Hi, community!

I've started to put together a custom campaign for Imperial Assault. The goal would be to create an epic campaign for all those who have all big boxed expansions (a few figure expansions are needed as well), and use mostly the existing parts of the game instead of cutouts. (Characters introduced are 'played by' existing figures already in the game. I will make some custom deployment cards for enhancing the atmosphere, but they won't be necessary.) The story is based on the Edge of the Empire mission 'Beyond the Rim', but altered a lot. I've finished with the mission structure and did an overview of all missions, including some of the extra rules introduced in them.

Had a very quick look and this is definitely an ambitious project Good luck, @Sixfreed !

By the way, someone made a program for doing IA maps, scanned all the tiles and everything. Of course, I don't remember the name of the resource, but someone here should be able to provide a link

1 hour ago, angelman2 said:

Had a very quick look and this is definitely an ambitious project Good luck, @Sixfreed !

By the way, someone made a program for doing IA maps, scanned all the tiles and everything. Of course, I don't remember the name of the resource, but someone here should be able to provide a link

It think I've got it, it's the Vassal Module, thank you. I've posted the thread on boardgamegeek, and they've helped me out. I'm currently working on the introduction mission details, and I guess a lot of things I've written down will change. I'm not sure how the intel-system will work out. I want to give a sensation of development and choice, but also avoid snowballing on both sides. (This is a really long campaign, and it would be a shame if it was extremely one-sided by the midtime mission.

The IA font for writing the mission rules:

And yes, you can build the maps on the Vassal IA Campaign module and then save it as graphics to import into your favorite editor. It's only 64dpi, but should be enough for mission rules.

Thank you! It's a great-great help!

57 minutes ago, a1bert said:

The IA font for writing the mission rules:

And yes, you can build the maps on the Vassal IA Campaign module and then save it as graphics to import into your favorite editor. It's only 64dpi, but should be enough for mission rules.

Unfortunately this can't be used in gdocs

10 minutes ago, Golan Trevize said:

Unfortunately this can't be used in gdocs

Google Docs is behind the times. (I used to be able to copy-paste from OpenOffice to here with the font included, but is stopped working at some point.) Well, at least it's possible to finalize it as PDF with the font.

Update:

I've made a first version of the introduction mission and uploaded it to drive. I also created a folder for all the future files there.

LINK TO THE DRIVE FOLDER HERE

Please share your thoughts and ideas what to alter.

Awesome initiative!!

That's something I'm missing from FFG, new campaigns reusing the existing material we all have.

Good luck and I'll try to help you

While driving home today I had a truly devilish idea that you may want to incorporate. The way that you pick items in the base game always bothers me from a thematic perspective. The fact that you keep getting to draw the same number of cards to simulate new items coming in to circulation, regardless of the importance of the mission, whether you've won or lost in the past, or how much time seems to has lapsed between missions doesn't make sense to me. I also like giving my players choice. My Rebels always hate it when an amazing weapon they can't afford comes up once, and then is never seen again. I want to reward careful planning and synergy, but also introduce a bit of peril that reflects the trustworthiness of some Rebel suppliers and how well they are able to maintain their equipment. So here's my thought.

At the start of the upgrade stage, as soon as the Rebels unlock a new tier of weapons, place all the item cards at that tier facedown and ask them to select one or two (depending on how nasty you want to be). The Imperial Player then looks at the card(s). This item is a Faulty Item. The item cards are shuffled again. The Rebels are now free to purchase ANY of the item cards available at that tier and no new cards will be introduced until the next tier of items is unlocked. At that time there will be one upgrade phase where two tiers are available, and then the old tier is phased out, same as in a normal campaign. If the Rebels purchase a Faulty Item and equip it for a mission, the player using the item will discover their attack rolls have been straight up nerfed to a degree that I will leave to the IP's discretion (depending on whether they even have another weapon to use). The weapon can be sold later, but no refunds on faulty equipment. Perhaps they get -1 damage or -1 surge. Perhaps the weapon explodes in their hand and they take damage. Or perhaps the problem can be spotted and mitigated with a well timed ability check.

Curious to know what others think of this. Seems mean and swingy, but also very Star Wars. And there's ways to make it less severe.

