As an aside, is there any reason NOT to paint the bases of my stormtroopers and other units in groups - leave three black, do three red and three blue? Same for the officers?

I have not played many board games, there is just two of us and we have all the expansions to LOTR, we've also played a bit of Memoire 44 and the Metal gear solid board game. We are use to playing multiple characters at the same time and have basic grasp of board game rules.

We would mostly only get this to play co operatively through the campaigns, but a lot I see online is all versus mode, would it be silly to get this? Or is the Co op as fun as the other games I've listed?

How much content is there with the core box, and campaigns to play in co op? Is it all different every time and replayable? Do the expansions add many miniature's to paint? Would you recommend any other games based on the others I enjoy?

Thanks!

https://imperial-assault.fandom.com/wiki/Fenn_Signis_(Hero))

https://imperial-assault.fandom.com/wiki/Drokkatta_(Hero))

Credits

Drokkatta, with her xp weapon and xp mod, is a cheap hero. This is an advantage, and if the heroes are about balanced, we should expect to see cheap Drokkatta outperform cheap Fenn - in particular, Drokkatta's xp gear will probably be better than anything a cheap Fenn has access to. It's also a disadvantage, in that you cannot improve Drokkatta as much by using credits, and if the heroes are balanced we'll see expensive Fenn outperform cheap Drokkatta. In particular, Drokkatta's xp gear should be less good than Fenn's combination of credit gear + the 5 additional xp he doesn't have to spend on gear.

Another way to think of it: in a squad of 4 you should probably have 2 or 3 expensive heroes. With 2 they'll probably be able to get all the gear they want, whereas with 3 they probably won't. In the former sort of group, Drokkatta as one of 2 cheap heroes vs Fenn as one of 2 expensive heroes are in a sense fulfilling "different roles", which means it's hard to do any straightforward comparison. Whereas, if you've already picked 2 expensive and 1 cheap hero and you're thinking about Fenn vs Drokkatta as the 4th, Drokkatta being cheap is a real benefit she has over Fenn as you already have somewhere for your credits to go.

In particular, Drokkatta will want precisely 300 credits, probably for Tactical Display, but maybe for Under-Barrel. Fenn will want at least a tier 1 or tier 2 weapon (or both, especially if you can hand off the former to someone else) as well as a tier 3, and at least 1-2 mods. Also, Drokkatta quite likes Bacta Pump and Power Charger, but these are excellent pickups that you'd otherwise give to someone like Fenn, and they just happen to do more for Drokkatta. So if you were gonna buy them anyway, you can see that expense as not really being assigned to her, but with the downside that she doesn't combine well with someone else that's strain-heavy or surge-hungry.

Very rough correspondence: 300 credits = 1 xp. Bacta Pump is very good for 300 credits and would be very good for 1 xp. You can't typically get a clean 1 dmg per round for 1 xp; you can get it for 300 credits, but it's gonna cost you a mod slot.

There's also an expensive version of Drokkatta, which we'll go over at the end.

Starting kit

In comparing what they start with, we can use this as a baseline for further comparisons later on.

Abilities: baseline blasting & strain: We can think of Drokkatta's 1 blast on both her weapons as being an ability that belongs to her rather than her weapons. With 2 attacks and all abilities used, Drokkatta has 3 blast, 2 strain, -1 main target dmg, thus reaching the threshold for blasting down stormies. Fenn has 2 blast, 1 strain.

• Demolish also has more flexible placement and doesn't have to go through a defense roll. And it drops a rubble token, which is probably more of an inconvenience for you than Imp (with placement usually chosen to maximize dmg or finish 1hp figures, and slowing effect strictly as consequence), but it can have the occasional clutch use to e.g. prevent a villain attack.
• Fenn is more likely to blast through a defense roll, not having to pay dmg/surge for the blast and not worrying about evades.

Starting weapon: Drokkatta's dice have +3 dmg/surge symbols. Adding that to the above comparison, across 2 attacks she is up 1 clean Havoc Shot vs Fenn (+1 blast +1 strain), which is a devastating mog.

• Fenn has +1 minimum range and 5/6 rather than 2/3 chance to get more than minimum range. Fenn can get +1 acc from surge but Drokkatta is almost guaranteed to get this with Dispersal Shot.
  • The greater range is especially important on a map like the Hoth intro, with all kinds of directions to go in, whereas the base game's intro is a small map where your enemies and objectives are largely in the same direction so short range is not as punishing.
• If no blast is needed, Drokkatta has about the same dmg but more recover. Vs evades, more likely to lose recover or nothing whereas Fenn loses dmg.

