To play this game in all its forms, what do I need to get started and why?

You only need the core box to get started. If you want to play competitive skirmish you'll probably need to buy it more than once.

All the other addons are very nice to have, especially if you want to play a varied set of skirmishes or always have the figures for the campaign, but, again, they are only actually necessary for organised skirmish, since their figures have replacement card tokens in the core box.

So it depends what you mean by "get started", but if you mean it literally, you only need he core box.

In case it is of interest: I bought the core box (once) and all the addons. I bought the rebel saboteurs three times and the rebel troopers twice. The profile of my play is very non-competitive skirmish; my wife and I play a couple of games a week and we actually enjoy the mechanics so much we don't even really care who wins. We haven't really enjoyed the campaign thus far, although we have all the relevant figures; it feels over-complicated and relatively poorly balanced to us, at least compared to the transparency of skirmish. Plus the writing is really terrible, whereas the skirmish creates its own cool narrative. Just my tuppence worth.

Hmmmmmm what's it look price wise at MSRP?

I guess it depends what country you live in. Google it.

If you live in Portland, as your profile suggests, then you can get a price ballpark looking at the main site here.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-imperial-assault/

Plus, you need to figure out if you want to play just the campaign, just skirmish, or both. That will really help figure out your costs.

But, no matter what you choose...I'd suggest a second set if dice. Never can go wrong with that choice.

However, fun times can be had with just the core box no matter what.

Cheers!

As ibsh said, to start you simply need the starter box. You can play a fairly decent rebel skirmish list with it, as well as a vader list with stormtroopers and officers.

If you want to be a completionist and hyper competitive in skirmish, you will probably require the following depending on side and builds:

4 starter boxes (for 4 regular royal guard deployment cards for skirmish)

1 of every named expansion, 3 of each of the trooper or saboteur expansions (for skirmish hyper competitive play)

If you want the best inbetween, I'd go with this:

Starter box

Extra set of dice (never know when you need a focus'd double green gun)

1 of each expansion

You can play a lot of fairly competitive skirmish lists with the above, as well as have the best campaign possibilities. I bought the last setup and 2 more sets of dice, because DICE!

If you are thinking Skirmish I would say to start off by picking a side you want to play.

- Imperial, I would agree 4 cores would give you the 4X4 Meta list. However I it's not necessary. With 2 cores you can make very competitive lists. With lots of different options.

- Rebels, I would recommend starting with the core and 3 saboteurs. This will give you the best current rebel list for competitive play. Then as you get familiar with the game you could add other rebel expansions to fit your play style. Currently every rebel list I build seems to have at least 2 sab units in it so you should get a lot of use out of them going forward.

- Scum... well... you're out of luck, I honestly don't think you can field a competitive scum list at this point.

If you're playing Campaign all you need is the core set.

What is the core set plus 3 saboteur list?

What is the core set plus 3 saboteur list?

Mak, Jyn, Gideon, Luke, 2x elite, regular.

What is the core set plus 3 saboteur list?

Mak, Jyn, Gideon, Luke, 2x elite, regular.

Maybe wrong thread to ask.

But was is the basic of this list?

Why does it work?

How does it far against the 4 Royal/4 Officer list?

Saboteurs have blast and stun. Stun Vader, blast Officers. With blast 2 and Overload, at least in theory the elite sabs are able to blast several Officers to death in one shot. Furthermore, blast damage is not an attack, so the victim does not roll defensive dice.

So most of the time, the Opponent will not have officers adjacent to other figures, which limits Cower and Protector.

Furthermore, they have Speed 5, so they are OK for mission accomplishment.

The list has 7 activations, which is OK.

There is an article on iacommand.com on "Jyn vs Saboteurs", where it is recommended to use regular sabs instead of Jyn. I agree to that recommendation. Jyn is good and comes with the core box, therefore you don't have to buy 4 sets of sabs. But I'd recommend: Mak, Gideon, Luke, 2x elite sabs, 2x regular sabs.

I ihink, it would be foolish to believe, that this list is as competitive as 9Act or 4/4, but it does OK. A good player can win games and even tournaments with that list.

