I'm currently toying with the idea of starting this game, and even more toying with the idea of getting the Force Awakens core set and forego the original trilogy. But I couldn't find any information as to there are plans to get out more "new trilogy" ships or whether new waves will stick to the original trilogy, and I have no plans of mixing them. So, what to do?

Well, at the moment there are only 2 ships from the new movie. I'm sure it will change, but for the moment, you are looking at some limited ships. Still, you can have fun if you play more than just 100 pt death match.

You might be able to pull in another ship type or two to make it more interesting. Pull in a Lambda or K-wing or something.

It depends what you mean by "viable" (God I hate seeing that word on this forum). Give it a go and let us know how you get on! There's nothing at all stopping you from fielding 3 x T70's or 5 x TIE/fo's in 100 point squads and you can certainly have a lot of fun while sticking to those ships. Limiting yourself like that might pose problems if you wanted to join in competitive play, though.

Force Awakens surprisingly didn't give us as much in the way of new starships as we expected, but there may be a couple more releases still to come from FFG. The TIE/sf, Upsilon-class Shuttle, nuevoFalcon and Poe's Black T70 could all potentially make an appearence.

Right now, the only options for Force Awakens are the core set, and the standalone T-70, and the TIE/fo. You could make lists with this, but there isn't a lot of variety and you won't have most of the upgrades (each ship has a set of upgrades, and reasonably often you want to mix and match upgrades from other packs).

There is a chance more Force Awakens stuff will be released, and we may find out in the next week or two (at least two maybes there). After that I expect them to do a tie-in with Rogue One, which is back to the original trilogy era.

The game is sold in such a way that you are encouraged to buy several factions and ships from several time periods in the Star Wars timeline. It seems very likely, however, that more ships from the new trilogy will be added.

The Falcon is in it, so you could easily do a fat Falcon plus ace, but I'm not sold on FO swarms. Saying that, there is no reason not to also run Defenders, e wings or anything in scum and Villainy as these would fit the timeline quite nicely.

It is likely that they will continue to produce a few new ships for every film however, it is highly unlikely that you will be provided with enough ships to fill out lists appropriately without ships from the other eras (OT, EU, Legends etc)

The OT IIRC had the B-wing, X-wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing, Falcon and on the empire side you had the Tie Fighter, Tie Interceptor (I think), TIE Bomber, TIE advanced, Slave I and Lambda shuttle. Now you really can run quite a bit using just those OT ships however you will find that you lack a great deal of upgrades to make them super competitive.

After one film of the NT however you have the TIE/FO, T-70 and Millenium Falcon as ships that have appeared of a size to actually work in standard play. Unless the next few films unveil a large number of new ships I doubt you will be able to play just NT stuff consistently.

I guess it matters what you plan on doing. Do you want to play in local tournaments and such? If so, then sure. You can play with just the new stuff. Maybe buy some of the best upgrade cards off the internet.

Are you wanting to play with just your friends in a closed environment? Do missions and campaigns and such with just the new stuff? You can, but it might be a bit limiting with only 2 ship types. Still, there are a lot of missions and other ways to play the game that would make it pretty cool.

I've run 3 T-70s a few times over with great success. The FO is also a terror and fun to fly in groups.

Thanks for the responses so far. What's the problem with "viable"? ^^

And I don't intend competitive play at all. I also play Armada, although only casually, so I am kind of saturated with the original trilogy.

There's two problems with going that route. First, as has been pointed out there are only two TFA ships in the game out of a total of ~30, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. TFA only really gave us 3 ships that would practically fit into X-wing, so there's only one we don't already have, the TIE special forces. Until Episode 8 hits in a year and a half that's not likely to change.

The other problem is if you're strictly going to be buying nothing but TFA expansions, your upgrade options are incredibly limited. Between the TFA core and the T-70 and FO expansions you have a total of 3 astromechs, 3 pilot talents, 2 tech upgrades, and 2 torpedoes. Unless you don't mind getting gouged on the singles market, that's probably going to limit your squad building more than the number of pilots you have available.

So could you do it? Yes, but your list building options aren't going to be particularly interesting unless you buy ships you don't intend to use or go to the secondary market.

I'd argue that the TFA era hasn't given us enough real background to make a campaign and play. It's just not fleshed out yet apart from the assault on Starkiller base and the battle over Maz Kanadas place.

Thanks for the responses so far. What's the problem with "viable"? ^^

And I don't intend competitive play at all. I also play Armada, although only casually, so I am kind of saturated with the original trilogy.

Well.....are you going to be playing with only your minis and everyone only has the new stuff? Or you just get the new stuff and you play against everyone else? The second is probably more viable. The first is, but limiting as I stated.

The whole "viable" thing is also called the "competitive" thing. So....there are a lot of people that play serious tournament level X-wing. They are at the top tables of Nationals and Worlds. They want the utter best lists that you can play. To them, there are only so many ships that are that efficient in points and ability that are worth taking. Ever. You just don't play with about 80-90% of the stuff in the game.

Now, most people don't play at this level of the game. Many people don't even go to tournaments. So, when you hear people talking about "viable", you enter into that whole discussion of "what level are you trying to play at?". There are die hards in all camps and people will spar with each other about it. If you aren't out to win Worlds, then just about every ship in the game is "viable". If you are trying to win a Store Championship, then you might have to be a little more stringent.

With that being said, you can buy only the new ships and have a fun time playing the game. You will be able to make lists that won't just get stomped into the ground every time you play. You will be able to have fun. I also want to submit that there is more to the game than just 100 pt death match.

