I've seen comments now and then, but the search didn't really dig up much. So...

Any experiences with balancing for 5 heroes in a campaign?

Thanks!

Generally, it just doesn't work. You can't really just consider it to be an extra 25% of whatever mission assets there are, because you also have to figure that the 5th activation will have massive ramifications on what the heroes are capable of.

A more popular variant of this is to just give the heroes an ally that they must bring in each mission, to be controlled by one player- though, that also has balance issues, too.

Honestly, though, if your group just plays for fun, it shouldn't be too big of a deal to bring 5 heroes. Maybe consider something like this (you can tinker with it as you like, because it's probably not quite balanced as is):

As an optional deployment at the start of each mission, deploy 6+x threat worth of units, where x is equal to the total XP that the heroes have individually earned (so, assuming that the heroes have earned 2 XP apiece, you could deploy 8 threat worth of units). This deployment may not exceed 2 deployment groups.

Keep the threat level raised by one, as a constant.

Here's another option as highlighted by the brilliant and hilarious folks at SU & SD:

https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/imperial-assault-joining-dark-sidekick/

Have 2 Imperial players.

If you're set on a fifth hero go for it, but either way read the above article at least for its entertainment value.

What we did thats worked pretty well is give the empire control of A “dark” hero to balence out the 5th hero. So a normal hero controlled by the empire who can rest double attack ect and gains xp along with the empire and 100 credits per influence he can spend on items the rebels cant or don’t buy.

40 minutes ago, sabsben said:

What we did thats worked pretty well is give the empire control of A “dark” hero to balence out the 5th hero. So a normal hero controlled by the empire who can rest double attack ect and gains xp along with the empire and 100 credits per influence he can spend on items the rebels cant or don’t buy.

That's a really interesting idea! Could be a little wonky with balance still, but who cares as long as you're having fun!

Just out of curiosity, which hero went dark?

Thanks, great ideas!

I'm thinking about allowing myself a free unique, to be deployed whenever suits the mission, and a bit more threat. Keeping it thematic is most important, though.

I'm mostly focused on my rebels being challenged but having fun.

Appreciated your input!