I have begun assembling and painting my Anima: Tactics figures and, while plotting the order of painting, I think I may have come upon some advice to give the starting player.

There are certain synergistic combinations that flow out of the basic starter sets. I started with the starter boxes and began collecting and painting every neutral I could get my hands on. Based on this flow, I recommend the following:

• Faust Orbatos and Tsubasa Kurokame - these two figures will allow you to get your starter sets to the next level of play (150 levels) with the addition of figures only. Never mind advantage cards - you can develop those later.
• Tokanosuke is a good introduction of Hidden into the game mechanics and can become a proper Darkness Faction member with his advantage card. Also, he can team with Kujaku Hime to augment a Light Faction party. This makes Tokanosuke "super-neutral" - not only can he work with either faction, he can really integrate with either faction. Being a team of only 2 minis who are Wanderers, I would recommend this to be the first team new players try to create. It continues to be useful for Wissenschaft players after they move on into Organizations later.
• The Paos are an obvious synergy. Being a Wanderer team requiring 3 minis, they are less flexible in the long run. I'm probably going to shelf this option until much further down the line.
• Damien seems like a good gateway unit - he's neutral, so you can include him in either army; he can form a team with Justina, both of whom are Church and thus can make a list with Sister Evangeline from the Light Starter. The minis come to 140 lvls including the team card - fill in the last 10 lvls with advantage cards. Note that Evangeline can later team up with Saint Astraega!
• Kirsten could be a gateway unit, too, except her team consists of FOUR members in the Azur Alliance. Still, Reinhold is a neutral and thus fits with the development strategy, and their team total comes to 180 lvls.

Therefore, I would recommend purchasing these minis, in this order, if you were interested in going into the Church faction ultimately.

1. Light Starter - play a game or two
2. Faust Orbatos - play a game or two at lvl 150
3. Damien & Justina - Loan Faust to your opponent so you can sic Damien on him. Mu-ha-ha-ha.

If you were interested in getting into the Azur Alliance ulimately...

1. Light starter
2. Faust Orbatos or Tsubasa Kurokame (depending on starter) to get to lvl 150.
3. Kirsten & Reinhold
4. The Colonel and Kyler

Those are the fastest routes for the starting player. One could cut out step 2 in both to get straight to the teams, but I believe one would want the practice with the simpler games. I'm going to be inserting Tokanosuke and Kujaku Hime as a step 2b in my own progress, but that's because I didn't have the perspective starting out I have now.

How about others? Any other quick, simple synergies someone could launch off of if they were starting? I seem to favor the Light Starter - any quick and effective builds off of the Dark Starter?