Edited August 24th: I’ve taken the feedback I’ve so far received, as well as some more ideas of my own, and updated this post. The changed parts have been bolded.

IA’s campaign mode has a number of issues.

The Side Mission concept needs revamping. Drawing only two cards is a mechanic presumably intended to insert variety into campaigns, but in reality all it does is limit player options, and in a bad way. There should be a way to maintain some randomness in Side Missions played, but allow the Rebel players more control in their choice of missions.

However, currently the only side missions worth taking, with very few exceptions, are the Hero character missions. Side missions—all side missions—should provide a clear benefit to the Rebel players for winning them. Therefore, the Ally and Grey mission rewards need to be increased, so that the Rebel players have more incentive to choose those decks over the Hero deck.

Most allies, and most unique villains, are laughably overcosted, which means there is no incentive to play most ally/villain missions, because the reward is mediocre at best. In addition, the fact that you have to complete their side mission before you can even take an ally means most campaigns are played without ever seeing one, unless they’ve already been scripted into a specific mission by FFG. This also hinders player options, and reduces replayability.

With that in mind, here are my proposed house-rule fixes. Suggestions and feedback are welcome!

--Rebel players shuffle their mission cards into three separate decks of four cards each, by type: Ally, Hero, and Grey.

--When a side mission comes up during the campaign, instead of choosing between two drawn mission cards, the Rebel players choose a deck. One card is drawn from the chosen deck, and that is the side mission that is played. (Or the Rebel players can choose an Imperial Agenda side mission, or a threat mission, etc as normal.)

--If the Rebel players do not lose a Grey mission, they receive an additional 50 credits per Hero.

--The cost of the following Imperial Side Mission Agenda cards are reduced to 1 Influence: Back-Room Bargains (Mercenary Ties), Bunker Buster (501^st Training), Fire in the Sky (Bounty), and Into the Wastes (Tusken Weaponry). The cost of all other Imperial Side and Forced Mission Agenda cards are reduced to 2 Influence.

--The Imperial player cannot have more than two hidden Agenda cards at any one time. If he purchases a third, he must immediately choose one to discard. He regains the Influence cost of the discarded card.

--If the Rebel players lose two missions in a row, then starting from that second mission they receive an additional 100 credits per Hero for each mission they lose. If the Imperial player loses two missions in a row, then starting from that second mission they receive an additional 1 influence for each mission they lose. Both of these conditions occur until the losing side wins a mission.

--Players are not required to complete an ally's respective mission to take that ally or villain on a mission. However:

--Players can only choose an ally or villain for a mission if that ally/villain’s mission card has been selected for the player's respective deck.

--Rebel players must win a non-unique ally's mission to take the elite version.

--Gideon’s “Friends of Old” mission and the reward of a certain Return to Hoth mission do not count as winning the mission for their respective allies. However, if the Return to Hoth mission is won by the Rebels, the respective ally’s cost is reduced by two.

Rebel and Imperial Deployment cards are adjusted as per below. (If a Deployment card is not listed, it gets no adjustments.)

REBELS:

Chewbacca:

Corrected cost: 11

Mission won: 9, and gains Fury of Kashyyyk

Han Solo:

Corrected cost: 9

Mission won: 6

Luke Skywalker:

Corrected cost: 9

Mission won: 6

Leia Organa:

Corrected cost: 7

Mission won: 5

Obi-Wan Kenobi:

Corrected cost: 9

Mission won: 6

Lando Calrissian:

Corrected cost: 5

Mission won: 3

R2-D2 & C-3P0:

Corrected cost: 2 each

Mission won: 1 each, and can take both as 1 ally.

Wookie Warrior:

Corrected cost: 7

Mission won: 5

Elite: 7, and gains Fury of Kashyyyk

Rebel Trooper:

Corrected cost: 5

Mission won: 4

Elite: 6, and gains Combat Suit

Echo Base Trooper:

Corrected cost: 5

Mission won: 4

Elite: 5

Rebel Saboteur:

Corrected cost: 4

Mission won: 3

Elite: 5, and gains Targeting Computer

Alliance Smuggler:

Corrected cost: 2

Mission won: 0

Elite: 1

IMPERIAL:

Darth Vader:

Corrected cost: 15

Mission won: 12

General Weiss:

Corrected cost: 12

Mission won: 10, and gains Targeting Computer

Royal Guard Champion:

Corrected cost: 13

Mission won: 10

Kayn Somos:

Corrected cost: 8

Mission won: 7, and gains Advanced Com Systems

The Grand Inquisitor:

Corrected cost: 9

Mission won: 7

General Sorin:

Corrected cost: 6

Mission won: 5, and gains Advanced Com Systems

Agent Blaise:

Corrected cost: 6

Mission won: 4

AT-ST:

Corrected cost: 11

Boba Fett:

Corrected cost: 10

Mission won: 8, and gains Explosive Armaments

IG-88:

Corrected cost: 9

Mission won: 7, and gains Targeting Computer

Dengar:

Corrected cost: 6

Mission won: 4

Greedo:

Corrected cost: 4

Mission won: 3, and gains Punishing Strike

Bossk:

Corrected cost: 8

Mission won: 6

--Grey mission rewards: Rebel players automatically receive +1 xp per hero at the end of a Grey mission (win or lose), and +100 credits per hero if they win the mission, in addition to the mission’s usual rewards.

