Fantasy Flight Games

Available This Week

Published 29 December 2016 | Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Available This Week

New STAR WARS and XCOM Products Available Now!

The products listed below are now available at your local United States retailer and online through our webstore. Pick up your copies today!

Jabba's Realm

“If I told you half the things I’ve heard about this Jabba the Hutt, you’d probably short circuit.”
–C-3PO, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Imperial reprisals have swept the galaxy, targeting not just the Rebels, but their families and loved ones as well. In desperation, you and a team of other Rebel operatives have gathered as many refugees as you can in hopes of shepherding them to safety in the Outer Rim. Your escape is discovered, however, and you’ve been shot down on Tatooine. Here, the power of the Empire is not as strong as elsewhere—but that doesn’t mean you’re out of danger. This is the domain of Jabba the Hutt, and you’ll need to play by his rules if you want to survive.

Jabba’s Realm is a new expansion for Imperial Assault that offers a wealth of new content for your campaigns and skirmishes. You’ll find an entirely new full-length campaign that challenges you to survive among the desert wastes and criminal underworld of Tatooine, even as new skirmish missions invite you to battle in the Nal Hutta Borderlands or around the fabled Pit of Carkoon.

Eighteen new double-sided map tiles evoke the opening scenes of Return of the Jedi, giving you access for the first time to Jabba’s palace, his pleasure barge, and iconic locations like the sarlacc pit. Meanwhile, sixteen brand-new plastic figures offer new warriors and heroes for the Imperials, Rebels, and Mercenaries, even as new Command cards, Deployment cards, Agenda cards, and Class cards give you countless ways to customize your game. With characters like Jabba the Hutt, the Rancor, and Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Knight joining the game, this expansion draws you into the Star Wars saga like never before.

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Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Ally Pack

For centuries, the Jedi Order endured as a symbol of truth and justice in the galaxy, with hundreds of Jedi Knights working to protect the innocent and safeguard the galaxy. The Galactic Empire gutted the Jedi Order, however, and by the events of Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker may be all that remains of that once legendary order. With the Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Ally Pack, you can bring a new version of Luke Skywalker into your Imperial Assault campaigns and skirmishes.

A Jedi Knight with the skills of Luke Skywalker would be an undeniable boon to any Rebel strike team. You might end up using Luke’s knowledge of his homeworld to infiltrate an Imperial base on Tatooine, or you may bring him into one of your other missions as an ally. With his fully developed Force powers, Luke Skywalker can fight for the Rebel Alliance whether you’re playing the new full-length campaign in Jabba’s Realm, skirmishing against a hostile strike team, or playing any of your other adventures across the Star Wars galaxy.

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Alliance Rangers Ally Pack

The soldiers of the Rebel Alliance are utterly devoted to the cause, willing to venture into even the most hostile terrain if it means helping to bring down the Empire. Although all of these soldiers are trained in battle, a few truly excel at guerrilla warfare and long-range attacks. These renowned snipers are known as the Alliance Rangers, and they can join your campaigns and skirmishes with the Alliance Rangers Ally Pack.

Alliance Rangers may help a small team of Rebel heroes survive among the dunes of Tatooine, or they may battle Imperial Stormtroopers under the canopy of a mighty forest, but wherever they’re deployed, these warriors are among the most deadly long-range fighters in the game of Imperial Assault. This Ally Pack comes with plenty of other ways to alter your campaign missions or skirmish games as well. You may travel to the planet Ithor to silence an Imperial recon facility, or move deep into the Nal Hutta Swamps and silently battle another strike team in the backwaters of the Hutt homeworld. No matter which way you prefer to play, the Alliance Rangers are a powerful asset for the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

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Captain Terro Villain Pack

Imperial forces on Tatooine may not have the same sway as Jabba’s gangsters, but they can still be dangerous and violent—especially if their authority is not respected. Several Stormtroopers have adopted the native dewback as a mount and organized a cavalry division under the command of the vicious Captain Terro. A Stormtrooper mounted on a powerful creature like the dewback is not to be underestimated, and the Galactic Empire gains a new tool in its arsenal with the Captain Terro Villain Pack.

