With the dearth of IA stuff being announced lately, it's hard to stay as engaged as a fan of this game as I used to be.

So, to try and feel something in this black heart of mine (and because it's in line with the spirit of this time of year), I figured it might be fun to revisit how we felt on the announcements and other features of each wave. Please feel free to share your own thoughts- lord knows we could use some optimism around here.

Core-The Bespin Gambit

I didn't start collecting this game until spring of 2016, so quite a lot had been released by then. In all honesty, I just picked up the core box and its waves as a way to tide over the last few weeks before Rebellion hit the shelves, but my wife and I quickly discovered that we found IA to hit the table far more often, so I ordered the other waves as well. If I was overwhelmed with the contents of the core box, I definitely wasn't prepared for four more waves to quickly come in.

Bespin had already been announced a bit before I started following IA, but it wasn't released until a few months after I started collecting. I remember thinking it was kind of neat finally being caught up and getting a wave at the same time as everyone else.

Around this time, my wife and I started out first campaign, and the only campaign we played unpainted. We also were part of a YouTube channel at the time, and filmed a mission playthrough for it.

Wave 7

This wave is what made me really excited for IA. I never would have expected the Grand Inquisitor (a character I was barely familiar with) in the game, nor Obi Wan or Greedo. Suddenly, with these along other oddities like HKs and nexus, anything seemed possible.

I also really liked the marketing for this wave's announcement: The Knight, the Hunter, and the Inquisitor . I dunno, I just thought that was cool.

Jabba's Realm

It's Endor, right? Come on, everybody knows it's Endor.

Gencon 2016 surprised pretty much everyone in the community by announcing an IA box set in Endor mostly Tatooine again. Personally, I was excited for this announcement, but I can't deny I was hoping for something a bit more... new.

Tatooine again seemed repetitive after Twin Suns and the Core Box (and I know it wasn't just Tatooine, but it was still pretty heavily featured). Gamorreans and Weequay were cool, but the rancor was obviously the draw here. Even with the figure packs, I wasn't really all that psyched for Terro and the Rangers, and Jabba seemed like a cool mini, but pretty out of place in the game. Even Jedi Luke seemed like a really great addition, but I definitely was wanting new heroes instead of new versions of them. So yeah, this wave, to me, felt like a bit of a mixed bag on announcement.

What I was really impressed with were the heroes. Each was a really interesting sculpt, but they also all appeared really fun to play.

As we waited for this wave to come out, I set about finally painting my set, something I've kept up with since then. I also started considering some storage solutions after my cat knocked all my minis off the table they were resting on (luckily and miraculously, nothing was broken).

When Jabba's Realm arrived, I found it to be an impressive and worthy addition to the series, even if it wasn't as shiny as I would've liked.

Wave 9

Droids!

If Wave 7 as a weird one, Wave 9 pushed the boundaries even further. The only character I even really knew much about was the Jawa (if that even counts as a character ) but the other minis encouraged me to get invested both in Rebels and the comics. That's pretty influential for a small reinforcement wave, since I consider both mediums to feature some of the best Star Wars I've seen in the new canon.

It was a small, strange wave, and it came to me in a pretty rough time of my life, so I was glad to have something to look forward to.

Heart of the Empire

So far, all the boxes had been pretty standard settings: Hoth, Bespin, Tatooine, Tatooine again...

So the idea of setting a campaign in Coruscant, a planet typically associated with the prequel era, seemed like a really bold move. On top of that, we were getting melee stormtroopers, a new walker, clawdites, and Ahsoka and mother flippin' Maul?

I had called off work that day because I was hungover from watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in the theater the previous night (long story), and I remember scrolling through Facebook and seeing one of the groups post a screenshot of Ahsoka and Maul minis. I thought it was a joke, until I fumbled my way to FFG to verify for myself.

This was the weirdness in IA that I lived for, the stuff we'd pretty much only seen in small reinforcement waves so far. I was so into it, I went out and finally bought myself discs of the prequels. And a Wal-mart pizza, which was kinda gross.

The App

I remember on here for a long time, people were always talking about the app. Apparently Descent had one, and we expected IA to get one soon. App, app, app, people loved the app.

I didn't get it.

In my mind, the app was a tool for tracking damage and progression, and maybe for standing in as an Imperial for campaign missions. I had no idea it was an entirely new, RPG heavier campaign experience.

When the app finally came out we were knee-deep in a Jabba's Realm campaign, and I don't like to mix and match campaigns if I can avoid it. But when my wife and I finally got the chance to play, we had a blast.

Tyrants of Lothal

I was helping set up an event for a certain television personality when I got a tweet from @The Cocky Rooster telling me that a new wave had been announced. I managed to sneak away for a bit, saw the freakin rest of the Ghost crew and... had to get back to work.

But as soon as I could sneak away longer (and it killed me to wait) I was able to log in and really get a good look at Tyrants. It was a small box, which was a bummer, but much like how its campaign can be extended, Tyrants felt like it was far more than it appeared. Every element of it was exciting to me (even the admittedly odd Loth-cats).

Granted, we kinda expected something like this given an event's prize leaking containing Thrawn and Rex Wildfire's images. But still, it was a very exciting announcement.

When they came in August, I had the wave painted in a day, because I couldn't wait to get them into the Jabba's Realm app.

The App (pt. 2)

We had just finished the first app campaign when the Jabba's Realm one came out. Once again, my wife and I had the chance to play characters that we hadn't tried before, and had a lot of fun.

It was clear that the campaign was a tweaked Jabba's Realm. While the missions were significantly better than what was in the books (for the most part) I couldn't help but wish that we'd gotten something a bit more original, particularly because the original book campaign was so heavily based on story beats in the movie anyway. It was a good time, and mechanically probably superior to the other app campaign, but I think we enjoyed the first app just a bit more.

Anyway, I'd love to hear other stories about hype, excitement, and enjoyment with this game. Maybe someday, we'll feel those feeling at a new announcement again.

