When a hero first suffers the bleed effect and he decides he wants to remove the effect on his next activation, is he required to perform 1 action other than removing the bleed effect, thereby suffering 1 strain? Or can removing the effect be his first action? The condition card vaguely seems to imply the former.

Bleeding: During your activation, after you resolve an action other than the action listed below , you suffer 1{strain}

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{Speical Action} Discard this condition

I underlined the important part for you. If you take any action other than to discard this condition you will suffer 1 strain. If you choose to discard Bleeding as your first action you will not suffer any strain.

I could see how the wording could be a bit vague. However, it goes like so:

A character has 2 actions per activation. If they spend the first action to remove bleed, then they suffer no strain. If they ignore the bleeding, they could perform 2 actions and suffer a strain for each action.

The above is correct, you will take a strain after you complete an action and are still affected by bleed. if you ain't got time to bleed, take a strain.

The "During your activation" part is there so you don't bleed all over the place when Gideon is around, giving you move or attack actions.

Thanks for the responses. The rebel players will be happy to hear it.