...so I've been collecting IA since it first came out but I've had few chances to play it, or keep up with the community. My friends and I are planning an IA campaign weekend soon and we wanted to try to play through somewhat chronologically, I was wondering if we start with Tyrant's of Lothal and then just carry on with the same characters into a new campaign - does this create big balance issues? Has anyone tried this? Is there an easy fix like adding more threat to the Imp player? It seems annoying to find a really cool character and have to have them start from scratch each adventure.

Also, has anyone played around with killing player characters and having the player have to choose a new one?

Yes, playing intro missions with fully kitted heroes will create issues, even if you increase threat level to 6. In story missions the initial groups, events, and other mission rules (attribute tests, object Health values, etc.) have been set according to the expected hero power level. The scaling in side missions also may not work if you have more than 10 XP and a lot of credits.

You will also run out of class cards to purchase, and all players heroes (and IP class) end up with the same cards in the end. There will be no variety in their abilities between campaigns (other than weapons and mods).

The heroes will also be able to come across their "optimal" weapons.

2 hours ago, a1bert said:

You will also run out of class cards to purchase, and all players end up with the same cards in the end. There will be no variety in their abilities between campaigns

It's this more than anything that makes it not work IMO. The heroes will have the ability to deal with anything and everything that comes up, with no hard choices to make. Perversely, though, with every ability available to them, their turns will take longer and the game will be slower as they have a longer list of abilities they have to consider and decide between to find the optimal approach. It gets not-fun very quickly.

10 hours ago, Kani Kantai said:

Also, has anyone played around with killing player characters and having the player have to choose a new one?

That would be pretty hardcore! I've not tried it, but it would change the gameplay dynamic enormously. As Imperial player, as soon as I wound a hero, in most missions I'll probably never need to attack that hero again - because I win most missions by wounding all heroes, there's a disincentive for me to pick on someone, and it's very rare for a hero to be taken out of the game entirely (which is not fun for them at all). This changes completely if I can permanently kill a hero and force them to restart - now, especially in later missions, my incentive is to eliminate heroes and take them completely out of the game until the next mission, because they lose a 6-XP or 8-XP character. Not only would that hero player find it unfun to have to sit out of the rest of the mission, it wouldn't be much fun for them in the next mission either, watching the other heroes use awesome abilities they don't have access to; and for the group, it would be very difficult - making the heroes take on 6-threat missions with 0-XP characters is... hardcore.

I get why you might wonder about this, but I'd think very, very, very carefully before doing it for real.

5 hours ago, Bitterman said:

This changes completely if I can permanently kill a hero and force them to restart - now, especially in later missions, my incentive is to eliminate heroes and take them completely out of the game until the next mission, because they lose a 6-XP or 8-XP character. Not only would that hero player find it unfun to have to sit out of the rest of the mission, it wouldn't be much fun for them in the next mission either, watching the other heroes use awesome abilities they don't have access to; and for the group, it would be very difficult - making the heroes take on 6-threat missions with 0-XP characters is... hardcore.

I've toyed with the idea of permanently killing heroes and the replacement hero comes in with the same XP as the previous hero.

It doesn't work well. Learning a new character with 8XP worth of skills can be a daunting task that may not go well the first mission or two. There's also the issue of purchased items. Many heroes only benefit from a specific weapon type (melee, ranged, pistols, rifles, etc.), so do you give them the full value back, or just half of it, furthering the difficulty of migrating to that new hero?

The flip side is that the rebel could pick a new character that better synergizes with their team, or better counters the imperial class deck, further unbalancing the campaign.

Back on-topic, I also don't recommend bringing over characters from previous campaigns with their end of campaign upgrades. So much of the fun and replayability of this system is the vast number of combinations that exist. I love to bring out heroes I've never played with before to see how they preform and how they integrate with specific scenarios and other heroes. If you keep the same heroes for an epic campaign, you're going to lose that, and I'm certain you'll get bored.

It depends on how much you want to stick to the rules as written.

As others have pointed out, most people end up picking the same skills and buying the same equipment for their hero at the end of the game, and making them game longer gives them more chances to do that.

Since all the small box missions can technically work as side missions, it could be done in theory. You'd want to adjust the XP given out to all parties, and the threat level of the Imperial player accordingly.

I'll also add that the game becomes kind of a mess once you get past 12 or 14 XP. It's the same problem that D&D has. At level 20 every character is a God and it's hard to find new challenges for them. Gameplay slows down as people throw everything and the kitchen sink at each other every turn and then it's either a grind or a very swingy cakewalk for both sides as every roll can be the difference between completely one-shotting an entire squad or leaving the heroes exposed to being hit with 8 or so damage each attack. There is technically a way for the Imperial player to get up to 16 XP in Jabba's Realm if he completely dominates the game, but if you are winning that much as the IP then what do you even need it for?

