It’s so sad that FFG had to stop imperial assault because they don’t have the rights to board games. ☹️ But I have a question, how did they get away with rebellion? Which is way more of a board game then IA ever was. Does anyone know how that happened?

No, FFG didn't have to stop Imperial Assault due to Hasbro - not due to that alone. But it's obvious all games have their run, some longer than some others. It all came to a number of "business reasons", including the need to concentrate on something new.

FFG made an agreement with Hasbro when Hasbro raised a "question" about IA when it first came out. What the agreement contains we don't know, but that same agreement apparently made Rebellion and Outer Rim possible. Only FFG and Hasbro know for sure. (Or LFL/Disney if it is due to their licensing changing.)

Ultimately we don't need to know. Imperial Assault had a good run, and the sold copies still exist.

3 hours ago, jhh3 said:

It’s so sad that FFG had to stop imperial assault because they don’t have the rights to board games. ☹️ But I have a question, how did they get away with rebellion? Which is way more of a board game then IA ever was. Does anyone know how that happened?

In some ways I'm glad it stopped. I know that's not popular. I think Skirmish was causing all kind of problems. The main people who are concerned about FFG ending IA are people who just want more plastic to regularly change the meta. That is a process I find abhorrent. It leads to power creep, and massive changes in the mechanics that are not necessary, except for skirmish. I wish IA had closed out better. I wish there would have been less Rebels (the TV show) figures and more OT figures to round out the time period, but c'est la vie. At least I can add my own cards to the pile knowing what the final rule set is. The unfortunate thing for those of use who are primarily campaign players is that non-skirmish games are more niche. Which is why IA was abandoned for their new shiny toy, Legion. Legion will sell a bunch of plastic, and as they are already are showing, they can branch outside the OT, and not have to worry about making anything work inside the more complicated campaign system. More pew pew, less RPG. People still play games like Hero Quest, so I think IA will exist for a long time among dungeon crawl players like me.

2 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

The main people who are concerned about FFG ending IA are people who just want more plastic to regularly change the meta. That is a process I find abhorrent. It leads to power creep, and massive changes in the mechanics that are not necessary, except for skirmish.

I don't think that's fair. A lot of people, myself included, just wanted more of their favorite characters to show up, and for even more variety in campaign.

Anyway, in regards to the question, I think @a1bert nailed it. We don't know what the agreement with Hasbro was, and I think Outer Rim is even less of a miniatures game than Rebellion is (in that it, as far as I know, contains exactly 0 miniatures). It's probably safe to say that the "FFG=Miniatures, Hasbro=Board Games" is probably not at all an accurate description of their agreement.

Rebellion doesn't have miniatures, per se, but it does have a small bucket's worth of plastic nonetheless ... that's kinda minis?

I'm kinda thinking it's more due to IA mainly had its run. We'll probably see more stand-alone bgg-audience targeted star wars titles from FFG in the future (here and there), with hasbro being more on the casual-accessible titles (i.e. star wars rotj risk, which is a bit imbalanced but hella fun).

Even though I had seen it before I never really knew anything about IA or any other FFG games really until very recently. I don't know of anyone else who plays it so for me the real draw was the campaign via the app. I started playing but then began painting so I haven't gotten back to actually painting yet. My plan is to finish painting the core set, do that campaign, paint another set, do that campaign, etc. At the very least I would love to see them finish adding the campaigns to the app. I'm intrigued by Legion and some of the minis now that I've gotten into painting but again not having anyone to play with would basically mean that I'm buying for the sole purpose of painting. I would agree that IA had it's run but it would also be nice down the road to create an expansion for Legion to allow you to use your characters to play some sort of campaign. By biggest complaint with IA was that the characters were all the same mold, I mean seriously 9 stormtroopers in the exact same pose is quite dull.

If you bought the Stormtroopers expansion pack you were treated to a different stance, with the gun also being held differently. 😉

4 hours ago, onyersix said:

If you bought the Stormtroopers expansion pack you were treated to a different stance, with the gun also being held differently. 😉

yup, got that one too but still... woohoo 12 stormtroopers, 2 poses lol

FFG has the Star Wars license for card games (like CCGs) and miniature war games (like 40k). Hasbro has the license for toys, which apparently also includes board games, which they have used to make things like SW Risk, SW Monopoly, SW Operation and SW: Loopin Louie. IA is basically a tweaked version of Descent, which is 100% a board game. Just because a game has miniatures does not make it a miniatures war game, just like a game isn't a card game just because it has cards.Basically as soon as you introduce the map tiles which serve as a board, you have a board game.

FFG worked out some secret deal with some kind of NDA that led to them not being able to distribute any of their Star Wars board games through their website or any FFG channels, hence why IA, Rebellion and Outer Rim always say "Not Available" on the FFG site when other SW products always say "Add to Cart" or "Out of Stock".

You can google this and read posts on BGG from people who were in the know back in 2014.

@Tvboy , they were in the know about something involving an NDA? I feel like that raises more questions that I just don't care to ask, lol.

3 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

@Tvboy , they were in the know about something involving an NDA? I feel like that raises more questions that I just don't care to ask, lol.

That's not what I said. You took something from 2 separate paragraphs and combined into something else.

Disney owns everything and it is their choice, not Hasbro or FFG. So if Disney said Rebellion was a game they wanted in the market place, it happens. Hasbro isn't going to war over some game and damage the relationship with Disney. Disney can alter the deal as it wishes and Hasbro simply hopes they don't alter the deal further.

