Updated March 2024
Imperial Assault is a board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games that made loyal fans from both its technical complexity and its diversity of play. As of April 2019, Fantasy Flight announced at Star Wars Celebration that no new physical content is being produced. Without new content, the competitive Skirmish game type will no longer be dynamic and players will move on to other games.
This project takes up the charge to diversify, balance and support the game so that Skirmish fans can continue playing. The Steering Committee’s goal is to help the community improve existing content, add new content to the game and organize online & in-person play events. The Committee hopes that through regular communication and open-sourced testing, the game will be improved for the enjoyment of current and new fans. The Committee will also facilitate tournaments and play events with the community, so we all can keep playing.
How do I play with these IACP cards?
The IACP cards add and replace existing FFG skirmish cards. They follow the same rules, Deployment points, Command deck size and points limits as defined in FFG’s IA Official Rules. If you and your opponent agree, you may both choose to use as many IACP cards as you’d like.
If you’re playing at a real table, print the cards you want from the Printable Cards PDF. The easiest way to use printed Command cards is inserting them into transparent Command card sleeves with FFG’s Command cards. You can also use FFG Command cards as proxy cards: Your copy of Sit Tight would represent the IACP card Get Behind Me! Just be sure your opponent knows that you are proxying.
If you’re playing online, IACP cards are listed as the default in the Vassal IA Skirmish Module and the Tabletop Simulator IA Skirmish Module. You can find opponents to play and help for learning Vassal & TTS at the IACP Discord.
How the Steering Committee releases content: Seasons
The IA Continuity Project Steering Committee will release content in a package known as a Season: a 6-month long collaborative effort between the community and the Committee to propose, test & then play competitively with changes that can add freshness and fun to the skirmish meta. During a Season the Committee will propose an initial set of changes and ask questions to the community about the current state of the game. The Committee will track community feedback to ensure changes are fun and not game-breaking The Committee will also take proposals from the community for changes to be considered in future Seasons.
Each season, the contents of a Season will be revealed 2 weeks before the Season starts in preview articles. During this time, the Skirmish community is welcome to give feedback based on their first impression of the suggested changes. Any game breaking issues that were somehow missed will be addressed before the cards are released for playtesting, but aside from that and typos or templating errors, we will move forward with the cards in the public playtesting league.
After the previews, a Season will roughly the following structure (see this post for more details):
What happens when a change has been “approved” by IACP Voters?
The change will be considered IACP Approved. Based on the feedback of playtesters, an IACP Approved change may need to be tweaked in order to make the change better. In that case, a Season may include modifications to previous IACP Approved changes, though we will try to avoid changing Approved cards whenever possible. Also if an IACP Approved change causes an issue with game balance that was previously undiscovered, the Steering Committee will immediately rectify that change.
Otherwise, if an IACP Approved change causes no issues, it will remain approved & unmodified.
Will there be a professionally printed deck of IACP cards?
In lieu of professional printed cards, the Steering Committee will provide PDFs of cards with Season changes and IACP Approved changes. Players can then print these card images and use them with their existing cards. While there is no restriction against players printing out fan-made cards for their own personal use, things get tricky when we start printing and distributing cards to people, so for now we are not able to take or fulfill orders for custom cards or figures.
How does this project work with the official rulings from Fantasy Flight Games?
Our desire is that Fantasy Flight Games continues to update the rules, promote organized play events and create new content for the Skrimish game type. In lieu of FFG not fulfilling those roles, the project will do the best it can to do so. In the case of changes to cards and rules, the Committee hopes that the community abides by the Committee’s recommendations and implements them as “unofficially official”.
When FFG does update rules or cards to address the same concerns addressed by the Project Steering Committee, the Committee will likely withdraw their recommendation in lieu for the official fix.
Example: For Season 1, the Spectre Cell Skirmish Upgrade card was banned because it was overpowered and players were exhausted from having to play with or play against it. In the middle of Season 1, FFG released an errata to Spectre Cell which drastically reduced its power. For Season 2, Spectre Cell was unbanned from IACP play.
What are IACP’s Plans for Organized Play?