Fun thread. I bought the game with my son back in January 2017. We were deciding between IA and Rebellion, ultimately settling on IA. Could not have been happier with that selection.

The first wave that I started to follow and understand what “on the boat” meant was the droids wave. My son wanted to crush me in Skrimish and he was convinced BT-1 was the piece to deliver that goal! I went out and surprised him (well it might have been for me too and went to my LGS and purchased it on the release date.

I think after droids it was the never ending caravan of “where is the news?” , “this game is dead”, “when is the app released?” forum posts that got very tiresome. I was excited for Heart of the Empire release when it was announced, but I knew I wouldn’t be buying it. I think I just had gotten Jabbas Realm and we still hadn’t got traction on the campaign yet. So I wasn’t going to buy another box that wouldn’t be played.

Then the app was finally released!! Yay! That was a lot of fun (even with some bugs and wonkiness), and definitely opened my eyes as to some of the best mechanisms that could be incorporated into the app campaign.

Since this time, I introduced 3 coworkers to IA and we ran through a full core campaign together. They absolutely loved it, and we are going to run a second campaign after the new year.

For me personally Tyrants doesn’t really do much for me so I didn’t follow it very closely. I know many people are rebels fans and we’re super excited for this, which is great! Any new content is cool, but it just didn’t resonate with me. I’m hoping they release Rogue One or something else in 2019. Either way I will be playing many more campaigns just with the content they have already released.

I finished collecting Xwing after the Decimator release. Then I Followed Imperial Assault when i saw some promo images of the grey minis and colourful dice. just waiting for its release. Got the game, I have always liked little skirmishes in the star wars universe, from all the old video games and legends stories. so this felt right at home. text all my interested mates and started back into mini painting with the help of Soastro.

my buddies played the core campaign and had a blast, i forgot how tedious some of the book keeping was. though i did have a habit of writing down key events that happened so i could let my rebels relive their exciting moments at the end of the campaign. I started also hosting Campaigns at my local boardgame cafe and made some good friends that i am still in contact with to this day. it was always a blast, I DM'd a bit and played themeatically and really just played my love of star wars. i loved how excited my several different facebook campaign groups would react, when i would post new expansion reveals, and minis.

I tried to keep up with campaign collections, was not that interested in skirmish in the early years. I picked up some expansions and Iconic heroes/ villians for the campaign. was not that interested in Bespin gambit. but someone gifted it to me later down the road, which i cant complain with. i have everything in my collection except the smuggler, wookie warriors and bantha rider.

later i started using the apps for my campaign book keeping. (coolgrass your app was the best. RIP updates) i then decided that i wanted to draw illustrations of star wars at work, where i was an Animation Lecturer for a few years, so i started developing a companion app for the heroes to keep track of their heroes, while giving them a visual update to their characters progress. my love of imperial assualt has kept me working on the app, and i will continue to, until all illustrations are done. but it is a working version and im proud that i got to help make it.

I got into skirmish around bespin gambit release i think, it was not super popular in New Zealand and always seeing the same 4 guys at tournaments. so i got to know some new people which was fun. I loved the skirmish games quick nature and the different battles is fun. Im not super competitive by nature so building the best list was never my goal, it was theme and emergent narratives from the skirmishes. At least i always came top 8 in all the tournaments, with player numbers being so low. I think in New Zealand we have stopped buying the tournament kits, as the entry price was to heavy for the 4 some times 5 of us. the last tournament was nationals....? maybe, and i came second.

Overall im really happy with my experience, and have got my monies worth, aswell as a wealth of new experiences and memories. I am happy with the game ending now if it does, or is, i have enough stuff to keep playing campaigns, i dont really like having endless boxes piling up in the house. so it has to end sometime. i cant imagine 30 expansion boxes cluttering up the house. i just counted my 7 boxes in the corner of my room, filled with a tight organised system and it already seems too much.

Im hoping for the digital space to continue, or a imperial player handbook with many other campaigns. or purchasing some fan made and bound campaign booklets. im going to intergrate my unused Xwing into imperial assault a bit more. also take a break from it, to play other games. it has been a great ride.

it doesn't matter if it ends, it has been worth it to me.

I was introduced to IA by a mutual friend shortly after it was released in 2014, so I have pretty much seen all the skirmish meta and the wave-by-wave release of new contents

campaign-wise, I think I have played somewhere around ~15 full-length campaigns, ~20-25 mini-campaign and somewhere around 250-300 casual skirmish games so I feel that I've long earned back my money's worth, but I never played in any tournaments as a competing player although I am familiar with tournament rules

ironically, it was only after I started playing IA as the Imperial I realized the person (the Imperial player) who at the time introduced me to IA made a ton of rules mistakes. For example, he'd confuse threat vs. threat level and we'd have a door with 20HP, a 3-squad stormtrooper would count as 3 activations instead of 1 because he'd activate storm #1 -> hero -> storm #2 -> hero - > storm #3 when the correct way is storm #1, #2, #3 -> hero, I was Rebel in the 1st campaign and we were playing with 2 heroes, we were given the "Heroic" reward card (+3 HP each, 3 activation tokens total) instead of the "Legendary" reward card (+10 HP each, 4 activation tokens total) and we went 2:0 before I demand the IP to re-check the rulebook

I still prefer the original IA rules + campaigns and playing as Imperial, I'm just not a huge fan of pure-coop (LotA app). I think I did play as Rebel in ~3 of the full-campaign the rest were all playing as Imperial, and even playing as Rebel I was able to completely obliterate the Imperial player each time

skirmish-wise, I've seen all the following eras

the 4x4 (4x rImp Officer + 4x rRoyal Guards) against Rebel Saboteur's blast 4

the trooper spam era of eRebel Troopers vs. eStormtroopers, before the point-per-kill rule change so people could run the last trooper away, denying 9pt altogether

enters the Bantha with Jundland Terror having AoE stomping troopers to oblivion

followed by the Twins era: Farmboy Luke + Leia, both has ~: Recover 2 with Leia ordering Luke to shoot so they're both hard to kill, while trying to cycle Son of Skywalker, but the list falls apart once Leia OR Luke is dead

then wave 6 came with Agent Blaise's spy and having the ability to interrogate doors and making them talk, and people losing their mind with Bossk being OP and the rise of this great analysis thread, it's now the go-to post I send new players whenever they ask single-figure vs. multi-figure deployment groups

came wave 7, people were again losing their mind because Obi-wan, Greedo were supposed to be long dead, leading the rise of this thread

