Yesterday, Dice Age Games in Vancouver, WA hosted a 300 point Epic Tournament. I have been playing almost exclusively Epic ames since the rules came out, so I was happy to have the chance to try out a tournament.
It was a smaller event with only 8 players, but that kept the number of rounds reasonable. There was a nice split of 4 Rebel and 4 Imperial players. 3 of the Rebel players had CR-90s and the 4th had a GR-75. The Imperial players seemed to favor a few elite ships backed up by some numbers. I brought the following:
CR-90
- Weapons Engineer
- Sensor Team
- Engineering Team
- Tibanna Gas Supplies
- Backup Shield Generator
- Single Turbolaser
- 2x Quad Laser Cannon
Roark Garnet
- Ion Turret
Horton Salm
- Ion Turret
- 2x Proton Torpedoes
- R2-D6
- Veteran Instincts
Luke Skywalker
- R2-D2
- Draw Their Fire
Tycho Chelcu
- PtL
- Assault Missile
Etahn Abaht
- PtL
- R2
- Sensor Jammer
My first opponent was another Rebel player with a CR-90 backed up by Chewie and some B-Wings. His CR-90 was built for a closer engagement, so I held mine back at range and the combination of the Sensor Team and Single Turbolaser allowed me to blast his corvette apart pretty easily. I also had his CR-90 in Etahn's arc for a couple of turns which allowed for some staggering crits to be scored. The rest of his ships were a little late to the party and got shot up pretty badly by my corvette. He did take out Roark and managed to run over Luke, while I crashed into several asteroids with my CR-90 before the game was over.
So, this game proved that Single Turbolasers will be brilliant against other huge ships. Which really shouldn't be a surprise.
My second match was against an Imperial player who had brought one of each type of Imperial ship. It was a really fun list and I knew my opponent was a skilled player from previous tournaments. We both deployed on the same side of the mat, so the game could have been played on a 3x3 area. This was a game where the combination of Roark having the CR-90 shoot at PS 12 was really helpful. Whisper was blown apart by the CR-90 over a couple of rounds of shooting at Range 5. My opponent largely ignored the CR-90 and focused on taking out the rest of my ships, which he was very successful at. Eventually I was down to just a banged up Tycho and my CR-90 against Rexler, Soontir, Boba, and Vader. However, the corvette was at full health and shields thanks to the Backup Shield Generator. While Tycho dodged for his life, the CR-90 was able to pummel the remaining ships. It was a really good game with lots of close moments. At different points we both had several ships down to 1 hull remaining that lived far longer than they should have.
With 2 wins I headed into my final match of the day against another Imperial player. This player had 14 ships against my 6. 8 TIE Fighters, 4 Interceptors, a Firespray, and a Phantom. I had some early success with my Assault Missile and some other shooting and dropped 3 TIEs on the first turn. Taking advantage of PS 10 allowed Horton to smack Whisper with a Proton Torpedo and strip his shields, before Ion-ing him the next turn. (PS-10 Horton may be my new favorite Phantom counter) Once Whisper was Ion-ed, the CR-90 had no trouble picking him off. The CR-90 also killed Soontir in a single round of range 5 fire after he made an error and bumped. It doesn't really matter how many evade dice you roll, without a focus they are just too unreliable. This game was also really close and he eventually wore me down to only having Etahn to support the corvette before crippling my fore section. In return I had worn him down to 5 of his original 14 ships. The standard TIEs weren't able to do much damage to the corvette as they had trouble getting past the Reinforce action. His Interceptors were moving too fast and he was having trouble lining up shots on the rear of the CR-90. On the final turn I was able to run down Carnor Jax and that was the end of the game at time. I ended up winning a very close match.
So, 3-0 and a win in my first Epic tournament.
In retrospect, I should have brought my Sharknado list...