So out of pure speculation, assuming SW follows the LotR Core Set with 3 heroes from each sphere of influence, which 12 heroes do you expect from the SW Core Set, and to which tactics sphere do you think they will belong: Military, Rogue, Tech, or Operations?

 Okay, I changed my mind. Looking back at the prototype cards, all characters, whether unique or not, were called "Character" at the bottom of the card, so I suspect that there are no heroes in this game and getting a unique character is all in the luck of the draw. As such, this thread is terminated in its infancy. Still, it would have been cool to speculate. . .

I only know about this game from the official announcements, having not been to the demo at GenCon etc, but it looks to me like, while you won't be able to play heroes in the same was as the Lord of the Rings game, you might still be able to construct a deck around unique characters, so having Han Solo the centre of your Rogue strategy, or whatever, and maybe doubling him with Chewbacca or Lando, adding in the Falcon, maybe. I'd expect there to be some powerful synergies created between such characters. Same for having all of Rogue Squadron in a Military strategy. Because I expect each and every member of Rogue Squadron to be included in the course of this game!!!!!

Much in the same way as including that Celebrian's Stone when you have Aragorn in the deck, to increase the multi-sphering possibilities.

So I suppose I expect there to be a whole bunch of characters, unique or otherwise, and from that pool, some will stand out as central to the deck. A sort of commander effect, maybe. But as I say, I have no real idea of how this is going to work. And as the official announcements and description were made before GenCon, and they've had a good few months to tinker further with the game since then in the light of any possible flaws flagged up by the demo, maybe the official description won't be totally true of the end product. I suppose we'll see at the end of January!

So in the vein of the original post in this thread, we already seem to have Ackbar, but I would like to see Wedge Antilles as a major commander-type figure, I'd like a Lt Page and his commandos for the stealthy aspects of the Operations strategy. If they manage to bring in a convincing Fringe presence, I'd like to see folks like Booster Terrik and Talon Karrde become the focus of some decks, too.

 From what little is known about the game at this point, if I were designing a card game based on the Star Wars license, what I would do to accommodate the setting's dependence on specific (i.e. unique) characters is allow them to be used as a mulligan. Basically, if you have a character in your hand that is already in play under your control, you can expend that character for the turn and discard the copy in your hand in order to draw cards, or achieve some other benefit (such as healing the character, as in a lot of anime-inspired CCGs).

As to the original question (modified with respect to previous posts), I've thought a lot about how I'd like to see the Operations strategy play out, so the characters I would like to see in the Core Set for that strategy are as follows:

3x Kyle Katarn (as seen in Dark Forces I)
3x Lando Calrissian
3x Mon Mothma
3x Princess Leia 

There's something similar to what you describe in the A Game of Thrones LCG, where you can place a duplicate card underneath the one already in play to prevent that character being killed. Hopefully there'll be something similar here.

I'd second all of those choices anyway, and have to add in Winter too. Imagine, a card of Winter in her Targeter persona, being able to appropriate resources from your deck or discard pile or something...

With the reboot to the rules who thinks we might now also get imperial or bounty hunter main characters? Who do you think we'll get.

Vader, Palpatine, Ozzel, Piet, Needa are some of the obvious ones. Khurgee maybe? Moff Jerjerrod, paleon?

Jabba, Bobba Fett & all the hunters on the bridge of the executor but who else might we see? Dr Evazan & Ponda Baba maybe? 

I can definitely see it being more bland in that respect, yeah. Just like A Game of Thrones, and just like Warhammer. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing innovative, just like the other PvP games that FFG already have out there.

But, bitterness aside, I can definitely see Vader as a commander-figure, possibly Piett (the only other Imperial officer to be in more than one movie) and Tarkin is probably a sure thing, too. It would be interesting to see if they could bring in a Kir Kanos as head of the Royal Guard type of card, too. Carnor Jax, Lumiya, Admiral Daala, Zsinj, and Thrawn and Pellaeon are definitely cards I'd like to see when the EU gets a major presence in the game. To make it a really rewarding Imperial presence from the get-go, though, I think they would have to include EU characters in the Empire deck. I mean, through the total of the three Classic Era movies, there are a scant few Imperial officers who are actually mentioned, all the others are mere bit-parts, as opposed to the amount of Rebel characters we get. So unless the game is going to follow the AGoT or W:I models of having six playable factions, having just Rebels and Imperials means either an awful lot of cannon-fodder type cards, or else a proper delve into the EU pretty quickly.

I've just started to read Agent of the Empire, and would like to see Jahan Cross and some of the other guys from that storyline make an appearance in the game, as well!