Descent v2.5 will be called Star Wars imperial assault

[Galdred]

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=271&enmi=Star Wars: Imperial Assault
It will basically be Descent 2 with an updated combat system and Stormtroopers. So a dungeon crawler campaign (Descent was about 10 missions long), with one guy playing the bad guys, and up to 4 playing the Rebel scum. Both side gain Xperia (and credits for the Rebels) along the way to open up more options.
I don t care that much for the Stormtroopers as licensed games are usually more expensive ( although killing Stormtroopers with an ewok hero sure is more meaningful than going through Terrinioth uninspired bestiary), but they seem to have fixed Descent v2.0 most glaring issues:
Combat is meaningful again :
A hero who gets to zero HP has reduced stats for the remainder of the mission, and the second time, is down for the whole mission, while in D2, he only lost one action if revived by friends, or two if getting up by himself.
Reinforcements need to be paid for by the Imperial player (before, you could usually reinforce one monster authorized by the mission regardless of its strength : no more killed dragons returning the next turn now).
And the imperial player gets to purchase cool upgrade with his Xp(before you only got to add a few cards to your deck, and if you didn't t abuse hand management, by keeping all your crappy cards in hands so that you would draw, play and reshuffle the best cards every turn, they would not see much action).
You can now move through opponents, but at a very high cost (in move points and fatigue), so the imperial player has to kill heroes (and not rush its toughest tank monster to the obvious choke point to delay the heroes).

 

[Ulminati]

I wanted to like Descent, but the balance was abysmal in the version I played (1.0). As soon as the heroes got the first tresure chest, the rest of the mission was a cakewalk because the items were so strong.

 

[MicoSelva]

My gaming group is busy playing Descent 2.0 and we do not really care for this reskin, especially that none of us is a very big Star Wars fan. Changes to the mechanics seem ok, but we like current Descent rules as they are. Never played 1.0, but I heard it had abysmal balance before the campaign rules were introduced.

 

[Grunker]

I wanted to like Descent, but the balance was abysmal in the version I played (1.0). As soon as the heroes got the first tresure chest, the rest of the mission was a cakewalk because the items were so strong.

This is my playgroup's experience as well.

 

[Galdred]

The Road to legend campaign version was much better balanced, although it was quite swingy : catching up was pretty hard when the overlord was fielding upgraded monsters very early, or the heroes had become impervious to damage, but until this point (at the end of act 1, so around 25 hours into the game), things were pretty even. I found descent v1 campaign much better than v2(mostly because the combat and positioning were more important, and playing the p warlord was much more interesting, decision wise).

 

[Galdred]

My gaming group is busy playing Descent 2.0 and we do not really care for this reskin, especially that none of us is a very big Star Wars fan. Changes to the mechanics seem ok, but we like current Descent rules as they are. Never played 1.0, but I heard it had abysmal balance before the campaign rules were introduced.

I have tried SW: IA a bit, and I find it much better than Descent for the following reasons :
Dieing is a big deal now : a hero who gets downed twice is out for the mission, and when all heroes are wounded(= gets to zero HP once), the Empire wins, while in Descent, getting killed did not change much. The reinforcement system is much better(each figure has a threat cost), XP for the Imperial Player is much more interesting (you get XP to purchase upgrades for your troops, and influence to purchase some cards you can use either once, or once per mission, depending on the card).
The race aspect is still present, but it is much better done than in Descent (you cannot ignore all opponents and survive, but at the same time, you usually don't have time to kill them all and take care of the objective at the same time).
LoS rules are stil weird (trace LoS from 1 corner of the shooter to 2 corners of the target)
So it is a mix between Descent 1 RTL and Descent 2, with some new mechanism added.
It also features a skirmish mode for 2 players.

 

[Galdred]

The more I play it, the more I like the new LoS rules. It allows to have some kind of cover (if you are behind a corner, you can shoot at someone who cannot shoot back without repositionning), which make positionning much more important than in Descent v2 (where everyone can see everyone).

I will try to write some session reports when I have some time.

