What miniatures are must haves for a collection? I've been looking through ratings and usage to see what else I want to try to get. I probably have only 250-300 minis but want to get some of the better minis.

Rebel must haves (WotC):

General Dodonna
Ithorian Commander
General Rieekan
Elite Rebel Commando
General Crix Madine
Bothan Noble
Princess Leia
Han Solo in Stormtrooper Armor
Han Solo, Smuggler
Luke Skywalker, Rebel Commando
Chewbacca, Rebel Hero

The competitive Rebel build is based on commandos, Princess Leia, Han Smuggler. You can also build something decent with Han Trooper and the Ithorian. Chewbacca, RH is the best WotC Chewbacca and you really do want to have a Chewbacca in your collection because, well, he's Chewbacca.

If you're playing with Vsets, grab the PDFs (or physical cards where possible) and proxy what you like.

Really depends on how you use the game.

If you're playing a couple times per year with other people who only play a couple times per year, and that's it... there are no 'must haves'. Not the Vsets and not even what I listed above. Just play with whatever you own and grab characters that you like based on the character. Depending on how much you have, give each player a faction and build a squad on the spot. Or if you don't have enough, give one player all light-side and the other player all dark-side. And then build squads.

If you play more often, want to play in tournaments, and/or want to do squadbuilding and discussion here on the boards, I recommend the Vsets. It's at the point that the competitive scene starts to matter to you. If you play enough, you'll want to know what the best squads are. The WotC best squads are well known, and there were only 4-8 of them when the game was discontinued. Certainly playable that way but we don't talk about it much anymore since it's been well-analyzed. (The pieces I mentioned above cover one of those top squads and another squad that is pretty good but not quite top-tier.)

With Vsets, there is a lot more variety available. 20+ squad types are viable competitively. It makes squadbuilding more interesting, and that's what most of the discussion here is about when we talk about squadbuilding, the meta, etc: the current game including Vsets.

Not sure if they are listed anywhere, but I really should add them to this wiki page:

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Competitive_Star_Wars_Miniatures_Squads#

Here's a quick rundown, though:

* Rebel: "Lobbin Luke"/"Smug Commandos" - Luke RC + Han Smuggler + Princess Leia + Elite Rebel Commandos + Crix/Dodonna/Rieekan
* Republic: "Skybuck" - General Skywalker + Yoda on Kybuck + (either Captain Rex or Dash Rendar, RS) + Captain Panaka + fodder
* Imperial: Thrawn Swap ("Black & Blue" or "Stealth & Blue") - Lord Vader for black or Cad Bane for stealth + Arica + Thrawn + Admiral Ozzel + swap fodder
* Separatist: "Pawned Lancer" - Lancer + Darth Sidious. Beyond that, variants for support shooters and how much to boost the Lancer, but usually GGDAC
* New Republic: "Solo Charge" - Mara Jade Jedi, Han Solo Galactic Hero, Anakin Solo, Ganner, Dodonna

I think that's it. And Lobot is in all of the above. Spamming Mice for activations is a popular option for Lobot reinforcements. I'm not sure what the most "canonical" example of each of the squad archetypes is, but someone will likely post links for them soon.

Sith, Vong, Mandos, OR had no competitive builds at the end of WotC.


*** GOWK. General Obi-Wan Kenobi was banned or errata'ed at the end of WotC, I forget which. But in either case he wasn't part of the top squads at the time. But pre-errata, he was really strong. He was the only piece during the WotC era to receive a significant errata (all the other errata were just typos). His pre-errata squad was something like 2 Jedi Weapon Masters plus Rex or Dash.


There are another 5-15 squads that can compete with one or several of the 5 competitive builds, but do badly enough against at least one of the others that they don't make the cut. We call them "Tier 1.5".

Thanks!

Excellent. Many thanks. Let me see which I have to start.

One thing that the v-sets do is have more self-sufficient pieces - those WOTC squads usually have some devastating synergies (eg Leia/Han Smuggler or Ganner/Mara) that make them better than the sum of their parts. People who aren't familiar with the power of these combos sometimes freak out when they see tough Jedi like Mace LotLS or Darth Zannah.

There's a lot to learn with the v-sets. Most of the WOTC sets have a few strong pieces and a lot of filler, while a decent proportion of the v-set pieces are competitive.

I'd try out those competitive squads that FlyingArrow referenced before you try the v-sets - if you drop the v-sets in against casual WOTC squads, they'll look way overpowered. They're balanced to the top tier of WOTC squads, not to the filler.

The first set (Destiny of the Force) is a good place to start; there's a piece that really helps the Old Republic and makes them playable (Bastila Shan Jedi Master). Yammosk helps Vong, and Revan Sith Lord is a very good option for Sith.

Mice, Ugnaughts, R7 droids. I think you can stop right there. After that, there are tons of things that are nice to have, or required for a certain squad. But those are the only ones that I find to be must-haves.

You might find this page useful if you haven't seen it yet:

http://www.bloomilk.com/Character/Usage

Gives you a good idea of the relative popularity of pieces. Newer pieces are necessarily lower in the list, so it isn't as useful to gauage the popularity of Vset pieces, but you can see right at the top the pieces that have been used most often.

I'll be providing all the miniatures and, to start, building the squads.