Hi all, didn't see a better sub forum to post in, if I missed it, apologies. New player here. I received a core set and a rebel conversion kit as a gift. I am slowly piecing together a rebel fleet from old 1st edition ships. I have a Falcon, Two T-65s, and a B wing and presumably more as I come across models for cheap.

I also randomly have a hounds tooth and the upgrades to play that one ship.

I would like to use an Amazon gift card to fill out the empire side. I have nothing apart from the two core TIE fighters.

What are your recommendations for imperial empire ships? I am not really concerned with competitive builds or anything just enough imperial ships to throw some different looks on a table for fun games whilst avoiding a "wow hate this ship, never using it again" situation. I have about a 100 dollar budget.

Thanks for any advice.

Simple as it sounds, grabbing one of each of the 2nd edition TIEs is a great place to start. I'd try to avoid 1st edition ships and conversions, at least in the beginning, since that's a decent chunk of money spent on no-ships. My suggestions, roughly in order:

• TIE/x1 has Vader, and Vader is great, particularly with Afterburners and choice of lock-related Sensors slot upgrade.
• TIE/v1 has a bunch of other Force users. The Grand Inquisitior, Seventh Sister, a generic Inquisitor. They're all solid. Putting on a missile is often good, but TGI and Sev are both solid without upgrades.
  • There is an extra pilot for them in the Hotshots and Aces expansion, but that's harder to find, and doesn't provide physical ships, so feel free to skip it, and if you want to fly Fifth Brother, just print off a copy and proxy him. No one will mind, particularly with a new player.
• TIE Striker is another solid ship, but the style of flying does take a bit of getting used to, with extra moves before you reveal your dial. Duchess is a great place to start, since she's got high initiative and can shut off her ship ability. Pure Sabacc is a nifty little hitter, and the generics are fine.
• TIE Interceptor has Soontir Fel, who's got probably more trade-up potential than any ship out there if flown well. The generics are also reasonable; they've got a different flavor from the Striker, but they're both ships with the same attack dice, similar toughness, and high mobility.
• So that'd be about $80 MSRP, and that leaves 20. There are kind of three options.
  • You could get the expansion TIE Fighter. It adds pilots, brings the total up to 3. Taking three as basic ships to take pot-shots and fill space on the table, Vader, and another Ace, is going to be solid. However, you've already got TIE fighters.
  • You could get a TIE Defender. It's not a super competitive ship, it costs a fortune in game, but it's an absolute bear for an opponent to kill. It has 3 green dice, 7 health, and will usually have a Focus and an Evade token. One key part: they have a white K-Turn, to flip around without stress. That typically makes things a lot easier. But because of the high cost, a list with a Defender will often feel pretty low damage.
  • TIE Reaper looks like a 1st edition expansion, and it kind of is, but it has all the 2nd edition stuff in it. It's like a extra big TIE Striker, and can carry crew around and support your other ships. However, I'd probably go with more direct ships at first.
• Other note: if the Decimator looks cool to you, like something you can't wait to get on the table, go for it. It's a fine ship, maybe not the most popular. However, I think it's important to get stuff you like the look of.
  • That goes for anything else. If you think the TIE Defender is an absolute boss, get that first. Think the Reaper looks silly? Skip it for now.

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In the spirit of "Try before you buy" you can test out a lot of stuff in FlyCasual. That'll give you a bit of a sense of how things move, how the lists fit together. Maybe you hate Strikers, or fall in love with the TIE/v1 and want two.

That's the other thing: it'd be pretty safe to end up with two of any of the TIEs.

Ships that are good BY THEMSELVES without needing multiples FIRST, ordered by importance/preference:

X1 (Vader)

V1 (All the Force Users)

Lambda*

Decimator (RAC + Crew cards [Vader])

Interceptor (Fel)

Phantom* (Whisper/Echo)

Striker (Named)

Defender

Punisher*

Alpha Class Gunboat (Vynder)**

Reaper

Aggressor***

Normally flown in multiples:

Another V1

TIE Fighters

TIE Bombers*

Generic Strikers/Interceptors

*Requires Conversion Kit

**Rare/eBay expensive, needs kit

***2.0 Broke it, pointless ship 🥺

FYI: Oli Pocknell won worlds with Vader (X1), Whisper (Phantom), Grand Inquisitor (V1).

I'd agree on an x1 or a v1. Which comes down to whether you want Vader or some of the other characters. Vader is relatively easy to fly and can be a true beast.

