Hello out there,

A few days ago I decided to make the jump and dive headfirst into the Star Wars x-wing scene. I went online and odered a bunch of stuff including the starter set, both imperial and rebel aces packs and the Tantive IV with a pre-order of the Imperial Raider.

When viewing these forums I started to notice that this was far more than your standard game with many strategies and builds, so much that it has become very overwhelming. As a newcomer, I was hoping that I could reach out to the community for some helpful advice and tips. Anything to help through the starting stages and get me prepared for anything that may come my way.

Welcome to X-wing Anonymous. We are all glad you can come to our meeting.

Hello my name is Marinealver and I have a.. bad habit of buying X-wing miniatures before I pay rent for the month.

Okay jokes aside glad you can join us. It is true that while there is a lot of options and with 6 waves and 4 special expansion packs out at first all the options can be overwhelming as in what to build.

Now also it depends on what you want to play. Having the big ships is not needed in standard and really only useful if you are playing epic or cinematic play. You ended up purchasing about $300 that can mostly not go into standard. That is the bad news. The good news is that there is a number of good upgrade and pilot cards that can easily go into standard and hopefully we can guide you to a better purchase depending on what you want to play.

Now for standard you got at least 1 X-wings and 2 Tie fighters (1 Tie advance on preorder) 2 Tie Interceptors 1 A-wing and 1 B-wing. I don't know if you have anything else but for Epic you don't need any more big ships unless you want the droids and x-wing pilots in the Rebel Transport. You should have enough in small ships to make at least 100 points standard although they might not be in the top lists. Still I would suggest if 100 standard competitive is what you are looking for make one 100 point rebel squadron and one 100 point imperial squadron. Figure out what faction you prefer and then expand on that faction first. Here is a list of some competitive builds

• Fat Falcon (Falcon pack is also good with veteran instinct upgrades and you already got C-3PO)
• High PS Phantom (you will need veteran instinct from either Falcon or Slave 1 expansion)
• 4 combo of X-wings and B-wings (in any order from all Xs to all Bs)
• Tie Fighter Swarm (the Howlrunner from the Tie Fighter expansion + 6 Tie fighters is slowly moving to a 4 Academy and 4 Black squadron pilots that is in both the core sets and the tie fighter expansions)

Another thing is you came in at a rather peculiar time to be a starter. The 3rd faction Scum and Villainy came out with Wave 6 and even experience players are still trying to figure out what works with that faction. So I would not worry about S&V yet. If you want flexibility and already have a reasonable size rebel and imperial collection to include a Y-wing, a HWK-290 and a slave 1 the most wanted pack is good for list flexibility, but in the competitive field two IG-2000 aggressors with autothrusters from the Star Viper expansion pack is rising to the top of the competitive list so a MW pack may not be necessary for competitive players.

However there is NO need for you to buy anything else right now. Get a couple of lists together then try them out and see how you like them. Also if you can try to get in a couple of Epic games to make the most of those huge ships you have bought.

Have fun and Fly Casual.

Is that list of purchases exhaustive? I assume not but it would be an interesting challenge to take on a transport or corvette with 2 tie fighters and 2 interceptors.

The Index of Useful Links is a great place to start for tips and tricks!

In the end you'll buy everything it's inevitable we all say well be sensible but we all end up with massive collections.

Don't fight it, make peace with your empty wallet.

Just pace your self, make a monthly budget and buy the ships you can/want in that budget, get used to the new ships and repeat.

First starting out, fly causal. Field a couple naked ships(no upgrades) vs another couple naked ships and get used to the movement and turn order. Then toss some asteroids in and then start upgrading. Unless you plan on playing competitive, you can have endless fun with odd combos.

is my 2x tie bombers and a tiefighter list useful in meta, no way. Do they blow stuff up and I have a good time doing it? You better believe it.

Welcome to our humble world of X-wing. You will never look back from this point Here is a small link for building squads for you to play with as to get an idea of what fits with what and stuff. Also Fly casual.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build

I found that using a good strong easy to play build with few cards to keep track of and sticking to it is the best way to learn, this lets you focus on positioning, get them in your arc and stay out of theirs, after enough games with the same build you don't have to think about what the ship/pilot/upgrades can do and you can focus your brain on tactics.

This is what I am doing to improve, you don't have these ships yet but I found this build easy to use and great to learn with.

Check out the link below for my learning build.

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v3!s!48:9,37,74:3:-1:;44:36,23,-1,-1:-1:-1:;44:36,23,-1,-1:-1:-1:

If you're just starting, I'd recommend builds with minimal upgrades. Use one ship with a pilot with an ability (Like Han, Vader, Kath, Boba, Kavil, etc) and fill out the rest of the squad with basic ships. Once you have the maneuvering down then start looking for those crazy combo things. I would also recommend you do some 40 point games. Once in awhile we 40 point tournaments at our local game store and they are tons of fun! Plus you get lots of experience flying ships. Because after all, this IS a game about strategic maneuvering, with some Star Wars fluff thrown in

Wow, thanks for all the great reaponses and welcomes, I appreciate all of it. It looks like I have a lot to look forward to. I was thinking of starting as Imperial and working my way around that with my aces pack and two standard ties. Starting with little to no upgrades sounds like a great way to break the ice and then slowly add on as I go.

