Star Wars: Imperial Assault First Impressions

Star Wars: Imperial Assault takes Descent into the world of Star Wars.

Where Star Wars fans were outnumbered.

Imperial Assault puts you in the midst of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire after the destruction of the Death Star over Yavin 4. In this game, you and your friends can participate in two separate games. The campaign game pits the limitless troops and resources of the Galactic Empire against a crack team of elite Rebel operatives as they strive to break the Empire’s hold on the galaxy, while the skirmish game invites you and a friend to muster strike teams and battle head-to-head over conflicting objectives.

Most of us had played Descent which this game is based on and some of us had even played Doom which Descent was based on. So, with this in mind, it was all very familiar.

I played a Smuggler, the closest thing to a Rogue you’re going to get 🙂

Tutorial

We only played the tutorial which lasted 4-5 turns but it gave us a good idea of the game. The main part of the game will come from the storyline and long gameplay sessions where we care about the outcome so this will be a very short overview.

It’s one vs many with the one controlling the Empire and the rest of us having a Rebel each. We activate a character in any order, then the Empire activate a character or group and plays alternates this way.

You have two actions and can pick from Move, Attack or Activate in any order. If you don’t move you can attack twice etc etc

Combat

Combat is done via dice with symbols for damage and numbers for range. I really like the range thing, it adds tension to long-range attacks. You also have surge symbols which can be used to activate abilities such as extra damage or adding to the range of an attack.

A Defence die will prevent damage, surges or even dodge entirely.

Imperial Assault Summary

It’s still a very nice system and those minis make the game look good on the table. They’re much better than those Red ones from Descent.

All in all, Imperial Assaulwas a nice game but like I said it won’t really be a ‘game’ until we have something on the line. I’m looking forward to trying out a full level.

Jesta ThaRogue