Right now the over/under feels like 4.

1) Swarm Faction (CIS, Imperials)

2) Ace Faction (Resistance, Republic)

3) Tanky Faction (Rebels, Scum)

4) Wildcard faction (whatever you invest in, which might be one of the above still, that has elements you find unique vs. what you own.

Specialization artists probably gravitate to one and an alternate. Thematics might stay stay within an era (OT, Prequels, NT.)

4 factions can be costly though. Every wave potentially $50 to $75 to buy new ships for the completist.

What's YOUR limit? Thanks for reading!

For ages, I've been a rebel loyalist. I'm gonna buy into Republic tho - just because its fun, not to be competitive. So in other words, only flying 1 faction is totally viable

7

2, maybe 3.

Im Scum, Rebel.

Holding out on Republic.

I have Galactic Empire ships aplenty. I have decimator but am not really wanting to go down that rabbit hole. Bombers in Hyperspace could be interesting. I feel like ur going to need a game plan against the droid swarms that seem popular right now.

1 hour ago, Cloaker said:

Right now the over/under feels like 4.

1) Swarm Faction (CIS, Imperials)

2) Ace Faction (Resistance, Republic)

3) Tanky Faction (Rebels, Scum)

4) Wildcard faction (whatever you invest in, which might be one of the above still, that has elements you find unique vs. what you own.

Specialization artists probably gravitate to one and an alternate. Thematics might stay stay within an era (OT, Prequels, NT.)

4 factions can be costly though. Every wave potentially $50 to $75 to huy new ships for the completist.

What's YOUR limit?

I doubt they'll let Rebel/Resistance be bad again. It's probably a safe bet. The game's called X-Wing after all. I'll probably just stick to Rebel, Resistance, Imperial, and First Order but I probably won't buy everything of any of them.

3 and no more. Rebels, Resistance, and Republic. I don't need to follow more than that. It'll be hard enough to get time with them all. I'd love to have the time and money for everything but I'll settle for flying against the other 4.

5 for me was bad enough on the wallet. Then I flew against three Jedi masters tonight. Those look real fun to fly. Gosh darn it I may be at 7 here in the next few weeks.

With the core, and the conversions, I've just got back into xwing, like yesterday, so I have 5 factions and have dropped $200 to play. That's plenty me thinks.

Let's be real here: one. Do you WANT more factions though?

...shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

As long as one of those factions is a source for new cards coming, one is probably fine.

So.... something from Resistance, Republic, or CIS. The rest are getting the “only conversion kit / rerelease” treatment.

I was already invested enough it was easy to keep the conversion kits coming (4 out of 5). I’m not messing around with prequels. Based on the lack of new content I justified resistance and am dabbling in their fighters.

I'm sticking to four, I suspect that'll be plenty to be as competitive as I'm currently interested in without breaking the bank, especially as I'm not expecting to buy any of the reprints they've currently announced.

If you’re casually competitive, I’d say 2-3. If you’re hellbent on being able to field the most competitive squad possible at a moments notice, you might be Dee Yun.

You only need one. Every faction is viable and competitive.

10 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

You only need one. Every faction is viable and competitive.

I agree with this. If you have people to play against or play online and can practice against a variety of squads, any faction can get you a competitive list in extended and/or hyperspace. Now, if you're like me and want to obsessively play out every type of list in your basement, you're going to need every ship and multiples of several (and your wallet will weep).

All kidding aside, if you want to just be competitive, you can do that with a single faction. There are people who are ardent Imperials who would never touch another faction. I'd get too bored with one faction. I want to try all the new things.

For hyperspace, a couple T70's and a couple RZ2 a's will do you just fine. I'll wait and see what shakes out as the meta changes to adapt to the higher ship count and new factions being introduced.

Gotta catch 'em all...

All you should really need are two factions as long as they're strategically dissimilar. If one is bad, the other should be okay. There aren't that many different strategies. Most differences in this game are tactical.

I'm only going to invest in 3.

Republic, Resistance and Separists I feel like all the factors have competiveness within them it's finding the tight balance and combinations of ships within them that fit your playstyle the best.

That's a tough question, and depends on a lot of factors.

The most important, though, is "How often do you play X-Wing?"

When 2.0 rolled around, I sold all of my factions except one. I play X-Wing on average maybe 2-3 games a week, which is probably more than most. And I've never felt like I was running out of things to practice or try with my single faction. Even if I owned all seven factions, I'd never get them all onto the table for actual games, and they'd just sit in the PLANO case. Now, I know some people who play every single night, often of Vassal, and who travel to almost every tournament and event within 400 miles. These sorts of people will get a lot more value out of owning additional factions than the vast majority of us, because they are playing enough to actually use a wider scope of their toys.

Another consideration is "How expensive is the faction(s) you play?"

The factions cost different amounts to buy into. It also depends on how much variability and flexibility you want in your list-building. People are saying Republic is pretty cheap to buy into, and that's true, but a lot of the lists that did well last weekend had 3 ARC-170s... which adds up very quickly. On the other hand, 1x ARC, 1x Squadron Pack, and 1x Delta gives you a solid variety of 200pt lists for <$100, but it may not be the best or most competitive archetypes. If you want to be the sort of person who owns 200pts worth of each of the ships in your faction, well then you'll want to crunch numbers before pulling the trigger on any given faction, and factions with a lot more ships (e.g. Rebels or Imperials) will be much more expensive to collect a full stable of options for Extended, but even to some degree for Hyperspace as well.






But my vote is to go for 2 Factions, so that if you find yourself getting bored with the one you can turn to the other, and vice versa. It'll keep your list-building and games very fresh while likely getting the majority of your purchases onto the table to justify their ownership.

Aside from all the really good frugal responses in this thread... I feel the question should have been: What's your side hustle to afford all 7 factions? Mine is selling all my other games on eBay.

Separatists as a faction are the most expensive to start with. ur looking at buying quite a few ships for a vulture swarm. ull want a sith infiltrator to mix things up and then theres the bulba guy. thats around 10 ships out of the gates.

My policy remains true to this day: Does it have small-base force users? If so, buy into it, or at least get all the Hyperspace legal stuff for it. SNR is some good stuff (even if it is now more useful on FO and Republic than the others).

So the current answer is 4.

19 hours ago, Cloaker said:

Right now the over/under feels like 4.

1) Swarm Faction (CIS, Imperials)

2) Ace Faction (Resistance, Republic)

3) Tanky Faction (Rebels, Scum)

4) Wildcard faction (whatever you invest in, which might be one of the above still, that has elements you find unique vs. what you own.

Specialization artists probably gravitate to one and an alternate. Thematics might stay stay within an era (OT, Prequels, NT.)

4 factions can be costly though. Every wave potentially $50 to $75 to huy new ships for the completist.

What's YOUR limit?

After getting the first 3 conversion kits to have a base of ships to pick from, I'm buying towards specific lists. I don't collect factions.

6 hours ago, heychadwick said:

You only need one. Every faction is viable and competitive.

One won one wonderfully.