I think wave 8's JR was a defining moment for skirmish, it nearly made everything released so far obsolete, nowadays when I play any skirmish I always ask "pre-wave 8 or post-wave 8"? The figures from wave 1 - 7 are still good on their own, it's just that wave 8 onwards FFG gave us so many great figures at same/lesser cost that are outright better in every way, so it made no sense to take those old figures anymore, leading the rise of this thread and this thread. A wacky way I try to play at home is to flat out ban all tier-1 units and see where it leads us

things then went relatively quiet until the recent Spectre Cell + Rebel Graffiti with the rise of these 2 great analysis thread ( 1 ) ( 2 ), my takeaway was that taken out of context, "Spectre Cell" should be worth roughly 12pt instead of 2pt" and as expected Spectre Cell is one of the most consistent list these days

2014: We used to have a 4-player steady game group, but then an old regular came to be a regular again, so we had 5 players and I was in a lookout for new 5-player games. I saw Imperial Assault and decided to go for it.

2015: I had painted the figures of Room 25, so I got a few more color pots and continued learning to paint, and some paint really made a difference on the table. We played through the core campaign - while fun, maybe not fun enough for the rebel players to jump into another campaign. But fun enough for me to also order the figure packs after a few missions. The game was new, I was "in it" from the beginning, so I got deep into the rules questions on BGG, discussing the interpretations with Clipper. We seemed to become the rules duo there - if we agreed on something, it was probably how it will be ruled by FFG.

Twin Shadows: I got to play as the rebel in this one, and another player got the be the Imperial Player with Subversive Tactics. It was a minicampaign, and the rebels fared pretty well (lost the finale), although with hind-sight some of the imperial class cards were played wrong.

I kept up with the game, getting each expansion, painting. The game group wasn't as into the game as I was (specifically one of the players). But BoardGameGeek had something called Play By Forum, and that was my way to get Imperial Assault played. The user Kezerk got me into it, and I also 'hijacked' the Vassal module development from him. I continued playing campaigns with various results in PBF ( https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/218205/a1berts-imperial-assault-play-forum-campaigns ), and while doing that came up with ways to extend the minicampaigns.

Return to Hoth came out, which I skipped with the group - I got to play it later in a PBF campaign. Outside of PBF, I played only the first mission of the Bespin Gambit with my group, and I have played a lot of the side missions from the reinforcement waves and figure packs in general, most of the missions of Jabba's Realm, Heart of the Empire, and a few missions of Tyrants of Lothal two-handed solo. Got my name in documents.

The Legends of the Alliance app came out. It renewed the game for my group - after playing Mansions of Madness 2nd ed, the group was more receptive to playing Imperial Assault (because of being co-op). Also, because we're usually 4 players, the app is a good fit, and I'm looking forward to playing Jabba's Realm app campaign with them.

I have played a lot of LotA campaigns by myself solo , even replayed FoFF recently with all expansions. (I still prefer Jabba's Realm in the app.)

Pretty much played it as a friend got the box on release, gave it a go and enjoyed it so bought it myself. We ended up as a group of 4 who all had the game and we’ve played every campaign apart from the app since. 2 of our number sold their stuff but borrow my stuff to be imp player when it’s their turn. Preordered every wave soon as I can as well.

My mates started playing skirmish and going to events but I held off and insisted I wouldn’t play it. Then the 4x4 was no longer a thing and turned out I really liked the mechanics of it and now play whenever I can. Will be a real shame if they stop releasing stuff but hey play other unsupported games that still have a community so why can’t this one?

These are a lot of fun to read, thanks guys!

One thing I forgot to specify is campaigns I've played.

So far, if I remember correctly, this is what I've done so far.

April 2016-August 2016: Core (with wife)

December 2016- January 2017: Core (with wife and 1 friend)

February 2017: Hoth (with 4 friends, never finished)

April 2017: Core (with siblings, never finished)

May 2017- September 2017: Hoth (wife and 1 friend)

October 2017-February 2018: Jabba's Realm (wife and 3 friends)

April 2018-June 2018: Flight of the Freedom Fighter (wife)

August 2018: Jabba's Realm app (wife)

September 2018- current: Descent, The Shadow Rune campaign (wife and 1 friend)

October 2018- current: Flight of the Freedom Fighter app (siblings and wife)

I've gotten a decent amount of mileage out of this game so far, and I really want to at least do one big run through of Heart of the Empire eventually with 4 rebel players. Maybe host some weekends where we marathon a small campaign as well.

Right now, we're on to Descent, the Shadow Rune campaign. It's going slowly, but it's pretty fun. I think this group prefers IA so far, but Shadow Rune is pretty hard to compare to Jabba's Realm. We may move on to something like Nerekhall next, just to show them the actual potential Descent has.

I've only played Skirmish once. It was cool, and I get the appeal, but I have so many games that I think my group would rather just play something else if we're not doing campaign.

Also, while I really enjoy having a lot of people at the table, I feel like the Rebels are much more engaged when there are just two of them. That way, they usually get two full activation per turn, and since I take my turns really quickly, that means they're active for nearly 50% of the game. Things slow down quite a bit when we get four heroes, and while I appreciate how they're willing to give each other advice, sometimes I wish they'd just plan on their own and move the game along (but that's a topic for another time).

Another thing to note is that I've played as the Imperial/overlord in everything except the app (where obviously, it's co-op).

