Strange X-Wing habits: How do you collect your ships?

By NH Gunsmith, in X-Wing

I was wondering if you guys have any strange habits on list building and ship collecting. I know I sure as heck do, I always liked the uniformity of the Empire's ships and follow these weird guidelines when designing lists and what to buy.

-Only Empire ships. I don't use any First Order ships, just upgrades from them.

-Try to make lists using the same type of ship. My main lists are all uniform, my sub-lists change it up and mix ships.

-Only use blue painted Empire ships (this has led me to buy and sell off three Gozanti's and two Raider's, bought my third blue Advanced off eBay.)

-I have enough upgrades for all of my ships to run them all at once. It is nice my ships don't have to share.

I would love to hear your X-Wing oddities.

Collecting: If FFG release it I tell the wife I will only buy one but will buy at least 2 ;)

List building: If its called Meta or if others fly it I wont :P

Hah, what is this meta you speak of? Yeah, I fly a few ships that were "meta", my favorite ship has always been the TIE Interceptor, so I couldn't help but use Soontir Fel... but he is almost always flown with Turr and Carnor as wingmen.

Vader? Pretty much only fly him with Maarek and Juno.

Don't get me wrong, I make my lists as good as they can be, but they are heavily themed.

Not buying every ship anymore...

bUt then wanting to play a 4 punisher list. =(

Not sure it counts but i like to think that my imperials are from the compliment of one ship and her escorts (an EU Imperial Remnant Interdictor cruiser, so 24 fighter[in the standard proportions], 4 mixed shuttles [I've got a Theta and two lambda atm]. I figure she has three Gozanti tenders for support and long distance patrols).

This mindset means I can also always tell you how the list got to its current location. So fighters (unless they have hyperdrives) will tend to be in lots of 4 if delivered by Gozanti, or whole swarms if correct from the cruiser.

And I've got good clear limits on what i can reasonably send on a given action, as i obviously can't leave the Cruiser undefended. :P

55 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Not buying every ship anymore...

bUt then wanting to play a 4 punisher list. =(

Your "Squadron Building" way of thinking is close to mine. Multiples of four. 4 of the Big Boys in Small base. HWK 290, ARC 170. 8 Bs. 12 X. 24 Ties...

But when I fullfiled my Objectives I buyed more. It is like an habit. Or little obsesion. I must eat green, swim and be active. So I purchase new toys as a "Reward". Rainy day...go to swim. Eat salads. Buy a pair of X Wings yhis Friday. Or another Lancer. I can see no limit to my collection...

Edited by Hexdot

Rebel only. Usually one of each and buy more if I think I need them.

I won't buy ships just for the upgrades, I prefer the secondary market.

Thematic. No sub faction mixing, and I like closer to Star Wars realism squads. Also I build my own lists, I don't care for meta builds or looking for what others play to win. I play for the immersion and pure fun. I like to feel like it's an actual battle you might see in the movies or lore. I purchase what I like and nothing more. I don't own any scum because I am not a fan of the beat up non conforming look. Though it's pretty fun to battle my friends who love scum.

Still waiting on Blue Squadron X-Wings! And now Green Squadron Y-Wings

I only buy ALL THE SHIPS.

And rarely more than I need in order to build a swarm with the cheapest pilot.

Edited by haslo

I only buy rebels cause i mostly only play them, and even then ill only bu a ship if. I think i may play it.. So fae ive maby bought 1 ship a wave.. Maby. Also skipped atleast 3 waves completely so far.

For a given ship, I've tried to collect as many as the best generic swarm wants of them. For iinstance, I have 4 Interceptors for PTL royal guards, whereas I only have one T-65 for Biggs.

I start out with one of each release. If I think a ship has merit or I really like it, I'll buy a second or third copy.

When I started playing X-wing, I tried my best to field a homogeneous squad. Four X-wings, four B-wings etc. Easy to fly and remember what was going on but not very effective. After two years of playing I'm a little better at squad building. I look for combinations that compliment the other ships in the squad but don't rely on them.

I still occasionally try to make same PS lists. Having 3 or 4 ships all moving and firing at the same time is pretty fun.

1 hour ago, migs6000 said:

I still occasionally try to make same PS lists. Having 3 or 4 ships all moving and firing at the same time is pretty fun.

I have learned how much fun that can be with triple Glaive Squadron Defenders, and five TIE Strikers.

The Strikers I have noticed have to be used in a particular order to get all of their movements to go off correctly on a cluttered board. Most fun I have had in a while.

7 hours ago, Arterial Spray said:

Not sure it counts but i like to think that my imperials are from the compliment of one ship and her escorts (an EU Imperial Remnant Interdictor cruiser, so 24 fighter[in the standard proportions], 4 mixed shuttles [I've got a Theta and two lambda atm]. I figure she has three Gozanti tenders for support and long distance patrols).

This mindset means I can also always tell you how the list got to its current location. So fighters (unless they have hyperdrives) will tend to be in lots of 4 if delivered by Gozanti, or whole swarms if correct from the cruiser.

