Christmas is a great time for me, gaming wise. Lots of free time allows me to finish those games that just didn’t get the attention they deserved during the rather busy autumn term. One such game was the Jabba’s Realm campaign for #ImperialAssault, which should have taken us six weeks and instead took us five months.
This is not a reflection on the campaign in anyway, in fact we’d have finished earlier but we had several false starts because I forgot to bring various components to my friends house, like cards or scenario books. In fact that is one of the biggest problems with Imperial Assault, there’s too much of it.
So excuses aside what did we think of the campaign now that we’re done with it? Firstly, I’ll say this upfront, I won as the imperial player. However, as is the case with each of the campaigns I don’t feel I won because I was better, I just feel that the final scenario is just really hard for the Rebels. We play the game two player, which means my friend plays two heroes against me as the Imperials. With just two heroes it can be too easy to concentrate all your fire on a single hero, wound them and then go after the other one.
However, the final scenario was really interesting as the heroes jumped from desert skiff to desert skiff until eventually Jabba turned up to spell their doom. And in fact the entire campaign was very interesting. Unlike other campaigns where your progress was based on the outcomes of the various skirmishes, in Jabba’s realm you choose your path through the story, meaning you could replay the campaign with entirely different outcomes by making different choices.
I do feel like this campaign was more story driven, with fewer opportunities for exploration outside the main storyline, although that again could be due to the sheer amount of content available now that you just don’t see as much of it anymore in a single campaign.
So, do I recommend Jabba’s Realm? Of course I do, it has a giant plastic Rancor in it! The story is good and I feel like you can play through it at least twice without duplicating the same outcome. The new villains are cool and the new heroes, at least the two I played against, are annoyingly powerful. If you’re looking for more Scum and Villainy in your games then this is the expansion for you.
