Hello all. I'm new to the X-wing game. I have a starter set and now I want to get serious with the game ^^ I have a gamer problem -> I like ALL, so... one of my hardest doubts is: Faction????

I love Imperials but I readed that some ships are almost obsolete and that piss me off, and also seems a harder faction to play. Finally I hate swarms, so I will never be playing with 7 ships at the same time. But I like 3 Interceptor lists or firespray or Phantom...

Rebels seems easier and even more fun to play, with lots of configurations and variety (I love variety!!!), the different ships look amazing together. So maybe is a safer pick.

Last, Scum and Villainy. This likes me a lot. Variety, cool ships etc maybe the most apealing. But 2 people told me that is not a good faction for begginers, so I don't know... Also the ships from the starter set are useless (minor problem for me). I'm very interested in arguments about this faction for newcomers.

HWK, YT2300, Defender, Lambda, Viper and the new scum fighter are the ships most appealing to me visually. But some of them seem to be bad choices competitively >_<

My Idea is to pick one of everything of the selected faction.

So... if I pick Imperial, tomorrow I would buy A Firespray, a TIE Fighter, and TIE Bomber (Interceptors and Aces are unavalaible in the local store right now, but I would buy them sooner or later).

Ideas about what faction to choose (sell me on your faction!), or any recommendation? Thank you in advance and the force be with you all. ^^

Gameplaywise seems that Rebels are slower but powerful and versatile, Imperials are fast glasscannons, and scum are a mix between Rebs and imperials. Im very inclined to start with Scum, but I still cant decide :S

I play Empire 90%, Scum 8%, and Rebel 2%(obviously these are numbers out of thin air, but you get my point) so I would say I like Empire the best. That being said you are going to have to get one of each expansion for the cards anyway. Get what you like, visually and gameplay wise.

Also, not to be rude to a new player, but a few things in your OP are straight wrong. The ships in the starter are not "useless" It is generally understood that the xwing is underpowered for its cost, but I've lost to and won with xwing, so its doable. And Ties are one of the most efficient ships in the game when flown right. Also I wouldn't worry so much about being "competitive" right now, because unless you're a phenom, or are only playing in tournaments of only newbies too, you're going to lose more than you win for a while. Just get some ships and get some practice.

Join the glorious Empire!

The emperor's new order will end the bureaucratic chaos of the Old Republicand usher in a grand unified era of peace and enlightenment. There are just a few more rebel systems to bring into line...

But seriously, I wouldn't worry about the 'competitiveness' of each faction. Each of them has a ship or two that could be better (Defender and Bomber for Empire, E-wing and X-wing for Rebels and StarViper and M3-A for Scum) but the game is always being updated and ships that were once not competitive get updated with new upgrades. Also, I'll say this right now, don't get caught up in the forums. The ships I listed are not as bad as some folks say they are. You can play fun games with them and win with a well built list. When people say something is 'useless' what they really mean is that it isn't at peak optimization for high level competitive play.

I would focus on choosing which faction's play style fits yours the best. Personally I love the Empire because I am really into the positional game that a lot of the TIE ships can play. My friend loves Rebels for the action passing combos and tankiness.

Hello and welcome to the game! I hope you have fun with whatever options you pick.

First off, who will you play against? I say this because of what you have heard about some ships not being as good. If you play with some hard core tournament people at your local stores, then this might be somewhat true. If you play against your friends or a bunch of average guys then it's not really as true. Do they play with only the top lists that win tournaments? Or do they like to build lists that strike their fancy? My local store plays whatever they want to and we have great fun with that. Anything is a good list. One guy insists on running 2 HWKS most of the time. We don't care what's considered good or bad.

If you play with people that have lots of tournaments and play with only the toughest lists, then you might listen to some of the things people say about some ships. Then again, sometimes they are wrong. Many people consider Tie Defenders to be bad ships, but someone playing a list of just 2 of them came in the Top 8 in a Regionals event, which is no small thing. The Starviper has been dismissed early on, but there have been a lot of people doing well with them in tournaments, too. So, I wouldn't dismiss ships until you have really tried them out first. I came very close to winning a Store Championship with 4 Tie Bombers when most people consider them really bad.

You will probably want to eventually collect all factions as they all have upgrade cards you will want. Don't worry about Scum not being for beginners. It's fine. Imperials aren't really weaker and you don't have to play a Tie Swarm to be competitive. There are a lot of builds that work, especially if you aren't out to win the National Tournament of where you live.

