Category Archives: imperial assault

imperial assault

This Is Saturday…

Ashes, Game day, imperial assault, Tournament

Saturday mornings growing up meant watching Swap Shop and/or Tiswas. 


I have to admit along with almost every teenage boy and adult male Sally James was the fantasy woman to dream about.

Adult me know spends his Saturdays now and again playing board games. 

This Saturday was one of this occasions.

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole was running an Imperial Assault Summer 2016 game kit.

I haven’t played Imperial Assault for a year and a half, and then it was a learning skirmish game!

So as you can see I was in great shape for a tourney. I’d thrown together a Jedi team to play with, could hardly remember how to play. The omens were good.

I was up against two regular players who “toured” the local game shops playing these tournaments. So yeah they were experienced. Whilst the third was the brother of one of them and had been playing for two days. Two days of intense training I think.

As you can imagine out of three games I won precisely zero. In my first two games I did score some points by eliminating a unit or two. 

But the cursed reinforcements command card stopped me scoring any points in my last game. 

It was evident especially in the last game being familiar with the scenarios, their objectives and tactics, was a big advantage.

So the most predictable result happened I was fourth, or last as it’s officially known in a four player tourney.

It was then onto Cambridge and meeting up with Scott to collect the two latest Phoenixborn, and play a game or two of Ashes.

I’d been lazy about what deck to play and build against Scott when I hit on the genius idea mid week of using one of the new Phoenixborn and the deck that comes with them.

Victoria Glassfire was the one I chose. Boy did I enjoy playing her. I loved some of the new cards. The art as usual is out of this world.

Scott won our first game whilst I was getting to grips on how to play Victoria.

But our second game was a different story, especially after I tweaked the starting five by swapping out one card. 

I’m still sure there was a more optimal way to play Victoria but I’ll take the win.

I think despite no Sally James teenage me would have enjoyed spending his Saturday this way.

FFG InFlight 

imperial assault, news

So with no FEG@TA last night, I was at the cinema watching Suicide Squad (an enjoyable movie, with the worst looking Joker ever), I’m continuing my coverage of GenCon from a far from my social media monitoring!

Yesterday FFG had their InFlight I think it’s called presentation at GenCon. Where they go through all their new stuff. What’s the point of this really considering they have been making daily announcements for over a week now? Did they have anything new to say?

Well I’m not going to go through everything they covered. I’ve already discussed the bits that interested me from when they made the announcement earlier.

But there was some new stuff they had held back for this talk. The biggy for most people but of no interest to me Runewars the miniatures game. FFG do wargames now to, or they will be when this hits.

The new but I was interested in was the stuff for Imperial Assault.

In the next expansion we are off to Tatooine and the start of Return of the Jedi with Jabba’s Realm.


The sculpts look amazing, especially the rancor.

Naturally to go along side this big box expansion we have the Ally and Villians packs to replace the tokens in the expansion! 

So here is the list of Allies and Villians:

  • Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Ally Pack
  • Alliance Rangers Ally Pack
  • Captain Terro Villain Pack
  • Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack

Wait what Luke again? We got him in the base game! Yeah but this time he had a lightsaber and is a Jedi! 

But wait there’s more! This photo with unreadable text on it is all I can find about the new announced app for Imperial Assault.


Yes I hate apps. Well specifically games that can’t be played without the app. But companion apps that aren’t needed, but make the experience better if used, I’m down with. 

Anyway I’m expecting this app for Impetial Assault to be like the Descent app. Which having not used, I believe allows Descent to be played co-op by all players. 

Catch you in the next update.

All Change – Again!

Ashes, imperial assault, netrunner, news

Last week seemed the week that FFG and PlaidHat decided they would release errata to their LCG/miniature games.

First up PlaidHat have released an errata for one of the cards from Ashes. Not much of an inconvience for me as I'm not deckbuilding yet (although I need to start pdq). But what I like about this announcement is that although people are going to have to print out the correction, and use sleeves, PlaidHat are looking at ways to make replacement cards available. My suggestion would be to make the updated card available from Drive Thru Cards, it takes the production costs away from PlaidHat. I wish FFG would use something like this, or make the errata'd cards they announce available to buy somehow.

