1 hour ago, neosmagus said:

Mansions of Madness second edition released new tiles, heroes, etc, and didn't worry about compatibility with the older set or expansions, but offered a conversion kit to let you use the old components in the new system, and then released those components in new edition expansions for those that didn't have 1st edition already... So that could work with IA....

Conversion kits could work, but what would be the point?

Mansions of Madness 2nd ed. made away with a lot of cards, setup work (which needed to be 100% correct), and complexity by hiding all of it behind the app. You get less in the box for a better playing experience. In the conversion kits you pretty much buy a new game to use your old miniatures (which is about what X-Wing 2.0 is doing, but for different reasons than switching to app).

Conversion kits would provide a way to migrate to a 2nd edition of Imperial Assault without invalidating the existing expansions, but what are the reasons to have a 2nd edition in the first place?

The thread asks what do you want to see in a hypothetical 2nd edition, but without knowing why 2nd edition was necessary in the first place, you could just as well ask what you want to see in future expansions.

Don’t Think of a new core as a replacement for old the core but as a parallel product.

The original core and expansions are their own ecosystem. The new core would be its own thing and a new base for future expansions to build on.

I do think that skirmish mode could use a 1.2 set of updated unit cards or an app like x-wing. The campaign mode cards are fine as is.

IA biggest problems are not mechanical, they are in set up time and product format.

2 hours ago, a1bert said:

Conversion kits could work, but what would be the point?

Mansions of Madness 2nd ed. made away with a lot of cards, setup work (which needed to be 100% correct), and complexity by hiding all of it behind the app. You get less in the box for a better playing experience. In the conversion kits you pretty much buy a new game to use your old miniatures (which is about what X-Wing 2.0 is doing, but for different reasons than switching to app).

Conversion kits would provide a way to migrate to a 2nd edition of Imperial Assault without invalidating the existing expansions, but what are the reasons to have a 2nd edition in the first place?

The thread asks what do you want to see in a hypothetical 2nd edition, but without knowing why 2nd edition was necessary in the first place, you could just as well ask what you want to see in future expansions.

I wouldn't say a 2nd edition is necessary any more than another expansion is necessary. At least not for a campaign exclusive player like me.

But I would say I laid out my reasoning for things that could stand to be improved. The agenda set system is repetitive and doesn't feel very effective. I'd also say the same can for most villains and allies. Earning them is such a matter of chance that it has never really seemed worth it for me. Addressing those two things right there would have such a fundamental change to the game that I think that would warrant calling it a 2nd edition.

7 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

The agenda set system is repetitive and doesn't feel very effective. I'd also say the same can for most villains and allies....

Addressing those two things right there would have such a fundamental change to the game that I think that would warrant calling it a 2nd edition.

I don't think I have heard that the agenda set system is repetitive. My largest gripe is not getting enough influence when you keep losing. It's a reward issue, not an agenda rule issue. (Even when there are some sets that are better than others, if you always pick the same 6 sets and the same imperial class, then it's more of a player issue.) The agenda card limit already encourages to play agenda cards, so you should get more varied missions. With the seemingly rising rebel hero power curve the amount of influence could be increased.

Use of allies and villains have already had changes in expansions.

Even with more encompassing changes, would neither of them need other than errata though?

Another example: the time period rule still exists, but no new expansion uses it.

And even if the core box gets the string "2nd edition" due to rules change, would the contents change other than the rulebook and a few errata? The old core box would still be compatible.

