A friend and I just bought collections and are going to be learning to play tonight. It's safe to assume that we collectively have at least 2 of everything between us.

Any advise would be great! I'm flying imperials and love star destroyers. He's flying rebels and likes everything. Point limit is unimportant as long as it's even.

Play with the core set first. Don't underestimate the learning curve on this game. It will give you a good grounding and jumping straight into larger points battles you will miss a lot.

These are the pair I use for teaching new players. Only 300 points each without too many upgrades per ship.

Welcome to the game! My biggest suggestion would be to skip the core set game. It's kind of boring and not super well balanced. It's a lot better to start at 300 points, as mad cat is suggesting. That said, those lists are fine, but I really really dislike Tycho in the Rebel list as he breaks THE core fighter mechanic of engagement. It is hard enough to learn when you are engaged and not engaged without the empire player being really frustrated because the Rebel player is constantly saying, "I move Tycho here, because he can move even when engaged." Just like I would never put Luke or Dutch in a learn to play either because like Tycho they just plain prevent the empire player from being able to use a core mechanic of the game meant to protect them (or in the case of Dutch, ever even getting to roll Darth Vaders dice).

I think the list could also be upticked to wave 6, if you have those models, because wave 6 brought some fun stuff with it.

The Imperial list is probably good, but I know I personally would alter the Rebel list to this.

Rebels 300/300

Mc80 Command Cruiser 106

General Dodonna 20

ECM 7

Nebulon B Support Frigate 51

Salvation 7

Dual Turbolaser Turrets 5

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette 36

External Racks 3

2 X-Wings 26

2 Y-wings 20

Wedge Antilles 19

Advanced Gunnery, Hyperspace Assault, Intel Sweep.

I wish! The hammerhead looks awesome. We bought the collections just prior to that wave's release. Didn't want to buy anymore until we were sure we enjoyed it that much.

I'll look into replacing Tycho. I agree that you don't want a fundamental game breaking ability in game 1, but it seems like this is one you can counter by moving him up in the target priority. We'll see. If this was one of four ships like X-Wing then it's a bigger concern, but this is one small squadron out of five squadrons in an 8 item list. Seems like less of a concern? I suppose we'll find out!

@Mad Cat, do you use the new FAQ'd version of Most Wanted? Also, how critical is it to use objectives in the tutorial game? I'm just worried it'll add a bunch extra that we will forget constantly.

8 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

@Mad Cat, do you use the new FAQ'd version of Most Wanted? Also, how critical is it to use objectives in the tutorial game? I'm just worried it'll add a bunch extra that we will forget constantly.

Its not critical in a "learn to play" game. In those, you need to be focusing primarily on command usage... Command and Maneuver, essentially... Because if you can't maneuver (and learn to use the appropriate Navigate command), you'll struggle with play, 100%.

Once you've got a feel for ships and commands, then consider adding some objectives when things are boiling down to "just kill each other."

Ok, so we ran with what @Mad Cat suggested, but left off the objectives. Just felt like there would be too much going on to wrap our heads around those as well. Perhaps a mistake. I need to go back and look at them to see how they would have affected strategy and balance.

I played imperial and @Luuke C played rebel. He set up rebel convoy style with the Corvette in front, Nebulon in the middle, MonCal in the back, and all the fighters in the rear. I put my Victory on an angle to run into the front of his convoy, the gladiator to go through the rocks and attack the side, and the raider would swoop around the back with the fighters to take out his support.

So here's where everything went wrong. First of all, the raider was going just too fast and I wanted to concentrate on other actions so slowing down wasn't in my head at all. In just a couple turns I was right on the tail of the MonCal which unloaded into me and the raider was dead. I did some good damage to his squadrons, but because of some poor planning, my Swarm abilities were wasted. I think I triggered one all game. Massive failure there.

Since the threat of my squadrons and the raider were comping in quick, he turned up sooner than expected to broadside it and that put him on course with the gladiator. This also meant that my SLOW AS **** victory would take even longer to get to the battle. By the time the gladiator died, the Victory was just getting in range to fire. I did manage to crush the Corvette, so that made me happy. My bombers were handling themselves fairly nicely.

At that point, I had my victory at nearly full health and a couple bombers. We decided to end the game there. My victory was in a decent spot as it was coming around from behind to chase, but it was too little too late.

I'm sure we got some rules wrong and made some massive newbie mistakes, but we had a lot of fun. Initiative feels super powerful. Not having it gives you the advantage if you can plan that first engagement just right, but after that, always going first is brutal. @BrobaFett you mentioned possibly taking Tycho out. His ability wasn't too crazy, it was the counter mechanic that was really brutal. How is that not once per round?!?! Especially combined with Scatter, it felt impossible to take him down. The three command stack ships can be very hard to plan around. Chasing ships with squadrons is about the only thing that didn't feel very thematic to me. Any movement by a ship would get it outside of attack range for a ship. I feel like some chasing starfighters should be able to get some attacks and not be forced to jump to the front of a ship to get shots. Maybe we missed something there.

The theme of this game really stood out to me. Swarms were better in swarms, bombers got a little extra on ships but couldn't tie up a squadron. The Star Destroyers love to punch forward, the MonCal had a brutal side barrage. It all just felt like what I would expect from these ships. Excited to get another game in. Thanks for all the advise!

20 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

Tycho . . . [']s ability wasn't too crazy, it was the counter mechanic that was really brutal. How is that not once per round?!?! Especially combined with Scatter, it felt impossible to take him down.

Just wait till you meet Shara Bay. . .

3 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Just wait till you meet Shara Bay. . .

I saw here skimming through the cards. Counter 3? My god... Is there an obvious counter to counter or do you just have to accept the massive damage that is going to come at you?

Just now, Killerardvark said:

I saw here skimming through the cards. Counter 3? My god... Is there an obvious counter to counter or do you just have to accept the massive damage that is going to come at you?

No obvious. Jamming Field on a Flotilla is really the only thing that cuts into Counter, because it cuts into all attacks. Ciena Ree, with her inherent obstruction, will also live longer (as its reducing Counter 3 to Counter 2)

One thing that wasn't really clear for us. If we do the concentrate fire command and do a multiple squadron attack, do we add the blue die to all the squadron shots or only one? and if only one, does it have to be the first one or can it be any I choose?

7 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

One thing that wasn't really clear for us. If we do the concentrate fire command and do a multiple squadron attack, do we add the blue die to all the squadron shots or only one? and if only one, does it have to be the first one or can it be any I choose?

Only 1, you choose.

50 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

I saw here skimming through the cards. Counter 3? My god... Is there an obvious counter to counter or do you just have to accept the massive damage that is going to come at you?

Snipe, IG-88, Valen Rudor

Valen Rudor + Jendon is my answer. Guarenteed burned scatter at very least with no counter damage.

I usually try to pin her with a tie or interceptor and then just not attack her.... her normal attack is weaker than her counter