The heroes may come into contact with Captain Terro himself or just a Dewback Rider from his command, but either one would be a dangerous opponent. The dewback mount gives these warriors a prodigious amount of movement, and by striking from the creature’s back with shock lances or flamethrowers, a single Stormtrooper can cause a massive amount of carnage or split a hero party in two. With a new three-card Agenda set that challenges the heroes to stop a Stormtrooper reprisal against Anchorhead, a new skirmish upgrade, and new Command cards for your skirmish games, this Villain Pack offers a powerful new weapon to every Imperial commander.

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Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack

The Galactic Empire may technically control Tatooine, but on the planet’s surface, the rules are seldom determined by laws made light-years away. Crime is the closest thing to government that Tatooine has, and all crime on Tatooine feeds back to Jabba the Hutt. Jabba has spend decades establishing his criminal empire and crushing all competitors. Now, he can help to guide your Mercenaries strike team to victory with the Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack.

Three new Agenda cards invite you to spread the might of Jabba the Hutt across the Star Wars galaxy, even when the Rebel heroes venture beyond Tatooine itself. When he takes the battlefield himself, Jabba the Hutt offers a formidable presence in your campaign or skirmish. Though he prefers to stay out of direct combat and his great bulk makes it difficult for him to move quickly, Jabba excels at ordering his minions into battle and subtly undermining your enemy’s plans. With this Villain Pack, your options for using Jabba the Hutt to control the crime world are nearly unmatched.

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XCOM: Evolution

Hello, Commander. The war continues – at great cost. We now believe another force is at work against us. If not dealt with swiftly, it could destroy us…

XCOM: Evolution is an expansion for XCOM: The Board Game that complicates your war effort with new missions, enemies, and invasion plans, as well as mechanics that make your struggles more dangerous than ever. As the alien forces spread and peril increases, the sinister humans of the EXALT seek to take advantage of the chaos to infiltrate and destroy XCOM from within. Their treachery leads to new challenges, and you'll face new crises, you'll find your work subverted, and you'll have to deal with new threats to the very resources you need to win the war.

Fortunately, your team has also made some advances since the war began. The discovery of the mysterious alien substance known as Meld promises to unlock some astonishing breakthroughs in the field of biomechanics. And XCOM: Evolution allows you to pursue some of these advances, potentially bringing formidable new weaponry to the field in the form of MEC Troopers!

Scrap Metal Force Pack

“His High Exaltedness, the great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.”
–C-3PO, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Throughout the saga, Star Wars has been defined by rivalries and conflict. Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion, is opposed by Darth Vader, one of the Dark Lords of the Sith. Han Solo, a smuggler from the Outer Rim, is tracked by Jabba the Hutt and his teams of bounty hunters. Princess Leia Organa is taunted and questioned by Grand Moff Tarkin. These enmities and threats bring the characters to life, and now, you can bring some of these rivalries into your games of Star Wars: The Card Game with Scrap Metal, the next Force Pack in the Opposition cycle.

Like the other Force Packs of the cycle, Scrap Metal comes with ten new objective sets (two copies each of five distinct sets), each challenging the way you view the battles between the factions of Star Wars: The Card Game. Here, you’ll find a host of new versions of iconic characters, including Jabba the Hutt, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Jek Porkins. With plenty of new fate cards to bring new tension to every edge battle, the rivalries that exist between factions are about to become more explosive and dangerous than ever before!

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Inside the Palace

Published 7 October 2016 | Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Inside the Palace

A Designer Diary for Jabba’s Realm

“You will take me to Jabba now.”
–Luke Skywalker, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

The sands of Tatooine are no place for the unprepared—especially not if you’re anywhere near Jabba’s Palace. Fortunately, you’ve already received your first briefing, in our two previews of the Jabba’s Realm expansion, as we looked at the new heroes that join the Rebel Alliance and the ruthless mercenaries in Jabba’s service.

Today, Todd Michlitsch and Paul Winchester, the designers of the Jabba’s Realm expansion for Imperial Assault, take you inside Jabba’s Palace itself as they share some of their favorite moments from designing this new expansion.