Wow, this thread just made me even more convinced that I am buying this for the Campaigns. FOUR coresets!?! WOW. Too rich for my blood.

Thanks,

Duncan

Wow, this thread just made me even more convinced that I am buying this for the Campaigns. FOUR coresets!?! WOW. Too rich for my blood.

Thanks,

Duncan

I've only got one core and some extras from there and the teamcovenant store. Much cheaper.

Wow, this thread just made me even more convinced that I am buying this for the Campaigns. FOUR coresets!?! WOW. Too rich for my blood.

Thanks,

Duncan

Really, you don't need 4 core sets. I have 2 core sets myself, and I'm glad I do, because it allows me and my boys to have complete freedom when it comes to squad construction. But most people will only choose to buy 1 core set, and that is absolutely fine for skirmish. You'll just need to buy some extra figs on ebay or at the Team Covenant store, or wherever else you can find them. You could always borrow some minis from a friend.

Wow, this thread just made me even more convinced that I am buying this for the Campaigns. FOUR coresets!?! WOW. Too rich for my blood.

Thanks,

Duncan

Really, you don't need 4 core sets. I have 2 core sets myself, and I'm glad I do, because it allows me and my boys to have complete freedom when it comes to squad construction. But most people will only choose to buy 1 core set, and that is absolutely fine for skirmish. You'll just need to buy some extra figs on ebay or at the Team Covenant store, or wherever else you can find them. You could always borrow some minis from a friend.

I'm thinking about buying IA for my family and I, and we would like to play with both campaign and skirmish, but casually not competitively. Would you say 2 Core would be enough? How about other expansions and packs? I'm trying to figure it out before I start spending money on it.

the Vader's Finest podcast put together a buyers guide for Skimish.

There is a slew of resources out there for this very topic

Vaders Finest has a great podcast going through a skirmish buyers guide

Written form: http://teamcovenant.com/vadersfinest/2016/01/11/111/

Podcast: http://teamcovenant.com/vadersfinest/2016/01/03/episode-four/

Boardwars.eu has a great written summary of each Ally/Villain Pack (AVP) for both campaign and skirmishes:

http://boardwars.eu/ally-and-villain-packs-for-star-wars-imperial-assault/

As well as a quick search on this forum will pull up a ton of threads, Board Game Geeks and IA Reddit all are full of great information regarding what to buy. But really the #1 answer it all comes down to is what do you WANT to buy. It is all useful to varying degrees, but it really just depends on what you and your family want to experience and what you want to get out of the game.

I have been toying around with doing some videos showing the content of each AVP and what missions/expansions they relate to and how much you might actually use them in campaign mode. Nothing out there that I have found really exists like this.

I'm thinking about buying IA for my family and I, and we would like to play with both campaign and skirmish, but casually not competitively. Would you say 2 Core would be enough? How about other expansions and packs? I'm trying to figure it out before I start spending money on it.

1 Core would be enough for casual play. Hold on the expansions until you have played the first campaign. (Unless you just want to have the figures to replace the tokens from the core box.)

You will have plenty of time to buy things later. None of the expansions will sell out for long.

I just last weekend went to my FLGS, played the tutorial campaign twice through (once with my daughter playing two Rebels and once with her playing four rebels) with me playing the Imperials. The shop co-owner lent us his own set since he knew I was interested. We're hooked. I bought the core-set and two expansions. She picked out Leia Organa. Since I am fascinated with Scum, I picked up IG-88. Yeah, I know I probably should have held off on the expansions for now, but I didn't.

We're heading to the coast for a three night trip this weekend. I am bringing Imperial Assault with us. This is going to be fun.

If you want to play campaign only, start with Core, Twin Shadows and Return to Hoth, then slowly buy one of each expansion and replace the card tokens over time.

A single core box has everything you need to play both skirmish and a full campaign.

This thread is eight months old, and a lot of the original posts are very outdated.

My friends & I started with just the core, and eventually added expansions to get actual minis for the trilogy heroes (Han, Chewie, Leia, R2, Threepio, etc.). Outside of that, our collecting has been haphazard... we just pick up the minis that we like, without regard to utility or performance. It's more fun that way for us. Your mileage may vary.