Hi all,

Brand new to the game, but have played miniature games now for about 23 years so in a typical for our gaming group manner we bought one of everything (including the new transporter) a few days ago after a small trial game.

I can see where this will head and we will end up having multiples of everything, but for the moment my friend is going to open everything up and get all the cards set etc in one setting hopefully tonight .

I was hoping to get some card sleeves before we play our first games and potentially accidentally mess them up. Could anybody please advise on the following:

Uk supplier for the needed card sleeves.

How many packs of card sleeves will we need at the moment when we have 1 of everything.

As we haven't opened the packs yet I have no idea on how many protectors we will need and would rather get them all protected in one session so any advice on these points would be much appreciated.

Also any advice on a couple of balanced starter. 100pt lists would be much appreciated so we can get some games under our belt, learn the rules properly and start to learn what play styles etc we like before trying to swap in all of our other bits.

Thanks for any help and advice anyone can give. It's much appreciated.

FFG makes and sells card sleeves for their products, including X-Wing. I don't know where you'd buy them in the UK, but I get mine at the local game shop.

For one of everything, you'll probably need at least 3-4 packs of sleeves for the smaller cards (upgrades and damage deck) and 2-3 of the larger sleeve packs for pilot cards.

Firstly, welcome aboard Vegeta365!

Can't say for sure exactly how many sleeves you will need. I bought 4 card protector packs for both card sizes and ran out fairly quickly though I bought more than just one of each expansion. I will say it doesn't hurt to just stock up now and tons of card protectors so you won't have to worry about it. I keep finding myself going back to the gaming store to find more, and the store usually is out of the ones you'll need for x-wing minis.

There are so many different builds for a couple people starting out that its hard to give just one list. Just stick to the core pilots (green squadron, red squadron ect) and you should be fine. The less options and extras you add to the ships the easier the first game will be. With that said I will say that the added abilities of special pilots and upgrades are not at all complicated and to be quite honest don't make the game any harder. The only thing that will likely happen is you'll forget someones special ability and remember two rounds later after the fact. If you are just playing for familarization and fun don't worry about it!

Again, welcome to the forums and hope you have fun playing!

Congrats on getting your group into the game!

For large sleeves, one of each expansion will give you 78 Ship Cards, with no Unique cards repeated. There will also be some Rules Cards that are the same size, these won't see much use, but if you want to sleeve them there'll be 6 different cards with multiple copies of most of them.

Large sleeves; two packs of 50, with some left over.

For small sleeves there'll be around 110 Upgrade Cards, again with no Uniques repeated, and 53 Damage Cards.

Small sleeves; four packs of 50, with some left over.

That said, I'd highly recommend a second copy of the Core Set. X-Wings and TIE Fighters are still the staple ships for both factions, and the components in the set would allow your group to play two games at once, or allow one game to be played much more smoothly. You'd need another pack of small sleeves for the second damage deck, but the rest can be sleeved with the excess from above, or is a repeat of a Unique card.

For starter lists, I'd recommend doing the following:

- Each player picks four generic (non-unique) pilots of small base ships, with the Imperial player counting two TIE Fighters as a single selection. Then add upgrades to each ship until that ship is at 24-25 points. This way both sides will have fairly general lists, and won't have to worry about learning how to fly large ships or use character special abilities at first. Since you only have 1 of each expansion, it will look like this:

Rebel Alliance:

25 - X-Wing [Rookie Pilot] + Proton Torpedoes

25 - Y-Wing [Gray Squadron Pilot] + R2 Astromech + Proton Torpedoes

24 - A-Wing [Green Squadron Pilot] + Deadeye + Concussion Missiles

25 - B-Wing [blue Squadron Pilot] + Advanced Sensors

Galactic Empire:

25 - TIE Fighter [Obsidian Squadron Pilot] + TIE Fighter [Academy Pilot]

25 - TIE Advanced [Tempest Squadron Pilot] + Cluster Missiles

24 - TIE Interceptor [saber Squadron Pilot] + Push The Limit

24 - TIE Bomber [Gamma Squadron Pilot] + Concussion Missiles + Seismic Charges

Fantasy flight games products list on the back of their packaging how many packs of what kind of sleeves are needed to sleeve everything in the product.

Not super useful in this situation because each expansion needs far less than the full 50 cards from each pack listed, but it can be good to know the info is there.

Thanks a lot for all the support so far.

Sorry, completely forgot to say about 2 starter sets. I thought it was best to have two of the starter set even just to have two sets of the templates and rules. I had noticed over the week that a lot of people talk about swarm lists and having 2 starters also seemed to solve getting more of the tie fighters and x wings as you describe Joker Two.

I will have to have a look for the card protectors from a UK stockist tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to find them from an online retailer as I know my LGS doesn't stock them. Clearly shipping is cheaper from a UK stockist and like I said, I would prefer to get them asap to keep them safe. Sounds like I should get 5 packs of small protectors and 3 large packs of protectors so that when we inevitably buy some more of the current range (and all of the new releases over the next month) we will be covered.