I wouldn't mind being a Rebel sometime, but as the game master, I fear it would be a bit too meta since I am somewhat familiar with many of the missions already.

The resurgence of Star Wars with the new trilogy got my group re invested in the IP. We were all Star Wars fans from our child hood and most of us read all of the EU, now Legends, content.

At the same time, we were in a period in our lives where we had kids, wives, careers. We were busy, going out to pubs wasn't really entertaining or an option anymore, so we opted to stay in more and watch hockey, play video games. It became a ritual on weekend nights to watch Hockey Night in Canada and play the latest multiplayer game, or take turns playing single player games.. while drinking many beer.

I became the 'game guy' taking it upon myself to locate multiplayer games for us. It was tough to find two player video games, especially three to four player games. That was when I started looking at table tops. A friend had recently started playing Catan with his in laws, we played a few rounds of that and it was great fun. This seemed like a very viable option for us moving forward. Our group had all grown up playing RPG's, either the console JRPG's or the classics like Badlur's Gate, KOTOR etc..

I can't remember exactly where I found it, but I stumbled across Imperial Assault. It might have been when I made a random trip into my LGS, a place I had been a few times before but never spent much time in. I himmed and hawed over it for a few days, it was a lot of money for 'just a board game'. I could almost buy a new console for that cost! But eventually on Boxing day 2015 I bit the bullet and made the purchase. That day we opened it up and played through the first three missions, very incorrectly as many first due lol. I remember thinking that my E-Web had to be pointed at the player as they came down the hallway in A New Threat. Such a newb.

I've always loved strategy games, Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, these were my favourite games growing up. So the grid based system used in IA was perfect, it felt like home. I loved the dice system, the minis, the whole Star Wars IP. Traditionally I am more of a fantasy guy, but I've always felt SW was fantasy in space.

So this started the snowball of table top games for my group. I would go on to collect all of the expansions and figure packs. I even mustered up the courage to start painting thanks to the videos by the great Sorastro, and actually have gotten pretty good at it considering the limited time I have to actually paint. I have come to terms that my collection will never be complete, but I have fun doing it

Over the last (almost) three years we've played 3 core campaigns, 2 Twin Shadows, 1 Hoth, 1 Bespin, 2 Jabba, 1 HoTE and just wrapping up Lothal. For the app we've played 3 of each of the campaigns, loving the app. I've been fortunate that I have a dedicated three who love the game as much as I do, so we get to play often. We've had a rotated 5th depending on who is around as well. It's well over 200 hours of gaming I have gotten out of IA, and that isn't even including all of the skirmish I've played. I definitely got my money out of it. I've been the Imperial player for every campaign, I just love it. I think I am born to be a GM.

IA also opened the table top door for me, I haven't bought a video game since I started playing, which is great. IA led to the Descent app, which lead to MoM 2nd edition. I also picked up the LOTR LCG which I've loved. Rebellion has made some appearances lately. And even grabbed the Force and Destiny RPG book and a few add ons, which my group is getting ready to start a campaign on that now and take a little IA break.

I'm backing Tainted Grail, which also looks to be a great co-op game, and have played through a lot of Gloomhavens content as well. IA opened up the door for me and my group for tabletops, for that I will be forever grateful as this is a hobby I see myself continuing well into the future. It just fits perfectly with my other hobbies, when the weathers nice I love to be out on the open water, fishing, camping in the bush, getting away from life. But in the cold dark of winter when it's -30 out the and the wind is blowing nothing beats a good table top game, a pint glass full of my favourite beer and great friends laughing and interacting over the table.

But all those games I've listed, IA is still my favourite and the groups favourite as well. Just can't get enough of the Star Wars theme. Now as my little ones get older year by year I look forward to being able to experience all of this content years down the road with them.

I was int to x-wing at the time and was told that this new Star Wars game was better because it had better dice. I didn't like how you had to paint the figures (see later). I was spoiled by x-wing being played out of the box but also felt like painting was a waste of time since I always sucked at art (see later). My friend who got me into IA did not like how skirmish did not attract the crowds that x-wing did. I was successful at x-wing, but always felt uneasy about the looseness of the game. I'm a stickler for rules, so a game where an accidental bump can change the whole game bothered me. I started a casual play league with another x-winger, but left after I felt it got too competitive, aka people were cheating. Funny enough, this league is alive today and is well known to one of the biggest X-wing dojos in the world. They have a bad reputation with people outside of group.

Anyway, my friend who bailed from IA urged me to paint and even gave me all of his paint supplies and some tips on how to get started. I started first with colouring figures with sharpies and realized that was not a good idea. So, I jumped in and started painting the trandoshan hunters. I loved what they looked like and felt like maybe I had a hidden skill? I just had to try it! I also found that it made playing the game more enjoyable. I painted those! Also, you can paint them whatever way you want! I love that freedom. I recall playing against a dude who painted a lot of his figures in neon like colours. But in all honestly I felt like, go for it! Express yourself.

I found over time that playing IA made me happy as there are very few ways to cheat, you get to sit down when you play, you get 3 games in one, you get to play with iconic characters, the meta can be reigned in with map rotation and scenario variety, it's not overwhelmed by Magic players like x-wing was/is. I think the barriers to entrance into the game are what keeps it nice for me. You're not going to just pick it out of the box and play like you can with X-wing. I remember interviewing Paul Heaver one time and asking about his love of both games. Admittedly he did not like that IA was not a more popular game, but he also admitted that with IA you could not leave the game for a while and just expect to walk back in without practice. You need to know each map and scenario before you even think about a meta list. With X-wing he felt he could walk in and still win a tournament with very little practice.

Yes, the future of IA looks bleak some days, but until it dies, I have no reason to stop supporting it. I'm happy with every single wave, even the last one. They've done nothing but bring iconic figures into the game! What's wrong with that? I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Not all games last forever.