Working on the assumption that in this context "2nd Edition" means "rules changes", I'd like to see:

• Points adjustments for various units (when was the last time you saw anyone use a Nexu in Skirmish? When was the last time you saw a tournament without eWeequays everywhere?). This could equally be in an errata though.
• Time periods restored. Just change the rule to say "this is an optional rule, for a more open-ended experience ignore it". Then provide time periods for the stuff that didn't bother with it. This could also be in an errata.
• A couple of Imperial classes (Hutt Mercenaries, and the one that deals out Strain, can't remember what it's called) are just broken good, and no fun. Again... this could be errata'd.
• Changes to Allies and Villains. My group of Rebel players never want to take Allies because of the Threat bonus it would give me, so they don't really want to do Ally Side Missions either. And as the Imperial player, I feel much the same way about Villains. The entire mechanic needs a fresh look.
• Line of Sight... I mean, personally, I think it's brilliant. I think it's a really clever way to resolve something that I've never seen done well in any square-based boardgame. I also find it fairly simple to resolve. But my rebel players (who don't religiously pore over the rules and appendices), and probably half my opponents in tournaments, just don't get it . The single most commonly asked question that I hear constantly while playing this game is, "can I see him from here?", and often the answer is unexpected. That's a bad sign, so again, this needs an overhaul.
• Command Cards. Again, I like them as they are, but a really common complaint I hear from people I try to introduce to Skirmish is that choosing units to 40 points is easy, then they have to build this entire second list of other cards that (despite how many of them there are) you probably know exactly which ones you're going to take every time, so why have them at all? And the inaccessibility of them (I have every expansion yet released for this game, so I'm fine; new players won't have that) is a real blocker to getting people to pick the game up. To get started, they need at least one Core Set, at least one big-box expansion with the tiles for the current tournament missions, all the units they want to use, and a bunch more unit packs they don't want to use but will be handicapped if they don't pick them up for the Command Cards. That's not ideal... as it stands, there's a very, very hard limit on how popular/successful IA Skirmish and Tournaments are ever going to be.

Overall though... I just don't see much need for a 2nd Ed. Effectively, Imperial Assault is already Descent 3rd Ed (and it's a much better game than Descent 2nd) so it's already had two previous editions full of mistakes to learn from, it's already pretty polished. More expansion packs? Yes please. A mission designer? Yes please! More for the app? Sure, I guess. Campaign books (not full boxes) that don't need more models etc.? Yeah, that sounds good. But a second edition...? I don't really see enough wrong with what we have, for that to be worthwhile.

Oooh, ooh, ooh! Just thought - there is something I would like to see, but that wouldn't need a new edition to do it; but it does fulfil the criteria in the original post about advancing the gameplay or adding a new system in some way.

Why on earth isn't there a set of "movie challenge" scenarios? Say... one player gets Obi-wan, Luke, Solo, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2. The other player gets Darth Vader and an infinite supply of Stormtroopers. The board is laid out like a part of the Death Star, and the Rebels must try to escape. Or... it's Luke, Leia, and Lando versus Jabba, a Rancor and various Scum, in Jabba's Palace. Or... well, you get the idea. Scenes from the movies for us to replay and see if we can do as well as the "historical" result. Some of this you could sort of fudge by picking appropriate Skirmish lists for each side, but I don't think that'd be very satisfactory. Specific scenarios really could be. This would make a fourth game mode (after Skirmish, Campaign, and the app), it'd probably be really good for introducing new players, and they could put up a new scenario PDF on the website every month. Might even encourage people to buy more models to be able to play through the latest scenario.

18 minutes ago, Bitterman said:

Oooh, ooh, ooh! Just thought - there is something I would like to see, but that wouldn't need a new edition to do it; but it does fulfil the criteria in the original post about advancing the gameplay or adding a new system in some way.

Why on earth isn't there a set of "movie challenge" scenarios? Say... one player gets Obi-wan, Luke, Solo, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2. The other player gets Darth Vader and an infinite supply of Stormtroopers. The board is laid out like a part of the Death Star, and the Rebels must try to escape. Or... it's Luke, Leia, and Lando versus Jabba, a Rancor and various Scum, in Jabba's Palace. Or... well, you get the idea. Scenes from the movies for us to replay and see if we can do as well as the "historical" result. Some of this you could sort of fudge by picking appropriate Skirmish lists for each side, but I don't think that'd be very satisfactory. Specific scenarios really could be. This would make a fourth game mode (after Skirmish, Campaign, and the app), it'd probably be really good for introducing new players, and they could put up a new scenario PDF on the website every month. Might even encourage people to buy more models to be able to play through the latest scenario.

