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.
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 from the Rebels is more than just a tactical factor in the game. It adds a level to the experience that elevates it above just a traditional board game- it's a story.
Descent doesn't seem to have this, unfortunately, and it just makes the thing seem more gamey to me. There's no man behind the curtain, nobody pulling the strings to allow for a more cinematic encounter. I guess more competitive players will appreciate this leveling of the playing field, but I've never really personally agreed that dungeon crawlers like this need to be competitive, anyway. To me, it's all about the story, and at the micro level of a mission, Imperial Assault is significantly more successful at that.
However, do note that in my other article last week, I did conclude that I prefer Descent's macro-storytelling in campaign structure better.
Imperial Assault: Missions usually allot 2-4 open groups at the start of a mission, generally with few restrictions. Reinforcements are deployed via spending Threat, a sort of currency acquired at the end of each round and through other triggers. The threat gained at the end of each round increases as the campaign goes on. Theoretically, more powerful deployments will cost more threat. Earned unique villains may also be brought in as open groups.
Descent: Missions tend to allot fewer open groups than Imperial Assault. Restrictions include one the monsters' Traits needing to match a Trait of the Encounter. All groups are theoretically balanced with each other, and the amount of players determines the number and type of monsters that spawn with each deployment. Reinforcement rules vary by mission. Unique villains may be brought in as open groups via some Overlord cards.
I love customizing my open groups in Imperial Assault. I tend to play thematically, so I typically try to bring in units that would be both effective and would reasonably be present at the mission- so I try not to spam Nexus inside of Imperial bases, for instance.
That's why I was pretty disappointed to see how restrictive the groups were in Descent. I get what they were trying to do- they too seemingly wanted to have players play thematically, and not do something like bring in Cave Spiders to an Encounter that takes place in a grassy field. And Imperial Assault kind of tried stuff like this, too, with the time periods and habitats. But in IA, both were used sparingly, and I'm not even sure that new cards are going to implement those mechanics anymore.
In the long run, I think players deserve a little more freedom. For example, imagine you're on an Encounter that has the Dark and Cursed Traits. If you wanted to bring the Plague Worm monster in you'd be unable to, because its Traits are Cave and Water. To me, that just seems like an unnecessarily strict way of doing this.
One good thing I will say about this system for Descent- you don't have to make the opening missions featuring only little, "boring" monsters. If you're able to match the second Quest's traits to the Shadow Dragons on the second mission, you can totally bring them in just as easily as the Cave Spiders.
Imperial Assault: As the campaign progresses, the Threat Level increases, granting the Imperial player more threat to spend each round, in addition to affecting some other mission triggers. The Imperial player also collects XP to spend on class cards, similar to the heroes. They also gain Influence to spend on a constructed Influence deck. Story missions account for the difficulty needed at the stage of the campaign, and side missions grant extra threat dependent on the current threat level.
Descent: The second Act of the campaign features Act II monsters, upgraded versions of the creatures that the heroes may have fought in the first Act. The Overlord collects Overlord cards, creating a sort of deckbuilding mechanic with cards similar to the Influence cards of IA. Story missions account for the difficulty needed at that stage of the campaign.
The higher the threat level, the happier I am. I love being able to bring in almost any unit that I want to a mission, and a high threat level totally allows that. This means that either the board will tend to be filled with more Imperials (added in by the fact that later missions will also generally start with more Initial Groups) and/or more menacing Imperials. Either way, it makes for more fun and tense situations.
I'm not crazy about the differences between acts for monsters yet. Maybe I just need to play the game more, but in a game like Descent, simply adding more health (and in some cases, other abilities or a better attack) just seems like a less than inspired way of ramping difficulty in a campaign. There's already the differentiation between Master and Minion monsters much like Regular and Elite in IA, so I guess I just see this as overly finicky.
Also, immediately going from Act I to Act II seems like the second act would gradually get more manageable for the heroes- but again, that's just my take on it before actually having played a campaign.
I do like the idea of the Overlord deckbuilding thing, but I think I still prefer the character that the Imperial class gives to a campaign.
Imperial Assault: The Core Set includes Desert, Grass, Merc Interior, and Imperial Interior. Expansions add interior and exterior snow tiles, as well as variations on other tiles to mimic Cloud City, Coruscant, and other notable locations, as detailed in this article.
Descent: The Core Set includes Grass and what I'd refer to as "Cave" tiles. As far as I can tell, expansions add slight variations on these tiles, such as Burning Grass or Cave Throne Room.