Noticed the game when they announced it at gencon. I immediately thought the game would be perfect for me as I always wanted to play descent, but didn't care for traditional fantasy themes. My closet was overflowing with games though, and I refused to let myself slip into a game that I knew would have hundreds of expansions. I made up my mind to never buy it.

A friend of mine bought it, and we started playing the campaign. And as expected I loved it right away. Still refused to buy it, cause why would you buy it if you can play someone else's copy, right?

At the time that Twin Shadows was released, another friend was selling his copy. It had a great foamcore insert as well, everything for 65 dollars. As the above campaign was going very slow (1 game every 2-3 months), and the guy we played with refused to buy any expansions, I decided to go for it and be the imperial player for a different group of friends. Purchased Twin Shadows with Boba and the droids afterwards, then Solo and Chewy. Can't have the game without the most iconic figures, right?

One problem with my friends copy that I purchased was that he painted the AT-ST, and all stormtroopers where primed and one was painted. So I started painting the rest of the primed stormtroopers. Then the droids. Then the Royal Guards. Down the rabbit hole I went.

Purchased everything that came out afterwards. A friend of mine commented that he was buying descent for some time, and it was hard to find some older stuff. So I decided to buy the stuff I didn't really want initially as well, to have a complete collection (Weiss, extra stormtrooper pack).

Best announcement for me was Jabba's realm. I've always loved Jabba's palace and everything scum related in the Star Wars movies. So announcing Jabba, a rancor, dewback, Gammorrean and Weequays was like a dream come through.

I knew the rebels series, but never heard of BT-1 and 0-0-0. So I started reading the vader comics when those figures where released. I also started watching the clone wars series at this point, getting to know more awesome characters like Cad Bane.

When the app was announced, I was running my own core and hoth campaign and playing in a different core campaign. Waited for my own core campaign to finish, then started playing the app with my daughters. After that I started a Jabba campaign with a different group. I also dabbled in some skirmish games, but never played a lot due to playing other games next to Imperial Assault as well.

I still have to start the Jabba app campaign, so maybe something to do these holidays with the kids. I'm also still in the process of painting everything. I've painted 160 imperial assault miniatures, so only 10 more to go (didn't paint the extra stormtroopers, but I did purchase a second Jawa and dewback). And I'm looking forward to see future releases. Still so many great star wars characters to go!

On 12/19/2018 at 2:16 PM, subtrendy2 said:

With the dearth of IA stuff being announced lately, it's hard to stay as engaged as a fan of this game as I used to be.

Cool thread idea, but I missed that official announcement.

Guess I should add in my own story. I was introduced to IA in early 2015. I had just played in an X-Wing Regional (right after the Outrider and Decimator came out) and had missed the top 8 cut by 1 spot, so I was a bit bummed out, but some new friends that I had made in the local X-Wing community (I had only been living in this city for about 6 months at the time), told me at the tournament that they had an open slot in their IA campaign because someone had to drop out and invited me to fill in, and since I knew I was going to want to take a few weeks off from X-Wing I said yes.

The Imperial player met up with me at the LGS before our scheduled mission to teach me the game via skirmish, the Core mission where you have to flip tokens on the shuttle, and he let me play a Vader list, who was pretty awesome even at 18 points in Wave 1. My first mission was Imperial Hospitality and I was given Diala to play, who already had Force Throw and Defensive Stance (ugh). Our Imperial player who owned the game had been a former Descent overlord, so he was carrying over a bunch of rules from Descent incorrectly, like heroes could only rest once per activation and would recover at the end of their activation instead of instantly. I remember feeling like that was a strange rule and asked to see the rulebook and basically for the rest of the night the rulebook stayed next to me and I ended up correcting a bunch of rules mistakes they had been making.

I kept playing with their group, although we never were able to play the finale before our Imperial player had to move. I held off on buying the game because I was very put off at the idea of painting, but when Sorastro started putting out his tutorial videos that showed step-by-stepy how easy it was to paint great looking IA figures, I finally caved and used an Amazon gift card to subsidize a purchase of the Core set, and the new Twin Shadows and Boba Fett xpacs.

Unfortunately by the time I had pulled the trigger on the game, the guys who had been playing skirmish regularly had either moved away or moved on to the new Game of Thrones LCG, so I ended up putting the game on shelf for a few months, although I slowly worked on expanding my collection of Wave 1 and Wave 2 figures. The first campaign I ran was actually Return to Hoth after it came out, and it actually had a revolving cast of Rebel players, including Sozin at one point after he moved to our town.

Our skirmish scene had a brief revival around the time of Bespin Gambit through Obi-Wan wave, where I learned to love Davith Elso in Rebel lists, and I got top 4 at an 8-player Store Championship with Davith, Murne and Rebel Sabs. Then the scene pretty much collapsed and I didn't play skirmish for almost 2 years. Now recently around the time HotE came out, I've been able to revive, or more accurately create a new IA community by running campaign nights out of our LGS and then converting those players over to skirmish and also through the help of an existing IA community about 90 minutes south of us that was previously unknown to me (and largely inaccessible since I don't currently own a car).

17 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Cool thread idea, but I missed that official announcement.

Read it again. Dearth, not death.

My imperial assault experiance started around Christmas after hoth came out. One of the arkham horror expansions I had purchased had the ffg catalog in it, and Imperial assault was on the cover, and my friend and I though that looked pretty dang cool. So i got the core game and we started playing and we had a wonderful time figuring who goes well with who, and what cool combos could be achieved. I ended up skipping most of the character packs, but got twin shadows and return to hoth. My group had a lot of fun with hoth, not so much twin shadows (probably because they had the two heroes from that box). We finished that content shortly before the announcement of bespin, which got me super hyped, and I jumped on the "omg bossk is a boss" hype train.

