WARNING: This turned into a lot longer post than I had originally intended. So it may take a while to get through. (kinda like the games themselves....)

My gaming group has been doing a lot of Epic play since the Transport came out. We have even done some Team Epic as well. So this post is going to be about some of the things I have found.

I find that I really enjoy doing Epic play, because it satisfies an inner puppet master/field general in me; being able to control and plan out where 8+ ships are going and how they are going to attack, etc. I miss that from the dogfight game, because I really find little enjoyment deciding where 8 TIEs are going to go. I haven't really felt like field general since the early Wave 2 days with multiple Interceptors (before I started having at least 1 Firespray in every squad,) so Epic brings that part of me out.

Squad Construction:

I have only played Imperials for Epic, although the Rebel players almost always include a huge ship of some type. General squad-building strategies for dogfight still apply here. You can go with fewer ships with higher PS, or you can go with more ships of lower PS, or a good combination of both. Streamlined ships are usually better than ships that are upgraded to the gills, although the huge ships are a different animal. When the Rebel players bring a CR90, they usually have to load it up to the 150 pt range, meaning at regular Epic (300 points), that's half of their points, or in Team Epic (2 players with 200 points each), that is pretty much one person's squad. The Transports generally run in the 45-55 point range, and are not to be discounted.

The Pilot Skill bid: you always have to presume that your opponent is going to bring a CR90, which attacks up to 4 times (minimum 3 dice each) at a PS4. If Roark is on the board, he is target #1, period. So firing at or before PS4 is generally a good option. That means fewer ships, or you can take the chance and go for more ships at lower PS. I have done both, and I generally try to swing for PS4+. The game I played yesterday, I only had a Bounty Hunter (with Engine and Seismic, used both) below a PS4. In general, I find Firesprays are not focused on, unless it's Krassis with HLC, due to the relative higher number of shots needed to take them down. It's a "harder kill" if you will, than say a bomber, so my opponent's worry about the easier kills first. I have gotten away from using Veteran Instincts because building above a PS4 is generally adequate.

I prefer to go the secondary weapon route, which means Jonus is an auto-include. Gammas with Cluster Missiles and Ion Torpedoes are my preferred loadout, so that I can use one or the other depending on the Range I get. Also if I pull a Munitions Failure (which happened yesterday), I can discard the Ion Torps and still have the Clusters, which are terribly effective against 0 Agility Huge ships. One team game I played, the front half of a CR90 was completely taken out by 2 cluster missiles, aided by Jonus with Squad Leader, and I think that game we had Jendon as well for the TL pass. I always bring Rexler Brath with HLC, because the huge ships do not like the crits they get, and usually I'm firing 4 with 2 rerolls vs 0, so it will hit a huge ship hard enough that i can save the focus for card flipping. Jendon with Weapons Engineer and ST-321 has been fun, too, and Kagi is a great counter to the Han crew card on a CR90, although i have only played Kagi in Epic once. (the CR90 moves after the small and large ships do, which means Kagi counters Han crew pretty well, and Han crew is really good on a CR90.)

Epic players build their squads to do a multitude of things, as you generally have to do. In a tournament setting, you have to be able to take down huge ships, Rebel squads without huge ships, and Imperial squads. So the general idea is being flexible enough to be able to counter a multitude of squads. I can't say for sure if there is a particular meta in Epic or not, as I have only played Epic locally, but I like to build squads with good primary and secondary attacks, as well as lots of hp.

I have also hatched an idea of 11 Shadow squadron pilots for 44-55 dice at PS5. I haven't played it because I only have 5 Phantoms (got the 5th from my wife for my Bday,) although i did play with 5 Shadows in my squad yesterday. They hit really hard, even without any upgrades. Yesterday's squad, which combines good primary and secondary attacks with lots of hp was:

5 Shadow Squad Pilots

Brath with hlc

Jonus with Squad Leader

Rhymer with Cluster and Ion

Gamma with Cluster and Ion

BH with Engine and Seismic

Rhymer and a Shadow were my first casualties, although they did some damage before they died. I did lose another Shadow as the game went on, but I ended up winning. The Shadows worked on the escorts while the Bombers worked on the Transport. BH got in Lando's way, dropped a seismic on him, and got a few good attacks in. Gamma fired his Cluster at Lando, then proceeded to block him in front of the Transport. Transport moved and the Falcon was floating away with the debris.

