I just got the Jabba villain pack, mainly as we are playing Jabbas Realm, and would prefer to not have to use the token. However I am going to be starting a campaign with another group. This will be the core campaign. I think Jabba is a cool unique figure in terms of what he brings to the game, as well as an iconic and recognizable figure from the movies. However, to play thematically in IA - I am struggling to see using him in the core campaign. Just seems like to drop him in an open group won’t fit the overall theme of the missions.

Has anyone used Jabba as a villain in the core campaign before? Thoughts on how to use him with it not feeling out of place? Feeling like other than Jabbas Realm and skirmish he might not get much use. But would love to hear ideas and experiences. Thanks!

You could always try playing with the Nemeses imperial class deck which came with the Jabba's realm campaign. It would give you a chance to use him without having to be lucky enough to draw, afford and then win his side mission. Especially since he could (potentially) be in every mission, you could come up with some sort of backstory for why he's there. The classic trope would be that one or more of your rebels owes him a debt for some past deed, and so he's tipped off the empire as to your whereabouts and is also trying to get back at you himself.

I mean it still doesn't explain why Jabba would be personally present in all these missions, but if you're going to have any hope of using these kinds of figures (Jabba, Palpatine, even Vader) your players are going to have to have at least a little bit of suspension of disbelief.

I think they easiest way to thematically use Jabba in the Core campaign would be to have him regularly show up in Side Missions. As I recall, several Core Side Missions features mercenary plots, and tying these together by having Jabba show up regularly might work well? As for pulling this off, you would either have to use the Nemesis deck (as ManateeX suggested), hope to score the Jabba mission early on, or just cheat and put him in as you like. If you play a friendly game that focuses on thematics rather than hard-core competitive gaming, it shouldn't be hard to pull off a Jabba cheat fairly. Good luck!

Thanks all, I think the nemesis idea is a great one. I am playing that now for JR, and it is a fun deck.

I can see how having him declared as a nemesis villain and appearing in several missions would help with the flavor. Was trying to avoid situations like what happened with the App Campaign, where in the middle of an interior imperial base tile (at a large terminal) Jabba was deployed. A little out of place there

Thematically, thanks to the edited OT DVDs we know Jabba met Han personally before embarking on his journey to Alderaan with Obi-Wan and Luke. The Core campaign takes place right after episode IV, i.e. after Han ditched Jabba to comeback and clear the path for Luke's "one in a million" shot. Han even stayed for the ceremony to grab his medal. So we can assumed he decided to not pay back Jabba, (confirmed in ESB on hoth). You could pretend that after Han killed Greedo in ANH, Jabba decided to take matters in its own hands.

Now why would he goes after some rebel heroes rather than Solo himself could be a good question.

Here's one idea if you play somehow casual, you could fit in Jabba "for free" right from the start of an early mission and bring Han let's say in the middle as some reinforcement (Jabba is worth 6 threat for the whole mission vs Han with his 12 threat for half of the mission, it could be seen as some sort of balance) Now you could point out that Jabba was there for Solo, but now because hero A did this or that to Jabba, then Jabba now wants hero A and his friends to be digested for a thousand years inside the Sarlacc! Now you have a motivation for deploying Jabba more often (with the use of Nemesis deck as other and you have pointed out, of course, let's just "cheat Jabba in" once to set up the table ).

Thematically, we've seen Jabba work closely with the Empire before. If you're willing to embellish the storyline a little bit, you could play it up that Jabba is involved with the Empire's plan (maybe using his underground contacts to secure construction materials, or whatever). He certainly wouldn't fit in with some of the missions -- but I think you can make a good case for many of them, and plenty of the Side Missions (as well as some of the Story Missions) occur outside of Imperial space. With a bit of self-control, and the Nemesis deck, I don't think you'd have much of a problem.

The Nemesis deck makes it easy, but if you're looking for some variety play something different and try to include Jabba's side mission. Since it occurs inside Jabba's Palace, it's perfectly natural and could be a good opportunity to establish him as a villain. The Hutt Mercenaries class deck could make Jabba's appearance more thematic too (he wants to collect the bounty that the Empire has placed on the Rebels' heads!).

I've been using him in my Core Campaign after I won him in the 2nd side mission.

I've sort of been playing him as a more malicious version of Hondo Onaka where he just sort of happens to keep bumping into the heroes while conducting his own business that relates to the mission the Rebels are on.

For example, when we played the next mission, Imperial Hospitality, I came up with the idea that Jabba had been imprisoned in the same facility and had organized a jail break along with the other merc figures at the same time as the Rebels, and killing them in the chaos would just be a bonus. Then in Temptation, I followed the theme that all the enemies were ghosts created by the dark side and said that Jabba was just another dark spirit haunting Diala from her past, which added an extra layer to Diala's possible backstory for the players. Then on Phantom Extraction, I said Jabba happened to be there to inspect some captured droids, including Chopper, for purchase and he was growing tired of the Rebels meddling in his business.