If you aren't sure what to buy next, see if any of the locals in your game store will let you borrow their ships to play against them. I've found most people are pretty nice and will loan out a ship for a game. It's a good way to figure out what you want.

Good luck and I hope this helps. I say get what you want and you will figure out something that works.

Besides the empire commercials i agree to KommanderKeldoth.

You have to understand that tournaments have their own victory conditions (e.g. time limit and how scores are counted). If you simply play endless deathmatch a lot more ships and lists than the "current meta" are viable.

Basically you can't do too much wrong. Get the ships you like.

Another hint might be that if you buy all the ships of one factions you already have WAY MORE points/ships to chose from than what fits into 100points.

That means if you are willing to buy that much you wont have to focus on one faction if you dont want to. Just take a look at the typical squad builders in th web and youll see that most lists are already full with 2-4 ships if you want any upgrades on those ships.

The only danger of that route is that you might end up buying everything, but honestly that will happen anyway if you can afford it and like the game.

Best advice:

Go buy the ships you REALLY want to play with. Don't worry about "how good they are". You're building a collection and learning to play a game. ALL the ships have their merit.

Obsolete is a very funny way of describing the empire

you see the Tie Fighter?

that ****'s been competitively viable since the coreset and through now

only problem is people have been seeing have been flocking to 2-ship builds for official, long events because it's far easier to just fly 2 ships for a large number of games (avoids frying your brain) that don't reward your opponent with any points unless completely destroyed. It's especially less taxing if they don't have to care about their arc

so the swarm's been out of style anyway, but the Tie Fighter remains an amazing ship

the HWK, YT2400, Defender, Lambda, and Viper are all fine ships (though imo the scum HWKs are far superior since they're less support and more badass, and the defender is a difficult little bugger to make work but tons of fun)

When Scum was announced, I thought it was more of an "advanced" faction. But after playing with it, I don't find it too different from the other factions. It definitely has its own flavor, but I wouldn't say it's more difficult to fly. If you think it's cool, you should jump in! (Just don't buy too many M-3A Interceptors .)

I will give you the inevitable real answer:

All of them. You will get all of the ships.

(This is only half in jest: many of the best upgrades to various ships come exclusively with other ships, though you can probably borrow them from other players)

But for starting out: Imperial Aces, an Interceptor pack, and a Starviper gives you just about everything you need to make a really strong, really fun Imperial list.

Join the fight against evil and disorder join the empire!

We have the best of the best from the stealthy tie phantoms to the powerful tie defenders no other force is as well equipped to help this galaxy.

It can't be said enough, if you like the game enough you'll end up buying one of everything. Then if you're like me you'll start thinking "man that squad looks like so much fun" and soon you have three phantoms and four X wings to say the least...

Anyways, the bottom line is buy the ships you like and you can't go wrong. If you get the X-Wing bug like everyone else, then once you have all the ships you really enjoy you'll start to experiment with other ships and keep learning new tricks.

Don't get caught up on which ships are good and bad. FFG is constantly releasing new cards that revitalize "worthless" ships and mothball the current favorites. A coming example is the TIE Advanced. After being mostly ignored in competitive play for a long time, the new cards coming out for it are expected to make it one of the more popular imperial ships.

Otherwise, I echo what others have said. Go for what seems fun. If you get into the game, you'll end up getting them all eventually.

Firstly, welcome.

I posted this in another thread earlier today but the same applies:

It really depends what you like.

I (and my buds) love the Original Trilogy (OT) and have no interest in Expanded Universe (EU). Therefore, I have at least 2 of each OT ship and proxy desired cards/buy them individually from the EU expansions.

Buy and play what you want to play. There are several great list builders out there, build a list you want, play it. Maybe it is competitive, thematic, fun, etc. Just play what you want and ignore us. You'll get more enjoyment out of it.

Wow!, thanks all of you for your time and advices.

When I said that starter set is useless for me, was only if I would buy the Scum and Villainy faction. I like the X-wing and the TIE is very good also.

Finally, after a very hard time deciding between Scums or Imperials, I have opted for the Dark Side (mainly because of TIE Defender ). I don't know yet if was the best decision, but there we go!

I bought the following (+Coreset that I have):

- Firespray

- TIE Bomber

- TIE Defender

- Imperial Aces

So... any recomendations for initial lists to try? I prefer to play with 3-4 ships (instead of 2 or a Swarm) and definitely I want to try my Firespray ^^

I can't wait to try the Seismic or Proton bombs. Are those good? Too difficult to play?

