I'm planning on starting a new campaign with some players who are new to Imperial Assault. I've been playing for a couple years, and one other player who will be joining has also. So there will be 2 experienced players and 2 new players. I will be playing the Imperials (possibly having joint command with one of the new players) and the rest will play the Rebels.

It needs to be a mini-campaign, because we only have a few months to do it before we won't all be available, and we can't meet frequently enough to do a full campaign in that time. So which mini-campaign would you recommend? Bespin seems really hard for the Rebels, but Twin Shadows came out earlier and I feel like they've improved their balance and campaign quality over time. So I don't know which one to do.

I think the Twin Shadows intro is a little harder than the Bespin Gambit intro. In my experience most Bespin missions are easier than Twin Shadows, especially the intro (Reclamation), so the rebels tend to receive Lando as an ally. (Reclassified is one of the harder ones for the rebels, but where a loss in it leads to - Freedom Fighters is again on the easy side.)

Thanks for the input! I should add - the way we play, each side gets the same rewards whether they win or lose (the totals end up halfway between what you would normally get for winning and what you'd get for losing), so we don't need to worry about one side snowballing their advantage. I just want to play the one that will feel winnable for the Rebels more of the time.

I'm not sure if it was the class deck or the hero combo or what, but I've only played Bespin once and my Rebel opponent got absolutely smoked. Many of the missions were at the point where they didn't feel winnable, which I think left him a little sour afterwards.

Granted I'm the more experienced player, but we've had more even games in other campaigns. I'm not going to say that my experience is for sure indicative of the actual difficulty (like I said, I've only played it the one time) but you can take it for what it's worth.

One more thing about Twin Shadows is that, if your friends are Star Wars fans, there are some pretty nice thematic missions in that campaign. You start with a Han vs. Boba Fett fight in a cantina, move on to Canyon Run which, while it's a tough mission for the rebels, is still a cool one with the tuskens taking pot shots at you the whole time. Then the finale, no matter which one you end up with, is an assault on an imperial star destroyer (with the cool bridge tile).

The Bespin campaign has the carbon freezing chamber which is really cool, and (*spoilers*) possibly a really great thematic appearance by an un-killable Vader who slowly marches towards you.

I've heard Bespin is really hard, and the missions I've played for it have been tough on the Rebels, but that pretty much contradicts a1bert's experience with it, so take that with a grain of salt.

Minicampaigns can be a little tougher to balance, anyway, so you might just want to choose aesthetically what your friends would like, since all the moving pieces could really make the game swing either way.

Typically, people tend to think new players would be more into the Han/Boba Fett aspect of Twin Shadows, but I could see them liking TBG too, if they're big Lando or Bossk fans.

Twin Shadows is hard for Rebels, Bespin is impossible.

Someone posted a home made one a while back that strung together side missions, Bantha, Inquisitor, Smuggler, Obi-Wan etc. and it was pretty good although I'd swap the 1st and 2nd missions of that one.

You could also just do the same thing yourself and put together 4 side missions. Maybe do a 5 mission campaign with the first 4 missions being the Rebel's own side missions and then the 5th being a finale mission or one of the tougher missions you've liked.

5 minutes ago, Union said:

You could also do the same thing yourself and put together 4 side missions. Maybe do a 5 mission campaign with the first 4 missions being the Rebel's own side missions and then the 5th being a finale mission or one of the tougher missions you've liked.

Lots of options, really. Since TBG and TS lay the structure for a minicampaign and they're campaigns made entirely of side missions, it really isn't a bad idea to swap out stuff.

If they're new Rebel players, you could even give them a sort of tour de force of some of the better side missions, while giving examples of various different types. For example, you could do a Jedi themed campaign where you played Diala's side mission for her lightsaber reward, then faced Vader in his acquisition mission, then play Davith's side mission, Jedi Luke's acquisition mission, and follow it up with something like Cloud City's secret.

Really, balance might be a little wonky, but that's kind of always gonna be the case with a game like this.

Hmm, stringing side missions together in a custom mini-campaign is a cool idea. I've seen the ally/villain pack one (it was pretty cool), but I didn't notice that you could do that with any side missions.

What are some of your favorite side missions? Either because they're well-balanced, or just fun.

When I played Twin Shadows as the Imperial it was everyone's first campaign. The Rebels won the first three missions and got beaten badly in the finale. The first mission was close, second was a Rebel blow out, and Canyon Run felt like it was incredibly well balanced.

I'm playing my Bespin as my first campaign as a rebel now and we've won the first two missions. The first one we won pretty handily, but the second (Reclassified) was pretty hard fought. We'll see how the remaining missions go.

