So I Know I'm late to the party, but what would I need to get started? I thought about starting with this:
Star Wars: Destiny - Two-Player Game (Collectible Dice Game)

and these two:
Star Wars: Destiny - Starter Set: Luke Skywalker (Collectible Dice Game)
Star Wars: Destiny - Starter Set: Boba Fett (Collectible Dice Game)

and seeing as I bought the main game, do I need to get these two, or is that just doubling up then?:
Star Wars: Destiny - Starter Set: Rey (Collectible Dice Game)
Star Wars: Destiny - Starter Set: Kylo Ren (Collectible Dice Game)

and then what booster packs would you recommend and why?
Way of the Force seems quite popular?

Sorry for the foreign links but I'm from South Africa :)

The two-player starter is the best place to start. I would tecommend getting two copies of it so you can run elite versions of the characters.

The Luke and Boba starters are also very good and I would recommend getting those.

The single Rey and Kyle starters I would recommend passing on, as those starters and the expansion they’re related to will be rotated out of tournament play sometime early next year. If you don’t plan on competing in tournaments, then I would recommend picking them up, as they still have some good cards.

WotF is a good place to start for expansion set cards, as it’s the newest and has some powerful characters.

The Two Player Game is a great product to get you started, with one caveat. If you ever want to play those characters in a serious deck, you'll need two copies of it, to get two dice for each character. There are enough good cards in there that aren't available elsewhere to make that worth it. That's why buying two copies of that is the standard recommendation right now for the best way to get started. That's how I got into the game, about a month ago. Also, it's been really cheap in the US lately, due to some of the biggest retailers over-stocking it by mistake, but I doubt if you'll get that lucky outside the States.

I also like the Luke and Boba starters. I don't have the Rey and Kylo starters, though I've considered buying the Rey one just for specific cards. I haven't actually looked at the Kylo starter that much, because the villain deck I've built doesn't need those cards.

For boosters, you're right that Way of the Force is very popular right now, but that's just because it's the newest. I'm not sure if it's actually "better" than the other sets, or what that even means. Personally, as a new player who is looking for cheap singles for my decks, I seem to end up buying cards from Spirit of Rebellion more than any other set.

It also depends on where and how you plan to play the game. For casual play with your friends at home, it doesn't matter which boosters you buy - just get whatever cards look fun to you. Here's a page where you can look at them all: https://swdestinydb.com/

But if you're looking to get into serious tournaments, you should note that the "standard" tournament format only allows the last two "cycles" of booster sets (3 sets per cycle) to be used. Right now, the game is new enough that everything's allowed. But once two more booster sets are published, the first 3 sets (Awakenings, Spirit of Rebellion, and Empire at War) will no longer be allowed in tournament play. Apparently, the release schedule isn't set, but I've been told to expect that sometime around February - April of next year. So if you want to play in tournaments, you may want to stick to Legacies and Way of the Force more than the others, just so you know you'll be able to continue to use those cards in 6 months when the older sets get kicked out of tournies.

That's actually why I'm only buying cheap singles from the three older sets. When I get boosters, I've mostly been sticking to Legacies. Because Way of the Force is so popular right now, I've picked up a lot of free cards from that set from people at the tournaments who buy them for the rare/legendary cards and give away the commons and uncommons (and even some rares) to noobs like me.

I'd buy used many people are selling off collections if you want to play competitively and save big $ or want a full collection. If you just want to play casually go for the starter decks , ffg only includes one die for one character but just use a D6 instead of buying 2nd box for casual. I'd stay away from boosters and just buy singles so you don't end up with tons you never use.

Thanks guys some good advice!

I decided to start with the 2 player starter set as well as the Luke/Boba starter sets. See how that fairs and will go from there.

Not looking at playing in tournaments at the moment, just casual play amongst friends.

It's not as widespread in South Africa as in the USA so singles/buying second hand sets are a little harder to come by.

Got a couple questions.

Still waiting for my stuff to arrive, should be here on Tuesday as Monday is a public holiday in SA.

Anyway, how many characters are you allowed to start with? I've only ever seen two mentioned but is there 3 characters with low enough points that would allow you to start with three? Take Ezra Bridger for example.

