56 minutes ago, ssgorik said:

Never played Imperial Assault, but I’ve got Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition and really like it. How do the apps compare? Is it a similar experience? I only play games solo btw.

I'd say "very similar". Since you've played Mansions of Madness, you'd be able to jump in and enjoy Imperial Assault quite easily. The major difference, of course, is the Star Wars theme and characters.

17 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

Something odd occurred during the first campaign mission:

The second Rebel base door didn’t open to reveal the final set of map tiles. Has this happened to anyone else? What exactly triggers this door to open? Is it based on the round or how many heroes are wounded? I've played this mission 4 times and this was the first time that this has happened.

Yes, it's based on how wounded your heroes are.

So now that I'm on my 2nd playthrough, I am seeing that whether you choose to bring allies to a mission significantly affects the difficulty level. Allies in this version are such a huge boon because they don't add any extra enemies, they give you an extra activation and extra damage+actions to spend on opening doors, and the app shoots at them rarely enough that you get a ton of mileage out of them and they also sponge enough damage to prevent the heroes from getting wounded. Luke has been especially amazing, since he heals himself, has an extremely reliable 2-damage Saber attack to finish off weakened enemies, and makes all the heroes hit harder with his rerolls.

After having cake-walked through the 2nd mission on my first playthrough on Hard due to having Luke with me, I decided this time to leave Luke behind and got completely steamrolled without even getting to the final objective, it was like night and day. So if you're looking for an extra challenge after Hard Mode, No Allies mode seems like a substantial step up in difficulty.

Another observation is that the scarcity of medkits make defensive abilities much more attractive (for me at least). I've been having the app regularly drop 7+ deployment groups on me after I open a door and always far enough away from the door that the other heroes can't effectively remove them before they activate, so you are forced to weather the assault and kill the enemies as they move towards you. Ko-Tun's Dig In ability has been amazing for countering the many attack buffs that enemies get from the app.

With the lack of a time limit, I have found the most effective strategy to be to clear a room completely, then spend a round moving all the heroes into position around a door but behind cover and resting, and then on the next round using my first action to open the door and then moving that hero away so that the E-Webs have nothing to shoot at and all the enemies rush through the door to shoot the heroes, creating a killbox. The heroes next to the door slaughter the troops that come through. Definitely never use a figure's 2nd action to open a door. If they're stuck standing in the door way after they open it, they are going to get wounded almost assuredly, especially in the later missions when you will often have double E-webs drop behind a door with a bunch of troopers.

3 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Allies in this version are such a huge boon because they don't add any extra enemies, they give you an extra activation and extra damage+actions to spend on opening doors, and the app shoots at them rarely enough that you get a ton of mileage out of them and they also sponge enough damage to prevent the heroes from getting wounded.

This is pretty refreshing to be honest. An ally acting as...well, an ally! Making things easier for the Rebels!

Unlike in the regular campaign where some of the earlier allies are pretty much auto skipped.

I really enjoy the idea of putting a mission limit on allies and scrapping the whole: "The Imperial player then gains threat equal to the deployment cost listed on the Ally card and may immediately resolve an optional deployment" rule altogether.

Problem number 1: Imperial player won't be too happy to play an ally supported mission.

Solution: If the Rebel players bring an ally and they loose the mission, the Imperial player gains an extra influence?

Problem number 2: Rebel players will simply save the ally for the finale.

Solution: Regular Ally rules apply for the finale

11 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

I really enjoy the idea of putting a mission limit on allies and scrapping the whole: "The Imperial player then gains threat equal to the deployment cost listed on the Ally card and may immediately resolve an optional deployment" rule altogether.

Problem number 1: Imperial player won't be too happy to play an ally supported mission.

Solution: If the Rebel players bring an ally and they loose the mission, the Imperial player gains an extra influence?

Problem number 2: Rebel players will simply save the ally for the finale.

Solution: Regular Ally rules apply for the finale

Yep, this is the house rule I have been using in my own campaigns. To address the issues you brought up

Problem 1: Like you said, this house rule cannot be used during finale missions, and Rebels can still choose to give Empire threat if they want to use an ally without losing it. This rule can only be used on Allies earned through side missions.

Problem 2: To make things fair for the Imperial player, I let them use any earned villains from Agenda missions in the same way, 0 threat, return to box after use, can't be played this way during finale, with the extra caveat that this can be the only group deployed during an optional deployment. Villain side missions are just as pointless as Ally side missions and this makes both of them much more appealing and helps to actually get those iconic star wars characters onto the table.

Hey. Got the app and been having a blast playing through the campaign. Finishing it tonight and will start a new one immediately. I bought this game to play with some friends after we finish our Pandemic campaign and I had been sitting on it for a year! Now I finally got to play it and it is a really good game!

Some thoughts on the app:

It is good to have a campaign and more content added but why can't we do our own campaigns? I would love to be able to write my own stories and play them using Imperial assault. Having the option to write dialogue (will definitely add neutrals in the campaign I will run as Imperials this Christmas), set up the map and enemy reinforcements would be great!

