«Star Wars: Imperial Assault» review

In a galaxy far far away…

One of the greatest franchises of humanity comes to a board game industry! George Lucas has created the biggest universe with robots, drones, and Jedi Knights. It’s time for us to lead the Galaxy into a brighter future or tear it down into the Darkside… So, may the force be with you!

This board game was created by familiar «Fantasy Flight Games» and designed by the huge team of designers and artists. Designing team is established by Justin Kemppainen; Corey Konieczka and Jonathan Ying. They all work for Fantasy Flight Games and they have some secret upcoming projects and they are interesting too.

Artists team list is rather bigger – Arden Beckwith; Christopher Burdett; Rovina Cai; Joel Hustak; Michal Ivan; David Kegg; Henning Ludvigsen; Brynn Metheney; Ryan Valle and Ben Zweifel. You probably know them for their arts in such games as «Talisman», «Star Wars: Edge of Empire» and many others… Almost all of them are freelance artists and they usually don’t work for «Fantasy Flight Games».

Inside the Box

«Imperial Assault» has a huge and heavy box. With all the contents this game has about 100 of bundles. Contents’ list is enormous even for strategy games, so let’s take a look at it:

• rulebook;
• rules reference;
• campaign guide;
• skirmish guide;
• 34 detailed plastic figures;
• 59 double-sided map tiles;
• Eleven custom dice;
• Over 250 cards;
• Over 150 assorted tokens;
• Packs: «The Luke Skywalker Ally»; «Darth Vader Villain».

All the components are described very detailed on the back side of the box. There are different types of tokens and cards… So, be careful when you unpack this game!

Gameplay

The action of «Star Wars: Imperial Assault» takes place during missions in war campaign. Players use a modular game map. The map setup and rules will be described in the next section. You can use a lot of actions like moving your heroes, healing them and even make ambushes in the forests!

Imperial Assault can be played as a 2-player mode. It is known as a skirmish in this game. Players get to know with the «Imperial Assault» tutorial and then they can play a skirmish mode and campaign.

Also, in this game you will find all of the characters from Star Wars universe like Han Solo, Chewbacca and etc. This would be your best game experience!

Rules

Imperial Assault has a brilliant rulebook and tutorial but we are just going to take a look at the basic points and phases in campaign. Let’s roll!

Campaign Missions

Missions are played over a number of game rounds. Each round is divided into two phases. They are established in the following order:

• Activation Phase;
• Status Phase.

Actions

In this phase players activate their figures. Figure it receives 2 actions and it can use them to execute any combination of the following list:

• Move: Gain movement points equal to speed.
• Attack: Attacking a foe’s figure.
• Interact: Open an adjacent door.
• Rest: Recover C (strain) and possibly H (damage). Only heroes can perform a rest.
• Special: Other effects that require an action

Campaign Stages

When playing a campaign, players resolve the following stages:

1. 1. Mission Stage: Players choose and resolve a mission as follows:
   • Rebels Choose Active Mission
   • Resolve Mission
   • Post-Mission Cleanup
2. Rebel Upgrade Stage. It has the following steps:
   • Spend Credits
   • Spend Experience on Class cards
3. Imperial Upgrade Stage. it has following steps:
   • Spend Influence
   • Spend Experience on Class cards

Ending a Mission

The mission’s rules describe when the mission will end. The Imperial player’s objective is to have one of his figures interact with a terminal or defeat a hero. The mission ends as soon as one of these objectives is fulfilled.

“Star Wars: Imperial Assault” provides a balance experience for 2–5 players. Rebel players will receive special cards from the Reward deck while game setup. These cards need to balance the game. They increase the characters’ health.

Cards and Heroes

So, here you can see the types of cards. All of their features are described in rulebook pretty good:

• 39 Deployment Cards (3 decks);
• 10 Story Mission Cards;
• 14 Side Mission Cards;
• 18 Agenda Cards;
• 5 Reference Cards;
• 54 Hero Class Cards (6 decks, 9 in each);
• 27 Imperial Class Cards (3 decks, 9 in each);
• 36 Item Cards (3 decks, 12 in each);
• 12 Supply Cards;
• 18 Reward Cards;
• 42 Command Cards;
• 12 Condition Cards (3 decks, 4 in each);
• 2 Skirmish Mission Cards.

Basic pack already includes two well-known characters – Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Also, there are a lot of card expansion packs that have Chewbacca, Han Solo and many others. There are so many of them!

Expansions

In this section we are going to discuss the expansion packs for this game. There are more than 20(!) expansions for this wonderful board masterpiece but we are just going to take look at the most important ones:

Twin Shadows pack

This expansion also provides the new missions with Han Solo. It will give more dangers and intrigues to gameplay.

The Chewbacca Ally Pack

It has a figure of Chewbacca and a mission which allows you to prevent the slavering of Wookiees on Kashyyyk.

R2-D2 and C-3PO Ally Pack

Gives you new missions for campaign and skirmish game modes.

The Rebel Troopers Ally Pack

Provides three figures of Rebel troopers. This Ally Pack gives many variants for any game mode in Imperial Assault. It has new missions, new cards and etc.

Stormtroopers Villain Pack

Stormtroopers Villain Pack brings new abilities to them. If you play a campaign or a skirmish so this Pack can easily expand the ranks of your Stormtrooper corps.

The Royal Guard Champion Villain Pack

It provides new missions. This Pack expands your evil powers in any game of «Imperial Assault».

Similar Games

A lot of forum messages say that this game has something in common with Five Tribes and Gloom… but still, the rules in “Star Wars: Imperial Assault” are quite complicated though. If you ever played Five Tribes you could see that it has the same plot like fighting with factions, thrones and etc. And the rules in Five Tribes are much easier and they conceal a deep game experience! Gloom has rather similar in rules with Five Tribes and it’s also has the intrigues between factions and warfare.

As you can see, all of these games are worth to play if you like the intrigues and it’s only about the rules… it means whether you have time and stamina to learn all the tutorials from Imperail Assault. But still, this game is awesome!

F.A.Q.

Now, it’s time to look through the questions about “Star Wars: Imperial Assault”!

Q: Can the Item cards from a Class deck be earned as a reward or be traded to other heroes?

A: No.

Q: Do Class, Reward, and Item cards that apply additional health to a hero continue to apply that health if the hero is wounded?

A: Yes.

Q: Does “Move a number of spaces equal to your speed” follow the same rules as “Move X spaces?”

A: Yes.

Q: When a large figure moves, does it exit all spaces it occupied and then enter all of its new spaces, even if some of those spaces overlap?

A: Yes.

Q: In a skirmish, if my opponent plays “Take Initiative,” can I play my own copy of “Take Initiative” to counteract it?

A: No. Your timing window to play cards “at the start of the round” would have passed (see “Conflicts in a Skirmish” in the Rules Reference Guide).

Conclusion

My friends! We had some pretty hard to understand games in strategy genre and «Star Wars» is really one of them… Also, it has some problems with storage, but people from forums will help you! But still, is it the reason not to play it? It has more pluses than minuses and one of them is a brilliant illustrations and plastic figures which were designed by the team of artists! They look really amazing! Also, this game has a lot of accessories which are established by card packs and expansions! You can buy this marvelous game here! And remember… may the Force be with you!

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