http://myanimelist.net/anime/820/Legend_of_the_Galactic_Heroes
...
There's a bunch of movies that are prequels, which ones do I need to watch before starting the series?
Thanks.

It's not necessary to watch any of the movies to understand the ova series.

Some of them are pretty lackluster and not really needed.

I can definitely recommend that you start with My Conquest Is the Sea of Stars though. It's the only (good) prequel that was actually released prior to the main OVA's and shows the first confrontation between Wenli and Reinhard.
After that, watch Overture to a New War, which is a more fleshed out and enjoyable version of episode 1, 2 and a bit of 4. The animations are better than the beginning of the main OVA's though so brace yourself for a bit of disappointment later when it comes to that.

Then, either watch the main OVA's from the start or begin at episode 3. You won't really miss much other than watching the same thing again with worse animations, but they're only ~20 minutes long after all so it might feel better if you watch all of them.

This post was edited by GuZ on May 9 2012 07:52am

Thanks, that helped a lot.
Where did you get this picture?

And I have no trouble getting all of those from BBT.
This this picture accurate? Just wanna' make sure.

Yes, yes.
1. Conquest
2. Overture
3. Main OVA's

This post was edited by GuZ on May 9 2012 11:30am

I was a regular on 4chan's /a/ several years ago so I have tons of these pictures saved.

Also
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=legend+of+the+galactic+heroes+watching+order

That doesn't help much.
Everybody says different things.