Another point is that the campaign is fun but it is not very good. To be honest I don't really know what is going on. Missions descriptions are bland and not very memorable. I can remember some details but they are really interchangeable. My fun is more because of the character building side of things and the interactions I can have with their abilities and the gameplay is really fun and engrossing (both things not related to the app per se. So only thing I can say is I really like the game!).

And no undo button is a huge bummer sometimes.

Anyway, will continue to play and record my impressions but really, a campaign generator would be amazing!

I really wish they had added the ability to track your tokens on screen. Right now it doesn't seem like there is a huge point to having the map after initial setup. Without tracking more in the app it seems like this could have been implemented as a new deck of cards.

At a minimum how is the app going to know to trigger traps, spawns, or map reveals base on position if I don't tell it where I am?

Would have been cool to see their dice roller integrated so when you make an attack it pulls up the correct dice for you. Make it an IAP if they're worried about cannibalizing the sales of the normal dice app.

4 hours ago, theruleslawyer said:

Would have been cool to see their dice roller integrated so when you make an attack it pulls up the correct dice for you.

1. Conditions (e.g. focused) - you would need to track them in the app.
2. Class cards that add (or remove) dice to the attack pool - you would need to enter whether you want to exhaust/deplete/suffer strain for them.

Imho unpredictable bonus abilities and imperial movement range completely killed any strategic and tactical component in campaign. I like the RPG features introduced by the app, but they needed to be much more deeper to overcome the lack of strategy and tactics. Plot is still too irrelevant. Also mixing tiers of items makes OP combos available too early in the game. I feel app campaign as a very different game that is somewhat mediocre compared to classic campaign (if you are lucky enough to get a balanced group to play classic campaign without snowballing toward one faction).

18 minutes ago, Golan Trevize said:

Imho unpredictable bonus abilities and imperial movement range completely killed any strategic and tactical component in campaign.

In the same way that not knowing what's on the other side of the door prevents any strategic components in the campaign?

I see that the same tactical elements are there as before, because choosing which hero to activate, when to run and when to attack, your target choice, taking advantage of synergies between abilities, and making the best out of random dice rolls are all still there. What has changed is not knowing exactly how dangerous each group might be, and you can take a gamble and not attack the biggest threat in the hope of them not activating next. (After a few missions you certainly know which figures are more dangerous in the app. Also, only the Bonus effects change - the movement ranges are pretty predictable.) But the imperial figures also use dice when attacking, so their level of danger has never been a certainty.

Is your human Imperial Player always predictable?

I agree that the app campaign is a different way to play, and there's nothing wrong in it being different.

What you say @a1bert is very true, although I'm missing the chess flavour. The app enrages when rebels are playing too well. I understand that's a way to balance out the game because imperial is an IA. However that enraging feels like the app is cheating. There's no challenge in playing against a cheater. That's how I feel playing the app.

On 12/25/2017 at 2:25 PM, Golan Trevize said:

What you say @a1bert is very true, although I'm missing the chess flavour. The app enrages when rebels are playing too well. I understand that's a way to balance out the game because imperial is an IA. However that enraging feels like the app is cheating. There's no challenge in playing against a cheater. That's how I feel playing the app.

Does it feel like cheating when the Imperial player gets extra threat or a free deployment after the heroes progress the mission in the regular campaign? Or when the Imperial player gives their activation a hidden bonus from an Agenda card? The app is basically just mimicking these aspects of the Imperial player from classic campaign. I have found the bonuses to be only slightly more powerful than the ones available to a mid campaign Imperial player through their class cards, Agenda cards and mission events.

You're not going to get the same level of PvP experience from the app, because it's not PVP and I think FFG was pretty clear about that in their announcement articles. PVE and PVP are going to be different no matter what game you play. This past year an AI was finally created that could defeat the best players in the world at poker, partially because it was able to truly randomize its own plays, something that a meat bag human will never be able to do. Honestly, if you have another player that wants to play PVP campaign, than you should just do that because it's way better than the app and of course you have 100x more variety to choose from. But the app is there for people who do not have a group or do not like playing 1vsall, and the app also removes the balance issues that classic campaign has by making the issue irrelevant. Being able to play a watered down version game is better than nothing at all for these players. I think you make fair points in your previous points and mostly agree, just wanted to put them in perspective and point out that given the app's purpose and target audience, they don't really detract from the experience that much.

Heres the article on how AI is able to outbluff humans in poker, really good read, and also slightly unsettling when you start to consider the implications: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/libratus/

19 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Does it feel like cheating when the Imperial player gets extra threat or a free deployment after the heroes progress the mission in the regular campaign? Or when the Imperial player gives their activation a hidden bonus from an Agenda card?

Agenda cards are the imperial equivalent of item cards. Agenda is secret but often a once per use. Items aren't secret but you can usually use them in any activation. I don't see cheating in this.

