As the title says, for Christmas I got a core set. Have nothing else at the moment, and the only miniatures game I’ve ever played is X-wing.

So, where to start? Let me lay out some things to perhaps direct this. I’m a novelty hog. In X-wing I am constantly flying new lists. Mixing and matching and theorycrafting lists is what I am all about. And I’m good at it. So I like variety in my options.

I’m also likely to have X-wing as primary. Local community and all that, but it’s pretty easy to get games. So I would only be playing occasionally, once a month or so. So for that reason I’d probably stick to single faction. I’d likely see if anyone at the FLGS is single faction to swap core set components to jump start a faction that way.

I like fast and agile, flanking, maneuverability and just being hard to pin down. My favorite ship in X-wing is the Interceptor. Second favorite? Striker. So I have a style, and it’s being a squirrely SOB. Not gonna lie, I immediately gravitate to the idea of speeder bikes and T-47’s. Which is one in the Imperial column, it comes with some bikes in the core set.

If, in terms of play, the factions are more or less equivalent just with slight shifts, then the aesthetics of the current imperial crop is a factor. Not that I dislike the Rebel stuff, the T-47 and Wookiee’s in particular strike my fancy, but it’s hard to compete with the color of the Royal Guard, the stark white of the troopers, and Vader’s imposing black. The Endor style garb of most Rebel units just doesn’t grab me as strongly. However this is a distant concern to gameplay. I’m not a painter, so realistically I’m not going to get the most out of the aesthetics. It’s more theoretical than actual, sadly. Still the urge to drop some hilights or insignias on a snowspeeder would prove too much to resist. Even if I just wound up doing solid colors on the units (another point for Imperials, a solid color wash would look less ridiculous on them than the need for flesh tones in Rebels).

So where would you reccomend starting? What faction would you suggest? Is there meaningful gameplay differences between the two, are certain commanders more ‘fun’ than others? Where should an aspiring commander start?

And before you ask, yes, I have watched Crabbok’s what to buy guides from last month.

21 minutes ago, millertime059 said:

As the title says, for Christmas I got a core set. Have nothing else at the moment, and the only miniatures game I’ve ever played is X-wing.

So, where to start? Let me lay out some things to perhaps direct this. I’m a novelty hog. In X-wing I am constantly flying new lists. Mixing and matching and theorycrafting lists is what I am all about. And I’m good at it. So I like variety in my options.

I’m also likely to have X-wing as primary. Local community and all that, but it’s pretty easy to get games. So I would only be playing occasionally, once a month or so. So for that reason I’d probably stick to single faction. I’d likely see if anyone at the FLGS is single faction to swap core set components to jump start a faction that way.

I like fast and agile, flanking, maneuverability and just being hard to pin down. My favorite ship in X-wing is the Interceptor. Second favorite? Striker. So I have a style, and it’s being a squirrely SOB. Not gonna lie, I immediately gravitate to the idea of speeder bikes and T-47’s. Which is one in the Imperial column, it comes with some bikes in the core set.

If, in terms of play, the factions are more or less equivalent just with slight shifts, then the aesthetics of the current imperial crop is a factor. Not that I dislike the Rebel stuff, the T-47 and Wookiee’s in particular strike my fancy, but it’s hard to compete with the color of the Royal Guard, the stark white of the troopers, and Vader’s imposing black. The Endor style garb of most Rebel units just doesn’t grab me as strongly. However this is a distant concern to gameplay. I’m not a painter, so realistically I’m not going to get the most out of the aesthetics. It’s more theoretical than actual, sadly. Still the urge to drop some hilights or insignias on a snowspeeder would prove too much to resist. Even if I just wound up doing solid colors on the units (another point for Imperials, a solid color wash would look less ridiculous on them than the need for flesh tones in Rebels).

So where would you reccomend starting? What faction would you suggest? Is there meaningful gameplay differences between the two, are certain commanders more ‘fun’ than others? Where should an aspiring commander start?

And before you ask, yes, I have watched Crabbok’s what to buy guides from last month.

you sound like you like imps more for now the are have more of that mobility but not in there leadership veers will help and boba, But vader and palp are slow but nasty but this is coming from a rebel player. if you can find somone to split set with you it best to go with to starter sets.

