Hello

I only play this game casually with friends, and as such we always ignore the 100 pts. rule and go with around 150-200 pts. per side. We play this on a tournament standard 3 x 3 board.

Reading the new Epic Play rules, a 6x3 board is now used, but I can't really figure out why this is needed.

Is it solely to allow ships to be able to fly out of the 5 range of the corvette? I could see it being able to hit the entire board being overpowered, but when is it really beneficial for me to fly that far away from the opponent? He could decide to follow me with his smaller ships, and get a lot of free hits while I have my back turned to him, but even if he didn't, I would have to get within range 3 of the corvette anyway for me to be able to hit it. What possible use could I get from the bigger board? We play rebel vs. imperial only, so no R2-D2 recharging shields for the opponent of the huge ships.

Can anyone with transport-playing experience shed light on the subject? Do you think playing with huge ships on a 3x3 board with let's say 200 pts per side would make for a fun and balanced experience?

Is it to allow your ships to spread out more? What would the rebel player gain from doing this, couldn't he just stay close to the corvette while it moves across the board? Why divide your forces at all?

Thanks for any insight on this.

The main thing I'll say is that on a 3x3, the transport is going to be spending a lot of time doing 1 and 2 banks in circles, so you get rid of quite a bit of freedom of movement with it. Or so my gut feeling says at least.

Having heard that the turning circle for big ships isn't quite as bad as some people make out, I was always under the impression that the extra size of the board was to allow for the 200 extra points worth of ships per side to set up and fly on without just crashing into each other from the get go.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that was my impression.

I'm planning on using huge ships on a smaller point scale as I often don't have the time to play a 300 point game.... 100 points takes long enough for me and my mates.

I have only ever played casually too, also fast and loose with points totals.

When we played with the CR-90 2D paper thing or, later, the Kenner version, we always kept it static on the table. Maybe it was disabled, maybe it was flying slow enough not to matter to fighters, whatever the scenario dictated. If it was an escape/repair scenario, we just declared a turn-limit at which point it would make the jump to hyperspace, that sort of thing.

I can see having a lot of fun with the transports and the new CR-90 moving around the board sometimes, but having not tried it yet, I have the feeling that they will usually be static, on my (dining room) table.

(That being said, of course we'll totally try it by the rules before deciding anything that might be silly.)

Played a 150 on 150 transport on transport fight on Saturday. It was surpirsingly agile. I had mine set up with slicer tools and the only problem was I could double stress with the transport then deal out some damage with slicer tools. His Tycho went down in flames to this exact thing. I ended up losing however though, but his tranport was set up more as a buff to his ships and was near useless at endgame. It was super fun though and they are MUCH more agile than I thought they would be. Also ignore the rocks and just fly through them to destroy. Nothing like a space ice breaker!

I played a game with the transport on a 3x3 area. It was OK, except for how the transport moves. It takes 6 full banks to do a 180 degree turn with the transport. If its all 1 banks, you need 15.5 inches to make the turn. Its only 13.5 from starting point to ending point, however after the first bank, because of the "drift" you have about 1 inch of the base sticking out further than where the ship started.

If you are using 2 banks, you need just over 22 inches. Again, only about 20 inches between starting and ending position, but that "drift" is still in play.

So in my game, the transport flew straight across the board before reaching the other end and starting the turn. The game ended before the turn finished. It did have enough space. However if you are not careful, it is very easy to box these ships in unintentionally. Your only option is straight or the wide turn.

We only played 100 points, so it wasn't crazy. 300 points on a 3x3 would be entirely way too crowded. Remember, if a huge ship overlaps a small or large ship, regardless of being friendly or opposing, the small or large ship is instantly destroyed.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/2018715/chucksherrange

Here is a pic of the fight mid-action.

OH! I forgot. I had taken pictures for another forum I frequent.

Using 1 speed banks: http://imgur.com/a/Gu4TR

Hanging off the edge: http://imgur.com/woTNfRJ

Using 2 speed banks: http://imgur.com/a/jAuRV

I think you can get away with a Transport on a 3x3. The Vette however, probably not.

Also, its probably never not going to have a shot so it might be a bit OP and hard for the Imperials.

Sounds as if I just need to try it out. I still don't see the usefulness of being able to run away from the huge ship, corvette or not. Especially if its guns and abilities work in a 360 degrees fashion.

Thanks for the pictures, rowdyoctopus. Seems like it will have no trouble turning on 3 feet of board, especially with its asteroid-ramming ability.

Going to play a 200 pt game here is a few hours

First game with the transport.

I'll let you know if I can remember. We are using a 3x3 board (actually to be precise is 36"x34 1/2. The width of my kitchen table is just under 3')

The Corvette actually will move quite simarly to the Transport. It uses the same templates. The fish-tailing will be slightly greater because of the larger gap between the bases, but the number of turns and turning radius should be the same. The corvettes size is really gained by how much the mini overhangs the bases.

I think the extra space is designed to have more variety in terms of maneuvering and asteroid placements (with 12 asteroids).

Because there's 600 or 800 points of ships flying around rather than 200. In a 3x3 it could easily become a cluster****, and the snowplough powers of the huges would majorly come into play.