The Empire Strikes Back Hard

Midnight in the city of Edinburgh. Crouched behind some bins outside the entrance of the cantina, I watched the doorway warily as my companion stood brazenly out in the open hurling abuse at the man sheltering within, calling him out for one last showdown.

The cantina door slid open, and then...

Okay, actually I was sitting indoors at a friend's place playing another board game (if I knew I would be spending every night of 2015 sitting at a table playing games with cards and counters, I would have prepared a different set of new year resolutions). This time it was Imperial Assault,  a Star Wars themed covert tactics game by the folks at Fantasy Flight Games—basically Descent, but in a galaxy far, far away. It's principally a co-operative game, where a group of rebel heroes struggle against the Empire (controlled by one player against everyone else). Everyone has a character (I was a Bothan sniper, accompanied by a failed Jedi and a smuggler) with their own unique abilities. The group plays through a pre-written campaign with a number of (not entirely linear) missions. Each mission has its own setup (with its own tactical map, objectives and idiosyncratic rules), and the Imperial player has a number of options at his/her disposal regarding composition of imperial troops and special equipment. Each mission has a win and a loss condition; if the rebels win, they get additional benefits in successive missions, while if the Imperial player wins, things get that little bit harder for the good guys. Regardless of success or failure, player characters advance in experience and get to choose from a selection of additional abilities; new equipment can also be bought to much the same effect.

We played a couple of missions and lost both of them. I guess the Dark Side is getting stronger. Also the Light Side is a little timorous and slightly incompetent, though that is charitably attributable to my group's lack of experience with the game.

I'd played Descent (its mechanical predecessor—a good old fantasy dungeoneering adventure game at heart). Well, actually no. I'd played Descent as the 'Overlord' (equivalent to playing the Empire in Imperial Assault). I'd actually never played as a hero before, which I'd like to suggest exonerates me of any errors I may have made last night (no really, I only know how to be a horde of goblins...). In any case, I wouldn't mind playing some more Descent or Imperial Assault—I've always been partial to small-unit turn-based games, particularly on the computer or console (e.g. Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, X-COM, etc.). It doesn't seem that my fellow players were so enthused however with Imperial Assault, expressing a preference for Descent. They seem to think that the Imperial side is too strong, particularly at the start of the campaign. It should be noted however that we were only three players, rather than the 'full' four. Descent scaled with the number of players as I recall, whilst Imperial Assault simply gives a bonus to the players if they aren't fully quorate. The consensus seems to be that the bonuses given were no substitute for a fourth body. That's probably true, but I prefer to reserve judgement until I've clocked more play time.

I make a rubbish critic. I seem to tolerate everything.