Huge Ships

Transports can't attack, but that doesn't mean they can't damage you. The Jam action can double-stress you, and Slicer Tools can damage ships with stress tokens. Ionization Reactor can damage your ships and set you up to get run over next round. IR takes a few turns to get it set up due to storing the energy, but it will also take a few turns for enemy ships to get into Range 1 anyway, so it works out. And even if a transport is your opponent's last ship on the board, it can still run over your ships, so you still have to be wary of how and where it can move. More on the moving later.

A CR90 can attack with its primary weapon at Range 3-5. It can also perform a Single Turbolaser attack as well, (or 2-3 of them, if so inclined, but you have a larger blind spot in close if you don't have Quad laser Cannons included,) so that's 2 Range 5 attacks first round. Add onto that Quad Laser Cannons, and a CR90 can attack up to 4 times per round, each with a minimum of 3 dice. So ignoring the CR90 isn't generally a good idea. Granted, the Ranges are different for the different cannons, which makes it tough for a CR90 to focus fire on a particular ship, but it still can hurt ships pretty badly.

Huge ships can take the Recover action, which allows them to recover shields by spending energy and an action. I have to say, this is terribly frustrating to play against. I spend some ordnance, have some good rolls, and next round the damage that I did is now gone due to the recover action. Or even if you get to the hull, it can still recover shields that you have to get through again. So, if you decide to attack a huge ship, your best bet is to do so with most of your ships so that you can damage it pretty hard in one round. Because if you only attack it with a few ships, it will recover whatever damage you did to it, so then you have to start all over again.

If you plan on flying a huge ship, you should get really familiar with how they move. Get to know how far a 4 fwd takes them. Also get to know their dials. A CR90 cannot go 1 fwd, so you can expect it to move faster than a Transport does. When banking a huge ship, be mindful of how far the tail swings out, because it is easy to get caught by the aft end of the ship, and your ship will be destroyed if you estimate wrong. This goes for the player flying the huge ship as well. Most of the time, I have seen the Rebel player line his small ships up close to the huge ship, so they have to be mindful of where the tail will swing to if they choose to bank their huge ship round 1. Dutch has been the recipient of a wrong estimation in one game, a big blow to the Rebel combo they had set up. Speaking of which:

Set Up

Huge ships set up first, which is great when playing against them, because you can kind of visualize how they are going to move throughout the game. Generally I have found that spreading out across the full 6 foot set up area isn't always a good option, because then ships get left out of the fight for a few rounds. And the fighting does start early due to the set up area.

Ships can set up at Range 1-2, and when facing off against a CR90, you're going to want to start in the Range 2 area if possible. If you start in the normal Range 1 area, you may not get shots in the first round, but that CR90 is going to be pounding your ships with its Range 5 weapons. So you're going to want to get into the fight as early as possible so you can at least shoot back. Plus you can have better Range control against the CR90 weapons, meaning if it does a Primary and/or Single Turbolaser shot in one round, it likely won't be able to target the same ship in the next round with those weapons because you will have moved into Range 2. Therefore you are in effect spreading the damage around that is done by the CR90, if you can help it.

Pilots with Range effects are likely going to be clumped together as well. Biggs, Jonus, Jendon, Howlrunner, etc. I have seen Biggs played in epic, but due to the restriction on his card (his effect doesn't work with the huge ships,) and the sheer amount of ships on the board, he isn't nearly as effective as he is in a dogfight. Etahn and Dutch are also used by the Rebels quite a bit, as they can be quite effective. Jan Dodonna is also a common crew that I have seen, and pairs well with Etahn to give 2 crits when attacking, if you can pull all of the conditions off right.

