I'm going to be buying X-Wing for my brother for his birthday in mid-June. (Rule #1 of birthday presents: Buy something that not only the receiver wants, but something you want ). We will only ever play the game casually, and seeing as there is nobody else in the area, we will always play each other. Both he and I crave variety and value above all else. So I want the most stuff, and the stuff that adds the most variety, for as little money as possible. I also want the rebel and imperium to be fairly balanced. I am using Amazon, as there is no game store nearby.

I have read that it is a good idea to get two cores, since they have 3 ships in each. So one of each core is a given. (And that is probably all I will get him). But beyond that, what do you recommend? Are there specific "value packs"? I have read that it is best to get everything in order of release, and if that is true, would someone kindly type up that order for me. Thanks!

Right now I'm thinking the Rebel Aces (Awing + Bwing?) and Imperial Veterans (Bomber+Defender?) packs are good.

Rebel Aces will give you some good variety for A wings and B wings.

Right now I'm thinking the Rebel Aces (Awing + Bwing?) and Imperial Veterans (Bomber+Defender?) packs are good.

Remember if you're just playing casually, you can proxie any card you don't own. So just concentrate on getting the ships you want.

I agree with Rebel Aces and Imperial Veterans. If you can, get the additional tie fighter packs (more ties are better!) and a couple rebel ships you really like. If you get a big ship, get one of each faction (IE Falcon/Slave1). Other than that, just buy equally for both sides and get what you think looks good! They're all fun!

Of note: The core sets and any large packaged ships all come with missions which are also very fun.

Both starters and said expansions are great. If you're happy always playing rebels vs imperials then after that, simply buy a couple of ships from each of thse factions that appeal to you two. If you want a third faction, buy the most wanted pack for scum, and whichever other couple scum ships you like.

If variety is your first concern, I'd buy whichever ships you think are cool, just buying one each rebel and imperial each time. Many of the upgrades can be used for either faction and you can print out/pretend to own any of the cards.

1) Yes, get two cores. You'll get extra dice, extra rulers, R2-D2 and BB-8. Totally worth it.

2) Get the ships YOU think look cool and think will be fun.

3) Worry about the other details later.

4) Also check eBay for lot deals, and there's a FB page that I've gotten good deals on (https://www.facebook.com/groups/StarWarsXwingSwapandSell/)

Start with both starters, maybe a Falcon (it's nice to have the Engine Upgrades and it fills up points fast for introductory games), and then do what your heart tells you. Maybe a Tie Fighter expansion, so you can use your pile of core set TIEs along with Howlrunner to do some swarm training.

...god I love X-Wing.

1) Yes, get two cores. You'll get extra dice, extra rulers, R2-D2 and BB-8. Totally worth it.

2) Get the ships YOU think look cool and think will be fun.

3) Worry about the other details later.

4) Also check eBay for lot deals, and there's a FB page that I've gotten good deals on (https://www.facebook.com/groups/StarWarsXwingSwapandSell/)

I have bought 6 ebay lots and have quickly built up a large fleet. Lots of cheap ships (I average paying about 55% of retail). Only problem is I've acquired a bunch of duplicates I need to sell/trade. Thanks you so much for this FB group link. Seems like it should be in the stickied "Index of Useful Links" post.

Right now I'm thinking the Rebel Aces (Awing + Bwing?) and Imperial Veterans (Bomber+Defender?) packs are good.

Yes, they should be quite good. But so is imperial aces (awesome interceptors). Cards are quite good as well (2 times "Push the Limit" is gold worth), but I guess you guys will just use proxies for the cards and enjoy the models. In this context most wanted is as well very good value for your money.

On top of that naturally everyone will mention that the red and blue core set are both interesting, not only for the ships, not only for the cards they come with (for cards having both is imho nearly mandatory), but as well for the options you get when using proxies.

Lastly iconic ships like the Falcon, Outrider or a Lambda shuttle are a lot of fun, have interesting build options and are beginners friendly.

What is imo questionable is buying directly into a TIE-Fighter swarm, as you get 2 from a core set, another two from the Gozanti-Expansion. another one from the regular expansion. Leaves you at best with options for another 3 TIE-Fighters for a full 8 TIE-Fighter swarm, which is a lot of fun, but comes mostly naturally if you guys buy over time "one of each". And if you get into the game and start to play it regular you will most likely buy one of each in the long run.