I'm a big interceptor fan, but often like to run two if I run them. You could go down that road, or get two more stock TIEs and start a swarm.

Could be fun to face the Decimator off against the Falcon, but it's expensive and that will often come down to a big ship duel with minor supporting characters if you play Falcon v. Decimator.

All are available native in v2.0 and no upgrade kit necessary.

Vader, Decimator, Interceptor, Interceptor = $100

Inquisitor, Interceptor, Interceptor, TIE, TIE = $100

All are fun, playable ships and would get you to a point where you probably have more plastic than you can put into a 200 point list and might start thinking about adding rebels variety instead.

A must have Empire ships in my opinion are:

1. One Tie/Adv X1 - Vader obviously, the rest of the pilots is okay, but nothing too fancy.
2. One, two or three Tie/Adv V1 - Inquisitors, all I am going to say. The only non-Vader Force Pilots in the Empire.
3. One or two Tie/Striker - extremely agile and unpredictable. Duchess has been a core Ace for me, untill I got my hands on a Phantom.
4. One Tie/Phantom - take the agile Striker and take it to another level. That's a Phantom. Whisper is amazing, but for me Echo is the king of being dodgy.
5. One Tie/Interceptor - Soontir Fel, nuf said.

That's the Imperial Aces core set. If you are interested in playing some Tie Swarms, I would suggest grabbing yourself a Tie/Reaper for that Crew Slot carrier or maybe a Lambda Shuttle. You shouldn't need more than six Tie/LN (the basic fighter) to get you started. Understand, that the Empire is mostly about avoiding the enemy fire or swarming them with cheap ships. Pick what you prefer and buy into that. A solid Ace backbone would be a Vader, Soontir Fel, Whisper, Duchess, Grand Inquisitor. If you want to be more of a Empire Second Best, you are looking at maybe four Tie Fighters with the Inferno Squadron with some Strikers or Inquisitors in the mix. I am currently flying Echo, Seventh Sister, Fifth Brother and Ved Foslo and am having a blast with the list. And on the end of the scale is Tie Swarm, either with Howlrunner or Admiral Sloane (Crew). That's easily up to 8 Tie Fighters in a list.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I think I am going with an Advanced, Advanced V1, Decimator, Interceptor and a Striker to go with my two Base ties. Comes out to 102 dollars. Which is a fine overage to me.

2 hours ago, LionOfwinter said:

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I think I am going with an Advanced, Advanced V1, Decimator, Interceptor and a Striker to go with my two Base ties. Comes out to 102 dollars. Which is a fine overage to me.

If you have a Barnes and Nobles nearby they have the Advanced V1, Decimator, and Striker on sale for 50% off.

8 hours ago, LionOfwinter said:

I think I am going with an Advanced, Advanced V1, Decimator, Interceptor and a Striker to go with my two Base ties. Comes out to 102 dollars. Which is a fine overage to me.

I started out with a similar idea, four months ago: get a core set, an Advanced x1, an extra TIE, and a similarly small collection of Rebel and Scum stuff.

I soon found myself endlessly trawling eBay for their best deals on rare, obscure, and hard-to-find 1.0 ships to complete my collection, and trying to figure out how to explain to the wife that I really THOUGHT the collection was complete, but then I decided I wanted the huge-based Epic ships...

It’s a dangerously slippery slope, friend. But fun!

8 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I started out with a similar idea, four months ago: get a core set, an Advanced x1, an extra TIE, and a similarly small collection of Rebel and Scum stuff.

I soon found myself endlessly trawling eBay for their best deals on rare, obscure, and hard-to-find 1.0 ships to complete my collection, and trying to figure out how to explain to the wife that I really THOUGHT the collection was complete, but then I decided I wanted the huge-based Epic ships...

It’s a dangerously slippery slope, friend. But fun!

Same team.

And with Epic, now I have the urge of owning x6 of most ships, just in case I fancy a wing of them.

17 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:

Same team.

And with Epic, now I have the urge of owning x6 of most ships, just in case I fancy a wing of them.

Oh, I know. The wing mechanic may be the death of me.

A few x1s and a space cow (Jendon. Always Jendon) is super strong. v1s work best in pairs and fill a similar niche as A wings but the force users make it so much better. The Reaper is one of my personal favorites. I've won a store tournament and a Gen Con tournament, (Not the big one, but still), with Vader, Maarek, and Vermeil.