By Andrew Dodson on August 15, 2014 at 6:29pm
Earlier today, Fantasy Flight Games revealed the newest addition to their ever-growing "Star Wars" game catalog: "Imperial Assault."
From what we can gather from the reveal, "Imperial Assault" seems to a take on the popular Fantasy Flight game "Descent" only with the obvious Star Wars theme and some rule modifications.
"Descent" is a fantasy-genre board game where up to four players work as adventurers put into different scenarios where they have to battle monsters, find certain items, or rescue a hostage. What really makes "Descent" interesting is that there is a fifth player in the game, known as the Overlord, and they are responsible for playing as the game - controlling all the monsters, traps, and events that take place and doing whatever they can to eliminate the players and complete their own evil objective. There is also a campaign in "Descent" that lets the players continue on a multiple adventure story, allowing their characters to gain new items and abilities but also allow the Overlord to learn new tricks to unleash upon the party.
Just like in "Descent," "Imperial Assault" pits up to four Rebel player characters against a single player that controls the Galactic Empire's units. The base game set will come with over 30 missions and over 50 double-sided, interlocking map tiles, allowing for countless map combinations, depicting many different aspects of the "Star Wars" universe.
The base game comes complete with a story campaign mode, just like in "Descent," but there is also a skirmish mode. The skirmish mode allows two players to set up a map to compete directly against one another to achieve an objective. Players in skirmish mode will have the ability to muster troops for their side and gain advantages through the use of the command deck. Each player will have access to the Rebel, Imperial, and Mercenary factions to build their team, providing a lot of opportunity to try out new strategies.
The "Imperial Assault" core game set will include two additional packs - the Luke Skywalker Ally pack and the Darth Vader Villain pack. Each pack comes with a beautifully-sculpted miniature (as only Fantasy Flight Games can provide), as well as new mission and skirmish objective cards, providing even more ways to play the game.
Player Theory will be looking to GenCon for more information about this game. Either way, you can look for it in stores by early 2015.
May the Force be with you.
EDIT: Hey, thanks to Jen Carman (@Thren98), we have some exclusive GenCon2014 shots of Imperial Assault!
Close up of one of the AT-ST figures.
The setup mid-game. Good view of some of the units and map detail.
Is this the droid we're looking for?