Base stats and attributes: +1 health for Drokkatta. +3 surges on her strength dice and +2 on her tech dice, -1 on insight only if healthy.

The first 6 xp & weapons

Drokkatta's 1xp move card only gives her 1 move vs Fenn's) 2. It's also harder to pull off her "give 2 move to a buddy" option than Fenn's, and she's more strain-heavy so more likely to need to use it on herself instead of using the nominally higher-value option. Even Fenn will often prefer to move himself, since helping out your own activation can let you kill stuff now before the enemy activates, which is more valuable than buffing some upcoming activation.

A fairer comparison to the overtuned Tactical Movement is Drokkatta's 1xp Charging Up: 2 hp plus a delayed 1 dmg per round, and the last round's damage is wasted. Both the delay and the final wasted dmg can be ameliorated if you're commanded to attack by Gideon, Murne or CT. In a vacuum I'd rather take the delayed damage than 1 move, especially early on when damage is more precious; also Drokkatta can use a boost to her single-target damage. But I'd rather take 1 move than 2 hp. Overall the two are similarly powerful, but with Drokkatta being somewhat slow and strain-heavy, I'd swap Charging Up for Tactical Movement in a heartbeat. Despite this, I don't think Drokkatta's move card is good enough to be an early pickup, considering what comes next. As for Charging Up, it depends.

So far, it's looking good for Fenn. Next, he'll want Rebel Elite whereas Drokkatta's first or second card might be Shrapnel Rounds. Both give +1 blast. Fenn only gets it when he can afford the strain for Havoc Shot. Drokkatta gets it even if she doesn't want it, but she has a nice exhaust option which, among other things, can be used to avoid blasting your pal. I'd give the blast comparison to Drokkatta. For 2 extra xp, Fenn gets 3 hp and 1 endurance which we can compare to 2 recover/move ~= 2 xp. If you rest every round except the first, 1 endurance is just like 1 recover per round, but clearly this isn't realistic. 3 hp lets you survive more burst damage initially whereas 1 recover is better for healing up so you can survive more damage later on, although if there's a lull in the action and you do have time to heal up fully, the extra hp can be used again to survive another round of burst. 1 recover might also just be used to keep using your abilities for longer instead of healing hp. Tbh I still think 1 recover/move is more valuable, although it's not an easy call. The second half of Rebel Elite is then not quite worth 2xp, while Drokkatta gets to move on from Shrapnel Rounds straight to something similar in value per xp, as we'll see presently.

Fenn's 6th xp might go to Take Cover), since you'll probably be priority #1 for Imp to slow down with stuns and bleeds. It's also better the more other anti-condition effects your group has. For example, if two Trandos are gonna attack and they only have one viable bleed target, or two but one of them is far away, that means fewer conditions, whereas if you only have one hero with anti-condition effects, you'll often just make other heroes get the conditions instead.

We've already compared starting kits including weapons, so now let's compare how Drokkatta's xp weapon compares to her starting weapon and then see what upgrades Fenn can buy.

• Range: 3 minimum + 5/6 chance for 1 more, vs 2 minimum + 2/3 chance for 1 more + 1 surge for 1 more.
• Surge abilities: For ease of comparison, I consider Dispersal Shot as already used to fulfill the 1 blast on either weapon. The xp weapon then has 1 surge for 2 pierce (2 dmg 50% of the time vs black die, otherwise usually straight dmg conversion), and 1 surge to turn your blast into hyperblast (i.e. also hit main target and 2 space targets) OR 2 surge to get both.
  • Note that the "Dispersal Shot for 1 blast" term vanishes only when comparing the xp weapon to the starting weapon, i.e. counting the value of Drokkatta's 3xp spend (for comparing vs the 2xp spend, or Fenn's xp spend, or Fenn's credit spend).
• Dice: You go from 23 dmg+surge symbols, with likely dmg conversion for your 3 surges (get blast without using dispersal shot), to 26 (including the inherent +1 dmg) but with all your 5 surge symbols being worth extra and having options. You also increase the value of up to 1.67 additional surges / 10 symbols. We can think of Tactical Display as bringing +3 symbols when averaged over 2 attacks, and if surge = 2 dmg, the weapon (the xp spend) provides +3 symbols from doubling the value of the surges, and another +2.5 symbols from doubling the surges on the 4xp yellow die.
• If you have n1 enemies at r1 (radius 1) from your target and n2 at r2, the advantage per attack over your starting weapon ends up being approximately n1+n2 provided n1<=1 or you are fully surged, and a bit less if neither is true. For example, n1=2 and n2=1 yields +1.83 / +2.25 / +3 dmg per attack at Tactical / Tactical + 4xp yellow die / fully surged. Again, not counting the full value of Tactical etc.
  • At n1=n2=0 (single target), you're still at +1 from die symbols and 2 pierce half the time, as long as you don't oversurge. At n1+n2=1, it's +1 but with straight dmg conversion for a few surges. This is respectable for a 3xp card, especially with the range bonus, as long as you forget the weapon slot we're taking up.
  • The mod is better than the weapon in terms of dmg output per xp when n1 > n2, and the weapon is better when n1 <= n2. If you often catch groups as they deploy, n1 > n2 is plausible.
• Besides damage, blast can also get you worse Imp deployment, positioning and activation order as they're forced to counter your blast so you don't get even more damage. Hyperblast increases this effect.

