So. Preview hit today. Judging from the preview, it's safe to assume that the word "fleet" is a gross overstatement of what we'll be playing in organized play. 
In reality, players at the GenCon will probably be bringing about 1 sqadron of X-Wings or 2 squadrons of TIE Fighters. So between 4 and 7 X-Wings and 8 to 14 TIE fighters. Of course this is just an estimate using only the X-Wings and TIEs

However, this is still a pretty high number of miniatures to be fielding considering that the base set comes with only one X-Wing and two TIEs. Plus each expansion comes with 1 rebel mini or 2 empire minis. That's probably going to start adding up and hurting wallets not to mention add a huge amount of duplicate character cards to a player's inventory…..

So….thoughts?

Don't forget about the prices of pilots and upgrades.  That will limit the number of ships a little if the pilots and upgrades are worth it. 

Cost is my major worry…buying it at the FFG booth the day before will be really expensive to get a competitive fleet.  I will only play if we get some sort of GenCon fighter or pilot card pack.

However, I loved collecting Wings of War and will probably love these as well, provided the expansions pan out to be successful.

 Not sure if you saw the preview before the post or not, but here's my $0.02

We've seen the cost of exactly 1 card, "Obsidian Squadron Pilot", and we've been told 100 points for the tourney.  I'd expect the'll be at that 100 points fairly consistently for normal play.

This one pilot/ship card (because there's no sepperation of the point value) is 13 points.  That means if you had the cards for it you could field 7 of these.  the key point to this card though is that it had almost no capabilities.  It has no add on cards permitted, it has no built-in special ability and it has almost the lowest initiative.  You start using better pilots and using add on cards and you're probably going to bring your ship count down to 4-5.

I already planned on buying 2 base sets, I suspect that you could eat up 100 points for either side with just that stock.  Since most people are probably going to buy at least what interestes them I don't think 100 points are going to be hard or expensive to field.

 I highly doubt 2 X-Wings or 4 TIEs would be "100" points even after upgrades. That doesn't fit half of what the description implies especially with the word "fleet" being used. Even 4 X-Wings is barely a squadron as Rogue Squadron itself ran several fighters during battles. Seems like they're putting way too many customization options for a game that uses only 3 or four pilots at any given time. 

We'll have to see. I'm hoping they release miniature only packs in the future. 

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

I get the idea that 7 obsidian TIES will work just fine, if not really well.

I can fully see only 2 x-wings decked out in 100 points.  The reason why there are going to be so many options is so that there will be a variety of play styles at tourneys.  If a throw away tie is 12, then a good one would probably be around 20 with 5-10 points of equipment.  So a good squad of ties would be 4 of them.  x-wings run roughly double that.  So you can easily do a pair of X-wings, or Vader and 2 good henchmen.

 As for fleet verses squadron, Fleet is easier and faster to use.  And sounds more impressive.  Squadrons are also typically homogenous, so Fleet encourages a mix of fighters.  Additionally Fleet leaves open the possibility of larger ships to be added to the game later.

I'm comfortable with this expenditure. I come from the LCG camp, and am fully accustomed to having to purchase multiples of a Core Set product. I truly did not at any point expect that a miniatures game with cards would wind up being cheaper than a card game with miniatures (see A Game of Thrones :P). Besides, the more expansions you purchase, the more room you have to customize your fleet of ships. I see customization as being the key to what will give X-Wing plenty of replay value, versus becoming stale quickly.

My hope, awkwardly for this thread I suppose, is that there will be value in playing a fleet composed of lots of cheap vessels, as an alternative to a fleet with a few really great ones. One of the things that really blew Star Wars Miniatures for me was the fact that, if you weren't running whomever the badass of the most recent set happened to be (be it Mace Windu, Bane, or Revan), there was no real reason to bother playing at all.  That's not a miniatures game, IMO. Miniatures games should be about clever tactics and strategy, and infinite combinations of units to form one's arsenal, not about playing one or two awesome people and letting their stats do the thinking for you. If this turns out to be a game where you must be playing Luke, Vader, or somebody equally powerful in order to remain competitive, I will not be playing it for terribly long.

That being said, I have enough faith in FFG to know that there will not be insane power creep from expansion to expansion, but in a game with the name X-Wing, it's important that these initial releases remain essential components of a fleet for the duration of the game.

