When the Rebels deploy an ally at the beginning of a mission, they give that number of threat to the Imperial player. So is it worth it?

The Rebels I'm up against have Chewie and the Sabs, but have never brought in Chewie and are double clutching on brining the Sabs. The next mission we play is Chain of Command.

Thoughts?

I would say that certain rebels are absolutely worth bringing to the fight. The allies give threat to the Imps which can use that to bring more models to the table, my response to that thinking is "So what". If the rebels have the ability to eliminate the extra threat given by the allies then the additional activations and Imp model removal is worth it. If the Imp waits to deploy, then they are letting their models on the table go into the grinder. If they do deploy additional models with the extra threat, then you have the same mission with a little bit of extra flavor in it.

Also depends on the allies that you have accumulated and if their abilities mesh with yours. Chewbacca, in my opinion, is a horrible ally to bring to any fight. That is mainly due to him never meshing well with teams that make it worthwhile to bring. The saboteurs, are one of those units that are a nice meat shield in addition to be able to take out some threat for their cost.

To make a long story short, the idea of bringing allies to the table is if they are worth it to the main group or if they are just dirt cheap to bring. In one of my campaigns, we have Gideon and were able to rescue the Troopers which made them an ally to us, Gideon's card also reduces their cost by 2. We bring in three models for only 4 threat which is a steal. Then we got the side mission that reduces the cost of an ally card by 2 more (can't remember the name of the mission). We get to bring three models for the low low cost of two threat for every mission. At that point we have no reason to not bring them since the Imp basically gets nothing of value from them.

As with many many choices in this game, "it depends".

It depends on what the Imperial player does in response. If the IP throws everything at you at once, then you have to consider if the ally is worth losing a round to remove models. If your IP likes to save it, I'd bring all the allies you can and as they come one at a time, wipe them out, all of them.

Luke is a great ally for the cost, triple die attack and providing a reroll to people is awesome, plus Pierce 3 on melee when you need. Chewie hits a ton, he's like the Rebel Guard Champion in terms of toughness, so it's unsurprising that he costs as much as the actual RGC. I actually think Han is pretty squishy. Haven't seen Leia yet. Sabs are great in missions with doors or hallways, and Troopers are the same cost as Stormtroopers but better.

All in all, since the game tries to balance, the Imperial player needs something to counter. Just think of it as you're getting very similar pieces to his choices.

My Green choices are usually Luke, Chewie, Troopers, and Saboteurs.