Generally when I set up against a huge ship, I try to stay on its flank. Jousting with a huge ship just isn't going to end well at all. Yeah, I don't recommend that if you can help it. I also include Engine on my large ships, so that I can maneuver and get out of the way if it does bank, so that I don't get run over and lose my expensive ship. This is where you don't mind so much running over an asteroid, because an asteroid generally won't insta-kill you like being hit by a huge ship will.

Attacking

One nice thing when facing against a huge ship is that focus tokens are useless on them, which means their attacks tend to not hit as often. This is where Han Solo and Weapons Engineer crew cards come into play, and Dutch as well. Plus when you add in the extra defense die bonuses for the longer ranges, their attacks aren't as scary as they could be, but they can still hurt you pretty badly.

One thing to remember is that the huge ships move last, so having ordnance against them means you likely won't be able to get your ordnance off first round, unless you have Jendon with ST-321 in your squad to help, or Airen Cracken. This is why I load up ordnance for all ranges, because I never know what range I'm going to be when I do get the chance to fire off my ordnance.

Another thing to consider is which section you're going to be targeting on a CR90. Since the huge ships move last, you're going to have to try and predict which section you will have a shot at, because you may end up target locking the wrong section due to the center blue line rules. So keep that in mind when choosing which section to target, and which ordnance you're going to use.

Also along the lines of target selection is do you go for the huge ship or its escorts first? Usually the answer is both. You try to focus one or more groups on the huge ship if it's a CR90, but you also have to be able to take out some of the escorts as well with what you have left. So it's a bit of a delicate balance knowing who to attack, especially with the huge ships being able to recover shields. Knowing your opponent's squad and set up will go a long way towards deciding who to target first.

General Gameplay

One thing I want to say, is that many of the games do go to time, just due to the sheer number of ships on the board, dials and actions to consider, attacks, defense, etc. And I know this is a fun game where you can BS with your buddies all day long, but I tend to get a little irritated in Team Epic (where you have 400 points per side on the board) when people get off task, which makes the game drag on even longer. So please, Epic games take a long time to play in the first place, please try to stay on task and move through the game as quickly as you can, especially in a timed event. Plan on a 3-hour game from the start, and the first 90 minutes being likely 2 full rounds of play as a given.

Also, I tend to stay away from PtL Interceptors, solely because of Slicer Tools and Jamming. (we call it "toasting your ship", slicing and jamming it.) Plus they only have 3 hull points, so they tend to go squish, especially with more ships on the board and fewer places to arc-dodge. Same for me with Whisper and Echo. Arc-dodging is just so much harder, with the CR90 Range 3-5 primary turret, more ships on the board, etc. So I usually won't bring PtL Interceptors or the named Phantoms, mainly for their high cost and lower survivability.

I tend towards Bombers, Defenders, and Firesprays, primarily for their secondary weapon loadout, but secondarily for their higher hp as well. They just tend to last longer on the board for me, which is essential to playing epic games. Once ships start dropping, the games can get lop-sided quickly. And when you put a lot of TIE fighters on the board, they start going pop quickly. Another reason I like running the higher hp ships is because they can go slower. Bombers can 1 fwd and Defenders can 1 bank, plus the Firesprays have the rear arc, so they don't have to be pointing at a huge ship to attack it. TIE Fighters and Interceptors are fast ships, so they can get out of position quickly, or they have to spend their maneuvers and actions pointing away from ships in order to not get hit by the huge ships. But I guess that's just more my play style in Epic.

Anyway, I'm sure there is more, but this has gotten much longer than I had originally planned, so I'll cut it off here. Thanks for reading this much!

R.I.P.

Here Lies Bakura 83.

He died attempting to read this post.

So, I've only played epic a few times and still haven't had the chance to run my CR90 at all. In your opinion... Are they worth it? Have they ever been a real pain to go up against, or mostly just an annoying long range pot shot machine?

So, I've only played epic a few times and still haven't had the chance to run my CR90 at all. In your opinion... Are they worth it? Have they ever been a real pain to go up against, or mostly just an annoying long range pot shot machine?

