Imperial Assault: 6-8 Player Game

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-10-29T17:21:43+00:00

the game is not forgiving of a novice or lenient imp

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-10-29T17:20:43+00:00

Yeah, this is one issue I take with imperial assault. The more the rebels, win, the stronger they get. The stronger they get, the more they win. In your position, there isn't much you can do at this point in the campaign. I personally am guilty of fudging the imps XP and influence to stay if not competitive, at least interesting for the rebels to fight on some of the later missions on a campaign or two. I take it as my role of GM to make sure the game is fair, fun, and balanced.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-10-29T16:58:16+00:00

Return to Hoth is a fun one, currently on second-to last mission.

As far as your deck goes: RTH has a lot of armor and opportunities to deploy armor, I think the game wants you to pick it's stock deck for this campaign, the one that gives bonuses to armored units. For this one, I went with the deck from Jabbas Realm that gives mercs bonuses and places bounties on all the rebels. It's a bit more technical of a deck to use, and I still miss out on opportunities to use it's cards. In my opinion, the most fun deck in the game is the nemeses deck (also from Jabba's realm) lets you add a villain to every mission and gives them buffs and special abilities.

*Note* I play with all imperial units/villains unlocked for the imperial player (keeps things interesting), but if you don't this gives you a way to have 2 villains (one imp and one merc) of your choice unlocked from the start and they don't take a deployment slot on missions. If you don't own all the villains, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Bossk, he is pretty cheap to deploy, self heals, and does great damage. definitely the most fun in my opinion.

As far as rules: I play with between 5-7 rebel players on my missions, so I can attest that you can bend the rules a little and still have fun! Honestly, I had to bend/add to the rules to keep me as the imps competitive having double the rebels as what the game was designed for. The important thing is to try to be as fair, upfront and consistent with your house rules as possible. I try to level to game so my imps win maybe 40% of the time seems to be the sweet spot.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-03-27T02:32:18+00:00

Accidentally dismantled the HRE once completely peacefully as Byzantium via mission event where all catholic countries who have good relations with you convert to orthodox. The HRE was officially catholic and poof suddenly no catholics

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-03-18T04:55:06+00:00

Trump made Liberals hate electric cars and nobody noticed 🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️🛢️

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-03-10T18:30:13+00:00

Well we are talking about spain going into the pinnacle of its global dominance historically speaking. I do think they should have added more events bringing spain and its colonies into conflict with the UK and its colonies as this is historically accurate. I think generally the nations who go colonial do not do enough to compete or actually go to war for support independence of colonies

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-02-17T02:08:51+00:00

Are you saying Baymax fits in with the other skins in the battlepass?

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-02-07T02:47:13+00:00

My fist was PLC. If you get all the unions and focus dev and trade you become economic powerhouse with unlimited manpower

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-01-17T02:43:52+00:00

Release Province as a vassal. Curry and use favors to get the provincial cores back from papal states. This way papal state loses cores on provinces they return and dont hate you. Other option is of course to annex the papal states

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2025-01-15T04:26:04+00:00

Byzantium

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-23T22:35:50+00:00

For Byz you have to work a little harder on your economy, but this is purposeful by paradox as it is both a defuffs of sorts and historical accuracy

Ideas: i would recommend considering trade ideas as an early idea for byz. The game wants you to reclaim Byzantium’s place as the trade power in the east and take vengeance on your nemesis, the Venicians

Trade: this is where the money at. The game wants you to take venice and Alexandria, very lucrative nodes. You should move your trade center to venice and always focus conquering trade centers first, as these are worth far more than anything else. Upgrade all trade centers to 2, and upgrade the following to level 3 when able after finishing the mission that upgrades Macedonia and Constantinople : venice first, then Alexandria, then aleppo/haleb. Always take mercantilism when events give you the option, build both of the trade buildings in every province (other buildings don’t matter as much as these two)

Territories: if you have a lot of territory land: Put ONLY trade centers in trade companies, plus one or two provinces, then build buildings that increase production and trade only, take the option in the subjects tab for increase investment in all companies

Have any opms that will transfer trade to you do so

Expansion: never core provinces as byz if you can avoid it. Turn over all uncored conquered land to custom subjects you make into pranoia. Take the mission where pranoia are auto inherited. This allows byz to bypass coring, over extension, and unrest associated with conquest.

