General question ...

As per normal rules ... if you wanted to deploy an elite version of a non-unique ally (saboteur, ranger, trooper, etc) ... you'd have to spend two of your side-mission slots on their mission (granted you drew both).

My question is - have any of you actually done this?

I asked our group and none of us thought it'd be worth the investment.

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and with that, do any of you have a good house-bake for bringing in elite-non-unique allies?

Are you sure about those rules? I read somewhere that you can't have two green side missions with the same reward. Rangers have only one mission anyway.

The others aren't really good. The second trooper mission comes with gideon and is red so you can have elite troopers.

When draving side missions we draw two (for three total), resolve one, discard one and ID sticker one. ID-ed ones can only be resolved or discarded. Especially in shorter campaigns this lets us skip greys we already played and get something nice.

1. You can only include one green side mission that grants the same ally.

2. It is still possible to gain the elite ally in other ways, because there are other than green side missions that grant allies (Gideon's mission, and Return to Hoth story mission to name a few).

The 'mantra' is "Regular for Campaign, Elite for Skirmish."

You gain elite allies with the LotA app if your regulars survive a mission.

Yes, I Imperialed a Hoth campaign where the Rebels took the Echo Base Troopers side mission and won, which gave them access to the elite EBTs. I think the only other way this is possible is in the Jabbas Realm campaign, IIRC there is a story mission that gives you access to several generic Rebel allies including troopers and rangers.

As far as whether it's worth it, well if you are using the Core rules for allies, pretty much the only ally that is "worth it" is C-3PO and maybe Hera. Otherwise, giving the Imperial player 5+ threat to work with at the start of a mission is just giving them that many more guns to add to their huge number of figures on the table and only giving you maybe 1 or 2 extra attacks that aren't very strong because Rebel deployment cards have been balanced for having access to focus in skirmish, which they don't in campaign.

However I have really liked the new ally rules that come with Lothal, where the Imperial player only gets half of an ally's cost as threat to start, but then gets to gradually harvest extra threat off the ally as the mission goes on if they allow that ally to stick around. If we are operating under those premises, then yes I'd say that unlocking the elite versions is usually going to be worth it, because the elite versions are actually going to have the punching power that's needed to reliably kill an Imperial figure when they activate. Elite allies also have the advantage of automatically passing any attribute test they have to make with 1 success, which means they can actually contribute to some missions outside of just killing stuff and blocking line of sight.

You can also get a non-unique regular ally of your choice in at least one heart of the empire story mission. But you will play only two side missions after the one I played that so you probably won't get any elite ally groups.

43 minutes ago, a1bert said:

You gain elite allies with the LotA app if your regulars survive a mission.

that actually might be a good house rule incentive for the rebels. if the Allies dont get eliminated in the mission they are deployed, then they are promoted to elite version. it may actually force the imperial player to spend some time eliminating them, giving the rebels time on their objective

1 hour ago, a1bert said:

You gain elite allies with the LotA app if your regulars survive a mission.

That's a smart idea. Everyone in our group has been guilty of treating grunts as "disposable meat shields". Like spidey says, it adds a nice layer of choice.

and yeah, we implemented the Lothal ally rules. Just so much better.

1 hour ago, thinkbomb said:

and yeah, we implemented the Lothal ally rules. Just so much better.

what is the lothal ally rules?

4 minutes ago, Spidey NZ said:

what is the lothal ally rules?

During the Tyrants of Lothal mini campaign, Rebel players follow a different procedure when choosing to
deploy an ally in a mission.

During step 7 of "Campaign Mission Setup", after the Rebel players choose and deploy an ally, the
Imperial player no longer gains threat equal to the Deployment cost listed on the Ally card. Instead, the
Imperial player gains threat equal to half that cost (rounded up) and may resolve an optional
deployment. Then, the Imperial player places strain tokens equal to half of the ally's Deployment cost
(rounded down) in his play area.

During step 1 of the Status Phase, after gaining threat equal to the threat level, the Imperial player
discards 1 strain token from his play area and increases threat by 2. The Imperial player does this each
round until there are no strain tokens in his play area.

If the ally is defeated, the Imperial player discards any remaining strain tokens in his play area. He does
not receive threat for tokens discarded this way.

(Copied from the handy-dandy The Consolidated Imperial Assault Rules. Also in the ToL rulebook.)

oh ok. thanks @a1bert i might start implementing this for the main campaigns. seems a bit convoluted, more tokens and maths but ill try it out on the heart of the empire campaign

4 hours ago, Spidey NZ said:

oh ok. thanks @a1bert i might start implementing this for the main campaigns. seems a bit convoluted, more tokens and maths but ill try it out on the heart of the empire campaign

Because there's tokens involved it's actually really easy to keep track. We were surprised

So, Imperial actually gets more threat (over time), but less up front?

If Rebels bring Obi-Wan Kenobi for 10 threat.

Imperial gets 5 threat, an optional deployment and 5 tokens.

During the Status Phase for round 1 the Impeiral gets an additional 2 threat and loses a token.

Then During the Status Phase for round 2 the Imperial gets an additional 2 threat and loses the final token.

If Obi is defeated now, the three remaining tokens are discarded without effect.

So, potentially the Imperial could have a total of 15 threat over 5 rounds?

But the rebels have an advantage at the start.

I think I like this.

You’ve got it. Whoever came up with this rule at FFG is a genius, I’ve been trying to fix allies in this game for years and would have never thought of this, but it works so well.

This is amazing. I haven't seen Chewie or Han show up as an ally because of their high cost in years.

To answer the original question: no.

My groups, across 5 campaigns, have never earned the Elite version of an ally via those rules.

Oh, the new Ally rule is absolutely the way to go. Even if you didn't buy Tyrants, implement that immediately.