It will be a bit emotional so i apologize in advance.

I am in deep love with Imperial Assault. But my love is not nearly as strong as the majority's of the IA community.

Here in the forums i apriciate the community what is kind, nice and always ready to help.

For me to see an article always on top in the forum called:

"Is IA going to die" or "I'm New - Maybe I don't get it - But Imperial Assault is starting to be a disappointment"
is a real pain.
Those who gave those names are usualy not to active in the forum and i think they not even realize what they do with giving those names...

I an not a snowflake and i am not offended but a bit pissed.
I am sure that those are real concerns and not "clickbait" articles but did we realy need to keep feed those with responses?

Why cant we discuss the future of the game under less banshee like named articles?

This article is trying to be the first step on this road

I second that. True, this is a forum about Imperial Assault. I love coming here to get confirmation about how great this game is and for rule clarifications. I am getting tired of all of the Legion talk.

Legion is not a great game! Changing the name from Rune Wars to Star Wars will not entice me. Yes, many are looking forward to it which is cool, but why would it take Imperial Assault players away? Just because there are Star Wars miniatures that require painting!?

Legion is not that Star Wars thematic. H_ell, X-wing is more thematic that you're actually fighting with star ships, albeit none of the popular ones exist in the movies, the FAQ requires a law degree, and the game is totally broken, but still. The newest legion article talks about the ground assault on Hoth. The ones where the rebels got slaughtered! So, should I buy rebel troopers who hide in trenches and snowspeeders whose blasters aren't strong enough to damage an AT-AT's armour? I could imagine a conversation among two Legion players that goes a little like this:

Friend #1 - "Let's play Legion and re-create the Battle of Hoth!"

Friend #1 and Friend #2 simultaneously - "I'll be the Imperials!"

Simple formula. You are excited about Legion? Great. There's a Legion thread.

You're worried about IA? There's nothing to worry about. Legion will never get off the ground. Legion is not a board game, and thus has some barriers to play which has been analyzed to death by many on this forum.

Finally, one thing we have that nobody has. Greedo*. GIA. The end.

*yes he's a crew in X-wing, but nobody ever plays him.

That was a great read NeverBett.

I'm of course with you guys on that.

Our local IA group isn't near as big as I'd like it to be.

I'm not on the legion bandwagon at all.

I think some people out there are having concerns probably seeing Legion as a legit competitor to Imperial Assault skirmish mode. I for myself owe almost everything from IA (just missing Greedo!! ). I don't see myself starting over with Legion. Anyway I see them as 2 different games. IA is everything I love about a dungeon crawling game, and icing on the cake, it's Star Wars related (sorry Warhammer quest you're going back collecting dust on the shelves ) Legion is about army battles which is not my type of game. And as others have mentioned IA skirmish and Legion are not on the same scale at all.

If IA only had campaign modes I don't think we would have this discussion. But since IA also came with the Skirmish mode, that is why some people are afraid of Legion. Afraid IA might not support Skirmish anymore once Legion will have taken its place on the market. Is it a valid concern? Yes, no, maybe, to be honest I have no idea since I don't attend Skirmish events and can't tell if Legion is being discussed during these events as a threat.

If FFG stops supporting IA, I can imagine the skirmish community fading out slowly because of lack of tournaments, but why would it mean the campaign community would have to do exactly the same? There is a lot of stuff already available out there to play campaigns for a while without too much redundancy. And what's next after that? Well some folks have already created campaigns linking existing missions with some interesting narratives. I'm not even talking about other folks who have created custom missions from scratch! And with such a lucrative license as Star Wars, I doubt we have hear the last of IA campaigns (and hopefully Skirmish modes for those who play it). There are so much materials that fit this game that we have yet to see : Final act of RotJ (ok maybe not exactly but I want my ewoks!!!), Rogue One, Rebels, Comic books, novels. And of course they could go with something totally different and unexpected like the HotE expansion mode. (We have already quite a lot of forest tiles, but a Liberation of Kashyyyk themed campaign could be fun since we already have quite a few wookiees! Or maybe a campaign in the streets of Theed City could be fun!)

Also, seriously, who believes that FFG would have spent more than a year on developing a 5-mission free campaign app just to stop supporting its product after that?

@Ace_of_Spades

I would speculate that the reason you see more doom and gloom relating to the status of the game is that it garners more debate and discussion than creating an echo chamber of praise, or a Stuart Smalley Daily Affirmation.