Having the Least Not-Fun

Paul: A major part of our job as designers lies with identifying holes in the game and finding creative solutions to them. One of the best ways to fill gaps is through the new hero and Imperial classes. For example, one of the toughest moments on the hero side of the table is when a hero misses defeating an enemy figure by one damage. It’s almost the equivalent of getting stunned, since you’ll now need to spend another attack to defeat that figure. So, we designed Vinto Hreeda. With him in the game, the heroes can almost get excited when this situation arises, since Vinto can use his Boltslinger ability or his Off-Hand Blaster and Pinpoint Shot to maximum effect.

Another potential rough spot is having a hero who always gets targeted; with various hero combinations, the Imperial player can often be faced with the reality that the best strategy is to concentrate fire on the same hero in each mission. To target this, we implemented two new sets of components. First was the new hero, Onar Koma, who can be built like a bodyguard with abilities like Stay Behind Me, using his high health as a resource to deflect wounds from his fellow Rebels.

Additionally, the new Imperial class, Hutt Mercenaries, uses a bounty system that persists from mission to mission, shaking up which hero receives the brunt of the Imperial player’s attacks. With this class in play, the Imperial player can have fun and use his abilities to maximum effect without singling out one player.

Staffing Jabba’s Court

Todd: When creating content for the campaign like the heroes and classes that Paul talks about above, we use a mixture of story, art, and mechanics to create the thematic experience of an immersive Star Wars world. When Paul and I sat down to write our first missions for Jabba’s Realm, we both felt that the Gamorrean Guards anchored the theme of the expansion, but as they are a melee unit, this often left us wanting for ranged figures to challenge the heroes during Mercenary-themed missions. We turned to the Trandoshan Hunters, but felt thematically compelled to include them in nearly every mission. The result was missions that played too similarly and focused heavily on straining the heroes.

After a few weeks of tests we decided that Jabba needed an all-purpose Mercenary unit to mirror the Stormtroopers. Many great Imperial Assault figures have passive abilities that are at their best when the Rebels are bearing down and there’s no time to attack. Royal Guards can defend your other units without activating, and Hired Guns can attack even if they never activate. These abilities are great for the Imperial player because they mitigate the risk of not activating, even as the missions force the Imperials to manage their activations. Based on our testing, we hammered out a low-variance, midrange fighter.

With the mechanics decided, we wanted a figure that anchored the expansion to the iconic scenes from Return of the Jedi. The Weequay Pirate was born, and though it seems strange that such a large project would hinge on a single rank-and-file unit, it became the turning point.

Size (of the Problem) Matters Not

Paul: As I mentioned above, one of the things that I most enjoyed about working on this box was finding solutions to subtle, nagging issues and finding those small windows for fine tuning and improvement. Some of these things seem simple in retrospect, such as expanding the number of Item cards for a fair distribution or setting limits on Agenda cards so the Imperial player doesn’t save all of his Agenda cards until the finale, but they’re very important inclusions that definitely improve the experience.

Other areas of improvement that we identified were in the campaign structure itself. For example, to help reduce potential snowball effects, we altered the way we gave out secondary rewards for story missions. In the past, these were relatively substantial rewards and they were often “stretch goals,” meaning that if you were powerful enough to beat the mission and accomplish your secondary goal, you probably didn’t need those extra rewards. So instead, we aimed for rewarding players who got close but didn’t quite accomplish their mission goal, while making the rewards more modest so it was never more beneficial to lose than to win. Finally, we enjoyed finding ways to improve the narrative of the campaign, incorporating more opportunities for thematic and narrative choices outside of gameplay that impact the campaign, both in mission selection and sometimes even within a mission itself!

Command Cards, Traits, and Army Building

Todd: Of course, Jabba’s Realm isn’t just focused on the campaign; it also has a lot to add to the skirmish game. One of the trickier points of the skirmish game can be getting your Command deck just right. When we test, we often build and play very different armies in the same day. What we found as we did this was that we regularly built the army we wanted to play, grabbed the Command cards, and then needed to go back and change our army to adapt to our Command cards. One common example would be adding more three-cost Troopers to your list to make better use of Reinforcements. This pressure to conform our army to our Command deck always felt disappointing, and we started looking at ways to diminish it.