With all that said, getting just the two cores for a start to checkout the game sounds like a perfect plan. After that you might get an idea what you want to try out and what kind of list you want to buy as the T-70 and the TIE-Fighter and the X-wing are used in quite different styles.

I usually buy ships because they were in the original trilogy or X-Wing games, but I want them to have some unique ability. So, this is my list that will tell you what´s special about several classical ships.

X - Wing Expansion: Wedge Antilles, badass pilot, who lowers the defense of his target by 1.

Y - Wing Expansion: Iconic ship, one of the few ones that can use a turret and tank some damage while doing it.

Rebel Aces Expansion: Two iconic ships and upgrades to make them actually useful. Small and manueverable A-Wing and bulkier, tanky B-Wing.

HWK-290 Expansion: A small support ship that comes with a few interesting crew members and abilities. Rewards you for flying in formation.

Millenium Falcon Expansion: A huge, expensive, tank, that shoots 360 degrees. Also, comes with some interesting crew and upgrades.

Tie Fighter Expansion: Howlrunner, great pilot, who supports your tie swarm. But, overall, it´s pretty content thin expansion.

Imperial Aces Expansion: You get 2 Tie Interceptors, good pilots and great upgrades.

Imperial Veterans Expansion: You get 2 ships. One drops bombs and the other shoots twice. Good stuff.

Tie Phantom Expansion: Strongest fighter that cloaks. I didn´t buy it, because cloaking seems tricky, but it´s a powerful ship.

Lambda Shuttle Expansion: A supportive shuttle that carries some supportive crew AND can stand still instead of manuevering.

Slave-1 Expansion: A powerful ship that drops bombs and also can shoot backwards.

Decimator Expansion: Again, I don´t have it, but it´s basically a tank destroyer. It´s a juggernaut.

So, looking at all this, I would suggest you get: Rebel Aces, Imperial Aces, Imperial Veterans (6 ships in total, bombs, dogfighters), Y-Wing (turret), Phantom (glass cannon), Millenium Falcon and Slave 1 (one big ship for each player).

Good guide here:

Rebel - http://www.d20radio.com/main/guide-what-ships-should-i-buy-for-xwing-rebel-edition/

Empire - http://www.d20radio.com/main/guide-what-ships-should-i-buy-for-x-wing-imperial-edition/

Scum - http://www.d20radio.com/main/what-ships-should-i-buy-for-x-wing-scum-edition/

Just to clarify one little thing... if this is a birthday present, you may not want to do any pre-orders. Currently Imperial Veterans falls into that category and we don't exactly know when we will receive it. If the last item to go "on the boat" took 3 months to receive, and the last update on the Imperial Veterans was March 30, 2016... you may or may not want to take the gamble of it being available right away or getting it the next month.

If you value your wallet, buy something else entirely

Though, since you are not looking to play competitively, at least not at first, I would suggest:

Falcon

Firespray

More X-Wings

more TIE Fighters

Any of the other OT ships. Then the EU ships you know of.

Go for the cinematic feel first, go for fun, you can always proxy the upgrades.

Wonderful thing about this game is there really isnt any terrible ships. When youre trying to win major tournaments yeah theres some bad apples but only because people bring out some really lame lists that require like 3-5 expansions per ship in their list, some of which are the big ships.

Buy whatever looks cool.I bought 1 of all the TIE stuff to begin with and really only the TIE Advance seems kinda bleh to me, though still not bad. And the people that argue otherwise are those that bought the 100USD ship with unique cards for the TIE Adv that can make it pretty mean.

Barring the Big ships, all the expansions are pretty cheap too. This game only gets expensive if you start buying ships you dont want to use because you want more of the cards in the box or the big ships, so its really easy to add variety to your list. I rarely run the same list multiple days. This mentality shot me in the foot for 40k, since i have like 7000pts of Tau more so i can run pretty much everything than so i can run big games lol...yeah that isnt cheap.

you cant go wrong buying 100 points of every thing.. lol lots of variety.. get second mortgage approved first..