A core set is enough to get you started but not enough to play a legal point game. You will find from a competitive standpoint the t-47 and at-st are not the right fit, but for pure Star Wars flavor they are fantastic.

the sides do play differently especially at the trooper level (of which you need min 3 in a proper game and the core comes with 2) they are very opposite of each other. There is some mirroring between some of the units and some that very. I normally play dark side in everything, yet the rebels are really fun to run.

i like playing veers and 3 speeder bikes for the mobility, commandos are my new favorite unit. (Haven’t run palp/imperial guards yet). I prefer a sit back and shoot and mobile in as opposed to run in and engage in melee.

5 minutes ago, azavander said:

A core set is enough to get you started but not enough to play a legal point game. You will find from a competitive standpoint the t-47 and at-st are not the right fit, but for pure Star Wars flavor they are fantastic.

the sides do play differently especially at the trooper level (of which you need min 3 in a proper game and the core comes with 2) they are very opposite of each other. There is some mirroring between some of the units and some that very. I normally play dark side in everything, yet the rebels are really fun to run.

i like playing veers and 3 speeder bikes for the mobility, commandos are my new favorite unit. (Haven’t run palp/imperial guards yet). I prefer a sit back and shoot and mobile in as opposed to run in and engage in melee.

Good stuff. Sad to hear the vehicles aren’t great but… I’ve always been an odd duck and tend to do well with overlooked items. I find that if something isn’t meta, but you are good with it or can use it in an unorthodox way, that surprise can work in your favor. Or, at least, I try to do that.

When you say Rebel and Imperial troopers play opposite of each other, amcan you expand on that? I literally have no frame of reference for how troopers play, other than broadly being aware that Fleet troooers for Rebels are considered good, and scout troopers are too.

T-47s are pretty much unplayable. But ATSTs are still competitive. Play grenade launchers and push them up aggressively. If u make the opponent shoot at them, particularly with their z6s, it’s making the them play inefficiently.

Vehicles may not be good but they’re fun. There’s nothing better than flaming an entire squad with the at-rt or making an infantry unit break first turn with the mortar

Rts are still pretty competitive. But you gotta play them in multiples. 3x flamers is still a huge threat

2 hours ago, millertime059 said:

Good stuff. Sad to hear the vehicles aren’t great but… I’ve always been an odd duck and tend to do well with overlooked items. I find that if something isn’t meta, but you are good with it or can use it in an unorthodox way, that surprise can work in your favor. Or, at least, I try to do that.

When you say Rebel and Imperial troopers play opposite of each other, amcan you expand on that? I literally have no frame of reference for how troopers play, other than broadly being aware that Fleet troooers for Rebels are considered good, and scout troopers are too.

What’s “good” is entirely dependent on what the other side is fielding.

If your opponent doesn’t have sufficient anti-armor, then armored units are potentially devastating.

If you bring nothing but anti-armor units/upgrades, and they’re focused entirely on plain old infantry, it’s going to be an uphill battle.

Empire tends to be slightly cheaper in real-world money, what with the models being more expensive in-game. I play both factions but I rarely get a chance to use my rebels lately. Fair warning, X-Wing is an odd duck in the history of post-1960 miniatures games, and it won't lend itself to meaningful comparisons in a broad context. Legion is very much an entirely different pursuit. It's almost like trying to compare playing Magic: The Gathering to learning to do magic tricks. So the more of your X-Wing assumptions you can leave at the door, the better.

Even though you like endlessly tweaking a list, Legion lends itself to that without getting expensive. One of the great things about Legion from that perspective is, if you're broke, 3 core sets is enough sheer STUFF to play both factions forever, if all you do is keep changing out $10 commanders/operatives you'll never get bored. For a miniatures game, that's dirt cheap. Not that I suggest you buy 3 core sets... My point is, endlessly changing your army's playstyle doesn't require buying several of each expansion or anything drastic like that so you don't have to be put off by price. Though if you do want to pursue two factions on a budget, you can't afford NOT to buy a second core set, it's value cannot be overstated. You'll need two sets of dice anyways, that's $15 right there!