Honestly, I'm not sure that the mini campaigns are really well geared towards new players, particularly Rebels. Putting together a string of side missions might be the way to go.

Also, consider that part of the reason minis are so new player unfriendly is that while a full campaign is a slow burn, minis go very quickly. There's little time for Rebels to get a feel for the build of their character, and often may have difficulty forming a strategy on gear/skills to buy. Basically, scaling everything so fast is obviously going to be harder for players new to the game.

2 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

There's little time for Rebels to get a feel for the build of their character, and often may have difficulty forming a strategy on gear/skills to buy.

Which is why my extended minicampaigns have an additional intro mission (and the setup XP and credits are adjusted accordingly).

I agree with much of what has been said. Personally, I think Twin Shadows is just a little more fun for newer players thematically and I think you can always back-off a bit if they're getting trampled.

Just a side thought: You could play a full campaign without side missions. I think most of them have 7 story missions and 4 side missions. If you do full rewards either way, they you can just give the rewards for the side missions without playing them. Then you'd only need 7 weeks and you'd have more options for campaign choice.

1 hour ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I agree with much of what has been said. Personally, I think Twin Shadows is just a little more fun for newer players thematically and I think you can always back-off a bit if they're getting trampled.

Just a side thought: You could play a full campaign without side missions. I think most of them have 7 story missions and 4 side missions. If you do full rewards either way, they you can just give the rewards for the side missions without playing them. Then you'd only need 7 weeks and you'd have more options for campaign choice.

I had though of this, but I'm not sure we'll even be able to meet once a week; it'll probably be more like every 3 weeks. So we don't have time even to do 7 missions unfortunately.

3 hours ago, a1bert said:

Which is why my extended minicampaigns have an additional intro mission (and the setup XP and credits are adjusted accordingly).

How long are your extended mini-campaigns? I remember you posted a template for those at some point; can you link to that? I might do a partial version of that, maybe even just the initial intro mission.

5 hours ago, Stompburger said:

How long are your extended mini-campaigns? I remember you posted a template for those at some point; can you link to that? I might do a partial version of that, maybe even just the initial intro mission.

The two FFG Mini Campaigns currently released follow this set up:

1. Intro: Green Mission

2. Story 1: Red Mission 1 or Red Mission 2 (depending on win/loss in Intro)

3. Story 2: Grey Mission (regardless of win/loss in Story 1)

4. Finale: One of two depending on win/loss in Story 2. Depends. Twin Shadows used two Agenda Missions. Bespin Gambit uses two Grey Missions.

Bespin Gambit adds the option for a forced Grey Mission (Into the Unknownb) between Story 1 and Story 2.

Pasi can better explain how he extends his campaigns additionally beyond what I've listed above.

Also;
Green Mission = Ally Side Mission -> (Han in Shadows, Lando in Bespin)
Red Mission = Hero Side Mission -> (Biv/Saska in Shadows, Murne/Davith in Bespin)
Grey Mission = Grey Side Mission -> (Canyon Run in Shadows, Freedom Fighters in Bespin)
Finale Mission = Agenda or Grey Side Mission

You could probably follow this basic structure using any Ally mission, followed by one of two Hero mission, then a grey mission, followed by a grey/agenda mission finale.

You can see the short description of the extended minicampaign variants and a few examples from:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/218205/a1berts-imperial-assault-play-forum-campaigns

I heard Salvage Operatives used as an intro. I have used Back-Room Bargains, which the rebels have always won.

I'm glad TBG went with grey finales. Agenda missions are just so... difficult to get into play. The Imp player has to put them into his deck, then he has to buy them, then the Rebels have to choose to oppose it. Some missions aren't even worth opposing for their rewards, so with most groups they'll never even see play anyway.

And the TS finales actually look interesting. Actually kinda makes me want to play the mini

Thanks for all the input! I think I'll probably go with the 1-mission intro with 2XP, 1200 Credits, 1 Influence, then do the rest of the campaign as normal (still not sure whether to do Bespin or TS). I think throwing new players in with a full 3XP and 1200 Credits would be too tough.

Or maybe we should just play the Core Campaign intro, and make up a story to have it connect to whatever Mini-campaign we play? I really like that first mission as an introduction for new players.

I guess you could also theoretically do a side mission with 0XP, 0 Credits, and 0 Influence. @a1bert , do you feel like that would be imbalanced or problematic in any way?

Side missions are not intended (tested) to be played at 0XP and Threat Level 2, so some may work better than some others.