So the Box Expansions come with a cards and a little cardboard coin for some of the figures that have had actual releases. Can a person play these in skirmishes instead of the model?

At the kitchen table yes, but you need plastic for official tourneys. It's definitely worth buying the figure packs, because they come with command cards tailored to the figure, making your list that much better.

At the kitchen table yes, but you need plastic for official tourneys. It's definitely worth buying the figure packs, because they come with command cards tailored to the figure, making your list that much better.

Oh cool thank you

Yeah, some of those Command Cards and other cards in the Ally/Villain packs can be pretty important.

For example, the Deployment Card and Token for Agent Blaise are in the Bespin Gambit expansion. But Blaise's Villain pack--in addition to his figure--has the crucial Zillo Technique skirmish upgrade card, as well as the always-used (in Spy squads) Intelligence Leak card. So even if you wanted to play Blaise without buying his own Villain pack, you'd still be missing out on 2 important and valuable cards.

For Force Users, the Obiwan pack contains the Force Surge command card, while the Inquisitor pack contains the Force Rush command card. So if you want to optimize your Command Deck with a Force User focus, then you'll really need to buy both the Inquisitor and Obiwan packs. This is just FFG's business model for its expandable games...I know that it works this way for X-Wing, and it might be similar for Armada too.

All that being said, if you're still getting into the game then you might ask around (your LGS owner, any local players who you might know) and ask if you can borrow some of their stuff on the day of various events. I know that I've always been more than happy to share when I've had extras of something...especially if you're a new player who's still getting into the game. In fact, one time I even brought complete two extra squads (all cards and figures and tokens/dice) along with me to a Store Championship, just in case there was someone who wanted to give the game a try. I have 3 boys who play skirmish tournaments with me (we have a Regional this Saturday actually!), and so I often tend to buy 2x of a lot of things (ie, 2x Obiwan/Greedo/Inquisitor, 2x Blaise/Lando, etc), just so that we have enough copies of the stuff that everyone wants when we go to a tournament...and that means that we often have several extras floating around after we've built our squads and command decks.

TL;DR:

1. Yes, the packs (ie, figures) are "required" for the big official events, but really, if you're playing in those big events then you'll probably want the packs for more than the figures anyway.

2. Please don't let that requirement (and therefore the cost) deter you. I've found that people in the IA community are usually pretty generous and friendly. With a little bit of conversation before an event, it shouldn't be too difficult to borrow some of the stuff you might need.

^^^^this sounds like me, I've got a little boy and girl that I play with more than anyone else, so I'd end up buying multiples of everything just so the command decks and figures were there for almost every configuration.

Yep! But you know what I'm finding is the most difficult card to get enough of? Negation. Every Command Deck wants one, but it's part of the Hoth box ($$$). We bought one Hoth box, and then I won another Hoth box this year as a prize at GenCon, so we now have a grant total of 2 Negation cards, and 4 of us wanting to use them. We have 2 Core Sets, so we have 4x of the main cards that show up in every deck (Element of Surprise, Urgenty, Take Initiative, etc).

Cards like Zillo Technique or Tough Luck aren't hard to get duplicates of, since they come in Ally/Villain Packs (Blaise and Lando, respectively)...but it gets expensive pretty quickly for cards that come in the big boxed expansions.

But hey...we all have fun, even if we can't all show up to an event with the best optimized command decks. And I've gotta hand it to them: they do well! At our Regional last year one of my sons made the Top 8 (yay, more fancy dice!), and then a few months later one of my other sons won a League Kit tournament (it was me vs him in the finals, where it's possible that I might've made a couple of sub-optimal moves...).