Aftermath Campaign (Star Wars: Imperial Assault)

We suffered a short delay between cycles as we prepared for a run of Star Wars: Imperial Assault. This s a game that I was quite excited about before it's release, mostly for the chance to do a little Star Wars 28mm model painting! The boys picked it up for me as a gift for my 40th, and once I stumbled across Sorastro's Youtube channel I found it a pleasurable set to paint up in between other projects.

Precisely because I was working on other projects, I was happy to make Sorastro's tutorials a simple way to knock out a few these models every know and then, which I've been doing since January. Those tutorial videos are some of the better ones made on Youtube, a pleasure to watch and simple to follow - perfect for the beginner and professional enough for the experienced painter. If you are not familiar with them please check out his channel: Sorastro's Painting

Last week we spent an evening running through the tutorial and getting a grip on the rules. That allowed us to jump right into it this evening with gusto! Nipo, Marw, Blunt and Mane played the Rebel Scum while I manifested my inner Sith and did my best to thwart the so-called "good guys".

It doesn't look like much, but the painted miniatures really brings the small skirmish maps to life! The gameplay was fast and furious, and we had a lot of fun! Everybody prepared by watching a few tutorial online, but although they were useful we all agreed they were not great. In hindsight I would say watch a descent review of the game (like this review) just to get an awareness of how the game flows and jump right into the tutorial.

The co-op element is very entertaining, but we immediately started entertaining thoughts of a time limitation. This was not because discussions were bogging the game down in a negative way, but simply considering how to move the missions along at a slightly faster pace so that campaigns don't end up lasting months and months! We got two missions done in 4 hours, and with about 9 missions to a campaign (as I understand it) increasing game effect to 3 or even 4 missions an evening would make a huge difference. And with all the great expansions offered by FFG this is simply a necessity given all the other stuff we want to play as well!

The characters played were Fenn, Diala, Jyn and Garkhan, and the missions we played were Aftermath and Homecoming! That second mission was a steep learning curve (we hadn't looked too closely into allies before it came up in the mission briefing). However, that worked quite well - and the players were all stoked to see the characters that turned up!


I can't quite judge the game on it's narrative feel yet, but we certainly had a lot of laughs and are looking forward to continuing the campaign next week. I'm going to look for a time glass that runs about 2 minutes, and experiment with using that for every activation (Imperial as well as rebels). In addition the rebel players will get a few minutes to discuss tactics before their turn begins. This should help get a mission down to about 1 hour, especially when combined with an ever-increasing confidence with rules and tactics.

I will get some proper shots of the gameplay and the miniatures next week as well! For now consider that a good sign that we had so much fun we forgot to take more pictures!