Above: original card on left, errata version middle & right, right OP kit alt art errata version

Naturally the errata'd version of Enhanted Violinist will be the only version allows at the OP event I'm organising in a months time.

PlaidHat have also released “improved” draft rules for Ashes too. I've not played the game in draft format, but they do seem better than the ones in the included rule book.

Oh oh oh, just thought please please PlaidHat could we have another alt art Enchanted Violinist but this time using Lindsey Stirling as the art? It would be soooo uber cool if you did that.

Right FFG have released a LOT of errata and updates. For me this means I have to look at the Imperial Assault (IA) and Netrunner ones. I've not looked at the changes for IA, but would expect to see new tournament legal skirmish maps to include the wave 6 skirmish maps. Plus more cards being “tweaked” so they are not breaking the game any more.

The one I have looked at naturally is the Netrunner updates. I play anarch and NBN and it seems these updates are specifically aimed at nerfing them. On the most wanted list, Faust and David have been added along with Wyldside. Which hits my Noise deck big time. I've got some decisions to make now if I want to keep playing them. I'd just been looking at Mumba Temple for my NEH deck, but hey guess what is now on the list? Things are even tighter on my NEH deck, not sure I can get rid of anything to give me the two influence I'd need. Plus Breaking News has been added to the list. And that really screws me. I may have to review the use of this agenda. But what to replace it with?

Plus we have errata for some cards, these don't hit me, well I'm pretty sure they don't. But the fast advance NEH has had the breaks put on it with the Astroscript Pilot Program being limited to one per deck now.

I do like this approach by FFG and PlaidHat, I wouldn't like a card to be banned. At least this way I can still play the cards. It's just I have to make decisions about how much I really want to play them, and how I can fit them in, whilst working out what has to go to make way for them.

Here is the Ashes ERRATA

Here is the FFG ERRATA

 

Upcoming OP Events

Ashes, imperial assault, netrunner

That I'm taking part in (well planning to) or actually organising.

First up…

A second Spring kit 2016 is being cracked open on the 2/7/16 at The Hobbit Hole. So another chance to get those lovely brain damage tokens. Sadly their is no Worlds of Android book up for grabs this time.

At the end of July, 23/7/16 to be exact, there will be a store kit (not sure which one) being opened and battled over for Imperial Assault. I just need to get some practice games in now.

Finally for this post is an event I've organised…

20/8/16 sees Ashes getting the spot light. I've got two OP kits hopefully on their way over from the US.

You can visit the event page on the Plaid Hat website here that I've set up for this.

So now you know where I will be and what I'll be playing. Hopefully I'll see some of you at these events.

I'd love to get a Star Realms/Epic events organised, but White Wizard and Esdevium have decided to collaborate to make this extremely hard to do if you want to use an official OP kit. Esdevium aren't listing them for my FLGS to order them, and White Wizard are sounding like a broken record direct you to your FLGS and their distributor. And frankly I think this sucks. We have more than enough interest here to run events to both games. Sadly just can't get the support.

 

An Organising Mood

imperial assault

Its criminal that I have this beautiful, amazing game called Imperial Assault in my collection and I don't get to play it!

I've played it once or twice which was about a year ago. I even took with me to play with Nath a couple of times.

Even though Imperial Assault is expensive, you get great value for money inside the box. The components and minis are of a really high standard. But the biggest bonus is that you are getting two games for the price of one! If you can find a regular group to play with, you have a campaign driven game to play, with one person taking on the side of the Empire, and the others in the group taking on the roles of members of the rebel alliance. Or you can play a skirmish match against a friend.

My only time of playing was the skirmish mode. It's where my main interest lies with the game. Squad building, pitting your tactics against those of your opponent.

What got in the way of Nath and myself playing was the setup. Sorting out the required tiles for the skirmish map that we would play. Having the base set, and Twin Shadows tiles all mixed together did not aid in this.