You could maybe extend things a bit by saying that players can have as much XP as they want, but that they can only deploy a hero with 12 - 14 XP worth of cards in a given mission. Or say that they can use that overpowered hero, but that they won't gain any XP by doing it. Once they realize there is nothing to be gained by using the hero, they tend to want to pick someone else.

Good Advice all, many thanks.

Sounds like its more trouble than it’s worth, unfortunately, although the most intriguing idea is the perma-death for rebels, especially when it’s just two player so knocking out a character doesn’t equal a player having to sit out - I think what I am looking for is an experience more like Kingdom Death: Monster where you have a “pool” of heroes you can assign teams of to different missions.

I played the original campaign 2years ago as the IP against two friends and I played a rule where if they killed an Imperial Unique I couldn’t use them again unless the mission specifically mentioned them as a required group - my friends went all out (and succeeded) in killing my Agent Blaise, even though it cost them that specific mission.

It was fun, but I can see how Rebel perms-death would be far too brutal.

8 hours ago, Kani Kantai said:

I played the original campaign 2years ago as the IP against two friends and I played a rule where if they killed an Imperial Unique I couldn’t use them again unless the mission specifically mentioned them as a required group - my friends went all out (and succeeded) in killing my Agent Blaise, even though it cost them that specific mission.

This I like - I kind-of do it already, informally, rather than as a rule, just because it makes sense. Even then it can get a bit silly, the campaign (Hoth?) where Dengar kept turning up was ridiculous, I think they killed him more often than they killed regular Stormtroopers, or that's what it felt like anyway.

8 hours ago, Kani Kantai said:

... the most intriguing idea is the perma-death for rebels, especially when it’s just two player so knocking out a character doesn’t equal a player having to sit out

Ah, to be fair that would remove some of the concerns over permadeath, it's true.

It still means that 8+XP heroes get replaced with 0XP heroes in late missions, which would be hideous - or you give the replacement heroes the same XP (or have a pool which swap in and out but all level up whether they take part in the mission or not), which would work but learning a hero for the first time when he's already got four skills could be overwhelming, and seems to me like it would weaken the RP elements of sticking with a character while it grows (YMMV). Personally I wouldn't go there, but you do you of course, it's your game.

14 hours ago, thestag said:

I've toyed with the idea of permanently killing heroes and the replacement hero comes in with the same XP as the previous hero.

It doesn't work well. Learning a new character with 8XP worth of skills can be a daunting task that may not go well the first mission or two 

perma-death was an idea that I've seen previously, I couldn't see it ever working out regardless of xp. If I'm playing as Imperial I will concentrate all firepower on killing off the heroes: sure I might lose the first several mission, or even the first half of the campaign but there's a fairly solid chance that the Rebels won't even have a 4-Rebel team left in the late-campaign. The old discussion's on the BGG forum

23 minutes ago, ricope said:

perma-death was an idea that I've seen previously, I couldn't see it ever working out regardless of xp. If I'm playing as Imperial I will concentrate all firepower on killing off the heroes: sure I might lose the first several mission, or even the first half of the campaign but there's a fairly solid chance that the Rebels won't even have a 4-Rebel team left in the late-campaign. The old discussion's on the BGG forum

Even with a pool of 21 heroes and replacing dead ones with XP-boosted replacements?

Thanks for the thread, I will def check it out.

I think all things said so far have led me to feel the perma-death self-rule for the Imperial player is the least problematic to incorporate - if not mostly because I am very much a “challenge” gamer and I don’t mind losing if it’s a hard/well-fought defeat that makes my opponent feel like they almost lost. I play a lot of Wargames that are very asymmetrical in terms of balance, Battle of the Bulge sticks out: No matter how well you do as the Germans, you still lose in the end (because of course the would have) it’s about improving your score.

So as the Imperial mastermind I don’t mind the idea that I’m probably doomed to fail in the end, lose two Death Stars and an Emperor before it’s all said and done, the fun was in the moment. 😆

Better a tyrant for a year than a peasant for a life-time and all that... 😉

44 minutes ago, Bitterman said:

This I like - I kind-of do it already, informally, rather than as a rule, just because it makes sense. Even then it can get a bit silly, the campaign (Hoth?) where Dengar kept turning up was ridiculous, I think they killed him more often than they killed regular Stormtroopers, or that's what it felt like anyway.