I probably will just get him the cores for his birthday. You know, six months ago, I thought, "I'll probably never get any FFG Star Wars games, since I am not a fan of the setting." That was back when Battlelore was being supported and Runebound still might have had an expansion. But seeing as Star Wars is all FFG cares about, as they say, "If you can't beat them, join them!". Besides, Xwing looks verifiably cool.

All good advice here. I would add one or two points.

For your first purchase... Yes, absolutely get both core sets. Even at full retail, they are the most cost efficient way to get ships on your table, And at the ~35% off you can usually get them for at Amazon Prime--- you're getting ships at about $8 / base, plus all the other stuff that comes in the box. Furthermore, there are some key cards and upgrades in the boxes that don't come in any expansions.

However, the ships are not balanced out of the core box. 1 x-wing is not the same value as 2 Tie fighters in either generation. (althought the T-70 fares slightly better than the old-school ship in this regard.) Really, an x-wing is worth about 1.5 Tie Fighters. I'd recommend getting one more rebel ship in your starter purchase. It really doesn't matter which one. Just have one, then you can fly a pretty balanced scenario with plenty of replayability on day one. If you asked me, I would recommend a B-Wing. It has a lot of upgrade possibilities and flies very differently from the other ships you'll have access to. This will give you a taste for some of the game's wider potential. But you'll do just as well with a Y-wing or A-wing too.

Furthering your collection.... Purchase efficiency comes down to two equations.

1) Price per ship. Any box that contains more than one ship is going to be more cost-efficient than a ship sold solo. Unfortunately there are only a few options:

- 2 Tie Interceptors in Imperial Aces

- 1 B-wing + 1 A-wing in Rebel Aces

- 1 TBomber + 1 TDefender in Imperial Veterans (Not yet released. Not anticipating it until mid-late June.)

- 2 z95 + 1 Ywing in Most Wanted

These are all great at adding some power to your core collection, but you might not get all the cards you want/need with these unless you also have the individual expansions for each ship. (ESPECIALLY true with the Most Wanted set, because you will not get Rebel Pilot cards in that box. ) That brings us to our second cost efficiency calculation:

2) Price per card. There is NO efficiency to be had here. Each ship comes with the pilot cards you need to fly it, and a handful of upgrades that make sense to use with that ship. In that sense, each expansion is "complete". However, it will become blindingly clear rather quickly, that most ships benefit enormously from synergies with cards that come with other ships as well. Some ships that you may not even care about may be the unique bearer of a certain card that you want. (The classic example here is the StarViper - A Scum and Villainy ship that few people enjoy playing - but it comes with the AutoThrusters card which most players consider to be absolutely critical at this stage of the game.)

So... if you enjoy the game, you will soon find your desire for acquiring new ships expanding like a bad cocaine habit. The solution to this is to proxy cards. Unless you are going to a tournament, there is nothing to stop you from declaring that your Interceptors have AutoThrusters, as long as you can find the specs for that card online. And yes, you CAN. (Almost?) All cards are announced/spoiled in FFG's preview articles. And even if they weren't, all cards are talked about on this forum ad nauseum.

. Besides, Xwing looks verifiably cool.

Oh, it is!

I went cold turkey on Star Wars around 2002. The prequels sucked. The EU had covered everything worth covering, and most of it sucked. I had grown up. I was never coming back to this galaxy far far away. Then my brother showed me X-Wing. And now... goddamit, I'm buying Star Wars comic books again, buying movies on Blu-Ray... reading "YA" novels. What the hell happened? It's all FFG's fault. And maybe... "Chewie, we're home!" had something to do with it.

I'm going to be buying X-Wing for my brother for his birthday in mid-June. (Rule #1 of birthday presents: Buy something that not only the receiver wants, but something you want ). We will only ever play the game casually, and seeing as there is nobody else in the area, we will always play each other. Both he and I crave variety and value above all else. So I want the most stuff, and the stuff that adds the most variety, for as little money as possible. I also want the rebel and imperium to be fairly balanced. I am using Amazon, as there is no game store nearby.

I have read that it is a good idea to get two cores, since they have 3 ships in each. So one of each core is a given. (And that is probably all I will get him). But beyond that, what do you recommend? Are there specific "value packs"? I have read that it is best to get everything in order of release, and if that is true, would someone kindly type up that order for me. Thanks!

