Planning on getting this game soon along with the expansion. Would experienced players recommend playing the base game a few times first or could I throw in the expansion in right from the start?

I would throw the expansion in from the start, but I would hold off on using Yig. The Expansion adds much-needed cards to the decks and you won't have to deal with "repeating encounters" as many of us who played the game pre-FL had to.

Expansion also boosts the difficulty quite a bit. Passing OW encounters is more difficult, and research encounters offer lower rewards (almost no 2-clue encounters, and some 0-clue encounters); plus Poisoned and Lost in Time and Space conditions are nasty.

I suggest you to play at least one game with the core game only against each of the 4 core set AOs before adding the new material. It should help in getting the basics for an effective strategy, and so on. I know core game is actually skinny, but if you don't mind cycling through the same encounters a few time, it could be helpful

Thanks for the replies. I will do a solo play through with the base game to get usef to the rules, then have another adding the expansion. Should be ready to teach friends then, and will go with the base + expansion. But, will not take on Yig for a few games.

The new expansion doesn't really change the rules. Sure, there are a couple more conditions, and the cards are a little nastier, but there's no new rules to really explain, so I can't see much harm in throwing in the new expansion straight on in.

Maybe part of it at least. It's easy to run through the research deck even in your first game.