We decided on two simple strategies:

Create powerful Command cards at all costs for all traits.
Move towards giving Deployment and Command cards multiple traits.

Equal support for traits was always an unstated goal of the game, but with the availability of Command cards directly impacting army building, we wanted to commit to fleshing out the traits quickly, rather than slowly over time. Jabba’s Realm focuses on the galaxy’s Mercenaries, so Hunters and Smugglers each gain plenty of go-to Command cards, including three-point capstone cards such as Assassinate from the Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack.

Giving Deployment cards more traits also opens up your options for Command decks.

Because the traits were causing us to change the armies we wanted to play, we decided to approach traits more flexibly in the future. Deployment cards with multiple traits make it easier to justify playing single-trait Command cards. For example, Weequay Pirates can share cards with both Boba Fett and Hired Guns. Likewise, multi-traited Command cards support diverse armies, even if the figures are very different. Boba Fett and Hired Guns can both use Tools for the Job, even if your Weequay Pirates have been defeated! While subtle, this slight flexibility makes more cards playable in more situations, resulting in more reliable Command decks and empowering players to use the figures they want, not the figures they need, in order to be competitive. We’ve certainly noticed the difference, and Jabba’s Realm really bloomed into the expansion that Paul and I are so proud to present!

Thanks, Paul and Todd!

You can pre-order your copy of Jabba’s Realm at your local retailer today.

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Savage

Published 23 September 2016 | Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Savage

Preview the Imperials and Mercenaries from Jabba’s Realm

“His High Exaltedness, the great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.”
–C-3PO, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

The sands of Tatooine are full of dangers. Tusken Raiders prey on moisture farmers, Jawas scavenge or filch whatever isn’t tied down, and enormous krayt dragons terrorize every smaller lifeform. And if that weren’t enough, a small Imperial garrison is charged with keeping brutal order on Tatooine, even though the entire planet is firmly in the grasp of the crime lord, Jabba the Hutt. It’s the perfect place for danger and iniquity to take root.

Today, we’ll walk into Imperial bases and underworld dens to search out the new figures and tactics that the Jabba’s Realm expansion introduces to your games of Imperial Assault!

Pirates and Enforcers

Jabba the Hutt keeps dozens of beings on his payroll as members of his criminal empire. Some are his guards, while others are the desperadoes and enforcers who stretch Jabba’s power far beyond the walls of his palace. The Weequay Pirates undoubtedly fall into the latter group.

As skilled raiders, the Weequay Pirates are some of Jabba’s preferred foot soldiers outside of his sprawling palace. With two green dice and a built-in accuracy boost, these figures can strike at range with little difficulty, and the Raider ability makes them even more dangerous—while a Weequay Pirate is attacking, you can choose any die and force its owner to reroll it. Whether you reroll an attack die or a defense die, Raider gives you an excellent way to increase the amount of damage you deal with every attack.

You may also choose to field more experienced raiders with the elite version of the Weequay Pirates. This figure group costs two more points, but it offers significant benefits. Every figure benefits from increased health, the Pirates’ inherent accuracy boost becomes larger, and every surge ability is much more potent, allowing you to deal more damage, increase your accuracy, and pierce armor. They also gain the Prowl ability, spending an action to become Hidden and avoid many of the ranged attacks that would come their way.

Within Jabba’s Palace itself, you may choose to employ some more brutish warriors, such as the Gamorrean Guards. These melee fighters feature one of the most dangerous attacks in the game, with two red dice and the ability to cleave damage onto an adjacent figure. What’s more, the Reach keyword lets their attacks extend beyond adjacent spaces, commanding a wider area of the battlefield in every scenario. Combine that with Labored Attack, which allows them to suffer a strain in order to reroll an attack die, and Gamorrean Honor, which lets you reroll a defense die while defending against a ranged attack, and your Gamorrean Guards will be able to cut a swath through any party of Rebels.

