So to start this off,

i started my first IA campaign last night as a reb playing 4 heroes. I chose to do it this way rather than 2 heroes with legendary upgrades based on everything I've read saying rebs CANNOT win that way. I'm totally up for a challenge but don't want to go against unwinnable odds on my first try.

For Heroes i chose: Diala, Fenn, Biv, and Mak.

The first mission went poorly for me. I started turn 1 running to go hit the terminal, and managed to open the door on my 2nd activation in round 2, however the door was immediately shut, and was a pain in the ass to re open. I managed to re open the door mid turn 4 and i just could not hit the terminals fast enough. i lost because of round count.

the second mission was a side mission. I drew mak's side mission and lukes side mission. Maks had atst's on the face of it and that honestly scarred me off. (im not ready for that yet). So that being said i went for luke. The mission started well, with me spending extra strain to have 4 tokens secured and returned by turn 2. however i did so at the cost of allowing the imperials to gain 5. the threat bonus was a huge hit that i was not prepared for. all of a sudden i was fighting 4 red guards and vader. I used fenn, biv and diala as shields to rush the last 2 tokens with luke and mak winning the game by a narrow margin in turn 4 with only mak un wounded, and luke at 8 damage.

Im looking forward to playing the rest of the campaign, but i feel like as a rebs you are playing a big game of Nazi Zombies, where you cant fix the walls. if you stop running to shoot or heal then you get over run almost immediately. I did manage to buy a combat coat for mak, and that +2 health was a life saver.

Anything i should keep in mind as i go forward?

Note: imperial player is playing subversive tactics. i usually take the block over the strain because i use strain to move often.

oh man, you missed a treat with Mak's side mission. there is a nice little twist in it.

thanks for the review. Allies can help you clear threats on the board while the heroes focus on mission objectives. it is always good to bring an ally.

You heard wrong, legendary upgrade on two heroes makes it trivially easy for rebels to win, because 2 rebels with +10 health and 2 activations each cover much more ground each turn and are way harder to wound than 4 heroes.

4 heroes as one person is like super hard mode for this game. It's doable for the first few missions, but after you've got several upgrades on each character it's going to be very difficult for you as one person to play each character optimally, which is a necessity for a 4 hero team to beat a competent empire player.

You may be up to the challenge of managing 4 heroes all by yourself, but if you're missing out on abilities left and right, then you won't even realize you're missing them and not ever realize how sub-optimally you were playing each character.

Actually it is either. Fantasy Flight Games have done a decent attempt at balancing the game with less than four Rebel Heroes, but it just doesn't do so smoothly enough. However, some missions will be far easier on the Rebels if they are only two and have the bonus cards, while others are much easier on the Empire if they are only two heroes; it all depends on the specific mission and its objectives. In a sense this might balance out over the scope of a full campaign, but it would depend on the randomness of the missions to be played and even if it potentially balances out over, it might just not be as entertaining to play missions that either lean too crushing on one part or the other.