We are big fans of Imperial Assault over at STARBURST Towers. For the uninitiated, it’s an adventure ‘dungeon’ crawling board game set in the Star Wars universe. Think ‘Hero Quest’ or ‘Descent’ with plucky rebels fighting Stormtroopers and you’ve pretty much got the gist. The core game is a lavish box filled with models, tiles (that detail all parts of the Star Wars Universe) and lots of counters. The expansions add new heroes to play, some twiddly new rules and extra baddies. Heart of the Empire takes us to a whole new place; Coruscant, capital of the galaxy.
Before we get into the campaign, let’s quickly talk about the box of toys that Heart of the Empire is. For a start, it comes with an AT-DP model. That’s the two-legged Imperial walker with the big gun and the pods on the side that we see chasing the heroes in Star Wars: Rebels. You also the chunky Imperial Sentry droids (which are from Rebels and also Star Wars Battlefront), some Stormtroopers with riot shields, and the Clawdite assassin, last seen in The Clone Wars movie. This is a nice roster of villains, which fits the ‘Urban pacification’ theme of this particular set. You, of course, get models for the new heroes, more on those in a moment. As always, the pieces are lovingly sculpted bits of plastic that paint up nicely (not that you will) and look very Star Wars. 16 models in total and one of them is a scout walker
The heroes include a Wookie who likes to blow things up, a quartermaster who is predictably a master of getting you all the weapons and gadgets you need to complete the mission and a human hero who seems to be able to get lets of droids to do cool stuff for him.
A lovely booklet filled with missions comes in the box. They all have an appropriately ‘sneaky’ feel to them, and the talents of the new heroes that come in this box are very suited to this set of adventures. The quarter master’s ability to maximise loot is especially good. There are some nice touches here, including some fun narratives about Rebels trying to get one up on both the Emperor and Darth Maul. The storyline here feels more like Star Wars: Rebels the cartoon series than the movies. Counters for Maul, The Emperor and Not-Quite-A-Jedi Ashoka Tano are included. You can buy the models separately, of course. It’s a comprehensive campaign, the best so far, but we are loathed to hand out spoilers. It’s surprisingly fair and balanced, which is nice.
Imperial Assault also has a skirmish mode and rules for 4-player skirmish games. The Imperial Sentry droids are a lot of fun in this mode, but then killer robots have to. If you’re only getting one expansion for Imperial Assault, then get this one.
STAR WARS: IMPERIAL ASSAULT – HEART OF THE EMPIRE / DESIGNER TONY FANCHI, TODD MICHLITSCH, PAUL WINCHESTER / PUBLISHER FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
