So I am starting Heart of the Empire in a couple of weeks and reading through the first part of the book leaves me with a question.

I do not see anything about the side mission setup deck or how many of the Empire agenda decks to pick like I have found in some of the other expansions. Does this mean I follow the same procedure as the original campaign? Even though there seems to be less side missions?

Also has anyone ever just left out the Green side mission cards ? I have played several campaigns and I have found nobody ever picks them because the boon typically does not outweight the bane of the Empire player getting all the extra threat.

Heart of the Empire is a normal campaign, you use normal campaign setup rules.

You can house-rule though and use fewer cards in the sidemission deck.

If you're like me, I want to see more of the classic heroes and villains in the game. I agree that the rules as is, in regards to bringing out allies, hurt the rebels. I would suggest some house rules in favor of the rebels like reducing the threat cost of the base game allies by 1/3 or instead of getting all the threat bonus at once, getting it spread out through 2-3 rounds. Or, as suggested above, you could just not include them if you don't think they will ever be undertaken. Make the campaign as fun as you can for your group.

It all depends on the allies you earn and the abilities you have. For instance, if you have Murne's "Company of Heroes" and can reduce any ally's cost by 4 per mission, many allies become a downright bargain.

Allies like R2 and Hera can be useful if not just to help with activation and turn advantage. Some, like Leia, can be strong for support.

Then, there are some that I'd agree are rarely viable (unless, maybe if you can reduce their cost). For instance, Lando- in my opinion, I'd rather just get Hera, or spend the extra two threat for Leia. Or Han and Chewie, who are both pretty badly overpriced.

Regarding the green side missions, I use a house rule in my campaigns that heroes and villains earned from side missions can be brought to a mission for 0 threat (except for finale missions) and are then discarded for the rest of the campaign. This actually makes those green side missions and 3 Inf Agenda missions worth taking, but they only impact 1 mission which balances out with the fact that they basically cost 1 mission to earn. It makes those green side missions much more appealing and really helps to bring those classic Star Wars characters back to the table in a big way.

12 minutes ago, Tvboy said:

Regarding the green side missions, I use a house rule in my campaigns that heroes and villains earned from side missions can be brought to a mission for 0 threat (except for finale missions) and are then discarded for the rest of the campaign. This actually makes those green side missions and 3 Inf Agenda missions worth taking, but they only impact 1 mission which balances out with the fact that they basically cost 1 mission to earn. It makes those green side missions much more appealing and really helps to bring those classic Star Wars characters back to the table in a big way.

I use something similar but only for wave 1 and 2 allies: if you won the side/agenda mission then you get to use the skirmish attachment when you bring it in. For those that doesn't have an official fix (like Weiss, Kayn Somos) I apply a negative cost