I play a strange imperial list: 5 squads of snowtroopers, Veers, and then fiddle around with which vehicles and upgrades to take after that... I painted a squad of snow-bikes because I thought I needed speed. Yeah right. Turns out snowtroopers are faster than regular stormtroopers. But with a squad of bikes, an AT-ST, and a couple e-webs, different heavy weapons/grenades/etc. I can sorta endlessly tweak how that collection of figures will play.

You're going to hear a lot of stuff about vehicles not being able to "buy back their points". But you don't win by killing things, you win by achieving objectives. If a vehicles weird abilities help you gain you a mission objective it doesn't matter if they killed fewer points than they cost. I use my AT-ST mostly as a portable wall to mess with my opponents plans. It's hard to put an exact valuation on that kind of thing.

Don't be intimidated by painting! Having painted miniatures, and specifically Star Wars miniatures, for decades, I think the Legion minis are the easiest ones to paint to a simple standard to date. For the record, I have no natural talent, only the desire to see my forces be in Full Living Technicolor. The biggest thing to remember is, during games, we view our miniatures from a few feet away. Therefore, if all you do is spray paint your stormtroopers white, get a little pointy brush to color their guns black, and then paint their bases some sort of natural color, they'll look better than you think! Pretty much all the Empire stuff can be that simple to paint. The only exception is speeder bikes: but if you glue the rider on AFTER painting, they can be similarly simple work. There's also safety in numbers. A single stormtrooper painted to that standard might not impress anyone. But 4 squads of them all together looks awesome! Use a non-desired heavy weapon or two as practice models before painting a squad at a time. Ie, spray paint a batch of 7 stormtroopers, let them dry, paint all their guns black in assembly-line fashion, let them dry, paint all their bases brown/green/whatever. Last piece of painting advice: blu-tac your guys to a small stable object (pizza box spacers work well, as did empty film containers back when film was still a thing) so that you can set them down and pick them up by it and not smudge their paint with your hands during work.

If you can swap 1/2 a core with another player, you are in a pretty good spot.

Since it does seem that you are leaning towards Imps, if you can swing a trade for the 1/2 core set, I'd finish out your initial force composition with Veers, Boba, Snowtroopers (x2) and maybe another Speeder Bike expansion. With that and the Core set, you really have a good selection from which to pull. Snowtroopers will want to be in close for Flamethrower attacks. Regular stormies can provide ranged support. Bikes and Boba will be your swift moving flankers and just all around harassers.

As for Special Forces, I'd likely wait for the Death Troopers as I'm really not sure the Scouts or Imp Guard fit into your described play style but I could be wrong. Picking up the Imperial Specialist Personnel pack later this month might be good as well, especially if you are running Veers without Speeder Bikes as his 2 pip card becomes useless without vehicles. Granted we have no idea about what the 2 pip will be from the expansion, but...

Lots of food for thought here. Thanks for the replies.

Will definitely see if anyone local has a core set they’d want to swap faction stuff for. I’d be fine with either in the grand scheme. Han commander and Boba commander definitely seem my style, so wherever I go, I’ll have options.

1 hour ago, millertime059 said:

Lots of food for thought here. Thanks for the replies.

Will definitely see if anyone local has a core set they’d want to swap faction stuff for. I’d be fine with either in the grand scheme. Han commander and Boba commander definitely seem my style, so wherever I go, I’ll have options.

Fett’s an Operative, so you’d still have to field Vader unless you get Veers/Palpatine/Imperial Officer.

20 hours ago, millertime059 said:

Good stuff. Sad to hear the vehicles aren’t great but… I’ve always been an odd duck and tend to do well with overlooked items. I find that if something isn’t meta, but you are good with it or can use it in an unorthodox way, that surprise can work in your favor. Or, at least, I try to do that.

When you say Rebel and Imperial troopers play opposite of each other, amcan you expand on that? I literally have no frame of reference for how troopers play, other than broadly being aware that Fleet troooers for Rebels are considered good, and scout troopers are too.

