Thanks for your imput everyone! I'm really excited. I think for the sake of budget, I'll just pice up The Force Awaken Core into Most Wanted and Punishing One and see where to go from there. I didn't know that the Punishing One was a Scum ship! I have a thing for asymmetrical ships. The new wave IX ships caught my eye too! Can't wait to see what's in store! Scuuuum.

Any other beginners advice in making purchases and getting into X-Wing?

You can sometimes get core sets with the ships and upgrades removed on ebay for a very fair price (I've seen $10-$15).

There are also other groups that sell or trade figures for a good price. Check out this Facebook page among others.

Another question: do you like painting? Or want to try it? Then Z95s (Most Wanted) are really nice bases.

If you do not want to go tournament, and are OK with proxying cards, then its very easy to get Starvipers cheap or trade them against ship from the core. As the Viper is mostly bought for one upgrade card - and it's a nice painting base as well

And as Heychadwick said, Scyks have some OK builds,e.g. as trolling snipers with mangler/flechette/tractir beam cannons (i have 2 myself), but they're just not that easy for competitive play (one error and they go pop).

If you do not want to go tournament, and are OK with proxying cards, then its very easy to get Starvipers cheap or trade them against ship from the core. As the Viper is mostly bought for one upgrade card - and it's a nice painting base as well

And as Heychadwick said, Scyks have some OK builds, e.g.as trolling snipers with flechette/mangler/tractor beam cannon (i have 2 myself), but they're just not that easy for competitive play (one error and they go pop).

Easiest way to star would be to get that Force Awakens core set, Most Wanted and go for few cool looking ships and not stress about the upgrades yet. Get a friend playing with the core set ships and you can do fun 50p games or close to. And if your buddy likes it then he will maybe do the same thing with different faction.

I would recommend not to stress about the upgrades or anything else than getting few cool looking ships you seem to like!

Scum is the large base factionnnnn.

(ew)

Thanks everyone! What a great community! I'll take everyone's advice into consideration. I know I won't get into competitive play other than games at my LGS, but I'm looking to have a good time.

I'm no expert, and a novice at X-Wing to boot (started just 9 weeks ago really). But I've collected and got my feet wet in many ships. However, as I allow my friends to come over and play and pick factions (many times we play 3-4 guys at a time),I have ended up playing scum more often times than not. With this in mind, I think learning the game, understanding mods, grasping good piloting, plus trying to outsmart your opponent, you may want to start with the easiest scum ships: Y-wing, Z95 and the Kihraxz. The Y and the Axz are both tough and the Z is very maneuverable...and although the Y doesn't like turning seemingly much at all, it's easy to not get in over your head and they are forgiving when your taking red dice. Also, the abilities and modifications on the ships are really easy to use or not (fly base ships), but the possibilities are easy to remember to use (which oddly for a beginner is easy to do). Then, when you feel it, you can go more specialized with the Firespray, IG, etc. and drop lots of jack like the rest of us crazed plastic addicts!

I see a lot of utility in the Mist Hunter. It's not the most amazing ship, but Adaptibility ends up in just about every list I fly these days, and both pilot & crew Zuckuss are beasts.

I need to try goofing around with the Tractor Beam one of these days, but right now this is the only way to get one.