Thinking on this, I decided after finally unwrapping and merging in the Return to Hoth expansion I needed to do,something that would aid, nah, encourage me to get this to the table to play. Plus I missed the store championship at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole yesterday due to other commitments. I want to take part in the next one.

So today I've spent time organising my box of Imperial Assault stuff.

I started off splitting my tiles into bags. The first bag holds pieces numbered one to nine. Pieces numbered ten to nineteen in another, twenty to twenty nine in a third and thirty up in a fourth. Really big tiles were left loose.

Next I found the three current skirmish scenarios that are tournament legal (Kuat Space Station, Training Ground and Mos Eisley Cantina) and put into separate bags the pieces that made up each scenario. Although one had to have a note which tiles were missing because they had already been bagged for one of the other two scenarios.

I also bagged up the tiles for one of the Return to Hoth scenarios. The Hoth skirmish scenarios are aimed not only at two player skirmishes, but also the new rules for four player skirmish play.

So now I have four skirmish scenarios that I can jump right into playing, well with a lot less setup time. I still have to piece all the tiles together to make the map. Although I'm half tempted to download off BGG the files to get the skirmish maps printed out on banners, so I don't have any of this.

Next I might do some interweb searching for some pre-made squads to play with. Which will make it even easier for Nath and I to play together. Dig out the bag of tiles, choose a squad we'd like to play, put it together (and I may even create bags of the various squads so we don't have to do that).

In the meantime I will try to get some games in on a Tuesday, practice my squad building skills, ready for the next tournament.

Finally one thing I must do, and I feel guilty about this, is finishing painting the Stormtroopers, and then try and muster up the motivation to paint the rest also.

 

Coming Next Week 15/2/16

elder sign, imperial assault, news

So in my limited sphere of interests this comings weeks new releases hitting the shelves of your FLGS there is very little to get my attention.

However we will be seeing two more additions to Imperial Assault in the form of an Ally pack and a Villian pack.

I really must catch up with my looks at the ones I haven't covered that were released late last year. Let alone finish panting my Stormtroopers!

Machi Koro is a restock next week. If you are into the Pokemon CCG or Heroclix then you may find there is a little more out next week of interest than I found.

 

Custom Game Cards

Ashes, imperial assault, netrunner

So yesterday I remembered that some dude over on the Ashes Facebook group had created a card that was double sided to be used in keeping track which pile of dice was which. And I thought that this would be a handy thing to get printed. I should track the file down and find a place to custom print the card for me.

Luckily bgg is the place to go to find files related to a game like the rules, faq, translations of rules etc. It was on the Ashes bgg files section that I found the Ashes Dice Pool Cards file I was after.

Even luckier the creator of the file had approached Plaid Hat Games, gotten permission to link to the designs on a custom card printing site so that folks could just click, order and get the cards.

The site the guy was using was DriveThruCards.

site-logo-redesignd

At $0.09 a card these were incredibly cheap. So I ordered twenty to make the order worth while and to hand out to other players of the game when I come across them. Or to use as prizes in a store event if I can get one going. You can get the Ashes Card Pool card HERE.

Roll on this morning, and an email about Boss Monster hits my inbox, reminding me of the Create Your Own Card app they had developed. Guess where this app is being hosted? Yep DriveThruCards, so you can design your own card for Boss Monster and then get it printed!

It gets even better!!!! There is a Lost Levels expansion you can buy, plus copies of some errata’d cards that are as far as I can tell officially produced.

Screen Shot 2016-02-08 at 11.36.57

And look at those prices! so yes they are also on the way to me.

But this got me thinking. If the people behind Boss Monster can produce errata’d cards like this, why can’t the likes of FFG also offer this service? I mean we have cards in Imperial Assault that over Christmas got errata’d to balance out the game. We also got the same with some cards in Netrunner in the form of the Most Wanted List and Wireless Pavilion.

Surely FFG could put up the images for people to get printed off if they wanted the corrected card? I see very little overhead here for them on this. They must have corrected cards ready to go in future printings.

At the moment there is no work around that doesn’t rely on carrying lots of bits of extra paper around, writing on the cards themselves with a Sharpie, or stickers.