Yeah, I'd love a fourth mode like that. Wouldn't necessarily even have to exclusively be movie moments (though I'd want a lot of those too) but could just be specific challenges. Maybe have an arena battle where Mak and Fenn have to fight off Nexus, Wampas, and Rancors.

Or maybe a huge battle, with all trooper types and heroes on one side and a ton of generic imperials on the other.

There's a lot they could do with something like that.

Nice, May have to script some movie scenarios for my group at some point.

Also planning a few horde / arena mode missions for the mega campaign I'm brainstorming

56 minutes ago, Bitterman said:

Oooh, ooh, ooh! Just thought - there is something I would like to see, but that wouldn't need a new edition to do it; but it does fulfil the criteria in the original post about advancing the gameplay or adding a new system in some way.

Why on earth isn't there a set of "movie challenge" scenarios? Say... one player gets Obi-wan, Luke, Solo, Chewie, C-3PO and R2-D2. The other player gets Darth Vader and an infinite supply of Stormtroopers. The board is laid out like a part of the Death Star, and the Rebels must try to escape. Or... it's Luke, Leia, and Lando versus Jabba, a Rancor and various Scum, in Jabba's Palace. Or... well, you get the idea. Scenes from the movies for us to replay and see if we can do as well as the "historical" result. Some of this you could sort of fudge by picking appropriate Skirmish lists for each side, but I don't think that'd be very satisfactory. Specific scenarios really could be. This would make a fourth game mode (after Skirmish, Campaign, and the app), it'd probably be really good for introducing new players, and they could put up a new scenario PDF on the website every month. Might even encourage people to buy more models to be able to play through the latest scenario.

Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes!

3 hours ago, 54NCH32 said:

Nice, May have to script some movie scenarios for my group at some point.

Also planning a few horde / arena mode missions for the mega campaign I'm brainstorming

A horde mode sounds fun actually.

32 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

A horde mode sounds fun actually.

I created a one off IA vs xenomorph horde mode for my group a few months ago (got some cards and set-up info in my painting thread if you want more info) , and they loved it. So I'll be looking into some more thematic horde set-ups (i.e. jedi vs troopers etc). Just finding the time to do it really :)

1 hour ago, TallGiraffe said:

A horde mode sounds fun actually.

I wouldn't be surprised if we get one on the app eventually. Pretty sure Descent already has one.

I feel like they will exhaust all of the original trilogy content, which means some Rogue one, Endor, Yoda etc... and then release a new version which will be based around the new trilogy. From there they can draw on whatever new content is released around this time period as I am sure Disney has lots planned.

But if the physical content has slowed down as the app takes over resources then I can see them being able to stretch the OT material for at least two more worlds.

In summary, a new edition is inevitable but I feel that it won't be for at least a few years.

For me, the only way it would be legitimate would be to make a Republic Assault based in the Republic Era focusing on the clone wars.

There's plenty to do with IA before a RA though. And a final edition being New Order and New Republic era.

Unlike Descent 2nd Edition which needs to be improved on but kept at 2nd Edition (i.e. add focus, Uthuk, Dragon Lords etc). I feel IA can bypass that by making a different era version so as the fans want both. With cheeky compatibility rules for a "what if" being a funny addition.

I think that a second edition for IA is good for the game as a whole.

starting with skirmish mode, I would agree that it need to be re balanced. maybe using a regular group of storm troopers as a baseline unit, and balance the other units around it. That my thoughts. It may help a lot of units from the first few waves.

for campaign mode I think some heros can be fixed and that they could reverse the imperials and Rebels. By this I mean something like inferno squad. Let the imperials be the "heros". And let them spy or sabotage rebel operations or something else.

well that's my thoughts for a hypothetical imperial assault second edition.

