Howdy folks,

I'm running a campaign for some friends and I have noticed that not all side missions are created equal. Is there a consensus on which side missions are good or bad?

I guess I'd rate them on challenge/balance, interesting mechanics and story. All these together equal fun for me.

Thoughts?

For my part, the best side mission I've played is Temptation (Diala's character mission), and the least enjoyable was A Simple Task (rebels cake walked right through it).

I think one of the biggest things that makes for a truly terrible mission is if it is a total blowout. This thread from today has a post that links to some stats on win/loss ratios.

Overall, I'd say one of the most hated side mission is Viper's Den (though personally, I enjoyed it well enough).

Personally, I'd say my favorite side mission is Leia's acquisition.

With a relatively simple board (as all IA setups are) it really manages to capture the feeling of climbing a mountain. Plus, it's nice because it lets you put those snow tiles to use outside of the Hoth campaign (and, by extension, wampas!)

In our campaign, Leia also turned out to be a pretty invaluable ally, too. Totally worth playing.

Coming up with your own opinion is hard enough with all the variables affecting the mission (which heroes, imperial class deck, which items, what's the threat level, purchased agenda cards, which deployment groups are available), let alone consensus...

For example I have not played Viper's Den, because at the point it came up I would've probably won it easily with the exact right cards from Technological Superiority, so I suggested the rebels choose something else. But even that mission will play a lot differently if the rebels have been able to upgrade and the imperial player has some other class deck.

I have played 86 Imperial Assault campaign missions, but have not even played all of the core missions yet.

I would probably have to go with theme, and avoid all missions that have no time limits. Enything else, go for it, especially missions that have special objectives. Some have special objectives for the imperial player as well or instead, and I like those. (They tend to be agenda side missions though - maybe at some point I figure out how to plug them more easily into the campaigns without hand-picking them. I have used Back-Room Bargains as an intro mission for an extended minicampaign already.)

Also note for the Green side missions that the more valuable ally, the harder it might be for the rebel players.

I did say already that I don't appreciate missions without time limits at all.

The only mission I've hated thus far is Sympathy for the Rebellion. I just don't see how the Imperials can even come close to winning this. Not only that but it just wasn't fun.

Luxury Cruise is broken due to having only 1 deployment point, there are a couple other missions that have similar problems due to very low or badly placed deployment points.

As a rule of thumb side missions with a lot of starting forces tend to work better when played with high threat (when Rebels are better equipped) and ones with low starting forces tend to work better when played with low threat.

So missions with a lot of Imperials the board at the start will tend to overwhelm Rebels who only have a couple missions worth of XP and using mostly starter weapons.

Missions with very little starting or "set" deployments that rely on lots of 2x threat can often be easier for Rebels when run at 2 threat than at 3 or 4, and can be very hard at 5.