You may even hire the elite Gamorrean Guards to smash through your opponents’ heroes. Elite Gamorrean Guards are even more powerful than their normal counterparts. They can cleave more damage, and their abilities become more predictable, allowing you to rely on staying alive and dealing damage over multiple turns.

Unexpected Help

If you’ve secretly paid off some of the Imperial officers on Tatooine to help with your schemes, you may also take advantage of the new Jet Troopers introduced in Jabba’s Realm. Jet Troopers are fragile, but the Mobile keyword allows them to move quickly over terrain that would slow down other Imperial forces. What's more, these Jet Troopers’ agility allows them to convert a single block into an evade result, potentially canceling a surge your opponent needed to hit you at all. In addition, these Jet Troopers can blast off after attacking a nearby target, gaining another movement point to help them dart away before your opponent responds.

Not many Imperial troopers have received extensive training with jetpacks, but those who have can be powerful combatants, flitting across the battlefield and quickly striking before they retreat to safety. Elite Jet Troopers benefit from higher health and better surge abilities, while the Jets ability has been replaced with Fly-By. Fly-By not only allows you to move farther after you attack, getting away from a potential counterattack, it adds a blue die to your attack, making your attacks even more likely to deal damage and defeat the enemy.

The final figure that may fight alongside your Mercenaries in this expansion is none other than Jabba’s legendary Rancor—a towering, monstrous creature, perfectly capable of tearing any foe to pieces. In the campaign, the Rancor is a terrifying foe, nearly impossible to bring down. Its attacks can deal a massive amount of damage, and you can spend surges to spread even more damage onto the battlefield. You can throw enemy figures, moving the heroes and keeping them away from their objectives. Or, you may allow your Rancor to feed on your own allies, defeating a friendly figure in order to recover damage equal to that figure’s remaining health.

The Rancor feeds on a nearby Gamorrean Guard, recovering two points of damage at the beginning of its activation!

The Rancor is no less terrifying in the skirmish game, though many of its abilities have changed. Now, the Rancor can spend an action triggering Brutality to attack two different targets. These vicious attacks can be crucial to victory, but if you need to control an area instead, you can use Trained. Trained adds an extra black die to the Rancor’s defense dice and it loses the Brutality and Non-Sentient abilities. Though you won’t deal quite as much damage at once, you’ll suffer much less damage and you’ll be able to interact with mission objectives. You may even combine the Rancor with the Beast Tamer skirmish upgrade to give it extra movement and allow it to interact without losing its brutal attacks.

Surprise Your Foes

Although the new figures joining the Imperials and Mercenaries in Jabba’s Realm are impressive enough, they’re just the beginning of the new tools for the servants of the dark side. You’ll also find two new Agenda sets and two new Imperial Classes giving you new options to explore in any campaign!

With the new Agenda cards from Jabba’s Realm, you’ll be able to surprise the Rebels with a nasty ambush when they least suspect it. For instance, you may play Call Your Shot when an enemy figure is defending to subtract a dodge or three blocks from the defense results! Or, you may play Shoot First at the start of a round, giving one of your Imperial groups the chance to activate before any Rebel hero moves. You may even play Jetpacks when you deploy a group of figures, giving them Mobile and the ability to race across any battlefield.

The first Imperial Class in this expansion puts a dramatically different spin on your campaign by inviting you to focus on the saga’s most iconic villains. The class starts with Powerful Foes, allowing you to automatically earn an Imperial villain and a Mercenary villain of your choice. Then, you can bring those villains into any mission, and even reduce their deployment cost as you move further into the campaign. Your villains also become more and more dangerous as you advancer further in this class. Ringleader gives your villain more movement and gives them an aura of menace that inspires nearby figures. Then, with Indomitable, you keep your villains from gaining Harmful conditions and improve their defenses, ensuring they’ll have an even greater impact on the battlefield.

