Since setting up the 1st campaign can be a daunting task for anyone new to this style of game (myself included) here is something I think might be useful for you.
 
Remember the aim is to have fun so I would recommend a dry run first before committing to the campaign this way you can see how the mission plays out. Remember the Reference Cards, Rules Reference Guide and Learn to Play books will be invaluable and always the forum is here to help you with any advance ruling. 
 
 
Upon getting your very own copy of the SW:IA game take everything out and organise into piles, leave the cards inside their plastic container and the figures for the time being, what we are doing here is sorting out that you have the tiles, they have come off the blister pack ok and that you have the correct amount of items needed using the Learn to Play for the number of items in each section.
 
With the map pieces I did 1-10 11-20 21-30 and so on and then put them in separate food bags (temp for now) which means you can easily find what your after as the mission continue.
 
Now since you are playing the campaign and not the skirmish you can be picky with which cards bring out of the packaging (ideally all cards will be sleeved to protect them).
 
For the campaign you will need;
 
Rules Reference Guide (RRG) Campaign Guide (CG) 6 Hero Cards 39 Deployment Cards 3 decks  10 Story Mission Cards  14 Side Mission Cards 18 Agenda Cards 5 Reference Cards 54 Hero Class Cards 6 Decks 9 cards each character) 27 Imperial Class Cards 3 Decks 9 cards in each 36 Item Cards 3 Decks 12 cards in each 12 Supply Cards 18 Reward Cards 12 Condition Cards 3 Decks 4 cards in each 45 Damage Tokens 35x 1 damage 10x 5 damage 8 Terminal Tokens 8 Crate Tokens 1 Entrance Token 35 Strain Tokens ID Tokens for multiple groups 20 Mission Tokens 8 Rebel & Imperial and 12 Neutral 15 Condition Tokens 3 Types 5 of each Ally & Villain Token (Replace when you get the model) 4 Activation Tokens 11 Dice 1 white die and 2 of each red, blue, green, yellow 4 Door Tokens with stands 1 Threat and Round counter Opening up the additional Packs for Luke & Vader you will get some more cards which will slot into Story, Agenda and Reward decks
 
You notice you have some assembly to do the Threat & Round counter needs putting together and the AT-ST will need some assembly, following the instructions on page 2 of the Learn to Play guide you should have no issues doing this.
 
Now that you have sorted all the bits your ready to get cracking with the game. Choose who will be the Imperial and who will play as the Rebels and choose the Heroes that will take part in your campaign.
 
Each hero will then be give their class deck which contains 9 cards, each hero will automatically get a weapon given to them these cost 0 xp and are available from the start you will notice the weapons are basic, these cards tell you what you will roll when it comes to attacks and your character sheet will show you the dice to roll when defending. Again all covered in the Learn to Play.
 
The Imperial Player will have the Campaign Guide and not show the Rebels anything within, he/she will set up the mission placing the Tokens as they appear in the diagram and deploy his troops where they start, taking the card for the deployment from the Imperial Deck and placing them face up, the reserve cards for the mission are taken out and faced down so the Rebels can not see what they are.
 
The Imperial player will read out the Mission, what the Rebels need to do in order to win and what the Imperial player needs to do in order to win, and if there is a timer how many Rounds it will take before the Rebels automatically loose.
 
The Imperial player will put 0 Threat on the counter and turn the round dial to 1 for the first round, and the Rebels will begin, at the start of round 2 the Imperial will gain threat equal to the value found on the campaign log
 
Since nothing as been exhausted prior to start of round your able to commence into the action, this means you can opt to do the following
 
Move once and shoot Shoot twice Move twice Move and interact with a terminal, door or other mission token  
You can spend 2 strain to move 2 additional places, this doesn't count as an action! also note you can move - shoot - move as long as you have the movement points to do it, eg you have Speed 4 you move 2 spaces, shoot, then you use your remaining 2 spaces to move depleting your movement points for the round.
 