 I don't care how many fighters you have, if you don't have a capital ship, I don't think it can be called a fleet. I much prefer squadron since that refers to 12 ships and that's more than anyone should ever play at one time.

And I'd rather they didn't include capital ships in this game so I'd like to see the word "fleet" go fleeting off of their future previews.

I am starting to regret that I only preordered one core set. It was two of these or one of these and one of the LCG. I hope I made the right decision.

Budgernaut said:

I'm not sure you did.

It will depend heavily on how you intend to use the products; namely, whether you intend to participate in Organized Play. As I mentioned above, it generally takes at least two of a Core Set for an LCG to be competitive, because the set will contain very basic, useful cards in 1x or 2x supply, depending on the game. Too early to tell with this game, but I would assume it's the same or at least a similar situation.

^ Why would this game need two core sets? It's a miniatures game, not a LCG. It comes will all the character cards and resources you'd need to play the game and you won't need any duplicates of the core set items other than the minis themselves and maybe extra dice. 
 

Well, the most basic reason to get more than one starter is economic.

A starter set retails for $39.95.  It comes with three minis.

A booster mini is $14.95.

A dice set is $ 7.95.

$7.95 + 3($14.95) = $52.80.

$39.95 < $52.80

I plan on buying boosters, but I am filling out my squadrons with starters.

 You don't need two core sets for this game. I think aside from the point that was made by bsmith13 (cost), there's also the added customizability. If the core set comes with one really good ship card or weapon card that you really like, you're stuck only being able to play one. With two core sets you can equip multiple fighters with your favorite card. Of course, this doesn't take into account whether said cards are unique, so I am going to buy one core set and see how much I really want another one.

 I was looking at the same thing. Wanted a lot of ships, dice, maneuver markers, etc so ordered enough for 4 players - 4 core sets, 4 of each of the Y-Wing and TIE Advanced, and 2 each of the others. I should have all pilot and upgrade options needed to make a big dogfight with 2 players per side. Only issue is my local store not sure if it will be in before GenCon. 

 I two ordered two Starters.  I figure you need at least that much for a real game.  Now I am just trying to decide how much expansions to buy.  I love Y-wings, so maybe 2 or 3 of those.

As to point costs, I expect that cards and add ons will really push up the cost.  I bet 4 ships will be a common number and maybe more for the Empire.  You get too many ships out and I think the game could bog down.

As for calling these fleets, I agree that it is a poor choice of term.  These are at best Squadrons.  I am really hoping we get a Star Wars true fleet game we have needed for a long time down the road.

Mmmm, Super Star Destroyer…. mmmm.

I could see small ships made for this like like the Falcon or maybe Skipray Blast Boats.  But this game is going to focus on the close range dog fights.  Fleet combat will be totally different.

Thanks,

Duncan

 In total agreement with bsmith13.  Cost is the primary reason I'm getting 2 core sets.  While I expect that pilots will be unique between the core and the expansions I  doubt many of the upgrade cards will be.  If the numbers we're talking about of 4-6 ships per side work out to be accurate even if there are unique equipment cards I'm not sure I'll need more than 2 core sets will provide.

I'm still undecided on the mix of expansion ships to get.  I originally didn't pre-order any because it looked like they were releasing after the cores. I just haven't sat down and decided what to add to my order.

Keep in mind that the Obsidian pilot is only skill 3, out of what, 9?

13pts for skill 3.

At the minimum of +1 per skill (most likely more than that), you are looking at 19pts minimum for a skill 9 pilot.

That makes only 5 ships, with no extra upgrades or bonuses.

I expect skill will cost more than +1. More like +2 or +3. Perhaps even a curve making higher skill even more expensive.

Also keep in mind these are the basic Ties and X-Wings. Remember that  X-Wings are probably almost twice as expensive as Ties, meaning that if a plain skill 3 Tie is 13 pts, a single skill 3 X-wing is probably about 20-26 pts each. Advanced Ties and Y-Wings, etc, are going to be more expensive each.

So, in 100 pts, I think most Tie squadrons will be around 5 ships, most likely with 1 or two more experienced pilots and the rest being more inexperienced. You could play with only 3 or 4 experienced pilots in 100pts, or perhaps as many as 8 or 9 very inexperienced pilots (skill 1 or 2). Rebel squadrons will likely be slightly smaller in size, making 2-3 experienced pilots or 4-6 more inexperienced pilots.