Table of Contents
(This deep dive is not complete but will be updated daily until it is if you click an image and go nowhere, that page is not posted yet)
Star Wars: Imperial Assault is potentially one of my favourite games. The reason I say potentially is that I have never been able to bring my entire collection to the table.
I have collected every released box expansion, ally and villain pack and big-box expansion, the only thing I do not have are the neoprene skirmish maps so there is an incredible amount of cards, map tiles, tokens, dice and miniature figures to manage.
There are only two companies that even claim to make an organiser for the whole Imperial Assault collection and to date, neither have replied to emails so if you see this Go7 Gaming, please respond to one of the 40 or so emails I have sent you over the last two years.
The other company is Gothsonika and they have a range of inserts providing protection for each box expansion, the core set and the ally and villain packs. It would be great to find a company making a chest to bring the entire collection to the table for a marathon session of scum and villainy.
Imperial Assault is a game that has a lot of similarities to another favourite of mine, Descent: Journeys in the Dark. To be honest, you could say that FFG reskinned Journeys that this is the same game but let me say this once and for all, ahh, …., OK they are similar but they are far from the same because I am 100% positive that Descent does not have Wookies.
This isn’t a review as I will post a separate review of Imperial Assault Core, instead, this will become more of a wiki to dive deep into the collection because there is so much to unpack and report on that a single review wouldn’t do the game justice. This page then will act as your hub.
Clicking any link from this page (blue text or main character pictures) will take you to the page dealing with that character or expansion specifically. Clicking the link on that page will bring you back to this hub to discover more.
The Base Game
The core box for Star Wars Imperial Assault is going to set you back anywhere from £65 to £108 for a new game but anywhere under £75 is a great price and anything over £90 is a scam in my opinion.
If you don’t mind picking up a used copy you will be looking to pay up to £60 but I have seen copies go for as little as £25 on Facebook, however, be careful what you are getting as there are a lot of cards and figures in the base set and you will want them all.
The Core box is made up of, A learn to play rulebook and a rules reference but you can find plenty of tutorials on YouTube if you are not good with rulebooks. There is also a campaign guide and a skirmish guide because there are two games in one box, more on that shortly.
Before we cover characters I think it’s important for you to understand the dice as they will play a very important role in deciding your fate but also your decisions when it comes to upgrades and more.
The Dice
The symbols on the dice relate to Surges, Damage, Defence and Dodge, before we go further it’s important for you to understand what each looks like and what they mean as I will be referring to the associated terms many times, particularly if you read the hero character pages.
Accuracy is represented by a number. In-game accuracy translates to distance. So if the target is 4 spaces away you will need to get at least four on the dice to hit the target. Certain weapons and cards will let you use surges to add range but if firing with a ranged weapon you will want to have a dice pool that includes a good number of dice with a number, namely blue and to a lesser degree, the green dice.
Speaking of surge that brings us to the first icon. 
This is the surge icon and represents the ability on certain cards to output an effect, such as stun or bleed or they can make your attack ignore defence dice. For example, if you see “ : Pierce 2″ your weapon will penetrate two of the defence dice and the damage will make it to your foe.
Damage icons 
represent the damage your opponent will take to their health pool. This is straight-up damage and can be defended against using defence dice.
Defence icons 
block damage.
Evade, represented by the 
icon is used to deflect surges.
Dodge, 
makes any attack completely miss the target rare to roll as only one face contains this symbol on the white dice.
Now that you have this information let’s take a look at the dice themselves.
Surge heavy with four out of the possible 6 faces having at least one surge the yellow dice are light on damage and have poor accuracy but are essential for weapons and actions that rely on surges to be effective.
Red dice are high damage dice. There is only 1 surge on any face and only one face has a single damage icon so you are assured to hit your target hard provided they are nearby as there are no accuracy numbers on the red dice at all. For ranged weapons they need to be combined with other dice.
Blue dice are excellent when paired with Red because they have very high accuracy and medium damage. Their drawback is low surge having a total of two available on each dice.
Green dice are a balanced mixture of accuracy, damage and surge but don’t stand out in any particular area. Green dice are reliable to output some damage and help somewhat but are not outstanding.
Black dice are defence dice but as one face blocks only surge and two of the other faces only block one damage they are mediocre at what they do.
The white dice have two faces that don’t stop any damage. Does this mean they should not really be called defence dice? They do have 3 faces with a block and three with an evade but the best face is the Dodge. It doesn’t appear to work for me.
You will also get 34 figures, these are made up of the 6 heroes:
Rebel Cards
Imperial Player
There are also those you must fight or hide from depending on your play style. The factions are the Imperials and the Mercenaries and many of these troops will come with their own mission and skirmish cards. The Imperial Player will control this faction when you play through the campaign. There is a fantastic app that will allow you to play with no Imperial Player which means you can even play solo if you don’t mind doing everything.
Firstly there are the Imperials consisting of:
Mercenary
In the core box, the mercenary faction is made up of the Nexu and Trandoshan Hunter Miniatures. The Trandoshans are a lizard race and you will have seen Bossk if you remember the bounty hunter scene from Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. I had the Bossk Star Wars toy in the early 80s and ruined him by melting his head by putting it near a 3 bar fire. What fun until I recently saw the exact toy I destroyed on eBay for £120.
All factions also have tokens that represent some characters. These characters can be purchased by picking up the appropriate ally and villain pack that will not only contain said miniature but also cards and a skirmish mission:
The Rest
There are 59 interlocking Map tiles, these are double-sided and cover various locations and finding, storing and organising these tiles is the stuff of nightmares. The core box alone is not too much to handle but when you start to add the expansion boxes you will spend most of your night looking for the right tile unless you are organised.
There are also more tokens than is reasonable, which is true for any fantasy flight game, however, using a good player dashboard to manage your character and a trip to Etsy to find some damage tracking solution will be something you start to look for if you play enough.
After the initial release, there were inevitable expansions. Below you will find each expansion. Click the picture and you will be taken to a page that contains details of the expansion and the Ally and Villain packs released before the next big box expansion.
Big Box Expansions
Imperial Assault Hub
Hero Sheets
