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Imperial Assault Special Agents: Just white would be boring so I decided they were field operatives so they could be a bit grungy, which would would make the white highlights easier. The minis are produced by Fantasy Flight Games and the Imperials come in a nice hard plastic grey with really crisp detail, the Rebel scum are molded in a tan colored plastic.

#miniature painting #painting miniatures #imperial assault #star wars ffg #star wars

The Curse of Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Howdy peeps! It's Andy Larson, your resident Last Comic Shop Nerf Herder, ready to talk shop on one of my favorite topics in all nerdom, Star Wars.

Yep, I'm a huge fan of them there times a long long ago in a galaxy far far away, as you might have guessed by the tons of articles on Star Wars related stuff I've written here at the website over the past. And it's once again getting to that magical point where Star Wars fans have been denied big screen shenanigans for just long enough that we are clamoring for all things lightsabery and wookie filled.

Luckily for us, this is a golden age of Star Wars related stuff, so we as fans know we just have to wait patiently and Disney will give us our next fix. We've got our Christmas present to unwrap with the brand new a with "The Book of Boba Fett" scheduled to hit Disney Plus at the end of next month. I’d be lying if I said that one of the main reasons I continue my subscription to the House of Mouse is because of shows like "The Mandalorian" and “The Bad Batch” which have well received among the rabid Star Wars fans in my house hold. Especially when it comes to Baby Yoda’s Daddy, Din Djarin, the series' title character and a lone bounty hunter.

Seriously, executive producer Jon "Happy Hogan" Favreau has really out did himself in making this series be everything that we remember from the Star Wars films of old. It's all old westerns and samurai movies, with that sci-fantasy sheen!

And with the Book of Boba Fett, it seems the Star Wars gods finally have the chance to double down on everything that really captured the imaginations of us fans originally with the Mandalorian show. In other words, we just wanted more Boba. Plain and Simple.

I will say that I’m very glad that they retconned the fact that Jango Fett was a foundling similar to Din Djarin in season two putting to rest the fan rumors that Jango wasn't a true Mandalorian. That he just grew up on a Mandalorian colony, but stole the armor or something stupid like that.

Instead it’s starting somewhat of a trend that those that really the best Mandalorians aren’t really even from Mandalore. Maybe all those centuries of awful internal politics really do take your eye off what being a true Mandalorian means: A Stone Cold Bad Ass.

Plus. to me if it looks like a Mandalorian, fights like a Mandalorian, then Boba is a Mandalorian. Punch me with your troll comments interwebs, I dare ya!

Now what I hope we get at least a few minutes of in the Book of Boba Fett, is some visual explanation of why Boba isn’t be Saralac grub by now, besides the fact that the all mighty George has gone on record saying Boba did escape from the weird teethed vagina looking monster in the desert, it's just that it hasn't been put on film yet.

We do know Beskar armor is incredibly tough so I’m sure it provided some resistence, but I’m really hoping the reason Boba escaped was that he was never in the Saralac pit to begin with. There have been fan theories that some random jabroni stole Boba’s armor and was pretending to be him on that fateful day on Jabba’s Sail Barge. That’s why the greatest Bounty hunter in the galaxy ultimately went down like a punk ass Jawa, because it really wasn’t him.

Plus, we’ve seen that Boba is already separated from his armor at the beginning of season 2 of the Mandalorian proving that maybe he was oblivious to the fact that it survived until that episode. Sort of makes sense...like maybe he caught wind of the fact that the jerk that took his armor bit it in the Saralac and he figured there was no way he was gonna get it back so he went into hiding as the Empire entered his death throes.

Crazier stuff has definitely happened in Star Wars stories (says everyone named Jar Jar Binks).

Anyways, today's article is not about the new Star Wars related movies or TV shows. That was honestly just to reestablish my Star Wars cred and get all you peeps invested in finishing this article. What the real topic of today's diatribe is a Star Wars related licensed property, or more appropriately a Star Wars related board game. Now before all you super geeks out there get too excited and start chatting about the classic "Escape from the Death Star" board game that they remade recently....

I mean...who didn't want a Grand Moff Tarkin action figure!?! Retreat! In our hour of triumph! We will deal with your Rebel friends soon enough. Solid Jackson! ...Grrr...I'm getting off track again.

No, the board game we are talking about is Star Wars: Imperial Assault, which is published by Fantasy Flight Games.

They also put out other Star Wars related games like Star Wars: Destiny, Star Wars: Outer Rim, Star Wars: Legion, Star Wars: X-Wing, and even a recreation of the classic table top Star Wars: RPG which was originally published by West End Games in 1987 and...

