So, is there any advantage to having the dice expansion besides each player having their own complete set? I am going to put in a preorder in and wonder if one really NEEDS it. Is there any situation where a player would not have enough dice just in the core set?

Also, is there any point in buying more than one of each expansion set? As in, do the pilots in the expansions only fly that type of craft or can they pilot any of the ships?

EDIT: Also, is there plenty of room in the core box to hold everything from the expansions?

In the Core Set you have 3 attack dice and 3 defence dice. X-Wing firing from close range has an attack value of 3+1=4. So it is better to have at least 4 dice.

If you want more ships of chosen type (for example, Y-Wing) you have to buy more expansions. Each pilot card is a pilot/craft card, not just pilot card. So pilot from X-Wing expansion cannot fly Y-Wing.

AFAIK, the starter set comes with three red and three green dice. I believe there are situations where you would need four of each. (Folks with experience playing the game, please correct me if that's wrong.) As someone who plans on hosting games for friends to get them interested, I pre-ordered two starter sets and an extra dice pack. I figured the extra pack would round out dice sets for two people as well as covering the basic requirements for a third person.

The expansions have unique pilots so there isn't much of a use of having more than one of those cards but they also have generic but different upgrades like different astromech droids. If you *really* like a particular droid upgrade alot more than any others, you'd need more than one expansion to use it officially.

I think the biggest issue is the ships. If you want to field more than 1 Y-wing or TIE Advanced, you either have to buy another expansion or borrow from a friend. The number of ship cards that come with the expansion/starter is irrelevant if you want to use more than one in a squad and you only have one ship.

Roy

drkjedi35 said:

Which is why I'd also really like to see some ships for sale by themselves, so I could pick up two TIE Advanced (which I'd like to have) without having to have useless duplicates of all the unique cards.

Is the problem that you don't get something completely unique every time you make a purchase? I mean, it is a wargame after all. It's a game about units of the same vehicle.

Manchu said:

The problem for me is that along with the ship model (which I want more than one of) and the generic enchancements and modifications (which I want), there are also Unique Pilots (which having more than one of is pointless). For example, the TIE Advanced booster comes with both Dark Vader and Maared Stele, both Unique plots. Since you can't have more than one Dark Vader in a squad, if I buy a second TIE Advanced booster, I now have this useless second Darth Vader card.

It's only useless at first glance. It could be traded for a unique pilot card that you don't have. For example, let's say you have the starter set but decide to play Imperial. So you buy two TIE Fighter "boosters" and therefore get two copies of a unique pilot. You could trade one of them with a friend who has done the same thing with X-Wings so that you could use that unique X-Wing pilot with your starter X-Wing in a casual game. Also, if you're not the type to purchase FFG's card sleeves, having a nother copy of a card isn't a bad thing by far. Cards have a nasty way of finding their way into condensation rings left by beverages -- and sometimes beverages have a nasty way of finding their way to cards. Bottom line, we're going to encounter some duplication regarding cards short of selling the cards separately from the models (which would decrease the value of both, IMO). But that duplication can actually be a good thing when you think about it.

KristoffStark said:

KristoffStark said:

The TIE Advanced Expansion only has 2 uniques (Vader & Maarek Stele). The rest are non-unique TIE Advanced cards (Temple Squadron Pilot & Storm Squadron Pilot) and Upgrade Cards (Cluster Missiles, Concussion Missiles, Expert Handling, Squad Leader, and Swarm Tactics). I definitely would like to have duplicates of all of those. In my mind, the only thing wasted in buying an additional TIE Advanced Expansion is the 2 unique Ship Cards. Everything else (the figure, the non-unique ship cards, and the upgrade cards) are well worth the money.

Roy

Manchu said:

This is true, but only works for the TIE Fighter and the X-wing. You couldn't trade Y-wing or TIE Advanced Ship cards to people who don't have the expansion because they wouldn't work for the other ships. And if they have the expansion, they won't need your cards.

Roy

If you bought 2 of the TIE Advanced blisters, the only "waste" is in 2 side of cardboard and 2 cards. That's not what I'd call "wasteful."

Yeah, if you decide to go nuts and get 10 of the blighters, there's some extras laying about. However, given that you're only typically bringing (even in "spam" lists) maybe 6 ships at most in 100 points, this should create that "longbox full of worthless cards" scenario that plagues a collectible card game.

drkjedi35 said:

KristoffStark said:

I don't really follow this complaint, you are unhappy there is too much included in the expansion blister? Would you be happier if they included only 1 Unique Pilot per blister and then sold an entirely different blister for the other? That would double or triple the amount of SKUs stores would have to stock. How much money would you save if they included 1 less Unique pilot? I'm thinking not a lot.

Including more than one unique pilot per blister not only saves on SKU numbers but also give us, the players, the most flexability. Under your idea If I want to field either unique pilot I am now forced to buy two blisters, even though I might only want to play with only one unique pilot at any given time.

In regards to the box size and what it can hold. The box is 25cm on a side and 4.7cm deep.