Now during this time, I just couldn't get enough imperial assault so I started looking around for more imp assault to do. Come Phoenix Comicon, I checked out the gaming table and saw that my local imperial assault skirmishes hosting a skirmish demo. I hopped over, learned to play skirmish and joined the group, which got me into skirmish play. I've been been playing both ever since them.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the Royal Guard Champion, who I think is an absolutely wonderful character and he got me into reading some of the legends books/comics (specifically in this case Crimson Empire). this came about from the rebels doing mak's side mission as the first side mission, where he was able to absolutely destroy the rebels! He was actually the first figure pack that I ended up getting. I learned about the additional agenda decks from that (yes I know they had the darth vader pack do that, but I had forgotten) so then I knew that I needed to get everything. So here I am, continuing to play a game that I love, and eagerly awaiting more news!

35 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Cool thread idea, but I missed that official announcement.

Try reading it as:

With the dearth of "IA stuff being announced lately"...

Basically saying we've had a lack of news.

I misread it as "death", my bad. I updated my previous post with my own story.

One thing to consider when we look at hours spent playing IA as a return on our investment, say that you play a 25 hour campaign, that's 25 hours * X amount of players. If you had a dedicated group of 4-5, that's 100-125 hours of game play out of one campaign. That has been what I love the most about table tops, it's a bit of an investment because they are not cheap.. but you are bringing entertainment to a group of players. And the entertainment, the interaction, the laughs, that is priceless. As cliche as it sounds, it's true.

Versus staring into a monitor with a head set on, only talking when absolutely necessary for the sake of the game. So hyper focused that life is literally passing you by. Don't get me wrong, time flies when I crack open a game, before I know it the night is already over and 4-5 hours have passed. But in that 4-5 hours I've had more direct human interaction than I did all week in my work life, my brain has worked harder and I always feel just good.

I know I am kind of taking this thread a different direction, and I apologize for that. But after reading everyones great replies it just kind of donned on me how much value and entertainment one can derive from a few pieces of cardboard, some dice and cards.

28 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

I know I am kind of taking this thread a different direction, and I apologize for that. But after reading everyones great replies it just kind of donned on me how much value and entertainment one can derive from a few pieces of cardboard, some dice and cards.

No, I think you make some really interesting points!

As a fan of both video games and tabletop games, I can say that if I have people over I'd almost always prefer tabletop. Some couch co-op is always a blast (especially with the 2000s era Battlefront) but I guess I see video games as a game that can happen to be social, while board games are a social activity that happens to be a game, if that makes sense.

And I'm with ya. I've played 6-7 hour long games of Rebellion and War of the Ring before, and they felt 2.5 hours max. I easily get lost in those worlds.

My story with IA

In the summer of 2017, I was stuck alone in my home town. Everyone else was on holiday or away on summer assignments elsewhere, and I was the only one working ‘back home’. So I spent the summer doing my own things, obsessing over Star Wars and music most of the time. I was looking for a fresh avenue to indulge my Star Wars mania but had no clear idea of what I wanted. I was exposed to Star Wars Rebellion, which is a fantastically thematic game, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for… I wanted something co-op and a bit more RPG-y.

That summer I haunted my LGS quite a bit, and I often drifted over to the boardgame section to look at various SW themed games; X-wing was interesting, but I couldn’t see much of an RPG angle there.

…and, before I forget, I was also looking for a game with miniatures I could possibly use in a long-planned SW pen-&-paper RPG campaign I’ve got brewing – (basically a prequel to the old WEG Darkstryder campaign, exploring the Kathol Sector under Moff Sarne’s iron heel, but I digress) – and it was because of this campaign that I was looking for cool starship minies that I might use for that...

Every time I was there I picked up Imperial Assault. It looked fun… or, the minies looked fun, but I couldn’t quite figure out what the game was like. It “sounded” like RPG, but it was obviously a boardgame, right? I have no experience with Descent, but I had heard about it and wondered if perhaps this was a Star Wars re-skin of Descent? I got into pen-&-paper RPGing through Games Workshop’s old HeroesQuest game, from the early 90s or so, and I was intrigued by the idea of what a similar boardgame-trying-to-be-an-RPG game, created in the 21 ^st century, might accomplish.

Of course, I was discouraged by the price of the core box, being so broke at the time I was about a month-and-a-half away from living on the street, but I just couldn’t put it out of my head. Every time I visited the shop I keep ogling the game. When I was home, I spent my time googling IA (ending up on this forum more often than not), and finally I just decided not to eat for a while and bought the damned thing (together with the Stormtrooper, Leia, Jedi Luke, Rebel Saboteurs, Alliance Smuggler, & Terro/Dewback Rider blisters). Back home, I spent the rest of the day looking through stuff and getting acquainted with the game. I called my gf, (who is a bigger geek then me, but not quite as big an SW fan), and she was ecstatic that I had invested in the thing! I started painting and by the time she got back to town, I was ready to game. We played through the core campaign in about a week or so, and went and bought Twin Shadows and loads of more blisters. From August till Christmas 2017 we bought every IA product every put out, a couple of them twice, and while we starved that autumn, we’ve never looked back. We love this game!

Christmas of 2018 is coming up now, but there are no more IA products left to buy (the Lothal wave long since purchased)… We’ve bought double of everything we could ever need, and more too, as well as a few 3D-printed extras. Yeah, we went all in. Now we’re a week away from traveling to our friends’ place for a week-and-a-half of heavy IA gaming, where I will run Tyrants of Lothal , RPG-style, for friends playing Tress, Wildfire, Drokkatta, & Diala, and it’s gonna be the highlight of the year

Thank you, FFG, for giving us Imperial Assault, and thank you to all here to bring this great forum to life!

Here's my story:

I became aware of Imperial Assault a couple months before it released and got very excited, so I bought it right away. My brother and I played skirmish and really enjoyed it. It became a regular thing. When Twin Shadows was announced, he offered to pay half just to add more figure options to skirmish.

We stuck with that for a while, just my brother and I playing skirmish, and I bought the occasional expansion. I also played skirmish a couple times with other friends and my gaming club at work, so other people got introduced to it. Then an online game site had a massive discount sale and I dropped something like $200 getting Hoth, Bespin, and every wave up to wave 6. There were 2 or 3 figures out of stock so I don't have a complete collection up to Bespin/Wave 6 but it's dang close.

