Monday Night Gaming – return to Return to Hoth

Warning: This article may contain spoilers for Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Heroes of the Alliance Return to Hoth campaign.

It has become something of a theme that this year we have been returning to games we haven’t played for some time. Last Monday we went back to pick up our Imperial Assault: Heroes of the Alliance campaign, which we haven’t played since April 2019.

As it turned out, it looks as if we were close to completing this campaign as after a small narrative interlude we were thrown into storming General Sorin’s Star Destroyer in an effort to stop a planetary assault. We were expecting to have to fight through the various decks of the destroyer, only to be placed just outside the bridge at the start of the scenario – a minor disappointment.

At this point we encountered one of the quirks of the app driven game as it generated some units for us to fight. Whilst we were happy with Imperial Officers, Stormtroopers and a Deathtrooper, things started to get a little surreal when we also faced a stormtrooper mounted on a dewback – in the corridor outside the bridge of a star destroyer. The app obviously uses a random enemy generator based on the model collection that you told the game that you own. This can come up with some strange results (In a previous game we had a Tusken Raider on a Bantha helping to defend an Imperial base). This apparent total random enemy generator is a little disappointing, as you may expect that the app could easily limit the criteria of what models can be placed, dependent upon the scenario.

We quickly dealt with the majority of the enemy and attempted to take control of the Star Destroyer, which we eventually crashed into the planet below.

As the dust settled we pulled ourselves out of the wreckage and engaged the Imperial ground assault, whose troops were trying to demolish the barricades leading to a rebel village which we were ultimately trying to defend.

We had already taken care of a squad of Stormtroopers and a couple of Probe Droids when the next wave of Imperial reinforcements turned up – including an AT-ST. The Imperial Walker immediately destroyed the first barricade, leaving the Imperials needing only to destroy one of the remaining two to enter the rebel village and win the scenario – this with both the AT-ST and their new Hover Tank both undamaged.

We think the Rebels are really up against it at this point, but it was also getting late so we decided to save the game and return to it in our next gaming session.

The Heroes of the Alliance App in action – it tracks turns but doesn’t record where models are on the board.