Does anyone have any good strategies and/or tactics for flying against Huge ships?

We have played 3 games with Huge ships; a 150 pointer with a transport, and 2 epics with a single Tantive IV in each.

In all of those cases, the rebels have won single-handedly. Granted, there are a lot of variables at play here.

In the epic games, the first Tantive IV was kitted out like a gunship: 1 turbo laser, 2 quads, weapon engineer, engineering team, sensor team and Han. In the second epic game, it was a command ship: 2 quad, 2 comms boosters, dodonna's pride, wed repair droid and engineering team.

Do you focus on the Huge ships first? Or pick off the escort's first?

In the first game, they focused on the escorts which gave the big guns time (and energy) to pick apart the low-agility bombers.

I focused exclusively on the Tantive in the 2nd game -- the front was disabled and the back had three hits left. But the escort ships ended up picking me apart while I was targeting the CR-90.

Just curious what other people's experience has been. Our games have been a little one-sided. Incredibly fun, but one sided.

Here are the lists we used in our game last night.

The shuttle ended up getting in a bad spot with two X-wings on his tail.

Ten Numb was a beast, with all the support from the CR-90.

Corvette (Fore) 50

WED-15 Repair Droid 2

Quad Laser Cannons 6

Comms Booster 4

Dodonna's Pride 4

CR90 Corvette (Aft) 40

Quad Laser Cannons 6

Engineering Team 4

Comms Booster 4

Rookie Pilot X-Wing 21

Proton Torpedoes 4

Rookie Pilot — X-Wing 21

Proton Torpedoes 4

Ten Numb — B-Wing 31

Push the Limit 3

Advanced Sensors 3

Engine Upgrade 4

"Dutch" Vander — Y-Wing 23

Ion Cannon Turret 5 R5-K6 2

Tycho Celchu — A-Wing 26

Push the Limit 3

Assault Missiles 5

Rookie Pilot — X-Wing 21

Proton Torpedoes

And here are the Imps.

Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle 21

Fire-Control System 2

Gunner 5

Engine Upgrade 4

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

"Howlrunner" — TIE Fighter 18

Swarm Tactics 2

Captain Jonus — TIE Bomber 22

Concussion Missiles 4

Cluster Missiles 4

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16

Cluster Missiles 4

Concussion Missiles 4

Krassis Trelix — Firespray-31 36

Heavy Laser Cannon 7

Recon Specialist 3

Saber Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor 21

Elusiveness 2

Saber Squadron Pilot — TIE Interceptor 21

Elusiveness 2

Darth Vader — TIE Advanced 29

Cluster Missiles 4

Soontir Fel — TIE Interceptor 27

Push the Limit 3

Hull Upgrade 3

The best results I have seen are as follows:

Rules for both:

Try to engage in two theaters. Use mixed unit tactics. Figure out what ships will be good for what, and use them accordingly. Send one part of your fleet to engage and focus down the Huge ships, whatever they may be. Keep some guys in reserve to engage fighter support. It's good to bring along at least one Ion Cannon, and plink shots at the Huge ship each turn. That one energy less over the course of the battle will go a long way. That's fewer shields regen'd, fewer reshoots with cannons, fewer options in general. Also Ion Pulse missiles work if you have them. The best part is that you don't have to use up your target lock if your initial roll or a focus token gives you a result that lands the hit, leaving your next shot a huge chance at delivering punishing damage. For best results, use this either a) at the end of a turn when they've just received a load of punishment, so they'll not be able to recover much shields with a recover action or b) after they've just depleted their energy in some manner.

I should also mention that in my experience, many players put their huge ships to one side or another during deployment. It's worked for me in the past to put some of my "huge buster" ships very near the outside edge that is closest to their target. It makes the opponent very wary of turning into your approach in order to crush you due to the danger of also inadvertently flying off the board.

And as always, crit hit deliverers shine like diamonds here.

CR-90: The rear end is a huge weakness. Early on in the match, maneuver your ships tasked with Huge ship duty to it's rear, or aft broadside. Shuttles, bombers and TIE Advanced all have slow maneuvers and can stay behind it even if it moves slowly. Once you've crippled it, any secondary weapons attached to the aft of the ship will also become useless, further enlarging the CR-90's already sizable blindspot.

Transport: This one I feel actually changes drastically depending on their loadout. Specifically, does it have Toryn Farr?If not, then just as before, Ion tokens and beating it down. Do your best to shooom past it in the opening maneuvers, paying careful attention to where it may turn. Most players will do slow opening maneuvers in order to gain energy early on (the huge ships start with no energy), so there's very little danger in opening aggressively against them.