Starting in April of 2020, FFG will no longer be providing components or events for IA Organized Play. We thank them for trying to extend the OP season to 2020 Worlds at Adepticon (which was cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic), and for running so many events and producing kits for the community of Skirmish players.
IACP will be working with the remaining Skirmish community to help support future in-person and online gaming events. We’re hosting competitive online tournament events with custom IACP prize support. We develop event kits to support physical play. We’re planning to continue running a in-person Skirmish events at large conventions like Adepticon when we’re able to.
Make sure to check the IACP site’s main page for links to upcoming events and join our IACP Discord to participate in online organized play and be notified of upcoming events as well.
We are also providing an official map rotation for competitive play events. Maps are rotated every 4 months (17 weeks). The most recent competitive map pool can be found here. For more information about how it works, read our announcement post on the map rotation.
Steering Committee Members
Current Members
- Derek Martens – 2019 Winnipeg Canada Regional winner
- Designer and Developer since Season 3, Internal Playtester, and Vassal Online League Organizer
- Noa Pestana – Owner of the IA Command YouTube channel, 2018 Redmond WA Regional winner
- Designer and Developer since Season 3
- Lead Graphic Design manager and PDF handler since Season 5
- Communications, Community and Blog Manager
- Josh Songer – MES Mechanics manager and avid amateur game designer
- Designer and Developer since Season 6
- Morgan Gee – Competitive IA player and winner of multiple IACP tournaments and leagues
- Designer and Developer since Season 6
- Jake Petersen – IACP co-founder and former Twin Troopers Podcast host
- Current Emeritus Member on indefinite hiatus
- Wesley Klemas – Owner of TheSecondFlock Youtube channel, IA Command podcast co-host
- Designer and Developer since Season 9
Former Members
- Kenny Brown, Zion’s Finest Podcast & Zion’s Finest Slack Channel, IACP co-founder
- Patrick Christians, 2019 GenCon Champion
- Brett Kelly, 2019 IA Worlds Champion, 2018 IA Nationals Champion — IACP Co-founder, Developer for Seasons 1 & 2
- Daniel Taylor, 3-Time IA Worlds Champion (2016, 2017, 2018) — IACP Co-founder Developer for Seasons 1 & 2
- Ben Varnum, 2019 IA Worlds Top 16, Everybody’s Huckleberry — IACP Co-founder, Season 1 & development of Season 2 content
- Oliver Dewhurst – UK Regional Champion in 2018 & 2019, studied Wargaming at the University of Cranfield, Chewbacca enthusiast
- Christopher Emmick – CNE Skirmish Fixes Document creator, IACP co-founder
- Jesse Betz – US-based tournament organizer, 2020 Denver CO Regional winner
- Isaac Borno, Built on Hope Podcast, French National Champion in 2019, 5-time UK Regional Champion 2018-2020
- European Community Liaison
Special Acknowledgements
- Javier Alcalde Jurado – Creator of the IACP card templates and Graphic Designer from seasons 1-4
- Pasi Ojala – IA Rules Guru
- Trevor Payton – Developer of IA Skirmish Vassal module
- Tabletop Admiral for continuing to support IACP releases
- French Translation
- Gil de Olivereira (Seasons 1-3)
- Christian Guibourt (Season 4-6)
- Italian Translation
- Valerio Di Gregorio
- Marco Tozzi and Franco Casucci
- Stefano (Season 4-6)
- Spanish Translation
- Emilio Romero
- Polish Translation
- Karol Pruszkowski
How to Participate
Keep playing IA! During the testing portion of each Season, try out the changes to the existing Imperial Assault Skirmish game. Feedback forms will be made available for you to share your thoughts on the changes, which the Committee will collect and summarize to the community. Vote at the end of the testing period to approve the fixes and new material you think is fun and rewarding.
The Committee is active on the Imperial Assault subreddit, BoardGameGeek.com’s IA forums & other places where Skirmish players congregate. There is a special channel on the Zion’s Finest Slack (#iacontinuityproject) where the community gets real-time updates in from the Committee on new projects and content. To join the Slack, send an email to zionsfinestia@gmail.com requesting to join. The link to our IACP Discord server is available at the top of the IACP homepage.
Check out our How To Participate page for more info!