I then ran a Twin Shadows campaign for my gaming club at work, which was lots of fun. After that it's been back to only skirmish, mostly with my brother but a couple more with work and other friends. Very casual, no tournaments.

I am now prepping for another campaign with new players, which will be Twin Shadows with Aftermath as an intro/learning adventure.

I don't really follow Rebels so a lot of the new stuff isn't too exciting for me, but I am certainly happy the game is still being supported. I do still have other expansions and figure packs to get eventually, but I'm putting a pause on it until I run through more side missions I haven't tried and try out more skirmish missions and figure combos. So the slow flow of new stuff is perfectly good with me right now.

On 12/21/2018 at 4:52 PM, FrogTrigger said:

I know I am kind of taking this thread a different direction, and I apologize for that. But after reading everyones great replies it just kind of donned on me how much value and entertainment one can derive from a few pieces of cardboard, some dice and cards.

I remember when I was playing X-wing and now IA, I always felt proud that I was into something that really doesn't cost a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. I'd tell my girlfriend, ya I spend money playing with star wars toys with other grown men, but I could be wasting it in so many other ways. The reality is that a night of fun playing skirmish, or campaign for you folk, costs next to nothing over time. **** I could be at home playing Fortnite right? (cue floss dance).

Frankly, I mostly enjoy the social aspect of gaming. Having a slow influx of IA doesn't phase me too much as long as it keeps coming. I fully plan to make a fan made campaign someday too.

Always enjoyed Star Wars, yet, never "loved" it enough to buy much merchandise. When I discovered Imperial Assault it reminded me of a beloved videogame franchise- XCOM, how could I say no or resist? I started picking up all the boxes and individual units I could find beginning in 2016 as they came, due in large part to my need to "finish" a collection. (Strangely I don't actually collect much of anything aside from dlc in videogames; I suppose I like a complete experience)

My roomate at the time and I used to play skirmish with each other on boring weekends and our love for the game grew with each expansion. Sadly I didn't have too many friends who actually played boardgames back in 2016, so it was more of a setup for future fun. A enjoyed what lore there was, but, was dissapointed in the "open-experience" that left each individual hero with no pertinent backstories to speak of. After reading a post by @Stompburger who had crafted a nice protype for my future stories, I decided to put my amateur writing skills to work and craft some interesting tales that I (and hopefully others) would like to read from each heroes perspective.

As the app came along my old roomate and I had more excuses to play the game and only grew more interested in the coming expansions. Fast forward to late 2018 and I am now slowly beginning to play the campaign for the first time with a group of gaming friends (old roomate included) and we are having a great time.

I am still waiting on new expansions and just as bored as you guys are on those nasty months in between releases, but, am happy to have met many of you guys and to share a passion with you all for gaming.

Now a day's I'm usually found haunting the forums; waiting for something interesting to happen while im at work during the weekdays.

Literal picture of me and my old roomate waiting on the next expansion or announcement from FFG regarding Imperial Assault.^

On 12/31/2018 at 10:01 AM, NeverBetTheFett said:

I remember when I was playing X-wing and now IA, I always felt proud that I was into something that really doesn't cost a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. I'd tell my girlfriend, ya I spend money playing with star wars toys with other grown men, but I could be wasting it in so many other ways. The reality is that a night of fun playing skirmish, or campaign for you folk, costs next to nothing over time. **** I could be at home playing Fortnite right? (cue floss dance).

Does she play?

If you can get her involved in a campaign, maybe she'd see the appeal

This is great. I can relate to a lot of these stories.

My story starts back in '82, I think, or maybe '83. I got two star wars figures (Snowtrooper and Han in his long sleeve bespin outfit [not the vest one]) for Christmas. My older brother got Luke in the Dagobah fatigues and Chewie. I remember going to see ESB with my dad and both my older brothers. One of the first movies I ever saw in a theatre. Always loved Star Wars.

Fastforward to college and I played a little of some Star Wars role playing game (I forget which one, probably around '98?) and also got super excited for the prequels. I went and saw PM the day it came out and kind of liked it at first, cause hey, it was Star Wars. On closer reflection I started to like it less.

I've been living in Asia for a long time and really got into board games while there... Probably, like many of you, it started with Settlers of Catan. Gateway game. One friends invited a bunch of friends over and he had a lot of fun games I had never played. One on his shelf that caught my eye was Imperial Assault. This was in the middle of 2015. We only ever played campaign and I loved it from day one. I was happy to just play my friend's copy... until we moved to a different country. I was busy with work and didn't even have the game but kept checking the FFG website for news of new stuff! I didn't really think any of my friends in this new area would want to play it.

Then, after moving again I mentioned it to some friends who I played a lot of games with (Dominion, 7 wonders etc) and they said it sounded cool and they'd like to try it. Also, more importantly, my kids said they'd like to play it with me! The next time I was visiting home again I picked up a used copy. It was the core set plus Boba Fett. The only problem was it was half painted. If it had been unpainted, I would never have painted the rest... I'm still not a good painter but it's a fun diversion. The figs look pretty good (until I compare them to the actually good stuff on FFG forums...).

So I got the core set around Feb 2017 and also have Hoth and (yesterday) got Jabba's Realm. I wanted HotE, but the newish app update made me choose JR. I've got a fair few blister packs too but by no means the whole set.

I only played campaign for the first year and a half and have done (including with my friends stuff and my own collection) 2x core (half way thru a third), 1x Twin Shadows, and 1x Hoth. Last summer my friend and I tried Skirmish and then got a few others into it. We had our own mini-tournament (4 games each, 6 players) and used a LOT of proxies! I've also done the first (core box) app campaign with my kids and we are going to start the JR one soon.