Lastly, if your opponent is flying Biggs/tight escort, assault missiles and ion shots are king. Nothing hurts worse than that splash damage, or watching Mighty Protector Biggs become Mighty Ionized Windshield Grease Biggs.

Also one more thing: When firing on a ship with no firing arc, you are always considered to be "outside the defender's firing arc" (see Senator's Shuttle FAQ), so any abilities that trigger under those conditions trigger against a transport. Outmaneuver eliminates the +1 evade at range 3, and Backstabber gets his additional attack die.

Also one more thing: When firing on a ship with no firing arc, you are always considered to be "outside the defender's firing arc" (see Senator's Shuttle FAQ), so any abilities that trigger under those conditions trigger against a transport. Outmaneuver eliminates the +1 evade at range 3, and Backstabber gets his additional attack die.

Wow, that is pretty much exactly wrong. From the FAQ

Fantastic advice from http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/user/221107-that-one-guy/

Of course, it makes perfect sense in retrospect to apply the strengths of the Imperial ships to their particular theater of war -- the escorts or the huge ship.

In my last game, I was throwing the interceptors against the Tantive IV when they should have been picking off the Rookie X-wings.

Also one more thing: When firing on a ship with no firing arc, you are always considered to be "outside the defender's firing arc" (see Senator's Shuttle FAQ), so any abilities that trigger under those conditions trigger against a transport. Outmaneuver eliminates the +1 evade at range 3, and Backstabber gets his additional attack die.

Wow, that is pretty much exactly wrong. From the FAQ

Q: Is Backstabber outside the firing arc of a ship that has no printed firing arc?

A: No, Backstabber’s pilot ability only triggers against ships that have a printed firing arc.

Hmm. Looks like they've gone and changed that on me too… I remember looking this up to settle a ruling between my friend and I and it said point blank in regards to the senator's shuttle that since you weren't in their firing arc, you got your ability…. I really wish their changes were in red or something.

Also, it should be stated that a CR-90 that loses its aft section can no longer perform the Reinforce or Recover Shield actions. Combined with its blind spots and other weaknesses, as well as the slightly reduced HP of the aft section, it would seem advisable to take out the aft first.

Mmmm, dat aft.

I call this the tantive hammer:

144 points

Execution:

First off delay as long as possible. Every turn you're passing target locks to the bombers is another turn closer to victory. Once all 3 bombers are locked on forward section of tantive 4 all 3 bombers should attack with missiles. This will take out forward shields. next round forward one, target lock, torps. That should kill the tantive forward section. Crippled rear should be easy picking for whatever else you pack. Good adds for this would be a miniswarm with howelrunner, a couple interceptors to provide cover for the bombers, and maybe a kitted out echo phantom to provide some chaos in the backfield.

With Jonus and presumably Focus I'd run clusters against the huge ships. One volley from 3 bombers should cripple a section that doesn't reinforce.

Having played the CR90 in the campaign, I can tell you it's relatively easy to shut down. The three main weaknesses are:

1. Useless main gun against your smaller ships.

2. Enormous blind spot, both front and rear.

3. Energy starvation.

Let's start with the main gun. That range 5, 4 attack main gun might seem scary. If you consider you're always going to be rolling at least +1 and as many as +3 agi dice against it, you really shouldn't let it affect your psychology too much. Most Imperial ships are going to be rolling at least 4 and as many as 6 agi dice. Depending on where and how you fly, he might get in 2 rounds of shooting before you are under his range minimum.

Once you get under the 3 range, you're in it's blind spot unless it's got secondary weapons equipped. But even if it does have secondary weapons, you got a blind spot in the front and a blind spot in the back. The back blind spot goes out forever, since the main gun really has only 270 degree firing arc. So unless the CR90 pulls a crazy ivan, you can just follow behind it and beat the crap out of it's aft section. Doing 11 (8h+3s) damage at range 1 and virtually no agi dice is not that hard.