Second, I've read the rules here and it says that you are only allowed 3 upgrades attached to an individual character. I take it the rules aren't wrong, but then why would these guys advice be to have 10-12 upgrades per deck. Is it simply to swap one upgrade for another?

They have a great video series on everything you want to know about Destiny by the way and I highly recommend it if you're new to the game. I'm on video 5 right now.

The deck with the most characters is the 5 Battle Droid deck. Variations are the 5 Gingan deck and the ever elusive 5 Jawa deck. So long as the points are here you aren’t limited on characters. 2 character decks have been the foundation of the game until WotF came out and all sorts of possibilities opened up for three character decks. Now that is most common, but decks ranging from 1-5 are all out there and all legal to play. The only consideration is your 30 point limit.

Regarding upgrades, yes, there is a 3 upgrade per character limit, which may actually be broken in certain scenarios (General Grievous and Honed Skills are the only two currently). That being said, you did hit on one reason for bringing more, and that is the ramp. Overwriting a cheaper upgrade for something better is a very common strategy. There are two other reasons I can think of to include more upgrades. The first is to ensure that you draw enough. If you only include 6 in your deck, then your average weapon draw will be 1 per 5 card hand, which is far too low for getting your game going early. Usually you will hope to have at least three out by the end of round 2, deck dependent of course. The other reason is that mill has become a viable strategy recently, and if not a straight up mill deck, control decks that try and discard your hand. In either case, the odds are over the course of the game you will lose several upgrades to the discard. If you lose even one of only 6 upgrades your damage output has been seriously injured. But if you lose 3 of 10, you can still get out a lot of upgrades without having to worry about losing a couple.

Hope this helps!

Ah yes, that all makes a lot of sense, thanks for the help!

Even without mill, you're not going to have the opportunity to get all your upgrades on the table. In a non-mill game, you're likely to still have 5-10 cards left in your deck when the game ends. In order to make sure you actually see 6 upgrades to put on your 2 characters, it's best to have at least 9 or 10 in the deck, just in case a few end up at the bottom of your deck.

A few more questions.

- When a card says Ambush, the accompanying text is usually "You may take one additional action after you play this card." What happens if that accompanying text isn't there, and the text just says Ambush like with Anakin Skywalker's Podracer, do you still get to take one additional action?

- You are only allowed 2 colour cards (and grey) in your deck. So my question is can you play a card on a character that doesn't correspond to it's colour, ie. attach a yellow Upgrade to a blue character.

- How does the swapping out of Upgrades work in term of cost. Do you simply subtract the cost of the attached Upgrade? So if the attached Upgrade had a cost of 1 and the new Upgrade has a cost of 2, you would only pay 1 resource. Or if the attached Upgrade had a cost of 2 and the new Upgrade has a cost of 2 then it would have a cost of 0.

- What happens if a round ends and you still have cards (let's say 2 cards) in your hand, do they get reinserted into the deck and shuffled and then you draw another five; or do you simply keep those 2 cards and draw 3 more?

- When drawing your starting hand, how many times can you mulligan?

Thanks!

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- When a card says Ambush, the accompanying text is usually "You may take one additional action after you play this card." What happens if that accompanying text isn't there, and the text just says Ambush like with Anakin Skywalker's Podracer, do you still get to take one additional action?

Anything in parentheses after a keyword is just a reminder of what that keyword means. The keyword always means the same thing whether it has that reminder or not. So yes, you get the additional action for any card with ambush, regardless of whether or not it has reminder text to let you know what ambush means.

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- You are only allowed 2 colour cards (and grey) in your deck. So my question is can you play a card on a character that doesn't correspond to it's colour, ie. attach a yellow Upgrade to a blue character.

Actually, the colors of cards you're allowed in your deck depends on your characters. For instance, if you play a deck with all blue characters, which is fairly popular due to the strong blue cards available, then you're only allowed blue and grey cards in the deck, no red or yellow. But if you go with three characters that are blue, red, and yellow, then you could have any color cards in your deck that you want.

As for your question, there are no color restrictions unless the upgrade says so. There are some that say things like "Blue character only", which means that upgrade can only go on a blue character. But most upgrades can go on any character, regardless of color.