 

[Snorkack]

Interesting! In my experience (played as OL into the second act of campaign 2 so far), the balance strongly tends to favor the Overlord. Block the ways as soon and long as possible, separate the hero group, dont even bother killing one unless he is all alone - victory. The OL deck gave em the rest. We eventually established the house rule that I play with my hand open, but it also felt like taking even more fun away (especially for me). Maybe its our lack of tactical understanding (althou were all seasoned Axis players)

A hero who gets to zero HP has reduced stats for the remainder of the mission, and the second time, is down for the whole mission
And the imperial player gets to purchase cool upgrade with his Xp
You can now move through opponents, but at a very high cost (in move points and fatigue)

And now they are adressing the biggest issues I have with the game and make it happen in my favorite sf universe - wonderful!

 

[Destroid]

They already did this with Doom.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Honestly don't see the appeal in playing Descent. At that point I'd rather just play real D&D.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Honestly don't see the appeal in playing Descent. At that point I'd rather just play real D&D.

um

its...

good?

What do you find good about it? I'm asking because the whole time I played Descent we, my group, kept asking ourselves why aren't we playing PnP instead. I feel like if you're going into the trouble of setupping a game a like Descent and even have a GM/DM then you might as well just setup a PnP game which has deeper and more satisfying mechanics. For me Descent exists in a weird space where it's a bit more complex than the usual RPG-lite board games, but it's at a point where it's almost competing against real PnP and, again, for me, falls short against D&D and its kind.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Honestly don't see the appeal in playing Descent. At that point I'd rather just play real D&D.

um

its...

good?

What do you find good about it? I'm asking because the whole time I played Descent we, my group, kept asking ourselves why aren't we playing PnP instead. I feel like if you're going into the trouble of setupping a game a like Descent and even have a GM/DM then you might as well just setup a PnP game which has deeper and more satisfying mechanics. For me Descent exists in a weird space where it's a bit more complex than the usual RPG-lite board games, but it's at a point where it's almost competing against real PnP and, again, for me, falls short against D&D and its kind.

i literally just bought it for the minis to run the star wars PnP with. Also, to use the pieces to make on-the-fly semi-random dungeons.

I guess it's a good deal for that purpose.

 

[Galdred]

Honestly don't see the appeal in playing Descent. At that point I'd rather just play real D&D.

um

its...

good?

What do you find good about it? I'm asking because the whole time I played Descent we, my group, kept asking ourselves why aren't we playing PnP instead. I feel like if you're going into the trouble of setupping a game a like Descent and even have a GM/DM then you might as well just setup a PnP game which has deeper and more satisfying mechanics. For me Descent exists in a weird space where it's a bit more complex than the usual RPG-lite board games, but it's at a point where it's almost competing against real PnP and, again, for me, falls short against D&D and its kind.

Ok, it is a more than 1 year late answer, but what is good in Descent/Imperial Assault is that the Overlord pulls no punch, so if the heroes win, they really deserved it.
On a PnP campaign, the heroes victory or defeat depends for a good part of the ability of the GM to balance the encounters well (they can of course do things to remedy that).
Here, it depends on whose side made the best decisions and was most favored by the dice and the cards.

Descent and Imperial Assault are about competition. You don't miss anything by not reading the flavor text. What matters is how the events fold out during the missions.

I have finished 2 campaigns of Imperial Assault, and I find it is the best iteration of the Descent formula (but I have not played Doom).
Descent Campaign V1 had a better flow (the heroes had more agency and decided where to go next on the map, while the overlord tried to raze cities), but the rules and balance were a mess, and we never finished
a campaign as it started getting very lopsided after the first third for one side or the other.

The mini campaign is a better format IMO (Twin Stars, Bespin Gambit) as it allows you to end a campaign in 4 sittings.

The heroes and the Imperial classes are not balanced at all.
I got stomped by the heroes playing Superior Technology, but stomped them with the Imperial Leadership class (and one of them was Biv Bodrick, who is rated 14th out of 15 heroes, so it made things much easier).