Again, welcome. You've taken your first steps into a larger world.
Find others in your area. They will most likely help out, by letting you use their ships that you don't currently own during game sessions.
I would get another Starter Set, if for nothing else, for the second set of tokens and templates. Also, another set of dice is a must. More ships, in the form of two more TIEs and another X-wing is a bonus. If a second Starter is out of the question right now, then grabbing a separate Dice Pack is the next best thing.

Also look at getting those squad builder apps for your PC and your mobile device. I also us the squad builder that "Flyingbrick" mentioned. I really enjoy that one too. Some other apps (for mobile devices) that come to mind are "Star -Wars X-wing Squadron Builder", "X-wing Companion", and "X-wing Battle Computer". These are FREE apps. Another app that I have, but rarely use, is the Star Wars Dice App by Fantasy Flight. Unfortunately, this app is $4.99 USD. This app has dice for X-wing, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Star Wars: Armada, as well as the Star Wars RPG.

Good luck. And fly casual.

Lot's of kind folk on the forum i've found.

My 2 core sets come in soon! I too am a complete noob! I plan on doing a solo xwing vs 2 ties for a tutorial self guided learning game and then going from there. You're a bit like me, core set then kinda kamakazi!!! I've been using the (yet another) xwing squad builder to play with different squad builds using the unit's i've got coming in the mail. Time to just play, have fun, experiment!

(I'm also not going for meta/champ/competetive gaming. I'm going to have fun with my gaming group!)

Wow, thanks for all the great reaponses and welcomes, I appreciate all of it. It looks like I have a lot to look forward to. I was thinking of starting as Imperial and working my way around that with my aces pack and two standard ties. Starting with little to no upgrades sounds like a great way to break the ice and then slowly add on as I go.

If you're going Imperial, I'd suggest picking up a TIE expansion, which will give you a fifth ship and more pilots for the TIE. That will give you a few more options for your list as two interceptors and two ties will be tough to fill out 100 points, even with a few upgrades. With the expansion you can run three named Ties with a pair of Royal Guard with PTL.

I'll also say that if you start playing experienced players with those ships, don't get discouraged as those two ship types are the most fragile in the game and the most dependent on green dice.

Good luck and have fun.

Starting as Imperials is a good bet at this time. Imperials are definitely getting the upper hand in this game, especially after the Auto thrusters/Soontir buff and the tie advanced fix. It should be easy mode for you once you get arc dodging down. The phantom is the most blatantly overpowered ship in this game, but I don't recommend starting with it till you get movement down.

Scum is fun as are rebels. Different styles. But play all factions occasionally if you can to learn how to fight against them in your Imp squads.

Just ordered the star viper for autothrusters as recommended. I was also able to play a few games with a friend to get the basics down, no upgrades. I have have to say, I love how the ties can manouver at greater distances. The problem is their inability to take multiple hits. Though I'm sure when I get to upgrading I can remedy this.

Eggman:

Your Tie survivability will have more to do with how you play than putting upgrades on them. Ties live by their flying. Barrel roll arc-dodging, and blocking are your friends. Don't expect your ties to live; they won't. But you can play in such a way that your opponent wastes shots (by shooting at range 3 ties that have evaded or focused, for example, rather than range 1 shots where they haven't.)

Learn to block with them (that is to say, using your initial movement to get in the way of the enemy and deny their final position as well as causing an overlap which denies their action.) By reducing the number of actions your opponent takes, you tend to live longer. Don't get into the habit of putting upgrades on Ties, at least not your basic ties. Howlrunner can beneft from the right EPT, as can Black Squadron ties, but your basic Academy and Obsidian ; no.

Welcome!

When I started it was just post wave 4. I was able to get the core and a few ships reasonably priced off the bat, but got really frustrated trying to find pre-current-wave ships like the Falcon. I ended up driving two 4 different Barnes and Nobles (no local game shop to support) but eventually it payed off. It was exhilarating finding one last rare ship hidden among the stacks.

My suggestion: don't pay marked up prices for older ships online. NO Falcon is worth $60-80. Do some hunting and your patience will be rewarded.

2nd: Barnes and Nobles will take 10% off if you have a teacher discount =)

Welcome. This game has a lot of depth to it. I would look for a local game store (LGS), and try and meet other players. I know when new players show up at my game store, I'm happy to teach or lend ships so they can get a better feel for the game. The X-Wing community in general is a very supportive group. I recommend keeping things simple at first, and just work on flying. A lot of the advanced stuff will come with time. Learning how ships move is the core of this game. If you get good at that, everything else will fall into place.

Just ordered the star viper for autothrusters as recommended. I was also able to play a few games with a friend to get the basics down, no upgrades. I have have to say, I love how the ties can manouver at greater distances. The problem is their inability to take multiple hits. Though I'm sure when I get to upgrading I can remedy this.

If you want to take hits you go rebel or scum, we in the imperial navy survive by using superior moves to keep out of arc of the enemy

Ties are cheap don't sweat it if an academy pilot dies we have more.

You can(must)of course buy a tie defender or three, they are my favourite ship since the tie fighter pc game came out and are good in x-wing, they are tanky and powerful if you perfect their use.

Imps don't get to slack like the rebels we work for a living.

Nobody has mentioned this yet, it seems, but with all your ships on the same order as the Raider, you may not see your ships for several months. We really have no idea when the Raider will be released. It just barely went to the printers.

If you're dead-set on the Raider, that's fine, but you might consider buying smaller ships now and buying the Raider later.

EDIT: Unless you ordered the Raider in a second order. Then all is well.