They cannot be ignored, for sure. They will be hitting you often if you only focus on the support ships. Are they worth it? That's a matter of opinion and squad construction. Like I said, they can attack 4 times per round. I think they can be worth their points in a good squad that is flown well, for sure.

I would say take it for a spin a few times and see what you think.

The general consensus so far is that CR90's are overcosted and fairly inefficient attackers when compared with taking regular fighters and large ships.

Their long range weaponry improves the defence dice of their target, meaning anything (from an Imperial's point of view) anything other than Shuttles and Decimators is generally pretty safe. The Quad Cannons are more effective against high agility targets, but max range 2 only. Then there's the blind spots.

Energy generation is also an issue - the hard points need to be assigned energy to fire, and that limits what else you can do (i.e. Recover). Ion weaponry can shut it down quickly.

All that said, the CR90 is a LOT of fun to fly, and can be pretty tanky, especially with good use of movement and Reinforce/Recover actions.

The GR75 is a lot more viable - no weapons, but it's cheap as chips and an excellent support ship.

I did a test game where I only ran a CR-90 at 150 points and my friend made an imperial list to face it and I was actually able to win. My conclusion from that game is that even though the Huge ships don't have evade, if you build them the right way and your opponent gives you time to charge all of your energy items you can avoid taking a lot of damage. There are just so many ways to increase your evade die and to repair damage cards and shields that unless your opponent performs a perfect alpha strike you can slowly pick off his ships.
I found that slicer tools is an amazing way to deter your opponent from flying too risky and that the backup shield generator is a necessity.
In addition, if you want to use a huge ship make sure you practice flying it a lot especially if you want to ram the enemy.

There is a team epic tournament coming up later this month and this advice really is time appropriate for me.

Thanks for the write up Hothie.

Nice post thanks.

I have to ask, do you not feel that the game can be pretty one sided?

I've played a few games team 400 pts and two player at 300.

Now maybe it's what my opponent flies but I always feel as though I have a very slight chance to win when playing rebels.

I'm usually up against 2 shuttles, Firespray all with hlc and at least 3 bombers all with missles.

I can usually do some dmg at range 3-5 and in some cases kill a ship, but once they get in range three and focus fire my shields are down and I've taken hull damage.

Next turn I get my shields back up, but it's usually not enough and now I don't have energy for my weapons and soon after one section of my hull is destroyed.

Even though I have my escorts I'm highly outnumbered and not enough to slow them down.

I find in order to get as many escorts add I can I usually have ships that don't shoot in some cases before they are destroyed

Two escorts I always make sure I have is Roark and Dutch.

After that I try to get as many others add I can.

Like using blue squadern with hlc. This helps but in some games I lose a blue before he fires.

Since there is no imp huge ships they have numbers plus a lot of high ps ships.

Again I see Howlrunner and vader both with swarm tactics, and other ships like Krassis, jonus, Rhymer, and Fel.

I may have Luke and or wedge in the but again my opponent has more ships that fire first.

Usually goes I shoot first with the Tantive

Next my opponent shoots finally I get to shoot one or two, now 2-4 more of his shoots, then another one of mine and 2-3 more of his before the rest of mine

I can't help but feel that the Tantive will become much more useful when playing against another huge ship.

I usually take a single laser canon, but next game I may just go with three quad

My opponent also puts sensor jammer on the shuttle.

Since there really isn't much focusing going on with the Tantive he prevent a lot of dmg this way.

Especially since at range 4-5 his agility is higher, and even having Han in there doesn't really help.

The starting set up is huge, and like yout said you almost have to have everything close.

If you set up on two different sides you'll have one force nearly wiped by the time the others can come and help and by then it's too late.

When I play 300 game we usually just have the Tantive in the table because having the Tantive and transport eats a lot of your points and the transport isn't enough to make up for that lose in fire power.

I find having both in a 400 pt game to be helpful.

How Often do rebels win your games?

We don't play with a timer so it always goes till either someone had to leave or game over.

Usually someone concedes.

Last game I did manage to win because I ran over 4-6 ties and vader in the advance, but that was die to some bad flying on my opponents part, but when they have their things together I find it a uphill battle.