4 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

While driving home today I had a truly devilish idea that you may want to incorporate. The way that you pick items in the base game always bothers me from a thematic perspective. The fact that you keep getting to draw the same number of cards to simulate new items coming in to circulation, regardless of the importance of the mission, whether you've won or lost in the past, or how much time seems to has lapsed between missions doesn't make sense to me. I also like giving my players choice. My Rebels always hate it when an amazing weapon they can't afford comes up once, and then is never seen again. I want to reward careful planning and synergy, but also introduce a bit of peril that reflects the trustworthiness of some Rebel suppliers and how well they are able to maintain their equipment. So here's my thought.

At the start of the upgrade stage, as soon as the Rebels unlock a new tier of weapons, place all the item cards at that tier facedown and ask them to select one or two (depending on how nasty you want to be). The Imperial Player then looks at the card(s). This item is a Faulty Item. The item cards are shuffled again. The Rebels are now free to purchase ANY of the item cards available at that tier and no new cards will be introduced until the next tier of items is unlocked. At that time there will be one upgrade phase where two tiers are available, and then the old tier is phased out, same as in a normal campaign. If the Rebels purchase a Faulty Item and equip it for a mission, the player using the item will discover their attack rolls have been straight up nerfed to a degree that I will leave to the IP's discretion (depending on whether they even have another weapon to use). The weapon can be sold later, but no refunds on faulty equipment. Perhaps they get -1 damage or -1 surge. Perhaps the weapon explodes in their hand and they take damage. Or perhaps the problem can be spotted and mitigated with a well timed ability check.

Curious to know what others think of this. Seems mean and swingy, but also very Star Wars. And there's ways to make it less severe.

I think this is a really neat idea. I'm not sure I would like to include it but rather it would make a great game variant or extra rule if worked out carefully. And then it could be used in any campaign (including this one). But I'm thinking about it, maybe adding an extra option for the imperial player to use up intel. Or put this mechanic in one of the missions. Thank you!

Edit: There is the Side Mission 4/5 S alternative 2 (Expanding the weapons division). It's going to be about gearing up, so it would make a nice addition to use depleted weapons in this mission.

14 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

While driving home today I had a truly devilish idea that you may want to incorporate. The way that you pick items in the base game always bothers me from a thematic perspective. The fact that you keep getting to draw the same number of cards to simulate new items coming in to circulation, regardless of the importance of the mission, whether you've won or lost in the past, or how much time seems to has lapsed between missions doesn't make sense to me. I also like giving my players choice. My Rebels always hate it when an amazing weapon they can't afford comes up once, and then is never seen again. I want to reward careful planning and synergy, but also introduce a bit of peril that reflects the trustworthiness of some Rebel suppliers and how well they are able to maintain their equipment. So here's my thought.

At the start of the upgrade stage, as soon as the Rebels unlock a new tier of weapons, place all the item cards at that tier facedown and ask them to select one or two (depending on how nasty you want to be). The Imperial Player then looks at the card(s). This item is a Faulty Item. The item cards are shuffled again. The Rebels are now free to purchase ANY of the item cards available at that tier and no new cards will be introduced until the next tier of items is unlocked. At that time there will be one upgrade phase where two tiers are available, and then the old tier is phased out, same as in a normal campaign. If the Rebels purchase a Faulty Item and equip it for a mission, the player using the item will discover their attack rolls have been straight up nerfed to a degree that I will leave to the IP's discretion (depending on whether they even have another weapon to use). The weapon can be sold later, but no refunds on faulty equipment. Perhaps they get -1 damage or -1 surge. Perhaps the weapon explodes in their hand and they take damage. Or perhaps the problem can be spotted and mitigated with a well timed ability check.

Curious to know what others think of this. Seems mean and swingy, but also very Star Wars. And there's ways to make it less severe.

This would make a great Imperial Reward card for a side mission.

7 minutes ago, bill_andel said:

This would make a great Imperial Reward card for a side mission.

Love it!

How about this?

20 minutes ago, Sixfreed said:

Love it!

How about this?

Brilliant! Well done.

Renamed it to Weapon Malfunctions, sounds better I guess. (I'm not a native speaker...)