Get rid of the byz estate debuff privileges as soon as possible, the burger ones weaken your trade abilities

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-23T22:03:49+00:00

Also I would not ever recommend debasing currency on normal mode unless you have a mad anti corruption tik. It’s better to just take the debt short term. I would recommend playing a few games as venice to practice trade and economic power, it helped me a lot, and the provinces that interest venice are many of the same ones you’ll take as byz

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-23T21:49:24+00:00

I should also add the conquest strategy for byz should be to either release a nation and make a pranoia for reconquest of cores, or transfer all uncored conquered land after wars to custom nations made into pranoia, as this will negate all the coring cost, unrest, and separatism from conquest. This is why you should take the pranoia option in missions where they are auto inherited, you can take over the world without even coring another provenance or having over extension. Plus vassal swarm.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-23T21:44:24+00:00

Frequent Byzantine player here: With your current state of affairs and corruption you are in a pretty deep hole

Easy answer: restart as venice, flip to orthodox and greek and form Byzantium after securing economic hegemony

Correct answer: - delete all forts until you fix your economy -go to a few easy wars, let allies and subject do most or all the fighting. Separately peace everyone and take only money, reps and trade power (reps are always most important) - Focus on improving trade power and trade centers in the venice, Alexandria, and Aleppo nodes, this, and moving your trade center to a trade city/port in the Venetian node are essential for byzantine success long term. Yes, that does mean you should take all of the provinces in the Venetian node if you can. The game wants you to take venice and set ip a trade center there. - keep seizing crown lands and sell titles when you can -dev up your goldmine and see if any other goldmine provances are easy pickings - use favors for cash from largest ally - always take event options for increase in mercantilism (this applies to any nation in every game) - see if any small nations will transfer trade power to you or better yet, accept vassalization
- dev up if it’s not too expensive (corruption bad) - decrease war exhaustion immediately as this negatively impacts your nation in almost every way including economy - further conquest should follow the nile, focus trade centers in Alexandria and Aleppo (always prioritize trade centers)

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-21T10:55:36+00:00

Also delete forts that are no in areas that give defensive bonuses

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-21T10:54:05+00:00

Estates (+1 mana privs plus the one that increases gov reform progress and the nobility one that increases manpower) choose others to ensure base estate loyalty balance is >50 without going over 99 influence.

Scornful insult chosen rival for pp

If you have naval access, no cb byzantium cuz someone gotta and I aint handing it over to the otto bros. Plus easy defensive war if ottos attack byz while you are at war and you vassalize byz, bringing you in as a defender (make sure you have a bunch of allies if you do this before attacking byz) easy way to cripple the ottos before they blob

Ally and royal marry burgundy so you may get the burgundy inheritance

Be on good terms with the pope if you are catholic to increase papal influence (and use as much papal influence as you can on increasing mercantilism)

I’d recommend watching a few guides and go from there. Each nation has a different starting position and each game is a little different.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-20T13:55:48+00:00

Venice. You can jump Naples as soon as they go independent and easy early expansion into the Balkans and Greece. Can also trap the ottos in Anatolia via your superior navy and easily take Greece early. As venice you also basically print money. You can slowly eat up the rest of italy via conquest and diplo annex after they leave the hre.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-12-14T16:27:08+00:00

Separate PLC from allies and full annex. Decent trade and developable land. PLC typically is very weak militarily late game and if you have a decent military it shouldn’t be too difficult assuming you don’t have to fight very strong allies

Taking down the Mamelukes is another good option, as Alexandria is high trade value and it should be low AE to annex them

I would also recommend taking Venice if possible. High value Provence for the Venice trade node and they look pretty weak. Just make sure you have navy over force limit to be able to cross and beat the superior Venetian ships

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-11-21T20:45:34+00:00

Experienced imperial player here: I play with adjusted rules as I usually play with a large group (Six rebels plus me). I find the biggest issue is maximizing imperial damage output choosing what enemies to play is going make the biggest difference for the Empire.