I would also speculate that what you're hearing is coming from people who primarily play the game competitively. The concern there, in general is that the game already isn't the biggest thing on FFG's competitive radar both within and outside of the Star Wars license, and that businesses will do what they do and move support to something more popular, in a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

As a new skirmish player, I think this is the biggest mental hurdle for people to get over is that the organized play community is significantly smaller than X-Wing or Destiny (or what they hope Legion will be) and that buying into a game solely for its competitive merits when it's not seeing large events isn't a good endorsement. As well, the product SKU's are designed to service both communities of players from the Skirmish and Campaign players.

If you play campaign primarily, especially now that FFG is producing a companion app to facilitate solitaire play, then none of this should really matter to you either way. Even if they stopped this game today, you'll have a wealth of material to mess with from the boxes, and tons of chrome to buy with the figure packs.

Skirmish is a different beast, and that's where all your negativity generally comes from.

People will throw up their wild ideas on more SKU's that stockists will need to keep on hand (in a game that already requires you to merchandise ~40 SKU's already) in order to turn this into a Skirmish-centric game, but generally it shakes out to something FFG has no interest or history of doing. Map tiles are a pain in the butt to cart around, which is why as a community, we all looked the other way and made use of pre-printed maps and only require people to roll out the official ones (or just use tiles) for the Regionals events and higher.

I feel like we do a good job collectively of streamlining entry and facilitating the competitive game in ways like this, but people also need to make their peace with the fact that this game, like most product line games out there, will have an expiry date. Maybe FFG already knows it, maybe they don't. We don't know either way. But the day will come when it does, and getting angry about the entropy of expansion gaming isn't productive, in my mind.

Now, if you want to grow the community in terms of player attendance, that's going to need to be player driven. You need to find people who will take on the thankless task of organizing and hyping these things on their own time, and convincing stores to make room for them.

If Magic, X-Wing, and Destiny are all hot ticket items that makes stores money just from OP admissions, it's going to be a hard sell to have them block out space for IA if you're only expecting 12 people to show up but want to have the potential to have more show up unannounced. Generally if you're booking an event, the venue wants the money guaranteed on some level, and that's your key to success in getting store support; you're going to need to front the money at the very least for the kit so your store assumes no risk in the matter.

I frankly don't have that time in my life currently, which is why I'm not out there doing it myself, though I do regularly attend our local Premiere events and make it out to a quarterly kit event most of the time. But that's the other problem; once we do the quarterly kit, that's it for the quarter. We all have the attendance promo, and a couple of people got the rare promo. Assuming you can get a Regional and hit a Store championship, that's 6 events for the year. Once every couple of months isn't going to keep the hype alive.

You'll need to come up with other incentivizing shiny things to get people out there, and if you look at the history of X-Wing, this was supported from FFG with things like Kessell Run and Imdaar Alpha (to make up for product delivery shortfalls) and local players making their own prizes. Generally offering up product isn't helpful because we all tend to keep up with the big boxes. The store itself can make a gift card prize fund, but then it comes back to who spent the money on the kit in the first place, and if they want to absorb that loss as a generous gift, or do they want to make their money back on admission, using the rest to cover the prize fund, which will then seem limited when only 12-15 people show up.

For myself, I go for the social aspect. I get to interact with more or less the same group of personalities and have a good time. Larger events are like Imperial Assault Speed Dating, where we rotate around, meeting new faces, and making new friends and rivals in the process. I feel genuinely bad that I'm missing Worlds this year, because I've got some salty run-backs I want to take another crack at, and I'm sure there's someone gunning for me likewise. It's all part of the fun.

I think that's the key to getting people to embrace it as a hobby and an activity; focus on the people and try to keep your local group professional and courteous and you might get a few more jump-ons when they see how un-toxic this game's people can be.

For me legion does look enticing, but I don't have the time to paint/play the games I own already so it's an easy pass for me.

i also find very anti-thematic. Since when do the rebels wage open war against the imperials? It's calculated ambush style attacks. If they ever just decided to meet on the open field they would get crushed. Are we to just pretend the empire decided not to flex its full muscle and "give the rebels a fair shot!" At the fight by bringing equal numbers ? lol. The whole game concept to me is flawed.

but the frustrating part is watching it surpass IA pre release. I've spent a lot of my free time attempting to build a skirmish community in my area. I had limited success and I wouldn't really call it a community but at least if you really want a game there is an avenue to attempt. Now legion is already more popular with more players ready to go. So that really sucks and is frustrating to watch.