53 minutes ago, Sixfreed said:

Renamed it to Weapon Malfunctions, sounds better I guess. (I'm not a native speaker...)

I believe a better wording and mechanic is the following:

Use when a hero declares an attack. For each <strain> token on his weapon, apply -1<damage> or -1<surge>.
<bar>
<threat>: Exhaust when a hero declares an attack with a weapon to place a <strain> token on that weapon. That weapon also gains:

<action>: You or a friendly figure adjacent to you can test <tech>. Discard a number of <strain> tokens from this weapon equal to the number of successes.

First of all, if you guarantee +1 evade/block you may build up too powerful combo with abilities like Cunning and in that case this should be at least 3XP card.

If this is a 0XP card as you made it, then you should have a cost. I would put 1 threat considering how powerful this is.

Also it's common to use strain tokens for these "custom" things, they are available to people with Core box and in a good quantity. Weaken has been introduced with expansions and they may be scarce.

If you force a hero to test tech, you risk that some heroes or wounded heroes will never recover. This is too bad. It's more thematic that a friendly hero with good skills can repair someone else's weapon.

Because of the previous simplification, it's funny to stack up strain tokens on a weapon so that rebels will be forced to waste one of their action to repair.

Do not carry effects across missions because it's difficult to handle. It's one more information that you need to collect into the campaign log, so you would need to plan for that. Thematically between mission the "engineer" hero can take care of weapon maintenance, so keeping this effect across missions doesn't make much sense.

Hope this helps.

12 minutes ago, Golan Trevize said:

I believe a better wording and mechanic is the following:

Use when a hero declares an attack. For each <strain> token on his weapon, apply -1<damage> or -1<surge>.
<bar>
<threat>: Exhaust when a hero declares an attack with a weapon to place a <strain> token on that weapon. That weapon also gains:

<action>: You or a friendly figure adjacent to you can test <tech>. Discard a number of <strain> tokens from this weapon equal to the number of successes.

First of all, if you guarantee +1 evade/block you may build up too powerful combo with abilities like Cunning and in that case this should be at least 3XP card.

Also it's common to use strain tokens for these "custom" things, they are available to people with Core box and in a good quantity. Weaken has been introduced with expansions and they may be scarce.

If you force a hero to test tech, you risk that some heroes or wounded heroes will never recover. This is too bad. It's more thematic that a friendly hero with good skills can repair someone else's weapon.

Because of the previous simplification, it's funny to stack up strain tokens on a weapon so that rebels will be forced to waste one of their action to repair.

Do not carry effects across missions because it's difficult to handle. It's one more information that you need to collect into the campaign log, so you would need to plan for that. Thematically between mission the "engineer" hero can take care of weapon maintenance, so keeping this effect across missions doesn't make much sense.

Hope this helps.

These are fair points. I guess weaken tokens can still work, because the concept of the campaign is that the players already own all the expansions (so a lot of weaken tokens), but yes, strain makes more sense. I made it an Agenda Card instead of a reward. It's purely because there's a lot more space on Agenda Cards. Maybe I will make all the other Imperial Rewards Agenda Cards as well, so that they can be used in other campaigns as well. The influence cost won't matter in this campaign, for this card will be a reward if the Imperial Player wins the 'Expanding the weapons division' mission.

Thank you for the suggestions, I'm happy to have the ideas and advices. If you have any spare time feel free to check the missions as well.

4 hours ago, Sixfreed said:

Love it!

How about this?

Not bad. But I like the original idea that it need not just be limited to weapons. Armor can be worthless too.

Also, doing this to all weapons feels especially painful for Diala, Drokatta, and Davith, Onar, and Vinto. It takes a pretty big bite out of one of their XP cards. I'm fine messing with things that can be bought with credits, but XP is WAY more valuable and players have fewer alternatives.

6 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

Not bad. But I like the original idea that it need not just be limited to weapons. Armor can be worthless too.

Also, doing this to all weapons feels especially painful for Diala, Drokatta, and Davith, Onar, and Vinto. It takes a pretty big bite out of one of their XP cards. I'm fine messing with things that can be bought with credits, but XP is WAY more valuable and players have fewer alternatives.