Just a tip, use miniature market, not amazon. Amazon will charge at least $15 more than miniature market. Definitely start with the core sets, than move on to other packs, rebel and imperial aces, and imperial veterans once it's released. After that, maybe some more tie/fos and t70 wings.

Also, Vassal is a neat computer program that lets you play xwing with other people and try out new ships.

I'm going to be buying X-Wing for my brother for his birthday in mid-June. (Rule #1 of birthday presents: Buy something that not only the receiver wants, but something you want ). We will only ever play the game casually, and seeing as there is nobody else in the area, we will always play each other. Both he and I crave variety and value above all else. So I want the most stuff, and the stuff that adds the most variety, for as little money as possible. I also want the rebel and imperium to be fairly balanced. I am using Amazon, as there is no game store nearby.

I have read that it is a good idea to get two cores, since they have 3 ships in each. So one of each core is a given. (And that is probably all I will get him). But beyond that, what do you recommend? Are there specific "value packs"? I have read that it is best to get everything in order of release, and if that is true, would someone kindly type up that order for me. Thanks!

Just a tip, use miniature market, not amazon. Amazon will charge at least $15 more than miniature market. Definitely start with the core sets, than move on to other packs, rebel and imperial aces, and imperial veterans once it's released. After that, maybe some more tie/fos and t70 wings.

Also, Vassal is a neat computer program that lets you play xwing with other people and try out new ships.

Amazon charges five dollars less per core set, and I get free shipping from Amazon.

All good advice here. I would add one or two points.

For your first purchase... Yes, absolutely get both core sets. Even at full retail, they are the most cost efficient way to get ships on your table, And at the ~35% off you can usually get them for at Amazon Prime--- you're getting ships at about $8 / base, plus all the other stuff that comes in the box. Furthermore, there are some key cards and upgrades in the boxes that don't come in any expansions.

However, the ships are not balanced out of the core box. 1 x-wing is not the same value as 2 Tie fighters in either generation. (althought the T-70 fares slightly better than the old-school ship in this regard.) Really, an x-wing is worth about 1.5 Tie Fighters. I'd recommend getting one more rebel ship in your starter purchase. It really doesn't matter which one. Just have one, then you can fly a pretty balanced scenario with plenty of replayability on day one. If you asked me, I would recommend a B-Wing. It has a lot of upgrade possibilities and flies very differently from the other ships you'll have access to. This will give you a taste for some of the game's wider potential. But you'll do just as well with a Y-wing or A-wing too.

Furthering your collection.... Purchase efficiency comes down to two equations.

1) Price per ship. Any box that contains more than one ship is going to be more cost-efficient than a ship sold solo. Unfortunately there are only a few options:

- 2 Tie Interceptors in Imperial Aces

- 1 B-wing + 1 A-wing in Rebel Aces

- 1 TBomber + 1 TDefender in Imperial Veterans (Not yet released. Not anticipating it until mid-late June.)

- 2 z95 + 1 Ywing in Most Wanted

These are all great at adding some power to your core collection, but you might not get all the cards you want/need with these unless you also have the individual expansions for each ship. (ESPECIALLY true with the Most Wanted set, because you will not get Rebel Pilot cards in that box. ) That brings us to our second cost efficiency calculation:

2) Price per card. There is NO efficiency to be had here. Each ship comes with the pilot cards you need to fly it, and a handful of upgrades that make sense to use with that ship. In that sense, each expansion is "complete". However, it will become blindingly clear rather quickly, that most ships benefit enormously from synergies with cards that come with other ships as well. Some ships that you may not even care about may be the unique bearer of a certain card that you want. (The classic example here is the StarViper - A Scum and Villainy ship that few people enjoy playing - but it comes with the AutoThrusters card which most players consider to be absolutely critical at this stage of the game.)

So... if you enjoy the game, you will soon find your desire for acquiring new ships expanding like a bad cocaine habit. The solution to this is to proxy cards. Unless you are going to a tournament, there is nothing to stop you from declaring that your Interceptors have AutoThrusters, as long as you can find the specs for that card online. And yes, you CAN. (Almost?) All cards are announced/spoiled in FFG's preview articles. And even if they weren't, all cards are talked about on this forum ad nauseum.

Alright, I'll grab Y-wing with the cores then.