Review – Star Wars: Imperial Assault – Twin Shadows

Twin Shadows offers players adventures in the Outer Rim with the likes of C-3PO, R2-D2, and Han Solo in a compact, 4-part campaign that can also be added as side missions to the longer campaigns. Is the abbreviated campaign worthwhile, or is it bantha fodder? 

Star Wars: Imperial Assault core review here.

Review 

Twin Shadows includes a bunch of side missions that you can add to any campaign and a chunk of skirmish maps. All of that is good, but it’s not what I was most excited about. The real draw here for me was the mini-campaign. Having a 4-mission campaign option instead of always having to do 12-mission campaigns is great for shorter campaigns and also as an introduction to Star Wars: Imperial Assault. 

The missions are all good, and there’s still branching storylines depending on who wins what mission. We even came across a choose-your-own adventure choice, which was an exciting change-up. Because all these missions can also be side quests, players will often have to flip to the back of the missions booklet for flavor text. The only downside to mashing some side missions up into a cohesive campaign was that the finale didn’t feel as big or multi-faceted as other finales, which was a letdown. However, having the campaign’s main villain as Boba Fett (even if his miniature isn’t included) was a major plus.

Something that’s different with the Twin Shadows campaign is that players (Imperial and Rebel) will upgrade much faster. This was fun in a way because you could access your character’s better powers quicker, but it was also a lot to keep track of all at once. The upgrade pacing of the 12-mission campaigns is more to my liking because you’re buying 1, at most 2 cards for your character each upgrade session, which means you’re slowly developing in complexity. In Twin Shadows, upgrading multiple cards at a time made it difficult to remember everything. This is more of a preference, but if you’re teaching new players, I would recommend using the normal upgrade system so you don’t overwhelm. 

The components are excellent like all other Imperial Assault components. The Tusken Raiders are particularly cool, and the heavy stormtroopers provide some much-needed firepower to any stormtrooper squad. Rebel heroes include Biv Bodhrik, a heavy gunner, and Saska Teft, a technician. It’s once again unfortunate that C-3P0, R2-D2, Han Solo, and Boba Fett aren’t included (must be purchased separately), but this is on-brand for Fantasy Flight. 

Twin Shadows is an excellent expansion because it offers new missions, new skirmish maps, new figures, while also adding the new 4-mission campaign. It won’t wow with anything, but it doesn’t disappoint. However, if you’re looking for a better bang-for-buck expansion, check out the 12-mission expansions (reviews here).