Maybe 'with a weapon item card'? Or 'with a weapon that was bought for credits'? The problem with armor for me is it would have just way too many options how you could use this. If you take a look at my missions, they already have a lot of options to deal with. (That is intended, it is for players who are through the base campaigns.)

58 minutes ago, Sixfreed said:

Maybe 'with a weapon item card'? Or 'with a weapon that was bought for credits'? The problem with armor for me is it would have just way too many options how you could use this. If you take a look at my missions, they already have a lot of options to deal with. (That is intended, it is for players who are through the base campaigns.)

Before the bar add something like:

"This ability cannot affect Class cards."

7 hours ago, Golan Trevize said:

Before the bar add something like:

"This ability cannot affect Class cards."

I guess it's final now. Thinking of making something for armor and utility items as well. I think the utility one would be a "discard this card" type influence card, which will do something like: "Keep this card in secret. Discard after a hero exhausts a utility item card and place a strain token on it. The item card considered broken and cannot be used except for the action it gains: <the same action printed on weapon malfunctions>." Maybe for 1 influence?

22 minutes ago, Sixfreed said:

I guess it's final now. Thinking of making something for armor and utility items as well. I think the utility one would be a "discard this card" type influence card, which will do something like: "Keep this card in secret. Discard after a hero exhausts a utility item card and place a strain token on it. The item card considered broken and cannot be used except for the action it gains: <the same action printed on weapon malfunctions>." Maybe for 1 influence?

What do you mean with weapons with an XP cost? There are just a couple of weapons like that. All base weapons don't have an XP cost. Just don't limit the card. Thematically any weapon can show malfunctions, none excluded. Like this it's definitely 3 influence. It would be advisable to make it 2 influence and add: "Keep this card secret. Place it in your play area at the start of any mission. <bar> (...current text...) At the end of this mission, either discard this card or shuffle it back into your agenda deck.". Designer's trend in latest expansions is to make no agenda that you can keep across missions. Most of the times you don't even keep them across rounds.

1 hour ago, Golan Trevize said:

What do you mean with weapons with an XP cost? There are just a couple of weapons like that. All base weapons don't have an XP cost. Just don't limit the card. Thematically any weapon can show malfunctions, none excluded. Like this it's definitely 3 influence. It would be advisable to make it 2 influence and add: "Keep this card secret. Place it in your play area at the start of any mission. <bar> (...current text...) At the end of this mission, either discard this card or shuffle it back into your agenda deck.". Designer's trend in latest expansions is to make no agenda that you can keep across missions. Most of the times you don't even keep them across rounds.

This is valid, it's better to say 'class cards' instead of XP cost, will replace it. The original idea was to use this thing on items bought for credits, because you never know which merchant to trust if you're buying weapons for the rebellion. I was thinking of keeping this agenda card permanent (maybe increase the influence cost by 1), make a one-mission-only card for armor for 2 influence, and the utility one for 1 influence. Thus, it can be a solid influence deck.

Although I'm beginning to think of this purely as an extra option for the Imperial Player for my original intention was use as much of the existing package as possible without any necessary p2p-s.

5 hours ago, Sixfreed said:

use this thing on items bought for credits, because you never know which merchant to trust if you're buying weapons for the rebellion

Fiddlyness note: if the imperial player gets to decide whether to apply -1 damage or -1 surge, it will slow down the game. Choosing when the malfunction is added would probably be more streamlined. You could use damage and surge power tokens, or damage and strain tokens for -1dmg and -1surge, respectively.

Also, if this is weapon malfunction, does it all go into the attack pool, and thus also affect damage and surge from other abilities than the weapon and modifications? (Probably easiest, but can gimp recover strain ability quite heavily.)

25 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Fiddlyness note: if the imperial player gets to decide whether to apply -1 damage or -1 surge, it will slow down the game. Choosing when the malfunction is added would probably be more streamlined. You could use damage and surge power tokens, or damage and strain tokens for -1dmg and -1surge, respectively.

Also, if this is weapon malfunction, does it all go into the attack pool, and thus also affect damage and surge from other abilities than the weapon and modifications? (Probably easiest, but can gimp recover strain ability quite heavily.)

An easier way is just to simply give one less damage instead of an option. Or maybe a damage and a surge? That way I'd be more satisfied with the 1 threat cost of putting a strain on it.