that time my previously-dead IA skirmish community had an unexpected influx of new blood, and I found myself wanting to play skirmish again, and wanting to be able to actually play Darth Vader and Han Solo in skirmish. It was those **** skirmish cards that got me to buy a $60 box. But you know what, they only have so many more iconic characters they can "fix" and lock behind a $60 box before that stops working. I think giving the huge focus on campaign content a rest in physical content and relegating it to the app and to figure packs might be a good long-term strategy for the health of the game. Anyway that's my app-based wild speculation rant.

As a primarily campaign player who dabbles in skirmish occasionally, I've got to say that I think this is... really not a bad idea at all.

It's super tough to get a large group together often enough to play through multiple campaigns, and like you said I'm willing to bet that it's only the real die-hards who have gone through them all with five people. And even then, with branching paths and different heroes/classes/etc. there's value to be had playing through the same campaign again.

Personally, I consider myself pretty into this game (and I have a like-minded friend) and I've still only played through 2 full campaigns and 2 mini-campaigns in a 1v1 setting. I've played all of them a few times solo (playing both sides), but I think that new app missions should hopefully fill that niche in a much more rewarding way.

If I had to pick one downside to your new model from a campaign perspective it would be that I would miss getting new campaign items and especially heroes. But they've included items in figure packs before (Greedo, Obi-Wan, Inquisitor) and there's nothing to say that some of the new figures couldn't be standalone "campaign hero packs" or something that also work as skirmish characters, the way they do now. And I mean technically I could survive with only (lol) 19 heroes to choose from, but figuring out the different XP paths for new heroes is one of the highlights for me.

Yep, I mentioned that campaign players could get a now-and-then pack that featured just heroes, tiles and a book that would only cost like $20-30 and that would also be appealing to skirmish players that want to use those heroes in skirmish. Another thing they could start doing is releasing generic class decks like what Descent, and heroes could choose a generic class deck to run alongside their character-specific one. That would increase the combo possibilities for all the different heroes exponentially and breathe new life into old heroes.

I think the app will be the source of most of the campaign content now. FFG can't sell IA on their webstore or at conventions, they have to rely on Hasbro distribution for sales. (Because Hasbro suck). App content will be sold direct (IAP) or via an app store and bypass all the bull Hasbro has put in FFGs way.

I Dont Think Making it A Skirmish Focussed Game Will Work Because LEGION Is Aimed AT That Exact Same Group. The pool Of Skirmish Players Will Probably Shrink When Legion Arrives While The Campaign Pool Will Increase When The App Arrives, It Will Stay Campaign Focussed.

Digital Campaigns That Combine Big Box Expansions Will Sell Lots Of Physical Expansions. A Digital Version Of The Skirmish Game May Make An Appearance In The Future.

I don't expect much more SKUs of IA because of Legion. However I don't think IA and Legion is aimed at the exact same group. Legion is a miniatures hobby that involves a lot of painting and terrain building and not much gaming. It is possible Legion will get people more interested in IA skirmish simply because it is far more accessible and there will be people picking up IA because the app. Either way, I don't see FFG taking a strategy that pulls people away from Legion and into IA. I think FFG is banking on people joining the miniatures hobby cause star wars even if they aren't hobbyist that want to create terrain and paint all day. Be interesting to see if that actually happens. I predict a lot of early sales of Legion and many used copies on ebay later on.

I am still worried about how power-creep will go into the campaign. Though I am not against more blisters with older units, it does present a shelf clutter issue for stores. Ehhh. I am mainly in the game for campaign work, but I am biased.

I have never touched the skirmish component of the game and I own all content released so far. I was over joyed at the release of the co-op app and hope they continue to focus on campaign and let legion serve it's purpose for .vs type games.

I expect them to burn through the remaining OT/Rebels/Rogue One content before we ever see a version 2.0, but as far as campaign vs. skirmish I definitely would prefer (as a mainly campaign player) if they stopped putting out boxes and just focused on figure packs.

