I think this deserves it's own thread, and the community deserves some answers from FFG.

This weekend was Worlds for Imperial Assault at Adepticon 2019. The seats were set at 80, 65 were filled according to FFG OP Twitter. Of those 15 spots I am sure most were casualties of FFG's inability to properly organize the tournament seat sales. They failed to announce the tourney in a timely fashion and poorly handled how people got their seats, including not even letting people know on the wait list until as late as March 9th (so far, might have been later), under 3 weeks notice from the tournament beginning.

Furthermore, Legion had a pretty big event at Adepticon as well including their Last Chance Qualifier and High Command days, these are big and important to the Legion community, but they aren't their Worlds, they are not even the biggest tournament for the game that will happen this year... and Alex Davey, one of the creators of the game, showed up to support the community. He was seen walking the floors talking with everyone, working closely with the tournament organizers and even sat down on the Fifth Trooper podcast stream, multiple times, to answer questions about the game and offer commentary on the games being played. How cool is that?

Now, I'm not trying to make this a Davey did this so feels bad Todd and IA creators, but honestly as an IA player it's tough to see that when that isn't even their biggest tourney of the year. This was Worlds, it doesn't get any bigger for IA, and I feel like FFG really dropped the ball on this from day one.

We've got zero communication about the future of the game, besides these new organized play events which were a blanket change across the Star Wars competitive games, and no idea what the creators are even thinking of the current game state, which was horrible. But this isn't meant to be a direct thread about the state of the meta, that is being discussed here:

This is meant to be a thread to discuss the state of the game in general and the lack of participation from the game designers in our discussions, and the lack of communication in general on where this game is at and where it is going. We at least deserve some sort of 'state of the game' address, because right now after that Worlds, this game is bleeding players fast and we as a community have nothing to help stop that besides the heroic efforts of Zions Finest. But it is NOT fair to put the weight of the game on their shoulders, FFG needs to step up and be accountable for what they have created. Everyone was looking to Worlds, looking to Worlds, lets just get to Worlds and play, now what? Many of us were holding out hope some news would come out of Worlds for the game, but it hasn't. And to be fair FFG never promised any would, or even hinted.

We have seen it is possible to have the game creator show up and engage with the community, it happened right in front of our eyes, where was the IA team on the biggest day of the year for competitive IA play?

dude 33 Spectre Cells, the dev's screwed this game up and the bleeding wont stop.

yup. throw us a bone, FFG. Please give us some official news.

3 hours ago, Mandelore of the Rings said:

yup. throw us a bone, FFG. Please give us some official news.

Caveat - official news which is not regarding the release of a playmat, or general tweaks to the OP program.

Yeah, by news I meant something actually newsworthy. I new dumb playmat or rules change isn't really worthy. Maybe, to quote Wayne and Garth, "we're not worthy".

2 hours ago, dysartes said:

Caveat - official news which is not regarding the release of a playmat, or general tweaks to the OP program.

Ha! Right? Those articles read like static to me.

I see "Imperial Assault" think "oooh!" then read "...organised play" and my brain switches off and I carry on my day, dejected 😂

I saw the "Big changes to Imperial Assault...." on a link on facebook over the weekend "OH WHAT!" *clicked it eagerly* "... organised play and tournaments" ...meh. Carried on what I was doing.

I've played skirmish a few times, it was fun, but it's not what me and my group are about. We love narrative. Fingers crossed they keep this game going. We've still got content to play, but it's a shame to see this game get pushed back from the limelight in order to push their war system (VERY little interest in 1 vs 1 or competitive these days). I'm interested in the CW box, as I've wanted Clone minis for an age, but yeah, their overall silence on IA is incredibly frustrating.

Oh It's very obvious they are super focussed on building Legion while neglecting IA. I guess they think that we'll buy any Star Wars they push on us? I'm not saying Legion is a bad game, although I have zero interest in it, but to get in right now would cost a fortune in time and money. They are making it clear that IA is not a priority and perhaps we have not been reading the clear writing on the wall. It will be interesting to see how they react to this past weekend's clear broken meta. Over half of the best players in the World brought SC and the all SC final is a bit embarrassing for the game. Call it what you want, but it's an embarrassment. I feel bad for Todd as he seems super can cuffed and really on his own. I'm not sure he can handle that.

So yes, SC needs to be nerfed. Simple as that. I'm happy for them that they sold their Disney inspired fake Star Wars bull-sh-it, but move on. Nerf the card slightly. It will be banned from all tournaments I T.O. from now on until then.