And I've got good clear limits on what i can reasonably send on a given action, as i obviously can't leave the Cruiser undefended. :P

Very cool and thematic way to design your lists. I like it a lot.

How do I collect my ships? Obsessively.

Okay, seriously, what I usually do is look at how many of the lowest cost ship I can fly in a 100-point squad and still have room for some upgrades, then buy that many of that ship. I don't do that for the large ships though; the only one I have more than two of is the Aggressor, and that's because I wanted all four Brobots for Epic play.

This can run me into trouble when ships are re-printed in Aces/Veterans packs. I didn't mean to end up with eight Interceptors and six Defenders, but that's the risk you take.

3 hours ago, haslo said:

I only buy ALL THE SHIPS.

And rarely more than I need in order to build a swarm with the cheapest pilot.

Dang. . .my MO to a T. Awesome :D

1 hour ago, Stoneface said:

I start out with one of each release. If I think a ship has merit or I really like it, I'll buy a second or third copy.

Yeah, this would be the financially smart way to do it. But then how can I assure FFG's ongoing support for the game? :P

2 minutes ago, DailyRich said:

This can run me into trouble when ships are re-printed in Aces/Veterans packs. I didn't mean to end up with eight Interceptors and six Defenders, but that's the risk you take.

I feel your pain. For Squints, I bought 8 of the originals, repainted 4 for my squadron livery, then Aces came along and I wanted 4 Reds and Bloodstripes. Now I have 16 Squints, all of which are pretty useless in Epic (which is how I play). :(

Thanks to Vets, I also have way too many TIE Bombers.

Edited by Darth Meanie

I try not to buy too much faster than I can repaint, since I much prefer to play with repainted ships (on my side, my opponents can do whatever). Doesn't always work out that way (sometimes you see a bargain) but that's the idea. I'm trying to catch up on my painting for other systems right now and my X-Wing collection growth has slowed noticeably.

They also need to be in the right scheme. I have 3 Y-Wings but two of them are repainted in my Scum colours so I only ever field 1 Rebel Y.

6 minutes ago, You Look Like A Nail said:

I try not to buy too much faster than I can repaint, since I much prefer to play with repainted ships (on my side, my opponents can do whatever). Doesn't always work out that way (sometimes you see a bargain) but that's the idea. I'm trying to catch up on my painting for other systems right now and my X-Wing collection growth has slowed noticeably.

They also need to be in the right scheme. I have 3 Y-Wings but two of them are repainted in my Scum colours so I only ever field 1 Rebel Y.

Since I grew up when nothing came painted, I have literally painted thousands of miniatures. Ugh. Plus, my eyes aren't what they once were. Thus, I really like that I never need to do anything in X-Wing. I repaint a few for fun, then those become my aces among the generics.

For collecting I had a rule of thumb and a quirk. Both have gone by the wayside.

Rule of thumb was only buy ships I really liked. Now that the plasticrack addiction has taken hold, I've generally been buying 2 or more of each small base and 1 of each large and huge ship. There are still a few ships I don't own but I assume that will eventually be rectified.

My quirk was that when I bought the Raider, I originally had no intention of ever buying any other ships that size (i.e. no CR90). The rebel transport and gozanti were ok because they were a few inches shorter. The Raider was to be my stand-in for an Imperial Star Destroyer and I wanted it to be the biggest, baddest ship in the galaxy. Well, I did buy a CR90 and will be buying the CROC and probably one of every other huge ship FFG decides to release.

For me, it's a combo of what I want to buy (never really buy ships I don't plan on using, or at least trying to use), and flying what I want to fly. As my little sister says, "I am Divergent and can't be control!" The meta won't affect my list building!

I buy at least one of everything; multiples if I love the ship, need more than one for a build, or even just want to have multiple repaints/mods.

I keep and punch all cardboard tokens, despite having no need for the hundreds of extra shield tokens, target locks, etc... keep them all in a "backstock" show box, separated into bags.

There are iconic/popular builds and ships I've yet to fly; I've two Aggressors but have never flown them, still haven't flown The Ghost (that might change today) or a Jumpmaster. I tried (pre-FAQ) Emperor and didn't like it, felt "gross".

I tend to be kind of OCD about my play area and setup, how cards are arranged, the order of pilots left to right, where my token box is to my right, how maneuver templates are arranged, etc.

I started out by buying only a handful of ships, and then wound up turning into buy one of everything. The old imperial stuff I'm still missing some of, but I don't see a need to unless I need more ships for HotAC. And I need some more epic ships.

And occasionally I wind up buying multiples when I need them for a squad I want to try. Really wanting to do more epic so I can get more ships out on the board at once (and an excuse to get more of them if needed).

20170326_125105_zpsniqzhxgo.jpg

I just love with Imperials, that even if I occasionally mix ships in a list to dork around, it still looks like they belong together... don't mind the one ship without a blue base, it is on the way. I was bummed that I ran out of "4&5" ship designator tokens until I found an eBay seller that makes acrylic ones. They are on the way too.