Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Imperial Assault casts you and your friends into the climatic events following the Death Star’s destruction above Yavin 4, and offers two full game experiences within the Star Wars saga.
60m - 120m
2 - 5 Players
Ages 14+
Agnati
Same make but different model from FFG. There are some tweaks to rules from Descent 2nd Edition, but SW:IA is just as enjoyable with just as much (incredible amount) replayability and with FFG giving the community free reign to create content, it'll be fun to play for many years to come. It does take a little getting used to, though, where Descent, every attack could miss if the attacker rolled an X on the always-rolled "blue attack die". In SW:IA, there is no "miss" for an attacker. *A few* characters (both sides) roll a white defense die instead of black and the white defense die has a "pizza" (as we call it) face that means the attack on you misses completely. If I had to find something to criticize it would be the dice symbols. FFG seems to have picked arbitrary symbols for stuff like defense ("shield") or "evade" or "dodge" on the defense dice. It's important to note, though, that you're playing as the REBELS, not the JEDI as a lot of people fantasize about when wanting to play this game. There's one Jedi-trainee of sorts who uses some force-named abilities, but no lightsaber to speak of (save for one specific quest reward that you very well may never even come across).
Aerick
Theme is wonderful! The only issue I have is that the weight of choices can creat a chess-like endgame that can take hours to resolve. Some people might find that part of the brilliance, but I found it a little taxing. Still a wonderful game.
a1bert
[thing=164153]Imperial Assault[/thing] (2p skirmish, 2-5-player campaign, 1-2 hours per mission) There are two games in the box: the campaign game and one-shot skirmish mode (with 6 scenarios). After 2 skirmish games and 9 missions of the campaign, the game has been everything I have expected, although because this is the first game of this type to us, it should be easier to exceed my expectations. Imperial Assault is extremely fun to play and the missions are varied (not just killing). A campaign has at least 11 missions, half of them side missions that vary between campaigns (random draw and rebels choose one from the 2+ available). The different weapons (attack dice) and defenses (defense dice) allow push-your-luck moments, and sometimes the dice are on you side and sometimes against you. You have an overall strategy, but the game is played in a very reactive, tactical way due to the alternating activations. As the imperial player I cringe when I see the level-upped rebels take out my stormtroopers in one shot before they even get to activate on that round, but if the rebels take too long killing my troops, they neglect their objectives, and I come out on top again. And the rebels are not the only ones that get to have new abilities. Also: I have painted the miniatures. Even a quick paint-job will make the game look amazing. (Unfortunately for a painter, every painted game needs to look better than the previous one, so a good job takes quite a while. Well, at least painting is a good peripheral hobby to go with boardgaming.) Now also solo with the free Legends of the Alliance app.