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Good morning dakka! I got in on the target clearance and got 3 FA starter sets for 35. The play is fun, and I'm looking for advice of where to go next. This will be for casual play, and I typically provide both sides for casual games. I'm looking for what expansion sets provide the best variety of play, for the fewest number of purchases. I've read a few guides, but they really seem to be geared toward competition. Imperial aces, veterans, rebel aces, and heros of the resistance seems like the best deals for variety.

Advice from the Xwing veterans would be appreciated!

Welcome to X-WIng!

Aside from the epic ships and core sets, there are actually only 4 multi-ship sets out at the moment (and one on the way) and it seems like you are already somewhat familiar with them.

Rebel Aces
In terms of ship "variety" this is pretty good. You get a B-Wing which is slow and "jousty", and an A-Wing which fast and "arc-dodgy", both are popular ships from the movies that people will recognise, and both exemplify a different aspect of the game. Unfortunately, the upgrade cards included in the box won't allow you to build much on their own.

Imperial Aces
This is actually just two of the same ship (Tie Interceptor), so not great variety, and it doesn't include the best Interceptor pilot (Soontir Fel), who comes in the single Interceptor expansion pack. However, Interceptors are awesome fun, one of the best arc-dodgers, and this set comes with some pretty great upgrades.

Imperial Veterans
This one has two different ships, so points for variety. One of those ships is a Tie Bomber, which isn't very inspiring, but I guess it is at least unique. It includes reasonably good upgrades to get started with the ships in the box.

Heroes of the Resistance
This one isn't released yet, but it's probably a good way to get the Millennium Falcon, and you'll get some additional Pilots for all your t70 X-Wings.

Most Wanted
This is kind of the core set for the Scum and Villainy Faction. You get three models (2x z95s, 1x Y-WIng) which can be used in Scum or Rebel lists (if you have the rebel cards), and you get dials and pilot cards for the Firespray and HWK-290 to use with scum (if you have the ships). It wouldn't exactly be "cheap" to get all the ships and cards to round it out, but it's reasonably good value since it does a lot of double duty. The z95 is a cheap "quantity over quality" type ship (reasonably competitive), the Y-Wing is a standard turret platform, the Firespray is a large ship with a lot of ordinance options, it's probably the most fun way to explore things like Bombs (especially the scum pilots), and the HWK-290 is a support ship, but can also double as a turret platform. The upgrades in Most Wanted probably aren't especially useful for someone getting started.

To be honest, you'll probably find it difficult to collect a good repository of upgrades without "lots of purchases", so it might be better to proxy them if you are just playing casually. Sites such as http://xwing-builder.co.uk/ are good for seeing what's available.

The usual advice is just to choose ships that you like. Most of them are perfectly usable and balanced for casual play.

Thank you smacks! This run through sheds a lot of light on what other "buy order" articles were eluding not to. Its better to buy the base ships first, then buy the dual packs first for variety.

I only briefly looked at scum and villians, but tried my best to ignore them and focus on the core factions. But you have a mighty fine speech to sell them.

PROXIES! I don't know why I did not think of this. I could buy a few ships and really bulk up the variety with proxies. This will help a lot.

If you're just going casual and don't mind doing a little extra work, you can just print off any of the cards that you want from the X-Wing wiki. Then you can focus on the ships that you want instead of the upgrades. For casual play, I'd suggest the following:
Original Core set (Luke)
X-Wing (Wedge)
Falcon... because someone want's to fly it
Slave 1... ditto
TIE Advanced (Vader)
Either/both Aces packs
That would get you most of the iconic ships and pilots.

If you want the Falcon but are willing to wait a few weeks/months, Heroes of the Resistance comes out with the old and decrepit version. The original one isn't bad at all, but if you want to avoid duplicates.

Regardless, at least you know.

Hey,

I've very recently started x wing with the original core set, imperial veterans, tie defender and the inquistor tie. I've yet to play a proper game but I don't regret starting with what I did. Although there isn't much in the way of modifacations, there are plenty of ordanance and title cards which give it alot of variety. My first proper game is on Friday, so I will properly get to test all these cards