About to start our own 6 player campaign so have been thinking about this.

So the goals would be

1. every rebel player has a character they can level up.

2. maintain balance.

3. keep it simple

Now there are already rules from bringing in an ally. So I think what fits best with the above goals are:

1. Every rebel player picks a hero.

2. 1 rebel player per mission uses their skirmish character card without any buffs instead as an ally. They follow all rules for bringing in an ally. This role rotates with rebels choosing who plays as the skirmish hero, allowing flexibility if the rebels think a particular hero more useful for a particular mission, but in general each player must take this role in each general rotation.

3. During the reward phase, all rebel players receive all rewards (XP and money).

Now possible tweaks:

A. Campaign setup phase:

• Add side missions for all heroes played. Not sure if one each of the other side mission types should be added to keep proportions of each the same.

B. Mission phase:

• The player controlling the 'ally' gets one respawn (i.e. they get wounded). At this time, the imperial gains influence (based on ally cost) and an interrupt optional deployment. This hopefully prevents the 5th rebel player from being kicked out too early.
• Should the respawned ally and optional interrupt deployment get an activation? Should they only come in during the deployment phase? Presumedly the ally will respawn were they have fallen and be allowed one activation for that round in total. By default I'd let the imperial activate the same round.
• Should the imperial get an extra-open group? Probably not.

C. Reward phase:

• I suspect the 5th hero shouldn't get any money rewards as loot is shared and can be redistributed each mission. However, as there are items that are particularly useful to particular characters, more money might be needed by the rebels. Perhaps give the rebels get 450 credits (i.e. only 50% of money) whenever they are rewarded.

D. Heroes:

There are some heroes with abilities that don't work in non-skirmish:

• Mak's critical hit: usually requires opponent to discard a command card. Perhaps critical hit units can never be reinforced? Perhaps he becomes focused?
• Diala's shattering blow: usually costs a command card to activate. Give Diala one 'command card token' at the beginning of every odd round? Or just start with 3?
• Fenn's trooper assault: requires rebel troopers to be any good. Bring troopers?
• I would also allow the rebels to optionally substitute reward allies in place of their character allies if they want to minimise extra influence gained by the imperial player.

Feedback?

I really like the idea of using a hero's skirmish card as you would an ally. I think that could be expanded to a 7 player game where the Imperial would get to add an extra optional group to their hand as well.

I think that 'wounding' an ally would work the same as wounding a hero. They 'flip' their card (start again with new health reserve). I think the Imperial gets threat equal to the ally and can have an optional deployment at that time. That group would come in ready for action.

As far as money, I don't think the Rebel team should get any extra money. I think that if you are going to allow the ally to level up (items/exp) then you need to compensate the Imperial player with more xp or influence or both. But things start to get more complicated at that point.

Does the ally get the option to attack twice like heroes do? I think the Imperial needs something to balance that out (pick a group that gets 2 attacks per activation, or xp/agenda). Although if you have Diala, maybe give her two attacks to compensate for the lack of Shattering Blow. Or Make Shattering Blow cost 2 actions. Mak's Critical hit should stun or bleed, I can't decide which one. Fenn's Trooper Assault, he doesn't need it, he's tough enough.

All in all, I think the OP has some of the best ideas for a 5 player campaign by using the hero's skirmish deployment cards.

We are now 3 games into a campaign following these rules, so some updates:

Campaign - campaign started with all heroes except Mak.

1. Aftermath: Diala is playing as the skirmish card.
- Mission was very balanced. Heroes won by 1 activation.
- Imperial player has no open groups available for extra deployment at the start. Given the final outcome this doesn't appear to be an issue.

2. Jyns's side mission: Fenn as skirmish card. Again, very balanced. Until....

3. A new threat: played with 4 rebels. Plays out as usual (close imperial victory).

So thoughts:

1. Some of the rebel skirmish heroes are pretty potent. Better than their early campaign normal equivalents so the players have been quite happy (even preferring) to play as the alternative.
2. For Diala we gave her one 'shattering blow' token each odd round. This seems fair. I also like thestag option for a 2 action attack, but that might make this too situational and only good defensively against melee opponents. I think that giving her 'assault' (2 attacks) takes away some of her flavour.
3. Fenn is probably good enough without a substitute for his trooper assault. He's certainly more powerful than early game Fenn already with 3 dice attack, assault and no need to use stress tokens. Also, rebels can choose to use him in side missions with rebel troopers (which players decided to select for when setting up the side mission deck) - and along with the presence of Gideon, will make rebel trooper allies super powerful).
4. The skirmish player respawns where they fall as an option works well.
5. During the reward phase we give the rebels 450 credits as the standard monetary reward. All other bonus rewards as per 4 player rules. I think this is probably going to benefit the rebels who will end up with an extra 500 credits by the final mission - which is not insubstantial. I'm not fussed about this as the imperial player, but if things start going too far toward rebel superiority, I will recommend against it on future replays/other groups.

6. Rebels can 'sub out' during times they are banking XP which is a minor advantage.

[Edit] Sorry, meant to post this in the other 5+ hero thread!

Since this topic has been Arbitrarily bumped, I thought I'd update on our campaign which is now midway through.

2 missions have played as normal (the 5th rebel wasn't around). The other missions continue to seem balanced (although the rebels tend to have an easier time in side missions and the imperials in story missions).

Move along. Nothing more to add.