Meh, I think the relative silence over the past few months has people (including, admittedly myself) pretty frustrated.

The community probably could be a more positive place, but FFG could also do their part by throwing us a bone every now and then.

5 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Meh, I think the relative silence over the past few months has people (including, admittedly myself) pretty frustrated.

The community probably could be a more positive place, but FFG could also do their part by throwing us a bone every now and then.

You even started playing Descent!

1 minute ago, The Cocky Rooster said:

You even started playing Descent!

Yep- and seeing all of the awesome content they've added (seriously, for those of you unfamiliar with Descent, they probably have more than three times the number of heroes that IA does,

There's also 59 distinct monster types, in comparison to the 27ish we have in IA.

What I'm saying is, we don't need to die- there's a lot of room to grow!

(there's that's my quote for optimism for the month)

I own all of IA, and fully painted, my group has slowed down and moved onto other games. But, I will continue to play LotA, solo at least, just finished my 6th play-through this weekend. I also still play Road to Legend with my Full Descent collection.

This past week I have pre-ordered a bunch of Legion stuff along with terrain. I have 3 friends that are interested in trying Legion. There's enough room in my collection for both.

I have noticed that very few IA posters have posted in the Legion forums.

@subtrendy2

I have mixed feelings on the Descent heroes. I enjoy the premise that the hero is then paired with a specific class deck derived from an overall class type, but I also found that as my collection grew, it lead to a bit of over analyzing when starting up a new campaign.

I also enjoy being able to quickly sift through the IA heroes, pick 4 and go. For a newer player, especially newer to tabletop gaming in general, going with "the wookiee with the big axe" is an easier bottom line than pairing it with a chosen class deck.

One thing I don't miss from Descent is the "Miss" result. I'm glad they moved it to white defence dice, and while we're on the subject, I'm glad Focus and the green die came in the IA core so that you don't have a ton of pointless green dice at the end of your collection.

I'm sure we'll end off IA's campaign life with a similar trove of content to Descent, allowing for a ton of replay down the line both in and out of the app.

I certainly hope so, @cleardave!

Yeah, my Rebels actually have Analysis Paralysis pretty bad when choosing heroes already. We usually have our first night of campaign exclusively as a campaign setup one, we don't even play a mission. It can take hours.

I can see how Descent's heroes could be daunting once you get a ton, but I plan on trying to use the "archetype" attribute to our advantage- tell them that they should gravitate to archetypes that they're interested in playing, thus eliminating about 75% of the components for each player. My four Rebels currently each play in a way that ironically mirrors that Mage, Warrior, Healer, and Scout, too- so I think in my specific situation, this could work out pretty well.

1 hour ago, FrogTrigger said:

i also find very anti-thematic. Since when do the rebels wage open war against the imperials? It's calculated ambush style attacks. If they ever just decided to meet on the open field they would get crushed. Are we to just pretend the empire decided not to flex its full muscle and "give the rebels a fair shot!" At the fight by bringing equal numbers ? lol. The whole game concept to me is flawed.

but the frustrating part is watching it surpass IA pre release. I've spent a lot of my free time attempting to build a skirmish community in my area. I had limited success and I wouldn't really call it a community but at least if you really want a game there is an avenue to attempt. Now legion is already more popular with more players ready to go. So that really sucks and is frustrating to watch.

Agreed. The game doesn't make sense to me, while IA does for the reasons you state above.

Also, I see what you mean. It's been tough keeping the Toronto community going, but we still keep it alive. We average maybe 6-10 people for tournaments. Next time you're in town, let us know.

@subtrendy2

I think your players need to just jump on "this hero looks cool" and let that guide their decision. I've always found that sped up the opening maintenance of building a team. This problem only expands as the game expands.

Pick up Descent 2E, Imperial Assault, or another game like Sword & Sorcery as just a Core box and your choices are limited, making it easier to get playing. 50+ heroes and classes to choose from will in practical terms be a bloat on the game for a lot of new players. For the person that owns the content, it does indeed let you play well beyond a normal perception of an expiry date, but for myself, who likes games for the long haul, that's a boon to look forward to.