From what I've seen in a few campaign books, maps in Descent all look really similar. Maybe it's because as a big Star Wars fan, the Bespin maps in IA look drastically different to me than a map that used standard Merc tiles, but I think it's more than that. Descent basically boils down to two tile types- Grass or Cave- and even though there are some neat variations on them (I especially like the wooden platforms on the grass tiles) the pattern is rarely deviated from. Even the Core set of Imperial Assault alone contained 4 distinct tile types.
Maybe complaining about something that is so superficial and cosmetic as tile type seems silly, especially when I commended Descent on its variety of terrain effects in my other article, but I just can't get over how each map looks so similar to the next, even across expansions.
I think the first edition of Descent had a snow themed expansion. That could've gone a long way for this edition too, I think.
Imperial Assault: If defeated, a hero flips his character sheet to the Wounded side, losing some functionality and likely bringing the Empire closer to winning the mission. In the unlikely event of being defeated again, the hero is withdrawn entirely.
Descent: If a hero suffers damage equal to its health, the replaces his mini on the board with a hero token. They suffer max damage and strain. The player may perform only one action during his turn while defeated- Stand Up. He rolls two red dice, recovering Fatigue for surges and Health for Damage markers.
Both systems here are clearly designed to discourage player elimination, and I don't think either are perfect. Imperial Assault's method is something that can really frustrate me as the Empire, since a wounded Rebel is almost just as effective as a healthy one in many ways. Then, of course, it's still totally possible to completely eliminate a Rebel anyway, though in my experience it very rarely happens.
The Descent rules do technically prevent elimination, but they seem really frustrating to me. If the only action you can take each turn is to stand up and recover a meager amount of damage, only to likely still be surrounded by the monsters that knocked you down to begin with... are you really still playing the game?
Anyway, those are my thoughts. There were some other ideas that I wanted to touch on as well, like Line of Sight, blocking, and Resting, but I wanted to keep this list at five entries as well. Let me know how you think Imperial Assault improves on Descent in the comments.
Also, I think next week I'll take some of my favorite mechanics from each game and see how they could be combined to make the ultimate FFG tabletop RPG dungeon crawler. Let me know if there's anything you think I should consider for that!
May the Force be with you!
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 from the Rebels is more than just a tactical factor in the game. It adds a level to the experience that elevates it above just a traditional board game- it's a story.
Descent doesn't seem to have this, unfortunately, and it just makes the thing seem more gamey to me. There's no man behind the curtain, nobody pulling the strings to allow for a more cinematic encounter. I guess more competitive players will appreciate this leveling of the playing field, but I've never really personally agreed that dungeon crawlers like this need to be competitive, anyway. To me, it's all about the story, and at the micro level of a mission, Imperial Assault is significantly more successful at that.
However, do note that in my other article last week, I did conclude that I prefer Descent's macro-storytelling in campaign structure better.
2. Reinforcements and Open Groups
Imperial Assault: Missions usually allot 2-4 open groups at the start of a mission, generally with few restrictions. Reinforcements are deployed via spending Threat, a sort of currency acquired at the end of each round and through other triggers. The threat gained at the end of each round increases as the campaign goes on. Theoretically, more powerful deployments will cost more threat. Earned unique villains may also be brought in as open groups.Descent: Missions tend to allot fewer open groups than Imperial Assault. Restrictions include one the monsters' Traits needing to match a Trait of the Encounter. All groups are theoretically balanced with each other, and the amount of players determines the number and type of monsters that spawn with each deployment. Reinforcement rules vary by mission. Unique villains may be brought in as open groups via some Overlord cards.
I love customizing my open groups in Imperial Assault. I tend to play thematically, so I typically try to bring in units that would be both effective and would reasonably be present at the mission- so I try not to spam Nexus inside of Imperial bases, for instance.
That's why I was pretty disappointed to see how restrictive the groups were in Descent. I get what they were trying to do- they too seemingly wanted to have players play thematically, and not do something like bring in Cave Spiders to an Encounter that takes place in a grassy field. And Imperial Assault kind of tried stuff like this, too, with the time periods and habitats. But in IA, both were used sparingly, and I'm not even sure that new cards are going to implement those mechanics anymore.
In the long run, I think players deserve a little more freedom. For example, imagine you're on an Encounter that has the Dark and Cursed Traits. If you wanted to bring the Plague Worm monster in you'd be unable to, because its Traits are Cave and Water. To me, that just seems like an unnecessarily strict way of doing this.
