Just finished our first campaign session. We're three missions in and absolutely loving the game. I'm playing Imperial. There are three Rebel players.

The game seems really well balanced, all 3 missions have been incredibly close. However I'm loosing 3 missions to 0. Sad times.

The last two missions came down to if the rebels failed an attribute test I'd win the mission (they got the surges). Great tension but not a good outcome on my side.

I think where I'm going wrong is with my closed deployments and what back up I'm sending in. I'm playing the Military Might deck so I've always got a group of Stormtroopers in my hand and usually an officer to move them around with.

The troopers die pretty quickly, should I replace them with something else? Maybe royal guards?

Also, what specific cards should I spend my XP on?

Thanks in advance

Royal guards with stun have been extremely helpful in my campaign. What you will notice is you don't have to wound or even withdraw the heroes in most missions, even though it helps. All you have to do is hold out slow them down. Troopers suffer alto in my opinion to Blast and Cleave. But thats just the thing that you have to deal with in the first few missions as you go further you will have enough threat to put some royal guards out or trandos.

My stats right now are in 2 player games 4 out of 9 missions won, and the big campaign 4 out of 11 missions won... its not the greatest record so I could use some help too. I ended playing the tech deck so I have healing droids and extra energy for attacks for them.

Well I play against one player so two heroes and lost all four mission, that were down to the wire and I also play imperial might. In face of my „success“ I do not know how good any of my advice will be, but Storm Troopers alone are kind of weak, but with imperial might the Assault Armor Upgrade is great. The +2 health helps to survive and can make elite Storm Troopers really though. Without this upgrade I think Combat Medic is useless with regular Storm Troopers, they die to quickly.
Regarding units I have the feeling that imperial officers are not really good with Storm Troopers. They should be paired with strong units like E-Web Engineer or the unique models. Maybe a Nexu I did not try that. But Storm Troopers are fast enough for themselves and are not better in attacking that the officer. The elite version of the officer is kind of neat and yes thinks like stun and bleed can be really good.
Just some random thoughts.

Ive found that storm troopers work better in squads so having an officer to move 1 further is not that helpful. An Office and an e-web on the other had is great.

If all 3 missions came down to the wire then your probably not doing anything wrong. I find the balance in IA to be great.

Our groups has the imperials winning more but again its come down to those last turns where the rebels have failed their checks.

I find that unless you can Deploy something big in time with a reserve deployment then spending the 2 to reinforce your storm troopers is quite often the best option. Storm Troopers are a great unit especially with an attachment.

Trandoshans are a great a unit for dealing damage