@FrogTrigger

All you really need to get your "ground battle" fix is this game and maybe some time spent buying up some miniatures on the second hand market. I would love a copy of this with some component updates, maybe some rules tweaks if needed, but it won't even make it through a pitch meeting because what you see is literally all there is to the game. No expansions needed. And that's not the most enticing idea for getting into our collection addiction wallets.

I'm not presenting that as an evil thing either. They have a right to do business through whatever legal and ethical means they can, and the expandable model has given us the wonderful package that is Imperial Assault. But let's be real, that's where the money's at. Candy Crush didn't get made as free mobile app for the sake of charity.

Competing with and taking Games Workshop's (and others, like Privateer Press) market share is good business. The market is already established, and you're supplying an alternative product that is instantly recognizable to existing hobbyists and potential new gamers alike.

A while ago ffg claimed rune Wars would not be like x wing where you have to buy cross faction just for an upgrade, did they stay true to that? Is that the model for legion to?

The model for legion seems to be even better, than rune Wars. All the neutral upgrades are available in abundance in the first wave and are pretty nonessential, they also only really apply to that specific unit. It doesn’t look like they are trying to sell cardboard in this game just plastic.

I think FFG will stop promoting IA skirmish due to legion. I also think that IA has a comfortable nich as a campaign game that they will continue to support

^^ I'd be curious to know what FFG has ever done to promote skirmish? (Note that I'm not trying to be a smart-*** or anything, I'm genuinely curious)

If it's just a matter of putting together some store prize kits and scheduling regional/national tournaments, I really can't imagine that that's much of a drain on their resources. They've already got that infrastructure in place for X-Wing, Destiny and the like - what does adding IA into the mix cost? The price of producing a run of dice using plastic with a slightly different sparkle, or of paying a graphic artist to take an existing picture of Bossk from another game and stick it onto the IA promo card layout? Even if interest in skirmish were to drop with a Legion release (which I don't think it will) it doesn't seem like it would take many extra figure pack sales to make up for the little bit of effort that goes into keeping the organized play running.

And likewise, if they're already going to be releasing new units for use with the campaign I can't imagine that it takes that much extra effort to allow people to use them in skirmish as well. I mean I guess it's extra play-testing, and the balance may be a little different when paired with certain command cards or what have you, but if you're already going through 80% of the unit design process for the campaign players why would FFG not spend that last bit of effort to cash in on the extra skirmish sales?

16 minutes ago, ManateeX said:

^^ I'd be curious to know what FFG has ever done to promote skirmish? (Note that I'm not trying to be a smart-*** or anything, I'm genuinely curious)

If it's just a matter of putting together some store prize kits and scheduling regional/national tournaments, I really can't imagine that that's much of a drain on their resources. They've already got that infrastructure in place for X-Wing, Destiny and the like - what does adding IA into the mix cost? The price of producing a run of dice using plastic with a slightly different sparkle, or of paying a graphic artist to take an existing picture of Bossk from another game and stick it onto the IA promo card layout? Even if interest in skirmish were to drop with a Legion release (which I don't think it will) it doesn't seem like it would take many extra figure pack sales to make up for the little bit of effort that goes into keeping the organized play running.

And likewise, if they're already going to be releasing new units for use with the campaign I can't imagine that it takes that much extra effort to allow people to use them in skirmish as well. I mean I guess it's extra play-testing, and the balance may be a little different when paired with certain command cards or what have you, but if you're already going through 80% of the unit design process for the campaign players why would FFG not spend that last bit of effort to cash in on the extra skirmish sales?

LOL! I was just about to post similar comments and observations!

I watched an old youtube interview Team Covenant did with Paul Winchester back in 2014 before they released IA. It was pretty clear from that video that campaign is the largest focus of their game design. Like skirmish was an afterthought. So, how is that any different from now? And like you, I really don't see how much it could cost much more to piggy back skirimish material with the campaign portion of the game.

It's also clear that they have stuff in the works that is currently getting play tested. That and it seems that they've made some changes in the design team over the years. Absolutely a new wave is coming. This time, it will integrate with the ap. I imagine that they have poured a lot of money into that and will want to recoup some of those costs.

The campaign isn't dying any time soon. Therefore, the skirmish will live too as it has since the beginining!

I hope I make it to Worlds this year. I plan to hunt down the designers for some interviews that I will post online.

