The Dejark Table

Last week I wrote an article detailing some of the mechanics in Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Ed. that I actually preferred over Imperial Assault.  This week, I want to turn the tables, and feature some of the things I think Imperial Assault does better. 1. Mission Structure Imperial Assault: Much of the mission's information is initially hidden from the Rebels during gameplay, including Imperial deployments, effects, and even some triggers.   Descent: All information is available to any player at any time.  From what I can tell, the board state doesn't go through significant changes during a singular Encounter. One of my favorite parts of playing as the Empire in IA is being able to watch my Rebels be paranoid about what might happen when they activate a terminal or open a door.  In fact, I even wrote an article last August about how the Imperial player can use this hidden information to their advantage, though I think that keeping some info fr...

Sorry for basically being AWOL for a month- I've been really busy!  (Including writing a book!) Among other things, one thing that I've been doing is looking into Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2nd Edition .  I've always kind of seen Descent as a sort of primitive Imperial Assault , but the more I look into it, the more I see some huge departures from what I know in IA.  In fact, there are some things that I really like about Descent that I wish were in the Star Wars game.  I figured that I'd make a list of some of these things, and next week follow up with a list of things that I think IA improved upon. 1. Class System Imperial Assault: Classes are directly linked to the hero chosen. Descent: Heroes belong to one of four archetypes (Warrior, Mage, Healer, and Scout).  The hero's archetype determines the class that the hero can choose from, with hybrid classes being added in later expansions. I initially didn't like this idea because I thought tha...

So I know that the word "spoilers" is in the title of this article, but because I'd hate to be the guy who leaks the plot of this movie for someone, know again that this article does indeed contain SPOILERS for The Last Jedi (cue Death Star klaxons ).  So go watch it already!  Or, you know, at least before reading on.  I get it you're waiting to see it with your family over the holidays or whatever. _________________________________________________________________________________ Still with me?  Cool.  So, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has come, and it begs the question- what can we expect it to add to the pantheon of Star Wars Tabletop games?   Well, first of all, it should be noted that we already have some items from TLJ for the X-Wing ?Miniatures Game : Kylo Ren's TIE Silencer and what appears to be a scaled down version of the Resistance bomber (you know, the ones that Poe decides are about as expendable as an army of gungans). ...

Hey, so in case you missed them, you can check out my Mercenary gallery where I also explain a bit about this project. Also, you can see my Imperial gallery, if you're more into the Dark Side! Anyway... Rebel Troopers Light blue shirts, dark blue vests, grey pants, white helmet... pretty standard stuff.  The hardest part for me to paint was probably the light blue shirt's collar coming out over the vest. Rebel Saboteurs I recently repainted these, as the duros' skin was originally much darker of a blue.  So much so, in fact, that you couldn't even really tell they were wearing visors, or that they had blue sleeves. I like this shade much better. Wookie Warriors As I do with all wookies, I painted these with a dark base coat, and slowly drybrushed over it with lighter browns.  They also have a metal shoulderpad- otherwise, these are pretty simple.  I could probably detail the mouth a little more. Alliance Smuggler I liked painting...

If you haven't seen my Mercenaries gallery (missed opportunity to use the phrase Rogue's Gallery) yet, I explain a bit of what I'm doing here, so check it out!  And Rebels are coming soon, too! Essentially, the point of these articles is to show "tabletop ready" figures- stuff that may not be perfect, but still looks a lot better than the tan and grey plastic! That being said... Stormtroopers  I think you'll notice an evolution on my painting of stormtrooper variants over time, with these being a bit of a low point.  These ones were... frustrating for a beginner to paint.  White is a hard color to paint, given you need several coats of it.  Putting in easy to mess up strands of black is just cynical. On top of everything else, I was a little too generous on my wash of these guys. It's definitely worse on some stormtrooper minis that others. Maybe I'll fix these someday, but even a year later I still haven't recovered the me...