Hey there, so i'm halfway through my first IA Campaign and I love it. I love how it gives a bit of an RPG feel without all the hassle of one. I'm thinking of getting Twin Shadows and I'm wondering what is the best way to use it. I was thinking of using the mini campaign as a way to play with people who don't wanna commit to an 11+ mission campaign but the thing that sucks about that is that you don't seem to get the hero side missions which I think are cool. Does it work well as being integrated in a normal campaign? my biggest worry is that it will add more stuff to rummage through when setting up and make things messy and more time consuming. What do you guys think?

A lot of members highly recommend the mini-campaign formats found in Bespin Gambit and Twin Shadows!

You’re definitely right: saves a lot of time and requires minimal commitment.

They’re great follow ups to full length campaigns because by that point players will be familiar with XP spending/item purchasing and will most likely enjoy how accelerated the upgrading is (way more XP and credits in between missions).

No hero side missions is a slight bummer BUT heroes that come with the expansion (so Biv and Saska for Twin Shadows) have their side missions worked into the campaign depending on winning/loosing conditions.

Some players tweak the format to add in side missions into mini-camapigns, feel free to do so!

As for integrating the components into a normal campaign, if you're an organized gamer, I really don’t see the issue. Separate marked bags for the tiles and different compartments in tackle boxes for the new tokens make things easy.

As for integrating the components into a normal campaign, if you're an organized gamer, I really don’t see the issue. Separate marked bags for the tiles and different compartments in tackle boxes for the new tokens make things easy.

I organize my stuff into bags and label them, I guess my worry is more of a long term one. Where as I accumulate more expansions my load of stuff gets cumbersome. Like battlestar and x-wing have become for me.

You do get at least one of the hero missions of the Twin Shadows heroes because they make up the 6-mission campaign mission "tree".

When integrating with a full campaign, it does not add anything extra, the minicampaign is not integrated as a whole, but as its parts - you perform the campaign setup normally, the side missions and agenda sets of Twin Shadows are just selectable when you set up the full-length campaign.

(Edit: I like a little longer campaigns than the minicampaigns, but shorter than a full campaign, so I have run a couple of extended minicampaigns using two different systems. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1601278/cloud-city-crackdown-swia033/and https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1507945/rise-and-fall-twin-shadows-swia024/ . I think I like the hand-picked side missions better, and spending a little time adjusting the flavor text to tie the missions better together.)

I, personally, am not a fan of the mini campaigns. I feel a lot is lost when you don't have to save your points and credits, but rather can buy just about anything you want whenever you want. Additionally I love the side missions. The call is yours, but I'd vote integrating the side missions if you have the time/players.

As others have said- if brevity is what you're going for, TS or TBG might be exactly what you want. If you just want to play through all campaigns chronologically, I typically suggest just inserting TS and TBG into the larger campaigns.