Missions for casual players, how to play?

By Giulio, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Hi all,

I'd like to know how is possible to play with casual players. Sometimes people come to me and I'd like to open a shuffle page of the campaign book and play that mission. I imagine that it is not possible because probably Rebels characters need more upgrades to play such missions. Is it correct?

The main problem is that I don't play always with the same so I can't start a campaign.

Advice needed.

You could stick to the side missions? Calculate approx the mid point of the campain in terms of fair XP, credits, influence and threat. At least then you don't have to worry about plot implications of playing one of the story missions. Or you could do the same with the story missions and then work out the XP, etc gained to get to that mission in the branch.

Or you could start the campaign with 4 heroes and everytime you play you just fill in the new players with a "previously on", and the players play with whatever the heroes have been levelled towards. For fairness, only do the upgrade step at the start of each mission, instead of the end, so as to let the new players do a change before they play.

Twin shadows has some rules on advancing heroes a bit as if you were already a few missions in with the mini campaign it has rules for.

I am running a start to finish marathon campaign at WAAAGHPACA!!! this year, so I have been working on some rules for "drop in / drop out" style campaign play to address things like more than 4 heroes, different heroes being played by different players, and different heroes between missions. I am not ready to share them quite yet, but i will soon. :)

Here is my suggestion for what you are trying to accomplish:

If you wanted to "flip to a random page", check to see if the mission is a "story mission". If so, you should be able to determine* if it is Story Mission #1, #2, #3 or #4, or Finale, and then give the rebels some extra experience to credits to spend for their characters, based on the campaign log. A good starting point would be 1XP and 200 credits per hero per mission that would have been played previously. You then let the heroes purchase any items they want out of the appropriate Tier deck(s). The Imperial player would play the mission at the threat level listed on the campaign log. You may need to adjust the amount of XP/credits the rebels get, based on how comfortable they are with the rules. Remember that the story missions were designed to be played at a specific threat level and rebel experience level

For example, if you played the mission "Chain of Command", you would reference through the campaign guide to determine that it is story mission #4. This would mean that the rebels would have played 9 missions prior and each hero get 9xp, 1800 credits and get to buy items from any of the tiered decks (I, II, or III).

The Side Missions, Imperial Agenda Missions and Rebel Hero Missions (provided the specific hero is in play that session) can be played at any threat level but tend to be a bit more difficult for the rebels in the beginning. I would suggest for these mission to pick the threat level of either 3 or 4 and then give the same XP and credits and purchases accordingly.

So, for example, if you chose to play any of the side missions at threat level 4, the rebels would have played either 5 or 6 games prior, so you would choose either 5xp/1000 credits or 6xp/1200 credits (depending on how nice you want to be), and then play the mission.

In the coming weeks I will make a post about the full rules modifications I have made for WAAAGHPACA! to the forums.

*It is not listed anywhere in the book what story mission is at which level, you have to read the whole campaign log, and chart them out yourself.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have to say that I expected this king of game less complicated, I remember when I used to play with hero quest as party/holiday game with my friends and I ask myself how is possible that ffg didn't think to this, I know that is present a skirmish mode but a coop mission is more fun.

I have purchased twin shadows expansion and will arrive next week, I'll give a look at the advanced rules.

I haven't well understood how determine xp and credits and the other imperial stuff on a specific game, for example now I draw generous donations, how would you set up all?