I cannot wait for imp huge ships

For team epic, I have a hard time with letting my teammate go with the maneuvers he chooses. I will often offer what I think is a better maneuver. Its a fine line to walk, because I don't want to step on his toes or feel like I'm being bossy. So my advice for team is to just work together to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be, and talk to each other so you don't collide with each other.

Well, I win nearly every time as imperials, although there have been some very close games that could have gone either way. Good combo squads, like lando, dutch, etc usually make for good rebel squads, especially when you coordinate. If your opponent flies tons of high ps imperial ships, bring riekkan with a ton of low ps ships and see how that goes.

In a team game I find usually there is someone on both sides which makes the plan.

Since we can show or dials is a lot easier to tell the other player, yout do this and I'll do this and go ahead.

But honestly do you not find it one sided?

Having so many imperial ships in some games is literally 2-1.

I know it's kind of fitting in the star wars universe, but in a game that has dice it is a uphill battle and with so many ships arc dodging is not as easy.

My opponents now go right for the rear section on the Tantive.

Once it's destroyed you only gain one energy a turn so basically the whole thing becomes useless.

Two turns before you have a secondary up again, and basically no more shields recharging for your front section

Plus crits really messes up the Tantive.

Idk, as excited as I was for it I find using it just gets more frustrating.

The way I see it is stand a much better chance using all small ships instead of just using a huge ship.

That's why I hope if they do release imp huge ship that it becomes mandatory to have one epic ship in epic play.

Otherwise I feel that in the tournament scene people may not use huge ships and just go with numbers as that seems to work best

Edit

I've tried using ships with synergy, like garven, Cracken, dutch but find once I lose a ship that my chain is broken and my squad is less useful

I've had Luke and wedge with opportunist,with Wes which for me had worked well but again a lot of points and just not enough dmg to even the odds.

The firepower on the Tantive is not as good as I had hoped.

I use to use Gunnery team, but now I go with Han, sensor team, and weapons engineer.

With dutch also giving it a free target lock freeing up one action for it.

Our next game I think I'll fly Imps.

I've always flown the huge ships.

Plus I'm always thinking I hope I don't run over my ships.

Your at such a disadvantage number wise from the get go, running over your own ships might as well be game over

Games can get one-sided once ships start dropping. Like I said, I've only played Imperials, so I haven't flown a CR90 in a game yet. It may be an uphill battle for the Rebels, but I do know that in the games where I ignored the CR90, it hit me pretty hard and often, so I don't ignore it anymore. But you can't ignore the support ships either, so you have to have a plan for dealing with them as well.

I've been thinking about it, and I think success with the CR90 boils down to 3 key elements. Squad construction- how you build your squad absolutely matters to your success. Set up-I can't stress this part enough, and how you place asteroids matters, too. Games may not be won on the set up, but they can absolutely be lost on the set up. And execution- how you execute your game plan is essential to epic success as well.

But that being said, all of these same elements apply to the imperials as well. So it goes both ways. I think huge ships starting with energy has made them much more playable.

The general consensus so far is that CR90's are overcosted and fairly inefficient attackers when compared with taking regular fighters and large ships.

Their long range weaponry improves the defence dice of their target, meaning anything (from an Imperial's point of view) anything other than Shuttles and Decimators is generally pretty safe. The Quad Cannons are more effective against high agility targets, but max range 2 only. Then there's the blind spots.

Energy generation is also an issue - the hard points need to be assigned energy to fire, and that limits what else you can do (i.e. Recover). Ion weaponry can shut it down quickly.

All that said, the CR90 is a LOT of fun to fly, and can be pretty tanky, especially with good use of movement and Reinforce/Recover actions.

The GR75 is a lot more viable - no weapons, but it's cheap as chips and an excellent support ship.

This is basically what I found from playing a few Epic games. The Corvette isn't worth nearly its points.