One good thing I will say about this system for Descent- you don't have to make the opening missions featuring only little, "boring" monsters. If you're able to match the second Quest's traits to the Shadow Dragons on the second mission, you can totally bring them in just as easily as the Cave Spiders.
3. Evil Progression
Imperial Assault: As the campaign progresses, the Threat Level increases, granting the Imperial player more threat to spend each round, in addition to affecting some other mission triggers. The Imperial player also collects XP to spend on class cards, similar to the heroes. They also gain Influence to spend on a constructed Influence deck. Story missions account for the difficulty needed at the stage of the campaign, and side missions grant extra threat dependent on the current threat level.
Descent: The second Act of the campaign features Act II monsters, upgraded versions of the creatures that the heroes may have fought in the first Act. The Overlord collects Overlord cards, creating a sort of deckbuilding mechanic with cards similar to the Influence cards of IA. Story missions account for the difficulty needed at that stage of the campaign.
The higher the threat level, the happier I am. I love being able to bring in almost any unit that I want to a mission, and a high threat level totally allows that. This means that either the board will tend to be filled with more Imperials (added in by the fact that later missions will also generally start with more Initial Groups) and/or more menacing Imperials. Either way, it makes for more fun and tense situations.
I'm not crazy about the differences between acts for monsters yet. Maybe I just need to play the game more, but in a game like Descent, simply adding more health (and in some cases, other abilities or a better attack) just seems like a less than inspired way of ramping difficulty in a campaign. There's already the differentiation between Master and Minion monsters much like Regular and Elite in IA, so I guess I just see this as overly finicky.
Also, immediately going from Act I to Act II seems like the second act would gradually get more manageable for the heroes- but again, that's just my take on it before actually having played a campaign.
I do like the idea of the Overlord deckbuilding thing, but I think I still prefer the character that the Imperial class gives to a campaign.
4. Tile Variety
Imperial Assault: The Core Set includes Desert, Grass, Merc Interior, and Imperial Interior. Expansions add interior and exterior snow tiles, as well as variations on other tiles to mimic Cloud City, Coruscant, and other notable locations, as detailed in this article.
Descent: The Core Set includes Grass and what I'd refer to as "Cave" tiles. As far as I can tell, expansions add slight variations on these tiles, such as Burning Grass or Cave Throne Room.
From what I've seen in a few campaign books, maps in Descent all look really similar. Maybe it's because as a big Star Wars fan, the Bespin maps in IA look drastically different to me than a map that used standard Merc tiles, but I think it's more than that. Descent basically boils down to two tile types- Grass or Cave- and even though there are some neat variations on them (I especially like the wooden platforms on the grass tiles) the pattern is rarely deviated from. Even the Core set of Imperial Assault alone contained 4 distinct tile types.
Maybe complaining about something that is so superficial and cosmetic as tile type seems silly, especially when I commended Descent on its variety of terrain effects in my other article, but I just can't get over how each map looks so similar to the next, even across expansions.
I think the first edition of Descent had a snow themed expansion. That could've gone a long way for this edition too, I think.
5. Hero Wounding
Imperial Assault: If defeated, a hero flips his character sheet to the Wounded side, losing some functionality and likely bringing the Empire closer to winning the mission. In the unlikely event of being defeated again, the hero is withdrawn entirely.
Descent: If a hero suffers damage equal to its health, the replaces his mini on the board with a hero token. They suffer max damage and strain. The player may perform only one action during his turn while defeated- Stand Up. He rolls two red dice, recovering Fatigue for surges and Health for Damage markers.
Both systems here are clearly designed to discourage player elimination, and I don't think either are perfect. Imperial Assault's method is something that can really frustrate me as the Empire, since a wounded Rebel is almost just as effective as a healthy one in many ways. Then, of course, it's still totally possible to completely eliminate a Rebel anyway, though in my experience it very rarely happens.
The Descent rules do technically prevent elimination, but they seem really frustrating to me. If the only action you can take each turn is to stand up and recover a meager amount of damage, only to likely still be surrounded by the monsters that knocked you down to begin with... are you really still playing the game?
Anyway, those are my thoughts. There were some other ideas that I wanted to touch on as well, like Line of Sight, blocking, and Resting, but I wanted to keep this list at five entries as well. Let me know how you think Imperial Assault improves on Descent in the comments.
Also, I think next week I'll take some of my favorite mechanics from each game and see how they could be combined to make the ultimate FFG tabletop RPG dungeon crawler. Let me know if there's anything you think I should consider for that!
May the Force be with you!
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