Once you have performed any 2 actions your character is exhausted and the Imperial player will get his turn.
 
Reminders:
 
The ( ) logo on the black and white dice cancels 1 surge You can only use the surge abilities once per attack  You can use unspent surge on recovery this will remove 1 strain per 1 surge if no strain 1 damage per 1 surge You have to use an ability to interact with terminal, door and tokens If you are wounded you will drop any tokens your carrying and are not able to pick anymore up Once wounded any strain is kept but any strain over your new limit is removed Imperial players can spend Threat to replenish lost units from the initial set up these are deployed in or as close to the initial set up as they can get also replenish Stormtrooper at the cost of 2 threat per model as shown to bring their squad back to 3 these models are deployed as close as the remaining trooper As you play through mission you can interact with crates, these crates give you items to use in the mission being played, they do no carry over. The crate however at the end is worth 50 credits.
 
Once you come to the end of the mission depending who won the mission you follow the CG each Rebel hero will receive at least 1xp and 100 credits each and the Imperial will get 1xp and 1x Influence depending on the mission. Win Bonus will apply after as stated.
 
So you have 4 Rebel heroes in play that is 400 credits earned, you collected crates at 50 credits each and you get a win bonus of 100 credits per hero you can potentially earn 1000 credits to spend on your team.
 
The Campaign Log will show you which reward decks your allowed to draw cards from, your will get the I II III decks shuffle the I deck and draw 6 cards then you choose to purchase from them cards.
 
Using the XP gained look at character deck and see if you want to buy anything from there, remember you dont have to use your credits or xp point you can bank them to get better items.
 
The Imperial player will then check his XP and Influence and purchase Agenda cards and upgrades.
 
Bring out the next mission card and then using the side missions the Rebel player chooses 2 at random and then picks one to play you will have 1 active story 1 active side missions and 1 side mission in play 
 
Remember to keep a record of XP, Influence, Credits and purchased rewards and cards etc... 

I don't think the heroes can choose to skip a side mission.  I think they have to go Story Mission, then Side Mission, then Story Mission, etc. as laid out on the back of the Campaign book.

I don't think the heroes can choose to skip a side mission.  I think they have to go Story Mission, then Side Mission, then Story Mission, etc. as laid out on the back of the Campaign book.

I don't think the heroes can choose to skip a side mission.  I think they have to go Story Mission, then Side Mission, then Story Mission, etc. as laid out on the back of the Campaign book.

I don't think the heroes can choose to skip a side mission.  I think they have to go Story Mission, then Side Mission, then Story Mission, etc. as laid out on the back of the Campaign book.

I take it then it would be recommended to do the tutorial mission rather than jumping right in to Aftermath?

Here's a good tutorial on the "Dip" method 
http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/43744/dip-method-step-step-guide-painting-miniatures
You can use wood stain for the dip, or you can use the Army Painter "dip" as well.  Both work just about the same way.

It is a way for beginners to get into painting and get good results.  Worked great for me when I got into painting a few years ago.

I've only played one skirmish game so far.  In that game, in one turn, I lured Luke to the dark side, and had him blow away Fenn with a few well-placed blaster shots, and once I was done with Luke, I force choked him to death.
 
Sufficed to say, I'm hooked on this game.

I've only played one skirmish game so far.  In that game, in one turn, I lured Luke to the dark side, and had him blow away Fenn with a few well-placed blaster shots, and once I was done with Luke, I force choked him to death.
 
Sufficed to say, I'm hooked on this game.

I've only played one skirmish game so far.  In that game, in one turn, I lured Luke to the dark side, and had him blow away Fenn with a few well-placed blaster shots, and once I was done with Luke, I force choked him to death.
 
Sufficed to say, I'm hooked on this game.

I thought of the same thing.  I think it's legal, and potentially a nasty way to ensure you get some goodies.

Class and Item cards are only for the campaign.

