12 Games of Christmas - Day 1 Imperial Assault: The Bespin Gambit

Since its release two years ago Imperial Assault has been a consistent fixture of my tabletop gaming. We’ve played the main campaign twice, Twin Shadows twice and Hoth once. So, with the release of The Bespin Gambit I knew we would once again be stepping into a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

So, for those who don’t know, Imperial Assault is a miniature skirmish game played in the 1 vs. All style, where one player plays the evil Empire and the other players each take on the role of a hero of the Rebel Alliance. The Bespin Gambit is a mini campaign which has accelerated leveling up and takes four missions to complete (of the six included in the set).

The Story is set on Cloud City, home to Lando Calrissian, who features in the beginning and returns in the conclusion of the campaign. Lando’s dubious morals make him a questionable ally but still a helpful and functional one. We played the mini campaign using the two new heroes and the Imperial Class Deck that comes with the set. The new Jedi character Davith Elso uses the sets new Hide mechanic to generate surges and power his Shrouded Lightsaber. He is fast, deadly and hard to hit but not unkillable. Meanwhile Murne Rin is a support character who offers buffs to close by heroes or sows rebellion and discontent amongst the enemy.

The new Imperial Class also features the new Hide mechanic, along with interesting new ways to spend surges, such as reinforcing groups or even being able to trigger the same surge ability multiple times. It’s a more nuanced deck but it can pack a punch, especially early on.

The story itself features some interesting adventures, in one mission the heroes must destroy security cameras to avoid detection, in another they are rescuing civilians and in the finale they must get the valuable data they’ve discovered off of Cloud city while being pursued by an old enemy.

I enjoyed the campaign, each scenario had it’s own feel to it and the whole thing played out in under ten hours across two plays. The new mercenary models, the Wing Guard and Ugnaughts didn’t feature as heavily as the enemies in the previous expansions which probably took away from the theme a little. However the new unique enemies, like Bossk and Agent Blaise add a lot to the game, even if they are a little too vulnerable to a fully powered up Davith. All in all, The Bespin Gambit has a lot of great new content and is a fun, short campaign that can be enjoyed right out of the box.