EDIT: I'll also add in that if you are just playing casual games, then most people have no issue with you just proxying cards. You know, just printing out your own copy of them for various upgrades. Most players are pretty cool and laid back. If you wanted to go to tournaments, you will have to have official cards. If there is a card you can't live without, I'd recommend going to ebay to look for it.

sure, provided you cheat a little

from left to right:

the famous FO punisher, Mortality Drizzle

Omega Leader

Kylo Ren (trying way too hard to be like Vader)

I would argue that you could also use the K-Wing, E-Wing, and TIE Defender as they were used in that era, too, just in the EU.

I have zero interest in tournament play. If the upgrade cards are available as scans, as are the Armada ones, I'm also not beneath printing them out. And I really suck at painting, so that is no alternative.

I have zero interest in tournament play. If the upgrade cards are available as scans, as are the Armada ones, I'm also not beneath printing them out. And I really suck at painting, so that is no alternative.

Then you are golden. Have fun with the game!

I have zero interest in tournament play. If the upgrade cards are available as scans, as are the Armada ones, I'm also not beneath printing them out. And I really suck at painting, so that is no alternative.

so do I

those were commissioned

but, since you're not going competitive, really anything is viable

I've had a lot of fun with BB-8 PTL Asty, and he can be run well with VI r5-p9 Poe + some crappy Novice with r2 astro integrated

On the FO side, really any FO is incredibly fun because of their dial. Omega L is, by far, my favorite because of the awesome power he exerts on enemy dice. With the core providing two Epsilon Squadrons, 3 FO packs will get you Juke Relay Omega and two Juke Relay Omega Squadrons

It sounds like you have it figured out. Print scans of cards, and play with some T70's and some Tie FO's against what ever friends you play against.

What is the question then?

I have zero interest in tournament play. If the upgrade cards are available as scans, as are the Armada ones, I'm also not beneath printing them out. And I really suck at painting, so that is no alternative.

so do I

those were commissioned

but, since you're not going competitive, really anything is viable

I've had a lot of fun with BB-8 PTL Asty, and he can be run well with VI r5-p9 Poe + some crappy Novice with r2 astro integrated

On the FO side, really any FO is incredibly fun because of their dial. Omega L is, by far, my favorite because of the awesome power he exerts on enemy dice. With the core providing two Epsilon Squadrons, 3 FO packs will get you Juke Relay Omega and two Juke Relay Omega Squadrons

I have no idea what all these abbreviations mean, but thanks!

It sounds like you have it figured out. Print scans of cards, and play with some T70's and some Tie FO's against what ever friends you play against.

What is the question then?

Whether or not this works out or if only two starships proves too limiting, and what the prospects for more FO ships are. Since I have not the first idea about X-Wing, I wanted to ask.

I have no idea what all these abbreviations mean, but thanks!

It sounds like you have it figured out. Print scans of cards, and play with some T70's and some Tie FO's against what ever friends you play against.

What is the question then?

Whether or not this works out or if only two starships proves too limiting, and what the prospects for more FO ships are. Since I have not the first idea about X-Wing, I wanted to ask.

Just to let you know, there are a lot of abbreviations to upgrade cards on these forums. It can get daunting at first.

FO's = Tie Fighter First Order....or the new Tie Fighters from the movie.

VI = Veteran Instincs. It's an upgrade that improves your Pilot Ability (when you go)

PTL = Push The Limit. an upgrade that lets you do two actions instead of one, but you become stressed.

X-wings have various astromech upgrades you can go with.

R2 - base generic astromech that makes simple maneuvers green (less stressful)

BB-8 - Gives you a free barrel roll action when you do a green maneuver

R5-P9 - astromech that lets you regenerate shields that works really well with Poe's pilot ability.

I do warn you that if you start to have fun with the game, you might want to add on ships. The extra variety will be enticing.

Oh, and for starting out, you should know that Tie Fighters are not as good as X-wings and worth fewer points. So, you would need to get more of them. I would recommend two starter sets and at least one blister each of the T-70 and Tie FO. Maybe two FO blisters? The starter set gives you a lot for what you pay for. You get extra dice, templates, and cards. There are pilots not in the starter set that are in the blister, too, though. So, you want at least one of each of those.

I do warn you that if you start to have fun with the game, you might want to add on ships. The extra variety will be enticing.

I started Armada and now I have a whole cupboard of ships, so I know

After one film of the NT however you have the TIE/FO, T-70 and Millenium Falcon as ships that have appeared of a size to actually work in standard play.

Btw there was even the Firefly like freighter ascending in the background of one Rey shot.

But TFA surely had disappointingly few ships in it. If more come with the new films from this area maybe FFG will separate factions.

I've run at least 3 different tri-T70 lists, all of those being really fun to fly.
Poe is a good hitter, Red Ace a terrific "tank", and the red squadron veterans are more than usable (I like IA+R2+PtL on them).

So, if you like them, just fly the things and have fun !

I'm not going to try and convince anyone how to fly or how to play the game. But if the OP is a visual type guy when I put my T-65s and T-70s on the board the only difference I see is the paint. (Engines, I know but...) Yes, they fly different but they look pretty close. Same with the TIEs. If you fly both new and old models you will instantly see the differences between them but again, visually, it's primarily the paint scheme. (Before the modelers all jump on me, I know there are other physical differences but they are slight to the casual observer). So for very basic 100 pt. squads I would suggest Core x2 + t-70 exp pak + TIE/fo exp pak. Whether you do TFA Core x 2 or one of each Old and New Core is entirely up to you. At the end of the day you still have a bunch of X-wings and TIEs on the board.

Most importantly, have fun.