new player here. Just got the core set and both campaigns. Was wondering which expansions I need to use all the upgrades from campaignns. Thanks.

Well, this isn't a complete list, but I'll kick things off.

Rebel fighter pack 1

Imperial fighter pack 1.

Rogues and villains.

There are cards for the nebulon b, CR90 and victory class start destroyer.

Beyond that... most of the other upgrades will work on too many ships to list here 😃

There is a short and a long answer for this 😁 .

"Need" for the upgrades are mainly the 3 squadron packs that @Flengin mentioned.
Rebel Fighter 1 , Imperial Fighter 1 , Rogues and Villans .
These two campaigns had many new squadron cards for these 3 sets.

There is just one more ship, where you have a card, but cannot use yet. You will need the Raider expansion for the last titel from Rebellion in the Rim (Corvus).

This was the short, and now the long one.

I could be evil, and say that you need an Arquitens really urgent 😁 .
Armada has currently more or less a problem with supply. It might be, that you cannot get all the ships that are suggested. Even the Fighter packs 1 are hard to get at some places.

At the beginning, i would not get any of the ships that you already have (CR90, Nebulon, VSD). These have, when you buy the expansion, extra cards that you do not have right now. But upgrade cards could be printed out. It is more important to get different ships, to see their differences, and find your style.

My suggestions for a good ability to play would be, beside the 3 squadron packs, that are always good, a Raider , Gozanti or Gladiator for the Imperial side. If you want another medium size ship, i would suggest the Quasar over the Interdictor . But this is my personal suggestion. But both ships are really special, and need some specific handling or fleet. For the begining they might be frustrating or too extreme. It is maybe better to get a small ship first. An ISD (there are currently two expansions with ISD ) is also great, but really expensive (in price and points for playing). But it is, after all, iconic 😄 .

Not sure about the Rebel ones, but a Transport or Assault Frigate might be the best for start. Maybe even a MC80 instead, if you want to invest this much. MC30 is great as well, but hard to get right now, and just another small ship. And for the first games, you might want something bigger for the Rebels.

Most ships (not all!) have a special use, and are hard to use for something else. The Quasar for example is a great squadron carrier or even a good anti squadron ship. There is hardly any other use for it beside this. It is not a good combat ship (yes, i can be used for it, but imo there are better ones for combat).
Some ships, like the VSD and Assault Frigate , can be used for combat or squadrons. They are flexible enough to allow both.

And one last tip. There is no "ultimate" list. No best ship. Every player has his own style, and is performing best with this list (more than any other game i have played so far).
This is why it would be best to get a few ships, and find your play style (Swarm, big ships, squadrons, offense or defense, ...).
And don't let anyone tell you: You NEED this or that. Or you HAVE to play this fleet. It might only end in the wrong play style, and frustrate you.

These are good suggestions! You might also give Crabbok's videos a try:

• What to buy first (Rebels) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5w0Hhe0h84
• What to buy first (Empire) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvb2KOz6Wrg

2 hours ago, Tokra said:

Not sure about the Rebel ones, but a Transport or Assault Frigate might be the best for start. Maybe even a MC80 instead, if you want to invest this much. MC30 is great as well, but hard to get right now, and just another small ship. And for the first games, you might want something bigger for the Rebels.

If wanting both sides but focus on the Imps, I'd pick the MC75 / MC30 plus a transport both ships pair really well in a list and come with some nice cards, on top of having a similar style to Star destroyer / Glad. Both ships also are hard to take down and hit hard making for some easier first games compared to the Assault Frigates or the 80.

As @Tokra very well mentioned there is no must oder ideal expansion at the beginning. In the end every ship add´s a certain variant & gameplay to Armada and you must be happy with your choice and how you slowly advance with expansions.

My personal recommendation would be the same as how I started into Armada following the idea of @Flengin to buy the Squadron packs 1 for Imps & Rebs as well as Rogues and Villains because they add a lot of depth and variant to your squadron game + some iconic characters & ships -> Millenium Falcon, Slave I etc. etc.
Furthermore I would suggest to go for the MC80 Home One as it is the iconic Rebel ships from the old trilogy (+ it´s a large base for Rebs) and to go for the ISD Expansion which provides 2 variants of the ISD (+ a large base ship for Imps).

In general you will see yourself that this will not be the end as you´ll get hooked pretty quick

The Chimaera box does not include the cards or tokens for the base ISD variants (I and II), but it does include three copies each of the Cymoon and Kuat refit cards, plus three cardboard ship tokens for those variants.

So you’ll still need an ISD box to run plain ISDs... but the ones you do get are fun to play and the prepainted Chimaera model is awesome, so it’s worth buying!

Ah, thanks for setting that right @ralphbod ! In my memory I though it was the other way round... just fixed it in case
In this case of course go for the regular ISD...

Thanks everyone. There’s some good advice here. I picked up all squadrons except imp 2 which I have on order. Picked up Phoenix one and chimera as well. Next up if I can find it is imp raider. Then interdicter and liberty.

I’m still new but i got several expansions for christmas. I got ships for both sides so i could play with friends. My light side preferences are home one and mc30 (i’m pretty sure i saw them on walmart’s website). I like the profundity too. Not as big a fan of the liberty. Dark side i like ISD, chimera, and gladiator. Can’t find the raider or imperial light cruiser, but will get them if i can find them. Amazon has had some of the ships for half price on and off. I’m probably still too new to know how to use some of the other ships as well but i’m still enjoying playing and tweaking builds