Conversely, the Hutt Mercenaries Imperial Class invites you to put bounties on the heroes and hunt them down relentlessly. This class begins with Wanted: Dead, a card which forces each hero to gain a Bounty token. Then, you can exhaust this card when attacking a hero with a Bounty token to boost your damage or gain more surges. Scouted cancels all dodges from a hero with a Bounty token and brings your Mercenaries into any mission, even if they were normally restricted. You may even use Most Wanted to massively increase the damage you deal to a single hero, bringing your targets in quicker than ever.

Build Your Crime Empire

The sands of Tatooine may be devoid of valuable resources, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the perfect place to build your own criminal empire. Start building your armies for the campaign or skirmish games and pre-order your copy of Jabba’s Realm at your local retailer today!

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A Step Above Scum

Published 16 September 2016 | Star Wars: Imperial Assault

A Step Above Scum

Preview the Heroes of Jabba’s Realm

“This bounty hunter is my kind of scum: fearless and inventive.”
–Jabba the Hutt, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

The backwater planet of Tatooine has long been known as a haven for criminals and scum of all kinds. Unsympathetic to the Rebel Alliance and too unimportant to draw the attention of the Empire, this desert planet has fallen under the rule of crime lords, and no crime lord has more influence on Tatooine than Jabba the Hutt. When a small band of Rebel refugees is forced to crash-land on Tatooine, Jabba the Hutt is already scheming for how they can be manipulated to advance his empire.

In Jabba’s Realm, the newest upcoming expansion for Imperial Assault, you’ll have the chance to return to Tatooine once more and experience what it truly means to cut a deal with Jabba the Hutt. This expansion is packed with new terrain tiles, sixteen plastic figures, an entirely new full-length campaign, and new skirmish missions, including rules for running massive, four-player skirmish games! Today, we’ll take our first look inside this expansion by exploring the new heroes that fight for the Rebel Alliance.

Daughter of Mandalore

Though they have no cause to love the Rebel Alliance, the three new heroes in Jabba’s Realm each have reason to hate the Empire. Now, as you experience the brand-new campaign included in Jabba’s Realm, these heroes give you entirely new ways to play the game and walk through the Star Wars galaxy.

The first new hero you’ll encounter is Shyla Varad, a Mandalorian warrior who’s now far from home. Though she may no longer have a place among her own people, Shyla’s skills in combat have not deserted her, and she’s eager to use them against any servants of the Empire that she encounters—on Tatooine or beyond.

In a galaxy where blasters are commonplace, devotion to melee weapons may seem hopelessly old-fashioned. Still, Shyla has the skills to make her blade as dangerous as any laser pistol, especially with her Mandalorian Whip. By spending an action and suffering a strain, you can choose any small enemy figure within three spaces and line of sight. Then, you pull that figure adjacent to you and attack with a melee weapon! By pulling your enemies towards you and dealing with them at close quarters, you can cut your foes to pieces in no time. Once you’ve defeated your target, you can recover your strain with Respite, keeping you ready to move and strike again.

Shyla Varad’s Class deck further supports her persona as a graceful, deadly swordsman. Responsiveness can be used to gain extra movement or recover strain, while Swords Dance allows you to swoop in for another attack immediately after attacking with a melee weapon. Shyla also has access to a variety of secret tech, including Smoke Bombs and Remote Detonators. Even as she duels her enemies, you can use these tools to wreak havoc among the other servants of the Empire.

Battle Hardened

If any hero forms the perfect counterpoint to Shyla’s deadly, wheeling grace, it’s Onar Koma, the Aqualish bodyguard. This powerful warrior boasts a stunning twenty health, but he has no defense dice, forcing him to simply endure any damage dealt by an attack. Still, Onar is not without defenses. Power Through keeps him from gaining Harmful conditions, and when he rests, he recovers two additional damage.

Onar’s size also gives him an unstoppable momentum. When he enters a space adjacent to a small figure, you can push that figure one space, potentially blocking enemy firing lanes or thrusting figures into danger—such as, for instance, the Rancor’s holding cell or the dreaded Pit of Carkoon!

Onar Koma uses Rush to knock a Stormtrooper into the Sarlacc!