Thanks for the steer on some starter lists too. Depending on work, we may be able play some games Wednesday night.

The community here looks great. Lots of posting, conversation and support. The only thing I have noticed, (and it is probably just down to me not even reading the cards yet) is that everyone shortens what everything is which makes it very difficult to anyone new to understand what units and upgrades people are talking about. Clearly in time we will soon understand the terms but until then is their a jargon buster about

Sleeves are great, especially when a 3 year old attacks your table. Too bad they don't make sleeves for fighters.

Cant help myself, but because your username is Vegeta, you should get OVER 9000!!!

Yep, the power of the dark side will flow through me like a champ!

And Sanchez, whilst I'm sure sleeves are a great defence to 3 year olds, I'm even more confident that my 2 little dachshunds are even better at chewing, the little buggers (I mean darlings). Not even confident the sleeves will protect but I guess they will work just like shields and delay the inevitable

Welcome to the game. We should have a sticky that explains the shorthand we use.

I've seen some forums with a hover glossary. It automatically picks up established short hands for things, then highlights them. When you hover on the highlight, a little box pops up with the definition of the shorthand.

There are other sleeve makers too. The FF ones are fine, but dont limit yourself. If you get in trouble you could yell, MAYDAY!

MAYDAY, could solve your needs if you get in trouble.

I have been using FF 41 x 63 mm sleeves for the upgrade cards. For the fighter cards, I have been using clear soft sleeves that come with the toploaders I get and then slide them into ultrapro toploaders. The soft sleeves keep the card from sliding around.

Too bad they don't make sleeves for fighters.

Do you think I could make a **REALLY** tall stand and just put the entire unopened blister pack on a ship base?

I would recommend FFG sleeves and Gameslore is a good online UK retailer, so ...

http://www.gameslore.com/acatalog/PR_50_x_Clear_Standard_Card_Sleeves_635mm_x_88mm_FFG.html

http://www.gameslore.com/acatalog/PR_50_x_Clear_Mini_American_Card_Sleeves_41mm_x_63mm_FFG.html

Don't buy Mayday sleeves, but Ultrapro's can be good if you don't want the FFG ones.

I like the mayday sleeves. I've used at least 5-6 packs of each size and all work well. As long as you are not using them for a game like magic the gathering (having to shuffle the cards constantly) you don't have to worry so much about them splitting open. AND they are easier on the wallet, which in a hobby like this is quite important. To be quite honest 50% of your cards in x-wing will see little to no use at all.. especially your doubles/triples of unique pilots...

Unfortunately Mayday has the worst quality control, and I've had periods where I've had to return a fair proportion of packs as they were too small. To be honest, it's just not worth the hassle, and I'd prefer to get what i want first time, without several trips to the post office and emails etc, and being sent several sets of packs all with a high proportion of them being too narrow or too short. I ended up in direct contact with Mayday, and they sent me more sleeves off their new quality controlled cutting machines .. and these ones were still the wrong size. In the end i was forced to call it day, as I had spent so much time dealing with buying plastic cards for sleeves.

They were very helpful and friendly, and i have no complaints about the service, only the product.

I've bought 2 sets of Mayday 100 pack sleeves for the upgrade cards and haven't had any issues with them. They're noticeably cheaper and thinner and overall crappier. But as was stated above, its not like I'm shuffling these card or anything. Furthermore they live in an ultrapro side loader binder.

That said, I have the FFG Star Wars themed for my pilot cards. As well as FFG mini sleeves for the damage decks - since those are shuffled and see a good bit of use, I didn't want to use the cheap Mayday sleeves on them.

I've seen some forums with a hover glossary. It automatically picks up established short hands for things, then highlights them. When you hover on the highlight, a little box pops up with the definition of the shorthand.

This would be so helpful to newbies, but I imagine requires someone to take the time writing the code.

A glossary that is stickied would be a good start and if someone with the time did it I can see many people in the future really benefiting.

Thanks to anyone willing to do this!

Thanks for the info on the card protectors. I will try and look tonight and place an order

I've bought 2 sets of Mayday 100 pack sleeves for the upgrade cards and haven't had any issues with them. They're noticeably cheaper and thinner and overall crappier. But as was stated above, its not like I'm shuffling these card or anything. Furthermore they live in an ultrapro side loader binder.

That said, I have the FFG Star Wars themed for my pilot cards. As well as FFG mini sleeves for the damage decks - since those are shuffled and see a good bit of use, I didn't want to use the cheap Mayday sleeves on them.

I have a ton of the FFG themed sleeves for my star wars decipher CCG collection. I didn't even think about using them for x-wing. Clear sleeves work just fine though since all the cards have "star wars" backs on them anyways. I might swap some out now that you mention it for my more heavily used pilots.