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I've been thinking about buying into this game and I've found some advice posted about which expansions to get to not have redundant components. I see that there's a new, smaller "Ensign Edition" starter set coming, however. Can anyone give advice as to what to buy to expand the contents of that set?

It depends on which faction you'll be playing and what your desired playstyle is. For the first couple of releases, most boxed sets came with special characters and formations unique to only them along with repeats of the same ships in the starter which was annoying. Will you be ordering locally, online, or from spartan games direct? It makes a difference as it's likely difference things are available depending on the source.

In a nutshell, they've started coming out with repeat boxed sets of the same starter contents for the first few waves (the one faction fleets, core boxes, specialist boxes). In December, they came out with one massive ship for each fleet in resin but had QA issues that they've since corrected. More recently, they've been coming out two resin ships for each faction. Pretty much all of the ships they come out with come with more Paris frigates and SDV corvettes so you'll never had to buy more of those on purpose.

I highly recommend you take a look at the bitzbox.uk youtube channel as they seemingly buy everything and post unboxing videos.

If you just want one faction, I think the Fleet pack boxes are a good deal. They include the one Commander and one Hero for the faction, command dice, tokens, and double what you get in the Fall of Reach set. If you want the third personality for your respective faction, the Commander pack includes your rulebook, more command dice, more tokens and that third personality. I got the Covie fleet pack for 57.75 on Miniature Market because it's on clearance, though the UNSC one is still 77.00.

I'll probably pick up the Covie Command box on eBay for dirt cheap and may even think about getting the Commander Busts. But that's my personal wants.

I think with just the fleet pack you should be good to start with. And it's still MUCH cheaper than an army for certain *other* games...

If you want both factions, just get the Fall of Reach set. I don't think the Ensign Edition gives you enough stuff for that price point to really enjoy the game, even if it is cheaper/more reasonably priced than the Fall of Reach.

If you play the game and like it a lot then your best bet is to expand by getting different ship classes that fill roles your basic ships can't perform. Namely the RSC class Armored Cruiser and CPV class Heavy Destroyer for Covenant and the Orion and Valiant classes for UNSC. I'm not going to sit here and tell you not to buy a superheavy if you want to, having never actually gotten to play the game yet myself, but it's usually a sound strategy to hold off on the massive chunk of resin you'll sink all your time and points and money into making it work.