Onar’s Class deck enhances the two essential aspects of his character: the bodyguard and the brawler. If you’re focused on defending your friends, Get Down can increase another hero’s defense, while Stay Behind Me increases your health and allows you to take damage on behalf of another hero. On the other hand, you may focus on making sure Onar deals as much damage as possible. In that case, Mutual Destruction lets you suffer damage to deal more damage to your foes and Don't Make Me Hurt You can massively increase the amount of damage you deal with every attack.

The Vigilante

The final new hero that you’ll encounter in Jabba’s Realm is Vinto Hreeda, a fearless Rodian vigilante. Everything Vinto loved was destroyed by the Empire, and now he’s devoted himself to taking down the Empire, one Stormtrooper at a time.

Few beings in the galaxy have the skills with a blaster to match Vinto Hreeda. His Boltslinger ability allows him to deal damage to another nearby hostile figure so long as he hit his first target, giving you an unparalleled ability to run and gun. At the same time, your targets will have a hard time escaping your shots, even at the back of a crowd—Thread the Needle allows Vinto to suffer a single strain to trace line of sight through figures during his activation!

Vinto Hreeda’s Class deck brings his already dangerous skills to a truly formidable level. With Pinpoint Shot, you can ensure that any attack will deal damage and weaken your target, even cutting through your enemy’s dodge results. Dead On can supplement Pinpoint Shot, as well as your normal attacks and the Boltslinger ability, dealing more damage across the board. Then, if you just want to get more damage onto your enemies, an Off-Hand Blaster gives you another attack just by spending a strain, and Rapid Fire can damage every single hostile figure within range, cutting a swath through the enemies that stand in your way.

The Heroes in the Skirmish Game

Although each of these heroes may find themselves aiding the Rebel Alliance during a campaign game, their true natures come out in a frantic action and firefights of a skirmish—all three of these heroes join the Mercenaries faction for the skirmish game. And because they maintain their basic identities, their skirmish versions can offer a massive boost to the galaxy’s Mercenaries.

Shyla Varad takes her place as one of the most dangerous melee fighters in the skirmish game. She rolls three dice during every attack and can spend surges to deal more damage, pierce armor, or cleave adjacent figures. Shyla also retains her Mandalorian Whip, allowing her to pull in figures from range and immediately attack them, giving her unprecedented control over the battlefield and how your opponent’s figures are positioned. Finally, Shyla can gain another movement point or recover a damage at the beginning of her activations, giving you the power to adapt to any situation.

Shyla Varad uses her Mandalorian Whip ability to pull Luke Skywalker into range for an attack.

Onar Koma still offers a massive amount of health for only six points, though his lack of defense dice means that most attacks will immediately harm him. Still, Onar excels at being in the thick of the action. His attack features three powerful dice and his surge abilities allow him to sacrifice accuracy for damage. With Rush, you can move up to four spaces and push an adjacent figure, dealing damage to both you and your opponent. And if that weren’t enough, while a nearby figure is defending, Onar automatically adds a block or an evade to the defense, helping your other figures survive longer than ever.

Finally, the Mercenaries gain the aid of the vengeful Vinto Hreeda, a fast and powerful ranged attacker. Vinto’s surge abilities rank among the best in the game, giving you multiple benefits for just a single surge. Rapid Fire lets you perform two attacks on your turn, giving you twice as many chances to deal damage. Then, whenever you resolve one of those attacks, you can trigger Boltslinger to deal damage to another figure. In a one-against-many battle, few figures can put out as much sheer damage as Vinto Hreeda.

Into the Dune Sea

Whether you support the Rebel Alliance or fight for the highest bidder as a Mercenary, you’ll find three new heroes to support your campaigns and skirmishes in the Jabba’s Realm expansion. Join us next time for a preview of the new figures and tactics that the Imperial player gains in this expansion!

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Jabba's Realm

Published 5 August 2016 | Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Jabba's Realm

Announcing a New Expansion for Imperial Assault

“If I told you half the things I’ve heard about this Jabba the Hutt, you’d probably short circuit.”
–C-3PO, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Jabba’s Realm, a new expansion for Imperial Assault!