Yeah, we need some actual communication.

I've been optimistically holding out through 5/4, but I'm worried that if we don't have something by then I really will lose momentum in my passion for this game.

I get that FFG is far from the only company that keeps their developing projects under wraps (it's generally an entertainment industry standard, really) but it's clear that our fandom is getting more and more fed up.

Not addressing that is a horrible PR move.

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

I've been optimistically holding out through 5/4, but I'm worried that if we don't have something by then I really will lose momentum in my passion for this game.

Anything particularly special about this Friday?

4 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

Oh It's very obvious they are super focussed on building Legion while neglecting IA. I guess they think that we'll buy any Star Wars they push on us? I'm not saying Legion is a bad game, although I have zero interest in it, but to get in right now would cost a fortune in time and money. They are making it clear that IA is not a priority and perhaps we have not been reading the clear writing on the wall. It will be interesting to see how they react to this past weekend's clear broken meta. Over half of the best players in the World brought SC and the all SC final is a bit embarrassing for the game. Call it what you want, but it's an embarrassment. I feel bad for Todd as he seems super can cuffed and really on his own. I'm not sure he can handle that.

So yes, SC needs to be nerfed. Simple as that. I'm happy for them that they sold their Disney inspired fake Star Wars bull-sh-it, but move on. Nerf the card slightly. It will be banned from all tournaments I T.O. from now on until then.

I've always thought that mirror lists shouldn't be allowed, going back to my Star Wars miniatures days.

9 minutes ago, dysartes said:

5/4

This is American for May the 4th^

"May the Fourth be with you"

"Revenge of the fifth"

33 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

I've always thought that mirror lists shouldn't be allowed, going back to my Star Wars miniatures days.

Interesting. How did they accomplish this?

1 hour ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

Interesting. How did they accomplish this?

You brought 2 list, Light side and Dark side.

2 hours ago, King_Balrog said:

This is American for May the 4th^

"May the Fourth be with you"

"Revenge of the fifth"

I'm not expecting anything for IA will correspond to anything like May the 4th. It's not really a thing outside fans online and the occasional nerd merch retailer. The only thing I recall FFG ever doing for any "Star Wars Holiday" was the Force Awakens X-Wing set on Force Friday and the Last Jedi Destiny set and those were for their biggest games (at the time anyway. Sorry, Destiny).

On the other hand, they may instead just be shifting to primarily focusing on Campaign, considering that's what they're promoting at Celebration. A Sequel era (First Order Fracas?), Clone Wars (Separatist Strike?), or Rogue One campaign box seems like a remote possibility for announcement at Celebration. Adepticon would seem like a much more logical venue for something like that than a broader event like Celebration but who knows?

14 minutes ago, Cusm said:

You brought 2 list, Light side and Dark side.

Well that would have been interesting for this Worlds... "OK so we flip a coin and winner gets to play Spectre Cell"

6 minutes ago, Weatherwax2099 said:

Well that would have been interesting for this Worlds... "OK so we flip a coin and winner gets to play Spectre Cell"

I'd support this. It also makes the game more thematic as you'll never have the same factions fighting each other.

7 minutes ago, Weatherwax2099 said:

Well that would have been interesting for this Worlds... "OK so we flip a coin and winner gets to play Spectre Cell"

IIRC after the first round, the person in higher standing got to choose their side.

2 hours ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

Interesting. How did they accomplish this?

Oh, they didn't it. I was the same thing. The best few lists were played by all the top players at big tournaments, and the finals were regularly mirror lists And I hated it. I'm one of these crazy people who prefer fun and theme over min-maxing.

Just now, NeverBetTheFett said:

I'd support this. It also makes the game more thematic as you'll never have the same factions fighting each other.

The "must be able to play two different sides" was one of the best parts of the late, lamented Star Wars LCG and I would legit like to see more asymmetrical play in missions and map design, especially if there is ever a 2nd edition of IA. Say, one player as offense and one as defense and with each player having a list for each. Kind of bringing campaign and skirmish missions more in line with each other.

I'm fairly sure GW's Lord of the Rings events required players to bring both Good and Evil forces, though I never played in such an event myself. It seems like it would be pretty achievable to do something similar for IA. I suspect very, very few people have models for only one faction.

An alternative might be to do what Blood Bowl did for a while: if both teams picked the same Star Player, that player will play for neither team. Though in the particular case of SC, that might leave one player with Extra Armor and the other with Motivation, but neither with any actual figures, which wouldn't make for much of a game!