The contents of my box are, 1 starter, 2 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, 1 TIE Fighter, 1 TIE Advanced.

After I removed the main insert (but left the mini insert to block the hole in the box top) everything fits, barely. I don't see being able to fit anything more. Maybe one more fighter and it's stuff. I'm already working on solutions when my preorder gets in of 2 starters, 2 TIE Fighters, 2 Y-Wings, 1 X-Wing, and 1 TIE Advanced.

Right now my thoughts are a 2" pluck foam sheet for the minis and a tackle box for the counters. I'll probably keep a box around for the cards, templates, rulers, and dice. I'll probably tape up the hole of the box though. Don't want to get this one too modified since Ynnen was good enough to sign it for me.

Buckaroo said:

What people are saying is that they'd like to be able to just buy the ships by themselves because they already have the cards for them from the first expansion. I plan to buy every booster and then decide whether to buy more of one or not based on how useful I find a ship. But, it'd be a lot less sweat off my brow if I could just buy the ship without the extra cards that I already have.

Okay, so my two first questions have been answered: It is useful to buy the extra dice and it could be worth it to buy more than one copy of the boosters if you like the ship and find it useful for your strategy.

To my last question. Is there room in the core box to store everything, or would I need a second box?

Manchu said:

How would it decrease their value?

herozeromes said:

That is exactly what I'm saying. I'm afraid Buckaroo missed my point completely.

Manchu said:

I have zero interest in playing the rebel side of this game at all, so the prospect of trading duplicate Unique Imperial Pilots for copies of X-Wing anything is nil for me.

Also, I don't sleeve cards for my card or board games, ever (with the exception of some of the Parting Shot 7th Sea cards which had to be printed of and glued to existing cards), and have managed to never have them wrecked, so that argument is also uncompelling to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I won't be two Tie Advanced booster. I will. The extra Vader and Stele cards will just irritate me, that's all.

herozeromes said:

Except that every other ship you buy would have to have everything in it anyway because you only get 2 ship markers per pack (exception the TIE Fighter at 3). You'd want to get extra stress and action tokes as well since they are quite "stingy" in the booster being only what you need for one ship. All said and done I think they made the best decision possible for what they put in an expansion pack. I don't see where they could have reduced the cost much (maybe $1 MSRP) if they were selling just the miniature.

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

Thanks for the measurements. With fourteen ships pre-ordered, I'm trying to think of storage solutions. Good to know the starter box will not do. (I'm fine with that as I don't particularly like the window lid for anything but in-store appearance for folks who might make the purchase spontaneously.)

KristoffStark said:

The way the package is set up, you get a small number of cards and game chits plus a plastic model. Everyone of these components adds value to the package. Take parts away and the value of the package goes down, obviously. What is less obvious is that the parts by themselves are also less valuable. I don't mean that they have less value to the customer as a matter of gaming. But they can only get to the customer for gaming through the market. The most expensive thing to make and distribute in that package is the model. Take the cards and chits away and you don't see a significant drop in cost for the model. But the price of chits and cards sold separately would be far higher than whatever small amount you'd save on the model just as a matter of getting them to the market by themselves. So you have just a model with very little reduction in cost on the one hand and expensive cards and chits that only have any value at all to people who are purchasing or have already purchased a separate product on the other hand. In other words, it is less costly and more valuable (to both FFG and ultimately the customer) to allow for some duplication rather than breaking things out.

KristoffStark said:

I'm glad to hear that you have never soaked, bent, scratched, torn, or otherwise damaged you game components or -- more irritatingly -- had someone else accidentally do any of those things to your game components but very few gamers I know of are this … well, lucky. Rather than being irritated by the duplication, however, it'd probably be better for your blood pressure to view it as a form of extremely cheap insurance. And as we know, even lucky, careful people can benefit from insurance.

If I may, can I ask what one would expect in terms of an MSRP for just the ship? If a TIE Advanced is $15, how much should be knocked off if we dropped Vader and the other Character's stuff out? (sorry, can't remember the other's name.) How much to drop ALL the extras, and just to get a chunk of plastic that looks like a ship?

How would you prefer expansions work? Should we ask all characters cards/inserts be included in seaperate small packs, and just leave the generic ones in with the ships?

I don't ask to be confrontational, but to find out your answers. FFG has to answer these questions, and felt that players would not likely mind a few spare inserts and cards lying about, as opposed to having to pay for packaging and the like for selling JUST character upgrades. Same thing with the starter: Sure, it's designed for 2 players, but even if you're nabbing a copy for yourself, you've got at most 2 extra ships + stuff that you can leave in the box (as we've all agreed that the Core box will not be sufficent for carrying around your collection for long.

I'm not dismissing the complaint, but I think that the way FFG has done it OK, and it is a good compromise between too many products and too many extra bits.

Stunami said:

As long as MiniatureMarket.com keeps selling the expansions for $10 each, I'll sell just the ships to anyone who wants them for $11 each + S/H. That's $4 off the MSRP.