Star Wars: Imperial Assault is a strategy board game of tactical combat and missions for two to five players, offering two distinct games of battle and adventure in the Star Wars universe! As you can tell, the Galactic Civil War is a popular topic for Star Wars board games, possibly because many fans don’t have a huge amount of goodwill for the prequels and the latest trilogy has yet to receive its own decent dedicated board game. Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion is a card game that sees two players engage in a tense standoff as the respective Rebel and Empire forces. It might seem like a bold move to distill something as grand as the Galactic Civil War into a straightforward card game, but it actually does a surprisingly good job of recreating the feel of the original trilogy.

As you fly missions and smuggle cargo from system to system, your choices will shape your character. The cleverly linked mission cards give each game a cohesive but unique narrative. You'll upgrade your skills and ship along the way. But whether you choose to be a heroic rogue or a sky bounty hunter is up to you. Why not both? An adventure board game for one to four players, Outer Rim takes place over a series of turns in which players select their missions, upgrade their ship and search for renown; the ultimate goal of the game is to gather enough fame to be remembered for centuries to come. Each player character has a unique personal goal they can fulfill, as well as general activities such as smuggling illegal goods and taking on jobs from warring factions that’ll increase your infamy. Every new job that players take on could mean more money and renown, but it could also mean an equal amount of danger and potential death. The missions are more consistently well-made than with Descent. There’s an imbalanced stinker in there every once in awhile, but most of the missions at least seem attainable by both sides (with 4 heroes; no matter what your player count you should use the full complement of 4 Rebel heroes). The imbalances, of course, come in over the campaign itself because of the built-in snowballing notorious in both this and the Descent games. The winners get stronger between missions by getting more XP and better abilities than the losers. Despite the inordinate amount of trash that populates the Star Wars board game galaxy like a drifting asteroid field, there are actually quite a few decent - nay! - even excellent examples of tabletop experiences set in the classic sci-fi universe. Whether you’re looking for a co-op board game filling in the gaps between Episode IV and V or a storytelling RPG where players can become powerful Jedi, here are the ten best Star Wars board games to play this Star Wars Day. Best Star Wars board games There’s an introductory mission to help you figure out the basic game mechanics and it’s worth playing that. Not to mention some useful tutorial videos that can be found online.In every skirmish mission, you clash with your opponent in a battle of tactical skill and combat. Both players alternate activating a single deployment card and taking actions with the associated figures as they battle to complete conflicting objectives. Whether you’re competing to steal a valuable T-16 Skyhopper, or collecting contraband on behalf of the Hutts, the skirmish game offers tense, tactical battles in the Star Wars universe. In the campaign game, you will play through a cinematic tale which is set in the Star Wars universe. One player will command the armies of the Galactic Empire and threaten to forever put out the flame of the Rebellion. Other players will become the heroes of the Rebel Alliance and engage in operations to undermine the Empire. Both the Imperial player and Rebel heroes will gain new skill and experience which allows their characters to evolve. Publisher Fantasy Flight Games just recently called an end to its Star Wars: Destiny line of products, just three years after the collectible dice game first launched. Which is a damn shame because Destiny is actually a rather remarkable entry in the genre, with some interesting mechanics that made it more than just a card and dice game featuring classic Star Wars characters. The round to round gameplay of the Empire is very similar to the Rebels, with the player deploying sets of figures and each figure receiving two actions. However, the Imperial player is allowed more behind the scenes knowledge. When Rebels trigger certain events such as opening doors or interacting with terminals, the Imperial player gets to reinforce with new troops or in some cases decide what negative effect hinders the Rebels. At the end of each round of gameplay, the Imperial player gets to summon in new troops by spending an accumulating resource known as "threat." The goal for the Empire is most often to defeat heroes, or to stall the heroes for a certain number of rounds. So now Twi’lek has a new lightsaber and we’re off to our next story mission. I might tell Luke just in case he’s available. The Verdict

In the campaign game, you and your friends take on the roles of one of six heroes of the Rebellion, such as a smuggler, a veteran soldier, a Wookiee warrior, or even a Force user. Throughout the missions of the campaign, you continue to play one hero, gaining experience, new skills, and upgraded weapons and armor as the campaign goes on. You play these heroes throughout a campaign, even working with iconic characters like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in some missions.

