I just got the starter set, a Y-wing and TIE Bomber for Christmas and am now looking to expand my collection. I'm only going to be playing kitchen table games with friends so I'm looking for variety rather than competitiveness, also, for no good reason I'm only looking at buying ships that appeared in the original three movies. So any advice on what to get and in what order? For now I'm after Rebel AND Imperial!
Cheers
A 2nd starter set is a must if you're playing at home and have to provide for them too. And you get 3 more ships. Then i'd go for a tie fighter exp pack, a x wing exp pack.
After that, a- and b- wing (or rebel aces) for rebels and advanced and interceptors (or imperial aces, or both) for the empire.
You may also want the Falcon and Firespray, if you can find them.
Then... well there's no real limit!
Anyway, for casual playing i'd roughly follow the wave publication order.
A second starter set is good as it will give you more dice and two sets of maneuver templates. So, if it's just you buying, then that's the way to go. It's better if you can con a friend into getting his own set, then you are good.
Getting one each of the X-wing and Tie Fighter blisters is good as they have pilots not used in the main boxed set. This is true for both the Imperial Aces and Rebel Aces pack. They have new pilots, but not the ones in the original blisters for those ships. So, beware.
Where to go after the 2nd starter or blisters for those ships? Well, you will probably need to get more Imperial ships as Tie Fighters aren't as expensive. Darth Vader is always iconic. I like owning 6 Tie Fighters, but if you got some of the other stuff you might not need as many. Firespray is a lot of fun and iconic. Tie Interceptors are good. Lambda Shuttle is really cheap for what it does. It can be hard to learn to fly, but I love 'em.
For Rebels, I love the Y-wing. They are iconic. I've only got 1 and you wouldn't need more, unless you do big games. After getting 4 X-wings and a Y-wing, you can really just decide what you want. B-wings are more powerful, but A-wings are fun. It's good to get something agile, but you will miss the 3 attack dice.
If you are only playing kitchen games, I would highly recommend the Epic ships. They are a lot of fun. I've done a bunch of games with big ships and just generic pilots. It's really like the movies.
Good luck and have fun! I recommend having some device playing one of those YouTube videos of just Star Wars music in the background and find a Star Wars sound app that lets you do the Tie Fighter noises and laser shots. It's just more fun that way.
I just got the starter set, a Y-wing and TIE Bomber for Christmas and am now looking to expand my collection. I'm only going to be playing kitchen table games with friends so I'm looking for variety rather than competitiveness, also, for no good reason I'm only looking at buying ships that appeared in the original three movies. So any advice on what to get and in what order? For now I'm after Rebel AND Imperial!
A sad thing that is even if you are looking for "variety rather than competitiveness" the recommendations to get a second core set plus an X-Wing and TIE Fighter expansion are good despite doing nothing to increase the variety of ships you have. The Expansions give you variety in the form of more named pilots which can then be used with the ships in the core set as well as the expansion sets. Besides all of the extra miscellaneous things (damage deck, dice, templates) that the second core set gets you it also sets you up pretty well when it comes to squad foundations. There have been competitive, yet still thematic, builds made using just 3 X-Wings; a squadron of 3 X-Wings and a single Y-Wing can also work. While you can't really field a good squadron with five TIE Fighters and one Bomber you may get an acceptable one.
When you are starting with the Core, Y-Wing, and TIE Bomber pretty much anything you add will bring variety although that may depend on what point level you play at. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter expansions give you pilot variety but not too much when it comes to ships. If you are going to play at 100 points getting a wide variety will often mean having a number of ships that sit out because there is only so much you can do with the same ships over and over again. Although they may seem a bit more expensive I think getting the Falcon, Firespray, and/or either of the Aces boxes will get you more variety faster. These sets, although not the Rebel Aces as much, bring you Modification upgrades which you can use on any ship allowing them to be used in some different ways.
My gut is saying "anything but large turret ships". Turrets can be very over powering, especially for new players. It's a good way to sap the fun out.
I started playing right before the falcon was released. It took me an absurdly long time to win a game as imperial...... though it didn't help my rebel opponent was cheating.... we read the rules wrong so that all ships could take an evade action. Do you know how hard it is to kill Luke with r2d2 when he can take an evade action? with just Tie fighters? bah
I just learned how to arc dodge properly with my ties when they released the falcon. bah humbug
Conversely having one of those turretted ships can help a newbie feel like they can do something against a more experienced player without the vet playing dumb. If you want to sap the fun of a game how about playing target to someone's Interceptors or Phantoms as you get your butt handed to you without ever getting a chance to throw any red dice of your own.