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.