In every skirmish mission, you clash with your opponent in a battle of tactical skill and combat. Both players alternate activating a single deployment card and taking actions with the associated figures as they battle to complete conflicting objectives. Whether you’re competing to steal a valuable T-16 Skyhopper, or collecting contraband on behalf of the Hutts, the skirmish game offers tense, tactical battles in the Star Warsuniverse.

Of course, some of them are undeniably awful - Trivial Pursuit DVD: Star Wars Saga Edition has incredibly strong 2005 vibes, and 1977’s Escape from Death Star set a poor standard from the off. Others are simply straight-up copies of existing board games, such as the many, many versions of Star Wars Monopoly out there. However, some are prime examples of how to make excellent movie franchise board games to fill in gaps in the narrative or to let players live out their Jedi or Sith fantasies. In Dark Side Rising two to four players must work together to thwart the evil machinations of plastic Darth Vader - his disembodied torso perches in the middle of the game board - as he attempts to build his ultimate weapon. Each player assumes control over a different Rebel cell - intelligence, leadership, support or tactical - as well as their own base of operations: Tatooine, Alderaan, Yavin 4 or Lothal. With resources and allies at their disposal, these players must strategically coordinate their efforts to defeat enough Imperial agents before it’s too late. As new threats arise, players will also be able to call on iconic Rebel allies like Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker for help. Another baffling design decision held over from the Descent games is the idea that the winner of the final mission is the winner of the whole campaign, no matter what happened in any of the other missions. How is that satisfying for either side? In my first run-through of the campaign, the Rebel side lost nearly all of the missions, but almost pulled out the win in the last mission. I felt bad. I didn’t even want to win. It wasn’t fair. Again, the solution is fairly straightforward. It wouldn’t be hard to create some kind of system of mission branching and result-calculation to lead to a closing paragraph explaining what your success and failures meant for the Rebels and the Imperials. Improvements Star Wars Imperial Assaultis a strategy board game of tactical combat and missions for two to five players, offering two distinct games of battle and adventure in the Star Wars universe!At the end of the day I have to give a high score because every time I play the game I have fun. It’s somehow captured the freewheeling spirit of the movies (ignoring the overwhelming and annoying too-seriousness from internet “fans”) without sacrificing too much strategic depth. The minis are great, and maybe 80% of the time the mission feels pretty balanced. Is this too low of a bar? Am I being too forgiving because it’s Star Wars? Probably. But if I want to play a deep, brilliantly designed hero story, I’ll pull out Mage Knight. If I want to blast some stormtroopers in the face and laugh, I’ll play Imperial Assault, despite its flaws. Classic Risk sees players deploying their forces to conquer different territories of the game board, rolling dice against their opponents whenever they engage in combat with their infantry and gaining control of that territory should they win. The Star Wars edition includes an unusual TIE Fighter-shaped game board featuring the different control points of the Empire and the Rebels, with players choosing to command the forces of either side. The board game plays much the same as the original Risk, but the novelty of controlling Star Wars soldiers and ships to either destroy or defend the Death Star makes the experience stand out enough on its own. See, the Imperial player is given a certain amount of “threat” each round which they can spend on replenishing the Imperial forces on the map. This threat income is greater than what the Rebels can consistently kill each turn, so from the Rebel perspective it’s always, ultimately, a losing battle. Compounding this is the fact that usually one of the Imperial side’s win conditions is wounding all of the Rebel forces. Sometimes there’s even a strict time limit. The name of the game is speed and mobility, then. Rebels need to accomplish their goals before they’re inevitably beat down by the Imperials. Now we were off to Tatooine to see Luke Skywalker. You never quite know until the Imperial player/DM reads out the mission details but either way it would involve sand. And, as it turns out, Darth Vader. What Are All These Figures For?