Don’t feel bad using vehicles. I’ve used the AT-ST to devastating effect.

The awesome part about “nobody uses vehicles” is that when you DO bring one, the folks with an answer to them are minimal. Can’t do it every week, but I love that model and it works for me.

Rebel troopers (core set) are all about trying to be in cover and taking dodge tokens to prevent damage rather than relying on defense dice. Stormtroopers are more offensive based with wanting an aim if possible, and relying more on defense dice to survive (and with the better defense dice it’s doable).

They aren’t super mobile so not quite your world, but I love my snowtroopers. They use the slow move, but have a free attack after wards, making them highly resilient to suppression, and if you move twice you accomplish the same as a 3-speed move plus an attack.

Boba Fett is highly mobile and my favorite unit, period. However, as has been noted, he is not a commander and thus you must field someone else. I use Veers. I still need to field Palp and RG just not yet gotten to that.

Bikes are pretty good except for they really hate snipers. That’s one thing to be aware of. They do well otherwise if you can keep them away from those shots.

On 1/4/2019 at 9:06 PM, ScummyRebel said:

They aren’t super mobile so not quite your world, but I love my snowtroopers. They use the slow move, but have a free attack after wards, making them highly resilient to suppression, and if you move twice you accomplish the same as a 3-speed move plus an attack.

They are quite mobile. They'd lose a straight up foot race against stormtroopers because two short moves is less than two medium moves. But otherwise they're usually faster, because in common situations where stormtroopers forgo moving (say, to aim before shooting) snowtroopers still get that short move!

If both storm and snow troopers choose to move and shoot in the same turn, snowtroopers will move farther. Because two short moves (followed by a free shot) is more distance covered than one medium move. It doesn't even necessarily look like it would matter when you just compare the rulers. But adding in the minis base, twice, makes it quite a bit more.

I would definitely say 2 core sets is the way to go. Trading a faction from a core set is an excellent opportunity as well. If that is not a possibility, selling squads on the secondary market will help pay for new squads, vehicles or commanders to further expand your faction of choice.

Being a list builder I would probably spend some time in this forum and see what others have shared about units in this game. One mans fruit is another mans candy.

Also if you have the time to watch a game or two on Youtube you can also get a feel for the dynamics of units and that may help you choose what is a must have and what you can afford to play without.

2 core sets is definitely the way to go.

In terms of named units, you should get Veers and Boba. Veers because he is much cheaper than Vader, and a cheaper Commander will provide you additional list flexibility (which you want). Boba because he is one of the most mobile units in the game, and definitely the most mobile named unit.

With that in mind, and continuing to think about mobility, I recommend you grab another set of Speeder Bikes, if not 2. Veers + Triple Bikes was a very common build in the early meta. It is less powerful now but can still be piloted effectively.

You need to round out your set with corps units. I personally find that 4x Stormtroopers and 2x Snowtroopers gives you enough flexibility to have the corps you want for almost any list. You'll run anywhere from 4 - 6 corps units in any competitive list, and I tend to gravitate towards a 2:1 Stormtrooper / Snowtrooper ratio. Good news about this and my bikes comment is that if you trade your core set rebels for someone else's core set Imps, you'll have 4x Stormtroopers and 2x Bikes already, so your purchasing to give you some flexibility to build a couple of lists will only need to be Boba, Veers, and 2x Snowtroopers.

After that though, ATST is absolutely viable and plays well with Veers so pick one up - can be surprisingly mobile if you're running it thin. Snipers are also exceptional support so think about picking up 2 sets of Imperial Scout Troopers.

Beyond that its up to you, but that is how I would look at getting started. If you get all of the above you will have a large variety of lists. Veers + Triple Bikes. Vader + Double Bikes. Veers + Boba + Trooper Spam. Weiss ATST. Tons you can play with.

I focused on Imps because the most mobile Rebel unit, the Airspeeder, is probably the only unit in the game that is brokenly noncompetitive. That may appeal to you - go for it if it does. Rebels tend to be more nimble and dodgy in their playstyle (****, they have the keyword) but overall I think more mobile lists that can flank really well lie with the Imps.