Sry if others mentioned similar points.

Here's a thought I've had- at this point, IA is one of the few FFG games that is stuck only to the OT timeline. Obviously there's been discussion on the possibility of a new edition in a different era, but what if the idea of eras isn't that heavily utilized?

For instance, maybe the next edition has a campaign set during the Clone Wars. Cool, a lot of people actually want that. Missions could use only starting and reserved groups from the Clone Wars era. However, via a conversion kit, all other units from 1st ed. would be available as open groups. In addition, skirmish waves wouldn't necessarily only be for the Clone Wars, but also could finish off some of the OT stuff (like Ewoks) and even add in sequel trilogy things (like Kylo Ren).

Or, maybe each big box campaign could have its own associated era. So maybe the first core box is a Clone Wars campaign called "The Factories of Geonosis", and the second is a ST campaign called "Secrets of Jakku". Then, again players would have the option of being able to choose whether or not they wanted to restrict open groups to era specific or not. In addition, some units could get eratta to fit in to multiple timelines- Hired Guns could be Merc in any era, while Wookies could work for Clones/Rebels/Resistance. Or, maybe Saboteurs could work just work for the Rebels or Resistance. Whatever makes sense.

Obviously that would end up inordinately benefiting the Merc faction pretty heavily if that rule was applied to skirmish, so I'd suggest the optional era rule not be used in that game mode, and instead just let players build lists around the three archetypical factions- "Heroes", "Villians", "Mercenaries".

I mean, Battlefront II basically did the same thing, and there are parts of that game that are actually canon . I could definitely see that working for us, too.

@subtrendy2 Mixed feelings on that. I mean, look what happened with the Time Period rules in Campaigns for the current incarnation.

I suppose those "other era" boxes could include deployment cards for existing sculpts which update/backdate them to the correct faction back for the era in question with whatever stat tweaks would be appropriate

We've already seen PT Merc content creep in: i.e. Nexu, Clawdites. I just want more OT-ish plastic, cardboard and campaigns available. Really, anything post Solo through The Mandalorian should be valid for OT. Given that my group meets bi-weekly, I miss the one large box, one small box per year era. But, with some good fan campaigns on BGG and here, plus the amazing content editor @Bitterman has made, I can probably scrape by with one box a year. :-D

24 minutes ago, bill_andel said:

@subtrendy2 Mixed feelings on that. I mean, look what happened with the Time Period rules in Campaigns for the current incarnation.

I guess I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Time Period rules are seemingly no longer being implemented in new releases, but I'm not sure how that would effect a different and optional ruleset in a future edition.

Quote

I suppose those "other era" boxes could include deployment cards for existing sculpts which update/backdate them to the correct faction back for the era in question with whatever stat tweaks would be appropriate

Sure, a conversion kit could totally do that.

I'm not sure updating the lore is necessary, though. A new edition probably wouldn't use 1st ed missions anyway, so the heroes are pretty much barebones at that point. If they get new cards/sheets, literally only the sculpts would carry over, at which point the main problematic thing would be stuff like Rebel insignias (which again, could optionally restrict them to certain time periods).

I'm not convinced we need another edition, really.

New editions are usually used to fix the core rules of the game, and Campaign-wise (both the app and the regular campaigns) I don't see any real glaring problems with the current game system. I've had some small quibbles, no doubt, but a lot of the ones on my worst offenders list have been fixed by rules in expansion releases (e.g. item card draw/agenda limit in Jabba, ally cost in Lothal, no more "win more" mission objectives that make snowballing worse). Most of those rules can be ported over to any campaign; to be honest, I think they've really done a great job with their campaign system as a whole.

And although I don't know as much about the other eras, I'd love to see them in the game (some really cool figures there!). But like Subtrendy said, I don't think that really requires another whole game edition. If a clone wars-era expansion came out and your group cares about the timeline, just limit yourself to allies/villains/units that make sense (hired guns, trandos and lots of other scum units, maybe hk droids and sentries, wookiees, sabs/rangers, etc.). There's still plenty of choice there once you add in the theoretical units from the new expansion.