You can get a Forced Mission as a mission reward. For that one you wait until after it to do the stages.
 
Think of it like this. You only do the upgrade stages once for each story or side mission card. It could look like this:
 
1. Story Mission.
2. Story Mission reward is a "Story Reward" Forced Mission.
3. post-mission cleanup
4. Play "Story Reward" Forced Mission
5. “post-mission cleanup”
6. Rebel Upgrade
7. Imperial upgrade (Imp buys "Agenda" Forced Mission).
8. Play "Agenda" Forced Mission
9. post-mission cleanup
10. Move on to next story or side mission.
 
The bold parts are rare but can come up. And you can have 2-4 without 8-9 or you can have all these steps.

I think there are a few types of forced missions:
 
1. An Agenda card. This would be forced after the Imperial Upgrade stage. After that mission you would do “postmission
cleanup” and then go to the next mission stage. No upgrade stages.   2. Mission reward. Before playing it you would resolve “post-mission cleanup” but do not resolve any Rebel or Imperial Upgrade Stages before this mission. The threat level for a forced mission is equal to the threat level of the most recently played mission. Then you would move to the next stage: Rebel and Imperial Upgrade Stages. (And you could get another Forced Mission here of type #1 above!)  
There are possibly other Forced Missions.

I take it then it would be recommended to do the tutorial mission rather than jumping right in to Aftermath?

So my game arrived today (YAY!)

Sleeving, punching, cleaning (and reshaping) the minis, and organizing it all took a pretty large chunk of the day, but frankly it was fun going through all the components.

thereisnotry - I used the plano box you recommended for the cards, and it worked perfect!

For the miniatures, I found a cheap bead organizer I had in my house worked perfectly.  It's pretty much identical to this one:

 
For the counters, I used a counter tray by GMT Games:


 
Again, it seemed to fit all the counters just perfectly (although damage and strain counters have to be divided into a few different "cups".
 
These 2 other trays fit in the box, and then I have the individual characters (hero card and class decks) each in their own baggy, and the map tiles are sorted into outdoor tiles in one bag, indoor tiles in another bag (with the smaller tiles in a separate bag inside the larger bag), and transition tiles in another bag.  This all fits in the box fine with the rules and the AT-ST.
 
So now I'm basically already for my campaign!  We start on Saturday.

What, no love for Lando?  We need him too. 

Never tell me the odds.

You need hobby tools to install it.  This is on purpose, so it can be considered a "miniatures" game instead of a board game.  Well done, FFG, clever strategy.

I hope most people realize my comment above was in jest.

And to be honest, the way they put it together is brilliant, marketing-wise.  They're going to make a killing, and I'm happy to be chipping in for it.  

For those who want to just see it as a boardgame, they can, and they will get a fuller game experience with the cardboard token characters there, rather than not.
For miniature gamers, they understand that this is a Core Set, something to be expanded on, and are going to jump in and grab the expansions anyway.

I hope most people realize my comment above was in jest.

And to be honest, the way they put it together is brilliant, marketing-wise.  They're going to make a killing, and I'm happy to be chipping in for it.  

For those who want to just see it as a boardgame, they can, and they will get a fuller game experience with the cardboard token characters there, rather than not.
For miniature gamers, they understand that this is a Core Set, something to be expanded on, and are going to jump in and grab the expansions anyway.

Someone on BGG suggested putting the pieces in near boiling water for several seconds to soften them up.  I think I might try that if I have trouble.

But it does seem strange to have cardboard tokens for characters, when this isn't even a board game, but a MINIATURES game. 

No need for apologies, thereisnotry, I should have looked more closely at it, and frankly, I don't know if it would all fit with that other container.  Certainly once the expansions roll in, then there's no way everything will fit in the box anyway, so it doesn't matter.  My Plano box arrived in the mail yesterday actually, and it looks very sturdy, and I'm very impressed and am sure it will work very well.

3 health each.