| Season 2 Timeline: July 29th thru November 3rd, 2019 |
| Season 2 Announcement & Feedback: July 29th thru August 11th, 2019 |
| Season 2 Approval Voting: November 4th thru Nov. 17th, 2019 |
| What’s a Season? |
After the Season 2 Announcement post, we opened up the floor for your feedback on our recommended changes. We think of the Season 2 Announcement as the start of a discussion with the Skirmish Community. We thank everybody for reaching out to us to share what they liked and what they didn’t like about our recommended changes.
Now that we’ve assessed everything, we are implementing the following as the Season 2 official changes. You can download the IACP Official Changes document for a quicker summary of what’s new in Season 2. As of today, the IA Skirmish Vassal module and list builder TableTopAdmiral.com have been updated with Season 2 content; you can also download printable cards to use for your IRL games. A new patch file for the Kensai Tools Suite list builder will be coming soon.
Below we explain in more detail which of our recommended changes from the Season 2 Announcement post stayed and which were modified or removed.
There’s Too Many of Them!
The most common concern expressed to the Steering Committee is that there were too many changes in this Season. While the overall number of card changes was similar to the number used in Season 1, this season’s changes features more new and changed cards. Players felt like it would be difficult to give most of the recommended changes enough play in order to make a quality assessments. Some of you also told us that you’d prefer the approved changes from Season 1 to “settle in” during Season 2, instead of immediately making more changes.
The Steering Committee discussed what would be the best way to reduce the amount of changes for Season 2. We started looking for Deployment cards that were approved in Season 1, changed in Season 2 and have other card changes that affects it in gameplay. With the Elite Stormtrooper and Elite Rebel Trooper, we could revert their recommended Deployment card changes and they still would be interesting to play with the Trooper Skirmish Upgrade attachments Cohesive Fireteam & Suppressive Fire. “Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight” was another Deployment card change that could be reverted to his Season 1 approved version since he benefits directly from the changed Command cards “Knowledge and Defense” and “Deflection”.
We also looked at your reaction of the Deployment card changes that were new at Season 2. Of all the changes, the Elite Royal Guard won the award for Most “Meh” Change. From the Season 2 Announcement survey, the Elite Royal Guard was the one Deployment that had the most votes of “Neutral” when the voters were asked if they approved that recommended change. We’ve removed the Elite Royal Guard change from this season. We would like to create cards that improve how Guardians work in the game in a future Season; when we do, the Elite Royal Guard will be given another opportunity to be changed.
Another Season 2 recommended change was to the Elite Trandoshan Hunter. While most of you want this card improved, you weren’t as excited with the direction of our change. We reworked the figure’s attack dice & surge abilities to improves its attack output when not adjacent; some of you would have rather had the “APC Scattergun” ability that gives +2<damage> when attacking adjacent foes. Others weren’t sure how the Elite Trandoshan Hunter would fit into a Mercenary meta where being adjacent to opponents is riskier than running Elite Weequays and shooting from afar. We feel like we didn’t do a good enough job making the Elite Trandoshan Hunters stand on their own, so we’re undoing the Season 2 change and will try them again in the future, likely paired up with an improvement with Bossk.
The Steering Committee kept the Season 2 changes to Kayn Somos (Deployment cost is now 7 instead of 6) and to Diala Passil (Health +2, removed “<surge>: Recover 2<damage>”). We received enough feedback about during the last month of Season 1 that we feel these changes are necessary for the balance of the game.
Old Warriors, New Tricks
Almost all of our new or changed Deployment cards were well received. In the Season 2 Announcement Survey, nearly every Deployment card had over 70% of voters choosing that they “Approve” or “Strongly Approve” the card for Season 2. Of these cards, the most feedback we received concerned Boba Fett — a card that we all want to get right — and Fenn Signis.
Most of you told the Steering Committee that Boba’s changes were exciting. Some of you are concerned that Boba’s new abilities are too wordy and difficult to understand. In particular, there was a bit of confusion on how Boba’s abilities activate in the version of Boba we offered two weeks ago. There was also concern that there will be further confusion in tournaments by not explicitly defining how Boba’s wildcard attack die works.
We took your feedback and added more text to Boba’s ability box. Now “Wrist Rocket”, “Wrist Flamethrower” and “Weaponized Stim” are separate abilities that define their limitations.
This is probably going to be received poorly by players who think Boba has too many abilities. Out of 31 total responses given in the Season 2 Announcement survey, 6 voters (19.4%) felt that there were too many abilities on Boba Fett, and 8 voters (25.8%) weren’t for sure but were willing to test Boba as-is for this Season. Some players have recommended that Boba’s attack pool just be red/blue/green, as players will be picking a red die almost all of the time; this would be a good way to reduce the amount of text on Boba’s card and the Steering Committee will implement it if feedback about “EE-3 Carbine” is consistent.
Some of our players have already been testing out this new Boba Fett and are concerned that they are not getting 13 Deployment points worth of value out of him; while they like the “spend movement points to power ability” mechanism, they’re concerned that trying to get Boba to perform an attack and use one of his abilities leaves him too close to figures that can punish him. They also feel that IG-88 with the Focused on the Kill attachment gives out more value for 12 Deployment points compared to Boba. The Steering Committee wishes that Boba Fett become the “top dog” of the Merc Hunters, but we want Boba to feel different than IG-88. We will be watching your continued feedback on Boba Fett closely, and we will make improvements to his abilities later this Season if he needs them.
Another figure whose card was criticized as being “too wordy” was Fenn Signis. Players felt like the “Lone Wolf” ability was too much text for too little reward; we felt like that was a fair criticism. We reworked Fenn’s card to remove “Lone Wolf” but kept Fenn’s ability to self-heal by pairing up Recover 1<damage>with his Blast 1<damage> surge ability. Now Fenn has to be careful not to try and shoot his way Healthy when a friendly melee figure such as Gaarkhan is next to his target. We also made some adjustments to his attack math to justify changing “Havoc Shot” to be used on 2 figures within 2 spaces and in line of sight of Finn. This allows Fenn to suffer a <strain> to plop an extra unblockable <damage> down on his target. We felt like the Core Set Rebel heroes needed a heavy hitter, and this version of Fenn will do so.
Make Ten Men Feel Like A Hundred
The Steering Committee is thankful for having so many players invested into IACP. We’re now entering the best part of a Season: Playing Imperial Assault with these new changes. Gather your forces and friends. Play a few games. Let us know what you like and what you don’t like about the changes.
This Season is a continual discussion; the Steering Committee will listen and, when a change to Season 2 content is needed, make that change. Look for a link to the Season 2 Playtest Survey on the front page soon; fill it out as many times as you can. Unless that change is to fix a game-breaking problem, the Steering Committee will likely wait until the first or second week of October before releasing any modifications to Season 2.
Good luck and may the Dodge be with you.