The GW Lord of Rings mechanic had one other piece that made it enjoyable: you could short-change a faction.

I forget the exact wording but it was something like (using IA terms): you have 80 points, 30 points of command cards to make two forces. Each force must have 15 command cards and normal card restrictions (no duplicate uniques, number of elites, etc). So in theory you could have a 35 point (scum, for sake of example) and a 45 point (Empire) list. You can’t have the same faction face each other, but the LotR only had 2 sides vice the 3 of this game.

I personally had short-changed one of my forces to buff the other, but only a little bit. There were players who really swung the points, hoping to keep their strong force and having a very weak smaller force.

1 hour ago, hosercanadian said:

The GW Lord of Rings mechanic had one other piece that made it enjoyable: you could short-change a faction.

I forget the exact wording but it was something like (using IA terms): you have 80 points, 30 points of command cards to make two forces. Each force must have 15 command cards and normal card restrictions (no duplicate uniques, number of elites, etc). So in theory you could have a 35 point (scum, for sake of example) and a 45 point (Empire) list. You can’t have the same faction face each other, but the LotR only had 2 sides vice the 3 of this game.

I personally had short-changed one of my forces to buff the other, but only a little bit. There were players who really swung the points, hoping to keep their strong force and having a very weak smaller force.

How was it decided who got to be which faction?

18 hours ago, Weatherwax2099 said:

I'm not expecting anything for IA will correspond to anything like May the 4th. It's not really a thing outside fans online and the occasional nerd merch retailer. The only thing I recall FFG ever doing for any "Star Wars Holiday" was the Force Awakens X-Wing set on Force Friday and the Last Jedi Destiny set and those were for their biggest games (at the time anyway. Sorry, Destiny).

On the other hand, they may instead just be shifting to primarily focusing on Campaign, considering that's what they're promoting at Celebration. A Sequel era (First Order Fracas?), Clone Wars (Separatist Strike?), or Rogue One campaign box seems like a remote possibility for announcement at Celebration. Adepticon would seem like a much more logical venue for something like that than a broader event like Celebration but who knows?

Heart of the Empire was announced around that time (I think it was the 5th, but close enough.

Basically, I see May 4th as a sort of last ditch. It'll have been over a year since Lothal was announced, at that point, and a lot of the big springs events will have been over.

Maybe it's arbitrary, but that's my personal line in the sand.

Didn't think it was worth a thread of its own, but this is very interesting - Legion has a set of upgrade cards available on their own. We've been wondering for ages whether FFG might do something like that for IA (and assuming they wouldn't); but they could, and it would make the game much easier to get into for new players who otherwise have to buy entire hard-to-find expansions just to get cards like Negation. That and banning SC, and even if they never did anything more, IA would be in a decent state to just leave it alone, if they wanted.

Of course I'd still like to see Yoda, Ewoks, Scout Troopers or Speeder Bikes, a Boba Fett fix, and 4-LOM and Zuckuss; and at that point I'd consider IA sufficiently complete to be called "finished". Another boxed expansion (Endor-themed?) would be even better. Come to that, if they keep going forever, I'll keep buying forever.

But... none of that seems likely at this point, whereas a set of Command cards would take literally zero effort on FFG's part, at all, and now we know they're happy to put out such a product. So it seems a reasonable hope.

3 minutes ago, Bitterman said:

Didn't think it was worth a thread of its own, but this is very interesting - Legion has a set of upgrade cards available on their own. We've been wondering for ages whether FFG might do something like that for IA (and assuming they wouldn't); but they could, and it would make the game much easier to get into for new players who otherwise have to buy entire hard-to-find expansions just to get cards like Negation. That and banning SC, and even if they never did anything more, IA would be in a decent state to just leave it alone, if they wanted.

Of course I'd still like to see Yoda, Ewoks, Scout Troopers or Speeder Bikes, a Boba Fett fix, and 4-LOM and Zuckuss; and at that point I'd consider IA sufficiently complete to be called "finished". Another boxed expansion (Endor-themed?) would be even better. Come to that, if they keep going forever, I'll keep buying forever.

But... none of that seems likely at this point, whereas a set of Command cards would take literally zero effort on FFG's part, at all, and now we know they're happy to put out such a product. So it seems a reasonable hope.

Even so, Legion is the new kid on the block. The game is fresh to them and there are plenty of creative people trying to make the game viable.

Poor ol' Imperial Assault may still get snubbed in the end...