For skirmish, I do agree with Daniel that some re-balancing would be nice, especially of the core box/twin shadows/hoth units. For this, though, I don't think that we need a new edition so much as an app that can set the unit costs or just a release of a bunch of updated skirmish cards. I can see the argument for another edition a bit more here (maybe to deal with things like all the big hunter alpha-strike cards that make playing a defensive list so difficult) but I'm not sure that there'd be enough interest, or frankly enough need, for this to become a reality.

On 5/2/2018 at 12:49 PM, thestag said:

I don't want to see a second edition of IA.

I see the release of X-Wing 2.0 to be a cash grab of the highest offense. XW is currently their best seller, I don't see how this doesn't offend the majority of their base players...

Because it fixed HUGE issues with the game.

Move only recently dipped into IA skirmish and already I see the same problem with the meta that plagued XW1.0. Meta driven by power creep is ultimately bad for the game.

60% of Regionals winners (not entirely sure this is true so don’t sue me if I’m wrong) played Specter Cell. That’s bad for the long term health of the game.

Dynamic point pricing of units would go a long way to fix that.

I'm not convinced IA 2.0 will even have skirmish. Watching the new games that FFG has brought out since IA, I wonder if they might go more towards the MOM style tiles of engagement checks, like we are seeing with the new LOTR game.

I don't think skirmish has a place in that world. Skirmish was always known to be an after thought with IA, literally tagged on by accident at the end as they were play testing figures against each other and thought "wow this is fun".

The IA community is small, tight knit and full of great people. But a small community doesn't really translate into great sales numbers for FFG. I imagine the MAJORITY of their sales comes from the campaign, I have no actual proof on this besides the fact that my LGS says it sells consistently but our skirmish community is very small, as seems to be the case around the world. There is always of course the fraction that buy just to paint the minis.

I'm not sure if FFG will be pumped to continue to support a playerbase that small, especially if 2.0 comes out as purely app driven. That would be the nail in the coffin for skirmish I think.. and there is a very good chance it will be based on what we've seen in recent years.

I think 1.0 still has a few years of life left, at least two more worlds including this one, though.

6 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Because it fixed HUGE issues with the game.

Move only recently dipped into IA skirmish and already I see the same problem with the meta that plagued XW1.0. Meta driven by power creep is ultimately bad for the game.

60% of Regionals winners (not entirely sure this is true so don’t sue me if I’m wrong) played Specter Cell. That’s bad for the long term health of the game.

Dynamic point pricing of units would go a long way to fix that.

When you say "fixed" I think you mean resets. IA 2 would just reset the meta with a quarter of the pieces and as more pieces are added, at the demand of skirmish players for a constantly changing meta, and need to for their "new plastic" fix, would quickly do to the game what you are lamenting, because that is ALWAYS the way it works. Nothing about the campaign is broken. The campaign doesn't require balance. The app can make temporary changes to units on the fly. X-wing was a pure skirmish game and the same thing happened that always happens, certain units are more useful than others, and since winning is more important than role playing, those units get over-utilized. You can change the meta by adding more figures and/or command cards, or deployment cards, but it will just change the units that are most viable to a different set of units, and then those units will be over utilized.

But imbalances can be fixed relatively quickly and terribly designed ships like the jump master and terribly designed upgrades like Atani Mind link can be changed without a 10 page errata. XW2.0 was a very good thing for the game.

I agree that the campaign is a fun way to play IA and that’s in a good place, but skirmish probably needs help in the way of dynamic points for deployment cards and command cards for the game to keep going in a better direction.

At this point I’m pretty sure we are done seeing new boxed products and will be getting app updates for the other expansions.

I kind of expect them to do a skirmish rules set for legion.

I’m thinking that IA 2.0 will put more emphasis on the app both on and in the box. In terms of promotion and app rule book