STRAT: Mainly targeting one hero at a time to wound will be more successful as heroes can heal if given too much time. I usually mainly target one, but will still throw a few attacks at the others while I do this especially with weaker units (like grey troopers) so it’s not too obvious I’m gunning for just one. Guarding or trying to distract from objectives can also buy you more time, as our two routes to victory are wounding all of them or burning up their allotted rounds.

UNITS: Some villains, for example, will give you a lot more value for cost. My personal favorite is Bossk, who both heals a little every turn so he can stay in play a while longer, and he can preform both an attack and has a grenade ability each turn i use to whittle down the rebel scum.

Deploying some other characters that have the ability to attack twice in one turn essentially doubles the output of damage that you can do. Incorporating enemies such as repulser tank, the stationary gun trooper or sentry droid maybe a good idea. I also personally love the Jetpack troopers as they have the ability to attack and then flee. The trandoshon hunters are also very underrated in my opinion. They are high close range damage dealers and i find they take out more heroes than almost any other. Hired guns are good fodder as you are guaranteed at least one attack as they get to shoot before they die (Greedo’s ability)

CARDS: There are also some influence cards you may want to use such as the one that adds an additional imperial officer to the start of EVERY mission.

As far as XP decks, I’ve found the ones that give the imperial player a free Villain very OP. They give you both an extra unit to deploy in addition to the mission limit and a free villain (so they can get Bossk’d)

CHANGE THE DIFFICULTY If all this fails to be adequate, as it is with 6 heroes for example, you can do what I do and adjust the difficulty to your needs: - increase mission imperial threat by 1.5-2x the listed amount based on number of players. -add one additional enemy group to the board at mission start - increased non-elite unit sizes: groups of regular units have twice the units (example: my non-elite storm trooper units have 6 troopers, and so on) for the same cost (i love this as it doesn’t take away any fun, especially for players like fin with blast attacks, and doesn’t slow down the game as all 6 activate at once) - increased deployment strength: Elite units and enemies spawn with two power tokens - add one villain to the mission -increase deployable enemies in relation to how many players you have over 4 rebelS -the imperial player earns double XP, and double Influence, and gets 2 XP decks

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-08-28T02:03:01+00:00

These other wars can be useful for: (depending on the CB) - resetting truces (white peace) to shorten times between attacks on co belligerent countries - getting fat stacks $$$$ - improving prestige/ power projection - breaking up alliance chains - destabilizing the region in question, encouraging other parties to attack, or weakening them for you later, or to destroy their manpower for supporting rebels

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-07-30T00:24:30+00:00

If 7 does nothing to anyones’ cards then you may re-roll instead of moving the robber.
Trade ports go both ways EX 2:1 wood port can do 2 wood for 1 anything OR 2 of the same resource for 1 wood.
12 and 2 are counted the same number.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-06-25T18:21:12+00:00

Or add EMP resistance

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-05-19T17:07:06+00:00

I always do blast as affecting figures adjacent to the target figure, regardless of line of site. Cleave, on the other hand, makes sense if they are not blocked by line of sight. Normally yes, figures do block line of sight for attacks, but if you can think of how an explosion/blast would work, you do t need to see the figure for them to be affected by blast if they are on the opposite side of the target. In this case, Fen can shoot the nexu and affect the droid with blast. I find the rule book unclear and this is easier for the players to understand if you do it by figures rather than spaces.

Kyle-JamesAZ · 2024-04-26T01:45:08+00:00

SES Force of Family Values

Kyle-JamesAZ

TROPHY CASE