@manatee_x @NeverBetTheFett

The model you're describing is already what's happening. All that needs to happen for Skirmish to continue to expand is a smaller focus on "newer units" and more attention to bringing DOA content to a point that it becomes playable at a competitive level.

Imagine how much more fun you'd have agonizing over list building if Boba Fett, the AT-ST, General Weiss, Dengar, and Royal Guard Champion were all viable units? This is 4-5 cards (depending on whether a AT-ST fix would be a separate card from Weiss) that can easily be slotted into another campaign box. We're at a point with Skirmish where I don't think we're objectively starved for units, and we have plenty of existing units that just don't go to the table.

I'd happily take less overall "new" Skirmish content if it meant quickly bringing all of that content back to the table.

Pretend for a moment that those 5 units were all "fixed", nevermind other things like Kayn and many of the Rebel campaign heroes. If the game stopped right there, and only rotated maps, the game would still be kept somewhat fresh by virtue of having different combinations of scenarios to work with.

I know that FFG is generally rotating forward into new boxes/packs for the maps, but I have a binder full of Skirmish map inserts that could all make for interesting scenarios, which would also change how we value different units in any given rotation.

All they need to do is what they've been doing; release new box sets (at least one per year) that provides another great campaign adventure (and all that entails), some skirmish unit cards to carry over any new heroes/units into Skirmish, new map tiles, and toss in a couple of fixes for those older DOA skirmish units. We don't really need a new condition each expansion to make things gimmicky like Descent that way. Just good mission design for campaign and skirmish, and to paraphrase our Prime Minister, "the (game) will balance itself".

4 minutes ago, cleardave said:

Imagine how much more fun you'd have agonizing over list building if Boba Fett, the AT-ST, General Weiss, Dengar, and Royal Guard Champion were all viable units?

As someone who actually plays the royal guard champion as is, I would love for this to happen.

I think HOTE, with the brawler upgrades for skirmish have shown they are not abandoning skirmish.

They clearly put a lot into upgrades between Vader, Han, and Chewie. And despite not having an article lately, I'm confident that Boba's fix is coming soon.

I'm less confident about the RGC, but I really hope so. He's amazing.

15 minutes ago, ImperialOfficer said:

As someone who actually plays the royal guard champion as is, I would love for this to happen.

I think HOTE, with the brawler upgrades for skirmish have shown they are not abandoning skirmish.

They clearly put a lot into upgrades between Vader, Han, and Chewie. And despite not having an article lately, I'm confident that Boba's fix is coming soon.

I'm less confident about the RGC, but I really hope so. He's amazing.

Yup. RGC is a beast. I played him with Palps recently and it made him even more dangerous. I will definitely bring him in future lists.

I also think that they will carry on with the trend of fixing old figures. It makes complete sense, as cleardave points out above would not cost that much. I play Boba all the time, but like you would enjoy seeing him get fixed. I am now convinced that he works best with prey on the weak. Yes, it costs 1 more point to an already expensive figure, but man does it sure come in handy for Boba, who will have limited attacks. Might as well make them all count!

Oh we are definitely getting a box a year for the foreseeable future and probably a wave of character blisters attached. And while I don’t think they care much about competive skirmish they will still support casual skirmish with new maps and and cards because that costs them next to nothing and increases selling potential of the item exponentially because interest from the existing customer base.

Honestly, the only reason it is taking this long to get a new update is they are still making all the old stuff compatible with App and probably want any new stuff compatible at launch.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if they sold app expansions for 4.99 in the future. They wouldn’t have made the app if they were canceling the game

22 minutes ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

Yup. RGC is a beast. I played him with Palps recently and it made him even more dangerous. I will definitely bring him in future lists.

I ran him with Vader, it was awesome.

Was RGC, Vader, 3 officers, zillo, and I think rjets maybe. Anyway, it was awesome.

Skirmish is awesome and going nowhere. FFG has spent some considerable time and effort fully fleshing out the skirmish game. Pulling the ripcord now that it’s in the most balanced and competitive state it has ever been in would just be foolish. IA has a stable base of players that will buy whatever they put out and new app players are stumbling into skirmish and asking beginner skirmish questions on here everyday. Again, skirmish is awesome and doing just fine, thank you.

Now, if they’ll just make some *expletive* bleed tokens already...