What does the Imperial Player get?

Also, any Influence cost reductions to the Agenda Card missions?

They're laughably expensive, and each time I've paid for one in the past I've regretted doing it.

(I keep doing it when I can afford them, because I still want to play the missions. But it always seems like a waste of influence)

Grey missions are just hurling XP and credits at the Rebels, bad.

Winning the first mission in Hoth will mean Rebels get elite troopers out of the gate, and they're quite good early on. Similarly winning Gideon's mission will give you elite troopers early.

Your corrected costs are mostly low for the Rebels and become truly silly with cost reducers like Murn or the side mission reward. The problem with Rebel non-unique allies isn't their flat cost. Early in the campaign they're generally too good as the actions they can save the Rebels can make up for the threat they generate, so reducing their cost early in the campaign just makes them ridiculously good. Late in the campaign they're very bad as they don't benefit from class cards like the deployment cards the Imperials get from them do.

Really bad idea for the grey side missions... Some hero's rewards are bad enough that the rebels would probably prefer to just do a normal grey side mission.

In our playgroup, we have hero missions always available since it's BS to play a character and never have a chance to get their specific mission. We have Loku, Biv, Gaarkhan, and Davith... and none of them care enough to do their hero missions since most of the rewards for these heroes is junk.

Really bad idea for the grey side missions... Some hero's rewards are bad enough that the rebels would probably prefer to just do a normal grey side mission.

In our playgroup, we have hero missions always available since it's BS to play a character and never have a chance to get their specific mission. We have Loku, Biv, Gaarkhan, and Davith... and none of them care enough to do their hero missions since most of the rewards for these heroes is junk.

Biv's reward is that he gets +1 surge and pierce 1 on EVERY attack targeting a trooper (50% of the imperial deck). How is that junk?????

Really bad idea for the grey side missions... Some hero's rewards are bad enough that the rebels would probably prefer to just do a normal grey side mission.

In our playgroup, we have hero missions always available since it's BS to play a character and never have a chance to get their specific mission. We have Loku, Biv, Gaarkhan, and Davith... and none of them care enough to do their hero missions since most of the rewards for these heroes is junk.

Biv's reward is that he gets +1 surge and pierce 1 on EVERY attack targeting a trooper (50% of the imperial deck). How is that junk?????

1. I said 'most'

2. My rebel players have yet to get that reward despite playing Biv 3 times. So I have yet to see it in action.

I like the idea of using an ally at a higher deployment cost if you havent won the reward mission yet. However, I am not in favor of lowering deployment costs so much. A few allies need to be tweaked certainly but most do not. For instance, luke and rebel sabtoeurs are great but Han is weak for his cost. I did a house rule with him that he gets one reroll on defense each time he is attacked (made sense being a smuggler). Also gave him the ability ~: recover 2dmg.

An important thing to remember with allies/villians is to always try and shield them. If you jump them out front and leave them there, you will be very dissappointed in the results. Better to spend 2 move pts to come from behind cover to shoot and then 2 move pts to get back behind cover. Exception is vader if you see a good opportunity for brutality.

Thanks for the feedback! I have updated my original post with some adjustments (which I've bolded). Let me know what you think! ; )

--The Imperial player cannot have more than two hidden Agenda cards at any one time. If he purchases a third, he must immediately choose one to discard. He regains the Influence cost of the discarded card.

Getting the influence cost back does not encourage the imperial player to play the agenda cards but encourages to find better cards and keep them until the finale.

My house rule is to have maximum of 4 Agenda Cards in play, any excess are simply discarded (not even an option to shuffle back into the agenda deck).

Your method penalizes the Imperial player for using face-up Agenda cards that aren't discard/reshuffle-on-use, though. The Rebels are constantly buying equipment, why can't the Imperial player get better abilities?

My objection to Agenda cards isn't the abilities they give the Imperial player. It's that the hidden cards are impossible for the Rebel players to strategize against. Face-up Agenda cards are known quantities, I would think it would be fine if the Imperial player wanted to spend all their influence on collecting those cards.

And if the Imperial player keeps buying hidden Agenda cards and not using them, that's only to the Rebels' benefit. (Note the Imperial player can't just decide to 'throw away' the hidden Agenda card to regain its Influence; a third hidden card has to be purchased first. Which means that two hidden Agendas must have already been purchased, and gone unused for at least one mission, or more likely for more than one mission.)

11 points on Chewbacca seems to be too strong. There are allies you only should use in big/later missions. Chewie might give the Imperial an Elite and Regular Group of Stormtroopers in theory, but later in the game a group like this is taken out in one heroes activation or even action, the group starts with +1 defense which is actually quite huge, the Imperial Player has to chose open groups before he knows if there will be a 15-point ally or not and is forced to use the deployment right away. And Chewie just won't die so you likely have that bonus and the extra activation until the very end. My Group brought him in in selected Missions and he was almost always worth his cost (and also more fun for me, because I got to field a lot of figures )

I think Chewie is costed correctly in the Campaign. Skirmish is another question, but then again that applies to all figures with two dice defence which comes at a hefty pricetag but skirmish games are too short to take advantage of it.

You don't bring Chewie to a Threat 3 Mission, that is just a bad decision. Late in the game, the Imperials have very few 3-dice attacks or explosive damage, and if a stormtrooper group shots at an hero Chewies Bonus means -3 damage on that hero alone.