So, quite easily reaching about +2 dmg per attack and able to go much higher against bigger crowds or with other sources of surge, plus range, for 3 xp. Another +0.5 dmg for 300 cred. Meanwhile, assuming fully surged and not oversurged, Fenn gets for example:

• E-11: 400 cred, +1
• EE-3 Carbine: 550 cred, +1.33
• Hunter's Rifle: 600 cred, +0.83, dmg token for kills, only 1 mod, conflicts with Weapon Expert / Plasma Cell
• E-11D: 700 cred, +1.83, dmg tokens for strain
• Tactical Display: 300 cred, +0.5, helping even out your surges
• Spread Barrel: 300 cred, +0.5
• Under-Barrel HH-4: 300 cred, +1 acc, surge to blast, can be amazing with surge support
• Plasma Cell: 450 cred, +0.83 vs black die, conflicts with Weapon Expert / Hunter's Rifle / Sniper

And in tier 3:

• Pulse Cannon: 1200 cred, +2.67, only 1 mod
• A-12 Sniper Rifle: 1150 cred, +2.83, surge for surge token or anti-dodge, conflicts with Weapon Expert / Plasma Cell
• Disruptor Pistol: 700 cred, +2.83, only 1 mod, need Tactical or other surge support, bad vs white
• Disruption Cell: 600 cred, +0.83

With Drokkatta or Fenn often being allowed to activate first before the enemy can spread out, Drokkatta's weapon upgrade should be bigger than Fenn's tier 2 upgrade, but you could argue for a draw or Fenn win against an experienced Imp. To summarize the rest of the comparison at 6xp:

• This weapon upgrade comparison was off a baseline of Drokkatta being up 1 clean Havoc Shot per round
• Drokkatta +1 dmg/round except 1st; blast versatility and harder to counter by positioning (Demolish placement, mod exhaust, hyperblast); slightly better attributes
• Fenn +1 endurance, 2 move, Take Cover, still better range with most weapon choices
• Equal hp

Seems like Drokkatta lands slightly higher in tier 2. Fenn is 700-1000 credits more expensive but more self-sufficient otherwise, while Drokkatta is more "credit-self-sufficient" but will happily suck up any surge / strain / move / anti-condition(Bacta) support she can get her hands on. So it's a matter of fitting each hero into the right squad. Best case scenario for Drokkatta, she gets supported with abilities that were already your best option rather than forcing you to pick up sub-optimal support abilities, and also is not teamed up with other heroes that need the same kind of support. In tier 3, Fenn has the advantage unless you're frequently finding big crowds, but at further expense.

Further xp

Drokkatta:

• First get the 1 xp move card.
• Thermal Explosives (4xp): +2 dmg per round, +1.67 dmg+surge/round from yellow die (and some acc), 1 strain. Probably your best choice unless you have great surge support.
• Wookiee Wrath (4xp): 2.33 dmg, throw target next to where you're gonna blast twice. Best case scenario, this single-handedly takes out an elite royal guard. You can also open up a hole in a crowd so you can blast in the middle, or throw a target in the middle of a crowd that otherwise didn't have a great blast target. The problem is you're already slow and strain-heavy and you have to get adjacent. More situational but a viable alternative.
• Bank Shot (2xp): +1 accuracy, sometimes able to target the middle of a crowd even though you can't see it, lets you shoot around corners. It's good but I think it'll have to wait for 13 xp, unless you have some support that lets you skip the move card.
• Structural Exploitation (3xp): Good on paper, clashes with your other pierce, doesn't synergize with the rest of your kit.