Extra threat and deployment from mission rules are usually used by mission rules to make the whole mission harder for rebels no matter how bad the imperial is. There are few cases where the mission rules boost the imperial when he's behind. Every mission event is justified by the theme of that mission and feels like part of the game. Having a stormtrooper rolling BGGG isn't justified by anything and thematically a Stormtrooper isn't able to hit anything, not even an elephant.

I agree that "cheating" resolves the problem of balance, but it's made in such a way it removed strategy from the game. The app doesn't play poker well. The app modifies imperial Deployment Cards when needed. In poker this would sound like having a 2-Q (3 stormtroopers) that at showdown gets magically replaced by A-A (because they gain a green die, the first trooper is also focused, they attack and move 7-8 spaces). You never know how dangerous units are. You don't know how many groups are in imperial hand and how many threat points can be deployed. Thematically rebels get into mission with no intel about the enemy forces in the area. It's suicide. There's no strategy in having no knowledge and there is no fun in just rolling dice. I would rather play King of Tokio if I'm interested in dice rolling.

I love this game for the strategical depth, it feels to me like a mix of Xcom enemy unknown and StarCraft. The app instead feels like a "do your action without thinking to consequences" because anything can happen at any time.

5 hours ago, Golan Trevize said:

Agenda cards are the imperial equivalent of item cards. Agenda is secret but often a once per use. Items aren't secret but you can usually use them in any activation. I don't see cheating in this.

Extra threat and deployment from mission rules are usually used by mission rules to make the whole mission harder for rebels no matter how bad the imperial is. There are few cases where the mission rules boost the imperial when he's behind. Every mission event is justified by the theme of that mission and feels like part of the game. Having a stormtrooper rolling BGGG isn't justified by anything and thematically a Stormtrooper isn't able to hit anything, not even an elephant.

I agree that "cheating" resolves the problem of balance, but it's made in such a way it removed strategy from the game. The app doesn't play poker well. The app modifies imperial Deployment Cards when needed. In poker this would sound like having a 2-Q (3 stormtroopers) that at showdown gets magically replaced by A-A (because they gain a green die, the first trooper is also focused, they attack and move 7-8 spaces). You never know how dangerous units are. You don't know how many groups are in imperial hand and how many threat points can be deployed. Thematically rebels get into mission with no intel about the enemy forces in the area. It's suicide. There's no strategy in having no knowledge and there is no fun in just rolling dice. I would rather play King of Tokio if I'm interested in dice rolling.

I love this game for the strategical depth, it feels to me like a mix of Xcom enemy unknown and StarCraft. The app instead feels like a "do your action without thinking to consequences" because anything can happen at any time.

You are right that the Agenda cards are most often a once per use bonus. However, I wonder how you build a strategy around that hidden information? Also, that is true that when playing against a real imperial player you know exactly how many deployment cards you might face, but you still don't know what you will be facing. Basing your strategy on blast with Fenn will not be very effective if the imperial player has single unit deployment cards only.

The bonus applied to imperial units are meant to make the game harder for rebels since the app does not track figure positioning. I don't think it kills any strategy at all. Those bonuses actually works like Boba Fett's Battle Discipline. Each round, the imperial player can boost Fett in a different way. Actually each figure (at least on normal mode) really only have 2 or 3 bonus variants

Thematically, if you take on an imperial base, you might have an idea you will face stormtroopers and imperial officers, but you might not know how many they are. In Return of the Jedi, I'm not sure Han's strike team were fully aware of the exact number of troops they were expecting to encounter on their way to destroyer the bunker. And despite the bonuses, it is still true that a pair of royal guards will represent a higher threat to your group of heroes than a squad of regular stormtroopers. And also I found in the app, you can actually take more time to clear a room since there are no hard round timer (yes minor/major peril can harass you). This actually added a bit of strategy compared to the base game where sometimes you just had to run for the objective over and over if you wanted to make it on time.

And to counter the bonuses, you may have notice that right after the first mission you can actually buy equipments from tier II and even tier III sometimes. And some of them are cheaper than the tag price. Not counting the bonus equipment you receive for free after each mission. So rebel heroes get stronger faster and can therefore deal with these unpredictable imperial units. At the start of the last mission, we took out 34 threat of imperial units in a single round (Gaarkhan, Drokatta, Gideon and Vinto .. I can tell you the wookiees received their medal at the end of the campaign ) . How are they suppose to be a threat without the bonuses?

Maybe the app did not turn out to be what you had in mind and that is perfectly fine, but you should maybe approach the app differently because the app and the 1vsall base game are meant to be two different ways of playing. A wise puppet once said you must unlearn what you have learnt

Enjoyed using the App solo and will run the campaign again because I lost the final mission near the end.

However, the app needs several things very, very soon because so far it still feels like a demo:

A much longer campaign

Using tiles and enemies from the expansions

It could also do something a standard campaign doesn't, add in a hero (like Jyn) as an ally using the skirmish card and not just the usual allies.

FFG also need to let us know if there will be any future boxed expansions. My guess (if we get anything) is that we may see a Rogue One/Solo expansion or even a revised core set for the sequel trilogy.