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.

El_Tonio said:

I'm planning to put in an order with them tomorrow. Work bonus!

I was a big WotC Star Wars Miniatures player.  And the amount of money I spent and duplicate cards and figures I have that I will NEVER use is insane!  I'm not saying that I wouldn't do it again, because it was an awesome game.  But what I am saying is that I count myself lucky that I can purchase 2 TIE Advanced Expansions (for example) and only end up with 2 duplicate cards (Vader & Maarek) that I will never use.  I think we all can agree that duplicate upgrade cards are very useful.  In the future, they may start selling individual ships…or card only expansions.  But right now, they are trying to get as much out there for us to start playing with as possible.  It may be irritating to some to have 2 extra cards that you can't use.  And if it is, then don't buy them.  But I think if you look at what you CAN use out of the box in comparison to what you CAN'T use, you'll see that you still got your moneys worth. 

Roy

 I'm glad FFG has decided to make this a miniatures game and not a CCG. If I had to buy the ships seperate and then buy booster packs of cards separately I would pass on this game. I can live with a few extra cards rather than having to pay maybe $14 dollars a ship as opposed to $15 and then have to buy card boosters or card expansions for $3 to $5 per pack of cards. No thank you. Give it all to me in one package and I'll figure out what to do with the couple of extra cards.

And from my experience, the box is not something you would want to use to store/transport the game in.  The big hole in the top is the deal breaker.  I plan on using a small tackle box that I used for Star Wars Miniatures.  It has places for the ships, cards, die, counters, and the guides.

Roy

 I've gotta throw my two credits out here. Many people who will buy this game are not hard-core gamers. Take me, for instance. When X-wing was first announced I didn't plan on buying any more than one of each expansion. Now, after hearing about how many ships others are buying, I am beginning to revise my opinion, but considering costs of living and other hobbies (LEGO), it's a very real possibility that I will only get one core set and one of each expansion. Especially if wave 2 is released this winter (too fast!). So for people like me, it makes a LOT of sense to include everything you need to play a ship in the game all in one convenient package. I don't care about repeats because the only ones I'll get are non-unique ship cards and upgrades. From that standpoint, I think FFG made the best decision for this game.

And let's face it: ANY game that has unique characters/pieces that restrict how many you can play suffers from this very problem. It's just the nature of the beast.

Parakitor said:

Don't say that!  Someone at FFG might read it!  I, at least, am hoping the new expansions are here in time for the holidays (assuming the starter set hits stores before that).