Would either of the last two then make the cards altered illegal to use in tournaments? They would have been altered.

Maybe one day all companies will be enlightened as the Boss Monster folks on this sort of thing.

IA: Stormtroopers

expansions, first look, imperial assault, star wars

Continuing what I think is a bias by FGG towards the Empire in its expansions for Imperial Assault comes the Stormtroopers Villians Pack.

In this expansion you get three Stormtrooper models. (Yes I know I still have to finish painting my existing Stormtroopers)

I do like the included skirmish upgrade card. I'd actually like two or more copies of that card to power a troopers only team. Having not played the campaign side I can't comment on the three included agenda cards.

As with all expansions you get two skirmish mission cards.

There are two deployment cards for the new troopers.

The Stormtroopers come with four command cards, and this is rather cool a reward card called 501st Training. Why is this cool? Well you know all those Stormtroopers you see at cons etc? They are all part of a fan driven organisation called the 501st Garrison. These guys have even paraded for Lucas! So this card is a lovely little tribute to these die hard fans.

Finally there are the skirmish map and campaign mission. And as usual I don't show the campaign side of the sheet so I don't ruin any surprises.

The skirmish map in this Villian pack is one of the tournament legal skirmish maps.

Finally this Villians pack has the id tokens.

 

Kick that hornets nest

expansions, imperial assault, netrunner, news, star wars

 

With the arrival of the latest additions to the Star Wars Imperial Assault universe, I thought I'd better finally do the posts for the previous additions. So over the next few days I'll be doing posts looking at those expansions plus the new arrivals.

In the meantime before those posts start taking over this blog, I'd briefly point out that FFG over the holiday period decided they would “tweak” one or two of their games. The two I currently care about are naturally Imperial Assault and Android:Netrunner. X-Wing as a collectable game for me is on hold.

Imperial Assault got off lightly I think with the “tweaks”. The Royal Guard, Rebel Saboteurs, and Imperial Officers have had some of their card text changed. Below I have extracted the changes from the FAQ.

Naturally for the new season of store championships FFG have updated the legal skirmish maps. The legal maps are, the Kuat Space Station, Mos Eisley Cantina and the Training Ground map.

Here is the link to the new FAQ, here is the link to the FFG explanation for changes , new tournament rules

Let's look at the Netrunner changes, or as I like to describe it “kicking the hornets nest”. These changes have been the more controversial from my observations of the two Facebook communities for both games I follow.

So what has caused the hornets in the Netrunner community to swarm? Let's take a look at the FAQ for the two changes:

Here is the kick that stirred folks up.

Link to the new FAQ , link to new Tournament Rules , FFG explain why

My Thoughts on the subject…

FFG spent a lot of time analysing the recent world championships they held, I think they also monitor the meta in other ways too. So they have a very accurate image of the current state of the game. More so than us players.

Which means that they won't have reached the decisions they have on a whim. They will have thought about them, play tested them, and made a decision that would have the least impact on the game to fix the “problem” as they see it based on the data they have.

One of the things I don't like about Magic, Pokemon etc is the banned cards list. I think this is a sloppy, annoying fix. So I'm glad to see the solution that FFG have come up with. At least with the FFG solution I can still play with the cards, I just have to make a compromise or two to my deck to use them.

What I would like to see is a more elegant way of doing the errata for the cards. I'd love to see some stickers made available cheaply to purchase to update the cards with from FFG. I'd also like to think all new printings of these cards are with these changes. Or even better still I'd love to be able to buy corrected cards to replace the existing ones with.

FFG think/hope that these changes will add variety to the meta for the games. That it will encourage players to build a wider variety of decks/teams, which they will see reflected in tournaments.

I've been playing Netrunner for nearly a year now, but from what I can tell certain deck types come and go out of fashion as new data packs/expansions come out. At one point a Weyland deck may have the upper hand, while Criminal decks maybe stronger on the runner side. Then the next Deluxe expansion NBN becomes more popular.

If these changes even that out, I'm happy with what's been done.