A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

Here’s a variant of the hangar from my previous post with ambient lighting – the evening sun shining through the hangar opening. Please tell me which one you prefer – I like this one better because it brings some variety to the otherwise cold white interior light of imperial facilities.

Now that I’ve finished my first custom skirmish map – a Sith Temple based on the one on Malachor including the surrounding battlegrounds – I’ve decided to re-visit a familiar and iconic environment in Star Wars: imperial architecture.

The tiles for this environment in the game look great, as do all of them, but being that guy who knows his Star Wars inside-out, I wanted to add something more accurate with regards to the design. So, I’ve created lots of different elements like specific wall and floo designs, equipment, putting in lighting effects and so on and I’m now in the process of compositing them together to form my own imperial tiles.

I took care to make these compatible with the official ones by using the same doorway graphics. Here’s the first example – a little hangar section with a TIE fighter. This will be part of my second custom skirmish map which is inspired by the Skystrike Flight Academy.

Now that the minis for both are done, I’ve also created deployment cards for both so that they can be played in Imperial Assault. When it comes to creating new deployment cards, there are a few things to consider:

• Does the deployment card bring something new and unique to the game?
• Do the abilities and stats fit the character represented by the deployment card?
• Does the deployment card have a healthy mix of strenghts and weaknesses/vulnerabilities?

As a general rule of thumb, I always try to give these utility and make them clearly defeatable at the same time – when it comes to custom cards and game stats, I often see people fall into the trap of making their favorite characters too powerful and not balance their strengths with some weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

The cards are created using a neat tool created by a community member over at the FFG-forum. You can find the download link here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/302926-imperial-assault-tools-list-builder-card-editor-more/

When it comes to Yoda, many people want to see him jumping around like a derwish on coke with his lightsabre. I don’t understand why, because that’d be the stupid Yoda. I wanted the humbled, wise Yoda from Empire Strikes Back and REBELS, who is a much more interesting character. To hammer that home, I made him a non-combatant whose utility comes from his ability to support and strengthen your other figures, and disrupting hostile figures:

As for Sy Snootles, I wanted to make her fun to play and giver her some back-stabbing ability. She benefits from not fighting, but can be moved into a perfect position to grab objectives before your opponent can, contest objectives or shoot hostile figures in the back at a crucial moment:

Here it is – my first custom-created skirmish map and skirmish mission for Imperial Assault. The file for the map is scaled to be printed at a resolution of 200dpi on neopren gaming mat material, which will result in a map 26″x26″ in size like the official skirmish mats for Imperial Assault. If you want to print the map yourself for your games, feel free to do so, as long as credit is given.

I’ve placed an online order for the file to be printed as a neopren gaming mat myself to see how the final product will look in the flesh. Here’s the map file, and below the map you will find the rules for the first custom skirmish mission for this map:

Skirmish Mission: Knowledge is Power

Skirmish Map: Sith Temple

Setup: Place a token representing the Sith Holocron at the center of the tile in the upper left corner of the map where the 4 spaces designated as difficult ground meet, as indicated on the setup for the Sith Temple map. Doors are locked. Remove all doors the first time a figure claims the Sith Holocron.

A figure can claim the Sith Holocron as an interact when it is in or adjacent to a space with the Sith Holocron and the Holocron is not currently claimed by another figure. Place the token on the figure’s base or on its deployment card if it is a deployment group with a single figure to indicate the Holocron is claimed. When a figure currently claiming the Holocron is defeated, place the token in the space last occupied by the defeated figure. If that space is impassable terrain, the player controlling the defeated figure places the token in an adjacent space which is not impassable terrain. At the end of a round, a figure claiming the Sith Holocron gains 2 VPs.

As an interact, a figure claiming the Sith Holocron can place it on the obelisk emitting lightning at the centre of the large tile where the 4 central spaces meet and immediately gain 4 VPs. If the figure is a Force User, he gains 8 VPs.

Only a Force-User can claim the Holocron from the obelisk. When the Sith Holocron is placed on the obelisk, a Force User controlling it can use a special action to choose a hostile figure on the map and roll 1 red die. If the Force User belongs to the Rebel faction, she must pay 2 VPs to do so. The chosen figure suffers damage equal to the rolled damage results.

Here we go again… I got myself the new Vader for Legion – I like the new sculpt and the pose. I will use this one for Imperial Assault, so I planted him onto an Imperial Assault-base.

As for the painting process, I gave Vader a black undercoat and then a mid-grey zenithal misted over the mini for the purpose of pre-shading/-highlighting. After that, I gave the wholemini a very light drybrushing with white, and then a wash with dilluted black ink which was applied more like a glaze than a wash.

With that done, the real painting could begin – applying lots of thin, transparent layers of light greys and some pure white glints. Also, I’m putting in some serious OSL right from the get go. Here’s an image of the work in progress:

My passion for Imperial Assault – which is my favorite miniature game for the game mechanics and gameplay alone – has sparked an interest in designing my own missions and on top of that: designing my own skirmish maps for it. The official skirmish maps are available printed on neopren as gaming mats and encompass a variety of environments: From the vast deserts of Tattooine to the deep forests of Endor, from the icy wastelands of Hoth to the grasslands of Lothal, imperial interiors, Mos Eisley alleys and cantina, Coruscant highrises and back alleys…

But there are so many more locations to be explored and put into the game. So I decided to create my own tiles from which to digitally construct new custom skirmish maps, and I also wanted to introduce new, unique environments. I wanted it to look striking, be interesting and different, and after some deliberation I decided to…

“Find Malachor!”

I got my hands on a few very detailed and well-lit renders of the pyramid and the battlegrounds surrounding it which we saw in the REBELS season 2 finale, complete with loads of details of both the geometry and the textures, which I use as a wellspring of reference imagery.

For Imperial Assault, the map elements have to be a condensed abit to make for worthwhile games, so I will have to boil things down to essentials size-wise. Still, the centrepiece-tile is by far the largest in the game, measuring 14×14 spaces and representing the inside of the top of the pyramid with its arena-like hall and the crimson-colored glass floor with the white Sith-patterns. Here’s a little taste of what I got so far – more tiles are in the works, and once the whole map is digitally assembled, I will print it on game-mat material and provide the file for anyone who is interested in printing it out him- or herself.

I totally forgot to post a few minis I painted for IA in the past few months – so better late than never:

I wanted to up my game at photographing and presenting painted minis and models and here are my first attempts. I have experience in creating digital visual elements, compositing, lighting effects, and I’ve studied cinematography in special effects movies since I was a kid. I hope this accounts for a little bit.

What’s most important: This is not work, but fun, so you can expect more like these from me in the future.