As the title says.

I don't know if I can motivate my gaming group for a full 10 missions campaign therefore I would like to shorten it by maybe 2 missions.

Are all story missions are mandatory? (I have never played a full campaign before). Probably yes, so I would have to decease the number of side missions. Would this lead to balancing issues?

It is easier to extend the minicampaigns (4 to 7 or 8 missions) than shorten the full-length campaigns (11 missions to XX).

The easiest way to shorten (the core) campaign is to

a) Skip Aftermath, and give rewards according to the 'weaker side losing' - in the core campaign that puts the weaker side to an easier path.

b) skip one or more side missions and give rewards to both sides (1 XP, 100 cr per hero, and 1 XP, 1 influence). This is especially apt for the first side mission, which is swingy because of low threat level and not much upgrades on either side.

Skipping one of each gets you down to 9 missions. You could randomize which third mission to skip.

Something about extending minicampaigns with two finished ones (Twin Shadows and Bespin Gambit): https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/218205/a1berts-imperial-assault-play-forum-campaigns

Assuming you are playing Base campaign, I would skip Side Mission 1 and Side mission 4.

Give everyone the base rewards for the skipped mission: 1 xp, 100 credits per hero, and 1 influence.

The biggest drawback of doing it this way, is A New Threat will be even tougher than it already is (if they win Aftermath). I would recommend maybe playing with the terminals face up and maybe replacing the reserved nexu with a different group of same cost (Jet Troopers?).

Topic about this:

If they're going to enjoy themselves for 8 missions, I'd imagine they wouldn't mind an additional two.

What I'd be more worried about is if they can even make it for 8. IA is not a short game when playing campaign, and the last thing you want is a disinterested party from the get go.

Yea the best way to do it would be as Albert said, skip side missions and just reward baseline xp/influence/credits. This will still allow your team to scale with the difficulty of the missions but require you to play less. You could probably get away with skipping A New Threat and/or Fly Solo if it ever comes up as well and playing a side mission instead, because if you already have tentative commitment you will lose them after those one sided flop fests

Just a side note though, I am not suggestion skipping the side missions because they are inferior in anyway, it is quite the contrary, the side missions are actually some of the most fun missions available. But for the sake of the story line and overall balance, it is better if you don't skip story missions if/when possible.

Thank you for all the great advice!

After giving it some thought I will stick with the core campaign and hope the group will stay on board. If we have to play "A new threat" or "Fly Solo" I will definitely try the suggested fixes in the other thread.

Another question: Are there any particulary badly balanced or boring side missions? As I would like to make the campaign as balanced as possible , I would just leave these missions out of the side mission deck.

11 minutes ago, Allenamenvergeben said:

Thank you for all the great advice!

After giving it some thought I will stick with the core campaign and hope the group will stay on board. If we have to play "A new threat" or "Fly Solo" I will definitely try the suggested fixes in the other thread.

Another question: Are there any particulary badly balanced or boring side missions? As I would like to make the campaign as balanced as possible , I would just leave these missions out of the side mission deck.

I'd make sure Viper's Den isn't in your mission deck.

If you don't have any expansions, I might suggest Sympathy for the Rebellion (your Rebel players will probably be excited to at least get Luke once).

I've also had some good experience with Canyon Run, though I don't know how the rest of the forum feels about that. Keep in mind that it was with only two Rebel heroes- this might be one of those weird situations where the game would have actually been less balanced with 4, as even with their extra activations it ended up being down to the wire for both sides. That's in the Twin Shadows wave, though, I believe.

If you can get out Vader's mission Dark Obsession, your Rebels might have some fun with that. Maybe a little intimidating to see Vader, but taking him down is pretty satisfying.

Basically, any way you can bring in iconic characters (or at least iconic situations) is good. For instance, there's a particular mission that mirrors the prison block section of Ep IV, and my Rebels loved that flavor (they specifically requested an Ep IV playlist during it).

Now, not everyone is going to agree with me on this, but I tend to try to balance playing thematically with playing competitively. That's to say, I'm probably not going to bring Nexu's onto Hoth, or I might splurge for a Bantha on Tatooine. However, that doesn't mean I take it easy on my Rebels, nor does it mean I go for complete annihilation. I always aim to set myself up in the pregame to win by a little bit, and then give it my all during the game- sometimes that means I get crushed, sometimes my Rebels underperform and get crushed, but usually it makes for a pretty close game either way. Nobody likes it when one side runs away with the campaign

Gideon's Side mission is rediculously off but if he is in party, nothing you can do about it.

Generous Donations is also pretty bad design overwall.

Ooh, Mak's side mission would probably be fun.

Also, Diala's.

Maybe Fenn or Jyn's- though Jyn's would require you to take her along on the campaign, which I wouldn't suggest.

A Simple Task is a too simple task.

23 hours ago, subtrendy said:

I've also had some good experience with Canyon Run, though I don't know how the rest of the forum feels about that. Keep in mind that it was with only two Rebel heroes- this might be one of those weird situations where the game would have actually been less balanced with 4, as even with their extra activations it ended up being down to the wire for both sides. That's in the Twin Shadows wave, though, I believe.

Canyon Run is a good one. My group did Twin Shadows as our first campaign, so we were all on our third mission when we played it. 4 heroes and they won on the last activation, last action in fact.