Shiny new games sell, old ones do not. IA was never a great seller to begin with and the app didn't change that. Legion is doing so much better and they would rather their developers and the factory make that game, cause it is the shiny new game that sells.

I still need to get Lothal and Jabba big box expansions (I play campaign not skirmish).

I want to get the expansion pack for the 'needed' minis for those campaigns.

I was concerned about stock but they seem to be holding up for now. No sign of any reprints though.

16 hours ago, rdennett14 said:

yup, got that one too but still... woohoo 12 stormtroopers, 2 poses lol

I think I will get that. When I first started painting miniatures I did it on my stormtroopers. They were terrible. I quite, and then a few mouths later I decided to go back and paint my legion. The legion ones were great! I think the problem was I over sprayed the primer, ruining all of the details. So I need stormtroopers.

10 hours ago, Mep said:

Shiny new games sell, old ones do not. IA was never a great seller to begin with and the app didn't change that. Legion is doing so much better and they would rather their developers and the factory make that game, cause it is the shiny new game that sells.

I think we're going to need some kind of source on that one, since it doesn't ring true to me. Anecdotally, I know tonnes of people here locally who played IA (although very few played skirmish) and I know exactly 0 who have played legion. More broadly, IA is still the #37 rated game on BGG despite being released in 2014. People have been buying it.

Now if you're just saying that releasing a new game will sell better than releasing more figures for an old one, I could get on board there. Couple that with the nebulous "business reasons" posted above in this thread and I can understand why they've switched over, even if I don't personally like the decision (and even if I really don't like the way they went about doing it)

Sorry, I'm not fully up to speed here. Are we not even expecting any more app campaigns?

11 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Sorry, I'm not fully up to speed here. Are we not even expecting any more app campaigns?

I haven't seen anything since the "no more physical product" comment so I would like to think there is hope that they will continue to add to the app but also wouldn't be surprised if we don't get anything else.

We're waiting for the app update (the second Raid mission and French translation). Beyond that, I hope, but don't wait/expect.

4 hours ago, ManateeX said:

I think we're going to need some kind of source on that one,

Yeah, FFG pretty much cancel the game if you weren't paying attention. Cash cows don't get canned. So there you go. The sear amount of new products for Legion speaks volumes for it success. Maybe you live in an odd local market. Legion has done much better than IA ever did where I am at. Sorry, but that is the way it is. I like IA way more than Legion too. Sadly not many others feel that way.

Here’s the problem, in a nutshell: when a Legion box comes out, most people buy as few as 2 to as many as 6 copies of it. So they are selling up to 6 times the amount of product per player and don’t even have to assemble it to get people to buy.

I love the campaign mode and would continue to buy this game if it was still being made. But I understand why they opted for hobby elitists as their customers over casual guy who doesn’t want to blow his gaming budget on tedious model building/painting.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

Yeah, FFG pretty much cancel the game if you weren't paying attention. Cash cows don't get canned. So there you go. The sear amount of new products for Legion speaks volumes for it success. Maybe you live in an odd local market. Legion has done much better than IA ever did where I am at. Sorry, but that is the way it is. I like IA way more than Legion too. Sadly not many others feel that way.

I think the issue here is where you said it “ never ” sold well.

Also your use of the term “cash cow” isn’t really relevant to your argument (again your use of the word “never”). Cash cows continue to make money over long periods of time, so to say it’s not a cash cow would mean it’s not selling well now.

It certainly sold well enough at some point to warrant six expansion boxes.

4 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

I think the issue here is where you said it “ never ” sold well.

Also your use of the term “cash cow” isn’t really relevant to your argument (again your use of the word “never”). Cash cows continue to make money over long periods of time, so to say it’s not a cash cow would mean it’s not selling well now.

It certainly sold well enough at some point to warrant six expansion boxes.

Yeah, I said IA was never a great seller. Big difference between great seller and not selling well. X-wing is a great seller. IA, not even close. It did okay sure, but it wasn't what one would call a hit. There is a difference between great seller and bomb. There is a lot of in between there. Reading comprehension is your friend. FFG does expansions for a lot of games that do "okay" but not great.

What we know, FFG canned IA. They don't do that if the game was making bank for them. Seriously, high school level stuff here. Not sure why this is even a discussion.

As long as they keep doing reprints whilst there is demand I'm ok.

But, Legion is an obvious power grab at the GW market. If this means FFG are swapping focus to being more like GW we should all be concerned.

I played 40k from 1st edition to the 7th and have seen the big decline in their understanding of their customers. Admittedly they have just started to turn that round a little, but not before overpricing everything and constantly making new editions tgat you MUST buy in order to keep playing (including not allowing older versions of minis at tourneys).

Legion cannot ever compete with the dungeon crawling, story driven experience provided by IA. I still think its a mistake they will come to regret, but yes, every game has a lifespan. I just think it was killed off a little too early with the rich vein of new stories about to hit via the new TV series' etc.

1 hour ago, Gallanteer said:

As long as they keep doing reprints whilst there is demand I'm ok.

In the Q&A, Andrew Navarro said he'd like to keep printing IA but the "business reasons" that caused the end of IA may prevent reprints. It was the most ambiguous answer he gave about IA, so maybe we will see some reprints getting into retailers.

1 hour ago, cnemmick said:

In the Q&A, Andrew Navarro said he'd like to keep printing IA but the "business reasons" that caused the end of IA may prevent reprints. It was the most ambiguous answer he gave about IA, so maybe we will see some reprints getting into retailers.

The business reasons are to sell more Legion stuff instead of cheaper IA versions. There is no other reason.