Greetings!

The reason Scum isn't recomended for new players is because it isn't the cheapest to get into. The mandatory Core set does nothing for Scum. And Most Wanted does not give you enough for a 100 pt squad without buying other ships. Nothing about complexity.

So I just wanted to give you my take on what each faction feels like

REBEL: Formation flying. They have a lot of abilities that work together, so list building is the most fun with them. I spend a lot of time looking for "combo's". They provide a lot of different play style, from the knife fighting B-wings, to the fast-hit-and-run A-wings. If you go this route, consider getting the rebel transport, gives you some cool x-wing pilots, and a super nice droid. The hawk is hard to fly at first.

EMPIRE: Arc dodging: most of the ships here are vulnerable:no shields, low HP. So they rely a lot on positioning. They are the most agile, and they spend most of the game trying to outflank the enemy. They are not necessarily hard to play, but they do require their own style unique to any faction. They can also be played more strait foreward with decimator, shuttle, tie swarm, bombers. etc. the shuttle has a steep learning curve, as does the defender.

SCUM: Random: The scum have a lot going on. I have not played them much myself, but they have a lot of options that seem to work well. The thing I can say most in their favor is that Bobba Fett is awesome in this faction. They seem to use more "named" pilots than the other factions because they are pretty cheap, and they are all easy to fit in to a list. You don't have to build a list around them, they just kind of do their own thing.

I will echo what sithborg said about scum. It was really designed for players that already had a collection of rebs and imps. So you could use your existing ships in the new faction. It is pretty cheap to get into if you already have a hawk, y-wing, firespray, a few z-95's.

Welcome to the addiction.

I would suggest playing with one of each and then buying what you like to fly.

Colonel Vessery (35)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

You would need to proxy autothrusters though.

Nice I will try that list.

I crafted this, because I want to try my Firespray:

Kath Scarlet — Firespray-31 38

Marksmanship 3

Mercenary Copilot 2

Major Rhymer — TIE Bomber 26

Push the Limit 3

Advanced Proton Torpedoes 6

Seismic Charges 2

"Backstabber" — TIE Fighter 16

Stealth Device 3

I going to try this tomorrow and see if I can evade at least some asteroids and kill 1 or 2 rebels ^^

just going to add that I haven't flown formation rebels in ever I don't think

control is the new name of the game for rebels, especially with the Y-wing's ion cannon turret, title, and the immaculate holiness that is R3-A2 (plus tactician B-wings, or ion cannon B-wings)

or just Bwings. theyre right solid and flexible buggers even if flown without upgrades

Colonel Vessery (35)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

You would need to proxy autothrusters though.

Nice I will try that list.

I crafted this, because I want to try my Firespray:

Kath Scarlet — Firespray-31 38

Marksmanship 3

Mercenary Copilot 2

Major Rhymer — TIE Bomber 26

Push the Limit 3

Advanced Proton Torpedoes 6

Seismic Charges 2

"Backstabber" — TIE Fighter 16

Stealth Device 3

I going to try this tomorrow and see if I can evade at least some asteroids and kill 1 or 2 rebels ^^

Just to warn you ordinance is pretty bad most of the builds you'll find on these forums don't use missiles or torps as we've found they don't give a reliable result and you can usually spend the points better.

....but that doesn't mean don't try them. I say use them on your own and come to your own conclusions. I've had great success with ordnance....at times.

Colonel Vessery (35)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Royal Guard Pilot (22)

Push the Limit (3)

Autothrusters (2)

Targeting Computer (2)

Royal Guard TIE (0)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

You would need to proxy autothrusters though.

Fun list. I'm currently playing with this one:

Vessery+VI

2x Sigma+FCS+IA+ACD

100 Points

When the Raider comes out I'm thinking about swapping Vessery out for Vader.

You love imperials, go that route and join the empire for now. Don't worry, your empire will expand to include probably at least 1 of everything

I would say that anything with finer positionability is going to be the harder stuff to grasp as a beginner, but you will be stronger for it if you do. Scum has the S Loop instead of the K-turn, not to mention you can advance sensor lots of things, even with S Loops. This means a barrel roll or boost BEFORE you attempt the S loop, on varying bases sizes (large for IG88). There is a ton that your opponent can't predict with Scum. If that's how you want to play starting out... I'd recommend it!