But even if you are not in the blind spot, which is to say, in the broadside gun range for secondary weapons, the CR90 still has some problems to manage, and the foremost of these is energy. Consider that in any given turn the max amount of energy that the CR90 can generate is 4; 3 from the maneuver and another +1 from the engineering team if he moves straight ahead. With Ion weapons, that's pretty easy to starve out. Let's take Captain Jonus + 2 Tie Bombers, all with 2 Ion Pulse Missiles; that's 6 attacks each hitting down 2 energy. You've starved off 12 energy, which if it generated max energy is 3 complete rounds of uselessness (no energy means to secondary attacks, no reinforcing shields, no special crew affects, and no pumped up primary weapon), and you did it for a little more than half the cost of a beefed up CR90 in epic squad play, leaving you an abundance of points to deal with the rest of his fleet. If you want more sustained (and varied) Ion damage, throw in a Defender, Firespray or Lambda with an Ion cannon.

Having used the CR90, I feel the #1 advice to the Imperial player is not to fear it. It can shoot a ton of guns, but it doesn't leave much energy for anything else. Also, the weapons are surprisingly impotent. Quads are pretty inaccurate and using the built in gunner option is very spendy on the energy. Single turbolasers are horribly inaccurate and suck down energy like there is no tomorrow. I find that I only use them if a) there is a juicy agility 1 ship in range or b) I've got energy to burn. The main gun is IMO the most effective but requires supporting cards to really shine.

As others have said, hitting the rear is your best option. Besides being a little weaker and having a big blind spot, knocking it out kills potential energy per turn. Ion is quite effective, since you are almost always going to be scoring hits.

I've been thinking that bombers+ion missile+advanced protons might actually be effective. During the approach, the bombers can target lock and deliver lots of ion tokens. On the next turn, they are free to take the focus action and deliver the APTs. Since huge ships are pretty easy to predict, getting in range 1 should not be a problem and the APTs average of 5 damage each are likely to punch right past reinforced shields.

as a huge ship owner, all I can say is, "God I hate Ion Cannons"

Also one more thing: When firing on a ship with no firing arc, you are always considered to be "outside the defender's firing arc" (see Senator's Shuttle FAQ), so any abilities that trigger under those conditions trigger against a transport. Outmaneuver eliminates the +1 evade at range 3, and Backstabber gets his additional attack die.

Wow, that is pretty much exactly wrong. From the FAQ

Looks like he needs more bothan spies....

Only played a few games against the corvette, but getting in close and focus firing the nuts off it seemed to work. Dont get intimidated by it, the rebel player is probably working hard to not run his own ships over as well as get it into a firing position. Give it both barrels!

Agreed on most of the advice here. The list I'm looking at is probably a firespray squadron for anti-shipping strike duty with ion cannons, with black squadron fighters as top cover.

Three ion cannons should fritz out most systems, leaving a corvette unable to achieve much. They won't damage it especially quickly, but they should keep it out of the fight, and they're agile enough and tough enough to soak up what weapons fire it manages to put out.

My concern with bombers is that Jam and/or Toryn Farr can bugger up any squad dependent on target locks annoyingly well if you face a transport.

Toryn has a lot of problems though:

-He's expensive

-Requires an ACTION to use.

-Requires as many energy tokens as you want to affect.

-Only works at range 1-2

Since the CR90 is pretty predictable and activates last, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to get your targeting locks in at range 3. Some of your bombers will come in to range 2; let Toryn have at them. He wastes an action and energy to do so. Any action and energy he's wasting on removing targeting locks (and the MOST he can do that with is 4), which will leave him starved. Again it's all about energy management. The small number of points you need to shut down the CR90, by comparison to it's cost, just makes it a non-threat.

And then there's always Ion cannons on the more expensive stuff, which don't need TL.

Just FYI Toryn is a woman.

"Stand by ion control… fire!"

Damage. Lots of damage.

4 TIE bomber with proton bombs

3 Firespray-31 with proton bombs

That should do trick

And the answer is: Arvel

"Arvel Crynyd: When your ship is destroyed by being hit by a huge ship during its movement phase, destroy that huge ship."

Ions. All of the Ions. Defenders and Firesprays are best for this. Also Defenders in general. Their high defenses give them an excellent advantage against Huge Ships.

Opportunist always triggers against huge ships.

The tantive is not scary but if you're going to kill a section first Kill the back. 1/2 a Tantive is pretty meh. It can still coordinate and fire the main gun, but without energy it's a brick and can't ram nearly as well. Plus the back dies faster and it can't regen shields or reinforce anymore.

The Transport is a better ship, but Ions still leave it as a lump. Just a far less expensive lump.

Crits do wonders.

The real danger is what can be done to your main fleet while you're taking down the huge ship. Focusing on it too hard will leave you flanked and crippled.