All in all, I really like IA, both campaign and skirmish. I'm actually not sure which one I like better (is that unusual?) I really hope we keep getting new stuff, even if it is just new blister waves every so often and app stuff... that would be enough! If not, I'm totally up for voting for changes to old deployment cards as a community and continuing this game into the future!

Heh. These are great stories! Love the nostalgia.

I wrote a post -two years- ago, in October 2016; it was titled "My Path to Worlds", and included how I'd followed a rather convoluted path to get into Imperial Assault. Definitely relevant here!

I ended up placing 4th out of 96th there in the Swiss during the November 2016 Worlds, and only lost my top-16 game to a single 50/50 die roll in the end: if the black die had rolled two or three block, my figure lives and I win; if not, my figure dies and I lose. I lost; no salt though! I had a real blast there...and I still have my dice! Fun fact: the only game I lost in Swiss was when I played against some new guy named "Daniel Taylor" or something. ; )

I'm now the organizer for our local small-but-dedicated Imperial Assault community here. We have -three- young girls that play the game here, twins that were 8 when they started (9 now), and another girl who started at 7 and is now 8. Some of them tend to do well in the tournaments, as well!

Anyway, here's my original post, from two years ago:

Quote

I got to thinking: my path to this year’s Imperial Assault Worlds tournament is a somewhat unlikely series of events, each one of which –had- to happen for me to go.

1:

I had gotten out of touch with a close high school friend about twelve-ish years ago. Just over two years ago, August 2014, his long-term girlfriend contacted me: his 40 ^th birthday was coming up, and she was pretty sure he would love it if I showed up and surprised him. He lives in Victoria, I live in Vancouver, basically a 6- to 8-hour trip to get there. I thought about it. Hemmed and hawed, finally decided to go. Had a blast. (His expression when I stepped out of their guest room and just said “Hi!” was hilarious. ; )

2:

He’s a gamer too. His party was a gaming party. At some point that evening, he said to me “You know, there’s this game I think you might like. It’s called Star Trek: Attack Wing. Want to give it a try?” Sure, why not? I’d never played miniatures before, mostly because I’m not the –least- bit interested in painting them, but hey it’s his birthday, let’s have some fun. Two games later, I was –definitely- intrigued. And I didn’t have to paint these!

(I did my research, which is why I switched from WhizzKrap-produced Attack Wing and went for this similar “X-Wing” game, made by some company I’d never really heard of before, called “Fantasy Flight”.) So, to keep track so far: if his girlfriend hadn’t called, if I had decided not to go, or if he hadn’t introduced me to Attack Wing, I almost certainly would have never tried X-Wing.

Fast forward over a year.

It’s now around October 2015. I’ve gotten into X-Wing’s competitive scene. By now I know –all about- FFG, am in grave danger of becoming a raving fanboi, and own –way- too many ships. I’ve heard they’ve come out with this new game called Imperial Assault. I’ve looked at it, it seems intriguing, but the figures are unpainted, and that’s a dealbreaker for me. Also, the box is over $120 (Canadian). But…it sure does look interesting…

3:

A guy I know from casual board games arrives at a bi-annual local board game swap night, toting the Imperial Assault box. He says it’s got the Stormtroopers and the Kayne Somos expansions in it. I ask him how much? “How about $50?” SOLD!!! (I end up leaving that swap meet with less money than I went in with. *sigh* ; ) The box sits on my shelf for about four months, unused.

4:

A local guy starts actively promoting Imperial Assault Skirmish in our area. Around January 2016, I discover and decide to join the facebook group—and hey look, there’s a kit tournament in February. Should I go? Eh, why not? I’m not going to spend a lot of money on IA though, it’s going to be a secondary game for me. ( AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *cough*cough*cough* …Sorry, just had to point and laugh at past-me on that one.)

I get second place in that tournament—I actually won all my games, but so did one other person; it’s a bit complicated, but it was perfectly fair, don’t worry! ; ) –That, uh, definitely helps pique my interest in this game!

And now I have to backtrack a bit, to string up a completely different thread.

5:

I’ve GM’d a weekly online text-based roleplaying game for about fifteen years. One player has been with me throughout all my campaigns, for every one of those years. He lives in…Minneapolis, Minnesota, FFG’s headquarters.

6:

Two years ago, I had to give up roleplaying because my studies were taking up too much time, and we had gotten out of touch. Last May, he sent me an email checking in, asking how I was doing. I figured, sure let’s chat—but things won’t calm down for me at work until August, so we’ll reconnect after that. But I get some unexpected spare time, so impulsively I offer to chat early…on Saturday, July 2 ^nd .

7:

During that chat, two big things happen: I’m reminded about where he lives, and that he was happy to host me if I ‘were ever down that way’…and our conversation rekindled my desire to GM again. ; ) If I decided attend Worlds, I likely would not have to pay for a hotel! Hrm... –And- I could meet my long-time roleplaying friend face to face, finally! Synergy!

(So. If I hadn’t starting GMing 15 years ago, if he hadn’t been my PC the whole time, if he hadn’t gotten in touch with me, if I had waited until August to talk with him, if he hadn’t offered his place to stay, and if he hadn’t lived in Minneapolis…I –never- would have even considered going.)

ALL of this had to happen, for me to go to Worlds. My lost childhood friend’s girlfriend contacting me. My going to his 40 ^th birthday, 8 hours away. His introducing me to Attack Wing. Another guy selling IA for super-cheap. The local guy promoting Skirmish. Choosing to GM for fifteen years. My long-term roleplaying player deciding to reconnect with me. Chatting with him early instead of waiting until August. His living in Minneapolis and offering a couch to sleep on.

8:

And one last one: I’m an accountant by trade. April and May are right in the middle of my busiest months. I definitely would never have even considered going to one of the subsequent Worlds, if I had missed this last November event.

So…yeah. Not really sure the point of this post, except maybe to share. And…life sure is funny, when you think about it.

(My wife and I met in a similar sequence of had-to-happen events as well, btw…; )