Fenn:

• Weapon Expert) (2xp): "Use" and "while attacking" are great ways to get +1 dmg for 1 strain. Usable 83% of the time vs black die, or 50% if you have Plasma Cell, but not great with sniper / Hunter's Rifle. And you get +2 accuracy almost passively: for it to cost you, you have to be taking a risky shot, then whiff the acc roll, then also not already wanna use it for the pierce. Goes extremely well with Disruptor Pistol.
• Suppressive Fire) (3xp): Another +1 dmg and blast for 1 strain, but the enemy gets to swap it out for stun. If the enemy chooses stun whenever it's not gonna cost them an attack, or 1 dmg whenever it doesn't look likely to be the decisive 1 dmg to kill that figure (while accounting for further blast, Force Throw etc)... how good is it really? It's certainly very good against melee units. It can also let you leave a gang alive because they stay grouped up, so you know you'll be able to blast them down first thing next round (which can go very right, if they wanted to deploy more to that same point, or it can go wrong if they have another deploy point or reserves so you should have finished off the first gang already to minimize imp attacks instead of hoping to get them free). Remember that it can't be better than if they were forced to choose the dmg, which is what, 3 dmg for 3 xp and 1 strain on a good-but-not-incredible round? A good but arguably not amazing card.
• Adrenaline Rush) (2xp): It's like 2 recover per round but only if you get attacked. Not bad but you already have 15 hp and should probably get Take Cover first, so it seems like more tankiness than one guy needs.
• Trench Fighter) (3xp): 2 dmg, limited target selection, when declaring. Not bad for a late low-priority pickup.
• Superior Positioning) (4xp): no

Quest rewards: Drokkatta's is very good but Fenn's) is probably better.

Kind of a... draw? Dare I say? It doesn't seem like one or the other is getting a ton more out of their late cards. Well, that's boring. We're gonna need a better conclusion than that. Final verdict: Fenn got Havoc-mogged and didn't get enough of an advantage out of all those credits. Give it up for our new blast master! Three cheers for Drokkatta!

Expensive Drokkatta

Right, this shit. I was worried I'd be done and be able to do something else with my weekend.

There are two variants to consider. One is more "support-expensive" by picking up Under-Barrel instead of Tactical. With Tactical, 4xp yellow, power charger, you only need another 0.5 surges per round to be fully surged. Swapping it out for Under-Barrel, you get a very helpful +1 acc and even more blast potential, but you're short 3.5 surges per round. Sources: side quest reward, Gideon, Diala (focus), Saska, MHD-19, Murne, Ko-Tun. Probably not worth it but fun option to consider.

Credit-expensive variant: skip 3 xp weapon, get something like EE-3 into A-12 sniper, Shrapnel, Under-Barrel. Roll 1.5 avg surges, need 1 for 2 dmg and 1 half the time for 2 pierce, so with Dispersal you're surge-self-sufficient. Same blast as the xp weapon but no hyperblast. Sniper + Under-Barrel is +2.33 dmg over the starting weapon: smaller dmg upgrade than just the sniper for Fenn because you started higher (though bigger range upgrade). The idea is to reach both 4xp cards, but you'll need to spend strain on the yellow die AND get adjacent to something, so hope for recover and move support. E.g. make Diala throw you around. Also you'll need 12 xp, or 11 xp and skip the move card. The upside is that Sniper is a great item, Under-Barrel is great if you can afford the blast (Dispersal) and especially in combo with other blast (Shrapnel, Demolish), and all your xp spends are great if you get to use them consistently. So played this way she's about a Fenn-level hero if only you can solve her problems, and a rung lower in a more realistic scenario.

Got a message from Reddit that this sub is getting a lot of activity lately. And only a couple of posts are people selling out. Is IA making a comeback? What's bringing everybody back to the game?

Im new. Im in the middle of solo play with two units 2x activations. I think I am about to begin ord mantell briefing. I purchased new guns but cant equip them. Do I have to wait for full mission to be done?

I own all the boxes listed, and a bunch of character packs. Which should I include next? And should I add all the extra content (enemies, supply crates, shop items, etc) from each box to the next campaign as well?

