The Season 10 playtesting period will now be drawing to a close, with our first competitive online tournament coming up on September 9th, as a continuation of our monthly Vassal tournaments to win custom Imperial Assault dice.
Our final round of card updates for v10.2 included changes to 4 cards from Season 10.
You can download the Vassal module with the v10.2 updates here. Our printable card sheets for Season 10 and Official Changes and FAQ pdf have also been updated with the 10.2 changes, including new FAQ entries for Capitalize, Smoke Grenade, Overheated, Rogue One, and Repair.
The Community Vote to approve or disapprove cards from Season 10 will also now be open through September 13th. Make sure to make your vote heard, all players of all skill levels and experience are welcome to participate!
Below are an explanation for the final changes made to 4 cards from Season 10.
Capitalize
Cost increased to 2 points
We like that Capitalize now fills a dual role of both supporting Harmful condition focused lists as well as being a universal answer to one of the most frustrating aspects of Imperial Assault for some players which is the defense die, specifically the Dodge and “Tri-force” on the white and black dice respectively. However we took the feedback to heart that at 1 point this card was usurping trait-specific cards that disrupted defense results, even though we felt those cards were stronger and deserved their points, we also accept that it’s okay for a generic version of a card to have the same cost as stronger cards like Heightened Reflexes that have greater restrictions on which figures in a list can use them. Capitalize now matches the cost of cards like Heightened Reflexes, Lock On and Double or Nothing while having a similar but less powerful effect than those cards.
Smoke Grenade
Now marks a space to block line of sight instead of creating an Energy Shield token. Also grants Hidden to the target figure. Effect now only lasts until the start of the next round.
The Smoke Grenade was creating various problems in its previous design. When used by lists with ranged attackers against lists with ranged attackers, the energy shield was creating an insurmountable positioning advantage for the side that was able to deploy it early enough and that lasted for multiple turns. But in any other situation, the card felt close to useless, especially against enemy melee lists. While we don’t mind cards that have a high degree of variance in their utility depending on context, this card was creating extremely imbalanced conditions in the games where it was good.
By reducing its effect to just 1 turn, the card will have a decreased amount of time for which it creates a powerful positioning situation for its player to take advantage of. To compensate for this reduction in utility and for the lack of usefulness against melee lists, the movement ability now additionally grants the Hidden condition to the target, which will provide a +1 surge boost to that figure’s attack, but also provide lasting benefits against ranged attackers after the line of sight blocking effect ends if that figure has not attacked yet.
Finally we removed the reference to the Energy Shield token to resolve a flavor conflict with the card trying to represent a temporary smoke grenade effect with a token that is not smoke. While piggybacking the Energy Shield token was a useful shortcut for playtesting this card, an energy shield and a smoke grenade are quite distinct objects visually and flavorfully. It can also create confusing board states when there can be two different types of visually identical energy shields in play from this card and the Clawdite’s Soldier form. Players are now instructed to mark the chosen space as the smoke space, which can be done with any type of unused token or custom marker, and we’ve updated our FAQ document to explain how blocking line of sight works (hint: it basically uses the same wording as the Energy Shield rules). The below graphic is also included to help explain which spaces can and can’t be seen by Luke Skywalker in this example.
Moff Gideon
Spy Trait removed. You Have Something I Want ability increased back to 3 damage. Surge: +2 damage reduced to +1 damage.
In the last update we significantly downgraded the Moff’s ability to steal tokens by decreasing the range to 4 and the damage to 2 for not giving him the token. While the range reduction was greatly appreciated by our playtesters, it was pointed out that if a figure only needed to take 2 damage, there was no reason to ever transfer a token to him as the math generally broke even when transferring a power token to him (-1 damage or block for the target and +1 damage or block for Gideon) and worked out poorly when conceding a Focus token to him, which made taking the damage the default effect for the ability. This was undesirable as we wanted the ability to be a meaningful choice for players, not just an ability that deals 2 damage each turn by default, so we’ve increased the damage back to 3 as playtesters have reported that that amount of damage feels like the right number for them to have to strongly consider whether or not to give up a Focus token to Gideon, and it seems to be the breaking point between giving up a power token vs giving up a Focus token, which will often result in players transferring power tokens but taking damage to keep their Focus tokens, which means the ability will have variable effects depending on the circumstances it is used in.
To balance out the increased difficulty in keeping Focus and power tokens from being stolen by Moff Gideon, we’ve adjusted his attack profile to reduce his +2 damage down to +1. Pierce 3 helps to remind us that he is fighting with the Darksaber as he loves to do in media, but his lack of training in the Force prevents him from attacking with it like a Jedi or Mandalorian would.
Finally, to address concerns that lists combining Gideon, Thrawn and Spies may become oppressive, we’ve removed Moff Gideon’s Spy trait. Spy has been an iffy trait for Moff Gideon in terms of his lore, as he was formerly ISB but in the current timeline that he’s portrayed he acts solely as a Leader and does zero spying or espionage. This brings him more in line with Thrawn who himself has a powerfully disruptive ability but does not contribute to the Spy count of a list for cards like Comm Disruption and Strategic Shift.
Rogue One
Rogue One figures can now spend any token to add +1 damage while attacking, instead of its matching symbol. Gaining 1 VP when a figure is defeated has been changed to a first game round ability to draw 3 cards and put 2 cards back on top of the deck.
These changes addresses several issues brought up with this card. First off was the on-board complexity of tracking different power tokens on different figures and how they could be combined. An additional problem this created was how easy it was to load up figures with block tokens using Extra Armor and be able to apply +1 block to any of the Rogue figures on top of any defensive power tokens they had. This change solves both of these issues by simplifying how power tokens from other figures can be used to only apply +1 damage instead of their various effects, and by preventing errant tokens from being used to boost figures’ defenses.
The 2nd issue to be addressed was the perceived need to run Rebel High Command with this list to have a sufficient number of command cards in hand at the end of round 1. The added Round 1 single-use ability to sculpt your hand by drawing 3 additional cards and putting 2 cards back on top both helps increasing the number of cards in hand as well as improving card selection on round 1 to find crucial round 1 cards like Planning, it gives crucial information about what the player’s round 2 draws will be, and encourages creative list-building with cards that can interact with the top of a player’s command deck like the Built on Hope command card, Nemik’s Manifesto, and Smuggling Compartment. This replaces the ability to gain 1 VP when a figure is defeated, which players reported was not a very interesting ability to play with in terms of gameplay or list-building.
I want to give a huge thank you to our dedicated playtesters who provided critical feedback throughout the season’s playtest period, feedback which helped us to identify the key issues that needed to be addressed and helped us take the time we needed to adequately address them. We hope this season will go on to make Imperial Assault Continuity Skirmish even more fun and exciting for players to explore and compete in their casual and competitive games going forward.