...Nope I'm doing it again. Stick to the topic, Andy.

During last month's HeroQuest article, I mentioned that since that board game, I have found myself searching for other table top tactical RPG board games that I could play, and that's what brought me first in the to Star Wars: Imperial Assault tent nearly 3 years ago. The promise of exciting mission based mini adventures featuring some of the great characters from the original trilogy and surrounding expanded universe. All those great Star Wars related miniatures to paint.

Han Solo, Luke, Darth Vader , all my childhood friends. It was everything I could have wanted, and as I lovingly painted all of those absolutely terrific sculps, I dreamed of playing this game with some of my best chums well into the wee hours of the night, drinking beers and quoting from the movies. That is until that fateful day that I tried to sit down and read the rule book. And all of those dreams quickly descended down that dark path into a nightmare.

I mean I consider myself a pretty savy game player. I've played all kinds of more complex table tops and RPGs from D&D to Champions to Knights of the Round Table to Catan , but nothing took the cake like Imperial Assault .

Even after attempting to read the rule book twice and following along with the "Learn to Play" booklet they included, I was still lost. All the activation and deployments phases, it was just too much. I eventually began to seek out YouTube videos as I often do when I have to understand how to take apart a kitchen faucet or change the carburetor on my lawn mower. I thought perhaps I just needed someone to visually show me how to play in order for it to sink in better.

Nope...it still didn't make much sense. I mean seriously what tutorial only explains how half of the players play?!? The "Imperial" guy will own the game so they will know how to play?!? What terrible logic is that!?! Especially when playing as the Imperials is the more Dungeon Master type role, which means its doubly important to know what the hell you are doing, in particular all the different cards you have to use. It was at that moment that I said "Nope, there's no chance I'm playing this game".

This is mainly because knowing the types of friends I have, if there's no chance that I can describe the game rules clearly and simply, even if they like Star Wars , they aren't going to want to play. I even thought about sending out the Youtube video as like homework, as I've done that before with Pandemic "Reign of Cthulhu" (another complicated game with some sweet ass miniatures I hand painted).

However, at the last minute, I said "no" because at least with Pandemic, I sort of already knew the rules so once I watched the "how to" video I knew at least what I was doing.

Again, after the Imperial Assault video, I still didn't know this game from a hole in the ground. I mean, the only person I could show this video too that might understand it is probably Chad Smoth from our show, as he's a whiz at understanding board games and loves playing them.

Only problem with that is Chad isn’t that into Star Wars to put forth the effort of learning!! Oh will this carnival of torture never end!!

So there I am with not only the original game collecting dust on my game room shelf, but I was actually dumb enough to also buy one of the expansions in "Return to Hoth" in hopes that someday I could play some of the sweet Princess Leia missions.

And I feel like that's my last real chance to ever play this game. It's basically waiting another 3 or 4 years for my son, Jakob, who is an avid gamer already to be old enough to actually help me understand the rules, and perhaps recruit some of his buddies to play. Yeah, sad really when that's your last choice, to play the long game of banking on the fact that board games when taken care of, really do age well and retain their value at least when it comes to playability.

But that's also taking a gamble that Star Wars will still be relevant to a pre-teen in another 3 to 4 years. However I feel that's somewhat of a safe bet. Jakob really does like the original Star Wars movies and has since he was a really little kid thanks to his old Dad exposing him to the franchise so often.

I feel like another 3 years, what with a couple more movies, maybe the new episodes of the Clone Wars cartoon show, and our upcoming trip to Disney World and the new Star Wars addition will possibly make his interest even stronger by the time we are ready to play.

So yes, like the Rebellion, there is a spark of hope that still burns hot enough that when my wife asked me whether we could sell the game at a recent yard sale, I said "NO!".

To which she answered: "But you are never going to play it! It's been sitting there for years! You even said so yourself, the rules are crazy difficult!"

"But Jakob will help me. Like Luke helped Vader overcome his demons. I just have to wait for the right moment", I said as I grabbed the box with both hands clutching it as one would clutch a newborn child about to be ripped from a mother's grasp.

"Okay, Obi-Wan" she said sarcastically "But I don't want you buying any more miniatures for it! At least not until you paint the ones you have. That Greedo figure has been sitting in your project pile for well over a year now!"

#star wars #boba fett #the mandalorian #disney plus #Clone Wars #Jango Fett #fantasy flight games #imperial assault #board games #reviews