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+
alenen
1st plays: This is a refined version of the Descent 2.0 system with a better theme. I really wanted to like Descent, but the hand of take-that cards always felt jarring, and the long turns caused it to drag a bit. Threaded actions and less gotcha's speed up the game and make for a positive experience. I do wish there were more Jedi/Sith though. 2nd plays: We played this multiple times in one night, and the campaign was interesting, each scenario was different, and not quite the frantic pace of Descent. It's still a race to complete objectives, but slightly less so, and still a very tight margin for error.
AlexFS
[i]2018/09/17 - 9 plays at 3-4p[/i] The game has great minis and components in general. I played the base campaign, and became gradually disillusioned with the game, because of an increasing imbalance between the Empire and the Rebellion. The four last plays were smashing defeats for the Rebellion, which was boring for everyone. In the end we did not even play the final scenario, even though it was the only one remaining to finish the campaign. Another problem was rules fiddlyness. Even after 9 plays we were still checking edge cases, slowing down the pace of the game. It seems the skirmish mode is really good, and there also a cooperative mode available with an app, but I did not try any of those play modes.
Al Capwnd You
Went in with fairly low expectations, and left wanting to play more immediately. What a fun game! The theme works surprisingly well, and what surprised me the most was the mix of exploration and interactivity (similar to Mansions of Madness) combined with combat. There is really a race element to the scenarios which force you to move quickly, which I personally like but others may not. The downsides are two-fold though; the first is that the app really makes this game move along, and that requires some electronic device to manage. Ideally a tablet or laptop. The second is the initial setup. It is not quite as bad as Gloomhaven, but it still requires quite a bit. If you are used to Gloomhaven, or any of CMON's "map-mini games" (i.e. Zombicide, Arcadia Quest) then this is comparable.