What’s more, four new Ally Packs and Villain Packs arrive corresponding with the Jabba’s Realm expansion, highlighting the expansion’s most famous characters and offering new cards and missions for your campaigns and skirmishes. Whether you learn the ways of the Force with Luke Skywalker, launch an unexpected ambush with the Alliance Rangers, lead Imperial forces with Captain Terro, or build a criminal empire with Jabba the Hutt, you’ll find the figures you need within these expansions. For more information on these figure packs, visit the announcement here!

Hero by Necessity

Your games of Imperial Assault gain an entirely new, full-length campaign with the addition of Jabba’s Realm, challenging a brave team of Rebel heroes to survive after they’re shot down on Tatooine. These heroes will soon learn that Jabba the Hutt may be willing to protect you from Imperial forces, but his protection comes at a price. You and your fellow heroes will need to decide just how far you’re willing to go in the service of an underhanded crime lord.

Three new heroes join the Rebellion in this expansion, each ready to fight the Empire in their own unique way. Shyla Varad is a Mandalorian warrior, renowned for her skill with blade and whip, and eager to practice her warrior traditions against the Empire. Vinto Hreeda, on the other hand, is a reckless vigilante and gunslinger—an expert sharpshooter who has plenty of grudges to bear against the Empire. Finally, the Rebels gain the allegiance of Onar Koma, a hulking Aqualish bodyguard with an almost unmatched strength in battle. The Imperial player will need to work his hardest to take out three heroes as well-equipped as these. Of course, each of these heroes comes with a completely unique deck of Class cards, and we’ll look at these heroes in much more detail in a future preview.

The Imperial player gains plenty of new campaign tricks as well. New sets of Agenda cards and two brand-new Imperial classes—one focused on villains and one featuring the Mercenaries faction—give you countless ways to customize your forces, ensuring that every campaign is different, no matter how many times you play. With an assortment of new Supply cards, new Reward cards, new Companion cards like the Pit Droid, and new Item cards such as the Hand Cannon, you can bring your games of Imperial Assault fully into the treacherous dealings and back-alley gunfights of the Tatooine underworld.

My Kind of Scum

You’d expect the Mercenaries of the galaxy to hold a strong foothold on a planet like Tatooine, and you wouldn’t be wrong—there are twelve new Deployment cards belonging to the Mercenaries faction in the Jabba’s Realm expansion. You may launch raids with Weequay Pirates, defend your holdings with Gamorrean Guards, or unleash the ferocity of a Rancor as you scheme behind the scenes with Jabba the Hutt. What’s more, although the three new heroes from Jabba’s Realm are Rebel-aligned during a campaign, their skirmish versions belong solely to the Mercenaries faction!

Naturally, there’s an Imperial detachment on Tatooine as well, and most recently, they’ve chosen to equip their Stormtroopers with jet packs. A new figure group— Jet Troopers —joins the Imperial faction in Jabba’s Realm. These fast and mobile warriors are experts at darting in for an attack and blasting away out of range, so Imperial commanders on Tatooine are sure to take advantage of these unique Troopers.

The new Command cards introduced in Jabba’s Realm also provide an exceptional starting point for customizing your skirmish strike team and gaining the upper hand in a tense battle of wits against another player. For instance, with On the Lam, you can interrupt your opponent’s attack to perform a move with your figure, potentially running out of range or ducking behind some protective cover! Either way, it’ll be much more difficult for your opponent to land a successful shot while you have On the Lam at your disposal.

With four brand-new skirmish missions on two distinct maps, including two missions that support up to four players, your skirmish games enter an entirely new range with a host of new figures, missions, maps, and Command cards. We’ll take a closer look at all of the new Mercenaries and Imperial units introduced in Jabba’s Realm in a future preview!

Where Loyalty Lies

With your ship shot down on Tatooine and your lives in danger at every turn, you have a choice to make. Will you work with Jabba the Hutt in exchange for his protection? Can you serve the Rebel Alliance and a crime lord at the same time? Whether you’re playing a campaign or a skirmish game, the Jabba’s Realm expansion will change your games forever.

Look for Jabba’s Realm at your local retailer in the fourth quarter of 2016!

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