The Season 9 Playtesting Phase is finally over, and we have our final results after 2 weeks of community voting. 23 players, members of the community just like you, answered the call and participated in an open voting process available to everyone and cast their votes for the cards that should be permanently added to the Imperial Assault IACP skirmish project. Thank you everyone that chose to participate and welcome to all of our new players that have been slowly growing the ranks of this amazing community.
There were no cards that reached the necessary 30% disapproval rating to be removed from competitive play, however not every card reached the necessary number of fully approved votes to be permanently added. Cards that were not disapproved by 30% of voters but also did not receive a Fully Approved vote from 50% of voters or more will continue to be allowed in IACP competitive play for the remainder of the season, but will have to be voted on again during the next season for a final vote to see if they will be permanently added to the IACP card pool. They may also receive changes in a future playtest season. These cards will have the words “Continued Testing” listed on the bottom of the card in the IACP Official Changes and FAQ document and printable sheets rather than “IACP Approved”.
| Card Name | Fully Approve Votes | Disapprove Votes | Result |
| Beatdown | 65.2% | 8.7% | Fully Approved |
| Retaliation | 82.6% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Meditation | 47.8% | 17.4% | Continued Testing |
| Bodhi Rook | 82.6% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Transmit the Plans | 91.3% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Ewok Warrior | 47.8% | 8.7% | Continued Testing |
| Jyn Erso | 65.2% | 8.7% | Fully Approved |
| A New Hope | 43.5% | 13% | Continued Testing |
| elite Imperial Officer | 43.5% | 8.7% | Continued Testing |
| Fifth Brother | 73.9% | 4.3% | Fully Approved |
| You Will Not Deny Me | 43.5% | 17.4% | Continued Testing |
| Fennec Shand | 43.5% | 8.7% | Continued Testing |
| Dangerous Prey | 52.2% | 0.00% | Continued Testing* |
| Krrsantan | 60.9% | 8.7% | Fully Approved |
| Disarm | 52.2% | 8.7% | Fully Approved |
| Scavenged Walker | 56.5% | 8.7% | Fully Approved |
Highest Approval Rating – 91.3%
Highest Disapproval Rating – 17.4%
New Season Structure Feedback
For this season we’re trying a new playtesting and season structure where we do half the number of cards per season and reduced the public playtesting period from 4 months to 2 months and the competitive season from 8 months to 4 months, allowing for shorter playtesting periods and 2 season releases per year.
We have gotten some mixed feedback on this change. A lot of you (10 responses) expressed that you are happy to getting new content more frequently and like the new schedule. A decent number of you expressed that 2 months did not feel like enough playtesting time to get the cards right, which is certainly reflected in the community’s low confidence in voting to fully approve cards this season.
Some of you were also skeptical that this method of release and playtesting could reduce our workload, but I will tell you right now that it absolutely has for me at least. Unlike the competitive period, the public playtesting period is non-stop work for me every week that it goes on. The shorter playtesting period means less update articles I have to write, less card images I have to track create and update, more time to collect and scrape game logs for data without a deadline, and a shorter overall period of intense IA related workload that mostly falls on me. I am still personally responsible for about 80% of the work that needs to be done to produce a season of content for IACP, but now that the number of cards is half of what it was before and the duration of the playtesting period is half as long, this season I didn’t hit my burnout point because of those two things. It means I actually get to play games for fun again. It means I actually want to make youtube videos for this game again.
However, the Committee has recognized that our designs would definitely benefit from a longer period than 2 months of outside exposure and feedback from players outside of the Steering Committee. For Season 10 releasing in July, we are going to be taking sign ups for a closed, private pre-release playtesting league from players who are willing to commit to helping us playtest the new cards before they are released to the public. We hope that this will allow us to gain the benefit from a longer playtesting period without the burden on the wider community of needing to keep up with constant monthly updates to playtest cards for a long period of time, as well reducing the amount of formal public communications needed from the steering committee. Stay tuned in the next few months for more details about how to sign up for the private pre-release playtesting league.
New Players
Last season we got a lot of feedback that we were not providing the resources that new players needed to get into the IACP and online Imperial Assault in general. This season I have seen quite a few new players joining our ranks and no feedback complaining about a lack of resources for new players, so that makes me happy. I’ve also seen and heard quite a few of our new players this season starting off with one of our example lists from the new IACP List-Building Guide pages. And I’ve been putting a lot more work into our website to make sure it’s updated and more accessible, adding new helpful pages like the aforementioned List-Building Articles guide, as well as a quick-link at the top of the site to the current tournament map rotation, and a functional Blog Archive to be able to view all past blog articles on the site. Hopefully these changes and more to come will give new players the resources and the confidence they need to take their first steps into the online skirmish community for Imperial Assault and IACP.
Last Thoughts and Your Requests for the Future
The change to Season 9’s playtest process was a big shake-up that will ultimately lead to a more sustainable process for us long-term, but has also shown us more areas for improvement when it comes to our design and playtesting process. That being said, I’m personally really happy with how the shorter public playtesting period has worked out, and it’s felt like the transition into competitive play has been a much smoother one and like we lost a lot fewer players to the doldrums of the playtest period than we have in the past seasons with longer playtest period. By extending the playtest period again but moving some of it to an internal and private process (but still open to anyone who wants to join in) should help with giving us more time to make the necessary changes to cards without slowing down our momentum going from the playtesting period into competitive and approved play. So far the month-long vassal tournaments and free-play asynchronous league have proven to be more successful than our previous attempts at online organized play, so hopefully we can keep this momentum going into the spring and the next Season.
Here are some of the hopes and dreams you guys shared with us about what you want to see in future seasons of IACP.
- I’d like to see damage in the overall game come down / durability go up, just a bit though. I’d also like to see more utility, as well as more unique designs, instead of just a hundred flavours of ‘ranged attacker’ and ‘melee attacker’. Lastly I’d like to see some more command card gameplay, spy-like effects and more reliable access to powerful cards.
- New IACP made maps with new figure balance in mind would be exciting.
- More non-uniques! I’m not greatly interested with the current number of Unique deployments. Also, Clone Wars content with new affiliations with unique playstyles would be wonderful. I am aware of Jayjaxx’s expansion but I feel as though the majority of those cards are unpolished and lack unique faction identity imo, yet there are great ideas in there that could be extracted and put into an official IACP season.
- I think by now I’ve already made my opinions known. Just cool to know we’re almost at the end of FFG cards needing balanced!
- I’d like to avoid figures that kite well or avoid moving into the middle of the map because that already feels like the strongest way to play the game, and it discourages engaging with the objectives and interesting map mechanics. I’m a CIS fanboy so I’d love to see a B2. Not sure if everyone else would though… In general I grew up on prequel era Star Wars and would love to see more legends characters like Katarn.
- Fix up some older FFG cards and the earlier IACP ones I mentioned. I’d rather have more fixed stuff than a whole pile of new figures at this stage.
- I think anything can come to the game, and look forward to what comes next
- The Bad Batch is popular right now and could be amazing in IACP
- Mara jade feels a bit lacklustre in comparison to other characters. The brothers and sisters (inquisitors) are great.
- Existing cards balance
- Starkiller please?
- I do like cards from the new shows, but what I would really love is bringing Original Trilogy characters like Grand Moff Tarkin, Lobot, and Garindan to life in Imperial Assault. Most importantly, please don’t expand the game’s time period! On a more mechanical level, I am especially interested in cards that play into less explored design space (like Doctor Aphra), new archetypes (like Rogue One), and filling in command cards for traits (like a capstone card for Brawlers or an improved Close the Gap).