When RTL released the box content slowed down to a halt, so I imagine we could see the same for IA until they are ready to re release it with the new trilogy in mind.

I think Campaign players are the "silent" users you don't see at tournaments or on the forums. I'm pretty sure that FFG would not put out skirmish-only expansions. I'm also pretty sure FFG would not put out App-only physical content. What would be the financial decision behind excluding the majority of the customer base?

I totally get where skirmish players are coming from. You guys have it rough.

but a fix to that isn't to make the campaign players suffer more than you.

this is a campaign game woth a skirmish game tacked on. It's pretty difficult to fix that in a way that doesn't alienate the other half of the player base...

In case anyone would be interested, here's my opinion Personally, I want loads of new box expansions for new environments and interesting tiles, pluss campaigns and all the contents stuff. I'm in this for the campaigns and for me box expansions are the most treasured publications.

I think when IA 2.0 comes out, it will introduce 2 new factions. Either Galactic Republic & Separtists OR Resistance & First Order. Mercs/Scum will still be same, but I think those 4 new factions would introduce a whole new time period for all of us gamers. I mean the Prequels with Clone Troopers and such just screams Special Missions against the Separtists during the Clone Wars. And the Resistance against the First Order, will allow IA campaign to continue for unknown years with new material and new models and such. And with that means continue ability to keep Skirmish fresh and different.

~D

On 25-11-2017 at 1:37 PM, angelman2 said:

In case anyone would be interested, here's my opinion Personally, I want loads of new box expansions for new environments and interesting tiles, plus campaigns and all the contents stuff.
I'm in this for the campaigns and for me box expansions are the most treasured publications.

And on top of that, don't you get a lot more content for your money from boxes compared to ally/villain boosters?
I'm all for big boxes with a lot of content - which also is the better deal price-wise.

On 11/26/2017 at 10:00 AM, Findariel said:

And on top of that, don't you get a lot more content for your money from boxes compared to ally/villain boosters?

For campaign players, yes. For skirmish, players get a lot less and actually have to buy multiple box expansions because FFG short-changes the number of deployment cards compared to the number of figures in a box. Ally and villain packs are much nicer for skirmish when you need multiples of the same unit for a list.

But even for campaign players there is also diminishing returns in full effect when it comes to boxes. Like I said in my original post, how many players can actually say they've played through all 6 campaigns with a group of 3+? Quite a lot I'm sure, but far from the majority of people that own imperial assault for the campaign. How many players can say they've played through every campaign twice with 3+ players to see the other half of the missions they didn't play the first time? How many people can say they've played through every single campaign mission they own? I would guess only a very small percentage of hardcore players. Every time they release another $60 box, more and more campaign players will start thinking "hmm, I kind of already have a ton of stuff for this game, maybe we should just replay Return to Hoth, it's been over 2 years since we played that and we could try out different heroes this time. And why shell out more money when we know there's another app campaign coming up that costs next to nothing, and we could save that money to buy that hot new FFG game that's coming out?".

Skirmish players don't really think like this. Skirmish players keep buying new stuff because they HAVE to if they want to compete. But you know what, skirmish players hate $60 boxes because bundling sucks when you just want to buy the stuff that you need for YOUR list. So it just makes sense would probably be a win for the majority of players and for FFG to discontinue the big boxes, and just go with xpacs and maybe the occasional mini campaign box, but keep churning out app content for campaign players which also gives new players and solo players incentive to buy old product without intimidating them with more and more and more $60 expansions. The super hardcore campaign players would lose out some, but not really that much, and the average players would benefit.

I like having the app as an alternative, but the app is co-op while the campaign is one-vs-many. I haven't played either yet (only skirmish), but I think I'd prefer one-vs-many to co-op. Co-op is easier to get to the table though.

I'm glad there's all three right now. Just saying I'm not sure giving up one-vs-many is a good thing.