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- How does the swapping out of Upgrades work in term of cost. Do you simply subtract the cost of the attached Upgrade? So if the attached Upgrade had a cost of 1 and the new Upgrade has a cost of 2, you would only pay 1 resource. Or if the attached Upgrade had a cost of 2 and the new Upgrade has a cost of 2 then it would have a cost of 0.

You pay the difference. So replacing a 1 cost upgrade with a 2 cost upgrade would require you to pay 1. Replacing a 2 cost with a different 2 cost would be free. Note that there was a rules change at one point that says you can only do one replacement per round, which is different than the original rules, when it was unlimited.

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- What happens if a round ends and you still have cards (let's say 2 cards) in your hand, do they get reinserted into the deck and shuffled and then you draw another five; or do you simply keep those 2 cards and draw 3 more?

Any cards still in your hand at the end of a round can be kept for next round. Or you have the option of discarding any of them that you don't want to keep before you draw your new hand. But that would be a discard, they don't go back in your deck. Either way, after you've decided if you want to keep them or discard them, you draw up to a hand size of 5. So for instance, if you keep 2, then you only get to draw 3 new ones.

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- When drawing your starting hand, how many times can you mulligan? 

Just once.

Thanks for the help Fromper, much appreciated!

1 more question.

- Could someone explain the Guardian status a little more clearly.

This is more of a comment than a question. I was a little disappointed in the Luke that came with the Luke Skywalker starter set, firstly his health was only 10 and then you had to pay 2 resources for his ability! Do we know if he was a Return of the Jedi, Empire or New Hope Luke because that might clarify things. Because Captain Phasma also has 10 health.

Sorry for all the question guys (and gals) hope you don't mind.

54 minutes ago, Stewart777 said:

1 more question.

- Could someone explain the Guardian status a little more clearly.

Sorry for all the question guys (and gals) hope you don't mind.

Guardian is: Before a character with Guardian activates its owner may remove one die showing damage from their opponents dice pool to deal damage equal to the value showing on the die removed to the activating Guardian character. I don't mind at all.

Another question. When does a round officially end and the upkeep phase take place?

I know when both players pass a round ends. Is it also when neither player has any cards in their hand?

But what happens if neither player has any cards but there is still an unresolved die on the table? I saw this on a youtube video - both declared that the round was over and the player placed the die back onto the card. I thought that would have constituted an action that could take place?

Unrelated but just curious - has anyone ever seen a villain deck consisting only of 5 Battle Droids How did it play. Did the deck lose more than it won?

The round only ends when both players pass consecutively. If a player claims the battlefield, then they auto pass all further actions that turn.

There’s no rule around no cards in hand ending a turn.

5 Battle Droids is a fun deck. It’s not a very good deck though. There’s been some decent versions, but it’s typically a tier 2 deck. The biggest issue is in finding the resources for the deck.

Could someone tell me what size sleeves you need for Destiny cards.

Also I'm new to board/card games, so would you recommend premium or regular sleeves.

Edit: Just compared a Destiny card with a LotR: The Card Game card (63.5mm x 88mm) and the Destiny cards are slightly smaller, so I would assume then that Destiny sleeves are 63mm x 88mm?

When I started I picked up the following.

2 Player Starter Set - This was one of the best deals in my humble opinion in terms of cards vs. cost.

Luke and Bobba Starter Set - These are both great because they give you 2 viable characters to build decks on (2 dice characters) which is pretty much a qualifier for using most characters.

Kylo and Ren Starters - I actually only recently picked these up so I haven't formed an opinion yet, but again it guarantees you 2 dice characters which again, is a qualifier in most cases for using them.

Beyond the starter set my suggestion is that you never buy random boosters for one reason only and that's cost. It's more expensive to buy boosters than the big boxes, in particular because you can pretty much always find Destiny on sale, typically between 30-50% off but that only applies to the big boxes. Its best to buy a booster box at 30-50% off and then buy 2 of the same one, than it is to buy 2 different ones. It may seem strange but you will have more deck building options that way as you are likely to get 2 dice of characters which I can't stress enough in terms of viable deck building how important that is. With a few exceptions, every character you get that you only have 1 dice of, will not be used unless you enjoy losing. You need 2 and so its better to buy 2 of one set and ensure you get several, than it is to buy 2 different sets and end up with a lot of singles you can't do anything with.