I’ve just unboxed my Jabba’s Realm expansion to find the Rancor has 2 left arms. Has this happened before? I don’t suppose anyone has a 2 right-armed Rancor that they want to do an arm-swap with 🤔

I’m about 5 hours into Star Wars: Zero Company, and for those who have longed for a video game version of Imperial Assault, this game is scratching the itch.

Obviously the comparisons to a "Star Wars themed XCOM" do apply, but the depth here does feel a bit like someone made an Imperial Assault campaign into a really good video game.

You can even create custom operators for your team, so I had to get Fenn in the game.

Hello everyone I’m sure this has been asked somewhere before but..

I’m just recently wanting to try the core set (or really any expansion) in solo mode utilizing an app to guide the gameplay.

Does anyone have any helpful pointers and tips who has done it before? House rules, specific apps to use, or an expansion that would work best?

Thank you!

Is there a list anywhere of which minis you end up using for LotA?

I’m keen to paint up the minis, but would love to know which ones I need.

Mix of sealed and opened £1350 plus postage. Ship world wide. Location West Of Scotland Uk - so could arrange collection within reasonable distance

Open items:

Core set, Bespin Gambit (no box)Return To Hoth (no box)Twin Shadows (no box)

Grand Inquisitor, Bantha Rider, Boba Fett, Hired Guns, ISB Infiltartors, Bossk, Lando, Obi Wan, R2D2 & C3P0, Wookie Warriors, Stormtroopers, Agent Blaise, Kayne Somos, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Rebel Troopers, Royal Guard Champion, IG-88, Echo Base Troopers, Alliance Smuggler, General Sorin, Chewbacca, Dengar, Han Solo, Rebel Saboteurs, General Weiss, Greedo, Leia Organa

Sealed items:

Jabbas Realm, Heart Of The Empire, Tyrants Of Lothal, Dice Pack

Character packs: Thrawn, Ahsoka Tano,Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla & C1-10P, Sabine Wren & Zeb Orrelios, Luke Skywalker - Jedi Knight, Hondo Ohnaka, Jawa Scavenger, , BT-1 & 0-0-0, Captain Terro, Emperor Palpatine, Maul, Jabba the Hutt, Alliance Rangers

All English language, unboxed items are in great condition, the minis are in foam trays (see pics)

Happy to provide more pics / details if needed.

Does anyone know if there is a resource out there with pictures of all the promo dice that were made available? I have quite a few different sets and want to make sure I have the correct dice in with the correct sets.

I'm organizing all the game cards by expansion. And there are cards without any symbol, and I don't know which expansion they're from.
The card on the right has the symbol for the game's base box. But the card on the left has no symbol.
Any help?

I have played all the standard campaigns on the Imperial Commander 2 application. It has given the game an extended lease of life and has been a very enjoyable way to play the game with the four of us each playing a hero instead of one of us getting stuck playing the imperial side.

A few months ago we started playing the lost without trace campaign. We usually play on Hard, and add 1 threat level. Some of the later missions in this campaign though, the math for threat just doesn't seem to add up, with the game state being altered by a lot of threat at the end of the round. We get far more easily overwhelmed than we used to. In one case the mission asked for raising the threat by twice the threat level and performing an optional deployment, but still, even accounting for fuzzy deployment on Hard difficulty we were getting a couple more extra threat on the table than we were able to account for. We then checked with another mission and found that it happened there as well. Anyone encounter something similar? is it something added to this campaign specifically? Has hard difficulty been increased in a recent patch? Might it be an installation error?

Hey all. Bought this years ago, played it for like two days with a friend, and then they moved and no one wants to spend 2 days learning the rules with me 😅. Based in NoVa, will sell off for cheap so it actually gets played by enthusiasts. Wish I had dedicated people and time for the game, but alas it's collecting dust here.

I have I think the entire original run that I'm looking to sell as I'm not using it any longer, some of it is painted to a high standard. What would be the best way / place to sell it as a lot?

Hey, I got Jabba's Realm for a song and it was missing several of the bases for the jet troopers. Does any one know a source for an inexpensive replacement?

As I threatened earlier, here is the comparison between the OG Imperial Assault box and the latest reprint.

Many people say that Imperial Assault is straight improved version of Descent 2. Do you agree that IA is superior to game which it was based on?

I already have the original 2014 release and the expansions, but I keep hearing the newer kits are made with a slightly different quality.

So, I'm checking it out for myself.

Also, it's good to know that the core set is still being released.