Games can get one-sided once ships start dropping. Like I said, I've only played Imperials, so I haven't flown a CR90 in a game yet. It may be an uphill battle for the Rebels, but I do know that in the games where I ignored the CR90, it hit me pretty hard and often, so I don't ignore it anymore. But you can't ignore the support ships either, so you have to have a plan for dealing with them as well.

Plus that still leaves you with other ships,to deal with the escorts.

Setup is a huge factor.

Since epic play is not something we do a lot of, it does take time to get the feel for it.

I've learned from past games what not to do when setting up, having ships far apart puts you at a big disadvantage when playing rebels.

My opponents like to use their asteroids and put them as close to my starting position ad they can which also makes it difficult to think where do I want to put my huge ship.

So I can still bank, and do what i must without hitting one.

It definitely takes a few games to figure out the best way to set up

Out of all your epic games how many have the rebels won while using a huge ship?

I know of one game in my group where a transport squad won pretty handily against imperials. In my games, there gave been some close ones, and if we had played them out after time, the rebels had a good chance of winning. But I usually win as imperials.

Tell ya what, ill see if I can get Scrappy to play me tomorrow. He will run my squad I played Sunday, and ill make up a CR90 squad.

But that being said, all of these same elements apply to the imperials as well. So it goes both ways. I think huge ships starting with energy has made them much more playable.

Wait, sorry, did they edit the rules so that huge ships start with energy?

Yes, they did. Huge ships start at filled energy. The upgrade cards which can also store energy are empty in the beginning, though.

I know of one game in my group where a transport squad won pretty handily against imperials. In my games, there gave been some close ones, and if we had played them out after time, the rebels had a good chance of winning. But I usually win as imperials.

Tell ya what, ill see if I can get Scrappy to play me tomorrow. He will run my squad I played Sunday, and ill make up a CR90 squad.

Would you like to have a game some night on vassal?

Not sure when, but if I can learn a thing or two then that is s good game.

I've never used Imps so I'd like to use them to see how it goes.

Maybe this Wednesday or Thursday with my group I'll give it a try a well

Would you like to have a game some night on vassal?

Not sure when, but if I can learn a thing or two then that is s good game.

I've never used Imps so I'd like to use them to see how it goes.

Maybe this Wednesday or Thursday with my group I'll give it a try a well

Despite the ability to save games and come back to them later, i fear epic on vassal due to the enormous time commitment. I was planning on taking pics of scrappy and my game, then making a post in the battle reports section and linking it here. Maybe that would help?

Have you played many games where one side goes for a brute force by-the-numbers approach?

For Imperials I'm thinking:

Howlrunner + Stealth Device + Determination

Backstabber

Dark Curse

7x Black Squadron Pilot + VI

Captain Yorr + FCS

5x OGP + FCS

It's not sexy, but 6 FCS shuttles and 10 PS6+ TIEs should wear down most lists pretty quickly.

I tried something like this in a 400 point match, but the rebels played 2x CR-90s and 2x transports (a crazy "lets use all the epic ships we have" moment of weakness), so it wasn't really a meaningful data point.

I thought huge ships moved and fired last?

I did play a team epic game where I used all promo cards. Let me think about what I had....

Boba

Mauler

Jendon

5 Black squad pilots

2 Academy Pilots

I will have to think about the upgrades I had on them to get me to 200 when i get home. I think I had VI on the blacks and Mauler.

That was the list where I had the most ships, especially in team. I know one black got run over cause I barrel rolled into 4 straight range of a transport. But we ended up winning that one from some hot rolls and is like to think good flying for the most part.

The trouble with facing against an imperial list is target selection. Generally there are lots if good options for who to target first, so target selection becomes important.

I thought huge ships moved and fired last?

They set up first.

They move last.

They fire in PS order.

Unless I have been playing it wrong.

I thought huge ships moved and fired last?

They set up first.

They move last.

They fire in PS order.

Unless I have been playing it wrong.

I believe the firing is divided into:

1. Secondary weapons, which I thought fire during the activation phase during the step where you can activate cards with the "ENERGY: " heading, and,
2. Primary weapons, which fire during regular combat phase in PS order

Check the rulebook, I might have been playing it wrong myself.