I've put together a playtest document containing 5 Imperial heroes and the first mission for my work-in-progress Imperial campaign. It can be found here, and if anyone would like to try it out I would greatly appreciate any feedback that you might have. I will be putting together further playtest documents as the campaign develops, so let me know if you would like updates.

Looks good, although I question the premise of sending Imperial operatives onto Yavin IV during the Battle of Yavin, given Tarkin's certain he's going to superlaser that moon into dust.

are they the Suicide Squad of the SW Universe?

I guess maybe they sent by an anti-Tarkin faction that doesn't have any faith in the Death Star? Either that or I could just change the flavour text...

Any thoughts on the mechanics?

What I can tell you without playing:

Firstly: There are a few times when your game syntax is off: Lokan's second ability should be phrased in the same way as Brek's, Samos' active should probably be rephrased but it's very complicated to word. Also you should include the imperial victory condition in 'spotted' rather than at the staff.

Secondly: A lot of things seem overpowered by the standards of a rebel campaign. This could cause a serious problem where the threat value of troops is completely inaccurate. The biggest offender is Lokan who has a 1/3 chance of killing an entire squad with one action and 2 strain (green would probably be okay, red is not) and has incredibly powerful attacks. The surges on all of the weapons (except Jax) are out of line in comparison to those of the rebels. In addition all of the rebel class cards seem more like 3 or 4 xp than starting cards.

Thanks! Quite a bit of thought and discussion has gone into the balance elsewhere, and they seemed okay in the playtest, but you may well be right, especially with regard to Lokan's Grenadier (I had concerns about that myself). Changing it to a green is a nice idea, I'll give that a think. Worth noting that it's power depends a lot on the structure of the maps, and much the Rebel player bunches up their figures.

Could you expand on what you mean by the surges being out of line? The Needle Rifle is obviously weird, but the rest all seem pretty similar to Rebel starting weapons (two surges, each doing 1 of something). The Blaster Carbine in particular doesn't seem especially powerful.

I appreciate the comments about phrasing - with regard to Somos, is it clear that his Squad Tactics only works on deployment cards (i.e. not heroes)? He in particular hasn't seemed overpowered in playtest so far, as he basically just moves along with his squad and uses them as a weapon, and spends a lot of time resting rather than attacking.

The fact that all of your weapons have 2 surges doing damage (or pierce) is the problem. The only weapon in the base campaign with that is mak's (arguably Garkhan's) and that works because he'll seldom roll 2. For example compare Lokan's weapon to Biv's (same attack die). One has surges for damage and pierce while the other has a surge for accuracy. Similarly Samos has the same attack die as Fenn but trades an accuracy for a pierce. Basically this means on average your characters will all be doing (usually slightly) more damage with their starting weapons than the base rebels.

It is clear (to me at least) how Samos works, though 'ally' would be a better word than deployment card. One thing is he might be "terribroken" (either too bad or too good depending on circumstances). If the rebels focus down his squad then all he's done is tanked some damage and he no-longer has any meaningful abilities on his card, if they don't he's providing three 2 dice attacks without costing an action on your heroes (which is insane). Playtesting would confirm this.

Also I remembered another minor phrasing issue. Kagan's camouflage should add a dodge rather than counting as one (see Lucky on R2).

Okay, I think you're right about the weapons. The Blaster Carbine should actually be +1 Accuracy rather than Pierce 1, that must be a typo. Needle Rifle should probably be 1 Surge for Pierce 2, like Gideon's holdout blaster. I actually reckon the Blaster Pistol might be fine (two surges each for +1 damage is arguably worse than 1 surge for pierce 2 in at least some situations, and a lot of the time it will basically be the same - either way neither of them is going to be doing that much damage). As you said before, the Glaive is probably okay, but the Heavy Blaster definitely needs work, thanks for flagging that up.

Somos definitely needs some further playtesting, and I think you raise some valid concerns. One option would be to drop the point reduction on the Troopers if they turn out to be too powerful, but that still leaves the issue of him potentially being too weak once they die.

Also, the Elite Operatives class card is definitely overpowered, not really sure what I was thinking when I wrote that. I might change it to something like "This group gains the “Spy” keyword. Exhaust when attacking for +1 Surge." That way it does similar similar to Experimental Weapons, only without the cost but limited to one figure/round. (the spy keyword will become relevant for later upgrades.)

Anyway, thanks for the comments, and I hope you remain interested in the project despite any balance issues it might currently have.

This looks very cool! Keep it up!