Yeah, exactly. And as we are a lore-heavy group it doesn’t necessarily even mean that they actually killed Dengar...he may have just quit because it was more trouble than it was worth, or been fired, or severely injured, or had a much bigger crisis elsewhere he had to deal with, etc etc.

We do tend to bend the lore sometimes too though - we will often string two or three games of Rebellion together and (for example) one time the Imp player started with Dark Leia instead of Vader because in the last game Leia was turned and Vader died in battle. It’s pretty cool for a change.

Usually the first game is Rogue One heavy, the second is a random mix of both, and the third is core heavy.

1 hour ago, Kani Kantai said:

Even with a pool of 21 heroes and replacing dead ones with XP-boosted replacements?

21 might be different, I think in the thread the OP mentioned he's going to have a pool of 8 heroes

Just something I like to do: whenever someone proposes a new house rule I will see how can I exploit it to the best of my abilities from both Rebel and Imperial's perspective

I still can't see it working out. First there's the fairness, if Rebels can cycle out/swap out heroes with full xp then I'd argue as Imperial I should also be allowed to swap out Imperial class each mission: at 0xp I'll take Military Might, at 1xp I'll take Subversive Tactic with Savage Weapon, at 2xp I'll take Power of Dark side with Embrace Anger, at 3xp I'll switch back to MM with Sustained Fire or Armored Onslaught with Mortar...etc

Second there's the possibility of the Rebel group being deliberately forced: who makes the decision on which Rebel gets swapped in after the old one dies? If Rebel then as Rebel I'll deliberately suicide the weaker heroes so that I can get Fenn + Gideon + Shyla + Diala or similar. If Imperial then as Imperial I'll kill off heroes until the Rebel team is Biv + Saska + Loku + MHD or similar

38 minutes ago, ricope said:

21 might be different, I think in the thread the OP mentioned he's going to have a pool of 8 heroes

Just something I like to do: whenever someone proposes a new house rule I will see how can I exploit it to the best of my abilities from both Rebel and Imperial's perspective

I still can't see it working out. First there's the fairness, if Rebels can cycle out/swap out heroes with full xp then I'd argue as Imperial I should also be allowed to swap out Imperial class each mission: at 0xp I'll take Military Might, at 1xp I'll take Subversive Tactic with Savage Weapon, at 2xp I'll take Power of Dark side with Embrace Anger, at 3xp I'll switch back to MM with Sustained Fire or Armored Onslaught with Mortar...etc

Second there's the possibility of the Rebel group being deliberately forced: who makes the decision on which Rebel gets swapped in after the old one dies? If Rebel then as Rebel I'll deliberately suicide the weaker heroes so that I can get Fenn + Gideon + Shyla + Diala or similar. If Imperial then as Imperial I'll kill off heroes until the Rebel team is Biv + Saska + Loku + MHD or similar

While I completely understand your point, I think the fears you raise are mitigated by there being only two of us and each of us having almost zero experience with the game, and many of our choices being based solely on how cool the art corresponding to the card/figure is. 😂

As the Rebel player, I’m very motivated to keep my heroes alive simply because I want an immersive experience more than a balanced chess-like competition. I want the challenge, and I want big consequences for big risks - yes that Hail Mary charge may complete the objective, but may also kill my current favourite character.

As the Imperial player, I feel similarly - I want to succeed with my favourite champions in tact - every unique character the rebel’s kill is a propaganda defeat I can’t afford and makes me look weak.

I think it’s an interesting enough experiment that we may take the plunge. I completely agree that in literally any other situation (even with just us but with a bit more experience) it’s going to make things less fun and more broken, and if May not even work this time.

If you want to extend the campaign, why not integrate it with a mission oriented X-Wing campaign?

I've been mulling this very thing over myself lately.

I was thinking that it would be neat if the wins in IA gave you cool stuff in X-wing (new ships, pilot abilities, upgrades etc) and the wins in X-wing gave you cool stuff in IA.

The optional missions from the X-Wing boxes sets could give you some inspiration for story driven missions.

What's cool about this idea is that it allows both sides to level up in both games without exceeding the limits inherently bound into them.

But how cool would it be to have your rebels steal an experimental empire ship in IA and then fly it in X-wing?

You could even allow an Ally like Luke, Chewie, or Han appear in both IA and X-wing. You could even give them different ships to keep it fresh!

As a bonus, X-wing is fairly easy to regulate via the points system. The imperial player could adjust the points allotted per side as necessary to keep the missions competitive.