I want everything but the air speeder. However Im leaning towards Rebels or a third faction... Please

I'd argue imps are actually harder to paint then rebels since you need to do a lot with white paint. Painting white well is tricky. Rebels on the other hand have more faces which is a bit of a learning curve to do right as well. In the end I actually expect the Rebels to be more popular. Stormtroopers are mostly only shown as incompetent suicidal lunatics in the movies, and Rebels are the heroic 'good' side that always win. Even in the demo its obvious that Rebel soldiers are better than Stormtroopers in a straight up fight, and cheaper to boot.

I personally will play the Empire as my main focus, but I've been a fan of the Emperor since I was 10 so have an excuse.

Its well established the storm troopers are not incompetent. Hoth is a good example of them mopping the floor with the Rebels and we will see if The Last Jedi follows suit with being a Empire Strikes Back remake(not looking good for originality so far ). Return of the Jedi was a fluff piece because the good guys had to win even though the rebel fleet was getting rocked until the Rebs got lucky with a dying pilot crashing his fighter into the bridge of the SSD. In New Hope the goal was to let them escape and look just real enough to make them believe they got away. Their armor is supposed to provide good protection like it does in the RPG providing 1D of protection vs the rebel's meager +2 not to mention they have better weapons.

In game Rebels should be cheaper, their quality should be lower than a highly trained(but not elite) Storm Trooper. Like comparing an army infantry unit with a Ranger unit on a man by man basis.

Faces are easy. Bugman's Flesh with flesh shade and a slight bit of the next brighter shade for highlights and faces are good at a table top level, all my Bolt Action dudes are like this. I picture a lot of gamers getting frustrated on the white of storm trooper armor. I don't claim to be a white expert so I very well might be one of them but dammit they have always been my favorite force because of the cool (highly impractical) armor. Have a full movie quality TIE pilot suit. You couldn't ask for a worse helmet to fly in. At cons I need a minder to help me down stairs and move around, vision is so bad (+alcohol).

32 minutes ago, Col. Dash said:

In game Rebels should be cheaper, their quality should be lower than a highly trained(but not elite) Storm Trooper. Like comparing an army infantry unit with a Ranger unit on a man by man basis.

That's not the case in Legion really.

I'll be collecting both at first, but likely rebels long term.

I really like the unified aesthetic of empire and their war machines (so pumped for the at-st!!!) but I like to play "the good guys". I really hoping we get a bit more variety in alien heads for the rebels. as it stands they have too many humans :).